\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Elly Marisol ESTRADA, Salvador Alvarado, Diana Umana, Each an Individual v. Mark BECKER, President of Georgia State University, in His Individual and Official Capacity, Steve Michael Dorman, President of Georgia College and State University, in His Individual and Official Capacity, Brooks A. Keel, President of Augusta University, in His Individual and Official Capacity, Jere W. Morehead, President of the University of Georgia, in His Individual and Official Capacity, G.P. Bud Peterson, President of the Georgia Institute of Technology, in His Individual and Official Capacity\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-06\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Elly Marisol ESTRADA, Salvador Alvarado, Diana Umana, Each an Individual v. Mark BECKER, President of Georgia State University, in His Individual and Official Capacity, Steve Michael Dorman, President of Georgia College and State University, in His Individual and Official Capacity, Brooks A. Keel, President of Augusta University, in His Individual and Official Capacity, Jere W. Morehead, President of the University of Georgia, in His Individual and Official Capacity, G.P. Bud Peterson, President of the Georgia Institute of Technology, in His Individual and Official Capacity\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-06\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1348,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4598023,"string":"4,598,023"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":""},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Darleen R. Schuster v. Commissioner of Social Security"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-08"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"16-14004"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Before MARTIN, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 1 of 2\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 16-14004\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 6:13-cv-01336-KRS\\n\\nDARLEEN R. SCHUSTER,\\n\\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\\n\\nRICHARD ALLEN CULBERTSON,\\n\\n Petitioner-Appellant,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nCOMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY,\\n\\n Defendant-Appellee.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeals from the United States District Court\\n for the Middle District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n ON REMAND FROM THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT\\n\\n MARCH 8, 2019\\n\\nBefore MARTIN, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.\\n\\n In light of January 8, 2019 ruling of the Supreme Court in Culbertson v\\n\\f Case: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 2 of 2\\n\\n\\nBerryhill, 586 U.S. __, 138 S. Ct. 2025 (2019), we REMAND this case to the\\n\\nDistrict Court for calculation of attorney’s fees.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4375276/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"MARTIN"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"JILL PRYOR"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"ANDERSON"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"MARTIN\": \", Circuit\", \"JILL PRYOR\": \", Circuit\", \"ANDERSON\": \", Circuit\"}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598023/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Darleen R. Schuster v. Commissioner of Social Security\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-08\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 1 of 2\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n ________________________\n\n No. 16-14004\n ________________________\n\n D.C. Docket No. 6:13-cv-01336-KRS\n\nDARLEEN R. SCHUSTER,\n\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\n\nRICHARD ALLEN CULBERTSON,\n\n Petitioner-Appellant,\n\n versus\n\nCOMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY,\n\n Defendant-Appellee.\n\n ________________________\n\n Appeals from the United States District Court\n for the Middle District of Florida\n ________________________\n\n ON REMAND FROM THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT\n\n MARCH 8, 2019\n\nBefore MARTIN, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.\n\n In light of January 8, 2019 ruling of the Supreme Court in Culbertson v\n\f Case: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 2 of 2\n\n\nBerryhill, 586 U.S. __, 138 S. Ct. 2025 (2019), we REMAND this case to the\n\nDistrict Court for calculation of attorney’s fees.\n\n\n\n\n 2\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Darleen R. Schuster v. Commissioner of Social Security\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-08\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 1 of 2\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 16-14004\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 6:13-cv-01336-KRS\\n\\nDARLEEN R. SCHUSTER,\\n\\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\\n\\nRICHARD ALLEN CULBERTSON,\\n\\n Petitioner-Appellant,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nCOMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY,\\n\\n Defendant-Appellee.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeals from the United States District Court\\n for the Middle District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n ON REMAND FROM THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT\\n\\n MARCH 8, 2019\\n\\nBefore MARTIN, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.\\n\\n In light of January 8, 2019 ruling of the Supreme Court in Culbertson v\\n\\f Case: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 2 of 2\\n\\n\\nBerryhill, 586 U.S. __, 138 S. Ct. 2025 (2019), we REMAND this case to the\\n\\nDistrict Court for calculation of attorney’s fees.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1349,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4598933,"string":"4,598,933"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":""},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Darleen R. Schuster v. Commissioner of Social Security"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-08"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"16-14004"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Before MARTIN, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 1 of 2\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n CORRECTED\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 16-14004\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 6:13-cv-01336-KRS\\n\\nDARLEEN R. SCHUSTER,\\n\\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\\n\\nRICHARD ALLEN CULBERTSON,\\n\\n Petitioner-Appellant,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nCOMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY,\\n\\n Defendant-Appellee.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeals from the United States District Court\\n for the Middle District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n ON REMAND FROM THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT\\n\\n March 8, 2019\\n\\nBefore MARTIN, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.\\n\\n In light of the January 8, 2019 ruling of the Supreme Court in Culbertson v.\\n\\f Case: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 2 of 2\\n\\n\\nBerryhill, 586 U.S. __, 139 S. Ct. 517 (2019), we REMAND this case to the\\n\\nDistrict Court for calculation of attorney’s fees.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4376186/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"MARTIN"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"JILL PRYOR"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"ANDERSON"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"MARTIN\": \", Circuit\", \"JILL PRYOR\": \", Circuit\", \"ANDERSON\": \", Circuit\"}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598933/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Darleen R. Schuster v. Commissioner of Social Security\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-08\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 1 of 2\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n CORRECTED\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n ________________________\n\n No. 16-14004\n ________________________\n\n D.C. Docket No. 6:13-cv-01336-KRS\n\nDARLEEN R. SCHUSTER,\n\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\n\nRICHARD ALLEN CULBERTSON,\n\n Petitioner-Appellant,\n\n versus\n\nCOMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY,\n\n Defendant-Appellee.\n\n ________________________\n\n Appeals from the United States District Court\n for the Middle District of Florida\n ________________________\n\n ON REMAND FROM THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT\n\n March 8, 2019\n\nBefore MARTIN, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.\n\n In light of the January 8, 2019 ruling of the Supreme Court in Culbertson v.\n\f Case: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 2 of 2\n\n\nBerryhill, 586 U.S. __, 139 S. Ct. 517 (2019), we REMAND this case to the\n\nDistrict Court for calculation of attorney’s fees.\n\n\n\n\n 2\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Darleen R. Schuster v. Commissioner of Social Security\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-08\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 1 of 2\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n CORRECTED\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 16-14004\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 6:13-cv-01336-KRS\\n\\nDARLEEN R. SCHUSTER,\\n\\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\\n\\nRICHARD ALLEN CULBERTSON,\\n\\n Petitioner-Appellant,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nCOMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY,\\n\\n Defendant-Appellee.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeals from the United States District Court\\n for the Middle District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n ON REMAND FROM THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT\\n\\n March 8, 2019\\n\\nBefore MARTIN, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.\\n\\n In light of the January 8, 2019 ruling of the Supreme Court in Culbertson v.\\n\\f Case: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 2 of 2\\n\\n\\nBerryhill, 586 U.S. __, 139 S. Ct. 517 (2019), we REMAND this case to the\\n\\nDistrict Court for calculation of attorney’s fees.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1350,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":8443916,"string":"8,443,916"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Darleen R. SCHUSTER, Richard Allen Culbertson v. COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Schuster v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-08"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"No. 16-14004"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Anderson, Calculation, Fees, Light, Martin, Pryor, Remand, Ruling, Ryhill, Supreme\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/8415347/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"ANDERSON"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"FEES"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/8443916/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Darleen R. SCHUSTER, Richard Allen Culbertson v. COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-08\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Darleen R. SCHUSTER, Richard Allen Culbertson v. COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-08\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1351,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4598932,"string":"4,598,932"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":""},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Richard D. Jackson v. David M. McCurry"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-12"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"18-10231"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Before WILLIAM PRYOR and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges, and CONWAY, * District Judge.\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"PER CURIAM\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 1 of 30\\n\\n\\n [DO NOT PUBLISH]\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 18-10231\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 4:17-cv-00017-CDL\\n\\n\\n\\nRICHARD D. JACKSON,\\nLORETTA S. JACKSON, and\\nE.D.J., a minor child, by and through\\nher parents RICHARD D. JACKSON\\nand LORETTA S. JACKSON\\n\\n Plaintiffs-Appellants,\\n versus\\n\\nDAVID M. MCCURRY,\\nSANDI D. VELIZ,\\nBO OATES,\\nJOSH KEMP, and\\nRYAN SMITH\\n\\n\\n Defendants-Appellees.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Middle District of Georgia\\n _______________________\\n\\n (March 12, 2019)\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 2 of 30\\n\\n\\nBefore WILLIAM PRYOR and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges, and CONWAY, *\\nDistrict Judge.\\n\\nPER CURIAM:\\n\\n This appeal arises from a course of events at Chattahoochee County\\n\\nMiddle/High School in Cussetta, Georgia. The events began when a student,\\n\\nE.D.J., was accused of making fun of another student, M, for not making the\\n\\nvolleyball team. After Josh Kemp, an administrative assistant to Assistant Principal\\n\\nBo Oates and Principal Sandi Veliz, investigated the allegation, Oates decided to\\n\\nsearch E.D.J.’s cellphone to see if she had sent texts about M. After Oates did so,\\n\\nhe returned the cellphone and concluded that E.D.J. had not violated any school\\n\\nrule. In response to the search, E.D.J.’s father, Richard Jackson, confronted several\\n\\nschool officials by phone and in person. As a result of these interactions,\\n\\nSuperintendent David McCurry decided that Jackson was a threat to the safety of\\n\\nthe school’s employees and students and prohibited Jackson from appearing on\\n\\nschool premises except to bring E.D.J. to and from school and to attend E.D.J.’s\\n\\nvolleyball games. After Jackson mentioned the possibility of litigation, McCurry\\n\\nalso allegedly told Jackson he was not permitted to attend a public meeting of the\\n\\nlocal school board to discuss his grievances. In spite of what McCurry’s letter said,\\n\\nwhen Jackson attempted to attend one of E.D.J.’s volleyball games, he was\\n\\n\\n*\\n Honorable Anne C. Conway, United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida,\\nsitting by designation.\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 3 of 30\\n\\n\\nremoved from school premises by Veliz, Kemp, and Ryan Smith, the school’s\\n\\nresource officer.\\n\\n Jackson and his wife, Loretta Jackson, filed a civil-rights complaint, 42\\n\\nU.S.C. § 1983, on behalf of themselves and E.D.J., which asserted that Oates\\n\\nviolated E.D.J.’s rights under the Fourth Amendment when he searched her\\n\\ncellphone, McCurry violated Jackson’s rights under the First Amendment by\\n\\nrestricting his communication with school personnel and access to school property\\n\\nand by prohibiting him from addressing the school board, and Smith and other\\n\\nschool officials violated Jackson’s rights under the Fourth Amendment when they\\n\\nremoved him from school premises. The complaint also asserted several state-law\\n\\nclaims which are not at issue in this appeal. After discovery, the district court\\n\\ngranted summary judgment in favor of the school officials on the ground that\\n\\nqualified immunity barred Jackson’s federal claims. We affirm.\\n\\n I. BACKGROUND\\n\\n E.D.J. was a twelfth-grade student at Chattahoochee County Middle/High\\n\\nSchool during the 2016–17 school year. In August 2016, rumors circulated that\\n\\nE.D.J. was gossiping about M. These rumors made it back to M, who confronted\\n\\nE.D.J. and threatened her. After school that day, E.D.J. told school officials about\\n\\nM’s threat. The next day, Josh Kemp, an administrative assistant to Assistant\\n\\nPrincipal Bo Oates and Principal Sandi Veliz, began gathering information about\\n\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 4 of 30\\n\\n\\nthe incident from M and two other students, A and B. M told Kemp that E.D.J. had\\n\\nbeen making fun of her for not making the volleyball team. A also told Kemp that\\n\\nE.D.J. had been making fun of M and had sent text messages to A and B about M.\\n\\nB told Kemp that there was “drama” between E.D.J. and M and corroborated the\\n\\naccusation that E.D.J. had been sending texts to other students about M.\\n\\n After interviewing A and B, Kemp called E.D.J. to his office to hear her side\\n\\nof the story. Oates was present during this interview. Kemp and Oates questioned\\n\\nE.D.J. about whether she had been sending messages to students about M, but she\\n\\ndenied the allegation. According to E.D.J., Oates told her to unlock her cellphone\\n\\nand give it to him so he could see if E.D.J. had been sending messages about M.\\n\\nE.D.J. asserts that she refused to give Oates permission to search the contents of\\n\\nher phone, but this refusal did not deter him from doing so. Oates had E.D.J.\\n\\nidentify some of her text recipients because they were not listed in her phone under\\n\\ntheir real names but were instead identified by nicknames or emojis. After Oates\\n\\nreviewed E.D.J.’s messages with B, he allegedly continued to examine\\n\\nconversations between E.D.J. and her family members, best friend, and ex-\\n\\nboyfriend. After Oates concluded his investigation, he told Kemp he did not\\n\\nbelieve E.D.J. had done anything wrong and returned the phone to her.\\n\\n Later that evening, E.D.J. told her father, Richard Jackson, about what had\\n\\nhappened at school. Over the next few days, Jackson repeatedly called\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 5 of 30\\n\\n\\nSuperintendent David McCurry, Principal Veliz, and Assistant Principal Oates.\\n\\nAccording to McCurry, in one call, Jackson left a message stating that a school\\n\\nadministrator committed a “Fourth Amendment violation” against his daughter and\\n\\nthat he “will proceed with legal action.” Jackson testified that he told school\\n\\nofficials that a lawsuit against school officials would be an “option,” but he denied\\n\\nmaking “any definite threat of suit.” Jackson called McCurry on another occasion\\n\\nto request to speak at an upcoming school board meeting, and McCurry allegedly\\n\\ninformed him that he “could not attend the meetings, nor could [he] speak at the\\n\\nmeetings” because he “had threatened litigation.”\\n\\n Jackson also went to E.D.J.’s volleyball practice to speak with her coaches\\n\\nabout the incident. After Jackson spoke with them, the coaches reported to\\n\\nMcCurry and Veliz that Jackson acted aggressively and said that he would “show\\n\\nMr. Oates what intimidation was” because he believed that “Oates had intimidated\\n\\nhis daughter.” Jackson also allegedly inquired into the identity of a student he\\n\\nbelieved had played a role in the events involving his daughter. For his part,\\n\\nJackson denied that he acted aggressively or made any threats against Oates. After\\n\\nhearing from the coaches, McCurry reviewed video footage of Jackson’s meeting\\n\\nwith the coaches with Ryan Smith, a deputy sheriff who serves as the school’s\\n\\nresource officer and determined that Jackson posed a threat to the safety of the\\n\\nschool’s employees and students.\\n\\n\\n\\n 5\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 6 of 30\\n\\n\\n A few days later, Jackson returned to the school to speak with Veliz. Based\\n\\non what he had heard from the coaches, McCurry inferred that Jackson intended to\\n\\nconfront Oates, so he met Jackson at the front door of the school and prohibited\\n\\nhim from entering. McCurry instructed Jackson to refrain from any further\\n\\ncommunication with school officials or students and to direct all future\\n\\ncommunication to the school board’s attorney. McCurry had asked Smith to stand\\n\\nby while he confronted Jackson, and Smith observed the encounter from inside the\\n\\ndoor. When McCurry reentered the school, he informed Smith that he told Jackson\\n\\nthat he was not permitted on school premises. McCurry directed Smith to remove\\n\\nor arrest Jackson if Smith saw him on school property.\\n\\n A few days after that, McCurry sent a letter to Jackson recounting what\\n\\nMcCurry believed had occurred during the meeting with the volleyball coaches and\\n\\nstating that the school district had “determined your conduct in this regard is\\n\\ndisruptive and contrary to the establishment of a healthy educational environment\\n\\nfor the students of our school system.” The letter barred Jackson from making any\\n\\nunauthorized appearance on school premises or at any extracurricular activities\\n\\nconducted by school officials at which students are present. But the letter did\\n\\npermit Jackson to appear on school premises to transport E.D.J. to and from school\\n\\nand to attend E.D.J.’s volleyball games.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 6\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 7 of 30\\n\\n\\n About one month later, on October 4, 2017, Jackson and his wife attended a\\n\\nvolleyball game at the school, which was senior night for the girls on the team,\\n\\nincluding E.D.J. Jackson complied with the demand articulated in McCurry’s letter\\n\\nand sat in the designated parents’ area. Kemp and Smith were also in attendance\\n\\nand noticed that Jackson was present. Kemp called Veliz for instructions on\\n\\nwhether he should ask Jackson to leave. Veliz initially told Kemp that she did not\\n\\nwant to unnecessarily remove Jackson and create a scene. Kemp told Veliz that he\\n\\nbelieved Jackson had threatened the school’s coaches and had been banned from\\n\\nschool property. Veliz proceeded to call McCurry, who told her that they could\\n\\nremove Jackson if necessary and that he would support their decision regardless of\\n\\nwhat they decided to do. Veliz then instructed Kemp to remove Jackson from the\\n\\ngymnasium after the conclusion of the senior night activities. As of that time,\\n\\nneither Veliz, Kemp, nor Smith had read the letter McCurry sent to Jackson, and\\n\\nthey did not know that Jackson was permitted to be on school premises during\\n\\nE.D.J.’s volleyball games. McCurry testified that he did not remember that the\\n\\nletter permitted Jackson to be present on school property for that purpose when he\\n\\nspoke with Veliz.\\n\\n Smith and Kemp approached the bleachers where Jackson was sitting and\\n\\nasked to speak with him. According to Jackson, when he approached Smith, Smith\\n\\ngrabbed his arm, put his other hand on his pistol, and walked Jackson to the\\n\\n\\n\\n 7\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 8 of 30\\n\\n\\nconcession area. Jackson asserts that he verbally objected to Smith touching him\\n\\nand asked Smith to remove his hand from his pistol, which Smith refused to do.\\n\\nKemp followed Smith and Jackson, and when they reached the concession area,\\n\\nSmith told Jackson that he needed to leave. Jackson responded by informing Smith\\n\\nthat McCurry had expressly permitted him to attend E.D.J.’s volleyball games in a\\n\\nletter, but when Jackson could not produce the letter, Smith reiterated his demand\\n\\nthat Jackson leave the building. Smith explained to Jackson that he could be\\n\\narrested for criminal trespass if he attempted to stay on school property. According\\n\\nto Jackson, Smith grabbed his arm again and escorted him outside the gym. Later\\n\\nthat evening, Veliz asked Kemp to retrieve from her office a copy of the letter\\n\\nMcCurry wrote to Jackson and read it to her. Only then did they realize that\\n\\nJackson was permitted to attend the game and that they had made a mistake.\\n\\n Jackson and his wife filed a civil-rights complaint, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, on\\n\\nbehalf of themselves and E.D.J. asserting (1) a claim under the Fourth Amendment\\n\\nagainst Oates in his individual capacity for searching E.D.J.’s cellphone; (2) a\\n\\nclaim under the Fourth Amendment against Smith, Veliz, and Kemp in their\\n\\nindividual capacities for removing Jackson from school premises during the\\n\\nvolleyball game; (3) a claim under the First Amendment against McCurry in his\\n\\nindividual and official capacities for restricting Jackson’s communications with\\n\\nschool personnel and access to school property; and (4) another First Amendment\\n\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 9 of 30\\n\\n\\nclaim against McCurry in his individual and official capacities for preventing\\n\\nJackson from addressing the school board. Jackson also asserted state-law claims\\n\\nfor assault, invasion of privacy, and false imprisonment.\\n\\n After discovery, the school officials moved for summary judgment and the\\n\\ndistrict court granted their motion. Jackson did not respond to the officials’ motion\\n\\nfor summary judgment with respect to the official-capacity claims against\\n\\nMcCurry, so the district court ruled that those claims were abandoned. The district\\n\\ncourt concluded that none of Jackson’s individual-capacity claims stated a\\n\\nviolation of federal law, and that even if they did, the officials were shielded by\\n\\nqualified immunity because none of the alleged actions violated clearly established\\n\\nlaw. The district court also ruled that Jackson’s state-law claims were barred by the\\n\\nstate-law doctrine of official immunity because Jackson “failed to point to any\\n\\nevidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Defendants acted with\\n\\nactual malice.”\\n\\n II. STANDARD OF REVIEW\\n\\n We review a summary judgment de novo and “construe the evidence and\\n\\ndraw all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.”\\n\\nZiegler v. Martin Cty. Sch. Dist., 831 F.3d 1309, 1318 (11th Cir. 2016). We also\\n\\nreview de novo a grant of qualified immunity. Courson v. McMillian, 939 F.2d\\n\\n1479, 1486 (11th Cir. 1991).\\n\\n\\n\\n 9\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 10 of 30\\n\\n\\n III. DISCUSSION\\n\\n We divide our discussion in four parts. First, we consider Jackson’s\\n\\nargument that the search of E.D.J.’s cellphone violated the Fourth Amendment.\\n\\nSecond, we examine Jackson’s argument that McCurry violated the First\\n\\nAmendment when he prohibited Jackson from appearing on school premises.\\n\\nThird, we address Jackson’s claim that McCurry violated the First Amendment\\n\\nwhen he barred Jackson from speaking to the school board. And fourth, we\\n\\nconsider Jackson’s claim that his rights under the Fourth Amendment were\\n\\nviolated when Smith, Veliz, and Kemp removed him from the volleyball game. We\\n\\nconclude that all of the school officials are entitled to qualified immunity.\\n\\n “The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials ‘from\\n\\nliability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly\\n\\nestablished . . . constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have\\n\\nknown.’” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quoting Harlow v.\\n\\nFitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). To obtain dismissal based on qualified\\n\\nimmunity, “a government official must first establish that he was acting within the\\n\\nscope of his discretionary authority when the alleged wrongful act occurred.”\\n\\nBailey v. Wheeler, 843 F.3d 473, 480 (11th Cir. 2016). If he was, the burden shifts\\n\\nto the plaintiff to overcome the official’s qualified immunity. Mikko v. City of\\n\\nAtlanta, 857 F.3d 1136, 1144 (11th Cir. 2017). Because “there is no dispute” that\\n\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 11 of 30\\n\\n\\nall the school officials were “acting in [their] discretionary capacity,” “the burden\\n\\nshifts to the plaintiffs to show that qualified immunity is inappropriate.” Terrell v.\\n\\nSmith, 668 F.3d 1244, 1250 (11th Cir. 2012).\\n\\n To overcome the qualified-immunity defense, a plaintiff must prove that\\n\\n“the defendant violated her constitutional rights” and “that, at the time of the\\n\\nviolation, those rights were ‘clearly established . . . in light of the specific context\\n\\nof the case, not as a broad general proposition.’” Gaines v. Wardynski, 871 F.3d\\n\\n1203, 1208 (11th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted). We may address these issues in any\\n\\norder, Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236, “but, to survive a qualified-immunity defense,\\n\\n[the plaintiff] must satisfy both showings.” Wardynski, 871 F.3d at 1208 (quoting\\n\\nJones v. Fransen, 857 F.3d 843, 851 (11th Cir. 2017)).\\n\\n A plaintiff may “demonstrate that the contours of the right were clearly\\n\\nestablished in one of three ways.” Loftus v. Clark-Moore, 690 F.3d 1200, 1204\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2012) (alteration adopted) (citation and internal quotation marks\\n\\nomitted). First, a plaintiff may establish that “a materially similar case has already\\n\\nbeen decided.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Second, the\\n\\nplaintiff may “point to a broader, clearly established principle that should control\\n\\nthe novel facts of the situation.” Id. (alterations adopted). Third, “the conduct\\n\\ninvolved in the case may so obviously violate the [C]onstitution that prior case law\\n\\nis unnecessary.” Id. at 1205 (alterations adopted). The precedents that clearly\\n\\n\\n\\n 11\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 12 of 30\\n\\n\\nestablish law for these purposes are those of the Supreme Court, this Court, and the\\n\\nhighest court of the state where the challenged action occurred. See, e.g., Smith,\\n\\n668 F.3d at 1256; Mercado v. City of Orlando, 407 F.3d 1152, 1159 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2005).\\n\\n A. The Search of E.D.J.’s Cellphone Did Not Violate Clearly Established\\n Law.\\n\\n Jackson argues that the search of E.D.J.’s cellphone by Oates violated the\\n\\nFourth Amendment, but we conclude that even on the assumption that Jackson is\\n\\ncorrect, Oates is shielded from liability by qualified immunity because the search\\n\\ndid not contravene clearly established law. To resist this conclusion, Jackson relies\\n\\nprincipally on the decisions in New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985), and\\n\\nRiley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), but these decisions—whether considered\\n\\nindividually or jointly—do not clearly establish any principle of law that would\\n\\nmandate the conclusion that the search of E.D.J.’s cellphone was unlawful.\\n\\n In T.L.O., the Supreme Court established general parameters for searches of\\n\\nschool students by public-school officials. The Court held that searches of the\\n\\nperson or property of a student by public-school officials are governed by “a\\n\\nFourth Amendment standard of reasonableness that stops short of probable cause.”\\n\\n469 U.S. at 341. Under this standard, determining whether a search conducted by\\n\\nschool officials was reasonable involves “a twofold inquiry” that considers\\n\\n“first . . . ‘whether the . . . action was justified at its inception,’” id. (quoting Terry\\n\\n 12\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 13 of 30\\n\\n\\nv. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 (1968)), and “second . . . whether the search as actually\\n\\nconducted was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the\\n\\ninterference in the first place.’” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\nThe Court explained that “[u]nder ordinary circumstances, a search of a student by\\n\\na teacher or other school official will be ‘justified at its inception’ when there are\\n\\nreasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the\\n\\nstudent has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school.” Id. at\\n\\n341–42 (footnote omitted). And the Court said that “[s]uch a search will be\\n\\npermissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the\\n\\nobjectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of\\n\\nthe student and the nature of the infraction.” Id. at 342.\\n\\n As we have previously explained, in T.L.O., the Supreme Court formulated\\n\\nthe standard applicable to searches by school officials in terms of a “series of\\n\\nabstractions,” and the Court “did not attempt to establish clearly the contours of a\\n\\nFourth Amendment right as applied to the wide variety of possible school settings\\n\\ndifferent from those involved in T.L.O.” Jenkins by Hall v. Talladega City Bd. of\\n\\nEduc., 115 F.3d 821, 828 (11th Cir. 1997) (en banc). Although “general statements\\n\\nof the law are not inherently incapable of giving fair and clear warning” to\\n\\nofficials, United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 271 (1997), “in the light of pre-\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 13\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 14 of 30\\n\\n\\nexisting law the unlawfulness must be apparent.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S.\\n\\n635, 640 (1987).\\n\\n It was far from obvious that the search of E.D.J.’s phone was unlawful at its\\n\\ninception under T.L.O. Oates searched E.D.J.’s cellphone based on M’s accusation\\n\\nthat E.D.J. had made fun of her in text messages sent to other students, and this\\n\\nallegation was corroborated by the reports of two other students, A and B, and the\\n\\npolicies outlined in the school handbook prohibit both bullying and rude or\\n\\ndisrespectful behavior towards other students. It is at least arguable that this\\n\\nevidence supplied “reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search” of E.D.J.’s\\n\\nphone would “turn up evidence” that she “violated. . . the rules of the school.”\\n\\nT.L.O., 469 U.S. at 342.\\n\\n Nor does T.L.O. “place[] the . . . constitutional question” whether the search\\n\\nwas justified in scope “beyond debate.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741\\n\\n(2011). Nothing in T.L.O. establishes that searching a high-school senior’s text\\n\\nmessages for evidence of bullying would be “excessively intrusive in light of the\\n\\nage and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.” T.L.O., 469 U.S. at\\n\\n342. And although Oates allegedly expanded the search and reviewed messages\\n\\nbetween E.D.J. and persons other than A and B, including E.D.J.’s ex-boyfriend\\n\\nand family members, it is undisputed that E.D.J. labeled many of the contacts in\\n\\nher phone using emojis and nicknames. As the district court explained, “Oates\\n\\n\\n\\n 14\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 15 of 30\\n\\n\\nknew that [E.D.J.] could label her contacts in any manner she chose” and so “could\\n\\nreasonably assume that [E.D.J.] could disguise her contacts and any messages from\\n\\nthem.” As a result, it is arguable that a reasonable school official could conclude\\n\\nthat expanding the search to encompass those text messages would be “reasonably\\n\\nrelated to the objectives of the search.” T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 342.\\n\\n Riley does not alter our conclusion. In Riley, the Supreme Court held that “a\\n\\nwarrant is generally required before” police officers may search “the information\\n\\non a cell phone,” “even when a cell phone is seized incident to arrest,” 573 U.S. at\\n\\n401, but it did not attempt to spell out how its holding could be transposed to the\\n\\nsetting of a public school. True, because the reasoning of Riley treats cellphone\\n\\nsearches as especially intrusive in comparison to searches incident to arrest of\\n\\npersonal property, see id. at 393–98, a search of a student’s cellphone might\\n\\nrequire a more compelling justification than that required to search a student’s\\n\\nother personal effects under T.L.O. Cf. Safford Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. Redding,\\n\\n557 U.S. 364, 374 (2009) (holding that a strip search of a student by school\\n\\nofficials is “categorically distinct” and “requir[es] distinct elements of justification\\n\\non the part of school authorities for going beyond a search of outer clothing and\\n\\nbelongings”). But that conclusion hardly “follow[s] immediately” from T.L.O. and\\n\\nRiley “and thus was not clearly established by” the holdings of those decisions.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 15\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 16 of 30\\n\\n\\nMullenix v. Luna, 136 S. Ct. 305, 309 (2015) (citation and internal quotation marks\\n\\nomitted).\\n\\n Riley held only that the exception to the warrant requirement for searches\\n\\nincident to arrest does not extend to searches of information contained in\\n\\ncellphones, and T.L.O. held that “[t]he warrant requirement . . . is unsuited to the\\n\\nschool environment,” 469 U.S. at 340, so there is room for a reasonable school\\n\\nofficial to conclude that Riley has no application to school searches. And in the\\n\\nlight of the permissible disagreement about the implications of Riley for school\\n\\nsearches, we cannot say that Oates was “plainly incompetent” or “knowingly\\n\\nviolate[d] the law.” Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986); see also al-Kidd,\\n\\n563 U.S. at 743 (“Qualified immunity gives government officials breathing room\\n\\nto make reasonable . . . judgments about open legal questions.”).\\n\\n Jackson also cites a pair of out-of-circuit district-court opinions, see\\n\\nGallimore v. Henrico Cty. Sch. Bd., 38 F. Supp. 3d 721 (E.D. Va. 2014), Klump v.\\n\\nNazareth Area Sch. Dist., 425 F. Supp. 2d 622 (E.D. Pa. 2006), and an opinion\\n\\nfrom one of our sister circuits, G.C. v. Owensboro Pub. Sch., 711 F.3d 623 (6th\\n\\nCir. 2013), but these decisions cannot clearly establish that Oates’s conduct was\\n\\nunlawful. As we have repeatedly explained, “a district court case cannot clearly\\n\\nestablish the law for qualified immunity purposes.” Wardynski, 871 F.3d at 1211;\\n\\nsee also Gonzalez v. Lee Cty. Hous. Auth., 161 F.3d 1290, 1302 n.38 (11th Cir.\\n\\n\\n\\n 16\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 17 of 30\\n\\n\\n1998) (explaining that “our precedent firmly states that a district court opinion\\n\\ncannot” clearly establish law for qualified immunity). Nor can a decision from one\\n\\nof our sister circuits do so. See, e.g., Loftus, 690 F.3d at 1206 (a decision from one\\n\\nof our sister circuits “cannot provide ‘clearly established’ law in this Circuit”). And\\n\\nin any case, the decisions cited by Jackson are distinguishable. See G.C., 711 F.3d\\n\\nat 633–34 (search of a student’s cellphone based on “general background\\n\\nknowledge” that he abused drugs and was depressed and because he used the\\n\\ncellphone in class in violation of school policy was unjustified at its inception);\\n\\nGallimore, 38 F. Supp. 3d at 725 (expansion of a search to a student’s cellphone\\n\\nwas not “reasonably related” to the objective of “finding evidence of drug use on\\n\\nthe school bus earlier that day” because “the cell phone could not have contained\\n\\ndrugs”); Klump, 425 F. Supp. 2d at 640–41 (although seizure of a student’s phone\\n\\nbecause he used it during school hours in violation of school policy was justified,\\n\\nschool officials were not entitled to use the phone to call other students to\\n\\ndetermine whether they were also using phones).\\n\\n B. McCurry Did Not Violate Clearly Established Law When He Prohibited\\n Jackson from Appearing on School Premises.\\n\\n Jackson argues that his rights under the First Amendment were violated\\n\\nwhen McCurry sent him a letter prohibiting him from appearing on school\\n\\npremises except for the purpose of bringing E.D.J. to and from school and\\n\\nattending E.D.J.’s volleyball games. Regardless of whether Jackson is correct\\n\\n 17\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 18 of 30\\n\\n\\nthat this action violated the First Amendment, we conclude that McCurry’s\\n\\ndecision did not contravene clearly established law and so he is entitled to\\n\\nqualified immunity.\\n\\n Jackson contends that McCurry’s letter constituted an overbroad\\n\\nrestriction of his right to free speech in violation of Broderick v. Oklahoma, 413\\n\\nU.S. 601 (1973), because—in Jackson’s view—the letter prohibited him from\\n\\ncontacting teachers, coaches, and students outside of school premises, but this is\\n\\na misreading of the letter. McCurry’s letter recounted the circumstances of\\n\\nJackson’s encounter with the coaches of E.D.J.’s volleyball team and informed\\n\\nhim that “other than dropping off and picking up your child at school or at one\\n\\nof our facilities, you are to make no unauthorized appearance either at your\\n\\ndaughter’s school or at any extracurricular activity conducted by our faculty and\\n\\nstaff and where students are present.” The letter also instructed Jackson to\\n\\n“remain in the designated area for parents” if he attends a school event such as a\\n\\nvolleyball game. And it told Jackson “not to attempt to contact or talk with the\\n\\ncoaches, teachers, or students of our School System.”\\n\\n McCurry’s letter purports to ban Jackson only from appearing on school\\n\\npremises to contact school officials and students. In the light of the letter’s\\n\\nobvious emphasis on the circumstances in which Jackson is permitted to be\\n\\npresent on school premises, any reasonable reader would conclude that the\\n\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 19 of 30\\n\\n\\nletter’s prohibition on “contact[ing] or talk[ing] with the coaches, teachers, or\\n\\nstudents” refers only to on-campus communications. This reading is confirmed\\n\\nby McCurry’s uncontroverted deposition testimony, in which McCurry\\n\\nacknowledged that he “can’t dictate what [Jackson] does at somebody’s home”\\n\\nand stated that the purpose of the letter was to inform Jackson that he cannot\\n\\ncontact teachers, coaches, or students “during the day-to-day operations of the\\n\\nschool.”\\n\\n The restriction on Jackson’s on-campus communication with school\\n\\nofficials and students did not amount to a violation of clearly established law.\\n\\nJackson does not point to a single decision of this Court, the Supreme Court of\\n\\nthe United States, or the Georgia Supreme Court that articulates even the\\n\\ngeneral framework for assessing claims that a school official impermissibly\\n\\nrestricted a parent’s rights under the First Amendment on school property. And\\n\\nthe few decisions of our sister circuits reviewing claims similar to Jackson’s\\n\\nhave uniformly concluded that there is no clearly established right for parents to\\n\\naccess school property to exercise their rights under the First Amendment. See\\n\\nJohnson v. Perry, 859 F.3d 156, 175 (2d Cir. 2017) (holding that school official\\n\\nwas entitled to qualified immunity for “bann[ing] [the plaintiff] from [school]\\n\\nproperty for purposes other than attendance at sporting events” because “we\\n\\ncannot conclude that a parent has a general and unlimited First Amendment\\n\\n\\n\\n 19\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 20 of 30\\n\\n\\nright of access to school property”); Lovern v. Edwards, 190 F.3d 648, 656 (4th\\n\\nCir. 1999) (holding that there was no federal jurisdiction over a claim\\n\\npredicated on the exclusion of a parent from school premises because the claim\\n\\nwas “plainly insubstantial and entirely frivolous” and “a monument to what\\n\\nought not to be in a federal court” (internal quotation marks omitted)).\\n\\n In the absence of any controlling precedent that establishes even the\\n\\ngeneral rubric for determining whether official conduct violates the\\n\\nConstitution, it is impossible to say that “a broader, clearly established principle\\n\\n. . . should control the novel facts of the situation.” Loftus, 690 F.3d at 1204\\n\\n(alteration adopted and citation omitted). And one cannot say that McCurry’s\\n\\nconduct “so obviously violate[d]” the Constitution “that prior case law is\\n\\nunnecessary,” id. at 1205 (citation omitted), in the light of the duty of school\\n\\nofficials to prevent “the kind of boisterous and threatening conduct” that would\\n\\ninterrupt the “peace and quiet” required for the academic aspects of a school’s\\n\\nfunctions. Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 470–71 (1980) (quoting Gregory v.\\n\\nChicago, 394 U.S. 111, 118 (1969) (Black, J., concurring)). So we have little\\n\\ndifficulty concluding that Jackson’s claim is barred by qualified immunity.\\n\\n C. McCurry Did Not Violate Clearly Established Law When He Prohibited\\n Jackson from Addressing the School Board.\\n\\n Jackson also argues that McCurry violated the First Amendment by\\n\\nprohibiting him from attending and addressing a meeting of the local school\\n\\n 20\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 21 of 30\\n\\n\\nboard for threatening litigation against school officials, but we conclude that\\n\\nMcCurry is entitled to qualified immunity with respect to this claim. We begin\\n\\nby placing the meetings of the school board within the “forum analysis”\\n\\nframework dictated by Supreme Court precedent “to evaluate government\\n\\nrestrictions on purely private speech that occurs on government property,”\\n\\nWalker v. Tex. Div., Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 2239, 2250\\n\\n(2015), and then turn to evaluate Jackson’s claim under the First Amendment.\\n\\n All parties argue—and we agree—that a meeting of the school board\\n\\nqualifies as a limited public forum, at least insofar as each meeting includes a\\n\\nperiod for public comment in which the board may entertain citizen complaints\\n\\nif it chooses to do so. Board policy does not grant blanket permission to citizens\\n\\nto address the board, as would be the case if the board meeting were a\\n\\ndesignated public forum. Instead, the board “limits discussion to certain topics\\n\\nand employs a system of selective access.” Barrett v. Walker Cty. Sch. Dist.,\\n\\n872 F.3d 1209, 1225 (11th Cir. 2017). As explained in the school handbook,\\n\\npublic comment is limited by topic to “citizen complaints” that “cannot be\\n\\nresolved by the administration.”\\n\\n The policy also requires each citizen who desires to voice a complaint to\\n\\n“obtain permission from the governmental proprietor of the forum,” Barrett,\\n\\n872 F.3d at 1225, by “submit[ting] a written request to the Superintendent\\n\\n\\n\\n 21\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 22 of 30\\n\\n\\nstating their name, home address, the topic about which they wish to speak and\\n\\nthe group they represent, if applicable, no later than 12 o’clock on Thursday\\n\\nprior to the scheduled Board meeting.” And the board evidently “has discretion\\n\\nto grant or deny permission” to address the meeting, Barrett, 872 F.3d at 1225,\\n\\nbecause the policy states only that the board will “consider” hearing citizen\\n\\ncomplaints that have not been resolved by the school administration. Because\\n\\n“only those speakers who satisfy the Policy’s substantive and procedural\\n\\ncriteria may speak,” id., the board’s policy qualifies as a system of selective\\n\\naccess, and the portion of each board meeting devoted to citizen complaints is a\\n\\nlimited public forum.\\n\\n In a limited public forum, officials may exercise considerable control\\n\\nover which speakers may express their views and the subject matter of their\\n\\nexpression, but that discretion is not absolute. “Control over access to a [limited\\n\\npublic] forum can be based on subject matter and speaker identity so long as the\\n\\ndistinctions drawn are reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum\\n\\nand are viewpoint neutral.” Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund, Inc.,\\n\\n473 U.S. 788, 806 (1985). But in a limited public forum, the usual prohibition\\n\\non content discrimination is relaxed. As the Supreme Court has explained, in a\\n\\nlimited public forum, “content discrimination” may “be permissible if it\\n\\npreserves the purposes of [the] limited forum.” Rosenberger v. Rector &\\n\\n\\n\\n 22\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 23 of 30\\n\\n\\nVisitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 830 (1995). With these preliminaries in\\n\\nplace, we turn now to examine Jackson’s arguments.\\n\\n Jackson contends that McCurry’s decision was motivated by a desire to\\n\\nsuppress Jackson’s “viewpoint that Oate[s] violated E.D.J.’s constitutional\\n\\nrights,” and so violated the prohibition on viewpoint discrimination applicable\\n\\nto limited public fora under Cornelius and Rosenberger, but Jackson’s theory is\\n\\na nonstarter. A restriction on speech constitutes viewpoint discrimination “when\\n\\nthe specific motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective of the speaker is\\n\\nthe rationale for the restriction.” Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829. According to\\n\\nJackson’s own deposition testimony, McCurry did not prohibit Jackson from\\n\\nspeaking to the school board because he intended to express any particular\\n\\nopinion or perspective, but instead because he “had threatened litigation”\\n\\nagainst the school. So it was not Jackson’s view that provided the rationale for\\n\\nMcCurry’s decision, but an action that Jackson allegedly threatened to take.\\n\\nAnd even if banning all who threaten litigation could be construed as\\n\\ndiscrimination against those who hold contrary views, such an interpretation\\n\\nwas not so clearly established that we could say McCurry was “plainly\\n\\nincompetent” or “knowingly violate[d] the law.” Malley, 475 U.S. at 341.\\n\\n Although a facially neutral restriction on speech adopted with a veiled\\n\\nintent to “suppress a particular point of view” is invalid, Cornelius, 473 U.S. at\\n\\n\\n\\n 23\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 24 of 30\\n\\n\\n812, there is nothing in the record to support an inference that McCurry’s stated\\n\\njustification was pretextual. So we conclude that Jackson’s argument about\\n\\nviewpoint discrimination cannot overcome McCurry’s defense of qualified\\n\\nimmunity. See Wardynski, 871 F.3d at 1208.\\n\\n Jackson also suggests in passing that the board’s policy governing the\\n\\npresentation of citizen grievances at board meetings vested McCurry with\\n\\n“unbridled discretion” to determine whether any citizen may address the board\\n\\nin violation of our decisions in Barrett, Soltanic, LLC v. City of Neptune Beach,\\n\\n410 F.3d 1250 (11th Cir. 2005), and United States v. Frandsen, 212 F.3d 1231\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2000), but Jackson forfeited review of this issue. Jackson did not\\n\\nraise this argument before the district court, and as a general rule, “an issue not\\n\\nraised in the district court . . . will not be considered by this court.” Access Now,\\n\\nInc. v. Sw. Airlines Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1331 (11th Cir. 2004) (citation and\\n\\ninternal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\n Indeed, Jackson has not even properly raised this argument on appeal.\\n\\nJackson’s brief obliquely states that the school system “vested McCurry with\\n\\nunbridled discretion to determine whether R. Jackson could speak to the school\\n\\nboard on this subject,” and his analysis of the “clearly established” element of\\n\\nthe qualified-immunity inquiry includes an undeveloped assertion that\\n\\n“McCurry had clear and fair warning the exercise of his unbridled discretion to\\n\\n\\n\\n 24\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 25 of 30\\n\\n\\nprohibit R. Jackson from speaking to the school board on a matter of\\n\\nconstitutional importance could be a prior restraint on his right to free speech.”\\n\\nJackson’s reply brief also asserts that “McCurry’s unbridled discretion denying\\n\\nR. Jackson an opportunity to speak to the school board based on his viewpoint\\n\\nconstitutes a violation of the First Amendment.” But a trio of stray references to\\n\\na theory does not suffice to present it.\\n\\n As we have explained, “[a]bandonment of an issue can . . . occur when\\n\\npassing references appear in the argument section of an opening brief,\\n\\nparticularly when the references are mere ‘background’ to the appellant’s main\\n\\narguments or when they are ‘buried’ within those arguments.” Sapuppo v.\\n\\nAllstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 682 (11th Cir. 2014). The “passing\\n\\nreferences” to an unbridled-discretion issue in Jackson’s briefs “are nothing\\n\\nmore than conclusory assertions,” and “[t]he brief makes no argument . . . to\\n\\nsupport those conclusory assertions.” Id. And although Jackson’s amicus, the\\n\\nAmerican Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, provides a more developed version\\n\\nof this unbridled-discretion challenge, we “will not consider issues raised in an\\n\\namicus brief that were neither raised in the district court nor argued by\\n\\nappellants on appeal” as a general rule. Day v. Persels & Assocs., LLC, 729\\n\\nF.3d 1309, 1330 (11th Cir. 2013) (citation and internal quotation marks\\n\\nomitted). We see no reason to deviate from our settled practice in this appeal, so\\n\\n\\n\\n 25\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 26 of 30\\n\\n\\nwe will not consider Jackson’s argument that the board’s policy vested\\n\\nMcCurry with unbridled discretion to determine who could address the school\\n\\nboard.\\n\\n D. Smith, Kemp, and Veliz Did Not Violate Clearly Established Law by\\n Removing Jackson from the Volleyball Game.\\n\\n Jackson argues that Smith, Kemp, and Veliz violated his rights under the\\n\\nFourth Amendment when they stopped him and asked him to leave his daughter’s\\n\\nvolleyball game, but we conclude that their actions did not violate clearly\\n\\nestablished law. Jackson does not attempt to argue that we have already decided “a\\n\\nmaterially similar case” or that “the conduct involved . . . so obviously violate[s]\\n\\nthe [C]onstitution that prior case law is unnecessary.” Loftus, 690 F.3d at 1204–05\\n\\n(alteration adopted) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Instead,\\n\\nJackson argues that the officials violated the generic requirement that a seizure that\\n\\nfalls short of a full-blown arrest requires the support of “a reasonable, articulable\\n\\nsuspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123\\n\\n(2000) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968)). And he argues that the alleged\\n\\nseizure was “excessive and unreasonable” because Smith “did not have any right to\\n\\nuse any degree of force in seizing” Jackson under our decisions in Reese v.\\n\\nHerbert, 527 F.3d 1253 (11th Cir. 2008), and Evans v. Stephens, 407 F.3d 1272\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2005).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 26\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 27 of 30\\n\\n\\n Jackson’s argument that the officials acted without reasonable suspicion fails\\n\\nto establish that they violated clearly established law because the officials arguably\\n\\nhad reasonable grounds to suspect Jackson of criminal trespass. Under Georgia\\n\\nlaw, “[a] person commits the offense of criminal trespass when he or she\\n\\nknowingly and without authority” “[e]nters upon the land or premises of another\\n\\nperson . . . after receiving, prior to such entry, notice from . . . an authorized\\n\\nrepresentative of the owner or rightful occupant that such entry is forbidden,”\\n\\nO.C.G.A. § 16-7-21(b), or “[r]emains upon the land or premises of another . . .\\n\\nafter receiving notice from . . . an authorized representative of the owner or rightful\\n\\noccupant to depart.” Id. § 16-7-21(b)(3). The record attests that Smith witnessed\\n\\nMcCurry’s earlier ejection of Jackson from school premises when Jackson\\n\\nappeared at the school to speak with Veliz after Oates searched E.D.J.’s cellphone.\\n\\nAfter that encounter, McCurry advised Smith that Jackson was not permitted on\\n\\nschool premises and told Smith that he had informed Jackson not to appear on\\n\\ncampus. And before Smith removed Jackson, Kemp called Veliz to confirm that\\n\\nJackson was not permitted on school property and was informed by Kemp that they\\n\\nshould remove Jackson from the school.\\n\\n In this circumstance, it is at least arguable that the officials had the “minimal\\n\\nlevel of objective justification” sufficient to support a limited stop for the purpose\\n\\nof ascertaining whether Jackson was lawfully present at the game and asking him\\n\\n\\n\\n 27\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 28 of 30\\n\\n\\nto leave when he could not satisfy them that he was permitted to be on school\\n\\nproperty. United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989) (citation omitted). And\\n\\nunder our precedents, arguable suspicion suffices to establish an entitlement to\\n\\nqualified immunity. As we have explained, “[w]hen an officer asserts qualified\\n\\nimmunity, the issue is not whether reasonable suspicion existed in fact, but\\n\\nwhether the officer had ‘arguable’ reasonable suspicion to support an investigatory\\n\\nstop.” Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156, 1166 (11th Cir. 2000).\\n\\n Jackson argues that the stop could not have been lawful because McCurry’s\\n\\nletter permitted Jackson to appear on campus for the purpose of observing E.D.J.’s\\n\\nvolleyball games, but it is undisputed that neither Smith, Kemp, nor Veliz had read\\n\\nthe letter when the “seizure” and ejection occurred. Under our caselaw, “[a] law\\n\\nenforcement official who reasonably but mistakenly concludes that reasonable\\n\\nsuspicion is present is still entitled to qualified immunity.” Sauls, 206 F.3d at\\n\\n1165–66. And although a copy of the letter was on Veliz’s desk when she spoke\\n\\nwith Kemp and authorized the ejection of Jackson from the game, her failure to\\n\\nread the letter was not obviously unreasonable because she was out of town when\\n\\nthe altercation at the volleyball game occurred. So we conclude that Jackson’s\\n\\nargument about reasonable suspicion does not overcome the qualified-immunity\\n\\ndefense raised by Smith, Kemp, and Veliz.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 28\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 29 of 30\\n\\n\\n Jackson’s argument that Smith used excessive force also fails to establish\\n\\nthat Smith breached a duty under clearly established law. Jackson testified that\\n\\nSmith’s grip on his arm was not painful and that he was unaware if it caused him\\n\\nany injury. It follows that the force used on Jackson “was de minimis,” and as we\\n\\nhave explained, “[d]e minimis force will only support a Fourth Amendment\\n\\nexcessive force claim when ‘an arresting officer does not have the right to make an\\n\\narrest.’” Zivojinovich v. Barner, 525 F.3d 1059, 1072 (11th Cir. 2008) (quoting\\n\\nBashir v. Rockdale Cty., Ga., 445 F.3d 1323, 1332 (11th Cir. 2006)). And because\\n\\nSmith arguably had a right to detain Jackson, the conclusion that Smith used\\n\\nexcessive force is not “beyond debate.” al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 741.\\n\\n In any case, Smith’s modest use of force against Jackson was arguably\\n\\nreasonable. As we have explained, “[t]he ‘reasonableness’ inquiry in an excessive\\n\\nforce case is an objective one: the question is whether the officer’s actions are\\n\\n‘objectively reasonable’ in light of the facts and circumstances confronting him,\\n\\nwithout regard to his underlying intent or motivation.” Kesinger ex rel. Estate of\\n\\nKesinger v. Herrington, 381 F.3d 1243, 1248 (11th Cir. 2004). It is arguable that\\n\\nSmith reasonably believed that Jackson had been hostile with school officials on\\n\\nseveral earlier occasions and so had reason to suspect that a modicum of force was\\n\\nwarranted to maintain control over the situation. We conclude that Smith is entitled\\n\\nto qualified immunity with respect to Jackson’s claim under the Fourth\\n\\n\\n\\n 29\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 30 of 30\\n\\n\\nAmendment and that Kemp and Veliz are immune from suit for approving Smith’s\\n\\nremoval of Jackson from the game.\\n\\n IV. CONCLUSION\\n\\n We AFFIRM the summary judgment against the Jacksons and in favor of\\n\\nthe school officials.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 30\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4376185/\", \"author_raw\": \"PER CURIAM\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"WILLIAM PRYOR"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"ROSENBAUM"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"CONWAY"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"WILLIAM PRYOR\": \", Circuit\", \"ROSENBAUM\": \", Circuit\", \"CONWAY\": \", District\"}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598932/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Richard D. Jackson v. David M. McCurry\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-12\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 1 of 30\n\n\n [DO NOT PUBLISH]\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n ________________________\n\n No. 18-10231\n ________________________\n\n D.C. Docket No. 4:17-cv-00017-CDL\n\n\n\nRICHARD D. JACKSON,\nLORETTA S. JACKSON, and\nE.D.J., a minor child, by and through\nher parents RICHARD D. JACKSON\nand LORETTA S. JACKSON\n\n Plaintiffs-Appellants,\n versus\n\nDAVID M. MCCURRY,\nSANDI D. VELIZ,\nBO OATES,\nJOSH KEMP, and\nRYAN SMITH\n\n\n Defendants-Appellees.\n\n ________________________\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the Middle District of Georgia\n _______________________\n\n (March 12, 2019)\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 2 of 30\n\n\nBefore WILLIAM PRYOR and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges, and CONWAY, *\nDistrict Judge.\n\nPER CURIAM:\n\n This appeal arises from a course of events at Chattahoochee County\n\nMiddle/High School in Cussetta, Georgia. The events began when a student,\n\nE.D.J., was accused of making fun of another student, M, for not making the\n\nvolleyball team. After Josh Kemp, an administrative assistant to Assistant Principal\n\nBo Oates and Principal Sandi Veliz, investigated the allegation, Oates decided to\n\nsearch E.D.J.’s cellphone to see if she had sent texts about M. After Oates did so,\n\nhe returned the cellphone and concluded that E.D.J. had not violated any school\n\nrule. In response to the search, E.D.J.’s father, Richard Jackson, confronted several\n\nschool officials by phone and in person. As a result of these interactions,\n\nSuperintendent David McCurry decided that Jackson was a threat to the safety of\n\nthe school’s employees and students and prohibited Jackson from appearing on\n\nschool premises except to bring E.D.J. to and from school and to attend E.D.J.’s\n\nvolleyball games. After Jackson mentioned the possibility of litigation, McCurry\n\nalso allegedly told Jackson he was not permitted to attend a public meeting of the\n\nlocal school board to discuss his grievances. In spite of what McCurry’s letter said,\n\nwhen Jackson attempted to attend one of E.D.J.’s volleyball games, he was\n\n\n*\n Honorable Anne C. Conway, United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida,\nsitting by designation.\n\n\n 2\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 3 of 30\n\n\nremoved from school premises by Veliz, Kemp, and Ryan Smith, the school’s\n\nresource officer.\n\n Jackson and his wife, Loretta Jackson, filed a civil-rights complaint, 42\n\nU.S.C. § 1983, on behalf of themselves and E.D.J., which asserted that Oates\n\nviolated E.D.J.’s rights under the Fourth Amendment when he searched her\n\ncellphone, McCurry violated Jackson’s rights under the First Amendment by\n\nrestricting his communication with school personnel and access to school property\n\nand by prohibiting him from addressing the school board, and Smith and other\n\nschool officials violated Jackson’s rights under the Fourth Amendment when they\n\nremoved him from school premises. The complaint also asserted several state-law\n\nclaims which are not at issue in this appeal. After discovery, the district court\n\ngranted summary judgment in favor of the school officials on the ground that\n\nqualified immunity barred Jackson’s federal claims. We affirm.\n\n I. BACKGROUND\n\n E.D.J. was a twelfth-grade student at Chattahoochee County Middle/High\n\nSchool during the 2016–17 school year. In August 2016, rumors circulated that\n\nE.D.J. was gossiping about M. These rumors made it back to M, who confronted\n\nE.D.J. and threatened her. After school that day, E.D.J. told school officials about\n\nM’s threat. The next day, Josh Kemp, an administrative assistant to Assistant\n\nPrincipal Bo Oates and Principal Sandi Veliz, began gathering information about\n\n\n\n 3\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 4 of 30\n\n\nthe incident from M and two other students, A and B. M told Kemp that E.D.J. had\n\nbeen making fun of her for not making the volleyball team. A also told Kemp that\n\nE.D.J. had been making fun of M and had sent text messages to A and B about M.\n\nB told Kemp that there was “drama” between E.D.J. and M and corroborated the\n\naccusation that E.D.J. had been sending texts to other students about M.\n\n After interviewing A and B, Kemp called E.D.J. to his office to hear her side\n\nof the story. Oates was present during this interview. Kemp and Oates questioned\n\nE.D.J. about whether she had been sending messages to students about M, but she\n\ndenied the allegation. According to E.D.J., Oates told her to unlock her cellphone\n\nand give it to him so he could see if E.D.J. had been sending messages about M.\n\nE.D.J. asserts that she refused to give Oates permission to search the contents of\n\nher phone, but this refusal did not deter him from doing so. Oates had E.D.J.\n\nidentify some of her text recipients because they were not listed in her phone under\n\ntheir real names but were instead identified by nicknames or emojis. After Oates\n\nreviewed E.D.J.’s messages with B, he allegedly continued to examine\n\nconversations between E.D.J. and her family members, best friend, and ex-\n\nboyfriend. After Oates concluded his investigation, he told Kemp he did not\n\nbelieve E.D.J. had done anything wrong and returned the phone to her.\n\n Later that evening, E.D.J. told her father, Richard Jackson, about what had\n\nhappened at school. Over the next few days, Jackson repeatedly called\n\n\n\n 4\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 5 of 30\n\n\nSuperintendent David McCurry, Principal Veliz, and Assistant Principal Oates.\n\nAccording to McCurry, in one call, Jackson left a message stating that a school\n\nadministrator committed a “Fourth Amendment violation” against his daughter and\n\nthat he “will proceed with legal action.” Jackson testified that he told school\n\nofficials that a lawsuit against school officials would be an “option,” but he denied\n\nmaking “any definite threat of suit.” Jackson called McCurry on another occasion\n\nto request to speak at an upcoming school board meeting, and McCurry allegedly\n\ninformed him that he “could not attend the meetings, nor could [he] speak at the\n\nmeetings” because he “had threatened litigation.”\n\n Jackson also went to E.D.J.’s volleyball practice to speak with her coaches\n\nabout the incident. After Jackson spoke with them, the coaches reported to\n\nMcCurry and Veliz that Jackson acted aggressively and said that he would “show\n\nMr. Oates what intimidation was” because he believed that “Oates had intimidated\n\nhis daughter.” Jackson also allegedly inquired into the identity of a student he\n\nbelieved had played a role in the events involving his daughter. For his part,\n\nJackson denied that he acted aggressively or made any threats against Oates. After\n\nhearing from the coaches, McCurry reviewed video footage of Jackson’s meeting\n\nwith the coaches with Ryan Smith, a deputy sheriff who serves as the school’s\n\nresource officer and determined that Jackson posed a threat to the safety of the\n\nschool’s employees and students.\n\n\n\n 5\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 6 of 30\n\n\n A few days later, Jackson returned to the school to speak with Veliz. Based\n\non what he had heard from the coaches, McCurry inferred that Jackson intended to\n\nconfront Oates, so he met Jackson at the front door of the school and prohibited\n\nhim from entering. McCurry instructed Jackson to refrain from any further\n\ncommunication with school officials or students and to direct all future\n\ncommunication to the school board’s attorney. McCurry had asked Smith to stand\n\nby while he confronted Jackson, and Smith observed the encounter from inside the\n\ndoor. When McCurry reentered the school, he informed Smith that he told Jackson\n\nthat he was not permitted on school premises. McCurry directed Smith to remove\n\nor arrest Jackson if Smith saw him on school property.\n\n A few days after that, McCurry sent a letter to Jackson recounting what\n\nMcCurry believed had occurred during the meeting with the volleyball coaches and\n\nstating that the school district had “determined your conduct in this regard is\n\ndisruptive and contrary to the establishment of a healthy educational environment\n\nfor the students of our school system.” The letter barred Jackson from making any\n\nunauthorized appearance on school premises or at any extracurricular activities\n\nconducted by school officials at which students are present. But the letter did\n\npermit Jackson to appear on school premises to transport E.D.J. to and from school\n\nand to attend E.D.J.’s volleyball games.\n\n\n\n\n 6\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 7 of 30\n\n\n About one month later, on October 4, 2017, Jackson and his wife attended a\n\nvolleyball game at the school, which was senior night for the girls on the team,\n\nincluding E.D.J. Jackson complied with the demand articulated in McCurry’s letter\n\nand sat in the designated parents’ area. Kemp and Smith were also in attendance\n\nand noticed that Jackson was present. Kemp called Veliz for instructions on\n\nwhether he should ask Jackson to leave. Veliz initially told Kemp that she did not\n\nwant to unnecessarily remove Jackson and create a scene. Kemp told Veliz that he\n\nbelieved Jackson had threatened the school’s coaches and had been banned from\n\nschool property. Veliz proceeded to call McCurry, who told her that they could\n\nremove Jackson if necessary and that he would support their decision regardless of\n\nwhat they decided to do. Veliz then instructed Kemp to remove Jackson from the\n\ngymnasium after the conclusion of the senior night activities. As of that time,\n\nneither Veliz, Kemp, nor Smith had read the letter McCurry sent to Jackson, and\n\nthey did not know that Jackson was permitted to be on school premises during\n\nE.D.J.’s volleyball games. McCurry testified that he did not remember that the\n\nletter permitted Jackson to be present on school property for that purpose when he\n\nspoke with Veliz.\n\n Smith and Kemp approached the bleachers where Jackson was sitting and\n\nasked to speak with him. According to Jackson, when he approached Smith, Smith\n\ngrabbed his arm, put his other hand on his pistol, and walked Jackson to the\n\n\n\n 7\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 8 of 30\n\n\nconcession area. Jackson asserts that he verbally objected to Smith touching him\n\nand asked Smith to remove his hand from his pistol, which Smith refused to do.\n\nKemp followed Smith and Jackson, and when they reached the concession area,\n\nSmith told Jackson that he needed to leave. Jackson responded by informing Smith\n\nthat McCurry had expressly permitted him to attend E.D.J.’s volleyball games in a\n\nletter, but when Jackson could not produce the letter, Smith reiterated his demand\n\nthat Jackson leave the building. Smith explained to Jackson that he could be\n\narrested for criminal trespass if he attempted to stay on school property. According\n\nto Jackson, Smith grabbed his arm again and escorted him outside the gym. Later\n\nthat evening, Veliz asked Kemp to retrieve from her office a copy of the letter\n\nMcCurry wrote to Jackson and read it to her. Only then did they realize that\n\nJackson was permitted to attend the game and that they had made a mistake.\n\n Jackson and his wife filed a civil-rights complaint, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, on\n\nbehalf of themselves and E.D.J. asserting (1) a claim under the Fourth Amendment\n\nagainst Oates in his individual capacity for searching E.D.J.’s cellphone; (2) a\n\nclaim under the Fourth Amendment against Smith, Veliz, and Kemp in their\n\nindividual capacities for removing Jackson from school premises during the\n\nvolleyball game; (3) a claim under the First Amendment against McCurry in his\n\nindividual and official capacities for restricting Jackson’s communications with\n\nschool personnel and access to school property; and (4) another First Amendment\n\n\n\n 8\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 9 of 30\n\n\nclaim against McCurry in his individual and official capacities for preventing\n\nJackson from addressing the school board. Jackson also asserted state-law claims\n\nfor assault, invasion of privacy, and false imprisonment.\n\n After discovery, the school officials moved for summary judgment and the\n\ndistrict court granted their motion. Jackson did not respond to the officials’ motion\n\nfor summary judgment with respect to the official-capacity claims against\n\nMcCurry, so the district court ruled that those claims were abandoned. The district\n\ncourt concluded that none of Jackson’s individual-capacity claims stated a\n\nviolation of federal law, and that even if they did, the officials were shielded by\n\nqualified immunity because none of the alleged actions violated clearly established\n\nlaw. The district court also ruled that Jackson’s state-law claims were barred by the\n\nstate-law doctrine of official immunity because Jackson “failed to point to any\n\nevidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Defendants acted with\n\nactual malice.”\n\n II. STANDARD OF REVIEW\n\n We review a summary judgment de novo and “construe the evidence and\n\ndraw all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.”\n\nZiegler v. Martin Cty. Sch. Dist., 831 F.3d 1309, 1318 (11th Cir. 2016). We also\n\nreview de novo a grant of qualified immunity. Courson v. McMillian, 939 F.2d\n\n1479, 1486 (11th Cir. 1991).\n\n\n\n 9\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 10 of 30\n\n\n III. DISCUSSION\n\n We divide our discussion in four parts. First, we consider Jackson’s\n\nargument that the search of E.D.J.’s cellphone violated the Fourth Amendment.\n\nSecond, we examine Jackson’s argument that McCurry violated the First\n\nAmendment when he prohibited Jackson from appearing on school premises.\n\nThird, we address Jackson’s claim that McCurry violated the First Amendment\n\nwhen he barred Jackson from speaking to the school board. And fourth, we\n\nconsider Jackson’s claim that his rights under the Fourth Amendment were\n\nviolated when Smith, Veliz, and Kemp removed him from the volleyball game. We\n\nconclude that all of the school officials are entitled to qualified immunity.\n\n “The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials ‘from\n\nliability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly\n\nestablished . . . constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have\n\nknown.’” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quoting Harlow v.\n\nFitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). To obtain dismissal based on qualified\n\nimmunity, “a government official must first establish that he was acting within the\n\nscope of his discretionary authority when the alleged wrongful act occurred.”\n\nBailey v. Wheeler, 843 F.3d 473, 480 (11th Cir. 2016). If he was, the burden shifts\n\nto the plaintiff to overcome the official’s qualified immunity. Mikko v. City of\n\nAtlanta, 857 F.3d 1136, 1144 (11th Cir. 2017). Because “there is no dispute” that\n\n\n\n 10\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 11 of 30\n\n\nall the school officials were “acting in [their] discretionary capacity,” “the burden\n\nshifts to the plaintiffs to show that qualified immunity is inappropriate.” Terrell v.\n\nSmith, 668 F.3d 1244, 1250 (11th Cir. 2012).\n\n To overcome the qualified-immunity defense, a plaintiff must prove that\n\n“the defendant violated her constitutional rights” and “that, at the time of the\n\nviolation, those rights were ‘clearly established . . . in light of the specific context\n\nof the case, not as a broad general proposition.’” Gaines v. Wardynski, 871 F.3d\n\n1203, 1208 (11th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted). We may address these issues in any\n\norder, Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236, “but, to survive a qualified-immunity defense,\n\n[the plaintiff] must satisfy both showings.” Wardynski, 871 F.3d at 1208 (quoting\n\nJones v. Fransen, 857 F.3d 843, 851 (11th Cir. 2017)).\n\n A plaintiff may “demonstrate that the contours of the right were clearly\n\nestablished in one of three ways.” Loftus v. Clark-Moore, 690 F.3d 1200, 1204\n\n(11th Cir. 2012) (alteration adopted) (citation and internal quotation marks\n\nomitted). First, a plaintiff may establish that “a materially similar case has already\n\nbeen decided.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Second, the\n\nplaintiff may “point to a broader, clearly established principle that should control\n\nthe novel facts of the situation.” Id. (alterations adopted). Third, “the conduct\n\ninvolved in the case may so obviously violate the [C]onstitution that prior case law\n\nis unnecessary.” Id. at 1205 (alterations adopted). The precedents that clearly\n\n\n\n 11\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 12 of 30\n\n\nestablish law for these purposes are those of the Supreme Court, this Court, and the\n\nhighest court of the state where the challenged action occurred. See, e.g., Smith,\n\n668 F.3d at 1256; Mercado v. City of Orlando, 407 F.3d 1152, 1159 (11th Cir.\n\n2005).\n\n A. The Search of E.D.J.’s Cellphone Did Not Violate Clearly Established\n Law.\n\n Jackson argues that the search of E.D.J.’s cellphone by Oates violated the\n\nFourth Amendment, but we conclude that even on the assumption that Jackson is\n\ncorrect, Oates is shielded from liability by qualified immunity because the search\n\ndid not contravene clearly established law. To resist this conclusion, Jackson relies\n\nprincipally on the decisions in New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985), and\n\nRiley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), but these decisions—whether considered\n\nindividually or jointly—do not clearly establish any principle of law that would\n\nmandate the conclusion that the search of E.D.J.’s cellphone was unlawful.\n\n In T.L.O., the Supreme Court established general parameters for searches of\n\nschool students by public-school officials. The Court held that searches of the\n\nperson or property of a student by public-school officials are governed by “a\n\nFourth Amendment standard of reasonableness that stops short of probable cause.”\n\n469 U.S. at 341. Under this standard, determining whether a search conducted by\n\nschool officials was reasonable involves “a twofold inquiry” that considers\n\n“first . . . ‘whether the . . . action was justified at its inception,’” id. (quoting Terry\n\n 12\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 13 of 30\n\n\nv. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 (1968)), and “second . . . whether the search as actually\n\nconducted was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the\n\ninterference in the first place.’” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).\n\nThe Court explained that “[u]nder ordinary circumstances, a search of a student by\n\na teacher or other school official will be ‘justified at its inception’ when there are\n\nreasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the\n\nstudent has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school.” Id. at\n\n341–42 (footnote omitted). And the Court said that “[s]uch a search will be\n\npermissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the\n\nobjectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of\n\nthe student and the nature of the infraction.” Id. at 342.\n\n As we have previously explained, in T.L.O., the Supreme Court formulated\n\nthe standard applicable to searches by school officials in terms of a “series of\n\nabstractions,” and the Court “did not attempt to establish clearly the contours of a\n\nFourth Amendment right as applied to the wide variety of possible school settings\n\ndifferent from those involved in T.L.O.” Jenkins by Hall v. Talladega City Bd. of\n\nEduc., 115 F.3d 821, 828 (11th Cir. 1997) (en banc). Although “general statements\n\nof the law are not inherently incapable of giving fair and clear warning” to\n\nofficials, United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 271 (1997), “in the light of pre-\n\n\n\n\n 13\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 14 of 30\n\n\nexisting law the unlawfulness must be apparent.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S.\n\n635, 640 (1987).\n\n It was far from obvious that the search of E.D.J.’s phone was unlawful at its\n\ninception under T.L.O. Oates searched E.D.J.’s cellphone based on M’s accusation\n\nthat E.D.J. had made fun of her in text messages sent to other students, and this\n\nallegation was corroborated by the reports of two other students, A and B, and the\n\npolicies outlined in the school handbook prohibit both bullying and rude or\n\ndisrespectful behavior towards other students. It is at least arguable that this\n\nevidence supplied “reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search” of E.D.J.’s\n\nphone would “turn up evidence” that she “violated. . . the rules of the school.”\n\nT.L.O., 469 U.S. at 342.\n\n Nor does T.L.O. “place[] the . . . constitutional question” whether the search\n\nwas justified in scope “beyond debate.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741\n\n(2011). Nothing in T.L.O. establishes that searching a high-school senior’s text\n\nmessages for evidence of bullying would be “excessively intrusive in light of the\n\nage and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.” T.L.O., 469 U.S. at\n\n342. And although Oates allegedly expanded the search and reviewed messages\n\nbetween E.D.J. and persons other than A and B, including E.D.J.’s ex-boyfriend\n\nand family members, it is undisputed that E.D.J. labeled many of the contacts in\n\nher phone using emojis and nicknames. As the district court explained, “Oates\n\n\n\n 14\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 15 of 30\n\n\nknew that [E.D.J.] could label her contacts in any manner she chose” and so “could\n\nreasonably assume that [E.D.J.] could disguise her contacts and any messages from\n\nthem.” As a result, it is arguable that a reasonable school official could conclude\n\nthat expanding the search to encompass those text messages would be “reasonably\n\nrelated to the objectives of the search.” T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 342.\n\n Riley does not alter our conclusion. In Riley, the Supreme Court held that “a\n\nwarrant is generally required before” police officers may search “the information\n\non a cell phone,” “even when a cell phone is seized incident to arrest,” 573 U.S. at\n\n401, but it did not attempt to spell out how its holding could be transposed to the\n\nsetting of a public school. True, because the reasoning of Riley treats cellphone\n\nsearches as especially intrusive in comparison to searches incident to arrest of\n\npersonal property, see id. at 393–98, a search of a student’s cellphone might\n\nrequire a more compelling justification than that required to search a student’s\n\nother personal effects under T.L.O. Cf. Safford Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. Redding,\n\n557 U.S. 364, 374 (2009) (holding that a strip search of a student by school\n\nofficials is “categorically distinct” and “requir[es] distinct elements of justification\n\non the part of school authorities for going beyond a search of outer clothing and\n\nbelongings”). But that conclusion hardly “follow[s] immediately” from T.L.O. and\n\nRiley “and thus was not clearly established by” the holdings of those decisions.\n\n\n\n\n 15\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 16 of 30\n\n\nMullenix v. Luna, 136 S. Ct. 305, 309 (2015) (citation and internal quotation marks\n\nomitted).\n\n Riley held only that the exception to the warrant requirement for searches\n\nincident to arrest does not extend to searches of information contained in\n\ncellphones, and T.L.O. held that “[t]he warrant requirement . . . is unsuited to the\n\nschool environment,” 469 U.S. at 340, so there is room for a reasonable school\n\nofficial to conclude that Riley has no application to school searches. And in the\n\nlight of the permissible disagreement about the implications of Riley for school\n\nsearches, we cannot say that Oates was “plainly incompetent” or “knowingly\n\nviolate[d] the law.” Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986); see also al-Kidd,\n\n563 U.S. at 743 (“Qualified immunity gives government officials breathing room\n\nto make reasonable . . . judgments about open legal questions.”).\n\n Jackson also cites a pair of out-of-circuit district-court opinions, see\n\nGallimore v. Henrico Cty. Sch. Bd., 38 F. Supp. 3d 721 (E.D. Va. 2014), Klump v.\n\nNazareth Area Sch. Dist., 425 F. Supp. 2d 622 (E.D. Pa. 2006), and an opinion\n\nfrom one of our sister circuits, G.C. v. Owensboro Pub. Sch., 711 F.3d 623 (6th\n\nCir. 2013), but these decisions cannot clearly establish that Oates’s conduct was\n\nunlawful. As we have repeatedly explained, “a district court case cannot clearly\n\nestablish the law for qualified immunity purposes.” Wardynski, 871 F.3d at 1211;\n\nsee also Gonzalez v. Lee Cty. Hous. Auth., 161 F.3d 1290, 1302 n.38 (11th Cir.\n\n\n\n 16\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 17 of 30\n\n\n1998) (explaining that “our precedent firmly states that a district court opinion\n\ncannot” clearly establish law for qualified immunity). Nor can a decision from one\n\nof our sister circuits do so. See, e.g., Loftus, 690 F.3d at 1206 (a decision from one\n\nof our sister circuits “cannot provide ‘clearly established’ law in this Circuit”). And\n\nin any case, the decisions cited by Jackson are distinguishable. See G.C., 711 F.3d\n\nat 633–34 (search of a student’s cellphone based on “general background\n\nknowledge” that he abused drugs and was depressed and because he used the\n\ncellphone in class in violation of school policy was unjustified at its inception);\n\nGallimore, 38 F. Supp. 3d at 725 (expansion of a search to a student’s cellphone\n\nwas not “reasonably related” to the objective of “finding evidence of drug use on\n\nthe school bus earlier that day” because “the cell phone could not have contained\n\ndrugs”); Klump, 425 F. Supp. 2d at 640–41 (although seizure of a student’s phone\n\nbecause he used it during school hours in violation of school policy was justified,\n\nschool officials were not entitled to use the phone to call other students to\n\ndetermine whether they were also using phones).\n\n B. McCurry Did Not Violate Clearly Established Law When He Prohibited\n Jackson from Appearing on School Premises.\n\n Jackson argues that his rights under the First Amendment were violated\n\nwhen McCurry sent him a letter prohibiting him from appearing on school\n\npremises except for the purpose of bringing E.D.J. to and from school and\n\nattending E.D.J.’s volleyball games. Regardless of whether Jackson is correct\n\n 17\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 18 of 30\n\n\nthat this action violated the First Amendment, we conclude that McCurry’s\n\ndecision did not contravene clearly established law and so he is entitled to\n\nqualified immunity.\n\n Jackson contends that McCurry’s letter constituted an overbroad\n\nrestriction of his right to free speech in violation of Broderick v. Oklahoma, 413\n\nU.S. 601 (1973), because—in Jackson’s view—the letter prohibited him from\n\ncontacting teachers, coaches, and students outside of school premises, but this is\n\na misreading of the letter. McCurry’s letter recounted the circumstances of\n\nJackson’s encounter with the coaches of E.D.J.’s volleyball team and informed\n\nhim that “other than dropping off and picking up your child at school or at one\n\nof our facilities, you are to make no unauthorized appearance either at your\n\ndaughter’s school or at any extracurricular activity conducted by our faculty and\n\nstaff and where students are present.” The letter also instructed Jackson to\n\n“remain in the designated area for parents” if he attends a school event such as a\n\nvolleyball game. And it told Jackson “not to attempt to contact or talk with the\n\ncoaches, teachers, or students of our School System.”\n\n McCurry’s letter purports to ban Jackson only from appearing on school\n\npremises to contact school officials and students. In the light of the letter’s\n\nobvious emphasis on the circumstances in which Jackson is permitted to be\n\npresent on school premises, any reasonable reader would conclude that the\n\n\n\n 18\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 19 of 30\n\n\nletter’s prohibition on “contact[ing] or talk[ing] with the coaches, teachers, or\n\nstudents” refers only to on-campus communications. This reading is confirmed\n\nby McCurry’s uncontroverted deposition testimony, in which McCurry\n\nacknowledged that he “can’t dictate what [Jackson] does at somebody’s home”\n\nand stated that the purpose of the letter was to inform Jackson that he cannot\n\ncontact teachers, coaches, or students “during the day-to-day operations of the\n\nschool.”\n\n The restriction on Jackson’s on-campus communication with school\n\nofficials and students did not amount to a violation of clearly established law.\n\nJackson does not point to a single decision of this Court, the Supreme Court of\n\nthe United States, or the Georgia Supreme Court that articulates even the\n\ngeneral framework for assessing claims that a school official impermissibly\n\nrestricted a parent’s rights under the First Amendment on school property. And\n\nthe few decisions of our sister circuits reviewing claims similar to Jackson’s\n\nhave uniformly concluded that there is no clearly established right for parents to\n\naccess school property to exercise their rights under the First Amendment. See\n\nJohnson v. Perry, 859 F.3d 156, 175 (2d Cir. 2017) (holding that school official\n\nwas entitled to qualified immunity for “bann[ing] [the plaintiff] from [school]\n\nproperty for purposes other than attendance at sporting events” because “we\n\ncannot conclude that a parent has a general and unlimited First Amendment\n\n\n\n 19\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 20 of 30\n\n\nright of access to school property”); Lovern v. Edwards, 190 F.3d 648, 656 (4th\n\nCir. 1999) (holding that there was no federal jurisdiction over a claim\n\npredicated on the exclusion of a parent from school premises because the claim\n\nwas “plainly insubstantial and entirely frivolous” and “a monument to what\n\nought not to be in a federal court” (internal quotation marks omitted)).\n\n In the absence of any controlling precedent that establishes even the\n\ngeneral rubric for determining whether official conduct violates the\n\nConstitution, it is impossible to say that “a broader, clearly established principle\n\n. . . should control the novel facts of the situation.” Loftus, 690 F.3d at 1204\n\n(alteration adopted and citation omitted). And one cannot say that McCurry’s\n\nconduct “so obviously violate[d]” the Constitution “that prior case law is\n\nunnecessary,” id. at 1205 (citation omitted), in the light of the duty of school\n\nofficials to prevent “the kind of boisterous and threatening conduct” that would\n\ninterrupt the “peace and quiet” required for the academic aspects of a school’s\n\nfunctions. Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 470–71 (1980) (quoting Gregory v.\n\nChicago, 394 U.S. 111, 118 (1969) (Black, J., concurring)). So we have little\n\ndifficulty concluding that Jackson’s claim is barred by qualified immunity.\n\n C. McCurry Did Not Violate Clearly Established Law When He Prohibited\n Jackson from Addressing the School Board.\n\n Jackson also argues that McCurry violated the First Amendment by\n\nprohibiting him from attending and addressing a meeting of the local school\n\n 20\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 21 of 30\n\n\nboard for threatening litigation against school officials, but we conclude that\n\nMcCurry is entitled to qualified immunity with respect to this claim. We begin\n\nby placing the meetings of the school board within the “forum analysis”\n\nframework dictated by Supreme Court precedent “to evaluate government\n\nrestrictions on purely private speech that occurs on government property,”\n\nWalker v. Tex. Div., Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 2239, 2250\n\n(2015), and then turn to evaluate Jackson’s claim under the First Amendment.\n\n All parties argue—and we agree—that a meeting of the school board\n\nqualifies as a limited public forum, at least insofar as each meeting includes a\n\nperiod for public comment in which the board may entertain citizen complaints\n\nif it chooses to do so. Board policy does not grant blanket permission to citizens\n\nto address the board, as would be the case if the board meeting were a\n\ndesignated public forum. Instead, the board “limits discussion to certain topics\n\nand employs a system of selective access.” Barrett v. Walker Cty. Sch. Dist.,\n\n872 F.3d 1209, 1225 (11th Cir. 2017). As explained in the school handbook,\n\npublic comment is limited by topic to “citizen complaints” that “cannot be\n\nresolved by the administration.”\n\n The policy also requires each citizen who desires to voice a complaint to\n\n“obtain permission from the governmental proprietor of the forum,” Barrett,\n\n872 F.3d at 1225, by “submit[ting] a written request to the Superintendent\n\n\n\n 21\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 22 of 30\n\n\nstating their name, home address, the topic about which they wish to speak and\n\nthe group they represent, if applicable, no later than 12 o’clock on Thursday\n\nprior to the scheduled Board meeting.” And the board evidently “has discretion\n\nto grant or deny permission” to address the meeting, Barrett, 872 F.3d at 1225,\n\nbecause the policy states only that the board will “consider” hearing citizen\n\ncomplaints that have not been resolved by the school administration. Because\n\n“only those speakers who satisfy the Policy’s substantive and procedural\n\ncriteria may speak,” id., the board’s policy qualifies as a system of selective\n\naccess, and the portion of each board meeting devoted to citizen complaints is a\n\nlimited public forum.\n\n In a limited public forum, officials may exercise considerable control\n\nover which speakers may express their views and the subject matter of their\n\nexpression, but that discretion is not absolute. “Control over access to a [limited\n\npublic] forum can be based on subject matter and speaker identity so long as the\n\ndistinctions drawn are reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum\n\nand are viewpoint neutral.” Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund, Inc.,\n\n473 U.S. 788, 806 (1985). But in a limited public forum, the usual prohibition\n\non content discrimination is relaxed. As the Supreme Court has explained, in a\n\nlimited public forum, “content discrimination” may “be permissible if it\n\npreserves the purposes of [the] limited forum.” Rosenberger v. Rector &\n\n\n\n 22\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 23 of 30\n\n\nVisitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 830 (1995). With these preliminaries in\n\nplace, we turn now to examine Jackson’s arguments.\n\n Jackson contends that McCurry’s decision was motivated by a desire to\n\nsuppress Jackson’s “viewpoint that Oate[s] violated E.D.J.’s constitutional\n\nrights,” and so violated the prohibition on viewpoint discrimination applicable\n\nto limited public fora under Cornelius and Rosenberger, but Jackson’s theory is\n\na nonstarter. A restriction on speech constitutes viewpoint discrimination “when\n\nthe specific motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective of the speaker is\n\nthe rationale for the restriction.” Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829. According to\n\nJackson’s own deposition testimony, McCurry did not prohibit Jackson from\n\nspeaking to the school board because he intended to express any particular\n\nopinion or perspective, but instead because he “had threatened litigation”\n\nagainst the school. So it was not Jackson’s view that provided the rationale for\n\nMcCurry’s decision, but an action that Jackson allegedly threatened to take.\n\nAnd even if banning all who threaten litigation could be construed as\n\ndiscrimination against those who hold contrary views, such an interpretation\n\nwas not so clearly established that we could say McCurry was “plainly\n\nincompetent” or “knowingly violate[d] the law.” Malley, 475 U.S. at 341.\n\n Although a facially neutral restriction on speech adopted with a veiled\n\nintent to “suppress a particular point of view” is invalid, Cornelius, 473 U.S. at\n\n\n\n 23\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 24 of 30\n\n\n812, there is nothing in the record to support an inference that McCurry’s stated\n\njustification was pretextual. So we conclude that Jackson’s argument about\n\nviewpoint discrimination cannot overcome McCurry’s defense of qualified\n\nimmunity. See Wardynski, 871 F.3d at 1208.\n\n Jackson also suggests in passing that the board’s policy governing the\n\npresentation of citizen grievances at board meetings vested McCurry with\n\n“unbridled discretion” to determine whether any citizen may address the board\n\nin violation of our decisions in Barrett, Soltanic, LLC v. City of Neptune Beach,\n\n410 F.3d 1250 (11th Cir. 2005), and United States v. Frandsen, 212 F.3d 1231\n\n(11th Cir. 2000), but Jackson forfeited review of this issue. Jackson did not\n\nraise this argument before the district court, and as a general rule, “an issue not\n\nraised in the district court . . . will not be considered by this court.” Access Now,\n\nInc. v. Sw. Airlines Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1331 (11th Cir. 2004) (citation and\n\ninternal quotation marks omitted).\n\n Indeed, Jackson has not even properly raised this argument on appeal.\n\nJackson’s brief obliquely states that the school system “vested McCurry with\n\nunbridled discretion to determine whether R. Jackson could speak to the school\n\nboard on this subject,” and his analysis of the “clearly established” element of\n\nthe qualified-immunity inquiry includes an undeveloped assertion that\n\n“McCurry had clear and fair warning the exercise of his unbridled discretion to\n\n\n\n 24\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 25 of 30\n\n\nprohibit R. Jackson from speaking to the school board on a matter of\n\nconstitutional importance could be a prior restraint on his right to free speech.”\n\nJackson’s reply brief also asserts that “McCurry’s unbridled discretion denying\n\nR. Jackson an opportunity to speak to the school board based on his viewpoint\n\nconstitutes a violation of the First Amendment.” But a trio of stray references to\n\na theory does not suffice to present it.\n\n As we have explained, “[a]bandonment of an issue can . . . occur when\n\npassing references appear in the argument section of an opening brief,\n\nparticularly when the references are mere ‘background’ to the appellant’s main\n\narguments or when they are ‘buried’ within those arguments.” Sapuppo v.\n\nAllstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 682 (11th Cir. 2014). The “passing\n\nreferences” to an unbridled-discretion issue in Jackson’s briefs “are nothing\n\nmore than conclusory assertions,” and “[t]he brief makes no argument . . . to\n\nsupport those conclusory assertions.” Id. And although Jackson’s amicus, the\n\nAmerican Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, provides a more developed version\n\nof this unbridled-discretion challenge, we “will not consider issues raised in an\n\namicus brief that were neither raised in the district court nor argued by\n\nappellants on appeal” as a general rule. Day v. Persels & Assocs., LLC, 729\n\nF.3d 1309, 1330 (11th Cir. 2013) (citation and internal quotation marks\n\nomitted). We see no reason to deviate from our settled practice in this appeal, so\n\n\n\n 25\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 26 of 30\n\n\nwe will not consider Jackson’s argument that the board’s policy vested\n\nMcCurry with unbridled discretion to determine who could address the school\n\nboard.\n\n D. Smith, Kemp, and Veliz Did Not Violate Clearly Established Law by\n Removing Jackson from the Volleyball Game.\n\n Jackson argues that Smith, Kemp, and Veliz violated his rights under the\n\nFourth Amendment when they stopped him and asked him to leave his daughter’s\n\nvolleyball game, but we conclude that their actions did not violate clearly\n\nestablished law. Jackson does not attempt to argue that we have already decided “a\n\nmaterially similar case” or that “the conduct involved . . . so obviously violate[s]\n\nthe [C]onstitution that prior case law is unnecessary.” Loftus, 690 F.3d at 1204–05\n\n(alteration adopted) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Instead,\n\nJackson argues that the officials violated the generic requirement that a seizure that\n\nfalls short of a full-blown arrest requires the support of “a reasonable, articulable\n\nsuspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123\n\n(2000) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968)). And he argues that the alleged\n\nseizure was “excessive and unreasonable” because Smith “did not have any right to\n\nuse any degree of force in seizing” Jackson under our decisions in Reese v.\n\nHerbert, 527 F.3d 1253 (11th Cir. 2008), and Evans v. Stephens, 407 F.3d 1272\n\n(11th Cir. 2005).\n\n\n\n\n 26\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 27 of 30\n\n\n Jackson’s argument that the officials acted without reasonable suspicion fails\n\nto establish that they violated clearly established law because the officials arguably\n\nhad reasonable grounds to suspect Jackson of criminal trespass. Under Georgia\n\nlaw, “[a] person commits the offense of criminal trespass when he or she\n\nknowingly and without authority” “[e]nters upon the land or premises of another\n\nperson . . . after receiving, prior to such entry, notice from . . . an authorized\n\nrepresentative of the owner or rightful occupant that such entry is forbidden,”\n\nO.C.G.A. § 16-7-21(b), or “[r]emains upon the land or premises of another . . .\n\nafter receiving notice from . . . an authorized representative of the owner or rightful\n\noccupant to depart.” Id. § 16-7-21(b)(3). The record attests that Smith witnessed\n\nMcCurry’s earlier ejection of Jackson from school premises when Jackson\n\nappeared at the school to speak with Veliz after Oates searched E.D.J.’s cellphone.\n\nAfter that encounter, McCurry advised Smith that Jackson was not permitted on\n\nschool premises and told Smith that he had informed Jackson not to appear on\n\ncampus. And before Smith removed Jackson, Kemp called Veliz to confirm that\n\nJackson was not permitted on school property and was informed by Kemp that they\n\nshould remove Jackson from the school.\n\n In this circumstance, it is at least arguable that the officials had the “minimal\n\nlevel of objective justification” sufficient to support a limited stop for the purpose\n\nof ascertaining whether Jackson was lawfully present at the game and asking him\n\n\n\n 27\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 28 of 30\n\n\nto leave when he could not satisfy them that he was permitted to be on school\n\nproperty. United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989) (citation omitted). And\n\nunder our precedents, arguable suspicion suffices to establish an entitlement to\n\nqualified immunity. As we have explained, “[w]hen an officer asserts qualified\n\nimmunity, the issue is not whether reasonable suspicion existed in fact, but\n\nwhether the officer had ‘arguable’ reasonable suspicion to support an investigatory\n\nstop.” Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156, 1166 (11th Cir. 2000).\n\n Jackson argues that the stop could not have been lawful because McCurry’s\n\nletter permitted Jackson to appear on campus for the purpose of observing E.D.J.’s\n\nvolleyball games, but it is undisputed that neither Smith, Kemp, nor Veliz had read\n\nthe letter when the “seizure” and ejection occurred. Under our caselaw, “[a] law\n\nenforcement official who reasonably but mistakenly concludes that reasonable\n\nsuspicion is present is still entitled to qualified immunity.” Sauls, 206 F.3d at\n\n1165–66. And although a copy of the letter was on Veliz’s desk when she spoke\n\nwith Kemp and authorized the ejection of Jackson from the game, her failure to\n\nread the letter was not obviously unreasonable because she was out of town when\n\nthe altercation at the volleyball game occurred. So we conclude that Jackson’s\n\nargument about reasonable suspicion does not overcome the qualified-immunity\n\ndefense raised by Smith, Kemp, and Veliz.\n\n\n\n\n 28\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 29 of 30\n\n\n Jackson’s argument that Smith used excessive force also fails to establish\n\nthat Smith breached a duty under clearly established law. Jackson testified that\n\nSmith’s grip on his arm was not painful and that he was unaware if it caused him\n\nany injury. It follows that the force used on Jackson “was de minimis,” and as we\n\nhave explained, “[d]e minimis force will only support a Fourth Amendment\n\nexcessive force claim when ‘an arresting officer does not have the right to make an\n\narrest.’” Zivojinovich v. Barner, 525 F.3d 1059, 1072 (11th Cir. 2008) (quoting\n\nBashir v. Rockdale Cty., Ga., 445 F.3d 1323, 1332 (11th Cir. 2006)). And because\n\nSmith arguably had a right to detain Jackson, the conclusion that Smith used\n\nexcessive force is not “beyond debate.” al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 741.\n\n In any case, Smith’s modest use of force against Jackson was arguably\n\nreasonable. As we have explained, “[t]he ‘reasonableness’ inquiry in an excessive\n\nforce case is an objective one: the question is whether the officer’s actions are\n\n‘objectively reasonable’ in light of the facts and circumstances confronting him,\n\nwithout regard to his underlying intent or motivation.” Kesinger ex rel. Estate of\n\nKesinger v. Herrington, 381 F.3d 1243, 1248 (11th Cir. 2004). It is arguable that\n\nSmith reasonably believed that Jackson had been hostile with school officials on\n\nseveral earlier occasions and so had reason to suspect that a modicum of force was\n\nwarranted to maintain control over the situation. We conclude that Smith is entitled\n\nto qualified immunity with respect to Jackson’s claim under the Fourth\n\n\n\n 29\n\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 30 of 30\n\n\nAmendment and that Kemp and Veliz are immune from suit for approving Smith’s\n\nremoval of Jackson from the game.\n\n IV. CONCLUSION\n\n We AFFIRM the summary judgment against the Jacksons and in favor of\n\nthe school officials.\n\n\n\n\n 30\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Richard D. Jackson v. David M. McCurry\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-12\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 1 of 30\\n\\n\\n [DO NOT PUBLISH]\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 18-10231\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 4:17-cv-00017-CDL\\n\\n\\n\\nRICHARD D. JACKSON,\\nLORETTA S. JACKSON, and\\nE.D.J., a minor child, by and through\\nher parents RICHARD D. JACKSON\\nand LORETTA S. JACKSON\\n\\n Plaintiffs-Appellants,\\n versus\\n\\nDAVID M. MCCURRY,\\nSANDI D. VELIZ,\\nBO OATES,\\nJOSH KEMP, and\\nRYAN SMITH\\n\\n\\n Defendants-Appellees.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Middle District of Georgia\\n _______________________\\n\\n (March 12, 2019)\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 2 of 30\\n\\n\\nBefore WILLIAM PRYOR and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges, and CONWAY, *\\nDistrict Judge.\\n\\nPER CURIAM:\\n\\n This appeal arises from a course of events at Chattahoochee County\\n\\nMiddle/High School in Cussetta, Georgia. The events began when a student,\\n\\nE.D.J., was accused of making fun of another student, M, for not making the\\n\\nvolleyball team. After Josh Kemp, an administrative assistant to Assistant Principal\\n\\nBo Oates and Principal Sandi Veliz, investigated the allegation, Oates decided to\\n\\nsearch E.D.J.’s cellphone to see if she had sent texts about M. After Oates did so,\\n\\nhe returned the cellphone and concluded that E.D.J. had not violated any school\\n\\nrule. In response to the search, E.D.J.’s father, Richard Jackson, confronted several\\n\\nschool officials by phone and in person. As a result of these interactions,\\n\\nSuperintendent David McCurry decided that Jackson was a threat to the safety of\\n\\nthe school’s employees and students and prohibited Jackson from appearing on\\n\\nschool premises except to bring E.D.J. to and from school and to attend E.D.J.’s\\n\\nvolleyball games. After Jackson mentioned the possibility of litigation, McCurry\\n\\nalso allegedly told Jackson he was not permitted to attend a public meeting of the\\n\\nlocal school board to discuss his grievances. In spite of what McCurry’s letter said,\\n\\nwhen Jackson attempted to attend one of E.D.J.’s volleyball games, he was\\n\\n\\n*\\n Honorable Anne C. Conway, United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida,\\nsitting by designation.\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 3 of 30\\n\\n\\nremoved from school premises by Veliz, Kemp, and Ryan Smith, the school’s\\n\\nresource officer.\\n\\n Jackson and his wife, Loretta Jackson, filed a civil-rights complaint, 42\\n\\nU.S.C. § 1983, on behalf of themselves and E.D.J., which asserted that Oates\\n\\nviolated E.D.J.’s rights under the Fourth Amendment when he searched her\\n\\ncellphone, McCurry violated Jackson’s rights under the First Amendment by\\n\\nrestricting his communication with school personnel and access to school property\\n\\nand by prohibiting him from addressing the school board, and Smith and other\\n\\nschool officials violated Jackson’s rights under the Fourth Amendment when they\\n\\nremoved him from school premises. The complaint also asserted several state-law\\n\\nclaims which are not at issue in this appeal. After discovery, the district court\\n\\ngranted summary judgment in favor of the school officials on the ground that\\n\\nqualified immunity barred Jackson’s federal claims. We affirm.\\n\\n I. BACKGROUND\\n\\n E.D.J. was a twelfth-grade student at Chattahoochee County Middle/High\\n\\nSchool during the 2016–17 school year. In August 2016, rumors circulated that\\n\\nE.D.J. was gossiping about M. These rumors made it back to M, who confronted\\n\\nE.D.J. and threatened her. After school that day, E.D.J. told school officials about\\n\\nM’s threat. The next day, Josh Kemp, an administrative assistant to Assistant\\n\\nPrincipal Bo Oates and Principal Sandi Veliz, began gathering information about\\n\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 4 of 30\\n\\n\\nthe incident from M and two other students, A and B. M told Kemp that E.D.J. had\\n\\nbeen making fun of her for not making the volleyball team. A also told Kemp that\\n\\nE.D.J. had been making fun of M and had sent text messages to A and B about M.\\n\\nB told Kemp that there was “drama” between E.D.J. and M and corroborated the\\n\\naccusation that E.D.J. had been sending texts to other students about M.\\n\\n After interviewing A and B, Kemp called E.D.J. to his office to hear her side\\n\\nof the story. Oates was present during this interview. Kemp and Oates questioned\\n\\nE.D.J. about whether she had been sending messages to students about M, but she\\n\\ndenied the allegation. According to E.D.J., Oates told her to unlock her cellphone\\n\\nand give it to him so he could see if E.D.J. had been sending messages about M.\\n\\nE.D.J. asserts that she refused to give Oates permission to search the contents of\\n\\nher phone, but this refusal did not deter him from doing so. Oates had E.D.J.\\n\\nidentify some of her text recipients because they were not listed in her phone under\\n\\ntheir real names but were instead identified by nicknames or emojis. After Oates\\n\\nreviewed E.D.J.’s messages with B, he allegedly continued to examine\\n\\nconversations between E.D.J. and her family members, best friend, and ex-\\n\\nboyfriend. After Oates concluded his investigation, he told Kemp he did not\\n\\nbelieve E.D.J. had done anything wrong and returned the phone to her.\\n\\n Later that evening, E.D.J. told her father, Richard Jackson, about what had\\n\\nhappened at school. Over the next few days, Jackson repeatedly called\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 5 of 30\\n\\n\\nSuperintendent David McCurry, Principal Veliz, and Assistant Principal Oates.\\n\\nAccording to McCurry, in one call, Jackson left a message stating that a school\\n\\nadministrator committed a “Fourth Amendment violation” against his daughter and\\n\\nthat he “will proceed with legal action.” Jackson testified that he told school\\n\\nofficials that a lawsuit against school officials would be an “option,” but he denied\\n\\nmaking “any definite threat of suit.” Jackson called McCurry on another occasion\\n\\nto request to speak at an upcoming school board meeting, and McCurry allegedly\\n\\ninformed him that he “could not attend the meetings, nor could [he] speak at the\\n\\nmeetings” because he “had threatened litigation.”\\n\\n Jackson also went to E.D.J.’s volleyball practice to speak with her coaches\\n\\nabout the incident. After Jackson spoke with them, the coaches reported to\\n\\nMcCurry and Veliz that Jackson acted aggressively and said that he would “show\\n\\nMr. Oates what intimidation was” because he believed that “Oates had intimidated\\n\\nhis daughter.” Jackson also allegedly inquired into the identity of a student he\\n\\nbelieved had played a role in the events involving his daughter. For his part,\\n\\nJackson denied that he acted aggressively or made any threats against Oates. After\\n\\nhearing from the coaches, McCurry reviewed video footage of Jackson’s meeting\\n\\nwith the coaches with Ryan Smith, a deputy sheriff who serves as the school’s\\n\\nresource officer and determined that Jackson posed a threat to the safety of the\\n\\nschool’s employees and students.\\n\\n\\n\\n 5\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 6 of 30\\n\\n\\n A few days later, Jackson returned to the school to speak with Veliz. Based\\n\\non what he had heard from the coaches, McCurry inferred that Jackson intended to\\n\\nconfront Oates, so he met Jackson at the front door of the school and prohibited\\n\\nhim from entering. McCurry instructed Jackson to refrain from any further\\n\\ncommunication with school officials or students and to direct all future\\n\\ncommunication to the school board’s attorney. McCurry had asked Smith to stand\\n\\nby while he confronted Jackson, and Smith observed the encounter from inside the\\n\\ndoor. When McCurry reentered the school, he informed Smith that he told Jackson\\n\\nthat he was not permitted on school premises. McCurry directed Smith to remove\\n\\nor arrest Jackson if Smith saw him on school property.\\n\\n A few days after that, McCurry sent a letter to Jackson recounting what\\n\\nMcCurry believed had occurred during the meeting with the volleyball coaches and\\n\\nstating that the school district had “determined your conduct in this regard is\\n\\ndisruptive and contrary to the establishment of a healthy educational environment\\n\\nfor the students of our school system.” The letter barred Jackson from making any\\n\\nunauthorized appearance on school premises or at any extracurricular activities\\n\\nconducted by school officials at which students are present. But the letter did\\n\\npermit Jackson to appear on school premises to transport E.D.J. to and from school\\n\\nand to attend E.D.J.’s volleyball games.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 6\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 7 of 30\\n\\n\\n About one month later, on October 4, 2017, Jackson and his wife attended a\\n\\nvolleyball game at the school, which was senior night for the girls on the team,\\n\\nincluding E.D.J. Jackson complied with the demand articulated in McCurry’s letter\\n\\nand sat in the designated parents’ area. Kemp and Smith were also in attendance\\n\\nand noticed that Jackson was present. Kemp called Veliz for instructions on\\n\\nwhether he should ask Jackson to leave. Veliz initially told Kemp that she did not\\n\\nwant to unnecessarily remove Jackson and create a scene. Kemp told Veliz that he\\n\\nbelieved Jackson had threatened the school’s coaches and had been banned from\\n\\nschool property. Veliz proceeded to call McCurry, who told her that they could\\n\\nremove Jackson if necessary and that he would support their decision regardless of\\n\\nwhat they decided to do. Veliz then instructed Kemp to remove Jackson from the\\n\\ngymnasium after the conclusion of the senior night activities. As of that time,\\n\\nneither Veliz, Kemp, nor Smith had read the letter McCurry sent to Jackson, and\\n\\nthey did not know that Jackson was permitted to be on school premises during\\n\\nE.D.J.’s volleyball games. McCurry testified that he did not remember that the\\n\\nletter permitted Jackson to be present on school property for that purpose when he\\n\\nspoke with Veliz.\\n\\n Smith and Kemp approached the bleachers where Jackson was sitting and\\n\\nasked to speak with him. According to Jackson, when he approached Smith, Smith\\n\\ngrabbed his arm, put his other hand on his pistol, and walked Jackson to the\\n\\n\\n\\n 7\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 8 of 30\\n\\n\\nconcession area. Jackson asserts that he verbally objected to Smith touching him\\n\\nand asked Smith to remove his hand from his pistol, which Smith refused to do.\\n\\nKemp followed Smith and Jackson, and when they reached the concession area,\\n\\nSmith told Jackson that he needed to leave. Jackson responded by informing Smith\\n\\nthat McCurry had expressly permitted him to attend E.D.J.’s volleyball games in a\\n\\nletter, but when Jackson could not produce the letter, Smith reiterated his demand\\n\\nthat Jackson leave the building. Smith explained to Jackson that he could be\\n\\narrested for criminal trespass if he attempted to stay on school property. According\\n\\nto Jackson, Smith grabbed his arm again and escorted him outside the gym. Later\\n\\nthat evening, Veliz asked Kemp to retrieve from her office a copy of the letter\\n\\nMcCurry wrote to Jackson and read it to her. Only then did they realize that\\n\\nJackson was permitted to attend the game and that they had made a mistake.\\n\\n Jackson and his wife filed a civil-rights complaint, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, on\\n\\nbehalf of themselves and E.D.J. asserting (1) a claim under the Fourth Amendment\\n\\nagainst Oates in his individual capacity for searching E.D.J.’s cellphone; (2) a\\n\\nclaim under the Fourth Amendment against Smith, Veliz, and Kemp in their\\n\\nindividual capacities for removing Jackson from school premises during the\\n\\nvolleyball game; (3) a claim under the First Amendment against McCurry in his\\n\\nindividual and official capacities for restricting Jackson’s communications with\\n\\nschool personnel and access to school property; and (4) another First Amendment\\n\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 9 of 30\\n\\n\\nclaim against McCurry in his individual and official capacities for preventing\\n\\nJackson from addressing the school board. Jackson also asserted state-law claims\\n\\nfor assault, invasion of privacy, and false imprisonment.\\n\\n After discovery, the school officials moved for summary judgment and the\\n\\ndistrict court granted their motion. Jackson did not respond to the officials’ motion\\n\\nfor summary judgment with respect to the official-capacity claims against\\n\\nMcCurry, so the district court ruled that those claims were abandoned. The district\\n\\ncourt concluded that none of Jackson’s individual-capacity claims stated a\\n\\nviolation of federal law, and that even if they did, the officials were shielded by\\n\\nqualified immunity because none of the alleged actions violated clearly established\\n\\nlaw. The district court also ruled that Jackson’s state-law claims were barred by the\\n\\nstate-law doctrine of official immunity because Jackson “failed to point to any\\n\\nevidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Defendants acted with\\n\\nactual malice.”\\n\\n II. STANDARD OF REVIEW\\n\\n We review a summary judgment de novo and “construe the evidence and\\n\\ndraw all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.”\\n\\nZiegler v. Martin Cty. Sch. Dist., 831 F.3d 1309, 1318 (11th Cir. 2016). We also\\n\\nreview de novo a grant of qualified immunity. Courson v. McMillian, 939 F.2d\\n\\n1479, 1486 (11th Cir. 1991).\\n\\n\\n\\n 9\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 10 of 30\\n\\n\\n III. DISCUSSION\\n\\n We divide our discussion in four parts. First, we consider Jackson’s\\n\\nargument that the search of E.D.J.’s cellphone violated the Fourth Amendment.\\n\\nSecond, we examine Jackson’s argument that McCurry violated the First\\n\\nAmendment when he prohibited Jackson from appearing on school premises.\\n\\nThird, we address Jackson’s claim that McCurry violated the First Amendment\\n\\nwhen he barred Jackson from speaking to the school board. And fourth, we\\n\\nconsider Jackson’s claim that his rights under the Fourth Amendment were\\n\\nviolated when Smith, Veliz, and Kemp removed him from the volleyball game. We\\n\\nconclude that all of the school officials are entitled to qualified immunity.\\n\\n “The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials ‘from\\n\\nliability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly\\n\\nestablished . . . constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have\\n\\nknown.’” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quoting Harlow v.\\n\\nFitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). To obtain dismissal based on qualified\\n\\nimmunity, “a government official must first establish that he was acting within the\\n\\nscope of his discretionary authority when the alleged wrongful act occurred.”\\n\\nBailey v. Wheeler, 843 F.3d 473, 480 (11th Cir. 2016). If he was, the burden shifts\\n\\nto the plaintiff to overcome the official’s qualified immunity. Mikko v. City of\\n\\nAtlanta, 857 F.3d 1136, 1144 (11th Cir. 2017). Because “there is no dispute” that\\n\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 11 of 30\\n\\n\\nall the school officials were “acting in [their] discretionary capacity,” “the burden\\n\\nshifts to the plaintiffs to show that qualified immunity is inappropriate.” Terrell v.\\n\\nSmith, 668 F.3d 1244, 1250 (11th Cir. 2012).\\n\\n To overcome the qualified-immunity defense, a plaintiff must prove that\\n\\n“the defendant violated her constitutional rights” and “that, at the time of the\\n\\nviolation, those rights were ‘clearly established . . . in light of the specific context\\n\\nof the case, not as a broad general proposition.’” Gaines v. Wardynski, 871 F.3d\\n\\n1203, 1208 (11th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted). We may address these issues in any\\n\\norder, Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236, “but, to survive a qualified-immunity defense,\\n\\n[the plaintiff] must satisfy both showings.” Wardynski, 871 F.3d at 1208 (quoting\\n\\nJones v. Fransen, 857 F.3d 843, 851 (11th Cir. 2017)).\\n\\n A plaintiff may “demonstrate that the contours of the right were clearly\\n\\nestablished in one of three ways.” Loftus v. Clark-Moore, 690 F.3d 1200, 1204\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2012) (alteration adopted) (citation and internal quotation marks\\n\\nomitted). First, a plaintiff may establish that “a materially similar case has already\\n\\nbeen decided.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Second, the\\n\\nplaintiff may “point to a broader, clearly established principle that should control\\n\\nthe novel facts of the situation.” Id. (alterations adopted). Third, “the conduct\\n\\ninvolved in the case may so obviously violate the [C]onstitution that prior case law\\n\\nis unnecessary.” Id. at 1205 (alterations adopted). The precedents that clearly\\n\\n\\n\\n 11\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 12 of 30\\n\\n\\nestablish law for these purposes are those of the Supreme Court, this Court, and the\\n\\nhighest court of the state where the challenged action occurred. See, e.g., Smith,\\n\\n668 F.3d at 1256; Mercado v. City of Orlando, 407 F.3d 1152, 1159 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2005).\\n\\n A. The Search of E.D.J.’s Cellphone Did Not Violate Clearly Established\\n Law.\\n\\n Jackson argues that the search of E.D.J.’s cellphone by Oates violated the\\n\\nFourth Amendment, but we conclude that even on the assumption that Jackson is\\n\\ncorrect, Oates is shielded from liability by qualified immunity because the search\\n\\ndid not contravene clearly established law. To resist this conclusion, Jackson relies\\n\\nprincipally on the decisions in New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985), and\\n\\nRiley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), but these decisions—whether considered\\n\\nindividually or jointly—do not clearly establish any principle of law that would\\n\\nmandate the conclusion that the search of E.D.J.’s cellphone was unlawful.\\n\\n In T.L.O., the Supreme Court established general parameters for searches of\\n\\nschool students by public-school officials. The Court held that searches of the\\n\\nperson or property of a student by public-school officials are governed by “a\\n\\nFourth Amendment standard of reasonableness that stops short of probable cause.”\\n\\n469 U.S. at 341. Under this standard, determining whether a search conducted by\\n\\nschool officials was reasonable involves “a twofold inquiry” that considers\\n\\n“first . . . ‘whether the . . . action was justified at its inception,’” id. (quoting Terry\\n\\n 12\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 13 of 30\\n\\n\\nv. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 (1968)), and “second . . . whether the search as actually\\n\\nconducted was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the\\n\\ninterference in the first place.’” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\nThe Court explained that “[u]nder ordinary circumstances, a search of a student by\\n\\na teacher or other school official will be ‘justified at its inception’ when there are\\n\\nreasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the\\n\\nstudent has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school.” Id. at\\n\\n341–42 (footnote omitted). And the Court said that “[s]uch a search will be\\n\\npermissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the\\n\\nobjectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of\\n\\nthe student and the nature of the infraction.” Id. at 342.\\n\\n As we have previously explained, in T.L.O., the Supreme Court formulated\\n\\nthe standard applicable to searches by school officials in terms of a “series of\\n\\nabstractions,” and the Court “did not attempt to establish clearly the contours of a\\n\\nFourth Amendment right as applied to the wide variety of possible school settings\\n\\ndifferent from those involved in T.L.O.” Jenkins by Hall v. Talladega City Bd. of\\n\\nEduc., 115 F.3d 821, 828 (11th Cir. 1997) (en banc). Although “general statements\\n\\nof the law are not inherently incapable of giving fair and clear warning” to\\n\\nofficials, United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 271 (1997), “in the light of pre-\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 13\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 14 of 30\\n\\n\\nexisting law the unlawfulness must be apparent.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S.\\n\\n635, 640 (1987).\\n\\n It was far from obvious that the search of E.D.J.’s phone was unlawful at its\\n\\ninception under T.L.O. Oates searched E.D.J.’s cellphone based on M’s accusation\\n\\nthat E.D.J. had made fun of her in text messages sent to other students, and this\\n\\nallegation was corroborated by the reports of two other students, A and B, and the\\n\\npolicies outlined in the school handbook prohibit both bullying and rude or\\n\\ndisrespectful behavior towards other students. It is at least arguable that this\\n\\nevidence supplied “reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search” of E.D.J.’s\\n\\nphone would “turn up evidence” that she “violated. . . the rules of the school.”\\n\\nT.L.O., 469 U.S. at 342.\\n\\n Nor does T.L.O. “place[] the . . . constitutional question” whether the search\\n\\nwas justified in scope “beyond debate.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741\\n\\n(2011). Nothing in T.L.O. establishes that searching a high-school senior’s text\\n\\nmessages for evidence of bullying would be “excessively intrusive in light of the\\n\\nage and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.” T.L.O., 469 U.S. at\\n\\n342. And although Oates allegedly expanded the search and reviewed messages\\n\\nbetween E.D.J. and persons other than A and B, including E.D.J.’s ex-boyfriend\\n\\nand family members, it is undisputed that E.D.J. labeled many of the contacts in\\n\\nher phone using emojis and nicknames. As the district court explained, “Oates\\n\\n\\n\\n 14\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 15 of 30\\n\\n\\nknew that [E.D.J.] could label her contacts in any manner she chose” and so “could\\n\\nreasonably assume that [E.D.J.] could disguise her contacts and any messages from\\n\\nthem.” As a result, it is arguable that a reasonable school official could conclude\\n\\nthat expanding the search to encompass those text messages would be “reasonably\\n\\nrelated to the objectives of the search.” T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 342.\\n\\n Riley does not alter our conclusion. In Riley, the Supreme Court held that “a\\n\\nwarrant is generally required before” police officers may search “the information\\n\\non a cell phone,” “even when a cell phone is seized incident to arrest,” 573 U.S. at\\n\\n401, but it did not attempt to spell out how its holding could be transposed to the\\n\\nsetting of a public school. True, because the reasoning of Riley treats cellphone\\n\\nsearches as especially intrusive in comparison to searches incident to arrest of\\n\\npersonal property, see id. at 393–98, a search of a student’s cellphone might\\n\\nrequire a more compelling justification than that required to search a student’s\\n\\nother personal effects under T.L.O. Cf. Safford Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. Redding,\\n\\n557 U.S. 364, 374 (2009) (holding that a strip search of a student by school\\n\\nofficials is “categorically distinct” and “requir[es] distinct elements of justification\\n\\non the part of school authorities for going beyond a search of outer clothing and\\n\\nbelongings”). But that conclusion hardly “follow[s] immediately” from T.L.O. and\\n\\nRiley “and thus was not clearly established by” the holdings of those decisions.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 15\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 16 of 30\\n\\n\\nMullenix v. Luna, 136 S. Ct. 305, 309 (2015) (citation and internal quotation marks\\n\\nomitted).\\n\\n Riley held only that the exception to the warrant requirement for searches\\n\\nincident to arrest does not extend to searches of information contained in\\n\\ncellphones, and T.L.O. held that “[t]he warrant requirement . . . is unsuited to the\\n\\nschool environment,” 469 U.S. at 340, so there is room for a reasonable school\\n\\nofficial to conclude that Riley has no application to school searches. And in the\\n\\nlight of the permissible disagreement about the implications of Riley for school\\n\\nsearches, we cannot say that Oates was “plainly incompetent” or “knowingly\\n\\nviolate[d] the law.” Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986); see also al-Kidd,\\n\\n563 U.S. at 743 (“Qualified immunity gives government officials breathing room\\n\\nto make reasonable . . . judgments about open legal questions.”).\\n\\n Jackson also cites a pair of out-of-circuit district-court opinions, see\\n\\nGallimore v. Henrico Cty. Sch. Bd., 38 F. Supp. 3d 721 (E.D. Va. 2014), Klump v.\\n\\nNazareth Area Sch. Dist., 425 F. Supp. 2d 622 (E.D. Pa. 2006), and an opinion\\n\\nfrom one of our sister circuits, G.C. v. Owensboro Pub. Sch., 711 F.3d 623 (6th\\n\\nCir. 2013), but these decisions cannot clearly establish that Oates’s conduct was\\n\\nunlawful. As we have repeatedly explained, “a district court case cannot clearly\\n\\nestablish the law for qualified immunity purposes.” Wardynski, 871 F.3d at 1211;\\n\\nsee also Gonzalez v. Lee Cty. Hous. Auth., 161 F.3d 1290, 1302 n.38 (11th Cir.\\n\\n\\n\\n 16\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 17 of 30\\n\\n\\n1998) (explaining that “our precedent firmly states that a district court opinion\\n\\ncannot” clearly establish law for qualified immunity). Nor can a decision from one\\n\\nof our sister circuits do so. See, e.g., Loftus, 690 F.3d at 1206 (a decision from one\\n\\nof our sister circuits “cannot provide ‘clearly established’ law in this Circuit”). And\\n\\nin any case, the decisions cited by Jackson are distinguishable. See G.C., 711 F.3d\\n\\nat 633–34 (search of a student’s cellphone based on “general background\\n\\nknowledge” that he abused drugs and was depressed and because he used the\\n\\ncellphone in class in violation of school policy was unjustified at its inception);\\n\\nGallimore, 38 F. Supp. 3d at 725 (expansion of a search to a student’s cellphone\\n\\nwas not “reasonably related” to the objective of “finding evidence of drug use on\\n\\nthe school bus earlier that day” because “the cell phone could not have contained\\n\\ndrugs”); Klump, 425 F. Supp. 2d at 640–41 (although seizure of a student’s phone\\n\\nbecause he used it during school hours in violation of school policy was justified,\\n\\nschool officials were not entitled to use the phone to call other students to\\n\\ndetermine whether they were also using phones).\\n\\n B. McCurry Did Not Violate Clearly Established Law When He Prohibited\\n Jackson from Appearing on School Premises.\\n\\n Jackson argues that his rights under the First Amendment were violated\\n\\nwhen McCurry sent him a letter prohibiting him from appearing on school\\n\\npremises except for the purpose of bringing E.D.J. to and from school and\\n\\nattending E.D.J.’s volleyball games. Regardless of whether Jackson is correct\\n\\n 17\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 18 of 30\\n\\n\\nthat this action violated the First Amendment, we conclude that McCurry’s\\n\\ndecision did not contravene clearly established law and so he is entitled to\\n\\nqualified immunity.\\n\\n Jackson contends that McCurry’s letter constituted an overbroad\\n\\nrestriction of his right to free speech in violation of Broderick v. Oklahoma, 413\\n\\nU.S. 601 (1973), because—in Jackson’s view—the letter prohibited him from\\n\\ncontacting teachers, coaches, and students outside of school premises, but this is\\n\\na misreading of the letter. McCurry’s letter recounted the circumstances of\\n\\nJackson’s encounter with the coaches of E.D.J.’s volleyball team and informed\\n\\nhim that “other than dropping off and picking up your child at school or at one\\n\\nof our facilities, you are to make no unauthorized appearance either at your\\n\\ndaughter’s school or at any extracurricular activity conducted by our faculty and\\n\\nstaff and where students are present.” The letter also instructed Jackson to\\n\\n“remain in the designated area for parents” if he attends a school event such as a\\n\\nvolleyball game. And it told Jackson “not to attempt to contact or talk with the\\n\\ncoaches, teachers, or students of our School System.”\\n\\n McCurry’s letter purports to ban Jackson only from appearing on school\\n\\npremises to contact school officials and students. In the light of the letter’s\\n\\nobvious emphasis on the circumstances in which Jackson is permitted to be\\n\\npresent on school premises, any reasonable reader would conclude that the\\n\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 19 of 30\\n\\n\\nletter’s prohibition on “contact[ing] or talk[ing] with the coaches, teachers, or\\n\\nstudents” refers only to on-campus communications. This reading is confirmed\\n\\nby McCurry’s uncontroverted deposition testimony, in which McCurry\\n\\nacknowledged that he “can’t dictate what [Jackson] does at somebody’s home”\\n\\nand stated that the purpose of the letter was to inform Jackson that he cannot\\n\\ncontact teachers, coaches, or students “during the day-to-day operations of the\\n\\nschool.”\\n\\n The restriction on Jackson’s on-campus communication with school\\n\\nofficials and students did not amount to a violation of clearly established law.\\n\\nJackson does not point to a single decision of this Court, the Supreme Court of\\n\\nthe United States, or the Georgia Supreme Court that articulates even the\\n\\ngeneral framework for assessing claims that a school official impermissibly\\n\\nrestricted a parent’s rights under the First Amendment on school property. And\\n\\nthe few decisions of our sister circuits reviewing claims similar to Jackson’s\\n\\nhave uniformly concluded that there is no clearly established right for parents to\\n\\naccess school property to exercise their rights under the First Amendment. See\\n\\nJohnson v. Perry, 859 F.3d 156, 175 (2d Cir. 2017) (holding that school official\\n\\nwas entitled to qualified immunity for “bann[ing] [the plaintiff] from [school]\\n\\nproperty for purposes other than attendance at sporting events” because “we\\n\\ncannot conclude that a parent has a general and unlimited First Amendment\\n\\n\\n\\n 19\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 20 of 30\\n\\n\\nright of access to school property”); Lovern v. Edwards, 190 F.3d 648, 656 (4th\\n\\nCir. 1999) (holding that there was no federal jurisdiction over a claim\\n\\npredicated on the exclusion of a parent from school premises because the claim\\n\\nwas “plainly insubstantial and entirely frivolous” and “a monument to what\\n\\nought not to be in a federal court” (internal quotation marks omitted)).\\n\\n In the absence of any controlling precedent that establishes even the\\n\\ngeneral rubric for determining whether official conduct violates the\\n\\nConstitution, it is impossible to say that “a broader, clearly established principle\\n\\n. . . should control the novel facts of the situation.” Loftus, 690 F.3d at 1204\\n\\n(alteration adopted and citation omitted). And one cannot say that McCurry’s\\n\\nconduct “so obviously violate[d]” the Constitution “that prior case law is\\n\\nunnecessary,” id. at 1205 (citation omitted), in the light of the duty of school\\n\\nofficials to prevent “the kind of boisterous and threatening conduct” that would\\n\\ninterrupt the “peace and quiet” required for the academic aspects of a school’s\\n\\nfunctions. Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 470–71 (1980) (quoting Gregory v.\\n\\nChicago, 394 U.S. 111, 118 (1969) (Black, J., concurring)). So we have little\\n\\ndifficulty concluding that Jackson’s claim is barred by qualified immunity.\\n\\n C. McCurry Did Not Violate Clearly Established Law When He Prohibited\\n Jackson from Addressing the School Board.\\n\\n Jackson also argues that McCurry violated the First Amendment by\\n\\nprohibiting him from attending and addressing a meeting of the local school\\n\\n 20\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 21 of 30\\n\\n\\nboard for threatening litigation against school officials, but we conclude that\\n\\nMcCurry is entitled to qualified immunity with respect to this claim. We begin\\n\\nby placing the meetings of the school board within the “forum analysis”\\n\\nframework dictated by Supreme Court precedent “to evaluate government\\n\\nrestrictions on purely private speech that occurs on government property,”\\n\\nWalker v. Tex. Div., Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 2239, 2250\\n\\n(2015), and then turn to evaluate Jackson’s claim under the First Amendment.\\n\\n All parties argue—and we agree—that a meeting of the school board\\n\\nqualifies as a limited public forum, at least insofar as each meeting includes a\\n\\nperiod for public comment in which the board may entertain citizen complaints\\n\\nif it chooses to do so. Board policy does not grant blanket permission to citizens\\n\\nto address the board, as would be the case if the board meeting were a\\n\\ndesignated public forum. Instead, the board “limits discussion to certain topics\\n\\nand employs a system of selective access.” Barrett v. Walker Cty. Sch. Dist.,\\n\\n872 F.3d 1209, 1225 (11th Cir. 2017). As explained in the school handbook,\\n\\npublic comment is limited by topic to “citizen complaints” that “cannot be\\n\\nresolved by the administration.”\\n\\n The policy also requires each citizen who desires to voice a complaint to\\n\\n“obtain permission from the governmental proprietor of the forum,” Barrett,\\n\\n872 F.3d at 1225, by “submit[ting] a written request to the Superintendent\\n\\n\\n\\n 21\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 22 of 30\\n\\n\\nstating their name, home address, the topic about which they wish to speak and\\n\\nthe group they represent, if applicable, no later than 12 o’clock on Thursday\\n\\nprior to the scheduled Board meeting.” And the board evidently “has discretion\\n\\nto grant or deny permission” to address the meeting, Barrett, 872 F.3d at 1225,\\n\\nbecause the policy states only that the board will “consider” hearing citizen\\n\\ncomplaints that have not been resolved by the school administration. Because\\n\\n“only those speakers who satisfy the Policy’s substantive and procedural\\n\\ncriteria may speak,” id., the board’s policy qualifies as a system of selective\\n\\naccess, and the portion of each board meeting devoted to citizen complaints is a\\n\\nlimited public forum.\\n\\n In a limited public forum, officials may exercise considerable control\\n\\nover which speakers may express their views and the subject matter of their\\n\\nexpression, but that discretion is not absolute. “Control over access to a [limited\\n\\npublic] forum can be based on subject matter and speaker identity so long as the\\n\\ndistinctions drawn are reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum\\n\\nand are viewpoint neutral.” Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund, Inc.,\\n\\n473 U.S. 788, 806 (1985). But in a limited public forum, the usual prohibition\\n\\non content discrimination is relaxed. As the Supreme Court has explained, in a\\n\\nlimited public forum, “content discrimination” may “be permissible if it\\n\\npreserves the purposes of [the] limited forum.” Rosenberger v. Rector &\\n\\n\\n\\n 22\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 23 of 30\\n\\n\\nVisitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 830 (1995). With these preliminaries in\\n\\nplace, we turn now to examine Jackson’s arguments.\\n\\n Jackson contends that McCurry’s decision was motivated by a desire to\\n\\nsuppress Jackson’s “viewpoint that Oate[s] violated E.D.J.’s constitutional\\n\\nrights,” and so violated the prohibition on viewpoint discrimination applicable\\n\\nto limited public fora under Cornelius and Rosenberger, but Jackson’s theory is\\n\\na nonstarter. A restriction on speech constitutes viewpoint discrimination “when\\n\\nthe specific motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective of the speaker is\\n\\nthe rationale for the restriction.” Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829. According to\\n\\nJackson’s own deposition testimony, McCurry did not prohibit Jackson from\\n\\nspeaking to the school board because he intended to express any particular\\n\\nopinion or perspective, but instead because he “had threatened litigation”\\n\\nagainst the school. So it was not Jackson’s view that provided the rationale for\\n\\nMcCurry’s decision, but an action that Jackson allegedly threatened to take.\\n\\nAnd even if banning all who threaten litigation could be construed as\\n\\ndiscrimination against those who hold contrary views, such an interpretation\\n\\nwas not so clearly established that we could say McCurry was “plainly\\n\\nincompetent” or “knowingly violate[d] the law.” Malley, 475 U.S. at 341.\\n\\n Although a facially neutral restriction on speech adopted with a veiled\\n\\nintent to “suppress a particular point of view” is invalid, Cornelius, 473 U.S. at\\n\\n\\n\\n 23\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 24 of 30\\n\\n\\n812, there is nothing in the record to support an inference that McCurry’s stated\\n\\njustification was pretextual. So we conclude that Jackson’s argument about\\n\\nviewpoint discrimination cannot overcome McCurry’s defense of qualified\\n\\nimmunity. See Wardynski, 871 F.3d at 1208.\\n\\n Jackson also suggests in passing that the board’s policy governing the\\n\\npresentation of citizen grievances at board meetings vested McCurry with\\n\\n“unbridled discretion” to determine whether any citizen may address the board\\n\\nin violation of our decisions in Barrett, Soltanic, LLC v. City of Neptune Beach,\\n\\n410 F.3d 1250 (11th Cir. 2005), and United States v. Frandsen, 212 F.3d 1231\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2000), but Jackson forfeited review of this issue. Jackson did not\\n\\nraise this argument before the district court, and as a general rule, “an issue not\\n\\nraised in the district court . . . will not be considered by this court.” Access Now,\\n\\nInc. v. Sw. Airlines Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1331 (11th Cir. 2004) (citation and\\n\\ninternal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\n Indeed, Jackson has not even properly raised this argument on appeal.\\n\\nJackson’s brief obliquely states that the school system “vested McCurry with\\n\\nunbridled discretion to determine whether R. Jackson could speak to the school\\n\\nboard on this subject,” and his analysis of the “clearly established” element of\\n\\nthe qualified-immunity inquiry includes an undeveloped assertion that\\n\\n“McCurry had clear and fair warning the exercise of his unbridled discretion to\\n\\n\\n\\n 24\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 25 of 30\\n\\n\\nprohibit R. Jackson from speaking to the school board on a matter of\\n\\nconstitutional importance could be a prior restraint on his right to free speech.”\\n\\nJackson’s reply brief also asserts that “McCurry’s unbridled discretion denying\\n\\nR. Jackson an opportunity to speak to the school board based on his viewpoint\\n\\nconstitutes a violation of the First Amendment.” But a trio of stray references to\\n\\na theory does not suffice to present it.\\n\\n As we have explained, “[a]bandonment of an issue can . . . occur when\\n\\npassing references appear in the argument section of an opening brief,\\n\\nparticularly when the references are mere ‘background’ to the appellant’s main\\n\\narguments or when they are ‘buried’ within those arguments.” Sapuppo v.\\n\\nAllstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 682 (11th Cir. 2014). The “passing\\n\\nreferences” to an unbridled-discretion issue in Jackson’s briefs “are nothing\\n\\nmore than conclusory assertions,” and “[t]he brief makes no argument . . . to\\n\\nsupport those conclusory assertions.” Id. And although Jackson’s amicus, the\\n\\nAmerican Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, provides a more developed version\\n\\nof this unbridled-discretion challenge, we “will not consider issues raised in an\\n\\namicus brief that were neither raised in the district court nor argued by\\n\\nappellants on appeal” as a general rule. Day v. Persels & Assocs., LLC, 729\\n\\nF.3d 1309, 1330 (11th Cir. 2013) (citation and internal quotation marks\\n\\nomitted). We see no reason to deviate from our settled practice in this appeal, so\\n\\n\\n\\n 25\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 26 of 30\\n\\n\\nwe will not consider Jackson’s argument that the board’s policy vested\\n\\nMcCurry with unbridled discretion to determine who could address the school\\n\\nboard.\\n\\n D. Smith, Kemp, and Veliz Did Not Violate Clearly Established Law by\\n Removing Jackson from the Volleyball Game.\\n\\n Jackson argues that Smith, Kemp, and Veliz violated his rights under the\\n\\nFourth Amendment when they stopped him and asked him to leave his daughter’s\\n\\nvolleyball game, but we conclude that their actions did not violate clearly\\n\\nestablished law. Jackson does not attempt to argue that we have already decided “a\\n\\nmaterially similar case” or that “the conduct involved . . . so obviously violate[s]\\n\\nthe [C]onstitution that prior case law is unnecessary.” Loftus, 690 F.3d at 1204–05\\n\\n(alteration adopted) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Instead,\\n\\nJackson argues that the officials violated the generic requirement that a seizure that\\n\\nfalls short of a full-blown arrest requires the support of “a reasonable, articulable\\n\\nsuspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123\\n\\n(2000) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968)). And he argues that the alleged\\n\\nseizure was “excessive and unreasonable” because Smith “did not have any right to\\n\\nuse any degree of force in seizing” Jackson under our decisions in Reese v.\\n\\nHerbert, 527 F.3d 1253 (11th Cir. 2008), and Evans v. Stephens, 407 F.3d 1272\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2005).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 26\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 27 of 30\\n\\n\\n Jackson’s argument that the officials acted without reasonable suspicion fails\\n\\nto establish that they violated clearly established law because the officials arguably\\n\\nhad reasonable grounds to suspect Jackson of criminal trespass. Under Georgia\\n\\nlaw, “[a] person commits the offense of criminal trespass when he or she\\n\\nknowingly and without authority” “[e]nters upon the land or premises of another\\n\\nperson . . . after receiving, prior to such entry, notice from . . . an authorized\\n\\nrepresentative of the owner or rightful occupant that such entry is forbidden,”\\n\\nO.C.G.A. § 16-7-21(b), or “[r]emains upon the land or premises of another . . .\\n\\nafter receiving notice from . . . an authorized representative of the owner or rightful\\n\\noccupant to depart.” Id. § 16-7-21(b)(3). The record attests that Smith witnessed\\n\\nMcCurry’s earlier ejection of Jackson from school premises when Jackson\\n\\nappeared at the school to speak with Veliz after Oates searched E.D.J.’s cellphone.\\n\\nAfter that encounter, McCurry advised Smith that Jackson was not permitted on\\n\\nschool premises and told Smith that he had informed Jackson not to appear on\\n\\ncampus. And before Smith removed Jackson, Kemp called Veliz to confirm that\\n\\nJackson was not permitted on school property and was informed by Kemp that they\\n\\nshould remove Jackson from the school.\\n\\n In this circumstance, it is at least arguable that the officials had the “minimal\\n\\nlevel of objective justification” sufficient to support a limited stop for the purpose\\n\\nof ascertaining whether Jackson was lawfully present at the game and asking him\\n\\n\\n\\n 27\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 28 of 30\\n\\n\\nto leave when he could not satisfy them that he was permitted to be on school\\n\\nproperty. United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989) (citation omitted). And\\n\\nunder our precedents, arguable suspicion suffices to establish an entitlement to\\n\\nqualified immunity. As we have explained, “[w]hen an officer asserts qualified\\n\\nimmunity, the issue is not whether reasonable suspicion existed in fact, but\\n\\nwhether the officer had ‘arguable’ reasonable suspicion to support an investigatory\\n\\nstop.” Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156, 1166 (11th Cir. 2000).\\n\\n Jackson argues that the stop could not have been lawful because McCurry’s\\n\\nletter permitted Jackson to appear on campus for the purpose of observing E.D.J.’s\\n\\nvolleyball games, but it is undisputed that neither Smith, Kemp, nor Veliz had read\\n\\nthe letter when the “seizure” and ejection occurred. Under our caselaw, “[a] law\\n\\nenforcement official who reasonably but mistakenly concludes that reasonable\\n\\nsuspicion is present is still entitled to qualified immunity.” Sauls, 206 F.3d at\\n\\n1165–66. And although a copy of the letter was on Veliz’s desk when she spoke\\n\\nwith Kemp and authorized the ejection of Jackson from the game, her failure to\\n\\nread the letter was not obviously unreasonable because she was out of town when\\n\\nthe altercation at the volleyball game occurred. So we conclude that Jackson’s\\n\\nargument about reasonable suspicion does not overcome the qualified-immunity\\n\\ndefense raised by Smith, Kemp, and Veliz.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 28\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 29 of 30\\n\\n\\n Jackson’s argument that Smith used excessive force also fails to establish\\n\\nthat Smith breached a duty under clearly established law. Jackson testified that\\n\\nSmith’s grip on his arm was not painful and that he was unaware if it caused him\\n\\nany injury. It follows that the force used on Jackson “was de minimis,” and as we\\n\\nhave explained, “[d]e minimis force will only support a Fourth Amendment\\n\\nexcessive force claim when ‘an arresting officer does not have the right to make an\\n\\narrest.’” Zivojinovich v. Barner, 525 F.3d 1059, 1072 (11th Cir. 2008) (quoting\\n\\nBashir v. Rockdale Cty., Ga., 445 F.3d 1323, 1332 (11th Cir. 2006)). And because\\n\\nSmith arguably had a right to detain Jackson, the conclusion that Smith used\\n\\nexcessive force is not “beyond debate.” al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 741.\\n\\n In any case, Smith’s modest use of force against Jackson was arguably\\n\\nreasonable. As we have explained, “[t]he ‘reasonableness’ inquiry in an excessive\\n\\nforce case is an objective one: the question is whether the officer’s actions are\\n\\n‘objectively reasonable’ in light of the facts and circumstances confronting him,\\n\\nwithout regard to his underlying intent or motivation.” Kesinger ex rel. Estate of\\n\\nKesinger v. Herrington, 381 F.3d 1243, 1248 (11th Cir. 2004). It is arguable that\\n\\nSmith reasonably believed that Jackson had been hostile with school officials on\\n\\nseveral earlier occasions and so had reason to suspect that a modicum of force was\\n\\nwarranted to maintain control over the situation. We conclude that Smith is entitled\\n\\nto qualified immunity with respect to Jackson’s claim under the Fourth\\n\\n\\n\\n 29\\n\\f Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 30 of 30\\n\\n\\nAmendment and that Kemp and Veliz are immune from suit for approving Smith’s\\n\\nremoval of Jackson from the game.\\n\\n IV. CONCLUSION\\n\\n We AFFIRM the summary judgment against the Jacksons and in favor of\\n\\nthe school officials.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 30\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1352,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4599632,"string":"4,599,632"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Ruben SEBASTIAN, Plaintiff -Appellee, v. Javier ORTIZ, Defendant - Appellant, Jay Grossman, Daniel Crocker, Et Al., Defendants."},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Ruben Sebastian v. Javier Ortiz"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-14"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"17-14751"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Marcus, Dubina, Goldberg\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"MARCUS, Circuit Judge:\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 1 of 20\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 17-14751\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 1:16-cv-20501-FAM\\n\\n\\n\\nRUBEN SEBASTIAN,\\n\\n Plaintiff -Appellee,\\n\\nversus\\n\\nJAVIER ORTIZ,\\n\\n Defendant - Appellant,\\n\\nJAY GROSSMAN,\\nDANIEL CROCKER, et al.,\\n\\n Defendants.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Southern District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n (March 14, 2019)\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 2 of 20\\n\\n\\nBefore MARCUS and DUBINA, Circuit Judges, and GOLDBERG, * Judge.\\n\\nMARCUS, Circuit Judge:\\n\\n In this interlocutory appeal, Lieutenant Javier Ortiz of the Miami Police\\n\\nDepartment challenges the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss this civil\\n\\nrights excessive force case arising out of a routine traffic stop. The appellee,\\n\\nRuben Sebastian, alleges that during the course of the stop and his subsequent\\n\\narrest, Ortiz restrained him with handcuffs for more than five hours “in a manner\\n\\npurposely intended to cause pain and injury.” On account of the officer’s\\n\\nmisconduct, Sebastian claims to have suffered nerve damage and the permanent\\n\\nloss of sensation in his hands and wrists. This case presents the question whether a\\n\\npolice officer is entitled to qualified immunity when he intentionally applies\\n\\nunnecessarily tight handcuffs to an arrestee who is neither resisting arrest nor\\n\\nattempting to flee, thereby causing serious and permanent injuries. After careful\\n\\nreview of the entire record, we agree with the district court that the appellant was\\n\\nnot entitled to qualified immunity.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Since we are reviewing the denial of Lieutenant Ortiz’s motion to dismiss,\\n\\nwe accept the facts in the amended complaint as true and view them in the light\\n\\n\\n\\n*\\n Honorable Richard W. Goldberg, Judge for the United States Court of International Trade,\\nsitting by designation.\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 3 of 20\\n\\n\\nmost favorable to the plaintiff. On July 7, 2015, Ruben Sebastian was pulled over\\n\\nfor a traffic violation while driving on the Rickenbacker Causeway in the city of\\n\\nMiami. Officer Jay Grossman of the City of Miami Police Department made the\\n\\nstop. Grossman approached Sebastian’s window, told him he believed Sebastian\\n\\nhad exceeded the speed limit, and requested to check the tint on the front windows\\n\\nof the vehicle to determine compliance with Florida law. Sebastian complied but\\n\\nhe refused Officer Grossman permission to search the interior of the vehicle. The\\n\\nofficer claimed that the tint on the rear windows prevented him from seeing into\\n\\nthe back of the car; Sebastian asserted, however, that the entire interior was readily\\n\\nvisible because the front windows of the car were rolled down. After Sebastian\\n\\ndenied consent to the search, Officer Grossman summoned Lieutenant Javier\\n\\nOrtiz1 of the Miami Police Department for backup.\\n\\n When Ortiz arrived at the scene, he too asked for permission to search the\\n\\ninterior of the vehicle. Sebastian again refused, and Ortiz allegedly “became\\n\\nenraged,” opened the car door, and removed Sebastian from the vehicle. First Am.\\n\\nCompl. ¶ 24. By this time, a third officer (“Officer Doe”) had arrived at the scene.\\n\\nEither Ortiz or Doe then restrained Sebastian, pressed his face into the hood of a\\n\\npolice car, and placed him in metal handcuffs. Sebastian claims that the handcuffs\\n\\n\\n\\n1\\n Ortiz has recently been promoted to the rank of Captain. We use Ortiz’s title at the time of the\\nevents for consistency and ease of reference.\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 4 of 20\\n\\n\\nwere engaged “in a manner purposely intended to cause pain and injury, cutting off\\n\\nthe circulation in his hands, and cutting into the skin on his wrists.” Id. ¶ 25.\\n\\nSebastian complained, and either Officer Doe or Ortiz responded that “he knew of\\n\\na way to make them tighter.” Id.\\n\\n While Sebastian was restrained, the officers began to search the vehicle.\\n\\nSebastian informed the officers that he had a firearm in the car, and with his\\n\\nassistance the officers located the gun in the side pocket of the driver side door,\\n\\nsecured in its holster. Upon retrieving the firearm, which Sebastian had a permit to\\n\\ncarry, Lieutenant Ortiz or Officer Grossman told Sebastian that he “would not that\\n\\nday, or ever, return to his job” as a security guard employed by Miami-Dade\\n\\nCounty. Id. ¶ 30.\\n\\n Lieutenant Ortiz then directed that a fourth officer, Daniel Crocker, place\\n\\nSebastian in his vehicle for transportation to the police station. Doe or Ortiz\\n\\nreplaced the metal handcuffs with plastic flex cuffs, again, allegedly, “intentionally\\n\\ntightening the cuffs in a manner purposely and wantonly intended to cause pain\\n\\nand further injury.” Id. ¶ 32. Doe or Ortiz placed Sebastian in Officer Crocker’s\\n\\nvehicle “in a position and manner that increased the pain caused by the over\\n\\ntightened flex-cuffs,” and Crocker raised the windows and left Sebastian inside.\\n\\nId. As the temperature inside the vehicle began to rise, Sebastian asked to have the\\n\\nwindows rolled down; Officer Crocker rolled a rear window down one or two\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 5 of 20\\n\\n\\ninches. He refused, however, to open the window further or loosen the flex cuffs\\n\\nas Sebastian complained that he was beginning to lose feeling in his hands.\\n\\nSebastian remained in the car for an unspecified period of time, and after the\\n\\ncompletion of the search he was transported to a police station where he was\\n\\ndetained for more than five hours, still handcuffed behind his back. He was\\n\\ncharged in two counts with Resisting or Obstructing an Officer Without Violence\\n\\nunder Fla. Stat. § 843.02 and one count of Reckless Display of a Firearm in\\n\\nviolation of Fla. Stat. § 790.10. The charges were later dropped by the State\\n\\nAttorney, although Sebastian pleaded guilty to a noncriminal speeding violation\\n\\nunder Fla. Stat. § 316.189(1).\\n\\n Sebastian further alleges that he “continues to suffer nerve damage to his\\n\\nhands and wrists, emotional pain and suffering, loss of employment, and\\n\\nreputational damages” as a result of the handcuffing and arrest. First Am. Compl.\\n\\n¶ 44. His employment with Miami-Dade County was in fact terminated, and he\\n\\nhas been unable to find work as a security guard elsewhere. In February 2016,\\n\\nSebastian commenced this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the\\n\\nSouthern District of Florida against each of the officers -- Ortiz, Grossman, Doe,\\n\\nand Crocker -- the City of Miami, and Chief of Police Rodolfo Llanes on a number\\n\\nof theories of liability. As relevant here, he asserted claims of excessive force in\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 5\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 6 of 20\\n\\n\\nviolation of the Fourth Amendment and supervisory liability for failure to stop\\n\\nunlawful acts against Lieutenant Ortiz.\\n\\n Ortiz moved to dismiss the charges on the ground of qualified immunity.\\n\\nThe district court first concluded that the officers were entitled to make a custodial\\n\\narrest because they had probable cause to believe Sebastian was speeding in\\n\\nviolation of Fla. Stat. § 316.189(1), and this Court has held that officers are\\n\\npermitted to make custodial arrests for noncriminal offenses in Florida. See, e.g.,\\n\\nDurruthy v. Pastor, 351 F.3d 1080, 1089 (11th Cir. 2003) (approving the arrest of a\\n\\npedestrian for walking on the roadway where sidewalks were available for use);\\n\\nsee also Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318, 354 (2001). The trial court\\n\\nrejected Sebastian’s argument that probable cause to arrest was vitiated since the\\n\\nofficers decided to make the arrest solely because of his objections to the search,\\n\\nconcluding that “the officers’ subjective intentions and motivations play no role in\\n\\nthe probable cause analysis.” Under the “fellow officer rule,” Grossman’s\\n\\nprobable cause to arrest Sebastian for speeding was imputed to Ortiz and the other\\n\\nofficers, even though they arrived on the scene later.\\n\\n To begin the excessive force analysis, the district court rejected Sebastian’s\\n\\nargument that any use of force was unlawful because the arrest itself was lawful\\n\\nand law enforcement officers are entitled to use some degree of force in effecting a\\n\\nlawful arrest. Indeed, this Court has recognized that a “typical arrest involves\\n\\n\\n 6\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 7 of 20\\n\\n\\nsome force and injury.” See, e.g., Rodriguez v. Farrell, 280 F.3d 1341, 1351 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2002). Whether the use of force in making an arrest is excessive turns on\\n\\nmultiple factors including the severity of the crime and whether the suspect posed a\\n\\nthreat, was resisting, or fleeing. Applying this standard, the trial court held that the\\n\\nsevere injuries Sebastian suffered from handcuffing provided a sufficient basis to\\n\\ndeny qualified immunity and permit the claim to move forward to discovery. It\\n\\nconcluded, however, that confining Sebastian inside the hot, unventilated car was\\n\\nnot excessive force, especially since he suffered no lasting injuries from this\\n\\nconduct.\\n\\n The district court also determined that Sebastian had sufficiently alleged a\\n\\nsupervisory liability claim against Lieutenant Ortiz for failure to stop unlawful acts\\n\\nby his officers. Sebastian was unsure whether Lieutenant Ortiz or Officer Doe\\n\\nactually applied the handcuffs, and his supervisory claim alleges that Ortiz failed to\\n\\nstop Doe’s use of excessive force. Because the court found that Sebastian\\n\\nsufficiently alleged the underlying excessive force claim, he had sufficiently\\n\\nalleged this supervisory claim as well.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n We review the denial of qualified immunity at the motion to dismiss stage de\\n\\nnovo. Chesser v. Sparks, 248 F.3d 1117, 1121 (11th Cir. 2001). We are required\\n\\nto accept all allegations in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences\\n\\n\\n 7\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 8 of 20\\n\\n\\nin the plaintiff’s favor. St. George v. Pinellas Cty., 285 F.3d 1334, 1337 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2002). Our review is “limited to the four corners of the complaint.” Id.\\n\\n Qualified immunity shields government officials “from liability for civil\\n\\ndamages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or\\n\\nconstitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Harlow v.\\n\\nFitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). It is designed to permit officials to perform\\n\\ntheir discretionary duties “without the fear of personal liability or harassing\\n\\nlitigation.” Lee v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1194 (11th Cir. 2002). The doctrine\\n\\ntherefore “protect[s] from suit ‘all but the plainly incompetent or one who is\\n\\nknowingly violating the federal law.’” Id. (quoting Willingham v. Loughnan, 261\\n\\nF.3d 1178, 1187 (11th Cir. 2001), vacated 537 U.S. 801 (2002)). Because\\n\\nqualified immunity protects officials from suit as well as liability, courts must\\n\\ndetermine the validity of a claimed qualified immunity defense at the earliest\\n\\npossible time. Id.\\n\\n To deny qualified immunity at the motion to dismiss stage, we must\\n\\nconclude both that the allegations in the complaint, accepted as true, establish a\\n\\nconstitutional violation and that the constitutional violation was “clearly\\n\\nestablished.” Keating v. City of Miami, 598 F.3d 753, 762 (11th Cir. 2010). For\\n\\nthese purposes, clearly established law consists of holdings of the Supreme Court,\\n\\nthe Eleventh Circuit, or the highest court of the relevant state. See Jenkins v.\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 9 of 20\\n\\n\\nTalladega City Bd. of Educ., 115 F.3d 821, 826 n.4 (11th Cir. 1997). A “public\\n\\nofficial ‘must first prove that he was acting within the scope of his discretionary\\n\\nauthority when the allegedly wrongful acts occurred’” to receive the benefit of\\n\\nqualified immunity. Lee, 284 F.3d at 1194 (quoting Courson v. McMillian, 939\\n\\nF.2d 1479, 1487 (11th Cir. 1991)). Here, no one disputes that Ortiz was acting\\n\\nwithin the scope of his discretionary authority when he arrived at the scene and\\n\\nultimately arrested Sebastian. After the defendant makes this showing, “the burden\\n\\nshifts to the plaintiff to show that qualified immunity is not appropriate.” Id.\\n\\n Sebastian argues that Lieutenant Ortiz is not entitled to qualified immunity\\n\\nbecause he violated the clearly established law prohibiting the use of excessive\\n\\nforce in making an arrest. 2 More specifically, Sebastian points to our body of\\n\\ncases holding “that gratuitous use of force when a criminal suspect is not resisting\\n\\narrest constitutes excessive force.” Hadley v. Gutierrez, 526 F.3d 1324, 1330 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2008).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n2\\n Sebastian also renews his argument that the use of force was categorically unlawful because the\\ntraffic stop was unlawfully extended and Lieutenant Ortiz was not entitled to make an arrest.\\nSee Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156, 1171 (11th Cir. 2000) (“[I]f a stop or arrest is illegal, then\\nthere is no basis for any threat or any use of force . . . .”). We decline to address this argument\\nbecause under this Court’s precedent, “a claim that any force in an illegal stop or arrest is\\nexcessive is subsumed in the illegal stop or arrest claim and is not a discrete excessive force\\nclaim.” Id.; Williamson v. Mills, 65 F.3d 155, 158 (11th Cir. 1995). Only Sebastian’s excessive\\nforce and supervisory failure to intervene claims are before this Court on appeal.\\n 9\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 10 of 20\\n\\n\\n To determine whether the force used is excessive, the Supreme Court has\\n\\ndirected us to consider many factors “including the severity of the crime at issue,\\n\\nwhether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or\\n\\nothers, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by\\n\\nflight.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989). Our cases have added “the\\n\\nrelationship between the need and amount of force used” and “the extent of the\\n\\ninjury inflicted” as important considerations. Vinyard v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340,\\n\\n1347 (11th Cir. 2002). “Because this standard establishes no bright line, qualified\\n\\nimmunity applies unless application of the standard would inevitably lead every\\n\\nreasonable officer in [the officer’s] position to conclude the force was unlawful.”\\n\\nPost v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 7 F.3d 1552, 1559 (11th Cir. 1993), modified, 14\\n\\nF.3d 583 (11th Cir. 1994). Applying this test, “[w]e have repeatedly ruled that a\\n\\npolice officer violates the Fourth Amendment, and is denied qualified immunity, if\\n\\nhe or she uses gratuitous and excessive force against a suspect who is under\\n\\ncontrol, not resisting, and obeying commands.” Stephens v. DeGiovanni, 852 F.3d\\n\\n1298, 1328 (11th Cir. 2017) (quoting Saunders v. Duke, 766 F.3d 1262, 1265 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2014)).\\n\\n Lieutenant Ortiz argues that he did not use excessive force because the force\\n\\nwas de minimis. “[T]he application of de minimis force, without more, will not\\n\\nsupport a claim for excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” Nolin\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 11 of 20\\n\\n\\nv. Isbell, 207 F.3d 1253, 1257 (11th Cir. 2000). This is because the right to make\\n\\nan arrest necessarily carries with it the right to use “some degree of physical\\n\\ncoercion or threat thereof,” and “the typical arrest involves some force and injury.”\\n\\nRodriguez, 280 F.3d at 1351 (quoting Graham, 490 U.S. at 396). Drawing a\\n\\ncorollary to this principle, we have held that “[p]ainful handcuffing, without more,\\n\\nis not excessive force in cases where the resulting injuries are minimal.” See id. at\\n\\n1351.\\n\\n We have applied the de minimis force principle to handcuffing and granted\\n\\nofficers qualified immunity in a series of cases. First, in Gold v. City of Miami,\\n\\n121 F.3d 1442 (11th Cir. 1997), we granted qualified immunity when a plaintiff\\n\\nalleged that officers used excessive force by “applying the handcuffs too tightly\\n\\nand by leaving them that way for an unreasonable amount of time.” Id. at 1446;\\n\\nsee id. at 1447. The Court noted that the plaintiff “experienced pain from the\\n\\nhandcuffs for roughly twenty minutes” but he “suffered only skin abrasions for\\n\\nwhich he did not seek medical treatment.” Id. at 1446. A panel of this Court\\n\\nconcluded that “[t]he minor nature of this injury reflects that minimal force was\\n\\nused,” and therefore the officers were entitled to qualified immunity. Id. at 1446–\\n\\n47. Similarly, in Nolin v. Isbell, 207 F.3d 1253 (11th Cir. 2000), the plaintiff\\n\\nbrought an excessive force claim after an officer shoved him against a vehicle,\\n\\npushed his knee into his back and his head against the vehicle, searched him in an\\n\\n\\n 11\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 12 of 20\\n\\n\\nuncomfortable manner, then placed him in handcuffs. Id. at 1258 n.4. The\\n\\nplaintiff ended up only with “minor bruising [that] quickly disappeared without\\n\\ntreatment,” so again we found that these facts fell “within the ambit of the de\\n\\nminimis force principle” applied in Gold. Id.\\n\\n Rodriguez v. Farrell, 280 F.3d 1341 (11th Cir. 2002), involved more serious\\n\\ninjuries and this Court still granted qualified immunity. During the course of a\\n\\nlawful arrest, an officer grabbed the plaintiff’s arm and twisted it around his back\\n\\nin order to apply handcuffs, using what the Court deemed “a relatively common\\n\\nand ordinarily accepted non-excessive way to detain an arrestee.” Id. at 1351. But\\n\\nbecause the plaintiff had recently had surgery on his elbow, the technique caused\\n\\nthe displacement of a bone fragment and this injury eventually led to the\\n\\namputation of the lower part of the plaintiff’s arm. Id. Still, the Court granted the\\n\\nofficer qualified immunity because there was no reason to think that the officer\\n\\nknew of the plaintiff’s surgery or knew that handcuffing the plaintiff in that way\\n\\nwould aggravate the preexisting condition. Id. Lieutenant Ortiz submits that these\\n\\ncases imply the rule that “otherwise de minimis force could possibly be actionable\\n\\nonly if the officer knew that the particular action would cause serious injury to a\\n\\nparticularly vulnerable person, even when that same action would not have harmed\\n\\na less vulnerable arrestee.” Reply Br. of Appellant Javier Ortiz 5.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 12\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 13 of 20\\n\\n\\n Nothing in these cases, however, addressed serious and substantial injury\\n\\nintentionally and gratuitously inflicted on an individual of ordinary vulnerability.\\n\\n“The nature and extent of physical injuries sustained by a plaintiff” are key factors\\n\\nin determining whether the use of force was reasonable, and here Sebastian has\\n\\nalleged serious, permanent injuries. Stephens, 852 F.3d at 1325. He claims that\\n\\nthe handcuffs -- which were left in place for more than five hours after he arrived\\n\\nat the station, long after his first complaints -- “caused constriction of the blood\\n\\ncirculation” and “nerve damage,” leading to the “permanent loss of sensation” in\\n\\nhis hands. First Am. Compl. ¶ 67. The seriousness and permanence of Sebastian’s\\n\\ninjuries takes his claim out of the de minimis category. Lieutenant Ortiz\\n\\neffectively argues that handcuffing alone can never constitute excessive force,\\n\\nregardless of the need for the use of force under the circumstances or the extent of\\n\\nthe injuries inflicted, which is a proposition that this Court has never endorsed. If\\n\\nan officer, for instance, needlessly handcuffed an injured driver who crashed his\\n\\nvehicle while speeding and seriously aggravated the injuries caused by the\\n\\naccident, the fact that the officer harmed the driver by “merely” applying handcuffs\\n\\nwould not necessarily bar an excessive force claim.\\n\\n Notably, all of the Graham factors -- the severity of the crime, the safety risk\\n\\nposed to the officers and others, and whether the plaintiff was resisting arrest or\\n\\nattempting to flee or evade the officers -- weigh decidedly in Sebastian’s favor.\\n\\n\\n 13\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 14 of 20\\n\\n\\nSee Graham, 490 U.S. at 396. Speeding is a minor, noncriminal offense. If “more\\n\\nforce is appropriate for a more serious offense and less force is appropriate for a\\n\\nless serious one,” then a minimal degree of force was appropriate here. Lee, 284\\n\\nF.3d at 1198. Although an officer is entitled to make a custodial arrest for this\\n\\nkind of violation under Atwater and unsafe driving of course poses some risk to\\n\\npublic safety, speeding is far from the most serious offense an officer can expect to\\n\\nencounter on patrol. What’s more, there is not the slightest indication in this\\n\\nrecord that Sebastian posed a threat to officer safety or to anyone else, or was a\\n\\nflight risk at any time during the interaction. All he did was refuse the officers’\\n\\nrequests for permission to search his vehicle, and he was nevertheless subjected to\\n\\nforce that left him with permanent injuries. This is enough to establish that\\n\\nSebastian’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from the excessive use of force was\\n\\nviolated under the exceptional circumstances of this case.\\n\\n Now to the “clearly established” question. A plaintiff can show the violation\\n\\nof a clearly established right in a few ways. See Vinyard, 311 F.3d at 1350–52.\\n\\nFirst, and most commonly, a plaintiff can point to a case with “materially similar”\\n\\nfacts decided by the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, or the highest court of\\n\\nthe relevant state. Id. at 1352. Or, a plaintiff can “show that a broader, clearly\\n\\nestablished principle should control the novel facts in this situation.” Mercado v.\\n\\nCity of Orlando, 407 F.3d 1152, 1159 (11th Cir. 2005). The final, and often most\\n\\n\\n 14\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 15 of 20\\n\\n\\ndifficult option is to demonstrate that “the official's conduct ‘was so far beyond the\\n\\nhazy border between excessive and acceptable force that [the official] had to know\\n\\nhe was violating the Constitution even without caselaw on point.’” Priester v. City\\n\\nof Riviera Beach, 208 F.3d 919, 926 (11th Cir. 2000) (quoting Smith v. Mattox,\\n\\n127 F.3d 1416, 1419 (11th Cir. 1997)).\\n\\n Our case law establishes that “gratuitous use of force when a criminal\\n\\nsuspect is not resisting arrest” may constitute excessive force. Hadley, 526 F.3d at\\n\\n1330. Thus, for example, in Smith v. Mattox, 127 F.3d 1416 (11th Cir. 1997), an\\n\\nofficer approached Smith while investigating a tip that described someone with\\n\\nSmith’s characteristics as being in the possession of cocaine. Id. at 1417. Smith\\n\\nraised a baseball bat in a threatening posture toward the officer and then fled. Id.\\n\\nat 1418. After a short chase, Smith “docilely submitted to arrest” when an officer\\n\\nordered him to “get down.” Id. The officer then put his knee into Smith’s back\\n\\nwhile he was on the ground, pulled his arm behind his back to apply handcuffs,\\n\\n“and then with a grunt and a blow -- but no sign of anger -- [the officer] broke\\n\\nSmith’s arm.” Id. The Court held that the officer was not entitled to qualified\\n\\nimmunity because the “broken arm was obviously unnecessary to restrain” Smith\\n\\nwhen he “was offering no resistance at all.” Id. at 1420. This pushed the case into\\n\\n“the slender category of cases in which the unlawfulness of the conduct is readily\\n\\napparent even without clarifying caselaw.” Id.\\n\\n\\n 15\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 16 of 20\\n\\n\\n Again, in Stephens v. DeGiovanni, 852 F.3d 1298 (11th Cir. 2017), this\\n\\nCourt denied qualified immunity when an officer “slugged” the plaintiff in the\\n\\nchest and threw him into a car-door jamb in the course of a misdemeanor arrest\\n\\nwhile the plaintiff was obeying the officer’s commands and responding to his\\n\\nquestions. Id. at 1308. Considered alongside the minor nature of the offense, the\\n\\nCourt found that the nature and extent of the plaintiff’s injuries -- a cervical sprain,\\n\\na torn rotator cuff, and a sprained wrist, among others -- were “the most telling\\n\\nfactor[s]” in evaluating whether the force used was excessive. Id. at 1326. The\\n\\nCourt held that “no particularized preexisting case law was necessary for it to be\\n\\nclearly established” that the officer used excessive force on these facts. Id. at 1328\\n\\n(quoting Priester, 208 F.3d at 927).\\n\\n Still again, in Lee v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188 (11th Cir. 2002), we denied\\n\\nqualified immunity to an officer who violently slammed an arrestee’s head into the\\n\\ntrunk of her vehicle after she was handcuffed. Id. at 1200. The Court relied on\\n\\n“the clear and obvious principle that once an arrest has been fully secured and any\\n\\npotential danger or risk of flight vitiated, a police officer cannot employ the severe\\n\\nand unnecessary force allegedly used.” Id. No reasonable officer could have\\n\\nbelieved that use of force was legal under the circumstances, so this officer was not\\n\\nentitled to qualified immunity. And in Hadley v. Gutierrez, 526 F.3d 1324 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2008), we likewise denied qualified immunity to a police officer who punched\\n\\n\\n 16\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 17 of 20\\n\\n\\nan arrestee in the stomach after he was handcuffed and while he was not resisting,\\n\\neven though the suspect appeared to be “high on cocaine and paranoid.” Id. at\\n\\n1330. The Court relied on our “cases hold[ing] that gratuitous use of force when a\\n\\ncriminal suspect is not resisting arrest constitutes excessive force,” such as Lee.\\n\\nId.\\n\\n So, our case law is clear that serious and substantial injuries caused during a\\n\\nsuspect’s arrest when a suspect is neither resisting an officer’s commands nor\\n\\nposing a risk of flight may substantiate an excessive force claim. Although we\\n\\nhave never addressed a claim factually identical to Sebastian’s, Smith established\\n\\nthat if an arrestee demonstrates compliance, but the officer nonetheless inflicts\\n\\ngratuitous and substantial injury using ordinary arrest tactics, then the officer may\\n\\nhave used excessive force. This was true even though the plaintiff in Smith, unlike\\n\\nSebastian, was initially recalcitrant and even acted aggressively toward the officer.\\n\\nLifting an arrestee’s arm behind his back in order to handcuff him is a routine\\n\\narrest technique, but a panel of this Court found that the officer clearly violated the\\n\\nFourth Amendment because he deployed it with undue severity to an obedient\\n\\narrestee. Here, the facts as alleged in the complaint lead inescapably to the\\n\\nconclusion that the substantial injuries were inflicted on Sebastian in a similarly\\n\\ngratuitous manner, not as an incidental effect of legitimate law enforcement\\n\\nactions.\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 18 of 20\\n\\n\\n Moreover, the Supreme Court has explained that “officials can still be on\\n\\nnotice that their conduct violates established law even in novel factual\\n\\ncircumstances.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741 (2002). In Hope v. Pelzer a\\n\\nprisoner sued three guards, alleging that the prison’s practice of handcuffing\\n\\ninmates to hitching posts for hours at a time in the hot sun when they were\\n\\ndisobedient or disruptive while working on a chain gang violated the Eighth\\n\\nAmendment. Id. at 733–35. The Supreme Court held that the guards were not\\n\\nentitled to qualified immunity despite there being no precedent clearly on point.\\n\\nId. at 746. What the Court required was some established law that gave the\\n\\nofficials “fair warning” that their treatment of the inmate was unconstitutional. Id.\\n\\nat 741. In some cases, the Court said, “a general constitutional rule already\\n\\nidentified in the decisional law may apply with obvious clarity to the specific\\n\\nconduct in question, even though ‘the very action in question has [not] previously\\n\\nbeen held unlawful.’” United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 271 (1997) (quoting\\n\\nAnderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987)).\\n\\n Even though this Court has not addressed a similar fact pattern where\\n\\nsubstantial injuries were inflicted on an individual with no preexisting sensitivity\\n\\nby handcuffing alone, our case law bars Lieutenant Ortiz’s alleged actions with\\n\\nsufficient clarity to put any reasonable officer on notice that this conduct\\n\\nconstituted excessive force. “Graham dictates unambiguously that the force used\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 19 of 20\\n\\n\\nby a police officer in carrying out an arrest must be reasonably proportionate to the\\n\\nneed for that force,” Lee, 284 F.3d at 1198, and under the unusual facts alleged by\\n\\nSebastian we have no doubt that the force was objectively disproportionate and\\n\\naltogether gratuitous. We do not mean to give law enforcement officers pause\\n\\neach time they employ handcuffs in the heat of an arrest, and only the most\\n\\nexceptional circumstances will permit an excessive force claim on the basis of\\n\\nhandcuffing alone. The peculiar facts of this case, not least the reapplication of\\n\\nexcessively tightened cuffs after Sebastian first complained and the five-hour\\n\\nperiod Sebastian spent restrained in the cuffs at the station after his arrest, cross\\n\\nover “the hazy border between excessive and acceptable force” such that any\\n\\nreasonable officer would know he had violated the Constitution. Priester, 208 F.3d\\n\\nat 926. Taking the allegations in the complaint as true, the district court did not err\\n\\nby refusing to dismiss the complaint and in holding that Lieutenant Ortiz was not\\n\\nentitled to qualified immunity,\\n\\n The issue of qualified immunity as to the supervisory liability claim can be\\n\\ndealt with quickly. “[I]f a police officer, whether supervisory or not, fails or\\n\\nrefuses to intervene when a constitutional violation such as an unprovoked beating\\n\\ntakes place in his presence, the officer is directly liable under Section 1983.”\\n\\nEnsley v. Soper, 142 F.3d 1402, 1407 (11th Cir. 1998) (quoting Byrd v. Clark, 783\\n\\nF.2d 1002, 1007 (11th Cir. 1986)). To be held liable, the officer must both be “in a\\n\\n\\n 19\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 20 of 20\\n\\n\\nposition to intervene” and “fail[] to do so.” Priester, 208 F.3d at 924. Of course,\\n\\nthere also must be an underlying constitutional violation. Crenshaw v. Lister, 556\\n\\nF.3d 1283, 1294 (11th Cir. 2009). Plainly, an officer cannot be liable for failing to\\n\\nstop or intervene when there was no constitutional violation being committed.\\n\\n This claim is premised on the idea that Sebastian is unsure which officer --\\n\\nLieutenant Ortiz or Officer Doe -- actually applied the handcuffs. Sebastian\\n\\nalleges that if it was Doe, Ortiz is liable for failing to intervene in Doe’s use of\\n\\nexcessive force. As the district court correctly noted, the failure to intervene claim\\n\\nis therefore wholly dependent on the underlying excessive force claim. The parties\\n\\ndo not dispute, at the motion to dismiss stage, whether Lieutenant Ortiz was in a\\n\\nposition to intervene or whether he failed to do so, assuming that the unidentified\\n\\nofficer actually applied the handcuffs. The only dispute is whether a constitutional\\n\\nviolation occurred, so this issue necessarily turns on the analysis we have already\\n\\nset forth. Because Sebastian has adequately pleaded a clearly established\\n\\nconstitutional violation of his right to be free from excessive force, Lieutenant\\n\\nOrtiz is not entitled to qualified immunity on the failure to intervene claim.\\n\\n The district court did not err in denying Lieutenant Ortiz qualified immunity\\n\\non either claim.\\n\\n AFFIRMED.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 20\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4376885/\", \"author_raw\": \"MARCUS, Circuit Judge:\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"MARCUS"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"DUBINA"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"GOLDBERG"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4599632/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Ruben SEBASTIAN, Plaintiff -Appellee, v. Javier ORTIZ, Defendant - Appellant, Jay Grossman, Daniel Crocker, Et Al., Defendants.\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-14\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 1 of 20\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n ________________________\n\n No. 17-14751\n ________________________\n\n D.C. Docket No. 1:16-cv-20501-FAM\n\n\n\nRUBEN SEBASTIAN,\n\n Plaintiff -Appellee,\n\nversus\n\nJAVIER ORTIZ,\n\n Defendant - Appellant,\n\nJAY GROSSMAN,\nDANIEL CROCKER, et al.,\n\n Defendants.\n\n ________________________\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the Southern District of Florida\n ________________________\n\n (March 14, 2019)\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 2 of 20\n\n\nBefore MARCUS and DUBINA, Circuit Judges, and GOLDBERG, * Judge.\n\nMARCUS, Circuit Judge:\n\n In this interlocutory appeal, Lieutenant Javier Ortiz of the Miami Police\n\nDepartment challenges the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss this civil\n\nrights excessive force case arising out of a routine traffic stop. The appellee,\n\nRuben Sebastian, alleges that during the course of the stop and his subsequent\n\narrest, Ortiz restrained him with handcuffs for more than five hours “in a manner\n\npurposely intended to cause pain and injury.” On account of the officer’s\n\nmisconduct, Sebastian claims to have suffered nerve damage and the permanent\n\nloss of sensation in his hands and wrists. This case presents the question whether a\n\npolice officer is entitled to qualified immunity when he intentionally applies\n\nunnecessarily tight handcuffs to an arrestee who is neither resisting arrest nor\n\nattempting to flee, thereby causing serious and permanent injuries. After careful\n\nreview of the entire record, we agree with the district court that the appellant was\n\nnot entitled to qualified immunity.\n\n I.\n\n Since we are reviewing the denial of Lieutenant Ortiz’s motion to dismiss,\n\nwe accept the facts in the amended complaint as true and view them in the light\n\n\n\n*\n Honorable Richard W. Goldberg, Judge for the United States Court of International Trade,\nsitting by designation.\n 2\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 3 of 20\n\n\nmost favorable to the plaintiff. On July 7, 2015, Ruben Sebastian was pulled over\n\nfor a traffic violation while driving on the Rickenbacker Causeway in the city of\n\nMiami. Officer Jay Grossman of the City of Miami Police Department made the\n\nstop. Grossman approached Sebastian’s window, told him he believed Sebastian\n\nhad exceeded the speed limit, and requested to check the tint on the front windows\n\nof the vehicle to determine compliance with Florida law. Sebastian complied but\n\nhe refused Officer Grossman permission to search the interior of the vehicle. The\n\nofficer claimed that the tint on the rear windows prevented him from seeing into\n\nthe back of the car; Sebastian asserted, however, that the entire interior was readily\n\nvisible because the front windows of the car were rolled down. After Sebastian\n\ndenied consent to the search, Officer Grossman summoned Lieutenant Javier\n\nOrtiz1 of the Miami Police Department for backup.\n\n When Ortiz arrived at the scene, he too asked for permission to search the\n\ninterior of the vehicle. Sebastian again refused, and Ortiz allegedly “became\n\nenraged,” opened the car door, and removed Sebastian from the vehicle. First Am.\n\nCompl. ¶ 24. By this time, a third officer (“Officer Doe”) had arrived at the scene.\n\nEither Ortiz or Doe then restrained Sebastian, pressed his face into the hood of a\n\npolice car, and placed him in metal handcuffs. Sebastian claims that the handcuffs\n\n\n\n1\n Ortiz has recently been promoted to the rank of Captain. We use Ortiz’s title at the time of the\nevents for consistency and ease of reference.\n 3\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 4 of 20\n\n\nwere engaged “in a manner purposely intended to cause pain and injury, cutting off\n\nthe circulation in his hands, and cutting into the skin on his wrists.” Id. ¶ 25.\n\nSebastian complained, and either Officer Doe or Ortiz responded that “he knew of\n\na way to make them tighter.” Id.\n\n While Sebastian was restrained, the officers began to search the vehicle.\n\nSebastian informed the officers that he had a firearm in the car, and with his\n\nassistance the officers located the gun in the side pocket of the driver side door,\n\nsecured in its holster. Upon retrieving the firearm, which Sebastian had a permit to\n\ncarry, Lieutenant Ortiz or Officer Grossman told Sebastian that he “would not that\n\nday, or ever, return to his job” as a security guard employed by Miami-Dade\n\nCounty. Id. ¶ 30.\n\n Lieutenant Ortiz then directed that a fourth officer, Daniel Crocker, place\n\nSebastian in his vehicle for transportation to the police station. Doe or Ortiz\n\nreplaced the metal handcuffs with plastic flex cuffs, again, allegedly, “intentionally\n\ntightening the cuffs in a manner purposely and wantonly intended to cause pain\n\nand further injury.” Id. ¶ 32. Doe or Ortiz placed Sebastian in Officer Crocker’s\n\nvehicle “in a position and manner that increased the pain caused by the over\n\ntightened flex-cuffs,” and Crocker raised the windows and left Sebastian inside.\n\nId. As the temperature inside the vehicle began to rise, Sebastian asked to have the\n\nwindows rolled down; Officer Crocker rolled a rear window down one or two\n\n\n 4\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 5 of 20\n\n\ninches. He refused, however, to open the window further or loosen the flex cuffs\n\nas Sebastian complained that he was beginning to lose feeling in his hands.\n\nSebastian remained in the car for an unspecified period of time, and after the\n\ncompletion of the search he was transported to a police station where he was\n\ndetained for more than five hours, still handcuffed behind his back. He was\n\ncharged in two counts with Resisting or Obstructing an Officer Without Violence\n\nunder Fla. Stat. § 843.02 and one count of Reckless Display of a Firearm in\n\nviolation of Fla. Stat. § 790.10. The charges were later dropped by the State\n\nAttorney, although Sebastian pleaded guilty to a noncriminal speeding violation\n\nunder Fla. Stat. § 316.189(1).\n\n Sebastian further alleges that he “continues to suffer nerve damage to his\n\nhands and wrists, emotional pain and suffering, loss of employment, and\n\nreputational damages” as a result of the handcuffing and arrest. First Am. Compl.\n\n¶ 44. His employment with Miami-Dade County was in fact terminated, and he\n\nhas been unable to find work as a security guard elsewhere. In February 2016,\n\nSebastian commenced this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the\n\nSouthern District of Florida against each of the officers -- Ortiz, Grossman, Doe,\n\nand Crocker -- the City of Miami, and Chief of Police Rodolfo Llanes on a number\n\nof theories of liability. As relevant here, he asserted claims of excessive force in\n\n\n\n\n 5\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 6 of 20\n\n\nviolation of the Fourth Amendment and supervisory liability for failure to stop\n\nunlawful acts against Lieutenant Ortiz.\n\n Ortiz moved to dismiss the charges on the ground of qualified immunity.\n\nThe district court first concluded that the officers were entitled to make a custodial\n\narrest because they had probable cause to believe Sebastian was speeding in\n\nviolation of Fla. Stat. § 316.189(1), and this Court has held that officers are\n\npermitted to make custodial arrests for noncriminal offenses in Florida. See, e.g.,\n\nDurruthy v. Pastor, 351 F.3d 1080, 1089 (11th Cir. 2003) (approving the arrest of a\n\npedestrian for walking on the roadway where sidewalks were available for use);\n\nsee also Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318, 354 (2001). The trial court\n\nrejected Sebastian’s argument that probable cause to arrest was vitiated since the\n\nofficers decided to make the arrest solely because of his objections to the search,\n\nconcluding that “the officers’ subjective intentions and motivations play no role in\n\nthe probable cause analysis.” Under the “fellow officer rule,” Grossman’s\n\nprobable cause to arrest Sebastian for speeding was imputed to Ortiz and the other\n\nofficers, even though they arrived on the scene later.\n\n To begin the excessive force analysis, the district court rejected Sebastian’s\n\nargument that any use of force was unlawful because the arrest itself was lawful\n\nand law enforcement officers are entitled to use some degree of force in effecting a\n\nlawful arrest. Indeed, this Court has recognized that a “typical arrest involves\n\n\n 6\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 7 of 20\n\n\nsome force and injury.” See, e.g., Rodriguez v. Farrell, 280 F.3d 1341, 1351 (11th\n\nCir. 2002). Whether the use of force in making an arrest is excessive turns on\n\nmultiple factors including the severity of the crime and whether the suspect posed a\n\nthreat, was resisting, or fleeing. Applying this standard, the trial court held that the\n\nsevere injuries Sebastian suffered from handcuffing provided a sufficient basis to\n\ndeny qualified immunity and permit the claim to move forward to discovery. It\n\nconcluded, however, that confining Sebastian inside the hot, unventilated car was\n\nnot excessive force, especially since he suffered no lasting injuries from this\n\nconduct.\n\n The district court also determined that Sebastian had sufficiently alleged a\n\nsupervisory liability claim against Lieutenant Ortiz for failure to stop unlawful acts\n\nby his officers. Sebastian was unsure whether Lieutenant Ortiz or Officer Doe\n\nactually applied the handcuffs, and his supervisory claim alleges that Ortiz failed to\n\nstop Doe’s use of excessive force. Because the court found that Sebastian\n\nsufficiently alleged the underlying excessive force claim, he had sufficiently\n\nalleged this supervisory claim as well.\n\n II.\n\n We review the denial of qualified immunity at the motion to dismiss stage de\n\nnovo. Chesser v. Sparks, 248 F.3d 1117, 1121 (11th Cir. 2001). We are required\n\nto accept all allegations in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences\n\n\n 7\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 8 of 20\n\n\nin the plaintiff’s favor. St. George v. Pinellas Cty., 285 F.3d 1334, 1337 (11th Cir.\n\n2002). Our review is “limited to the four corners of the complaint.” Id.\n\n Qualified immunity shields government officials “from liability for civil\n\ndamages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or\n\nconstitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Harlow v.\n\nFitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). It is designed to permit officials to perform\n\ntheir discretionary duties “without the fear of personal liability or harassing\n\nlitigation.” Lee v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1194 (11th Cir. 2002). The doctrine\n\ntherefore “protect[s] from suit ‘all but the plainly incompetent or one who is\n\nknowingly violating the federal law.’” Id. (quoting Willingham v. Loughnan, 261\n\nF.3d 1178, 1187 (11th Cir. 2001), vacated 537 U.S. 801 (2002)). Because\n\nqualified immunity protects officials from suit as well as liability, courts must\n\ndetermine the validity of a claimed qualified immunity defense at the earliest\n\npossible time. Id.\n\n To deny qualified immunity at the motion to dismiss stage, we must\n\nconclude both that the allegations in the complaint, accepted as true, establish a\n\nconstitutional violation and that the constitutional violation was “clearly\n\nestablished.” Keating v. City of Miami, 598 F.3d 753, 762 (11th Cir. 2010). For\n\nthese purposes, clearly established law consists of holdings of the Supreme Court,\n\nthe Eleventh Circuit, or the highest court of the relevant state. See Jenkins v.\n\n\n 8\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 9 of 20\n\n\nTalladega City Bd. of Educ., 115 F.3d 821, 826 n.4 (11th Cir. 1997). A “public\n\nofficial ‘must first prove that he was acting within the scope of his discretionary\n\nauthority when the allegedly wrongful acts occurred’” to receive the benefit of\n\nqualified immunity. Lee, 284 F.3d at 1194 (quoting Courson v. McMillian, 939\n\nF.2d 1479, 1487 (11th Cir. 1991)). Here, no one disputes that Ortiz was acting\n\nwithin the scope of his discretionary authority when he arrived at the scene and\n\nultimately arrested Sebastian. After the defendant makes this showing, “the burden\n\nshifts to the plaintiff to show that qualified immunity is not appropriate.” Id.\n\n Sebastian argues that Lieutenant Ortiz is not entitled to qualified immunity\n\nbecause he violated the clearly established law prohibiting the use of excessive\n\nforce in making an arrest. 2 More specifically, Sebastian points to our body of\n\ncases holding “that gratuitous use of force when a criminal suspect is not resisting\n\narrest constitutes excessive force.” Hadley v. Gutierrez, 526 F.3d 1324, 1330 (11th\n\nCir. 2008).\n\n\n\n\n2\n Sebastian also renews his argument that the use of force was categorically unlawful because the\ntraffic stop was unlawfully extended and Lieutenant Ortiz was not entitled to make an arrest.\nSee Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156, 1171 (11th Cir. 2000) (“[I]f a stop or arrest is illegal, then\nthere is no basis for any threat or any use of force . . . .”). We decline to address this argument\nbecause under this Court’s precedent, “a claim that any force in an illegal stop or arrest is\nexcessive is subsumed in the illegal stop or arrest claim and is not a discrete excessive force\nclaim.” Id.; Williamson v. Mills, 65 F.3d 155, 158 (11th Cir. 1995). Only Sebastian’s excessive\nforce and supervisory failure to intervene claims are before this Court on appeal.\n 9\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 10 of 20\n\n\n To determine whether the force used is excessive, the Supreme Court has\n\ndirected us to consider many factors “including the severity of the crime at issue,\n\nwhether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or\n\nothers, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by\n\nflight.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989). Our cases have added “the\n\nrelationship between the need and amount of force used” and “the extent of the\n\ninjury inflicted” as important considerations. Vinyard v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340,\n\n1347 (11th Cir. 2002). “Because this standard establishes no bright line, qualified\n\nimmunity applies unless application of the standard would inevitably lead every\n\nreasonable officer in [the officer’s] position to conclude the force was unlawful.”\n\nPost v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 7 F.3d 1552, 1559 (11th Cir. 1993), modified, 14\n\nF.3d 583 (11th Cir. 1994). Applying this test, “[w]e have repeatedly ruled that a\n\npolice officer violates the Fourth Amendment, and is denied qualified immunity, if\n\nhe or she uses gratuitous and excessive force against a suspect who is under\n\ncontrol, not resisting, and obeying commands.” Stephens v. DeGiovanni, 852 F.3d\n\n1298, 1328 (11th Cir. 2017) (quoting Saunders v. Duke, 766 F.3d 1262, 1265 (11th\n\nCir. 2014)).\n\n Lieutenant Ortiz argues that he did not use excessive force because the force\n\nwas de minimis. “[T]he application of de minimis force, without more, will not\n\nsupport a claim for excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” Nolin\n\n\n 10\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 11 of 20\n\n\nv. Isbell, 207 F.3d 1253, 1257 (11th Cir. 2000). This is because the right to make\n\nan arrest necessarily carries with it the right to use “some degree of physical\n\ncoercion or threat thereof,” and “the typical arrest involves some force and injury.”\n\nRodriguez, 280 F.3d at 1351 (quoting Graham, 490 U.S. at 396). Drawing a\n\ncorollary to this principle, we have held that “[p]ainful handcuffing, without more,\n\nis not excessive force in cases where the resulting injuries are minimal.” See id. at\n\n1351.\n\n We have applied the de minimis force principle to handcuffing and granted\n\nofficers qualified immunity in a series of cases. First, in Gold v. City of Miami,\n\n121 F.3d 1442 (11th Cir. 1997), we granted qualified immunity when a plaintiff\n\nalleged that officers used excessive force by “applying the handcuffs too tightly\n\nand by leaving them that way for an unreasonable amount of time.” Id. at 1446;\n\nsee id. at 1447. The Court noted that the plaintiff “experienced pain from the\n\nhandcuffs for roughly twenty minutes” but he “suffered only skin abrasions for\n\nwhich he did not seek medical treatment.” Id. at 1446. A panel of this Court\n\nconcluded that “[t]he minor nature of this injury reflects that minimal force was\n\nused,” and therefore the officers were entitled to qualified immunity. Id. at 1446–\n\n47. Similarly, in Nolin v. Isbell, 207 F.3d 1253 (11th Cir. 2000), the plaintiff\n\nbrought an excessive force claim after an officer shoved him against a vehicle,\n\npushed his knee into his back and his head against the vehicle, searched him in an\n\n\n 11\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 12 of 20\n\n\nuncomfortable manner, then placed him in handcuffs. Id. at 1258 n.4. The\n\nplaintiff ended up only with “minor bruising [that] quickly disappeared without\n\ntreatment,” so again we found that these facts fell “within the ambit of the de\n\nminimis force principle” applied in Gold. Id.\n\n Rodriguez v. Farrell, 280 F.3d 1341 (11th Cir. 2002), involved more serious\n\ninjuries and this Court still granted qualified immunity. During the course of a\n\nlawful arrest, an officer grabbed the plaintiff’s arm and twisted it around his back\n\nin order to apply handcuffs, using what the Court deemed “a relatively common\n\nand ordinarily accepted non-excessive way to detain an arrestee.” Id. at 1351. But\n\nbecause the plaintiff had recently had surgery on his elbow, the technique caused\n\nthe displacement of a bone fragment and this injury eventually led to the\n\namputation of the lower part of the plaintiff’s arm. Id. Still, the Court granted the\n\nofficer qualified immunity because there was no reason to think that the officer\n\nknew of the plaintiff’s surgery or knew that handcuffing the plaintiff in that way\n\nwould aggravate the preexisting condition. Id. Lieutenant Ortiz submits that these\n\ncases imply the rule that “otherwise de minimis force could possibly be actionable\n\nonly if the officer knew that the particular action would cause serious injury to a\n\nparticularly vulnerable person, even when that same action would not have harmed\n\na less vulnerable arrestee.” Reply Br. of Appellant Javier Ortiz 5.\n\n\n\n\n 12\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 13 of 20\n\n\n Nothing in these cases, however, addressed serious and substantial injury\n\nintentionally and gratuitously inflicted on an individual of ordinary vulnerability.\n\n“The nature and extent of physical injuries sustained by a plaintiff” are key factors\n\nin determining whether the use of force was reasonable, and here Sebastian has\n\nalleged serious, permanent injuries. Stephens, 852 F.3d at 1325. He claims that\n\nthe handcuffs -- which were left in place for more than five hours after he arrived\n\nat the station, long after his first complaints -- “caused constriction of the blood\n\ncirculation” and “nerve damage,” leading to the “permanent loss of sensation” in\n\nhis hands. First Am. Compl. ¶ 67. The seriousness and permanence of Sebastian’s\n\ninjuries takes his claim out of the de minimis category. Lieutenant Ortiz\n\neffectively argues that handcuffing alone can never constitute excessive force,\n\nregardless of the need for the use of force under the circumstances or the extent of\n\nthe injuries inflicted, which is a proposition that this Court has never endorsed. If\n\nan officer, for instance, needlessly handcuffed an injured driver who crashed his\n\nvehicle while speeding and seriously aggravated the injuries caused by the\n\naccident, the fact that the officer harmed the driver by “merely” applying handcuffs\n\nwould not necessarily bar an excessive force claim.\n\n Notably, all of the Graham factors -- the severity of the crime, the safety risk\n\nposed to the officers and others, and whether the plaintiff was resisting arrest or\n\nattempting to flee or evade the officers -- weigh decidedly in Sebastian’s favor.\n\n\n 13\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 14 of 20\n\n\nSee Graham, 490 U.S. at 396. Speeding is a minor, noncriminal offense. If “more\n\nforce is appropriate for a more serious offense and less force is appropriate for a\n\nless serious one,” then a minimal degree of force was appropriate here. Lee, 284\n\nF.3d at 1198. Although an officer is entitled to make a custodial arrest for this\n\nkind of violation under Atwater and unsafe driving of course poses some risk to\n\npublic safety, speeding is far from the most serious offense an officer can expect to\n\nencounter on patrol. What’s more, there is not the slightest indication in this\n\nrecord that Sebastian posed a threat to officer safety or to anyone else, or was a\n\nflight risk at any time during the interaction. All he did was refuse the officers’\n\nrequests for permission to search his vehicle, and he was nevertheless subjected to\n\nforce that left him with permanent injuries. This is enough to establish that\n\nSebastian’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from the excessive use of force was\n\nviolated under the exceptional circumstances of this case.\n\n Now to the “clearly established” question. A plaintiff can show the violation\n\nof a clearly established right in a few ways. See Vinyard, 311 F.3d at 1350–52.\n\nFirst, and most commonly, a plaintiff can point to a case with “materially similar”\n\nfacts decided by the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, or the highest court of\n\nthe relevant state. Id. at 1352. Or, a plaintiff can “show that a broader, clearly\n\nestablished principle should control the novel facts in this situation.” Mercado v.\n\nCity of Orlando, 407 F.3d 1152, 1159 (11th Cir. 2005). The final, and often most\n\n\n 14\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 15 of 20\n\n\ndifficult option is to demonstrate that “the official's conduct ‘was so far beyond the\n\nhazy border between excessive and acceptable force that [the official] had to know\n\nhe was violating the Constitution even without caselaw on point.’” Priester v. City\n\nof Riviera Beach, 208 F.3d 919, 926 (11th Cir. 2000) (quoting Smith v. Mattox,\n\n127 F.3d 1416, 1419 (11th Cir. 1997)).\n\n Our case law establishes that “gratuitous use of force when a criminal\n\nsuspect is not resisting arrest” may constitute excessive force. Hadley, 526 F.3d at\n\n1330. Thus, for example, in Smith v. Mattox, 127 F.3d 1416 (11th Cir. 1997), an\n\nofficer approached Smith while investigating a tip that described someone with\n\nSmith’s characteristics as being in the possession of cocaine. Id. at 1417. Smith\n\nraised a baseball bat in a threatening posture toward the officer and then fled. Id.\n\nat 1418. After a short chase, Smith “docilely submitted to arrest” when an officer\n\nordered him to “get down.” Id. The officer then put his knee into Smith’s back\n\nwhile he was on the ground, pulled his arm behind his back to apply handcuffs,\n\n“and then with a grunt and a blow -- but no sign of anger -- [the officer] broke\n\nSmith’s arm.” Id. The Court held that the officer was not entitled to qualified\n\nimmunity because the “broken arm was obviously unnecessary to restrain” Smith\n\nwhen he “was offering no resistance at all.” Id. at 1420. This pushed the case into\n\n“the slender category of cases in which the unlawfulness of the conduct is readily\n\napparent even without clarifying caselaw.” Id.\n\n\n 15\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 16 of 20\n\n\n Again, in Stephens v. DeGiovanni, 852 F.3d 1298 (11th Cir. 2017), this\n\nCourt denied qualified immunity when an officer “slugged” the plaintiff in the\n\nchest and threw him into a car-door jamb in the course of a misdemeanor arrest\n\nwhile the plaintiff was obeying the officer’s commands and responding to his\n\nquestions. Id. at 1308. Considered alongside the minor nature of the offense, the\n\nCourt found that the nature and extent of the plaintiff’s injuries -- a cervical sprain,\n\na torn rotator cuff, and a sprained wrist, among others -- were “the most telling\n\nfactor[s]” in evaluating whether the force used was excessive. Id. at 1326. The\n\nCourt held that “no particularized preexisting case law was necessary for it to be\n\nclearly established” that the officer used excessive force on these facts. Id. at 1328\n\n(quoting Priester, 208 F.3d at 927).\n\n Still again, in Lee v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188 (11th Cir. 2002), we denied\n\nqualified immunity to an officer who violently slammed an arrestee’s head into the\n\ntrunk of her vehicle after she was handcuffed. Id. at 1200. The Court relied on\n\n“the clear and obvious principle that once an arrest has been fully secured and any\n\npotential danger or risk of flight vitiated, a police officer cannot employ the severe\n\nand unnecessary force allegedly used.” Id. No reasonable officer could have\n\nbelieved that use of force was legal under the circumstances, so this officer was not\n\nentitled to qualified immunity. And in Hadley v. Gutierrez, 526 F.3d 1324 (11th\n\nCir. 2008), we likewise denied qualified immunity to a police officer who punched\n\n\n 16\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 17 of 20\n\n\nan arrestee in the stomach after he was handcuffed and while he was not resisting,\n\neven though the suspect appeared to be “high on cocaine and paranoid.” Id. at\n\n1330. The Court relied on our “cases hold[ing] that gratuitous use of force when a\n\ncriminal suspect is not resisting arrest constitutes excessive force,” such as Lee.\n\nId.\n\n So, our case law is clear that serious and substantial injuries caused during a\n\nsuspect’s arrest when a suspect is neither resisting an officer’s commands nor\n\nposing a risk of flight may substantiate an excessive force claim. Although we\n\nhave never addressed a claim factually identical to Sebastian’s, Smith established\n\nthat if an arrestee demonstrates compliance, but the officer nonetheless inflicts\n\ngratuitous and substantial injury using ordinary arrest tactics, then the officer may\n\nhave used excessive force. This was true even though the plaintiff in Smith, unlike\n\nSebastian, was initially recalcitrant and even acted aggressively toward the officer.\n\nLifting an arrestee’s arm behind his back in order to handcuff him is a routine\n\narrest technique, but a panel of this Court found that the officer clearly violated the\n\nFourth Amendment because he deployed it with undue severity to an obedient\n\narrestee. Here, the facts as alleged in the complaint lead inescapably to the\n\nconclusion that the substantial injuries were inflicted on Sebastian in a similarly\n\ngratuitous manner, not as an incidental effect of legitimate law enforcement\n\nactions.\n\n\n 17\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 18 of 20\n\n\n Moreover, the Supreme Court has explained that “officials can still be on\n\nnotice that their conduct violates established law even in novel factual\n\ncircumstances.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741 (2002). In Hope v. Pelzer a\n\nprisoner sued three guards, alleging that the prison’s practice of handcuffing\n\ninmates to hitching posts for hours at a time in the hot sun when they were\n\ndisobedient or disruptive while working on a chain gang violated the Eighth\n\nAmendment. Id. at 733–35. The Supreme Court held that the guards were not\n\nentitled to qualified immunity despite there being no precedent clearly on point.\n\nId. at 746. What the Court required was some established law that gave the\n\nofficials “fair warning” that their treatment of the inmate was unconstitutional. Id.\n\nat 741. In some cases, the Court said, “a general constitutional rule already\n\nidentified in the decisional law may apply with obvious clarity to the specific\n\nconduct in question, even though ‘the very action in question has [not] previously\n\nbeen held unlawful.’” United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 271 (1997) (quoting\n\nAnderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987)).\n\n Even though this Court has not addressed a similar fact pattern where\n\nsubstantial injuries were inflicted on an individual with no preexisting sensitivity\n\nby handcuffing alone, our case law bars Lieutenant Ortiz’s alleged actions with\n\nsufficient clarity to put any reasonable officer on notice that this conduct\n\nconstituted excessive force. “Graham dictates unambiguously that the force used\n\n\n 18\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 19 of 20\n\n\nby a police officer in carrying out an arrest must be reasonably proportionate to the\n\nneed for that force,” Lee, 284 F.3d at 1198, and under the unusual facts alleged by\n\nSebastian we have no doubt that the force was objectively disproportionate and\n\naltogether gratuitous. We do not mean to give law enforcement officers pause\n\neach time they employ handcuffs in the heat of an arrest, and only the most\n\nexceptional circumstances will permit an excessive force claim on the basis of\n\nhandcuffing alone. The peculiar facts of this case, not least the reapplication of\n\nexcessively tightened cuffs after Sebastian first complained and the five-hour\n\nperiod Sebastian spent restrained in the cuffs at the station after his arrest, cross\n\nover “the hazy border between excessive and acceptable force” such that any\n\nreasonable officer would know he had violated the Constitution. Priester, 208 F.3d\n\nat 926. Taking the allegations in the complaint as true, the district court did not err\n\nby refusing to dismiss the complaint and in holding that Lieutenant Ortiz was not\n\nentitled to qualified immunity,\n\n The issue of qualified immunity as to the supervisory liability claim can be\n\ndealt with quickly. “[I]f a police officer, whether supervisory or not, fails or\n\nrefuses to intervene when a constitutional violation such as an unprovoked beating\n\ntakes place in his presence, the officer is directly liable under Section 1983.”\n\nEnsley v. Soper, 142 F.3d 1402, 1407 (11th Cir. 1998) (quoting Byrd v. Clark, 783\n\nF.2d 1002, 1007 (11th Cir. 1986)). To be held liable, the officer must both be “in a\n\n\n 19\n\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 20 of 20\n\n\nposition to intervene” and “fail[] to do so.” Priester, 208 F.3d at 924. Of course,\n\nthere also must be an underlying constitutional violation. Crenshaw v. Lister, 556\n\nF.3d 1283, 1294 (11th Cir. 2009). Plainly, an officer cannot be liable for failing to\n\nstop or intervene when there was no constitutional violation being committed.\n\n This claim is premised on the idea that Sebastian is unsure which officer --\n\nLieutenant Ortiz or Officer Doe -- actually applied the handcuffs. Sebastian\n\nalleges that if it was Doe, Ortiz is liable for failing to intervene in Doe’s use of\n\nexcessive force. As the district court correctly noted, the failure to intervene claim\n\nis therefore wholly dependent on the underlying excessive force claim. The parties\n\ndo not dispute, at the motion to dismiss stage, whether Lieutenant Ortiz was in a\n\nposition to intervene or whether he failed to do so, assuming that the unidentified\n\nofficer actually applied the handcuffs. The only dispute is whether a constitutional\n\nviolation occurred, so this issue necessarily turns on the analysis we have already\n\nset forth. Because Sebastian has adequately pleaded a clearly established\n\nconstitutional violation of his right to be free from excessive force, Lieutenant\n\nOrtiz is not entitled to qualified immunity on the failure to intervene claim.\n\n The district court did not err in denying Lieutenant Ortiz qualified immunity\n\non either claim.\n\n AFFIRMED.\n\n\n\n\n 20\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Ruben SEBASTIAN, Plaintiff -Appellee, v. Javier ORTIZ, Defendant - Appellant, Jay Grossman, Daniel Crocker, Et Al., Defendants.\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-14\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 1 of 20\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 17-14751\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 1:16-cv-20501-FAM\\n\\n\\n\\nRUBEN SEBASTIAN,\\n\\n Plaintiff -Appellee,\\n\\nversus\\n\\nJAVIER ORTIZ,\\n\\n Defendant - Appellant,\\n\\nJAY GROSSMAN,\\nDANIEL CROCKER, et al.,\\n\\n Defendants.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Southern District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n (March 14, 2019)\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 2 of 20\\n\\n\\nBefore MARCUS and DUBINA, Circuit Judges, and GOLDBERG, * Judge.\\n\\nMARCUS, Circuit Judge:\\n\\n In this interlocutory appeal, Lieutenant Javier Ortiz of the Miami Police\\n\\nDepartment challenges the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss this civil\\n\\nrights excessive force case arising out of a routine traffic stop. The appellee,\\n\\nRuben Sebastian, alleges that during the course of the stop and his subsequent\\n\\narrest, Ortiz restrained him with handcuffs for more than five hours “in a manner\\n\\npurposely intended to cause pain and injury.” On account of the officer’s\\n\\nmisconduct, Sebastian claims to have suffered nerve damage and the permanent\\n\\nloss of sensation in his hands and wrists. This case presents the question whether a\\n\\npolice officer is entitled to qualified immunity when he intentionally applies\\n\\nunnecessarily tight handcuffs to an arrestee who is neither resisting arrest nor\\n\\nattempting to flee, thereby causing serious and permanent injuries. After careful\\n\\nreview of the entire record, we agree with the district court that the appellant was\\n\\nnot entitled to qualified immunity.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Since we are reviewing the denial of Lieutenant Ortiz’s motion to dismiss,\\n\\nwe accept the facts in the amended complaint as true and view them in the light\\n\\n\\n\\n*\\n Honorable Richard W. Goldberg, Judge for the United States Court of International Trade,\\nsitting by designation.\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 3 of 20\\n\\n\\nmost favorable to the plaintiff. On July 7, 2015, Ruben Sebastian was pulled over\\n\\nfor a traffic violation while driving on the Rickenbacker Causeway in the city of\\n\\nMiami. Officer Jay Grossman of the City of Miami Police Department made the\\n\\nstop. Grossman approached Sebastian’s window, told him he believed Sebastian\\n\\nhad exceeded the speed limit, and requested to check the tint on the front windows\\n\\nof the vehicle to determine compliance with Florida law. Sebastian complied but\\n\\nhe refused Officer Grossman permission to search the interior of the vehicle. The\\n\\nofficer claimed that the tint on the rear windows prevented him from seeing into\\n\\nthe back of the car; Sebastian asserted, however, that the entire interior was readily\\n\\nvisible because the front windows of the car were rolled down. After Sebastian\\n\\ndenied consent to the search, Officer Grossman summoned Lieutenant Javier\\n\\nOrtiz1 of the Miami Police Department for backup.\\n\\n When Ortiz arrived at the scene, he too asked for permission to search the\\n\\ninterior of the vehicle. Sebastian again refused, and Ortiz allegedly “became\\n\\nenraged,” opened the car door, and removed Sebastian from the vehicle. First Am.\\n\\nCompl. ¶ 24. By this time, a third officer (“Officer Doe”) had arrived at the scene.\\n\\nEither Ortiz or Doe then restrained Sebastian, pressed his face into the hood of a\\n\\npolice car, and placed him in metal handcuffs. Sebastian claims that the handcuffs\\n\\n\\n\\n1\\n Ortiz has recently been promoted to the rank of Captain. We use Ortiz’s title at the time of the\\nevents for consistency and ease of reference.\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 4 of 20\\n\\n\\nwere engaged “in a manner purposely intended to cause pain and injury, cutting off\\n\\nthe circulation in his hands, and cutting into the skin on his wrists.” Id. ¶ 25.\\n\\nSebastian complained, and either Officer Doe or Ortiz responded that “he knew of\\n\\na way to make them tighter.” Id.\\n\\n While Sebastian was restrained, the officers began to search the vehicle.\\n\\nSebastian informed the officers that he had a firearm in the car, and with his\\n\\nassistance the officers located the gun in the side pocket of the driver side door,\\n\\nsecured in its holster. Upon retrieving the firearm, which Sebastian had a permit to\\n\\ncarry, Lieutenant Ortiz or Officer Grossman told Sebastian that he “would not that\\n\\nday, or ever, return to his job” as a security guard employed by Miami-Dade\\n\\nCounty. Id. ¶ 30.\\n\\n Lieutenant Ortiz then directed that a fourth officer, Daniel Crocker, place\\n\\nSebastian in his vehicle for transportation to the police station. Doe or Ortiz\\n\\nreplaced the metal handcuffs with plastic flex cuffs, again, allegedly, “intentionally\\n\\ntightening the cuffs in a manner purposely and wantonly intended to cause pain\\n\\nand further injury.” Id. ¶ 32. Doe or Ortiz placed Sebastian in Officer Crocker’s\\n\\nvehicle “in a position and manner that increased the pain caused by the over\\n\\ntightened flex-cuffs,” and Crocker raised the windows and left Sebastian inside.\\n\\nId. As the temperature inside the vehicle began to rise, Sebastian asked to have the\\n\\nwindows rolled down; Officer Crocker rolled a rear window down one or two\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 5 of 20\\n\\n\\ninches. He refused, however, to open the window further or loosen the flex cuffs\\n\\nas Sebastian complained that he was beginning to lose feeling in his hands.\\n\\nSebastian remained in the car for an unspecified period of time, and after the\\n\\ncompletion of the search he was transported to a police station where he was\\n\\ndetained for more than five hours, still handcuffed behind his back. He was\\n\\ncharged in two counts with Resisting or Obstructing an Officer Without Violence\\n\\nunder Fla. Stat. § 843.02 and one count of Reckless Display of a Firearm in\\n\\nviolation of Fla. Stat. § 790.10. The charges were later dropped by the State\\n\\nAttorney, although Sebastian pleaded guilty to a noncriminal speeding violation\\n\\nunder Fla. Stat. § 316.189(1).\\n\\n Sebastian further alleges that he “continues to suffer nerve damage to his\\n\\nhands and wrists, emotional pain and suffering, loss of employment, and\\n\\nreputational damages” as a result of the handcuffing and arrest. First Am. Compl.\\n\\n¶ 44. His employment with Miami-Dade County was in fact terminated, and he\\n\\nhas been unable to find work as a security guard elsewhere. In February 2016,\\n\\nSebastian commenced this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the\\n\\nSouthern District of Florida against each of the officers -- Ortiz, Grossman, Doe,\\n\\nand Crocker -- the City of Miami, and Chief of Police Rodolfo Llanes on a number\\n\\nof theories of liability. As relevant here, he asserted claims of excessive force in\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 5\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 6 of 20\\n\\n\\nviolation of the Fourth Amendment and supervisory liability for failure to stop\\n\\nunlawful acts against Lieutenant Ortiz.\\n\\n Ortiz moved to dismiss the charges on the ground of qualified immunity.\\n\\nThe district court first concluded that the officers were entitled to make a custodial\\n\\narrest because they had probable cause to believe Sebastian was speeding in\\n\\nviolation of Fla. Stat. § 316.189(1), and this Court has held that officers are\\n\\npermitted to make custodial arrests for noncriminal offenses in Florida. See, e.g.,\\n\\nDurruthy v. Pastor, 351 F.3d 1080, 1089 (11th Cir. 2003) (approving the arrest of a\\n\\npedestrian for walking on the roadway where sidewalks were available for use);\\n\\nsee also Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318, 354 (2001). The trial court\\n\\nrejected Sebastian’s argument that probable cause to arrest was vitiated since the\\n\\nofficers decided to make the arrest solely because of his objections to the search,\\n\\nconcluding that “the officers’ subjective intentions and motivations play no role in\\n\\nthe probable cause analysis.” Under the “fellow officer rule,” Grossman’s\\n\\nprobable cause to arrest Sebastian for speeding was imputed to Ortiz and the other\\n\\nofficers, even though they arrived on the scene later.\\n\\n To begin the excessive force analysis, the district court rejected Sebastian’s\\n\\nargument that any use of force was unlawful because the arrest itself was lawful\\n\\nand law enforcement officers are entitled to use some degree of force in effecting a\\n\\nlawful arrest. Indeed, this Court has recognized that a “typical arrest involves\\n\\n\\n 6\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 7 of 20\\n\\n\\nsome force and injury.” See, e.g., Rodriguez v. Farrell, 280 F.3d 1341, 1351 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2002). Whether the use of force in making an arrest is excessive turns on\\n\\nmultiple factors including the severity of the crime and whether the suspect posed a\\n\\nthreat, was resisting, or fleeing. Applying this standard, the trial court held that the\\n\\nsevere injuries Sebastian suffered from handcuffing provided a sufficient basis to\\n\\ndeny qualified immunity and permit the claim to move forward to discovery. It\\n\\nconcluded, however, that confining Sebastian inside the hot, unventilated car was\\n\\nnot excessive force, especially since he suffered no lasting injuries from this\\n\\nconduct.\\n\\n The district court also determined that Sebastian had sufficiently alleged a\\n\\nsupervisory liability claim against Lieutenant Ortiz for failure to stop unlawful acts\\n\\nby his officers. Sebastian was unsure whether Lieutenant Ortiz or Officer Doe\\n\\nactually applied the handcuffs, and his supervisory claim alleges that Ortiz failed to\\n\\nstop Doe’s use of excessive force. Because the court found that Sebastian\\n\\nsufficiently alleged the underlying excessive force claim, he had sufficiently\\n\\nalleged this supervisory claim as well.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n We review the denial of qualified immunity at the motion to dismiss stage de\\n\\nnovo. Chesser v. Sparks, 248 F.3d 1117, 1121 (11th Cir. 2001). We are required\\n\\nto accept all allegations in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences\\n\\n\\n 7\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 8 of 20\\n\\n\\nin the plaintiff’s favor. St. George v. Pinellas Cty., 285 F.3d 1334, 1337 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2002). Our review is “limited to the four corners of the complaint.” Id.\\n\\n Qualified immunity shields government officials “from liability for civil\\n\\ndamages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or\\n\\nconstitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Harlow v.\\n\\nFitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). It is designed to permit officials to perform\\n\\ntheir discretionary duties “without the fear of personal liability or harassing\\n\\nlitigation.” Lee v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1194 (11th Cir. 2002). The doctrine\\n\\ntherefore “protect[s] from suit ‘all but the plainly incompetent or one who is\\n\\nknowingly violating the federal law.’” Id. (quoting Willingham v. Loughnan, 261\\n\\nF.3d 1178, 1187 (11th Cir. 2001), vacated 537 U.S. 801 (2002)). Because\\n\\nqualified immunity protects officials from suit as well as liability, courts must\\n\\ndetermine the validity of a claimed qualified immunity defense at the earliest\\n\\npossible time. Id.\\n\\n To deny qualified immunity at the motion to dismiss stage, we must\\n\\nconclude both that the allegations in the complaint, accepted as true, establish a\\n\\nconstitutional violation and that the constitutional violation was “clearly\\n\\nestablished.” Keating v. City of Miami, 598 F.3d 753, 762 (11th Cir. 2010). For\\n\\nthese purposes, clearly established law consists of holdings of the Supreme Court,\\n\\nthe Eleventh Circuit, or the highest court of the relevant state. See Jenkins v.\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 9 of 20\\n\\n\\nTalladega City Bd. of Educ., 115 F.3d 821, 826 n.4 (11th Cir. 1997). A “public\\n\\nofficial ‘must first prove that he was acting within the scope of his discretionary\\n\\nauthority when the allegedly wrongful acts occurred’” to receive the benefit of\\n\\nqualified immunity. Lee, 284 F.3d at 1194 (quoting Courson v. McMillian, 939\\n\\nF.2d 1479, 1487 (11th Cir. 1991)). Here, no one disputes that Ortiz was acting\\n\\nwithin the scope of his discretionary authority when he arrived at the scene and\\n\\nultimately arrested Sebastian. After the defendant makes this showing, “the burden\\n\\nshifts to the plaintiff to show that qualified immunity is not appropriate.” Id.\\n\\n Sebastian argues that Lieutenant Ortiz is not entitled to qualified immunity\\n\\nbecause he violated the clearly established law prohibiting the use of excessive\\n\\nforce in making an arrest. 2 More specifically, Sebastian points to our body of\\n\\ncases holding “that gratuitous use of force when a criminal suspect is not resisting\\n\\narrest constitutes excessive force.” Hadley v. Gutierrez, 526 F.3d 1324, 1330 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2008).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n2\\n Sebastian also renews his argument that the use of force was categorically unlawful because the\\ntraffic stop was unlawfully extended and Lieutenant Ortiz was not entitled to make an arrest.\\nSee Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156, 1171 (11th Cir. 2000) (“[I]f a stop or arrest is illegal, then\\nthere is no basis for any threat or any use of force . . . .”). We decline to address this argument\\nbecause under this Court’s precedent, “a claim that any force in an illegal stop or arrest is\\nexcessive is subsumed in the illegal stop or arrest claim and is not a discrete excessive force\\nclaim.” Id.; Williamson v. Mills, 65 F.3d 155, 158 (11th Cir. 1995). Only Sebastian’s excessive\\nforce and supervisory failure to intervene claims are before this Court on appeal.\\n 9\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 10 of 20\\n\\n\\n To determine whether the force used is excessive, the Supreme Court has\\n\\ndirected us to consider many factors “including the severity of the crime at issue,\\n\\nwhether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or\\n\\nothers, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by\\n\\nflight.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989). Our cases have added “the\\n\\nrelationship between the need and amount of force used” and “the extent of the\\n\\ninjury inflicted” as important considerations. Vinyard v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340,\\n\\n1347 (11th Cir. 2002). “Because this standard establishes no bright line, qualified\\n\\nimmunity applies unless application of the standard would inevitably lead every\\n\\nreasonable officer in [the officer’s] position to conclude the force was unlawful.”\\n\\nPost v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 7 F.3d 1552, 1559 (11th Cir. 1993), modified, 14\\n\\nF.3d 583 (11th Cir. 1994). Applying this test, “[w]e have repeatedly ruled that a\\n\\npolice officer violates the Fourth Amendment, and is denied qualified immunity, if\\n\\nhe or she uses gratuitous and excessive force against a suspect who is under\\n\\ncontrol, not resisting, and obeying commands.” Stephens v. DeGiovanni, 852 F.3d\\n\\n1298, 1328 (11th Cir. 2017) (quoting Saunders v. Duke, 766 F.3d 1262, 1265 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2014)).\\n\\n Lieutenant Ortiz argues that he did not use excessive force because the force\\n\\nwas de minimis. “[T]he application of de minimis force, without more, will not\\n\\nsupport a claim for excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” Nolin\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 11 of 20\\n\\n\\nv. Isbell, 207 F.3d 1253, 1257 (11th Cir. 2000). This is because the right to make\\n\\nan arrest necessarily carries with it the right to use “some degree of physical\\n\\ncoercion or threat thereof,” and “the typical arrest involves some force and injury.”\\n\\nRodriguez, 280 F.3d at 1351 (quoting Graham, 490 U.S. at 396). Drawing a\\n\\ncorollary to this principle, we have held that “[p]ainful handcuffing, without more,\\n\\nis not excessive force in cases where the resulting injuries are minimal.” See id. at\\n\\n1351.\\n\\n We have applied the de minimis force principle to handcuffing and granted\\n\\nofficers qualified immunity in a series of cases. First, in Gold v. City of Miami,\\n\\n121 F.3d 1442 (11th Cir. 1997), we granted qualified immunity when a plaintiff\\n\\nalleged that officers used excessive force by “applying the handcuffs too tightly\\n\\nand by leaving them that way for an unreasonable amount of time.” Id. at 1446;\\n\\nsee id. at 1447. The Court noted that the plaintiff “experienced pain from the\\n\\nhandcuffs for roughly twenty minutes” but he “suffered only skin abrasions for\\n\\nwhich he did not seek medical treatment.” Id. at 1446. A panel of this Court\\n\\nconcluded that “[t]he minor nature of this injury reflects that minimal force was\\n\\nused,” and therefore the officers were entitled to qualified immunity. Id. at 1446–\\n\\n47. Similarly, in Nolin v. Isbell, 207 F.3d 1253 (11th Cir. 2000), the plaintiff\\n\\nbrought an excessive force claim after an officer shoved him against a vehicle,\\n\\npushed his knee into his back and his head against the vehicle, searched him in an\\n\\n\\n 11\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 12 of 20\\n\\n\\nuncomfortable manner, then placed him in handcuffs. Id. at 1258 n.4. The\\n\\nplaintiff ended up only with “minor bruising [that] quickly disappeared without\\n\\ntreatment,” so again we found that these facts fell “within the ambit of the de\\n\\nminimis force principle” applied in Gold. Id.\\n\\n Rodriguez v. Farrell, 280 F.3d 1341 (11th Cir. 2002), involved more serious\\n\\ninjuries and this Court still granted qualified immunity. During the course of a\\n\\nlawful arrest, an officer grabbed the plaintiff’s arm and twisted it around his back\\n\\nin order to apply handcuffs, using what the Court deemed “a relatively common\\n\\nand ordinarily accepted non-excessive way to detain an arrestee.” Id. at 1351. But\\n\\nbecause the plaintiff had recently had surgery on his elbow, the technique caused\\n\\nthe displacement of a bone fragment and this injury eventually led to the\\n\\namputation of the lower part of the plaintiff’s arm. Id. Still, the Court granted the\\n\\nofficer qualified immunity because there was no reason to think that the officer\\n\\nknew of the plaintiff’s surgery or knew that handcuffing the plaintiff in that way\\n\\nwould aggravate the preexisting condition. Id. Lieutenant Ortiz submits that these\\n\\ncases imply the rule that “otherwise de minimis force could possibly be actionable\\n\\nonly if the officer knew that the particular action would cause serious injury to a\\n\\nparticularly vulnerable person, even when that same action would not have harmed\\n\\na less vulnerable arrestee.” Reply Br. of Appellant Javier Ortiz 5.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 12\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 13 of 20\\n\\n\\n Nothing in these cases, however, addressed serious and substantial injury\\n\\nintentionally and gratuitously inflicted on an individual of ordinary vulnerability.\\n\\n“The nature and extent of physical injuries sustained by a plaintiff” are key factors\\n\\nin determining whether the use of force was reasonable, and here Sebastian has\\n\\nalleged serious, permanent injuries. Stephens, 852 F.3d at 1325. He claims that\\n\\nthe handcuffs -- which were left in place for more than five hours after he arrived\\n\\nat the station, long after his first complaints -- “caused constriction of the blood\\n\\ncirculation” and “nerve damage,” leading to the “permanent loss of sensation” in\\n\\nhis hands. First Am. Compl. ¶ 67. The seriousness and permanence of Sebastian’s\\n\\ninjuries takes his claim out of the de minimis category. Lieutenant Ortiz\\n\\neffectively argues that handcuffing alone can never constitute excessive force,\\n\\nregardless of the need for the use of force under the circumstances or the extent of\\n\\nthe injuries inflicted, which is a proposition that this Court has never endorsed. If\\n\\nan officer, for instance, needlessly handcuffed an injured driver who crashed his\\n\\nvehicle while speeding and seriously aggravated the injuries caused by the\\n\\naccident, the fact that the officer harmed the driver by “merely” applying handcuffs\\n\\nwould not necessarily bar an excessive force claim.\\n\\n Notably, all of the Graham factors -- the severity of the crime, the safety risk\\n\\nposed to the officers and others, and whether the plaintiff was resisting arrest or\\n\\nattempting to flee or evade the officers -- weigh decidedly in Sebastian’s favor.\\n\\n\\n 13\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 14 of 20\\n\\n\\nSee Graham, 490 U.S. at 396. Speeding is a minor, noncriminal offense. If “more\\n\\nforce is appropriate for a more serious offense and less force is appropriate for a\\n\\nless serious one,” then a minimal degree of force was appropriate here. Lee, 284\\n\\nF.3d at 1198. Although an officer is entitled to make a custodial arrest for this\\n\\nkind of violation under Atwater and unsafe driving of course poses some risk to\\n\\npublic safety, speeding is far from the most serious offense an officer can expect to\\n\\nencounter on patrol. What’s more, there is not the slightest indication in this\\n\\nrecord that Sebastian posed a threat to officer safety or to anyone else, or was a\\n\\nflight risk at any time during the interaction. All he did was refuse the officers’\\n\\nrequests for permission to search his vehicle, and he was nevertheless subjected to\\n\\nforce that left him with permanent injuries. This is enough to establish that\\n\\nSebastian’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from the excessive use of force was\\n\\nviolated under the exceptional circumstances of this case.\\n\\n Now to the “clearly established” question. A plaintiff can show the violation\\n\\nof a clearly established right in a few ways. See Vinyard, 311 F.3d at 1350–52.\\n\\nFirst, and most commonly, a plaintiff can point to a case with “materially similar”\\n\\nfacts decided by the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, or the highest court of\\n\\nthe relevant state. Id. at 1352. Or, a plaintiff can “show that a broader, clearly\\n\\nestablished principle should control the novel facts in this situation.” Mercado v.\\n\\nCity of Orlando, 407 F.3d 1152, 1159 (11th Cir. 2005). The final, and often most\\n\\n\\n 14\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 15 of 20\\n\\n\\ndifficult option is to demonstrate that “the official's conduct ‘was so far beyond the\\n\\nhazy border between excessive and acceptable force that [the official] had to know\\n\\nhe was violating the Constitution even without caselaw on point.’” Priester v. City\\n\\nof Riviera Beach, 208 F.3d 919, 926 (11th Cir. 2000) (quoting Smith v. Mattox,\\n\\n127 F.3d 1416, 1419 (11th Cir. 1997)).\\n\\n Our case law establishes that “gratuitous use of force when a criminal\\n\\nsuspect is not resisting arrest” may constitute excessive force. Hadley, 526 F.3d at\\n\\n1330. Thus, for example, in Smith v. Mattox, 127 F.3d 1416 (11th Cir. 1997), an\\n\\nofficer approached Smith while investigating a tip that described someone with\\n\\nSmith’s characteristics as being in the possession of cocaine. Id. at 1417. Smith\\n\\nraised a baseball bat in a threatening posture toward the officer and then fled. Id.\\n\\nat 1418. After a short chase, Smith “docilely submitted to arrest” when an officer\\n\\nordered him to “get down.” Id. The officer then put his knee into Smith’s back\\n\\nwhile he was on the ground, pulled his arm behind his back to apply handcuffs,\\n\\n“and then with a grunt and a blow -- but no sign of anger -- [the officer] broke\\n\\nSmith’s arm.” Id. The Court held that the officer was not entitled to qualified\\n\\nimmunity because the “broken arm was obviously unnecessary to restrain” Smith\\n\\nwhen he “was offering no resistance at all.” Id. at 1420. This pushed the case into\\n\\n“the slender category of cases in which the unlawfulness of the conduct is readily\\n\\napparent even without clarifying caselaw.” Id.\\n\\n\\n 15\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 16 of 20\\n\\n\\n Again, in Stephens v. DeGiovanni, 852 F.3d 1298 (11th Cir. 2017), this\\n\\nCourt denied qualified immunity when an officer “slugged” the plaintiff in the\\n\\nchest and threw him into a car-door jamb in the course of a misdemeanor arrest\\n\\nwhile the plaintiff was obeying the officer’s commands and responding to his\\n\\nquestions. Id. at 1308. Considered alongside the minor nature of the offense, the\\n\\nCourt found that the nature and extent of the plaintiff’s injuries -- a cervical sprain,\\n\\na torn rotator cuff, and a sprained wrist, among others -- were “the most telling\\n\\nfactor[s]” in evaluating whether the force used was excessive. Id. at 1326. The\\n\\nCourt held that “no particularized preexisting case law was necessary for it to be\\n\\nclearly established” that the officer used excessive force on these facts. Id. at 1328\\n\\n(quoting Priester, 208 F.3d at 927).\\n\\n Still again, in Lee v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188 (11th Cir. 2002), we denied\\n\\nqualified immunity to an officer who violently slammed an arrestee’s head into the\\n\\ntrunk of her vehicle after she was handcuffed. Id. at 1200. The Court relied on\\n\\n“the clear and obvious principle that once an arrest has been fully secured and any\\n\\npotential danger or risk of flight vitiated, a police officer cannot employ the severe\\n\\nand unnecessary force allegedly used.” Id. No reasonable officer could have\\n\\nbelieved that use of force was legal under the circumstances, so this officer was not\\n\\nentitled to qualified immunity. And in Hadley v. Gutierrez, 526 F.3d 1324 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2008), we likewise denied qualified immunity to a police officer who punched\\n\\n\\n 16\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 17 of 20\\n\\n\\nan arrestee in the stomach after he was handcuffed and while he was not resisting,\\n\\neven though the suspect appeared to be “high on cocaine and paranoid.” Id. at\\n\\n1330. The Court relied on our “cases hold[ing] that gratuitous use of force when a\\n\\ncriminal suspect is not resisting arrest constitutes excessive force,” such as Lee.\\n\\nId.\\n\\n So, our case law is clear that serious and substantial injuries caused during a\\n\\nsuspect’s arrest when a suspect is neither resisting an officer’s commands nor\\n\\nposing a risk of flight may substantiate an excessive force claim. Although we\\n\\nhave never addressed a claim factually identical to Sebastian’s, Smith established\\n\\nthat if an arrestee demonstrates compliance, but the officer nonetheless inflicts\\n\\ngratuitous and substantial injury using ordinary arrest tactics, then the officer may\\n\\nhave used excessive force. This was true even though the plaintiff in Smith, unlike\\n\\nSebastian, was initially recalcitrant and even acted aggressively toward the officer.\\n\\nLifting an arrestee’s arm behind his back in order to handcuff him is a routine\\n\\narrest technique, but a panel of this Court found that the officer clearly violated the\\n\\nFourth Amendment because he deployed it with undue severity to an obedient\\n\\narrestee. Here, the facts as alleged in the complaint lead inescapably to the\\n\\nconclusion that the substantial injuries were inflicted on Sebastian in a similarly\\n\\ngratuitous manner, not as an incidental effect of legitimate law enforcement\\n\\nactions.\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 18 of 20\\n\\n\\n Moreover, the Supreme Court has explained that “officials can still be on\\n\\nnotice that their conduct violates established law even in novel factual\\n\\ncircumstances.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741 (2002). In Hope v. Pelzer a\\n\\nprisoner sued three guards, alleging that the prison’s practice of handcuffing\\n\\ninmates to hitching posts for hours at a time in the hot sun when they were\\n\\ndisobedient or disruptive while working on a chain gang violated the Eighth\\n\\nAmendment. Id. at 733–35. The Supreme Court held that the guards were not\\n\\nentitled to qualified immunity despite there being no precedent clearly on point.\\n\\nId. at 746. What the Court required was some established law that gave the\\n\\nofficials “fair warning” that their treatment of the inmate was unconstitutional. Id.\\n\\nat 741. In some cases, the Court said, “a general constitutional rule already\\n\\nidentified in the decisional law may apply with obvious clarity to the specific\\n\\nconduct in question, even though ‘the very action in question has [not] previously\\n\\nbeen held unlawful.’” United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 271 (1997) (quoting\\n\\nAnderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987)).\\n\\n Even though this Court has not addressed a similar fact pattern where\\n\\nsubstantial injuries were inflicted on an individual with no preexisting sensitivity\\n\\nby handcuffing alone, our case law bars Lieutenant Ortiz’s alleged actions with\\n\\nsufficient clarity to put any reasonable officer on notice that this conduct\\n\\nconstituted excessive force. “Graham dictates unambiguously that the force used\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 19 of 20\\n\\n\\nby a police officer in carrying out an arrest must be reasonably proportionate to the\\n\\nneed for that force,” Lee, 284 F.3d at 1198, and under the unusual facts alleged by\\n\\nSebastian we have no doubt that the force was objectively disproportionate and\\n\\naltogether gratuitous. We do not mean to give law enforcement officers pause\\n\\neach time they employ handcuffs in the heat of an arrest, and only the most\\n\\nexceptional circumstances will permit an excessive force claim on the basis of\\n\\nhandcuffing alone. The peculiar facts of this case, not least the reapplication of\\n\\nexcessively tightened cuffs after Sebastian first complained and the five-hour\\n\\nperiod Sebastian spent restrained in the cuffs at the station after his arrest, cross\\n\\nover “the hazy border between excessive and acceptable force” such that any\\n\\nreasonable officer would know he had violated the Constitution. Priester, 208 F.3d\\n\\nat 926. Taking the allegations in the complaint as true, the district court did not err\\n\\nby refusing to dismiss the complaint and in holding that Lieutenant Ortiz was not\\n\\nentitled to qualified immunity,\\n\\n The issue of qualified immunity as to the supervisory liability claim can be\\n\\ndealt with quickly. “[I]f a police officer, whether supervisory or not, fails or\\n\\nrefuses to intervene when a constitutional violation such as an unprovoked beating\\n\\ntakes place in his presence, the officer is directly liable under Section 1983.”\\n\\nEnsley v. Soper, 142 F.3d 1402, 1407 (11th Cir. 1998) (quoting Byrd v. Clark, 783\\n\\nF.2d 1002, 1007 (11th Cir. 1986)). To be held liable, the officer must both be “in a\\n\\n\\n 19\\n\\f Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 20 of 20\\n\\n\\nposition to intervene” and “fail[] to do so.” Priester, 208 F.3d at 924. Of course,\\n\\nthere also must be an underlying constitutional violation. Crenshaw v. Lister, 556\\n\\nF.3d 1283, 1294 (11th Cir. 2009). Plainly, an officer cannot be liable for failing to\\n\\nstop or intervene when there was no constitutional violation being committed.\\n\\n This claim is premised on the idea that Sebastian is unsure which officer --\\n\\nLieutenant Ortiz or Officer Doe -- actually applied the handcuffs. Sebastian\\n\\nalleges that if it was Doe, Ortiz is liable for failing to intervene in Doe’s use of\\n\\nexcessive force. As the district court correctly noted, the failure to intervene claim\\n\\nis therefore wholly dependent on the underlying excessive force claim. The parties\\n\\ndo not dispute, at the motion to dismiss stage, whether Lieutenant Ortiz was in a\\n\\nposition to intervene or whether he failed to do so, assuming that the unidentified\\n\\nofficer actually applied the handcuffs. The only dispute is whether a constitutional\\n\\nviolation occurred, so this issue necessarily turns on the analysis we have already\\n\\nset forth. Because Sebastian has adequately pleaded a clearly established\\n\\nconstitutional violation of his right to be free from excessive force, Lieutenant\\n\\nOrtiz is not entitled to qualified immunity on the failure to intervene claim.\\n\\n The district court did not err in denying Lieutenant Ortiz qualified immunity\\n\\non either claim.\\n\\n AFFIRMED.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 20\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1353,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4600798,"string":"4,600,798"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"MSPA CLAIMS 1, LLC, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TENET FLORIDA, INC., and St. Mary's Medical Center, Inc., Defendants-Appellees."},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"MSPA Claims 1, LLC v. Tenet Florida, Inc."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-18"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"18-11816"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Wilson, Pryor, Thapar\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"THAPAR, Circuit Judge:\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 1 of 18\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 18-11816\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 1:17-cv-20039-KMW\\n\\n\\n\\nMSPA CLAIMS 1, LLC,\\n\\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nTENET FLORIDA, INC., and\\nST. MARY’S MEDICAL CENTER, INC.,\\n\\n\\n\\n Defendants-Appellees.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Southern District of Florida\\n _______________________\\n\\n (March 18, 2019)\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 2 of 18\\n\\n\\nBefore WILSON, JILL PRYOR and THAPAR, * Circuit Judges.\\n\\nTHAPAR, Circuit Judge:\\n\\n The Medicare statute is almost “so incoherent [it] cannot be understood.” The\\n\\nFederalist No. 62, at 421 (James Madison) (Jacob E. Cooke ed., 1961); see MSP\\n\\nRecovery, LLC v. Allstate Ins. Co., 835 F.3d 1351, 1358 (11th Cir. 2016). Luckily\\n\\nthough, we need not venture very far into its tangled web here. The Medicare\\n\\nprovision at issue in this case is clear and clearly bars the plaintiff’s claim.\\n\\nAccordingly, we affirm.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Though we need not wade too deep into Medicare’s web, a short statutory\\n\\nbackground will still make the journey easier. This case concerns two statutory\\n\\nschemes under the umbrella of Medicare: the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (“MSP\\n\\nAct”) and the Medicare Advantage Program.\\n\\n The Medicare Secondary Payer Act. Sometimes more than one insurer is\\n\\nliable for an individual’s medical costs. For example, a car accident victim may be\\n\\nentitled to recover medical expenses from both her own health insurance and the\\n\\nother driver’s car insurance. Originally, whenever Medicare had overlapping\\n\\nobligations with a private insurer, Medicare paid first and let the private insurer pick\\n\\n\\n\\n *\\n Honorable Amul R. Thapar, United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by\\ndesignation.\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 3 of 18\\n\\n\\nup whatever medical expenses remained. Medicare was the “primary” payer and the\\n\\nprivate insurer was the “secondary” payer. See Humana Med. Plan, Inc. v. W.\\n\\nHeritage Ins. Co., 832 F.3d 1229, 1233–34 (11th Cir. 2016).\\n\\n That changed in 1980 with the MSP Act. Id. at 1234 (citing 42 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 1395y(b)). Enacted amid rising Medicare costs, the MSP Act flipped the\\n\\nprimary/secondary order described above. The MSP Act made private insurers\\n\\n“primary” payers (pay first) and Medicare the “secondary” payer (pay only if a\\n\\nbalance is remaining). Id. But primary payers can sometimes take a long time to\\n\\npay (for instance, when a tort defendant or her insurer is contesting liability). So the\\n\\nMSP Act carved out an exception: when a responsible primary plan does not\\n\\n“promptly meet its obligations,” Medicare can pay the entire amount upfront, so long\\n\\nas the primary plan eventually reimburses Medicare for any amounts it overpaid.\\n\\nNetro v. Greater Baltimore Med. Ctr., Inc., 891 F.3d 522, 524 (4th Cir. 2018) (citing\\n\\n42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)).\\n\\n To give the reimbursement requirement some teeth, the MSP Act created a\\n\\ncause of action that permits the government to sue when it is not properly\\n\\nreimbursed. Id. But insured individuals (and other private entities) are often in a\\n\\nbetter position than the government to know about the existence of responsible\\n\\nprimary plans. Id. So the MSP Act also created a second cause of action for private\\n\\nplaintiffs. Successful private plaintiffs receive double damages, and while they must\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 4 of 18\\n\\n\\ngive Medicare its share of the recovery, they can keep whatever is left over. See\\n\\nGlover v. Liggett Grp., Inc., 459 F.3d 1304, 1307 (11th Cir. 2006) (citing 42 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 1395y(b)(3)(A) (double damages); id. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)(iv) (Medicare’s\\n\\nsubrogation rights)). This scheme “‘encourage[s] private parties who are aware of\\n\\nnon-payment by primary plans to bring actions to enforce Medicare’s rights.’”\\n\\nHumana Med., 832 F.3d at 1235 (quoting Glover, 459 F.3d at 1307). In the car\\n\\naccident example, say that Medicare pays for the accident victim’s medical\\n\\nexpenses, but the other driver’s car insurance, despite having an obligation to pay,\\n\\ndoes not. In that case, the car insurance company is a primary plan that has failed to\\n\\nfulfill its obligations. So the accident victim may sue it under the MSP Act and, if\\n\\nsuccessful, recover on her own behalf.\\n\\n Medicare Advantage Organizations. Almost two decades after introducing\\n\\nthe MSP Act, Congress enacted the Medicare Advantage Program (also known as\\n\\nMedicare Part C). 42 U.S.C. § 1395w–21 et seq. This statute aims to reduce\\n\\nMedicare costs through semi-privatization; it permits Medicare to effectively sub-\\n\\ncontract its duties to private insurers, operating as Medicare Advantage\\n\\nOrganizations (commonly called “MAOs”). Parra v. PacifiCare of Ariz., Inc.,\\n\\n715 F.3d 1146, 1152–53 (9th Cir. 2013). Under these contracts, Medicare pays the\\n\\nMAO a fixed fee per enrollee, and, in exchange, the MAO must provide at least the\\n\\nsame benefits to the enrollee that she would receive under traditional Medicare.\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 5 of 18\\n\\n\\nTenet Healthsystem GB, Inc. v. Care Improvement Plus S. Cent. Ins. Co., 875 F.3d\\n\\n584, 586 (11th Cir. 2017).\\n\\n Since MAOs stand in the shoes of Medicare, Congress implemented a similar\\n\\nprimary/secondary payment structure to govern situations when MAOs have\\n\\noverlapping obligations with other insurers. MAOs, like Medicare, are “secondary”\\n\\npayers, stepping in once the primary payer has fulfilled its obligation. MAOs, like\\n\\nMedicare, can make payments in excess of their secondary obligations, conditioned\\n\\non later receiving reimbursement from the primary payer. Humana Med., 832 F.3d\\n\\nat 1235 (citing 42 U.S.C. § 1395w-22(a)(4)). And finally, MAOs, like Medicare,\\n\\ncan sue primary plans to ensure they are properly reimbursed. Id. at 1238. But\\n\\nunlike Medicare, MAOs must rely on the private cause of action when they sue.\\n\\nThey cannot use the separate government cause of action. See id. at 1236–38;\\n\\n42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)(iii) (“[T]he United States may bring an action against\\n\\nany or all entities that are or were required or responsible . . . to make payment . . .\\n\\nunder a primary plan. . . . In addition, the United States may recover . . . from any\\n\\nentity that has received payment from a primary plan or from the proceeds of a\\n\\nprimary plan’s payment to any entity.” (emphasis added)).\\n\\n II.\\n\\n Florida Healthcare Plus, Inc. (“FHCP”) is an MAO. In 2013, one of FHCP’s\\n\\nenrollees got into a car accident and received treatment at St. Mary’s Medical Center,\\n\\n\\n 5\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 6 of 18\\n\\n\\nInc.’s (“St. Mary’s”) hospital. Two plans covered her treatment. Allstate, as her\\n\\nprivate insurance company, was the “primary” payer. And FHCP also covered her\\n\\ntreatment as the “secondary” payer. But, instead of billing Allstate first, St. Mary’s\\n\\nbilled both Allstate and FHCP for the same medical treatment. And they both paid.\\n\\nSeveral months later, without any prompting from FHCP, St. Mary’s reimbursed\\n\\nFHCP for the full amount of its prior payment—about $286.\\n\\n FHCP subsequently assigned its MSP Act claims to La Ley Recovery\\n\\nSystems, Inc. (“La Ley”), which in turn assigned those claims to MSPA Claims 1,\\n\\nLLC (“MSPA”). MSPA is a firm that obtains MSP Act claims and brings them on\\n\\nbehalf of MAOs. After the assignment, MSPA sued St. Mary’s and its parent\\n\\nhospital group, Tenet Florida, Inc. (collectively “Tenet”), over the delayed $286\\n\\nreimbursement. Tenet moved to dismiss, and the district court granted its motion.\\n\\nMSPA appealed to this Court. We review de novo, accepting MSPA’s well-pled\\n\\nfactual allegations as true. Davidson v. Capital One Bank (USA), N.A., 797 F.3d\\n\\n1309, 1312 (11th Cir. 2015).\\n\\n III.\\n\\n We start by assessing whether MSPA has standing to invoke a federal court’s\\n\\njurisdiction. Standing ensures the judiciary stays within its constitutional role:\\n\\nresolving “Cases” and “Controversies”—i.e., discrete disputes between parties. U.S.\\n\\nConst. art. III, § 2; Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 492 (2009). To that\\n\\n\\n 6\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 7 of 18\\n\\n\\nend, every plaintiff must show that it (1) suffered an injury-in-fact (2) that is fairly\\n\\ntraceable to the defendant’s conduct and (3) is redressable by a favorable judicial\\n\\ndecision. Gill v. Whitford, 138 S. Ct. 1916, 1929 (2018).\\n\\n Injury-in-fact is the only element in dispute. Though MSPA itself did not\\n\\nsuffer an injury-in-fact, “the assignee of a claim has standing to assert the injury in\\n\\nfact suffered by the assignor.” Sprint Commc’ns Co., L.P. v. APCC Servs., Inc., 554\\n\\nU.S. 269, 286 (2008) (quoting Vt. Agency of Nat. Res. v. United States ex rel.\\n\\nStevens, 529 U.S. 765, 773 (2000)). Thus, MSPA has standing if (1) its ultimate\\n\\nassignor FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact, and (2) FHCP’s claim arising from that\\n\\ninjury was validly assigned to MSPA. MSPA has shown both.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n First, we address whether FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact. “Injury-in-fact”\\n\\nhas a technical meaning—“an invasion of a legally protected interest.” Lujan v.\\n\\nDefs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). An injury-in-fact must be both\\n\\n(1) particularized (“affect the plaintiff in a personal and individual way”) and\\n\\n(2) concrete (“real, and not abstract”). Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540,\\n\\n1548–49 (2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, at the pleading stage,\\n\\n“general factual allegations” showing these elements will suffice. Lujan, 504 U.S.\\n\\nat 561. And since there is no dispute the alleged injury was “particularized” to\\n\\nFHCP, we need only assess whether it was “concrete.”\\n\\n\\n 7\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 8 of 18\\n\\n\\n Tenet argues that FHCP’s only “injury” was not getting its $286\\n\\nreimbursement, and that injury disappeared when FHCP was paid in full. Therefore,\\n\\naccording to Tenet, there is no injury at all, let alone a concrete one. But that\\n\\ndescription of FHCP’s alleged injury is too narrow. FHCP’s alleged injury stems\\n\\nnot just from its entitlement to reimbursement of the appropriate amount but also\\n\\nfrom its entitlement to receive that reimbursement on time. MSPA alleges that the\\n\\nreimbursement was seven months late.\\n\\n The question is whether delay alone is a “concrete” injury. It is. MSPA\\n\\nalleges a type of economic injury, which is the epitome of “concrete.” See Craig v.\\n\\nBoren, 429 U.S. 190, 194–95 (1976) (collecting cases). For seven months, FHCP\\n\\nwas unable to use money that (allegedly) belonged to it. The inability to have and\\n\\nuse money to which a party is entitled is a concrete injury. Id. FHCP’s harm cannot\\n\\nbe remedied by simply receiving the amount owed—it requires something more to\\n\\ncompensate for the lost time, like interest. And MSPA alleges it is entitled to both\\n\\ninterest (and double damages) because of St. Mary’s delay in reimbursing FHCP.\\n\\nSee Young Apartments, Inc. v. Town of Jupiter, 529 F.3d 1027, 1038–39 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2008) (recognizing lost economic opportunity as an injury-in-fact).\\n\\n Paying interest as compensation for lost time is nothing new. FHCP’s alleged\\n\\nharm is analogous “to a harm that has traditionally been regarded as providing a\\n\\nbasis for a lawsuit in English or American courts[,]” Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1549—a\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 9 of 18\\n\\n\\ndebtor’s delinquent payment to a creditor. In effect, FHCP gave St. Mary’s a $286\\n\\nloan, and St. Mary’s paid it back seven months late. As Spokeo teaches, this close\\n\\nanalogy to a traditional common law right further supports concreteness. Id. Thus,\\n\\nMSPA has adequately alleged that FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact.\\n\\n B.\\n\\n Although FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact, MSPA only has standing if it was\\n\\nvalidly assigned the right to sue to vindicate that injury. Cf. US Fax Law Ctr., Inc.\\n\\nv. IHire, Inc., 476 F.3d 1112, 1120 (10th Cir. 2007) (“If a valid assignment confers\\n\\nstanding, an invalid assignment defeats standing . . . .”); accord Allstate Ins. Co.,\\n\\n835 F.3d at 1357–58. Two possible problems exist with FHCP’s assignment to\\n\\nMSPA: (1) the “chain” of assignment from FHCP to La Ley to MSPA and (2) an\\n\\nanti-assignment clause in FHCP’s contract with Tenet. As these are factual attacks\\n\\non MSPA’s standing, we must look beyond the allegations of the complaint to\\n\\naddress them. Houston v. Marod Supermarkets, Inc., 733 F.3d 1323, 1335–36 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2013).\\n\\n Chain of assignment. MSPA’s claim originally belonged to FHCP. FHCP\\n\\nassigned its MSP Act claims to La Ley, and in turn La Ley assigned those claims to\\n\\nMSPA. But between those two assignments, FHCP entered receivership\\n\\nproceedings and repudiated the assignment to La Ley. And after FHCP’s receiver\\n\\nlearned of La Ley’s assignment to MSPA, it disputed La Ley’s right to assign the\\n\\n\\n 9\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 10 of 18\\n\\n\\nMSP Act claims. As a result, numerous district courts have concluded that MSPA\\n\\nlacked standing because of this chain-of-assignment problem. See MSPA Claims 1,\\n\\nLLC v. Covington Specialty Ins. Co., 212 F. Supp. 3d 1250, 1257–58 (S.D. Fla. 2016)\\n\\n(summarizing the facts and collecting cases).\\n\\n But things have changed. One week before filing this lawsuit, FHCP entered\\n\\ninto a settlement agreement with La Ley and MSPA. The settlement fully resolved\\n\\nthe MSP Act assignment dispute and confirmed La Ley’s assignment of FHCP’s\\n\\nclaims to MSPA. Tenet does not point to any chain-of-assignment problems arising\\n\\nbetween that settlement and MSPA filing its amended complaint. See Focus on the\\n\\nFamily v. Pinellas Suncoast Transit Auth., 344 F.3d 1263, 1275–76 (11th Cir. 2003)\\n\\n(“Article III standing must be determined as of the time at which the plaintiff’s\\n\\ncomplaint is filed.”). Thus, MSPA’s chain of assignment supports standing.\\n\\n Anti-assignment provision. A second potential obstacle may block MSPA’s\\n\\nstanding: FHCP’s “Hospital Services Agreement” with Tenet. D.E. 17-5. The\\n\\nServices Agreement coordinated Tenet’s provision of medical services to FHCP’s\\n\\nenrollees. And it contained an anti-assignment clause: “[n]either party may assign\\n\\nthis Agreement in whole or in part without the express written consent of the other\\n\\nparty.” Id. ¶ 6.7. Tenet argues that it never consented to FHCP’s assignment to La\\n\\nLey, meaning La Ley’s purported assignment to MSPA was invalid, and MSPA\\n\\nlacks standing.\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 11 of 18\\n\\n\\n Tenet’s argument fails because it overextends the scope of the anti-assignment\\n\\nclause. Anti-assignment provisions only cover claims within their scope. See\\n\\nAllstate Ins. Co., 835 F.3d at 1358; Conn. State Dental Ass’n v. Anthem Health\\n\\nPlans, Inc., 591 F.3d 1337, 1347, 1350–51 (11th Cir. 2009). By its own terms, the\\n\\nanti-assignment provision of the Services Agreement states that it prevents either\\n\\nparty from assigning “this Agreement” without consent. D.E. 17-5 ¶ 6.7 (emphasis\\n\\nadded). But FHCP never purported to assign its rights under the Services\\n\\nAgreement—instead, FHCP assigned its rights under the MSP Act. And MSPA is\\n\\nonly suing based on those rights; it brings no contractual claims under the Services\\n\\nAgreement. Therefore, MSPA’s claim is outside the scope of the anti-assignment\\n\\nclause. Cf. Riley v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 36 F. App’x 194, 195–96 (6th Cir. 2002)\\n\\n(unpublished).\\n\\n This circuit reached a similar conclusion in a case involving MSPA’s standing\\n\\nand an analogous statutory anti-assignment provision. See Allstate Ins. Co., 835\\n\\nF.3d at 1357–58. Allstate held that since “FHCP assigned to [MSPA] a claim created\\n\\nby statute . . . entirely separate from its contract,” an anti-assignment provision did\\n\\nnot bar standing. See id. (citing 41 U.S.C. § 6305(a)). And this makes sense. To\\n\\nuse a hypothetical—suppose that during the course of Tenet and FHCP’s contractual\\n\\nrelationship, Tenet infringed one of FHCP’s patents. Plainly, the anti-assignment\\n\\nclause of the Services Agreement would not give Tenet effective veto power over\\n\\n\\n 11\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 12 of 18\\n\\n\\nFHCP’s ability to assign its patent infringement claim to someone else. FHCP had\\n\\nplenty of other rights outside of the Services Agreement. It was free to assign those\\n\\nrights without having to ask for Tenet’s consent. This MSP Act claim is one of those\\n\\nrights.\\n\\n In response, Tenet argues that MSP Act claims are within the scope of the\\n\\nServices Agreement. But Tenet’s arguments miss the mark. Tenet is right that\\n\\nMAOs and providers are generally free to “define the terms of their own agreements\\n\\nwithout reference to the Medicare [statute]” so long as those agreements do not\\n\\nconflict with the statute. Tenet Healthsystem, 875 F.3d at 591; see also King v.\\n\\nAllstate Ins. Co., 906 F.2d 1537, 1540 (11th Cir. 1990). Tenet is also right that its\\n\\ncontract may affect MSPA’s ability to recover. For example, the Services\\n\\nAgreement required FHCP to submit reimbursement requests within a year, and\\n\\nTenet claims that FHCP did not do so here. FHCP assigned its MSP Act claims as\\n\\nthey were, along with whatever defenses accompanied them. See DWFII Corp. v.\\n\\nState Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 469 F. App’x 762, 765 (11th Cir. 2012)\\n\\n(unpublished). But they are still MSP Act claims. Even if the Services Agreement\\n\\ncontains provisions restricting MSP Act rights, it does not transform MSP Act claims\\n\\ninto contract claims under the Agreement itself. To return to the patent infringement\\n\\nexample—though FHCP could freely assign any patent infringement claims it had\\n\\nagainst Tenet, if the Services Agreement had another provision limiting FHCP’s\\n\\n\\n 12\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 13 of 18\\n\\n\\nability to recover for patent infringement (e.g., requiring that FHCP bring any\\n\\ninfringement claims within one year), then Tenet could conceivably rely on that\\n\\nprovision to defend against an assignee’s infringement suit. But that would be a\\n\\nmerits issue, not a standing issue.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact when it had to wait seven months for\\n\\nappropriate reimbursement. And it validly assigned the right to vindicate that injury\\n\\nto La Ley, who in turn validly assigned it to MSPA. As a result, MSPA has standing.\\n\\n IV.\\n\\n Although MSPA has standing, its claim still must be plausible on the merits\\n\\nto survive dismissal. The MSP Act’s private cause of action is only available “in the\\n\\ncase of a primary plan which fails to provide for primary payment (or appropriate\\n\\nreimbursement).” 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(3)(A) (emphasis added). Yet MSPA has\\n\\nnot sued a primary plan; it has sued two medical services providers. Since private\\n\\nMSP Act plaintiffs can only sue primary plans, and MSPA has not done so, its claim\\n\\nis not “plausible on its face.” Davidson, 797 F.3d at 1312 (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal,\\n\\n556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). MSPA attempts to avoid the clear textual bar to its\\n\\nlawsuit by grasping at other provisions of the statute and agency regulations\\n\\ninterpreting it. But these attempts at avoidance all fail. The district court correctly\\n\\ndismissed MSPA’s complaint for failure to state a claim.\\n\\n\\n 13\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 14 of 18\\n\\n\\n Though the MSP Act as a whole is “remarkably abstruse,” Allstate Ins. Co.,\\n\\n835 F.3d at 1358, the private cause of action is remarkably simple. It reads, in full:\\n\\n There is established a private cause of action for damages (which shall\\n be in an amount double the amount otherwise provided) in the case of\\n a primary plan which fails to provide for primary payment (or\\n appropriate reimbursement) in accordance with paragraphs (1) and\\n (2)(A).\\n42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(3)(A). On its face, the text is clear: plaintiffs can only sue\\n\\nprimary plans when they fail to pay. If a plaintiff sues someone else who has not\\n\\npaid, like a medical provider, then the dispute is not a “case of a primary plan which\\n\\nfails to [pay]”—the dispute does not center on a “primary plan” at all. Id. Although\\n\\nother entities could “fail[] to provide for primary payment (or appropriate\\n\\nreimbursement)[,]” the provision does not authorize suits against any entity that fails\\n\\nto do so. Every word that appears after “a primary plan” is limited to modifying that\\n\\nnoun and that noun only. See Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The\\n\\nInterpretation of Legal Texts 152 (2012) (“[A] postpositive modifier normally\\n\\napplies only to the nearest reasonable referent.”). Thus, unsurprisingly, this Court\\n\\nhas repeatedly assumed that the private cause of action only permits suits against\\n\\nprimary plans. See, e.g., Allstate Ins. Co., 835 F.3d at 1355 (“Congress created a\\n\\nprivate cause of action against a primary plan that fails to provide for primary\\n\\npayment.”); Humana Med., 832 F.3d at 1239.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 14\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 15 of 18\\n\\n\\n Of course, Congress could have enacted a private cause of action “in the case\\n\\nof any entity” that fails to pay. And we know they knew how to draft such a statute\\n\\nbecause that is exactly what Congress did for the government’s cause of action.\\n\\nUnlike the private cause of action, the government’s cause of action broadly permits\\n\\nlawsuits against “any entity that has received payment from a primary plan”—a grant\\n\\nthat includes medical providers. 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)(iii); see also Haro v.\\n\\nSebelius, 747 F.3d 1099, 1116 (9th Cir. 2014); United States v. Stricker, 524 F.\\n\\nApp’x 500, 504 (11th Cir. 2013) (unpublished). The fact that the government’s\\n\\ncause of action explicitly authorizes lawsuits against medical providers clearly\\n\\nsuggests that the private cause of action does not do so implicitly. “[W]here\\n\\nCongress demonstrates awareness of an issue by expressly addressing it in one\\n\\nprovision, silence on the issue in a similar provision is presumed to be intentional.”\\n\\nAssa’ad v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 332 F.3d 1321, 1331 (11th Cir. 2003) (citing Cent. Bank\\n\\nof Denver, N.A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N.A., 511 U.S. 164, 184 (1994)).\\n\\nMSPA’s only response is that a separate statute established MAOs over a decade\\n\\nafter the MSP Act. But this misses the point: while MAOs did not exist when\\n\\nCongress passed the MSP Act, medical providers and other potentially-liable entities\\n\\nobviously did. Congress was aware that these entities existed, could be liable for\\n\\nreimbursement, and, in fact, made them liable when the government was suing. But\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 15\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 16 of 18\\n\\n\\nCongress did not provide for a private cause of action against these entities. Courts\\n\\nmust presume that difference in statutory language has meaning. Id.\\n\\n In the face of clear language from the provision at issue and a clear inference\\n\\nfrom statutory context, MSPA relies on an isolated cross-reference—the private\\n\\ncause of action’s cross-reference to paragraph (2)(A). Paragraph (2)(A), in turn,\\n\\ncross-references paragraph (2)(B), which establishes the MSP Act’s conditional\\n\\nprimary payment and reimbursement scheme. See generally Humana Med., 832\\n\\nF.3d at 1241 (W. Pryor, J., dissenting) (describing the structure of these paragraphs)\\n\\n(citing 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(A), (b)(2)(B)). MSPA argues that this cross-\\n\\nreference within a cross-reference settles the matter. Under MSPA’s view, concepts\\n\\nfrom paragraph (2)(B) should be incorporated back into the private cause of action\\n\\nin paragraph (3)(A). These (2)(B) concepts include the requirement that “an entity\\n\\nthat receives payment from a primary plan”—like St. Mary’s received from Allstate\\n\\nin this case—“shall reimburse the appropriate [party] for any payment made by the\\n\\n[U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] Secretary.” 42 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 1395y(b)(2)(B)(ii) (emphasis added). Thus, MSPA argues, because obligations of\\n\\nmedical providers like Tenet are incorporated-by-reference-within-a-reference into\\n\\nthe private cause of action, Tenet is amenable to suit under that provision.\\n\\n This argument is a stretch. At times, cross-references are instructive to\\n\\nunderstanding the meaning of a statute. But courts should not dig through layers of\\n\\n\\n 16\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 17 of 18\\n\\n\\ncross-references and then use what they have unearthed to replace the text of the\\n\\nprovision right in front of them. Cf. Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer & White Sales,\\n\\nInc., 139 S. Ct. 524, 530 (2019) (“Congress designed the Act in a specific way, and\\n\\nit is not our proper role to redesign the statute.”). Rather, cross-references are read\\n\\nin conjunction with the provision being interpreted. And here the private cause of\\n\\naction states that primary plans can be sued when they “fail[] to provide for primary\\n\\npayment . . . in accordance with paragraphs (1) and (2)(A).” 42 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 1395y(b)(3)(A) (emphasis added). The phrase “in accordance with” is critical\\n\\nbecause it limits the role these cross-references play. The phrase limits the cause of\\n\\naction to instances when primary plans do not follow (read: act in accordance with)\\n\\nparagraphs (1) and (2)(A). For one, this means that primary plans cannot be sued\\n\\nwhen they do pay in accordance with (1) and (2)(A). For another, it indicates that\\n\\nthis is a narrow cause of action limited to failing to pay under those specific\\n\\nprovisions—not some far-reaching cause of action to hale primary plans into court\\n\\nunder any circumstances or for other potential statutory violations. It is only for\\n\\nprimary plan violations of paragraphs (1) and (2)(A). Congress could have sought\\n\\nto use a cross-reference to (2)(A) and (2)(B) to delineate a broader list of parties that\\n\\ncan be sued, but that would be a different statute. In short, MSPA’s cross-reference-\\n\\nwithin-a-cross-reference argument fails. We have read paragraph (2)(B) into the\\n\\nprivate cause of action only to the very limited extent of determining when an\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 18 of 18\\n\\n\\nentity’s status as a primary plan has been “demonstrated.” See Glover, 459 F.3d at\\n\\n1308–09 (holding that a private plaintiff cannot sue a primary plan until that primary\\n\\nplan’s responsibility to pay “has been demonstrated” under paragraph (2)(B)); see\\n\\nalso Allstate, 835 F.3d at 1359 (following Glover).\\n\\n In the alternative, MSPA asks us to defer to regulations promulgated by the\\n\\nCenters for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”). These regulations state that\\n\\nMAOs have the same MSP Act recovery rights as Medicare, including the right to\\n\\nsue medical providers. 42 C.F.R. §§ 411.24(g), 422.108(f). But we only defer to\\n\\nsuch regulations if, after “applying the ordinary tools of statutory construction,” we\\n\\nfind the statute “‘silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue’” before us.\\n\\nCity of Arlington v. FCC, 569 U.S. 290, 296 (2013) (quoting Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v.\\n\\nNat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842–43 (1984)). When the statute is\\n\\nclear, “that is the end of the matter.” Id. Here, the text of the MSP Act’s private\\n\\ncause of action clearly answers the question before us. Accordingly, there is no need\\n\\nto look for answers in CMS regulations. The statute provides all we need.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n The private cause of action only permits MSPA to sue primary plans. Neither\\n\\nof the Defendants here are primary plans, so MSPA’s claim must be dismissed.\\n\\n AFFIRMED.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 18\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4378051/\", \"author_raw\": \"THAPAR, Circuit Judge:\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"WILSON"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"PRYOR"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"THAPAR"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600798/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: MSPA CLAIMS 1, LLC, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TENET FLORIDA, INC., and St. Mary's Medical Center, Inc., Defendants-Appellees.\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-18\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 1 of 18\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n ________________________\n\n No. 18-11816\n ________________________\n\n D.C. Docket No. 1:17-cv-20039-KMW\n\n\n\nMSPA CLAIMS 1, LLC,\n\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\n\n versus\n\nTENET FLORIDA, INC., and\nST. MARY’S MEDICAL CENTER, INC.,\n\n\n\n Defendants-Appellees.\n\n ________________________\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the Southern District of Florida\n _______________________\n\n (March 18, 2019)\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 2 of 18\n\n\nBefore WILSON, JILL PRYOR and THAPAR, * Circuit Judges.\n\nTHAPAR, Circuit Judge:\n\n The Medicare statute is almost “so incoherent [it] cannot be understood.” The\n\nFederalist No. 62, at 421 (James Madison) (Jacob E. Cooke ed., 1961); see MSP\n\nRecovery, LLC v. Allstate Ins. Co., 835 F.3d 1351, 1358 (11th Cir. 2016). Luckily\n\nthough, we need not venture very far into its tangled web here. The Medicare\n\nprovision at issue in this case is clear and clearly bars the plaintiff’s claim.\n\nAccordingly, we affirm.\n\n I.\n\n Though we need not wade too deep into Medicare’s web, a short statutory\n\nbackground will still make the journey easier. This case concerns two statutory\n\nschemes under the umbrella of Medicare: the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (“MSP\n\nAct”) and the Medicare Advantage Program.\n\n The Medicare Secondary Payer Act. Sometimes more than one insurer is\n\nliable for an individual’s medical costs. For example, a car accident victim may be\n\nentitled to recover medical expenses from both her own health insurance and the\n\nother driver’s car insurance. Originally, whenever Medicare had overlapping\n\nobligations with a private insurer, Medicare paid first and let the private insurer pick\n\n\n\n *\n Honorable Amul R. Thapar, United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by\ndesignation.\n 2\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 3 of 18\n\n\nup whatever medical expenses remained. Medicare was the “primary” payer and the\n\nprivate insurer was the “secondary” payer. See Humana Med. Plan, Inc. v. W.\n\nHeritage Ins. Co., 832 F.3d 1229, 1233–34 (11th Cir. 2016).\n\n That changed in 1980 with the MSP Act. Id. at 1234 (citing 42 U.S.C.\n\n§ 1395y(b)). Enacted amid rising Medicare costs, the MSP Act flipped the\n\nprimary/secondary order described above. The MSP Act made private insurers\n\n“primary” payers (pay first) and Medicare the “secondary” payer (pay only if a\n\nbalance is remaining). Id. But primary payers can sometimes take a long time to\n\npay (for instance, when a tort defendant or her insurer is contesting liability). So the\n\nMSP Act carved out an exception: when a responsible primary plan does not\n\n“promptly meet its obligations,” Medicare can pay the entire amount upfront, so long\n\nas the primary plan eventually reimburses Medicare for any amounts it overpaid.\n\nNetro v. Greater Baltimore Med. Ctr., Inc., 891 F.3d 522, 524 (4th Cir. 2018) (citing\n\n42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)).\n\n To give the reimbursement requirement some teeth, the MSP Act created a\n\ncause of action that permits the government to sue when it is not properly\n\nreimbursed. Id. But insured individuals (and other private entities) are often in a\n\nbetter position than the government to know about the existence of responsible\n\nprimary plans. Id. So the MSP Act also created a second cause of action for private\n\nplaintiffs. Successful private plaintiffs receive double damages, and while they must\n\n\n 3\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 4 of 18\n\n\ngive Medicare its share of the recovery, they can keep whatever is left over. See\n\nGlover v. Liggett Grp., Inc., 459 F.3d 1304, 1307 (11th Cir. 2006) (citing 42 U.S.C.\n\n§ 1395y(b)(3)(A) (double damages); id. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)(iv) (Medicare’s\n\nsubrogation rights)). This scheme “‘encourage[s] private parties who are aware of\n\nnon-payment by primary plans to bring actions to enforce Medicare’s rights.’”\n\nHumana Med., 832 F.3d at 1235 (quoting Glover, 459 F.3d at 1307). In the car\n\naccident example, say that Medicare pays for the accident victim’s medical\n\nexpenses, but the other driver’s car insurance, despite having an obligation to pay,\n\ndoes not. In that case, the car insurance company is a primary plan that has failed to\n\nfulfill its obligations. So the accident victim may sue it under the MSP Act and, if\n\nsuccessful, recover on her own behalf.\n\n Medicare Advantage Organizations. Almost two decades after introducing\n\nthe MSP Act, Congress enacted the Medicare Advantage Program (also known as\n\nMedicare Part C). 42 U.S.C. § 1395w–21 et seq. This statute aims to reduce\n\nMedicare costs through semi-privatization; it permits Medicare to effectively sub-\n\ncontract its duties to private insurers, operating as Medicare Advantage\n\nOrganizations (commonly called “MAOs”). Parra v. PacifiCare of Ariz., Inc.,\n\n715 F.3d 1146, 1152–53 (9th Cir. 2013). Under these contracts, Medicare pays the\n\nMAO a fixed fee per enrollee, and, in exchange, the MAO must provide at least the\n\nsame benefits to the enrollee that she would receive under traditional Medicare.\n\n\n 4\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 5 of 18\n\n\nTenet Healthsystem GB, Inc. v. Care Improvement Plus S. Cent. Ins. Co., 875 F.3d\n\n584, 586 (11th Cir. 2017).\n\n Since MAOs stand in the shoes of Medicare, Congress implemented a similar\n\nprimary/secondary payment structure to govern situations when MAOs have\n\noverlapping obligations with other insurers. MAOs, like Medicare, are “secondary”\n\npayers, stepping in once the primary payer has fulfilled its obligation. MAOs, like\n\nMedicare, can make payments in excess of their secondary obligations, conditioned\n\non later receiving reimbursement from the primary payer. Humana Med., 832 F.3d\n\nat 1235 (citing 42 U.S.C. § 1395w-22(a)(4)). And finally, MAOs, like Medicare,\n\ncan sue primary plans to ensure they are properly reimbursed. Id. at 1238. But\n\nunlike Medicare, MAOs must rely on the private cause of action when they sue.\n\nThey cannot use the separate government cause of action. See id. at 1236–38;\n\n42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)(iii) (“[T]he United States may bring an action against\n\nany or all entities that are or were required or responsible . . . to make payment . . .\n\nunder a primary plan. . . . In addition, the United States may recover . . . from any\n\nentity that has received payment from a primary plan or from the proceeds of a\n\nprimary plan’s payment to any entity.” (emphasis added)).\n\n II.\n\n Florida Healthcare Plus, Inc. (“FHCP”) is an MAO. In 2013, one of FHCP’s\n\nenrollees got into a car accident and received treatment at St. Mary’s Medical Center,\n\n\n 5\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 6 of 18\n\n\nInc.’s (“St. Mary’s”) hospital. Two plans covered her treatment. Allstate, as her\n\nprivate insurance company, was the “primary” payer. And FHCP also covered her\n\ntreatment as the “secondary” payer. But, instead of billing Allstate first, St. Mary’s\n\nbilled both Allstate and FHCP for the same medical treatment. And they both paid.\n\nSeveral months later, without any prompting from FHCP, St. Mary’s reimbursed\n\nFHCP for the full amount of its prior payment—about $286.\n\n FHCP subsequently assigned its MSP Act claims to La Ley Recovery\n\nSystems, Inc. (“La Ley”), which in turn assigned those claims to MSPA Claims 1,\n\nLLC (“MSPA”). MSPA is a firm that obtains MSP Act claims and brings them on\n\nbehalf of MAOs. After the assignment, MSPA sued St. Mary’s and its parent\n\nhospital group, Tenet Florida, Inc. (collectively “Tenet”), over the delayed $286\n\nreimbursement. Tenet moved to dismiss, and the district court granted its motion.\n\nMSPA appealed to this Court. We review de novo, accepting MSPA’s well-pled\n\nfactual allegations as true. Davidson v. Capital One Bank (USA), N.A., 797 F.3d\n\n1309, 1312 (11th Cir. 2015).\n\n III.\n\n We start by assessing whether MSPA has standing to invoke a federal court’s\n\njurisdiction. Standing ensures the judiciary stays within its constitutional role:\n\nresolving “Cases” and “Controversies”—i.e., discrete disputes between parties. U.S.\n\nConst. art. III, § 2; Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 492 (2009). To that\n\n\n 6\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 7 of 18\n\n\nend, every plaintiff must show that it (1) suffered an injury-in-fact (2) that is fairly\n\ntraceable to the defendant’s conduct and (3) is redressable by a favorable judicial\n\ndecision. Gill v. Whitford, 138 S. Ct. 1916, 1929 (2018).\n\n Injury-in-fact is the only element in dispute. Though MSPA itself did not\n\nsuffer an injury-in-fact, “the assignee of a claim has standing to assert the injury in\n\nfact suffered by the assignor.” Sprint Commc’ns Co., L.P. v. APCC Servs., Inc., 554\n\nU.S. 269, 286 (2008) (quoting Vt. Agency of Nat. Res. v. United States ex rel.\n\nStevens, 529 U.S. 765, 773 (2000)). Thus, MSPA has standing if (1) its ultimate\n\nassignor FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact, and (2) FHCP’s claim arising from that\n\ninjury was validly assigned to MSPA. MSPA has shown both.\n\n A.\n\n First, we address whether FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact. “Injury-in-fact”\n\nhas a technical meaning—“an invasion of a legally protected interest.” Lujan v.\n\nDefs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). An injury-in-fact must be both\n\n(1) particularized (“affect the plaintiff in a personal and individual way”) and\n\n(2) concrete (“real, and not abstract”). Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540,\n\n1548–49 (2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, at the pleading stage,\n\n“general factual allegations” showing these elements will suffice. Lujan, 504 U.S.\n\nat 561. And since there is no dispute the alleged injury was “particularized” to\n\nFHCP, we need only assess whether it was “concrete.”\n\n\n 7\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 8 of 18\n\n\n Tenet argues that FHCP’s only “injury” was not getting its $286\n\nreimbursement, and that injury disappeared when FHCP was paid in full. Therefore,\n\naccording to Tenet, there is no injury at all, let alone a concrete one. But that\n\ndescription of FHCP’s alleged injury is too narrow. FHCP’s alleged injury stems\n\nnot just from its entitlement to reimbursement of the appropriate amount but also\n\nfrom its entitlement to receive that reimbursement on time. MSPA alleges that the\n\nreimbursement was seven months late.\n\n The question is whether delay alone is a “concrete” injury. It is. MSPA\n\nalleges a type of economic injury, which is the epitome of “concrete.” See Craig v.\n\nBoren, 429 U.S. 190, 194–95 (1976) (collecting cases). For seven months, FHCP\n\nwas unable to use money that (allegedly) belonged to it. The inability to have and\n\nuse money to which a party is entitled is a concrete injury. Id. FHCP’s harm cannot\n\nbe remedied by simply receiving the amount owed—it requires something more to\n\ncompensate for the lost time, like interest. And MSPA alleges it is entitled to both\n\ninterest (and double damages) because of St. Mary’s delay in reimbursing FHCP.\n\nSee Young Apartments, Inc. v. Town of Jupiter, 529 F.3d 1027, 1038–39 (11th Cir.\n\n2008) (recognizing lost economic opportunity as an injury-in-fact).\n\n Paying interest as compensation for lost time is nothing new. FHCP’s alleged\n\nharm is analogous “to a harm that has traditionally been regarded as providing a\n\nbasis for a lawsuit in English or American courts[,]” Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1549—a\n\n\n 8\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 9 of 18\n\n\ndebtor’s delinquent payment to a creditor. In effect, FHCP gave St. Mary’s a $286\n\nloan, and St. Mary’s paid it back seven months late. As Spokeo teaches, this close\n\nanalogy to a traditional common law right further supports concreteness. Id. Thus,\n\nMSPA has adequately alleged that FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact.\n\n B.\n\n Although FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact, MSPA only has standing if it was\n\nvalidly assigned the right to sue to vindicate that injury. Cf. US Fax Law Ctr., Inc.\n\nv. IHire, Inc., 476 F.3d 1112, 1120 (10th Cir. 2007) (“If a valid assignment confers\n\nstanding, an invalid assignment defeats standing . . . .”); accord Allstate Ins. Co.,\n\n835 F.3d at 1357–58. Two possible problems exist with FHCP’s assignment to\n\nMSPA: (1) the “chain” of assignment from FHCP to La Ley to MSPA and (2) an\n\nanti-assignment clause in FHCP’s contract with Tenet. As these are factual attacks\n\non MSPA’s standing, we must look beyond the allegations of the complaint to\n\naddress them. Houston v. Marod Supermarkets, Inc., 733 F.3d 1323, 1335–36 (11th\n\nCir. 2013).\n\n Chain of assignment. MSPA’s claim originally belonged to FHCP. FHCP\n\nassigned its MSP Act claims to La Ley, and in turn La Ley assigned those claims to\n\nMSPA. But between those two assignments, FHCP entered receivership\n\nproceedings and repudiated the assignment to La Ley. And after FHCP’s receiver\n\nlearned of La Ley’s assignment to MSPA, it disputed La Ley’s right to assign the\n\n\n 9\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 10 of 18\n\n\nMSP Act claims. As a result, numerous district courts have concluded that MSPA\n\nlacked standing because of this chain-of-assignment problem. See MSPA Claims 1,\n\nLLC v. Covington Specialty Ins. Co., 212 F. Supp. 3d 1250, 1257–58 (S.D. Fla. 2016)\n\n(summarizing the facts and collecting cases).\n\n But things have changed. One week before filing this lawsuit, FHCP entered\n\ninto a settlement agreement with La Ley and MSPA. The settlement fully resolved\n\nthe MSP Act assignment dispute and confirmed La Ley’s assignment of FHCP’s\n\nclaims to MSPA. Tenet does not point to any chain-of-assignment problems arising\n\nbetween that settlement and MSPA filing its amended complaint. See Focus on the\n\nFamily v. Pinellas Suncoast Transit Auth., 344 F.3d 1263, 1275–76 (11th Cir. 2003)\n\n(“Article III standing must be determined as of the time at which the plaintiff’s\n\ncomplaint is filed.”). Thus, MSPA’s chain of assignment supports standing.\n\n Anti-assignment provision. A second potential obstacle may block MSPA’s\n\nstanding: FHCP’s “Hospital Services Agreement” with Tenet. D.E. 17-5. The\n\nServices Agreement coordinated Tenet’s provision of medical services to FHCP’s\n\nenrollees. And it contained an anti-assignment clause: “[n]either party may assign\n\nthis Agreement in whole or in part without the express written consent of the other\n\nparty.” Id. ¶ 6.7. Tenet argues that it never consented to FHCP’s assignment to La\n\nLey, meaning La Ley’s purported assignment to MSPA was invalid, and MSPA\n\nlacks standing.\n\n\n 10\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 11 of 18\n\n\n Tenet’s argument fails because it overextends the scope of the anti-assignment\n\nclause. Anti-assignment provisions only cover claims within their scope. See\n\nAllstate Ins. Co., 835 F.3d at 1358; Conn. State Dental Ass’n v. Anthem Health\n\nPlans, Inc., 591 F.3d 1337, 1347, 1350–51 (11th Cir. 2009). By its own terms, the\n\nanti-assignment provision of the Services Agreement states that it prevents either\n\nparty from assigning “this Agreement” without consent. D.E. 17-5 ¶ 6.7 (emphasis\n\nadded). But FHCP never purported to assign its rights under the Services\n\nAgreement—instead, FHCP assigned its rights under the MSP Act. And MSPA is\n\nonly suing based on those rights; it brings no contractual claims under the Services\n\nAgreement. Therefore, MSPA’s claim is outside the scope of the anti-assignment\n\nclause. Cf. Riley v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 36 F. App’x 194, 195–96 (6th Cir. 2002)\n\n(unpublished).\n\n This circuit reached a similar conclusion in a case involving MSPA’s standing\n\nand an analogous statutory anti-assignment provision. See Allstate Ins. Co., 835\n\nF.3d at 1357–58. Allstate held that since “FHCP assigned to [MSPA] a claim created\n\nby statute . . . entirely separate from its contract,” an anti-assignment provision did\n\nnot bar standing. See id. (citing 41 U.S.C. § 6305(a)). And this makes sense. To\n\nuse a hypothetical—suppose that during the course of Tenet and FHCP’s contractual\n\nrelationship, Tenet infringed one of FHCP’s patents. Plainly, the anti-assignment\n\nclause of the Services Agreement would not give Tenet effective veto power over\n\n\n 11\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 12 of 18\n\n\nFHCP’s ability to assign its patent infringement claim to someone else. FHCP had\n\nplenty of other rights outside of the Services Agreement. It was free to assign those\n\nrights without having to ask for Tenet’s consent. This MSP Act claim is one of those\n\nrights.\n\n In response, Tenet argues that MSP Act claims are within the scope of the\n\nServices Agreement. But Tenet’s arguments miss the mark. Tenet is right that\n\nMAOs and providers are generally free to “define the terms of their own agreements\n\nwithout reference to the Medicare [statute]” so long as those agreements do not\n\nconflict with the statute. Tenet Healthsystem, 875 F.3d at 591; see also King v.\n\nAllstate Ins. Co., 906 F.2d 1537, 1540 (11th Cir. 1990). Tenet is also right that its\n\ncontract may affect MSPA’s ability to recover. For example, the Services\n\nAgreement required FHCP to submit reimbursement requests within a year, and\n\nTenet claims that FHCP did not do so here. FHCP assigned its MSP Act claims as\n\nthey were, along with whatever defenses accompanied them. See DWFII Corp. v.\n\nState Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 469 F. App’x 762, 765 (11th Cir. 2012)\n\n(unpublished). But they are still MSP Act claims. Even if the Services Agreement\n\ncontains provisions restricting MSP Act rights, it does not transform MSP Act claims\n\ninto contract claims under the Agreement itself. To return to the patent infringement\n\nexample—though FHCP could freely assign any patent infringement claims it had\n\nagainst Tenet, if the Services Agreement had another provision limiting FHCP’s\n\n\n 12\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 13 of 18\n\n\nability to recover for patent infringement (e.g., requiring that FHCP bring any\n\ninfringement claims within one year), then Tenet could conceivably rely on that\n\nprovision to defend against an assignee’s infringement suit. But that would be a\n\nmerits issue, not a standing issue.\n\n * * *\n\n FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact when it had to wait seven months for\n\nappropriate reimbursement. And it validly assigned the right to vindicate that injury\n\nto La Ley, who in turn validly assigned it to MSPA. As a result, MSPA has standing.\n\n IV.\n\n Although MSPA has standing, its claim still must be plausible on the merits\n\nto survive dismissal. The MSP Act’s private cause of action is only available “in the\n\ncase of a primary plan which fails to provide for primary payment (or appropriate\n\nreimbursement).” 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(3)(A) (emphasis added). Yet MSPA has\n\nnot sued a primary plan; it has sued two medical services providers. Since private\n\nMSP Act plaintiffs can only sue primary plans, and MSPA has not done so, its claim\n\nis not “plausible on its face.” Davidson, 797 F.3d at 1312 (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal,\n\n556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). MSPA attempts to avoid the clear textual bar to its\n\nlawsuit by grasping at other provisions of the statute and agency regulations\n\ninterpreting it. But these attempts at avoidance all fail. The district court correctly\n\ndismissed MSPA’s complaint for failure to state a claim.\n\n\n 13\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 14 of 18\n\n\n Though the MSP Act as a whole is “remarkably abstruse,” Allstate Ins. Co.,\n\n835 F.3d at 1358, the private cause of action is remarkably simple. It reads, in full:\n\n There is established a private cause of action for damages (which shall\n be in an amount double the amount otherwise provided) in the case of\n a primary plan which fails to provide for primary payment (or\n appropriate reimbursement) in accordance with paragraphs (1) and\n (2)(A).\n42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(3)(A). On its face, the text is clear: plaintiffs can only sue\n\nprimary plans when they fail to pay. If a plaintiff sues someone else who has not\n\npaid, like a medical provider, then the dispute is not a “case of a primary plan which\n\nfails to [pay]”—the dispute does not center on a “primary plan” at all. Id. Although\n\nother entities could “fail[] to provide for primary payment (or appropriate\n\nreimbursement)[,]” the provision does not authorize suits against any entity that fails\n\nto do so. Every word that appears after “a primary plan” is limited to modifying that\n\nnoun and that noun only. See Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The\n\nInterpretation of Legal Texts 152 (2012) (“[A] postpositive modifier normally\n\napplies only to the nearest reasonable referent.”). Thus, unsurprisingly, this Court\n\nhas repeatedly assumed that the private cause of action only permits suits against\n\nprimary plans. See, e.g., Allstate Ins. Co., 835 F.3d at 1355 (“Congress created a\n\nprivate cause of action against a primary plan that fails to provide for primary\n\npayment.”); Humana Med., 832 F.3d at 1239.\n\n\n\n\n 14\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 15 of 18\n\n\n Of course, Congress could have enacted a private cause of action “in the case\n\nof any entity” that fails to pay. And we know they knew how to draft such a statute\n\nbecause that is exactly what Congress did for the government’s cause of action.\n\nUnlike the private cause of action, the government’s cause of action broadly permits\n\nlawsuits against “any entity that has received payment from a primary plan”—a grant\n\nthat includes medical providers. 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)(iii); see also Haro v.\n\nSebelius, 747 F.3d 1099, 1116 (9th Cir. 2014); United States v. Stricker, 524 F.\n\nApp’x 500, 504 (11th Cir. 2013) (unpublished). The fact that the government’s\n\ncause of action explicitly authorizes lawsuits against medical providers clearly\n\nsuggests that the private cause of action does not do so implicitly. “[W]here\n\nCongress demonstrates awareness of an issue by expressly addressing it in one\n\nprovision, silence on the issue in a similar provision is presumed to be intentional.”\n\nAssa’ad v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 332 F.3d 1321, 1331 (11th Cir. 2003) (citing Cent. Bank\n\nof Denver, N.A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N.A., 511 U.S. 164, 184 (1994)).\n\nMSPA’s only response is that a separate statute established MAOs over a decade\n\nafter the MSP Act. But this misses the point: while MAOs did not exist when\n\nCongress passed the MSP Act, medical providers and other potentially-liable entities\n\nobviously did. Congress was aware that these entities existed, could be liable for\n\nreimbursement, and, in fact, made them liable when the government was suing. But\n\n\n\n\n 15\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 16 of 18\n\n\nCongress did not provide for a private cause of action against these entities. Courts\n\nmust presume that difference in statutory language has meaning. Id.\n\n In the face of clear language from the provision at issue and a clear inference\n\nfrom statutory context, MSPA relies on an isolated cross-reference—the private\n\ncause of action’s cross-reference to paragraph (2)(A). Paragraph (2)(A), in turn,\n\ncross-references paragraph (2)(B), which establishes the MSP Act’s conditional\n\nprimary payment and reimbursement scheme. See generally Humana Med., 832\n\nF.3d at 1241 (W. Pryor, J., dissenting) (describing the structure of these paragraphs)\n\n(citing 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(A), (b)(2)(B)). MSPA argues that this cross-\n\nreference within a cross-reference settles the matter. Under MSPA’s view, concepts\n\nfrom paragraph (2)(B) should be incorporated back into the private cause of action\n\nin paragraph (3)(A). These (2)(B) concepts include the requirement that “an entity\n\nthat receives payment from a primary plan”—like St. Mary’s received from Allstate\n\nin this case—“shall reimburse the appropriate [party] for any payment made by the\n\n[U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] Secretary.” 42 U.S.C.\n\n§ 1395y(b)(2)(B)(ii) (emphasis added). Thus, MSPA argues, because obligations of\n\nmedical providers like Tenet are incorporated-by-reference-within-a-reference into\n\nthe private cause of action, Tenet is amenable to suit under that provision.\n\n This argument is a stretch. At times, cross-references are instructive to\n\nunderstanding the meaning of a statute. But courts should not dig through layers of\n\n\n 16\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 17 of 18\n\n\ncross-references and then use what they have unearthed to replace the text of the\n\nprovision right in front of them. Cf. Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer & White Sales,\n\nInc., 139 S. Ct. 524, 530 (2019) (“Congress designed the Act in a specific way, and\n\nit is not our proper role to redesign the statute.”). Rather, cross-references are read\n\nin conjunction with the provision being interpreted. And here the private cause of\n\naction states that primary plans can be sued when they “fail[] to provide for primary\n\npayment . . . in accordance with paragraphs (1) and (2)(A).” 42 U.S.C.\n\n§ 1395y(b)(3)(A) (emphasis added). The phrase “in accordance with” is critical\n\nbecause it limits the role these cross-references play. The phrase limits the cause of\n\naction to instances when primary plans do not follow (read: act in accordance with)\n\nparagraphs (1) and (2)(A). For one, this means that primary plans cannot be sued\n\nwhen they do pay in accordance with (1) and (2)(A). For another, it indicates that\n\nthis is a narrow cause of action limited to failing to pay under those specific\n\nprovisions—not some far-reaching cause of action to hale primary plans into court\n\nunder any circumstances or for other potential statutory violations. It is only for\n\nprimary plan violations of paragraphs (1) and (2)(A). Congress could have sought\n\nto use a cross-reference to (2)(A) and (2)(B) to delineate a broader list of parties that\n\ncan be sued, but that would be a different statute. In short, MSPA’s cross-reference-\n\nwithin-a-cross-reference argument fails. We have read paragraph (2)(B) into the\n\nprivate cause of action only to the very limited extent of determining when an\n\n\n 17\n\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 18 of 18\n\n\nentity’s status as a primary plan has been “demonstrated.” See Glover, 459 F.3d at\n\n1308–09 (holding that a private plaintiff cannot sue a primary plan until that primary\n\nplan’s responsibility to pay “has been demonstrated” under paragraph (2)(B)); see\n\nalso Allstate, 835 F.3d at 1359 (following Glover).\n\n In the alternative, MSPA asks us to defer to regulations promulgated by the\n\nCenters for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”). These regulations state that\n\nMAOs have the same MSP Act recovery rights as Medicare, including the right to\n\nsue medical providers. 42 C.F.R. §§ 411.24(g), 422.108(f). But we only defer to\n\nsuch regulations if, after “applying the ordinary tools of statutory construction,” we\n\nfind the statute “‘silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue’” before us.\n\nCity of Arlington v. FCC, 569 U.S. 290, 296 (2013) (quoting Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v.\n\nNat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842–43 (1984)). When the statute is\n\nclear, “that is the end of the matter.” Id. Here, the text of the MSP Act’s private\n\ncause of action clearly answers the question before us. Accordingly, there is no need\n\nto look for answers in CMS regulations. The statute provides all we need.\n\n * * *\n\n The private cause of action only permits MSPA to sue primary plans. Neither\n\nof the Defendants here are primary plans, so MSPA’s claim must be dismissed.\n\n AFFIRMED.\n\n\n\n\n 18\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: MSPA CLAIMS 1, LLC, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TENET FLORIDA, INC., and St. Mary's Medical Center, Inc., Defendants-Appellees.\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-18\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 1 of 18\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 18-11816\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 1:17-cv-20039-KMW\\n\\n\\n\\nMSPA CLAIMS 1, LLC,\\n\\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nTENET FLORIDA, INC., and\\nST. MARY’S MEDICAL CENTER, INC.,\\n\\n\\n\\n Defendants-Appellees.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Southern District of Florida\\n _______________________\\n\\n (March 18, 2019)\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 2 of 18\\n\\n\\nBefore WILSON, JILL PRYOR and THAPAR, * Circuit Judges.\\n\\nTHAPAR, Circuit Judge:\\n\\n The Medicare statute is almost “so incoherent [it] cannot be understood.” The\\n\\nFederalist No. 62, at 421 (James Madison) (Jacob E. Cooke ed., 1961); see MSP\\n\\nRecovery, LLC v. Allstate Ins. Co., 835 F.3d 1351, 1358 (11th Cir. 2016). Luckily\\n\\nthough, we need not venture very far into its tangled web here. The Medicare\\n\\nprovision at issue in this case is clear and clearly bars the plaintiff’s claim.\\n\\nAccordingly, we affirm.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Though we need not wade too deep into Medicare’s web, a short statutory\\n\\nbackground will still make the journey easier. This case concerns two statutory\\n\\nschemes under the umbrella of Medicare: the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (“MSP\\n\\nAct”) and the Medicare Advantage Program.\\n\\n The Medicare Secondary Payer Act. Sometimes more than one insurer is\\n\\nliable for an individual’s medical costs. For example, a car accident victim may be\\n\\nentitled to recover medical expenses from both her own health insurance and the\\n\\nother driver’s car insurance. Originally, whenever Medicare had overlapping\\n\\nobligations with a private insurer, Medicare paid first and let the private insurer pick\\n\\n\\n\\n *\\n Honorable Amul R. Thapar, United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by\\ndesignation.\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 3 of 18\\n\\n\\nup whatever medical expenses remained. Medicare was the “primary” payer and the\\n\\nprivate insurer was the “secondary” payer. See Humana Med. Plan, Inc. v. W.\\n\\nHeritage Ins. Co., 832 F.3d 1229, 1233–34 (11th Cir. 2016).\\n\\n That changed in 1980 with the MSP Act. Id. at 1234 (citing 42 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 1395y(b)). Enacted amid rising Medicare costs, the MSP Act flipped the\\n\\nprimary/secondary order described above. The MSP Act made private insurers\\n\\n“primary” payers (pay first) and Medicare the “secondary” payer (pay only if a\\n\\nbalance is remaining). Id. But primary payers can sometimes take a long time to\\n\\npay (for instance, when a tort defendant or her insurer is contesting liability). So the\\n\\nMSP Act carved out an exception: when a responsible primary plan does not\\n\\n“promptly meet its obligations,” Medicare can pay the entire amount upfront, so long\\n\\nas the primary plan eventually reimburses Medicare for any amounts it overpaid.\\n\\nNetro v. Greater Baltimore Med. Ctr., Inc., 891 F.3d 522, 524 (4th Cir. 2018) (citing\\n\\n42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)).\\n\\n To give the reimbursement requirement some teeth, the MSP Act created a\\n\\ncause of action that permits the government to sue when it is not properly\\n\\nreimbursed. Id. But insured individuals (and other private entities) are often in a\\n\\nbetter position than the government to know about the existence of responsible\\n\\nprimary plans. Id. So the MSP Act also created a second cause of action for private\\n\\nplaintiffs. Successful private plaintiffs receive double damages, and while they must\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 4 of 18\\n\\n\\ngive Medicare its share of the recovery, they can keep whatever is left over. See\\n\\nGlover v. Liggett Grp., Inc., 459 F.3d 1304, 1307 (11th Cir. 2006) (citing 42 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 1395y(b)(3)(A) (double damages); id. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)(iv) (Medicare’s\\n\\nsubrogation rights)). This scheme “‘encourage[s] private parties who are aware of\\n\\nnon-payment by primary plans to bring actions to enforce Medicare’s rights.’”\\n\\nHumana Med., 832 F.3d at 1235 (quoting Glover, 459 F.3d at 1307). In the car\\n\\naccident example, say that Medicare pays for the accident victim’s medical\\n\\nexpenses, but the other driver’s car insurance, despite having an obligation to pay,\\n\\ndoes not. In that case, the car insurance company is a primary plan that has failed to\\n\\nfulfill its obligations. So the accident victim may sue it under the MSP Act and, if\\n\\nsuccessful, recover on her own behalf.\\n\\n Medicare Advantage Organizations. Almost two decades after introducing\\n\\nthe MSP Act, Congress enacted the Medicare Advantage Program (also known as\\n\\nMedicare Part C). 42 U.S.C. § 1395w–21 et seq. This statute aims to reduce\\n\\nMedicare costs through semi-privatization; it permits Medicare to effectively sub-\\n\\ncontract its duties to private insurers, operating as Medicare Advantage\\n\\nOrganizations (commonly called “MAOs”). Parra v. PacifiCare of Ariz., Inc.,\\n\\n715 F.3d 1146, 1152–53 (9th Cir. 2013). Under these contracts, Medicare pays the\\n\\nMAO a fixed fee per enrollee, and, in exchange, the MAO must provide at least the\\n\\nsame benefits to the enrollee that she would receive under traditional Medicare.\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 5 of 18\\n\\n\\nTenet Healthsystem GB, Inc. v. Care Improvement Plus S. Cent. Ins. Co., 875 F.3d\\n\\n584, 586 (11th Cir. 2017).\\n\\n Since MAOs stand in the shoes of Medicare, Congress implemented a similar\\n\\nprimary/secondary payment structure to govern situations when MAOs have\\n\\noverlapping obligations with other insurers. MAOs, like Medicare, are “secondary”\\n\\npayers, stepping in once the primary payer has fulfilled its obligation. MAOs, like\\n\\nMedicare, can make payments in excess of their secondary obligations, conditioned\\n\\non later receiving reimbursement from the primary payer. Humana Med., 832 F.3d\\n\\nat 1235 (citing 42 U.S.C. § 1395w-22(a)(4)). And finally, MAOs, like Medicare,\\n\\ncan sue primary plans to ensure they are properly reimbursed. Id. at 1238. But\\n\\nunlike Medicare, MAOs must rely on the private cause of action when they sue.\\n\\nThey cannot use the separate government cause of action. See id. at 1236–38;\\n\\n42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)(iii) (“[T]he United States may bring an action against\\n\\nany or all entities that are or were required or responsible . . . to make payment . . .\\n\\nunder a primary plan. . . . In addition, the United States may recover . . . from any\\n\\nentity that has received payment from a primary plan or from the proceeds of a\\n\\nprimary plan’s payment to any entity.” (emphasis added)).\\n\\n II.\\n\\n Florida Healthcare Plus, Inc. (“FHCP”) is an MAO. In 2013, one of FHCP’s\\n\\nenrollees got into a car accident and received treatment at St. Mary’s Medical Center,\\n\\n\\n 5\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 6 of 18\\n\\n\\nInc.’s (“St. Mary’s”) hospital. Two plans covered her treatment. Allstate, as her\\n\\nprivate insurance company, was the “primary” payer. And FHCP also covered her\\n\\ntreatment as the “secondary” payer. But, instead of billing Allstate first, St. Mary’s\\n\\nbilled both Allstate and FHCP for the same medical treatment. And they both paid.\\n\\nSeveral months later, without any prompting from FHCP, St. Mary’s reimbursed\\n\\nFHCP for the full amount of its prior payment—about $286.\\n\\n FHCP subsequently assigned its MSP Act claims to La Ley Recovery\\n\\nSystems, Inc. (“La Ley”), which in turn assigned those claims to MSPA Claims 1,\\n\\nLLC (“MSPA”). MSPA is a firm that obtains MSP Act claims and brings them on\\n\\nbehalf of MAOs. After the assignment, MSPA sued St. Mary’s and its parent\\n\\nhospital group, Tenet Florida, Inc. (collectively “Tenet”), over the delayed $286\\n\\nreimbursement. Tenet moved to dismiss, and the district court granted its motion.\\n\\nMSPA appealed to this Court. We review de novo, accepting MSPA’s well-pled\\n\\nfactual allegations as true. Davidson v. Capital One Bank (USA), N.A., 797 F.3d\\n\\n1309, 1312 (11th Cir. 2015).\\n\\n III.\\n\\n We start by assessing whether MSPA has standing to invoke a federal court’s\\n\\njurisdiction. Standing ensures the judiciary stays within its constitutional role:\\n\\nresolving “Cases” and “Controversies”—i.e., discrete disputes between parties. U.S.\\n\\nConst. art. III, § 2; Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 492 (2009). To that\\n\\n\\n 6\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 7 of 18\\n\\n\\nend, every plaintiff must show that it (1) suffered an injury-in-fact (2) that is fairly\\n\\ntraceable to the defendant’s conduct and (3) is redressable by a favorable judicial\\n\\ndecision. Gill v. Whitford, 138 S. Ct. 1916, 1929 (2018).\\n\\n Injury-in-fact is the only element in dispute. Though MSPA itself did not\\n\\nsuffer an injury-in-fact, “the assignee of a claim has standing to assert the injury in\\n\\nfact suffered by the assignor.” Sprint Commc’ns Co., L.P. v. APCC Servs., Inc., 554\\n\\nU.S. 269, 286 (2008) (quoting Vt. Agency of Nat. Res. v. United States ex rel.\\n\\nStevens, 529 U.S. 765, 773 (2000)). Thus, MSPA has standing if (1) its ultimate\\n\\nassignor FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact, and (2) FHCP’s claim arising from that\\n\\ninjury was validly assigned to MSPA. MSPA has shown both.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n First, we address whether FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact. “Injury-in-fact”\\n\\nhas a technical meaning—“an invasion of a legally protected interest.” Lujan v.\\n\\nDefs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). An injury-in-fact must be both\\n\\n(1) particularized (“affect the plaintiff in a personal and individual way”) and\\n\\n(2) concrete (“real, and not abstract”). Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540,\\n\\n1548–49 (2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, at the pleading stage,\\n\\n“general factual allegations” showing these elements will suffice. Lujan, 504 U.S.\\n\\nat 561. And since there is no dispute the alleged injury was “particularized” to\\n\\nFHCP, we need only assess whether it was “concrete.”\\n\\n\\n 7\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 8 of 18\\n\\n\\n Tenet argues that FHCP’s only “injury” was not getting its $286\\n\\nreimbursement, and that injury disappeared when FHCP was paid in full. Therefore,\\n\\naccording to Tenet, there is no injury at all, let alone a concrete one. But that\\n\\ndescription of FHCP’s alleged injury is too narrow. FHCP’s alleged injury stems\\n\\nnot just from its entitlement to reimbursement of the appropriate amount but also\\n\\nfrom its entitlement to receive that reimbursement on time. MSPA alleges that the\\n\\nreimbursement was seven months late.\\n\\n The question is whether delay alone is a “concrete” injury. It is. MSPA\\n\\nalleges a type of economic injury, which is the epitome of “concrete.” See Craig v.\\n\\nBoren, 429 U.S. 190, 194–95 (1976) (collecting cases). For seven months, FHCP\\n\\nwas unable to use money that (allegedly) belonged to it. The inability to have and\\n\\nuse money to which a party is entitled is a concrete injury. Id. FHCP’s harm cannot\\n\\nbe remedied by simply receiving the amount owed—it requires something more to\\n\\ncompensate for the lost time, like interest. And MSPA alleges it is entitled to both\\n\\ninterest (and double damages) because of St. Mary’s delay in reimbursing FHCP.\\n\\nSee Young Apartments, Inc. v. Town of Jupiter, 529 F.3d 1027, 1038–39 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2008) (recognizing lost economic opportunity as an injury-in-fact).\\n\\n Paying interest as compensation for lost time is nothing new. FHCP’s alleged\\n\\nharm is analogous “to a harm that has traditionally been regarded as providing a\\n\\nbasis for a lawsuit in English or American courts[,]” Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1549—a\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 9 of 18\\n\\n\\ndebtor’s delinquent payment to a creditor. In effect, FHCP gave St. Mary’s a $286\\n\\nloan, and St. Mary’s paid it back seven months late. As Spokeo teaches, this close\\n\\nanalogy to a traditional common law right further supports concreteness. Id. Thus,\\n\\nMSPA has adequately alleged that FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact.\\n\\n B.\\n\\n Although FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact, MSPA only has standing if it was\\n\\nvalidly assigned the right to sue to vindicate that injury. Cf. US Fax Law Ctr., Inc.\\n\\nv. IHire, Inc., 476 F.3d 1112, 1120 (10th Cir. 2007) (“If a valid assignment confers\\n\\nstanding, an invalid assignment defeats standing . . . .”); accord Allstate Ins. Co.,\\n\\n835 F.3d at 1357–58. Two possible problems exist with FHCP’s assignment to\\n\\nMSPA: (1) the “chain” of assignment from FHCP to La Ley to MSPA and (2) an\\n\\nanti-assignment clause in FHCP’s contract with Tenet. As these are factual attacks\\n\\non MSPA’s standing, we must look beyond the allegations of the complaint to\\n\\naddress them. Houston v. Marod Supermarkets, Inc., 733 F.3d 1323, 1335–36 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2013).\\n\\n Chain of assignment. MSPA’s claim originally belonged to FHCP. FHCP\\n\\nassigned its MSP Act claims to La Ley, and in turn La Ley assigned those claims to\\n\\nMSPA. But between those two assignments, FHCP entered receivership\\n\\nproceedings and repudiated the assignment to La Ley. And after FHCP’s receiver\\n\\nlearned of La Ley’s assignment to MSPA, it disputed La Ley’s right to assign the\\n\\n\\n 9\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 10 of 18\\n\\n\\nMSP Act claims. As a result, numerous district courts have concluded that MSPA\\n\\nlacked standing because of this chain-of-assignment problem. See MSPA Claims 1,\\n\\nLLC v. Covington Specialty Ins. Co., 212 F. Supp. 3d 1250, 1257–58 (S.D. Fla. 2016)\\n\\n(summarizing the facts and collecting cases).\\n\\n But things have changed. One week before filing this lawsuit, FHCP entered\\n\\ninto a settlement agreement with La Ley and MSPA. The settlement fully resolved\\n\\nthe MSP Act assignment dispute and confirmed La Ley’s assignment of FHCP’s\\n\\nclaims to MSPA. Tenet does not point to any chain-of-assignment problems arising\\n\\nbetween that settlement and MSPA filing its amended complaint. See Focus on the\\n\\nFamily v. Pinellas Suncoast Transit Auth., 344 F.3d 1263, 1275–76 (11th Cir. 2003)\\n\\n(“Article III standing must be determined as of the time at which the plaintiff’s\\n\\ncomplaint is filed.”). Thus, MSPA’s chain of assignment supports standing.\\n\\n Anti-assignment provision. A second potential obstacle may block MSPA’s\\n\\nstanding: FHCP’s “Hospital Services Agreement” with Tenet. D.E. 17-5. The\\n\\nServices Agreement coordinated Tenet’s provision of medical services to FHCP’s\\n\\nenrollees. And it contained an anti-assignment clause: “[n]either party may assign\\n\\nthis Agreement in whole or in part without the express written consent of the other\\n\\nparty.” Id. ¶ 6.7. Tenet argues that it never consented to FHCP’s assignment to La\\n\\nLey, meaning La Ley’s purported assignment to MSPA was invalid, and MSPA\\n\\nlacks standing.\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 11 of 18\\n\\n\\n Tenet’s argument fails because it overextends the scope of the anti-assignment\\n\\nclause. Anti-assignment provisions only cover claims within their scope. See\\n\\nAllstate Ins. Co., 835 F.3d at 1358; Conn. State Dental Ass’n v. Anthem Health\\n\\nPlans, Inc., 591 F.3d 1337, 1347, 1350–51 (11th Cir. 2009). By its own terms, the\\n\\nanti-assignment provision of the Services Agreement states that it prevents either\\n\\nparty from assigning “this Agreement” without consent. D.E. 17-5 ¶ 6.7 (emphasis\\n\\nadded). But FHCP never purported to assign its rights under the Services\\n\\nAgreement—instead, FHCP assigned its rights under the MSP Act. And MSPA is\\n\\nonly suing based on those rights; it brings no contractual claims under the Services\\n\\nAgreement. Therefore, MSPA’s claim is outside the scope of the anti-assignment\\n\\nclause. Cf. Riley v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 36 F. App’x 194, 195–96 (6th Cir. 2002)\\n\\n(unpublished).\\n\\n This circuit reached a similar conclusion in a case involving MSPA’s standing\\n\\nand an analogous statutory anti-assignment provision. See Allstate Ins. Co., 835\\n\\nF.3d at 1357–58. Allstate held that since “FHCP assigned to [MSPA] a claim created\\n\\nby statute . . . entirely separate from its contract,” an anti-assignment provision did\\n\\nnot bar standing. See id. (citing 41 U.S.C. § 6305(a)). And this makes sense. To\\n\\nuse a hypothetical—suppose that during the course of Tenet and FHCP’s contractual\\n\\nrelationship, Tenet infringed one of FHCP’s patents. Plainly, the anti-assignment\\n\\nclause of the Services Agreement would not give Tenet effective veto power over\\n\\n\\n 11\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 12 of 18\\n\\n\\nFHCP’s ability to assign its patent infringement claim to someone else. FHCP had\\n\\nplenty of other rights outside of the Services Agreement. It was free to assign those\\n\\nrights without having to ask for Tenet’s consent. This MSP Act claim is one of those\\n\\nrights.\\n\\n In response, Tenet argues that MSP Act claims are within the scope of the\\n\\nServices Agreement. But Tenet’s arguments miss the mark. Tenet is right that\\n\\nMAOs and providers are generally free to “define the terms of their own agreements\\n\\nwithout reference to the Medicare [statute]” so long as those agreements do not\\n\\nconflict with the statute. Tenet Healthsystem, 875 F.3d at 591; see also King v.\\n\\nAllstate Ins. Co., 906 F.2d 1537, 1540 (11th Cir. 1990). Tenet is also right that its\\n\\ncontract may affect MSPA’s ability to recover. For example, the Services\\n\\nAgreement required FHCP to submit reimbursement requests within a year, and\\n\\nTenet claims that FHCP did not do so here. FHCP assigned its MSP Act claims as\\n\\nthey were, along with whatever defenses accompanied them. See DWFII Corp. v.\\n\\nState Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 469 F. App’x 762, 765 (11th Cir. 2012)\\n\\n(unpublished). But they are still MSP Act claims. Even if the Services Agreement\\n\\ncontains provisions restricting MSP Act rights, it does not transform MSP Act claims\\n\\ninto contract claims under the Agreement itself. To return to the patent infringement\\n\\nexample—though FHCP could freely assign any patent infringement claims it had\\n\\nagainst Tenet, if the Services Agreement had another provision limiting FHCP’s\\n\\n\\n 12\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 13 of 18\\n\\n\\nability to recover for patent infringement (e.g., requiring that FHCP bring any\\n\\ninfringement claims within one year), then Tenet could conceivably rely on that\\n\\nprovision to defend against an assignee’s infringement suit. But that would be a\\n\\nmerits issue, not a standing issue.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n FHCP suffered an injury-in-fact when it had to wait seven months for\\n\\nappropriate reimbursement. And it validly assigned the right to vindicate that injury\\n\\nto La Ley, who in turn validly assigned it to MSPA. As a result, MSPA has standing.\\n\\n IV.\\n\\n Although MSPA has standing, its claim still must be plausible on the merits\\n\\nto survive dismissal. The MSP Act’s private cause of action is only available “in the\\n\\ncase of a primary plan which fails to provide for primary payment (or appropriate\\n\\nreimbursement).” 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(3)(A) (emphasis added). Yet MSPA has\\n\\nnot sued a primary plan; it has sued two medical services providers. Since private\\n\\nMSP Act plaintiffs can only sue primary plans, and MSPA has not done so, its claim\\n\\nis not “plausible on its face.” Davidson, 797 F.3d at 1312 (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal,\\n\\n556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). MSPA attempts to avoid the clear textual bar to its\\n\\nlawsuit by grasping at other provisions of the statute and agency regulations\\n\\ninterpreting it. But these attempts at avoidance all fail. The district court correctly\\n\\ndismissed MSPA’s complaint for failure to state a claim.\\n\\n\\n 13\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 14 of 18\\n\\n\\n Though the MSP Act as a whole is “remarkably abstruse,” Allstate Ins. Co.,\\n\\n835 F.3d at 1358, the private cause of action is remarkably simple. It reads, in full:\\n\\n There is established a private cause of action for damages (which shall\\n be in an amount double the amount otherwise provided) in the case of\\n a primary plan which fails to provide for primary payment (or\\n appropriate reimbursement) in accordance with paragraphs (1) and\\n (2)(A).\\n42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(3)(A). On its face, the text is clear: plaintiffs can only sue\\n\\nprimary plans when they fail to pay. If a plaintiff sues someone else who has not\\n\\npaid, like a medical provider, then the dispute is not a “case of a primary plan which\\n\\nfails to [pay]”—the dispute does not center on a “primary plan” at all. Id. Although\\n\\nother entities could “fail[] to provide for primary payment (or appropriate\\n\\nreimbursement)[,]” the provision does not authorize suits against any entity that fails\\n\\nto do so. Every word that appears after “a primary plan” is limited to modifying that\\n\\nnoun and that noun only. See Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The\\n\\nInterpretation of Legal Texts 152 (2012) (“[A] postpositive modifier normally\\n\\napplies only to the nearest reasonable referent.”). Thus, unsurprisingly, this Court\\n\\nhas repeatedly assumed that the private cause of action only permits suits against\\n\\nprimary plans. See, e.g., Allstate Ins. Co., 835 F.3d at 1355 (“Congress created a\\n\\nprivate cause of action against a primary plan that fails to provide for primary\\n\\npayment.”); Humana Med., 832 F.3d at 1239.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 14\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 15 of 18\\n\\n\\n Of course, Congress could have enacted a private cause of action “in the case\\n\\nof any entity” that fails to pay. And we know they knew how to draft such a statute\\n\\nbecause that is exactly what Congress did for the government’s cause of action.\\n\\nUnlike the private cause of action, the government’s cause of action broadly permits\\n\\nlawsuits against “any entity that has received payment from a primary plan”—a grant\\n\\nthat includes medical providers. 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(B)(iii); see also Haro v.\\n\\nSebelius, 747 F.3d 1099, 1116 (9th Cir. 2014); United States v. Stricker, 524 F.\\n\\nApp’x 500, 504 (11th Cir. 2013) (unpublished). The fact that the government’s\\n\\ncause of action explicitly authorizes lawsuits against medical providers clearly\\n\\nsuggests that the private cause of action does not do so implicitly. “[W]here\\n\\nCongress demonstrates awareness of an issue by expressly addressing it in one\\n\\nprovision, silence on the issue in a similar provision is presumed to be intentional.”\\n\\nAssa’ad v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 332 F.3d 1321, 1331 (11th Cir. 2003) (citing Cent. Bank\\n\\nof Denver, N.A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N.A., 511 U.S. 164, 184 (1994)).\\n\\nMSPA’s only response is that a separate statute established MAOs over a decade\\n\\nafter the MSP Act. But this misses the point: while MAOs did not exist when\\n\\nCongress passed the MSP Act, medical providers and other potentially-liable entities\\n\\nobviously did. Congress was aware that these entities existed, could be liable for\\n\\nreimbursement, and, in fact, made them liable when the government was suing. But\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 15\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 16 of 18\\n\\n\\nCongress did not provide for a private cause of action against these entities. Courts\\n\\nmust presume that difference in statutory language has meaning. Id.\\n\\n In the face of clear language from the provision at issue and a clear inference\\n\\nfrom statutory context, MSPA relies on an isolated cross-reference—the private\\n\\ncause of action’s cross-reference to paragraph (2)(A). Paragraph (2)(A), in turn,\\n\\ncross-references paragraph (2)(B), which establishes the MSP Act’s conditional\\n\\nprimary payment and reimbursement scheme. See generally Humana Med., 832\\n\\nF.3d at 1241 (W. Pryor, J., dissenting) (describing the structure of these paragraphs)\\n\\n(citing 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)(A), (b)(2)(B)). MSPA argues that this cross-\\n\\nreference within a cross-reference settles the matter. Under MSPA’s view, concepts\\n\\nfrom paragraph (2)(B) should be incorporated back into the private cause of action\\n\\nin paragraph (3)(A). These (2)(B) concepts include the requirement that “an entity\\n\\nthat receives payment from a primary plan”—like St. Mary’s received from Allstate\\n\\nin this case—“shall reimburse the appropriate [party] for any payment made by the\\n\\n[U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] Secretary.” 42 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 1395y(b)(2)(B)(ii) (emphasis added). Thus, MSPA argues, because obligations of\\n\\nmedical providers like Tenet are incorporated-by-reference-within-a-reference into\\n\\nthe private cause of action, Tenet is amenable to suit under that provision.\\n\\n This argument is a stretch. At times, cross-references are instructive to\\n\\nunderstanding the meaning of a statute. But courts should not dig through layers of\\n\\n\\n 16\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 17 of 18\\n\\n\\ncross-references and then use what they have unearthed to replace the text of the\\n\\nprovision right in front of them. Cf. Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer & White Sales,\\n\\nInc., 139 S. Ct. 524, 530 (2019) (“Congress designed the Act in a specific way, and\\n\\nit is not our proper role to redesign the statute.”). Rather, cross-references are read\\n\\nin conjunction with the provision being interpreted. And here the private cause of\\n\\naction states that primary plans can be sued when they “fail[] to provide for primary\\n\\npayment . . . in accordance with paragraphs (1) and (2)(A).” 42 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 1395y(b)(3)(A) (emphasis added). The phrase “in accordance with” is critical\\n\\nbecause it limits the role these cross-references play. The phrase limits the cause of\\n\\naction to instances when primary plans do not follow (read: act in accordance with)\\n\\nparagraphs (1) and (2)(A). For one, this means that primary plans cannot be sued\\n\\nwhen they do pay in accordance with (1) and (2)(A). For another, it indicates that\\n\\nthis is a narrow cause of action limited to failing to pay under those specific\\n\\nprovisions—not some far-reaching cause of action to hale primary plans into court\\n\\nunder any circumstances or for other potential statutory violations. It is only for\\n\\nprimary plan violations of paragraphs (1) and (2)(A). Congress could have sought\\n\\nto use a cross-reference to (2)(A) and (2)(B) to delineate a broader list of parties that\\n\\ncan be sued, but that would be a different statute. In short, MSPA’s cross-reference-\\n\\nwithin-a-cross-reference argument fails. We have read paragraph (2)(B) into the\\n\\nprivate cause of action only to the very limited extent of determining when an\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\f Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 18 of 18\\n\\n\\nentity’s status as a primary plan has been “demonstrated.” See Glover, 459 F.3d at\\n\\n1308–09 (holding that a private plaintiff cannot sue a primary plan until that primary\\n\\nplan’s responsibility to pay “has been demonstrated” under paragraph (2)(B)); see\\n\\nalso Allstate, 835 F.3d at 1359 (following Glover).\\n\\n In the alternative, MSPA asks us to defer to regulations promulgated by the\\n\\nCenters for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”). These regulations state that\\n\\nMAOs have the same MSP Act recovery rights as Medicare, including the right to\\n\\nsue medical providers. 42 C.F.R. §§ 411.24(g), 422.108(f). But we only defer to\\n\\nsuch regulations if, after “applying the ordinary tools of statutory construction,” we\\n\\nfind the statute “‘silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue’” before us.\\n\\nCity of Arlington v. FCC, 569 U.S. 290, 296 (2013) (quoting Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v.\\n\\nNat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842–43 (1984)). When the statute is\\n\\nclear, “that is the end of the matter.” Id. Here, the text of the MSP Act’s private\\n\\ncause of action clearly answers the question before us. Accordingly, there is no need\\n\\nto look for answers in CMS regulations. The statute provides all we need.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n The private cause of action only permits MSPA to sue primary plans. Neither\\n\\nof the Defendants here are primary plans, so MSPA’s claim must be dismissed.\\n\\n AFFIRMED.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 18\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1354,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4600848,"string":"4,600,848"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"COMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Holman CF Warden, Donaldson CF Warden, Defendants-Appellants, v. ADVANCE LOCAL MEDIA, LLC, D.B.A. Alabama Media Group, Montgomery Advertiser, the Associated Press, Intervenors-Appellees."},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Advance Local Media, LLC v. Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-18"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"18-12402"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Tjoflat, Wilson, Jordan\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"WILSON, Circuit Judge:\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 1 of 25\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 18-12402\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 2:17-cv-02083-KOB\\n\\nCOMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,\\nHOLMAN CF WARDEN,\\nDONALDSON CF WARDEN,\\n\\n Defendants - Appellants,\\n\\nversus\\n\\nADVANCE LOCAL MEDIA, LLC,\\nd.b.a. Alabama Media Group,\\nMONTGOMERY ADVERTISER,\\nTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS,\\n\\n Intervenors - Appellees.\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Northern District of Alabama\\n ________________________\\n (March 18, 2019)\\n\\nBefore TJOFLAT, WILSON, and JORDAN, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nWILSON, Circuit Judge:\\n\\n This appeal concerns the common law right of access to documents upon\\n\\nwhich a court has relied to decide issues in a case. In the underlying suit, death\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 2 of 25\\n\\n\\nrow inmate Doyle Lee Hamm brought an as-applied challenge under 42 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 1983, arguing that Alabama’s attempt to execute him via lethal injection would\\n\\nviolate the Eighth Amendment. During the litigation, Alabama submitted its lethal\\n\\ninjection protocol to the district court. The protocol was never formally filed with\\n\\nthe court, but was subjected to expert testimony, debated at hearings, and relied\\n\\nupon by the court in denying both Alabama’s motion for summary judgment and\\n\\nHamm’s request for a preliminary injunction. After Hamm’s case was dismissed,\\n\\nmembers of the press intervened, seeking access to the protocol. The district court\\n\\ngranted these intervenors access to a redacted version of the protocol. The\\n\\nCommissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections now appeals, arguing\\n\\nthat the court erred in (1) allowing the press to intervene and (2) determining that\\n\\nthe protocol was a judicial record subject to the common law right of access. After\\n\\ncareful consideration and the benefit of oral argument, we affirm.\\n\\n I. Factual and Procedural Background\\n\\n Doyle Lee Hamm was sentenced to death in 1987 and, after a series of\\n\\nunsuccessful direct and collateral challenges to his sentence, was set to be executed\\n\\nin February 2018. In December 2017, Hamm filed an action in the Northern\\n\\nDistrict of Alabama under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, challenging the constitutionality of\\n\\nAlabama’s lethal injection protocol as applied to him, because he suffered from\\n\\n“severely compromised veins” due to drug use, Hepatitis C, and cancer. Hamm v.\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 3 of 25\\n\\n\\nDunn, 302 F. Supp. 3d 1287 (N.D. Ala. 2018), vacated and remanded sub nom. by\\n\\nHamm v. Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., No. 18-10473 (11th Cir. Feb. 13, 2018).\\n\\nHamm sought to enjoin Alabama from using the protocol to perform his execution.\\n\\n In January 2018, Alabama moved for summary judgment. The district court\\n\\nordered expedited briefing and scheduled an evidentiary hearing for January 31 to\\n\\naddress Alabama’s dispositive motions and Hamm’s request for injunctive relief.\\n\\nAfter the court entered a protective order to keep the lethal injection protocol\\n\\nconfidential, Alabama provided a copy of the protocol to the court for in camera\\n\\nreview and gave Hamm a redacted copy of the protocol. Likewise, the portion of\\n\\nthe evidentiary hearing that focused on the protocol was conducted in camera.\\n\\nBoth parties and the court discussed the contents of the lethal injection protocol,\\n\\nbut neither party moved to admit the protocol into evidence or attach it as an\\n\\nexhibit to any motion or pleading.\\n\\n Less than three weeks before Hamm was set to be executed, the district court\\n\\ndenied Alabama’s motion for summary judgment and temporarily stayed Hamm’s\\n\\nexecution. In its publicly available orders denying summary judgment, the district\\n\\ncourt summarized Alabama’s lethal injection protocol and discussed how the\\n\\nprotocol applied to Hamm’s specific medical conditions. This Court vacated the\\n\\ndistrict court’s stay but directed the court to obtain an independent medical\\n\\nexamination and make any concomitant factual findings by February 20—two days\\n\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 4 of 25\\n\\n\\nbefore Hamm’s execution date. The district court held another in camera hearing\\n\\non February 16 to hear testimony from the independent medical examiner. The\\n\\nexaminer testified that Hamm had accessible and usable veins in his lower\\n\\nextremities.\\n\\n Four days later, the district court denied Hamm’s request for a preliminary\\n\\ninjunction, summarizing the contents of the February 16 hearing and reasoning that\\n\\nAlabama’s lethal injection protocol, as applied to Hamm, did not present\\n\\n“sufficiently imminent dangers” and was not likely to result in serious illness or\\n\\nneedless suffering that would violate the Eighth Amendment. Hamm appealed.\\n\\nThis Court affirmed the district court but ordered Alabama to have ultrasound\\n\\ntechnology and a doctor at the execution.\\n\\n On the day of his execution—February 22, 2018—Hamm petitioned the\\n\\nSupreme Court for a stay and writ of certiorari. His petition was denied. Alabama\\n\\nthen attempted to execute Hamm, but after several unsuccessful efforts to insert a\\n\\nneedle, called off the execution an hour before its midnight deadline. The botched\\n\\nexecution attempt received national media coverage.\\n\\n Hamm filed a second amended complaint describing Alabama’s failed\\n\\nefforts to execute him, but both parties agreed to dismiss these claims (some with\\n\\nprejudice and some without prejudice) on the same day that the claims were filed.\\n\\nTwo days later, the district court dismissed the action. On March 28, the same day\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 5 of 25\\n\\n\\nthe court dismissed the action, Alabama Media Group,1 the Montgomery\\n\\nAdvertiser, and the Associated Press (collectively, Intervenors) moved to intervene\\n\\nin Hamm’s case under Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to unseal\\n\\nthe records, transcripts, and briefs discussing Alabama’s execution protocol. On\\n\\nMarch 30, the court granted intervention as a matter of right under Rule 24(a),2 but\\n\\nreserved ruling on the request for access to the protocol and related documents. In\\n\\nresponse to the request for access, Alabama asked the court to reconsider its\\n\\ndecision to allow intervention and, alternatively, argued that the request for access\\n\\nshould be denied because (1) the lethal injection protocol was not a publicly\\n\\naccessible judicial record, and (2) the Intervenors had no common law right of\\n\\naccess to the protocol.\\n\\n The district court denied Alabama’s request to reconsider intervention and\\n\\ngranted Intervenors’ motion to unseal the protocol and related records. The court\\n\\nemphasized that Hamm’s case had occurred under rushed circumstances, and\\n\\nconcluded that failure to formally file the protocol did not make it a non-judicial\\n\\nrecord because the court “needed and relied upon the protocol to resolve [the\\n\\nState’s] motion for summary judgment and Mr. Hamm’s request for injunctive\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n1\\n Advance Local Media, an Intervenor in this case, does business as the Alabama Media Group.\\n2\\n The district court noted that permissive intervention was proper under Rule 24(b) as well.\\n\\n\\n 5\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 6 of 25\\n\\n\\nrelief,” and other judicial records referred to the protocol.3 The court also found\\n\\nthat Alabama failed to show interests sufficient to overcome the public’s common\\n\\nlaw right of access to the protocol.\\n\\n The district court issued two orders. The first order clarified what it\\n\\nunsealed, including redacted versions of (1) the protocol, (2) the sealed transcript\\n\\nof the January 31 in camera evidentiary hearing, (3) the sealed transcript of the\\n\\nFebruary 16 closed medical examiner hearing, and (4) Hamm’s motion for leave to\\n\\nsupplement his first amended complaint. The second order instructed Alabama to\\n\\nfile, under seal, a redacted copy of the protocol for the court to review before\\n\\nreleasing it. Alabama appealed and moved to stay the release of the protocol\\n\\npending this appeal. The district court granted Alabama’s motion to stay; we now\\n\\nconsider the state’s appeal.\\n\\n II. The Common Law Right of Access to Judicial Records\\n\\n Whether a document is a “judicial record” subject to the common law right\\n\\nof access is a question of law we review de novo. Accord In re U.S. for an Order\\n\\nPursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 2703(D), 707 F.3d 283, 290 (4th Cir. 2013). We\\n\\nreview a decision to unseal documents for abuse of discretion. FTC v. AbbVie\\n\\nProds., LLC, 713 F.3d 54, 61 (11th Cir. 2013). Under the abuse of discretion\\n\\n\\n\\n3\\n For example, Hamm’s sealed motion for leave to supplement his first amended complaint\\nquotes both the protocol and the January 31 hearing discussing the protocol.\\n\\n\\n 6\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 7 of 25\\n\\n\\nstandard, a court has a range of choices available to it. See McLane Co., Inc. v.\\n\\nEEOC, 137 S. Ct. 1159, 1169 (2017); United States v. Frazier, 387 F.3d 1244,\\n\\n1259 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc).\\n\\n “It is clear that the courts of this country recognize a general right to inspect\\n\\nand copy public records and documents, including judicial records and\\n\\ndocuments.” Nixon v. Warner Commc’ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597, 98 S. Ct. 1306,\\n\\n1312 (1978). The media and public presumptively have a right to access judicial\\n\\nrecords. Chicago Tribune Co. v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 263 F.3d 1304, 1311\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2001) (per curiam). The common law right of access to judicial records\\n\\n“‘establish[es] a general presumption that criminal and civil actions should be\\n\\nconducted publicly’ and ‘includes the right to inspect and copy public records and\\n\\ndocuments.’ It is ‘an essential component of our system of justice’ and ‘is\\n\\ninstrumental in securing the integrity of the process.’” AbbVie Prods., LLC, 713\\n\\nF.3d at 62 (quoting Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1311). 4 Access to public and\\n\\njudicial records protects “the citizen’s desire to keep a watchful eye on the\\n\\nworkings of public agencies, and . . . a newspaper publisher’s intention to publish\\n\\ninformation concerning the operation of government.” Nixon, 435 U.S. at 597–98,\\n\\n\\n4\\n In the past, we have recognized that both judicial proceedings and judicial records are\\npresumptively available to the public because “[j]udges deliberate in private but issue public\\ndecisions after public arguments based on public records. . . . Any step that withdraws an\\nelement of the judicial process from public view makes the ensuing decision look more like fiat\\nand requires rigorous justification.” Perez-Guerrero v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 717 F.3d 1224, 1235\\n(11th Cir. 2013) (quoting Hicklin Eng’g, L.C. v. Bartell, 439 F.3d 346, 348 (7th Cir. 2006)).\\n\\n\\n 7\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 8 of 25\\n\\n\\n98 S. Ct. at 1312 (citations omitted); see also Romero v. Drummond Co., Inc., 480\\n\\nF.3d 1234, 1246 (11th Cir. 2007) (finding that these public concerns were at the\\n\\n“heart of the interest protected by the right of access”). Judges should exercise\\n\\ndiscretion in deciding to release judicial records and should exhibit a “sensitive\\n\\nappreciation of the circumstances that led to their production.” Nixon, 435 U.S. at\\n\\n603, 98 S. Ct. at 1315. 5\\n\\n A. Judicial Records\\n\\n To determine whether Alabama’s lethal injection protocol is subject to the\\n\\ncommon law right of access, we must first determine whether the protocol\\n\\nconstitutes a judicial record. Citing our prior decisions in Chicago Tribune and\\n\\nAbbVie Products, Alabama argues that its lethal injection protocol is not a judicial\\n\\nrecord because its protocol was never formally filed with the district court and is\\n\\nnot in the electronic docket. Alabama’s interpretation is foreclosed by precedent in\\n\\nNewman v. Graddick, and thus we reject Alabama’s argument.\\n\\n In both Chicago Tribune and AbbVie Products, materials accompanying\\n\\nmotions were filed with a district court during the course of litigation. Both\\n\\ndecisions acknowledged the filed status of the materials while emphasizing a\\n\\n\\n\\n5\\n Courts retain jurisdiction to unseal judicial records and may allow parties to intervene well after\\njudgment in a dispute. See, e.g., AbbVie Prods., LLC, 713 F.3d at 58 (affirming district court\\ndetermination to modify protective order after three years); cf. Brown v. Advantage Eng’g, Inc.,\\n960 F.2d 1013, 1015–16 (11th Cir. 1992) (recognizing that a district court had jurisdiction to\\ndecide a motion to intervene to unseal records that had been sealed more than six months prior).\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 9 of 25\\n\\n\\ndistinction between documents filed with discovery motions and those filed with\\n\\nsubstantive motions requiring judicial action. See AbbVie Prods., LLC, 713 F.3d at\\n\\n63–64 (“[W]hether a document is a judicial record depend[s] on the type of filing it\\n\\naccompanied. A complaint and its exhibits, which are integral to the ‘judicial\\n\\nresolution of the merits’ of any action, are surely ‘subject to the common-law\\n\\nright.’”); Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1312 (“[M]aterial filed with discovery\\n\\nmotions is not subject to the common-law right of access, whereas discovery\\n\\nmaterial filed in connection with pretrial motions that require judicial resolution of\\n\\nthe merits is subject to the common-law right.”).\\n\\n In the present case, unlike in AbbVie Products and Chicago Tribune, the\\n\\nIntervenors are seeking access to materials that did not accompany motions filed in\\n\\nthe district court. The specific language in AbbVie Products and Chicago Tribune\\n\\nregarding materials filed with motions to the court, then, does not clearly apply to\\n\\nthe facts before us. Our decision in Newman v. Graddick, 696 F.2d 796 (11th Cir.\\n\\n1983), is more instructive. In Newman, a district court approved a consent decree\\n\\nunder which state officials would reduce overcrowding in county jails; the court\\n\\nlater ordered the state to submit lists of prisoners least deserving of incarceration as\\n\\novercrowding worsened. 696 F.2d at 798–99. In response to requests from the\\n\\npress, the district court then unsealed these lists. Although the prisoner lists were\\n\\nnot formally filed with the district court and did not appear on the court’s docket,\\n\\n\\n\\n 9\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 10 of 25\\n\\n\\nwe held on appeal that the lists had become “part of the court proceedings in the\\n\\ncase” and thus considered them subject to the common law right of access. Id. at\\n\\n803. In light of Newman’s result, we hold that materials submitted by litigants—\\n\\nwhether or not they are formally filed with the district court—that are “integral to\\n\\nthe ‘judicial resolution of the merits’” in any action taken by that court are subject\\n\\nto the common law right of access and the necessary balancing of interests that the\\n\\nright entails. See AbbVie Prods., LLC, 713 F.3d at 64 (quoting Chicago Tribune\\n\\nCo., 263 F.3d at 1312).\\n\\n Alabama asserts that, under AbbVie Products and Chicago Tribune,\\n\\nmaterials must be formally filed with a court to constitute judicial records. If these\\n\\ncases truly did impose such a formal filing requirement, they would conflict with\\n\\nour decision in Newman. To the extent that Alabama’s interpretation of AbbVie\\n\\nProducts and Chicago Tribune conflicts with Newman, Newman controls. “When\\n\\nwe have conflicting case law, we follow our oldest precedent.” United States v.\\n\\nMadden, 733 F.3d 1314, 1319 (11th Cir. 2013); see also Arias v. Cameron, 776\\n\\nF.3d 1262, 1273 n.8 (11th Cir. 2015) (“When circuit authority is in conflict, a\\n\\npanel should look to the line of authority containing the earliest case because a\\n\\ndecision of a prior panel cannot be overturned by a later panel.”).\\n\\n The mere filing of a document does not transform it into a judicial record.\\n\\nSee Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1312. For example, we have determined that\\n\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 11 of 25\\n\\n\\nwhen documents have been filed in discovery, they only constitute judicial records\\n\\nif they are filed with pretrial motions “that require judicial resolution of the merits”\\n\\nof an action. Id. Courts generally should not permit public access to discovery\\n\\nmaterials that are not filed with substantive motions because discovery is\\n\\n“essentially a private process” meant to “assist trial preparation.” United States v.\\n\\nAnderson, 799 F.2d 1438, 1441 (11th Cir. 1986). Filed or unfiled materials\\n\\nunearthed during discovery may be private, and a large portion of discovery\\n\\nmaterials will not assist a court in resolving matters in a case. We have never held,\\n\\nhowever, that filing is required in order to turn a document into a judicial record—\\n\\nespecially when that document may help a court to resolve the merits of an action.\\n\\nInstead, we have attempted to apply “a more refined approach” that accounts for\\n\\n“the tradition favoring access.” Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1312. Other courts\\n\\nhave taken similar approaches. Accord United States v. Wecht, 484 F.3d 194, 208\\n\\n(3d Cir. 2007), as amended (July 2, 2007) (“In general, the common law right\\n\\nattaches to any document that is considered a judicial record, which depends on\\n\\nwhether the document has been filed with the court, or otherwise somehow\\n\\nincorporated or integrated into a district court’s adjudicatory proceedings.”\\n\\n(internal quotation marks omitted)); Bond v. Utreras, 585 F.3d 1061, 1073–75 (7th\\n\\nCir. 2009) (holding that “the public has a presumptive right to access discovery\\n\\nmaterials that are filed with the court, used in a judicial proceeding, or otherwise\\n\\n\\n\\n 11\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 12 of 25\\n\\n\\nconstitute ‘judicial records,’” and noting that even discovery documents “used in a\\n\\ncourt proceeding” which “consequently . . . could influence or underpin [a] judicial\\n\\ndecision” should be “presumptively open to public inspection unless they meet the\\n\\ndefinition of trade secret or other categories of bona fide long-term confidentiality”\\n\\n(emphasis added) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)); In re Cendant\\n\\nCorp., 260 F.3d 183, 192 (3d Cir. 2001) (“[A] document may still be construed as\\n\\na judicial record, absent filing, if a court interprets or enforces the terms of that\\n\\ndocument, or requires that it be submitted to the court under seal.”); cf. FTC v.\\n\\nAbbVie Prods. LLC, 713 F.3d 54, 63 (11th Cir. 2013) (explaining that “[t]he\\n\\noverwhelming majority of documents disclosed during discovery are likely\\n\\nirrelevant to the underlying issues and will not be ‘heard or read by counsel’ or ‘by\\n\\nthe court or other judicial officer,’” but public access is presumed for “materials\\n\\nthat invoke ‘judicial resolution of the merits’” (citations omitted)).\\n\\n This appeal arose under a unique set of circumstances, and thus we keep our\\n\\nholding narrow in comporting with our own precedent. Alabama’s lethal injection\\n\\nprotocol may not have been formally filed under the rushed timeline of Hamm’s\\n\\napproaching execution, but the protocol constitutes a judicial record subject to the\\n\\ncommon law right of access because it was submitted to the district court to\\n\\nresolve disputed substantive motions in the litigation, was discussed and analyzed\\n\\nby all parties in evidentiary hearings and arguments, and was unambiguously\\n\\n\\n\\n 12\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 13 of 25\\n\\n\\nintegral to the court’s resolution of the substantive motions in Hamm’s as-applied\\n\\nchallenge to the protocol.6\\n\\n B. Common Law Right of Access\\n\\n After establishing that Alabama’s protocol is a judicial record, we must now\\n\\ndetermine whether the district court abused its discretion in unsealing the protocol\\n\\nafter finding it subject to the common law right of access. Generally, “the\\n\\ncommon-law right of access standard as it applies to particular documents requires\\n\\nthe court to balance competing interests of the parties,” Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d\\n\\nat 1312, in light of “the relevant facts and circumstances of the particular case,”\\n\\nPerez-Guerrero v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 717 F.3d 1224, 1235 (11th Cir. 2013). Where a\\n\\nparty seeks to protect material under Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil\\n\\nProcedure, and the material is then admitted in connection with a substantive\\n\\nmotion, “confidentiality imposed by Rule 26 is [not] automatically forgone”;\\n\\nrather, courts still conduct a balancing test to compare the respective interests of\\n\\nthe parties. Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1313.\\n\\n “The common law right of access may be overcome by a showing of good\\n\\ncause, which requires balanc[ing] the asserted right of access against the other\\n\\n\\n\\n6\\n The parties discussed the protocol with the district court in an in camera hearing, and the\\ndistrict court noted that substantive motions in this case incorporated and referred to the protocol.\\nThe court relied upon—and cited to—the protocol in denying Alabama’s motion for summary\\njudgment “as to the merits of Mr. Hamm’s as-applied claim”; the court also relied upon the\\nprotocol in denying Hamm’s request for a preliminary injunction.\\n\\n\\n 13\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 14 of 25\\n\\n\\nparty’s interest in keeping the information confidential.” Romero v. Drummond\\n\\nCo., Inc., 480 F.3d 1234, 1246 (11th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\nCourts determine whether good cause exists by looking to the nature and character\\n\\nof the information in question. See id. When evaluating good cause, a court\\n\\nshould consider relevant factors including “whether the records are sought for such\\n\\nillegitimate purposes as to promote public scandal or gain unfair commercial\\n\\nadvantage, whether access is likely to promote public understanding of historically\\n\\nsignificant events, and whether the press has already been permitted substantial\\n\\naccess to the contents of the records.”7 Newman v. Graddick, 696 F.2d 796, 803\\n\\n(11th Cir. 1983). A court should also consider the consistency of a party’s reliance\\n\\nwhere the party files a document subject to a protective order. AbbVie Prods.,\\n\\nLLC, 713 F.3d at 68.\\n\\n To determine whether the district court abused its discretion in granting\\n\\npublic access to Alabama’s protocol, we look to its analysis of these factors. The\\n\\ndistrict court considered the nature and character of the information in the lethal\\n\\ninjection protocol, finding that the protocol and its related records “clearly concern\\n\\na matter of great public concern, i.e., how Alabama carries out its executions.”\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n7\\n In Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc., the Supreme Court described examples of “public\\nscandal” as “publication of the painful and sometimes disgusting details of a divorce case,” or\\n“reservoirs of libelous statements for press consumption.” 435 U.S. 589, 598, 98 S. Ct. 1306,\\n1312 (1978).\\n\\n\\n 14\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 15 of 25\\n\\n\\nThe court noted that “[c]apital punishment is a hotly contested issue that involves\\n\\nan irrevocable punishment for prisoners convicted of terrible crimes. The public\\n\\nhas a great interest in understanding how the State carries out its punishment.”\\n\\n The district court rejected Alabama’s argument that the Intervenors sought\\n\\nthe protocol for an improper purpose, concluding that “public discussion is not the\\n\\nsame as public scandal. . . . And the fact that the Intervenors may take a position\\n\\nabout the death penalty does not make their intent to publish factual matter about\\n\\nhow Alabama conducts its executions ‘scandalous.’” The court also considered\\n\\nwhether access to the protocol would likely promote understanding of a historically\\n\\nsignificant event. The court found that this factor weighed in favor of unsealing\\n\\nthe documents because “access to the lethal injection protocol may help the public\\n\\nto understand the context of the State’s efforts to execute [Hamm]. It may also\\n\\nhelp the public to understand how the same scenario might be repeated or avoided\\n\\nunder the protocol as it currently stands.”\\n\\n The district court went on to say that the press already had access to some\\n\\ninformation about the protocol because the court had referred “in broad terms [to]\\n\\naspects of the protocol in its memorandum opinion about Defendants’ motion for\\n\\nsummary judgment.” Alabama argues that the press will not gain any new\\n\\nsignificant information from the protocol because the only portion of the protocol\\n\\nat issue in Hamm’s case—the procedure for venous access—has already been\\n\\n\\n\\n 15\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 16 of 25\\n\\n\\ndiscussed by the district court and Hamm’s counsel, and is therefore accessible to\\n\\nthe public. The court concluded, however, that currently available information\\n\\nabout the protocol was not an adequate replacement for the actual protocol. The\\n\\ncourt explained that, “in an attempt to avoid sealing or redacting the memorandum\\n\\nopinion, the court kept its summary of the protocol deliberately vague, highlighting\\n\\nwhat the protocol does not contain instead of what it does provide.” Furthermore,\\n\\n“[Alabama] will keep the lethal injection protocol secret from the public unless the\\n\\ncourt unseals it. And the court’s vague summary of portions of the lethal injection\\n\\nprotocol and its gaps cannot truly substitute for the document itself.”\\n\\n The district court also evaluated whether Alabama relied on the protective\\n\\norder issued to keep the protocol confidential. The court acknowledged that\\n\\nAlabama has always sought to keep the protocol confidential, but ultimately\\n\\ndecided that “the fact that [Alabama] zealously guard[s] information about a matter\\n\\nof great public concern does not tip the scales against disclosure. The court\\n\\nconcludes that the considerations in favor of unsealing the records greatly\\n\\noutweigh [Alabama’s] interest in maintaining secrecy.” Finally, the court\\n\\nconsidered Alabama’s contention that its lethal injection protocol contains\\n\\nsensitive security information. The court recognized that certain parts of the lethal\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 16\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 17 of 25\\n\\n\\ninjection protocol should remain sealed due to these potentially valid concerns and\\n\\nnoted that these parts of the protocol could be easily redacted.8\\n\\n After considering and weighing all these factors, the district court held that\\n\\n“the public’s common law right of access mandates the release of the lethal\\n\\ninjection protocol and related court records.” The court added, however, that it\\n\\nwould not unseal the protocol in full—rather, “[a]ny information that could be used\\n\\nto track the locations of personnel before, during, and after the execution, or that\\n\\ncould be used to identify the people involved in the execution, will be redacted.”\\n\\nThe court then resolved to consult with Alabama to determine which parts of the\\n\\nprotocol needed to be redacted. The district court’s thorough analysis of the\\n\\nfactors listed in our precedent, and its tailored conclusion—allowing for redaction\\n\\nof information that implicated Alabama’s proffered security concerns—did not\\n\\nconstitute an abuse of discretion.\\n\\n III. Intervention\\n\\n We review the grant of a motion for permissive intervention for abuse of\\n\\ndiscretion, and the grant of a motion to intervene as of right de novo. See Georgia\\n\\nv. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 302 F.3d 1242, 1249 (11th Cir. 2002). We review\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n8\\n Alabama has not provided any other concrete security concerns, either in the district court or on\\nappeal, beyond concern for protecting the identities of individual participants in the execution\\nprocess. Redaction of identifying information in the protocol will eliminate this concern. At the\\ntime of oral argument, Alabama still had not taken the district court’s offer to redact the protocol.\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 18 of 25\\n\\n\\nsubsidiary factual findings for clear error. Id. We review a court’s determination\\n\\nof timeliness for intervention for abuse of discretion. Walters v. Atlanta, 803 F.2d\\n\\n1135, 1151 n.16 (11th Cir. 1986).\\n\\n “The press has standing to intervene in actions to which it is otherwise not a\\n\\nparty in order to petition for access to court proceedings and records.” In re\\n\\nPetition of Tribune Co., 784 F.2d 1518, 1521 (11th Cir. 1986). Under Rule 24(a)\\n\\nof the Federal Rules Civil Procedure, a court must allow timely intervention by\\n\\nanyone who “claims an interest relating to the property or transaction that is the\\n\\nsubject of the action, and is so situated that disposing of the action may as a\\n\\npractical matter impair or impede the movant’s ability to protect its interest, unless\\n\\nexisting parties adequately represent that interest.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 24(a)(2). Rule\\n\\n24(b) allows courts to permit timely intervention by anyone with “a claim or\\n\\ndefense that shares with the main action a common question of law or fact,” id. at\\n\\n24(b)(1)(B), but courts must exercise discretion and consider whether the\\n\\nintervention will “unduly delay or prejudice the adjudication of the original parties’\\n\\nrights,” id. at 24(b)(3).\\n\\n The district court granted intervention under Rule 24(a) for the Intervenors\\n\\nhere, but the court also recognized that intervention would be proper under Rule\\n\\n24(b). Intervention under either Rule 24(a) or 24(b) must be timely filed.\\n\\nIntervention may be timely filed even if it occurs after a case has concluded;\\n\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 19 of 25\\n\\n\\ntimeliness depends on the circumstances of each case. Cf. Salvors, Inc. v.\\n\\nUnidentified Wrecked & Abandoned Vessel, 861 F.3d 1278, 1294 (11th Cir. 2017)\\n\\n(finding intervention timely even though the contested order was entered 33 years\\n\\nearlier); Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1308 (noting timely intervention by\\n\\nmembers of the media “in the months following settlement” of the original case).\\n\\n Courts consider four factors in assessing timeliness: (1) the length of time\\n\\nduring which the would-be intervenor knew or reasonably should have known of\\n\\nhis interest in the case before petitioning for leave to intervene; (2) the extent of the\\n\\nprejudice that existing parties may suffer as a result of the would-be intervenor’s\\n\\nfailure to apply for intervention as soon as he actually knew or reasonably should\\n\\nhave known of his interest; (3) the extent of the prejudice that the would-be\\n\\nintervenor may suffer if denied the opportunity to intervene; and (4) the existence\\n\\nof unusual circumstances weighing for or against a determination of timeliness.\\n\\nSalvors, 861 F.3d at 1294. Mere knowledge that an action is pending, without\\n\\nappreciation of the potential adverse effect an adjudication of that action may have\\n\\non one’s interests, does not preclude intervention. Walters v. City of Atlanta, 803\\n\\nF.2d 1135, 1151 n.16 (11th Cir. 1986). “The most important consideration in\\n\\ndetermining timeliness is whether any existing party to the litigation will be\\n\\nharmed or prejudiced by the proposed intervenor’s delay in moving to intervene.\\n\\nIn fact, this may well be the only significant consideration when the proposed\\n\\n\\n\\n 19\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 20 of 25\\n\\n\\nintervenor seeks intervention of right.” McDonald v. E. J. Lavino Co., 430 F.2d\\n\\n1065, 1073 (5th Cir. 1970) (citations omitted).9\\n\\n Alabama argues that the Intervenors did not make a timely motion to\\n\\nintervene because the Intervenors knew that they had an interest in Hamm’s case as\\n\\nearly as January 18, when a reporter associated with Alabama Media Group\\n\\nreported on the case filings. Alabama did not submit a proposed confidentiality\\n\\norder until January 30, and did not produce the protocol until the hearing on\\n\\nJanuary 31, which is when the district court imputed an interest to the Intervenors.\\n\\nThe Intervenors did not seek to intervene until March 28. Using the district court’s\\n\\nchosen date, we still find that this factor cuts slightly against timeliness of\\n\\nintervention.\\n\\n Alabama also argues that it was prejudiced by the Intervenors’ untimely\\n\\nintervention for two reasons. First, had Alabama known that the press would seek\\n\\n\\n\\n9\\n Though the former Fifth Circuit recognized in McDonald that “intervention after judgment is\\nunusual and not often granted,” it also noted that “[t]he most important consideration in\\ndetermining timeliness is whether any existing party to the litigation will be harmed or\\nprejudiced by the proposed intervenors; delay in moving to intervene.” 430 F.2d at 1073\\n(citations omitted). McDonald binds us. Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1207 (11th\\nCir. 1981) (en banc) (holding that all Fifth Circuit decisions handed down prior to close of\\nbusiness on September 30, 1981, are binding precedent in the Eleventh Circuit). Moreover, other\\ncircuits have recognized that timeliness concerns may be less significant when intervention is\\n“not on the merits, but for the sole purpose of challenging a protective order.” United Nuclear\\nCorp. v. Cranford Ins. Co., 905 F.2d 1424, 1427 (10th Cir. 1990) (allowing intervention three\\nyears after a case was settled); see also Blum v. Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Inc., 712\\nF.3d 1349, 1353–54 (9th Cir. 2013); Pansy v. Borough of Stroudsburg, 23 F.3d 772, 779 (3d Cir.\\n1994) (“[T]he growing consensus among the courts of appeals [is] that intervention to challenge\\nconfidentiality orders may take place long after a case has been terminated.”)\\n\\n\\n 20\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 21 of 25\\n\\n\\naccess to the protocol, it would not have voluntarily turned over the protocol\\n\\nduring the case, and would have challenged any court decision requiring\\n\\ndisclosure. Second, if the press had intervened earlier, Alabama could have taken\\n\\na different approach to the joint dismissal of the case and the finalized settlement\\n\\nagreement with Hamm. 10 The district court rejected these arguments, finding first\\n\\nthat if Alabama did not voluntarily produce the protocol, the court would have\\n\\nordered Alabama to do so—thus, Alabama ultimately would have had to turn over\\n\\nthe protocol. The court then found that Alabama and Hamm could not have\\n\\nreached any agreement about unsealing records in their settlement because neither\\n\\nparty sought to unseal the records.11\\n\\n Alabama argues that the Intervenors will not suffer prejudice if they cannot\\n\\nintervene in Hamm’s case because the Intervenors will not lose the opportunity to\\n\\naccess the protocol in other ongoing or future lethal injection cases. This argument\\n\\nis unpersuasive. The mere fact that members of the press could attempt—in future\\n\\nor ongoing cases—to intervene and seek access to Alabama’s execution protocol\\n\\ndoes not mean that the Intervenors are not prejudiced in this case. The Intervenors\\n\\nclaim that they have a common law right to access the lethal injection protocol\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n10\\n Alabama did not provide any details about how it might have changed its settlement agreement\\nwith Hamm had members of the press sought to intervene before settlement.\\n11\\n We also note that Alabama and Hamm could not have bound third parties or the court as to\\nsealing issues.\\n\\n\\n 21\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 22 of 25\\n\\n\\nincluded as a judicial record in Hamm’s case. Denial of this right constitutes an\\n\\ninjury even if the press might have another opportunity to obtain a copy of\\n\\nAlabama’s protocol in a different case. Even if a copy of the protocol were\\n\\navailable in the future, Intervenors may be prejudiced by delay in gaining access to\\n\\nthat record. Cf. Neb. Press Ass’n v. Stuart, 423 U.S. 1327, 1329, 96 S. Ct. 251,\\n\\n254 (1975) (in analyzing a prior restraint in the First Amendment context, holding\\n\\nthat “each passing day” may constitute a separate and cognizable harm where “a\\n\\ndirect prior restraint is imposed upon the reporting of news by the media”).\\n\\nMoreover, there is no way to ensure that other copies of this same protocol—as\\n\\napplied in Hamm’s case—will be available in future cases. Alabama could change\\n\\nits protocol at any time, which would render the protocol used in Hamm’s case\\n\\nunnecessary for future death penalty litigation. In addition, challenges to the\\n\\nprotocol are sometimes barred by the statute of limitations, and there is no\\n\\nevidence that Alabama regularly files this protocol in litigation.\\n\\n Finally, no unusual circumstances appear to militate for or against the\\n\\nIntervenors’ intervention in Hamm’s case. In considering the totality of the\\n\\ncircumstances and evaluating the alleged prejudice to each party, the district court\\n\\nreasonably concluded that the Intervenors timely intervened in Hamm’s case. The\\n\\ndistrict court’s conclusion did not constitute an abuse of discretion. This\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 22\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 23 of 25\\n\\n\\ndetermination of timeliness was necessary to meet the requirements for\\n\\nintervention under either Rule 24(a) or Rule 24(b).\\n\\n Alabama also challenges the intervention based on other requirements of\\n\\nRule 24. Alabama first argues that intervention under Rule 24(a) was improper\\n\\nbecause the Intervenors are not “so situated that disposition of the action, as a\\n\\npractical matter, may impede or impair [their] ability to protect that interest.”\\n\\nAlabama claims that the Intervenors’ asserted interest in accessing the protocol—\\n\\ninforming the public as to whether the failure to execute Hamm was due to a\\n\\nproblem with the protocol—is not impaired by the disposition of Hamm’s case.\\n\\nAlabama presumes that the Intervenors may have other opportunities to access the\\n\\nprotocol, regardless of what happens in this case. We previously addressed this\\n\\nargument above in evaluating timeliness, and we reject it for the same reasons\\n\\nhere. Thus, we conclude that intervention as of right was appropriate under Rule\\n\\n24(a). 12\\n\\n\\n12\\n Moreover, it would not have been an abuse of discretion for the district court to grant\\nintervention under Rule 24(b). Many circuits recognize that parties “seeking to intervene in a\\ncase for the limited purpose of unsealing judicial records” need not show a “strong nexus of fact\\nor law” to the issues in the original case. Flynt v. Lombardi, 782 F.3d 963, 967 (8th Cir. 2015)\\n(quoting Beckman Indus., Inc. v. Int’l Ins. Co., 966 F.2d 470, 474 (9th Cir. 1992)); see also\\nJessup v. Luther, 227 F.3d 993, 997–99 (7th Cir. 2000) (“[A]lthough there is ample justification\\nfor the common fact or law requirement when the proposed intervenors seek to become a party to\\nthe action, [t]here is no reason to require such a strong nexus of fact or law when a party seeks to\\nintervene only for the purpose of modifying a protective order.” (internal quotation marks\\nomitted)); EEOC v. Nat’l Children’s Ctr., Inc., 146 F.3d 1042, 1045 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (“[C]ourts\\nhave been willing to adopt generous interpretations of Rule 24(b) because of the need for ‘an\\neffective mechanism for third-party claims of access to information generated through judicial\\nproceedings.’” (quoting Public Citizen v. Liggett Grp., Inc., 858 F.2d 775, 783 (1st Cir. 1988)));\\n\\n\\n 23\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 24 of 25\\n\\n\\n V. Conclusion\\n\\n Our own precedent in Newman compels us to find that Alabama’s lethal\\n\\ninjection protocol—submitted to the court in connection with a litigated dispute,\\n\\ndiscussed in proceedings and motions by all parties, and relied upon by the court to\\n\\ndispose of substantive motions—is a judicial record. Judicial records provide\\n\\ngrounds upon which a court relies in deciding cases, and thus the public has a valid\\n\\ninterest in accessing these records to ensure the continued integrity and\\n\\ntransparency of our governmental and judicial offices. This public right of access,\\n\\nbased in the common law, may only be overcome when a court determines—after\\n\\nbalancing the respective competing interests of all parties—that the party seeking\\n\\nto keep the information confidential has shown good cause. Here, the district court\\n\\ndid not abuse its discretion. The court properly balanced the interests of Alabama\\n\\nand the Intervenors, concluding that Alabama had not shown good cause sufficient\\n\\nto overcome the common law right of access. The court also properly granted\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nPansy v. Borough of Stroudsburg, 23 F.3d 772, 778 (3rd Cir. 1994) (“By virtue of the fact that\\nthe Newspapers challenge the validity of the Order of Confidentiality entered in the main action,\\nthey meet the requirement of Fed. R. Civ. P. 24(b)(2) that their claim must have ‘a question of\\nlaw or fact in common’ with the main action.”). The Intervenors here seek to determine whether\\nthe district court’s protective order preventing disclosure of the protocol was justified. They\\nwant to access the protocol in order to analyze what role, if any, the protocol played in\\nAlabama’s failed execution of Hamm. The district court did not abuse its discretion in deciding\\nthat the Intervenors’ asserted interests for intervening—for the limited purpose of unsealing\\njudicial records—provided an adequate nexus for intervention under Rule 24(b).\\n\\n\\n 24\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 25 of 25\\n\\n\\nintervention under Rule 24 for Intervenors seeking to assert their common law\\n\\nright of access to the lethal injection protocol. Accordingly, we affirm.\\n\\n AFFIRMED.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 25\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4378101/\", \"author_raw\": \"WILSON, Circuit Judge:\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"TJOFLAT"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"WILSON"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"JORDAN"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600848/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: COMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Holman CF Warden, Donaldson CF Warden, Defendants-Appellants, v. ADVANCE LOCAL MEDIA, LLC, D.B.A. Alabama Media Group, Montgomery Advertiser, the Associated Press, Intervenors-Appellees.\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-18\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 1 of 25\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n ________________________\n\n No. 18-12402\n ________________________\n\n D.C. Docket No. 2:17-cv-02083-KOB\n\nCOMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,\nHOLMAN CF WARDEN,\nDONALDSON CF WARDEN,\n\n Defendants - Appellants,\n\nversus\n\nADVANCE LOCAL MEDIA, LLC,\nd.b.a. Alabama Media Group,\nMONTGOMERY ADVERTISER,\nTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS,\n\n Intervenors - Appellees.\n ________________________\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the Northern District of Alabama\n ________________________\n (March 18, 2019)\n\nBefore TJOFLAT, WILSON, and JORDAN, Circuit Judges.\n\nWILSON, Circuit Judge:\n\n This appeal concerns the common law right of access to documents upon\n\nwhich a court has relied to decide issues in a case. In the underlying suit, death\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 2 of 25\n\n\nrow inmate Doyle Lee Hamm brought an as-applied challenge under 42 U.S.C.\n\n§ 1983, arguing that Alabama’s attempt to execute him via lethal injection would\n\nviolate the Eighth Amendment. During the litigation, Alabama submitted its lethal\n\ninjection protocol to the district court. The protocol was never formally filed with\n\nthe court, but was subjected to expert testimony, debated at hearings, and relied\n\nupon by the court in denying both Alabama’s motion for summary judgment and\n\nHamm’s request for a preliminary injunction. After Hamm’s case was dismissed,\n\nmembers of the press intervened, seeking access to the protocol. The district court\n\ngranted these intervenors access to a redacted version of the protocol. The\n\nCommissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections now appeals, arguing\n\nthat the court erred in (1) allowing the press to intervene and (2) determining that\n\nthe protocol was a judicial record subject to the common law right of access. After\n\ncareful consideration and the benefit of oral argument, we affirm.\n\n I. Factual and Procedural Background\n\n Doyle Lee Hamm was sentenced to death in 1987 and, after a series of\n\nunsuccessful direct and collateral challenges to his sentence, was set to be executed\n\nin February 2018. In December 2017, Hamm filed an action in the Northern\n\nDistrict of Alabama under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, challenging the constitutionality of\n\nAlabama’s lethal injection protocol as applied to him, because he suffered from\n\n“severely compromised veins” due to drug use, Hepatitis C, and cancer. Hamm v.\n\n\n\n 2\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 3 of 25\n\n\nDunn, 302 F. Supp. 3d 1287 (N.D. Ala. 2018), vacated and remanded sub nom. by\n\nHamm v. Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., No. 18-10473 (11th Cir. Feb. 13, 2018).\n\nHamm sought to enjoin Alabama from using the protocol to perform his execution.\n\n In January 2018, Alabama moved for summary judgment. The district court\n\nordered expedited briefing and scheduled an evidentiary hearing for January 31 to\n\naddress Alabama’s dispositive motions and Hamm’s request for injunctive relief.\n\nAfter the court entered a protective order to keep the lethal injection protocol\n\nconfidential, Alabama provided a copy of the protocol to the court for in camera\n\nreview and gave Hamm a redacted copy of the protocol. Likewise, the portion of\n\nthe evidentiary hearing that focused on the protocol was conducted in camera.\n\nBoth parties and the court discussed the contents of the lethal injection protocol,\n\nbut neither party moved to admit the protocol into evidence or attach it as an\n\nexhibit to any motion or pleading.\n\n Less than three weeks before Hamm was set to be executed, the district court\n\ndenied Alabama’s motion for summary judgment and temporarily stayed Hamm’s\n\nexecution. In its publicly available orders denying summary judgment, the district\n\ncourt summarized Alabama’s lethal injection protocol and discussed how the\n\nprotocol applied to Hamm’s specific medical conditions. This Court vacated the\n\ndistrict court’s stay but directed the court to obtain an independent medical\n\nexamination and make any concomitant factual findings by February 20—two days\n\n\n\n 3\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 4 of 25\n\n\nbefore Hamm’s execution date. The district court held another in camera hearing\n\non February 16 to hear testimony from the independent medical examiner. The\n\nexaminer testified that Hamm had accessible and usable veins in his lower\n\nextremities.\n\n Four days later, the district court denied Hamm’s request for a preliminary\n\ninjunction, summarizing the contents of the February 16 hearing and reasoning that\n\nAlabama’s lethal injection protocol, as applied to Hamm, did not present\n\n“sufficiently imminent dangers” and was not likely to result in serious illness or\n\nneedless suffering that would violate the Eighth Amendment. Hamm appealed.\n\nThis Court affirmed the district court but ordered Alabama to have ultrasound\n\ntechnology and a doctor at the execution.\n\n On the day of his execution—February 22, 2018—Hamm petitioned the\n\nSupreme Court for a stay and writ of certiorari. His petition was denied. Alabama\n\nthen attempted to execute Hamm, but after several unsuccessful efforts to insert a\n\nneedle, called off the execution an hour before its midnight deadline. The botched\n\nexecution attempt received national media coverage.\n\n Hamm filed a second amended complaint describing Alabama’s failed\n\nefforts to execute him, but both parties agreed to dismiss these claims (some with\n\nprejudice and some without prejudice) on the same day that the claims were filed.\n\nTwo days later, the district court dismissed the action. On March 28, the same day\n\n\n\n 4\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 5 of 25\n\n\nthe court dismissed the action, Alabama Media Group,1 the Montgomery\n\nAdvertiser, and the Associated Press (collectively, Intervenors) moved to intervene\n\nin Hamm’s case under Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to unseal\n\nthe records, transcripts, and briefs discussing Alabama’s execution protocol. On\n\nMarch 30, the court granted intervention as a matter of right under Rule 24(a),2 but\n\nreserved ruling on the request for access to the protocol and related documents. In\n\nresponse to the request for access, Alabama asked the court to reconsider its\n\ndecision to allow intervention and, alternatively, argued that the request for access\n\nshould be denied because (1) the lethal injection protocol was not a publicly\n\naccessible judicial record, and (2) the Intervenors had no common law right of\n\naccess to the protocol.\n\n The district court denied Alabama’s request to reconsider intervention and\n\ngranted Intervenors’ motion to unseal the protocol and related records. The court\n\nemphasized that Hamm’s case had occurred under rushed circumstances, and\n\nconcluded that failure to formally file the protocol did not make it a non-judicial\n\nrecord because the court “needed and relied upon the protocol to resolve [the\n\nState’s] motion for summary judgment and Mr. Hamm’s request for injunctive\n\n\n\n\n1\n Advance Local Media, an Intervenor in this case, does business as the Alabama Media Group.\n2\n The district court noted that permissive intervention was proper under Rule 24(b) as well.\n\n\n 5\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 6 of 25\n\n\nrelief,” and other judicial records referred to the protocol.3 The court also found\n\nthat Alabama failed to show interests sufficient to overcome the public’s common\n\nlaw right of access to the protocol.\n\n The district court issued two orders. The first order clarified what it\n\nunsealed, including redacted versions of (1) the protocol, (2) the sealed transcript\n\nof the January 31 in camera evidentiary hearing, (3) the sealed transcript of the\n\nFebruary 16 closed medical examiner hearing, and (4) Hamm’s motion for leave to\n\nsupplement his first amended complaint. The second order instructed Alabama to\n\nfile, under seal, a redacted copy of the protocol for the court to review before\n\nreleasing it. Alabama appealed and moved to stay the release of the protocol\n\npending this appeal. The district court granted Alabama’s motion to stay; we now\n\nconsider the state’s appeal.\n\n II. The Common Law Right of Access to Judicial Records\n\n Whether a document is a “judicial record” subject to the common law right\n\nof access is a question of law we review de novo. Accord In re U.S. for an Order\n\nPursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 2703(D), 707 F.3d 283, 290 (4th Cir. 2013). We\n\nreview a decision to unseal documents for abuse of discretion. FTC v. AbbVie\n\nProds., LLC, 713 F.3d 54, 61 (11th Cir. 2013). Under the abuse of discretion\n\n\n\n3\n For example, Hamm’s sealed motion for leave to supplement his first amended complaint\nquotes both the protocol and the January 31 hearing discussing the protocol.\n\n\n 6\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 7 of 25\n\n\nstandard, a court has a range of choices available to it. See McLane Co., Inc. v.\n\nEEOC, 137 S. Ct. 1159, 1169 (2017); United States v. Frazier, 387 F.3d 1244,\n\n1259 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc).\n\n “It is clear that the courts of this country recognize a general right to inspect\n\nand copy public records and documents, including judicial records and\n\ndocuments.” Nixon v. Warner Commc’ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597, 98 S. Ct. 1306,\n\n1312 (1978). The media and public presumptively have a right to access judicial\n\nrecords. Chicago Tribune Co. v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 263 F.3d 1304, 1311\n\n(11th Cir. 2001) (per curiam). The common law right of access to judicial records\n\n“‘establish[es] a general presumption that criminal and civil actions should be\n\nconducted publicly’ and ‘includes the right to inspect and copy public records and\n\ndocuments.’ It is ‘an essential component of our system of justice’ and ‘is\n\ninstrumental in securing the integrity of the process.’” AbbVie Prods., LLC, 713\n\nF.3d at 62 (quoting Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1311). 4 Access to public and\n\njudicial records protects “the citizen’s desire to keep a watchful eye on the\n\nworkings of public agencies, and . . . a newspaper publisher’s intention to publish\n\ninformation concerning the operation of government.” Nixon, 435 U.S. at 597–98,\n\n\n4\n In the past, we have recognized that both judicial proceedings and judicial records are\npresumptively available to the public because “[j]udges deliberate in private but issue public\ndecisions after public arguments based on public records. . . . Any step that withdraws an\nelement of the judicial process from public view makes the ensuing decision look more like fiat\nand requires rigorous justification.” Perez-Guerrero v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 717 F.3d 1224, 1235\n(11th Cir. 2013) (quoting Hicklin Eng’g, L.C. v. Bartell, 439 F.3d 346, 348 (7th Cir. 2006)).\n\n\n 7\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 8 of 25\n\n\n98 S. Ct. at 1312 (citations omitted); see also Romero v. Drummond Co., Inc., 480\n\nF.3d 1234, 1246 (11th Cir. 2007) (finding that these public concerns were at the\n\n“heart of the interest protected by the right of access”). Judges should exercise\n\ndiscretion in deciding to release judicial records and should exhibit a “sensitive\n\nappreciation of the circumstances that led to their production.” Nixon, 435 U.S. at\n\n603, 98 S. Ct. at 1315. 5\n\n A. Judicial Records\n\n To determine whether Alabama’s lethal injection protocol is subject to the\n\ncommon law right of access, we must first determine whether the protocol\n\nconstitutes a judicial record. Citing our prior decisions in Chicago Tribune and\n\nAbbVie Products, Alabama argues that its lethal injection protocol is not a judicial\n\nrecord because its protocol was never formally filed with the district court and is\n\nnot in the electronic docket. Alabama’s interpretation is foreclosed by precedent in\n\nNewman v. Graddick, and thus we reject Alabama’s argument.\n\n In both Chicago Tribune and AbbVie Products, materials accompanying\n\nmotions were filed with a district court during the course of litigation. Both\n\ndecisions acknowledged the filed status of the materials while emphasizing a\n\n\n\n5\n Courts retain jurisdiction to unseal judicial records and may allow parties to intervene well after\njudgment in a dispute. See, e.g., AbbVie Prods., LLC, 713 F.3d at 58 (affirming district court\ndetermination to modify protective order after three years); cf. Brown v. Advantage Eng’g, Inc.,\n960 F.2d 1013, 1015–16 (11th Cir. 1992) (recognizing that a district court had jurisdiction to\ndecide a motion to intervene to unseal records that had been sealed more than six months prior).\n\n\n 8\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 9 of 25\n\n\ndistinction between documents filed with discovery motions and those filed with\n\nsubstantive motions requiring judicial action. See AbbVie Prods., LLC, 713 F.3d at\n\n63–64 (“[W]hether a document is a judicial record depend[s] on the type of filing it\n\naccompanied. A complaint and its exhibits, which are integral to the ‘judicial\n\nresolution of the merits’ of any action, are surely ‘subject to the common-law\n\nright.’”); Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1312 (“[M]aterial filed with discovery\n\nmotions is not subject to the common-law right of access, whereas discovery\n\nmaterial filed in connection with pretrial motions that require judicial resolution of\n\nthe merits is subject to the common-law right.”).\n\n In the present case, unlike in AbbVie Products and Chicago Tribune, the\n\nIntervenors are seeking access to materials that did not accompany motions filed in\n\nthe district court. The specific language in AbbVie Products and Chicago Tribune\n\nregarding materials filed with motions to the court, then, does not clearly apply to\n\nthe facts before us. Our decision in Newman v. Graddick, 696 F.2d 796 (11th Cir.\n\n1983), is more instructive. In Newman, a district court approved a consent decree\n\nunder which state officials would reduce overcrowding in county jails; the court\n\nlater ordered the state to submit lists of prisoners least deserving of incarceration as\n\novercrowding worsened. 696 F.2d at 798–99. In response to requests from the\n\npress, the district court then unsealed these lists. Although the prisoner lists were\n\nnot formally filed with the district court and did not appear on the court’s docket,\n\n\n\n 9\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 10 of 25\n\n\nwe held on appeal that the lists had become “part of the court proceedings in the\n\ncase” and thus considered them subject to the common law right of access. Id. at\n\n803. In light of Newman’s result, we hold that materials submitted by litigants—\n\nwhether or not they are formally filed with the district court—that are “integral to\n\nthe ‘judicial resolution of the merits’” in any action taken by that court are subject\n\nto the common law right of access and the necessary balancing of interests that the\n\nright entails. See AbbVie Prods., LLC, 713 F.3d at 64 (quoting Chicago Tribune\n\nCo., 263 F.3d at 1312).\n\n Alabama asserts that, under AbbVie Products and Chicago Tribune,\n\nmaterials must be formally filed with a court to constitute judicial records. If these\n\ncases truly did impose such a formal filing requirement, they would conflict with\n\nour decision in Newman. To the extent that Alabama’s interpretation of AbbVie\n\nProducts and Chicago Tribune conflicts with Newman, Newman controls. “When\n\nwe have conflicting case law, we follow our oldest precedent.” United States v.\n\nMadden, 733 F.3d 1314, 1319 (11th Cir. 2013); see also Arias v. Cameron, 776\n\nF.3d 1262, 1273 n.8 (11th Cir. 2015) (“When circuit authority is in conflict, a\n\npanel should look to the line of authority containing the earliest case because a\n\ndecision of a prior panel cannot be overturned by a later panel.”).\n\n The mere filing of a document does not transform it into a judicial record.\n\nSee Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1312. For example, we have determined that\n\n\n\n 10\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 11 of 25\n\n\nwhen documents have been filed in discovery, they only constitute judicial records\n\nif they are filed with pretrial motions “that require judicial resolution of the merits”\n\nof an action. Id. Courts generally should not permit public access to discovery\n\nmaterials that are not filed with substantive motions because discovery is\n\n“essentially a private process” meant to “assist trial preparation.” United States v.\n\nAnderson, 799 F.2d 1438, 1441 (11th Cir. 1986). Filed or unfiled materials\n\nunearthed during discovery may be private, and a large portion of discovery\n\nmaterials will not assist a court in resolving matters in a case. We have never held,\n\nhowever, that filing is required in order to turn a document into a judicial record—\n\nespecially when that document may help a court to resolve the merits of an action.\n\nInstead, we have attempted to apply “a more refined approach” that accounts for\n\n“the tradition favoring access.” Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1312. Other courts\n\nhave taken similar approaches. Accord United States v. Wecht, 484 F.3d 194, 208\n\n(3d Cir. 2007), as amended (July 2, 2007) (“In general, the common law right\n\nattaches to any document that is considered a judicial record, which depends on\n\nwhether the document has been filed with the court, or otherwise somehow\n\nincorporated or integrated into a district court’s adjudicatory proceedings.”\n\n(internal quotation marks omitted)); Bond v. Utreras, 585 F.3d 1061, 1073–75 (7th\n\nCir. 2009) (holding that “the public has a presumptive right to access discovery\n\nmaterials that are filed with the court, used in a judicial proceeding, or otherwise\n\n\n\n 11\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 12 of 25\n\n\nconstitute ‘judicial records,’” and noting that even discovery documents “used in a\n\ncourt proceeding” which “consequently . . . could influence or underpin [a] judicial\n\ndecision” should be “presumptively open to public inspection unless they meet the\n\ndefinition of trade secret or other categories of bona fide long-term confidentiality”\n\n(emphasis added) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)); In re Cendant\n\nCorp., 260 F.3d 183, 192 (3d Cir. 2001) (“[A] document may still be construed as\n\na judicial record, absent filing, if a court interprets or enforces the terms of that\n\ndocument, or requires that it be submitted to the court under seal.”); cf. FTC v.\n\nAbbVie Prods. LLC, 713 F.3d 54, 63 (11th Cir. 2013) (explaining that “[t]he\n\noverwhelming majority of documents disclosed during discovery are likely\n\nirrelevant to the underlying issues and will not be ‘heard or read by counsel’ or ‘by\n\nthe court or other judicial officer,’” but public access is presumed for “materials\n\nthat invoke ‘judicial resolution of the merits’” (citations omitted)).\n\n This appeal arose under a unique set of circumstances, and thus we keep our\n\nholding narrow in comporting with our own precedent. Alabama’s lethal injection\n\nprotocol may not have been formally filed under the rushed timeline of Hamm’s\n\napproaching execution, but the protocol constitutes a judicial record subject to the\n\ncommon law right of access because it was submitted to the district court to\n\nresolve disputed substantive motions in the litigation, was discussed and analyzed\n\nby all parties in evidentiary hearings and arguments, and was unambiguously\n\n\n\n 12\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 13 of 25\n\n\nintegral to the court’s resolution of the substantive motions in Hamm’s as-applied\n\nchallenge to the protocol.6\n\n B. Common Law Right of Access\n\n After establishing that Alabama’s protocol is a judicial record, we must now\n\ndetermine whether the district court abused its discretion in unsealing the protocol\n\nafter finding it subject to the common law right of access. Generally, “the\n\ncommon-law right of access standard as it applies to particular documents requires\n\nthe court to balance competing interests of the parties,” Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d\n\nat 1312, in light of “the relevant facts and circumstances of the particular case,”\n\nPerez-Guerrero v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 717 F.3d 1224, 1235 (11th Cir. 2013). Where a\n\nparty seeks to protect material under Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil\n\nProcedure, and the material is then admitted in connection with a substantive\n\nmotion, “confidentiality imposed by Rule 26 is [not] automatically forgone”;\n\nrather, courts still conduct a balancing test to compare the respective interests of\n\nthe parties. Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1313.\n\n “The common law right of access may be overcome by a showing of good\n\ncause, which requires balanc[ing] the asserted right of access against the other\n\n\n\n6\n The parties discussed the protocol with the district court in an in camera hearing, and the\ndistrict court noted that substantive motions in this case incorporated and referred to the protocol.\nThe court relied upon—and cited to—the protocol in denying Alabama’s motion for summary\njudgment “as to the merits of Mr. Hamm’s as-applied claim”; the court also relied upon the\nprotocol in denying Hamm’s request for a preliminary injunction.\n\n\n 13\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 14 of 25\n\n\nparty’s interest in keeping the information confidential.” Romero v. Drummond\n\nCo., Inc., 480 F.3d 1234, 1246 (11th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted).\n\nCourts determine whether good cause exists by looking to the nature and character\n\nof the information in question. See id. When evaluating good cause, a court\n\nshould consider relevant factors including “whether the records are sought for such\n\nillegitimate purposes as to promote public scandal or gain unfair commercial\n\nadvantage, whether access is likely to promote public understanding of historically\n\nsignificant events, and whether the press has already been permitted substantial\n\naccess to the contents of the records.”7 Newman v. Graddick, 696 F.2d 796, 803\n\n(11th Cir. 1983). A court should also consider the consistency of a party’s reliance\n\nwhere the party files a document subject to a protective order. AbbVie Prods.,\n\nLLC, 713 F.3d at 68.\n\n To determine whether the district court abused its discretion in granting\n\npublic access to Alabama’s protocol, we look to its analysis of these factors. The\n\ndistrict court considered the nature and character of the information in the lethal\n\ninjection protocol, finding that the protocol and its related records “clearly concern\n\na matter of great public concern, i.e., how Alabama carries out its executions.”\n\n\n\n\n7\n In Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc., the Supreme Court described examples of “public\nscandal” as “publication of the painful and sometimes disgusting details of a divorce case,” or\n“reservoirs of libelous statements for press consumption.” 435 U.S. 589, 598, 98 S. Ct. 1306,\n1312 (1978).\n\n\n 14\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 15 of 25\n\n\nThe court noted that “[c]apital punishment is a hotly contested issue that involves\n\nan irrevocable punishment for prisoners convicted of terrible crimes. The public\n\nhas a great interest in understanding how the State carries out its punishment.”\n\n The district court rejected Alabama’s argument that the Intervenors sought\n\nthe protocol for an improper purpose, concluding that “public discussion is not the\n\nsame as public scandal. . . . And the fact that the Intervenors may take a position\n\nabout the death penalty does not make their intent to publish factual matter about\n\nhow Alabama conducts its executions ‘scandalous.’” The court also considered\n\nwhether access to the protocol would likely promote understanding of a historically\n\nsignificant event. The court found that this factor weighed in favor of unsealing\n\nthe documents because “access to the lethal injection protocol may help the public\n\nto understand the context of the State’s efforts to execute [Hamm]. It may also\n\nhelp the public to understand how the same scenario might be repeated or avoided\n\nunder the protocol as it currently stands.”\n\n The district court went on to say that the press already had access to some\n\ninformation about the protocol because the court had referred “in broad terms [to]\n\naspects of the protocol in its memorandum opinion about Defendants’ motion for\n\nsummary judgment.” Alabama argues that the press will not gain any new\n\nsignificant information from the protocol because the only portion of the protocol\n\nat issue in Hamm’s case—the procedure for venous access—has already been\n\n\n\n 15\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 16 of 25\n\n\ndiscussed by the district court and Hamm’s counsel, and is therefore accessible to\n\nthe public. The court concluded, however, that currently available information\n\nabout the protocol was not an adequate replacement for the actual protocol. The\n\ncourt explained that, “in an attempt to avoid sealing or redacting the memorandum\n\nopinion, the court kept its summary of the protocol deliberately vague, highlighting\n\nwhat the protocol does not contain instead of what it does provide.” Furthermore,\n\n“[Alabama] will keep the lethal injection protocol secret from the public unless the\n\ncourt unseals it. And the court’s vague summary of portions of the lethal injection\n\nprotocol and its gaps cannot truly substitute for the document itself.”\n\n The district court also evaluated whether Alabama relied on the protective\n\norder issued to keep the protocol confidential. The court acknowledged that\n\nAlabama has always sought to keep the protocol confidential, but ultimately\n\ndecided that “the fact that [Alabama] zealously guard[s] information about a matter\n\nof great public concern does not tip the scales against disclosure. The court\n\nconcludes that the considerations in favor of unsealing the records greatly\n\noutweigh [Alabama’s] interest in maintaining secrecy.” Finally, the court\n\nconsidered Alabama’s contention that its lethal injection protocol contains\n\nsensitive security information. The court recognized that certain parts of the lethal\n\n\n\n\n 16\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 17 of 25\n\n\ninjection protocol should remain sealed due to these potentially valid concerns and\n\nnoted that these parts of the protocol could be easily redacted.8\n\n After considering and weighing all these factors, the district court held that\n\n“the public’s common law right of access mandates the release of the lethal\n\ninjection protocol and related court records.” The court added, however, that it\n\nwould not unseal the protocol in full—rather, “[a]ny information that could be used\n\nto track the locations of personnel before, during, and after the execution, or that\n\ncould be used to identify the people involved in the execution, will be redacted.”\n\nThe court then resolved to consult with Alabama to determine which parts of the\n\nprotocol needed to be redacted. The district court’s thorough analysis of the\n\nfactors listed in our precedent, and its tailored conclusion—allowing for redaction\n\nof information that implicated Alabama’s proffered security concerns—did not\n\nconstitute an abuse of discretion.\n\n III. Intervention\n\n We review the grant of a motion for permissive intervention for abuse of\n\ndiscretion, and the grant of a motion to intervene as of right de novo. See Georgia\n\nv. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 302 F.3d 1242, 1249 (11th Cir. 2002). We review\n\n\n\n\n8\n Alabama has not provided any other concrete security concerns, either in the district court or on\nappeal, beyond concern for protecting the identities of individual participants in the execution\nprocess. Redaction of identifying information in the protocol will eliminate this concern. At the\ntime of oral argument, Alabama still had not taken the district court’s offer to redact the protocol.\n\n\n 17\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 18 of 25\n\n\nsubsidiary factual findings for clear error. Id. We review a court’s determination\n\nof timeliness for intervention for abuse of discretion. Walters v. Atlanta, 803 F.2d\n\n1135, 1151 n.16 (11th Cir. 1986).\n\n “The press has standing to intervene in actions to which it is otherwise not a\n\nparty in order to petition for access to court proceedings and records.” In re\n\nPetition of Tribune Co., 784 F.2d 1518, 1521 (11th Cir. 1986). Under Rule 24(a)\n\nof the Federal Rules Civil Procedure, a court must allow timely intervention by\n\nanyone who “claims an interest relating to the property or transaction that is the\n\nsubject of the action, and is so situated that disposing of the action may as a\n\npractical matter impair or impede the movant’s ability to protect its interest, unless\n\nexisting parties adequately represent that interest.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 24(a)(2). Rule\n\n24(b) allows courts to permit timely intervention by anyone with “a claim or\n\ndefense that shares with the main action a common question of law or fact,” id. at\n\n24(b)(1)(B), but courts must exercise discretion and consider whether the\n\nintervention will “unduly delay or prejudice the adjudication of the original parties’\n\nrights,” id. at 24(b)(3).\n\n The district court granted intervention under Rule 24(a) for the Intervenors\n\nhere, but the court also recognized that intervention would be proper under Rule\n\n24(b). Intervention under either Rule 24(a) or 24(b) must be timely filed.\n\nIntervention may be timely filed even if it occurs after a case has concluded;\n\n\n\n 18\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 19 of 25\n\n\ntimeliness depends on the circumstances of each case. Cf. Salvors, Inc. v.\n\nUnidentified Wrecked & Abandoned Vessel, 861 F.3d 1278, 1294 (11th Cir. 2017)\n\n(finding intervention timely even though the contested order was entered 33 years\n\nearlier); Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1308 (noting timely intervention by\n\nmembers of the media “in the months following settlement” of the original case).\n\n Courts consider four factors in assessing timeliness: (1) the length of time\n\nduring which the would-be intervenor knew or reasonably should have known of\n\nhis interest in the case before petitioning for leave to intervene; (2) the extent of the\n\nprejudice that existing parties may suffer as a result of the would-be intervenor’s\n\nfailure to apply for intervention as soon as he actually knew or reasonably should\n\nhave known of his interest; (3) the extent of the prejudice that the would-be\n\nintervenor may suffer if denied the opportunity to intervene; and (4) the existence\n\nof unusual circumstances weighing for or against a determination of timeliness.\n\nSalvors, 861 F.3d at 1294. Mere knowledge that an action is pending, without\n\nappreciation of the potential adverse effect an adjudication of that action may have\n\non one’s interests, does not preclude intervention. Walters v. City of Atlanta, 803\n\nF.2d 1135, 1151 n.16 (11th Cir. 1986). “The most important consideration in\n\ndetermining timeliness is whether any existing party to the litigation will be\n\nharmed or prejudiced by the proposed intervenor’s delay in moving to intervene.\n\nIn fact, this may well be the only significant consideration when the proposed\n\n\n\n 19\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 20 of 25\n\n\nintervenor seeks intervention of right.” McDonald v. E. J. Lavino Co., 430 F.2d\n\n1065, 1073 (5th Cir. 1970) (citations omitted).9\n\n Alabama argues that the Intervenors did not make a timely motion to\n\nintervene because the Intervenors knew that they had an interest in Hamm’s case as\n\nearly as January 18, when a reporter associated with Alabama Media Group\n\nreported on the case filings. Alabama did not submit a proposed confidentiality\n\norder until January 30, and did not produce the protocol until the hearing on\n\nJanuary 31, which is when the district court imputed an interest to the Intervenors.\n\nThe Intervenors did not seek to intervene until March 28. Using the district court’s\n\nchosen date, we still find that this factor cuts slightly against timeliness of\n\nintervention.\n\n Alabama also argues that it was prejudiced by the Intervenors’ untimely\n\nintervention for two reasons. First, had Alabama known that the press would seek\n\n\n\n9\n Though the former Fifth Circuit recognized in McDonald that “intervention after judgment is\nunusual and not often granted,” it also noted that “[t]he most important consideration in\ndetermining timeliness is whether any existing party to the litigation will be harmed or\nprejudiced by the proposed intervenors; delay in moving to intervene.” 430 F.2d at 1073\n(citations omitted). McDonald binds us. Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1207 (11th\nCir. 1981) (en banc) (holding that all Fifth Circuit decisions handed down prior to close of\nbusiness on September 30, 1981, are binding precedent in the Eleventh Circuit). Moreover, other\ncircuits have recognized that timeliness concerns may be less significant when intervention is\n“not on the merits, but for the sole purpose of challenging a protective order.” United Nuclear\nCorp. v. Cranford Ins. Co., 905 F.2d 1424, 1427 (10th Cir. 1990) (allowing intervention three\nyears after a case was settled); see also Blum v. Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Inc., 712\nF.3d 1349, 1353–54 (9th Cir. 2013); Pansy v. Borough of Stroudsburg, 23 F.3d 772, 779 (3d Cir.\n1994) (“[T]he growing consensus among the courts of appeals [is] that intervention to challenge\nconfidentiality orders may take place long after a case has been terminated.”)\n\n\n 20\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 21 of 25\n\n\naccess to the protocol, it would not have voluntarily turned over the protocol\n\nduring the case, and would have challenged any court decision requiring\n\ndisclosure. Second, if the press had intervened earlier, Alabama could have taken\n\na different approach to the joint dismissal of the case and the finalized settlement\n\nagreement with Hamm. 10 The district court rejected these arguments, finding first\n\nthat if Alabama did not voluntarily produce the protocol, the court would have\n\nordered Alabama to do so—thus, Alabama ultimately would have had to turn over\n\nthe protocol. The court then found that Alabama and Hamm could not have\n\nreached any agreement about unsealing records in their settlement because neither\n\nparty sought to unseal the records.11\n\n Alabama argues that the Intervenors will not suffer prejudice if they cannot\n\nintervene in Hamm’s case because the Intervenors will not lose the opportunity to\n\naccess the protocol in other ongoing or future lethal injection cases. This argument\n\nis unpersuasive. The mere fact that members of the press could attempt—in future\n\nor ongoing cases—to intervene and seek access to Alabama’s execution protocol\n\ndoes not mean that the Intervenors are not prejudiced in this case. The Intervenors\n\nclaim that they have a common law right to access the lethal injection protocol\n\n\n\n\n10\n Alabama did not provide any details about how it might have changed its settlement agreement\nwith Hamm had members of the press sought to intervene before settlement.\n11\n We also note that Alabama and Hamm could not have bound third parties or the court as to\nsealing issues.\n\n\n 21\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 22 of 25\n\n\nincluded as a judicial record in Hamm’s case. Denial of this right constitutes an\n\ninjury even if the press might have another opportunity to obtain a copy of\n\nAlabama’s protocol in a different case. Even if a copy of the protocol were\n\navailable in the future, Intervenors may be prejudiced by delay in gaining access to\n\nthat record. Cf. Neb. Press Ass’n v. Stuart, 423 U.S. 1327, 1329, 96 S. Ct. 251,\n\n254 (1975) (in analyzing a prior restraint in the First Amendment context, holding\n\nthat “each passing day” may constitute a separate and cognizable harm where “a\n\ndirect prior restraint is imposed upon the reporting of news by the media”).\n\nMoreover, there is no way to ensure that other copies of this same protocol—as\n\napplied in Hamm’s case—will be available in future cases. Alabama could change\n\nits protocol at any time, which would render the protocol used in Hamm’s case\n\nunnecessary for future death penalty litigation. In addition, challenges to the\n\nprotocol are sometimes barred by the statute of limitations, and there is no\n\nevidence that Alabama regularly files this protocol in litigation.\n\n Finally, no unusual circumstances appear to militate for or against the\n\nIntervenors’ intervention in Hamm’s case. In considering the totality of the\n\ncircumstances and evaluating the alleged prejudice to each party, the district court\n\nreasonably concluded that the Intervenors timely intervened in Hamm’s case. The\n\ndistrict court’s conclusion did not constitute an abuse of discretion. This\n\n\n\n\n 22\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 23 of 25\n\n\ndetermination of timeliness was necessary to meet the requirements for\n\nintervention under either Rule 24(a) or Rule 24(b).\n\n Alabama also challenges the intervention based on other requirements of\n\nRule 24. Alabama first argues that intervention under Rule 24(a) was improper\n\nbecause the Intervenors are not “so situated that disposition of the action, as a\n\npractical matter, may impede or impair [their] ability to protect that interest.”\n\nAlabama claims that the Intervenors’ asserted interest in accessing the protocol—\n\ninforming the public as to whether the failure to execute Hamm was due to a\n\nproblem with the protocol—is not impaired by the disposition of Hamm’s case.\n\nAlabama presumes that the Intervenors may have other opportunities to access the\n\nprotocol, regardless of what happens in this case. We previously addressed this\n\nargument above in evaluating timeliness, and we reject it for the same reasons\n\nhere. Thus, we conclude that intervention as of right was appropriate under Rule\n\n24(a). 12\n\n\n12\n Moreover, it would not have been an abuse of discretion for the district court to grant\nintervention under Rule 24(b). Many circuits recognize that parties “seeking to intervene in a\ncase for the limited purpose of unsealing judicial records” need not show a “strong nexus of fact\nor law” to the issues in the original case. Flynt v. Lombardi, 782 F.3d 963, 967 (8th Cir. 2015)\n(quoting Beckman Indus., Inc. v. Int’l Ins. Co., 966 F.2d 470, 474 (9th Cir. 1992)); see also\nJessup v. Luther, 227 F.3d 993, 997–99 (7th Cir. 2000) (“[A]lthough there is ample justification\nfor the common fact or law requirement when the proposed intervenors seek to become a party to\nthe action, [t]here is no reason to require such a strong nexus of fact or law when a party seeks to\nintervene only for the purpose of modifying a protective order.” (internal quotation marks\nomitted)); EEOC v. Nat’l Children’s Ctr., Inc., 146 F.3d 1042, 1045 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (“[C]ourts\nhave been willing to adopt generous interpretations of Rule 24(b) because of the need for ‘an\neffective mechanism for third-party claims of access to information generated through judicial\nproceedings.’” (quoting Public Citizen v. Liggett Grp., Inc., 858 F.2d 775, 783 (1st Cir. 1988)));\n\n\n 23\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 24 of 25\n\n\n V. Conclusion\n\n Our own precedent in Newman compels us to find that Alabama’s lethal\n\ninjection protocol—submitted to the court in connection with a litigated dispute,\n\ndiscussed in proceedings and motions by all parties, and relied upon by the court to\n\ndispose of substantive motions—is a judicial record. Judicial records provide\n\ngrounds upon which a court relies in deciding cases, and thus the public has a valid\n\ninterest in accessing these records to ensure the continued integrity and\n\ntransparency of our governmental and judicial offices. This public right of access,\n\nbased in the common law, may only be overcome when a court determines—after\n\nbalancing the respective competing interests of all parties—that the party seeking\n\nto keep the information confidential has shown good cause. Here, the district court\n\ndid not abuse its discretion. The court properly balanced the interests of Alabama\n\nand the Intervenors, concluding that Alabama had not shown good cause sufficient\n\nto overcome the common law right of access. The court also properly granted\n\n\n\n\nPansy v. Borough of Stroudsburg, 23 F.3d 772, 778 (3rd Cir. 1994) (“By virtue of the fact that\nthe Newspapers challenge the validity of the Order of Confidentiality entered in the main action,\nthey meet the requirement of Fed. R. Civ. P. 24(b)(2) that their claim must have ‘a question of\nlaw or fact in common’ with the main action.”). The Intervenors here seek to determine whether\nthe district court’s protective order preventing disclosure of the protocol was justified. They\nwant to access the protocol in order to analyze what role, if any, the protocol played in\nAlabama’s failed execution of Hamm. The district court did not abuse its discretion in deciding\nthat the Intervenors’ asserted interests for intervening—for the limited purpose of unsealing\njudicial records—provided an adequate nexus for intervention under Rule 24(b).\n\n\n 24\n\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 25 of 25\n\n\nintervention under Rule 24 for Intervenors seeking to assert their common law\n\nright of access to the lethal injection protocol. Accordingly, we affirm.\n\n AFFIRMED.\n\n\n\n\n 25\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: COMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Holman CF Warden, Donaldson CF Warden, Defendants-Appellants, v. ADVANCE LOCAL MEDIA, LLC, D.B.A. Alabama Media Group, Montgomery Advertiser, the Associated Press, Intervenors-Appellees.\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-18\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 1 of 25\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 18-12402\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 2:17-cv-02083-KOB\\n\\nCOMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,\\nHOLMAN CF WARDEN,\\nDONALDSON CF WARDEN,\\n\\n Defendants - Appellants,\\n\\nversus\\n\\nADVANCE LOCAL MEDIA, LLC,\\nd.b.a. Alabama Media Group,\\nMONTGOMERY ADVERTISER,\\nTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS,\\n\\n Intervenors - Appellees.\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Northern District of Alabama\\n ________________________\\n (March 18, 2019)\\n\\nBefore TJOFLAT, WILSON, and JORDAN, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nWILSON, Circuit Judge:\\n\\n This appeal concerns the common law right of access to documents upon\\n\\nwhich a court has relied to decide issues in a case. In the underlying suit, death\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 2 of 25\\n\\n\\nrow inmate Doyle Lee Hamm brought an as-applied challenge under 42 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 1983, arguing that Alabama’s attempt to execute him via lethal injection would\\n\\nviolate the Eighth Amendment. During the litigation, Alabama submitted its lethal\\n\\ninjection protocol to the district court. The protocol was never formally filed with\\n\\nthe court, but was subjected to expert testimony, debated at hearings, and relied\\n\\nupon by the court in denying both Alabama’s motion for summary judgment and\\n\\nHamm’s request for a preliminary injunction. After Hamm’s case was dismissed,\\n\\nmembers of the press intervened, seeking access to the protocol. The district court\\n\\ngranted these intervenors access to a redacted version of the protocol. The\\n\\nCommissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections now appeals, arguing\\n\\nthat the court erred in (1) allowing the press to intervene and (2) determining that\\n\\nthe protocol was a judicial record subject to the common law right of access. After\\n\\ncareful consideration and the benefit of oral argument, we affirm.\\n\\n I. Factual and Procedural Background\\n\\n Doyle Lee Hamm was sentenced to death in 1987 and, after a series of\\n\\nunsuccessful direct and collateral challenges to his sentence, was set to be executed\\n\\nin February 2018. In December 2017, Hamm filed an action in the Northern\\n\\nDistrict of Alabama under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, challenging the constitutionality of\\n\\nAlabama’s lethal injection protocol as applied to him, because he suffered from\\n\\n“severely compromised veins” due to drug use, Hepatitis C, and cancer. Hamm v.\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 3 of 25\\n\\n\\nDunn, 302 F. Supp. 3d 1287 (N.D. Ala. 2018), vacated and remanded sub nom. by\\n\\nHamm v. Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., No. 18-10473 (11th Cir. Feb. 13, 2018).\\n\\nHamm sought to enjoin Alabama from using the protocol to perform his execution.\\n\\n In January 2018, Alabama moved for summary judgment. The district court\\n\\nordered expedited briefing and scheduled an evidentiary hearing for January 31 to\\n\\naddress Alabama’s dispositive motions and Hamm’s request for injunctive relief.\\n\\nAfter the court entered a protective order to keep the lethal injection protocol\\n\\nconfidential, Alabama provided a copy of the protocol to the court for in camera\\n\\nreview and gave Hamm a redacted copy of the protocol. Likewise, the portion of\\n\\nthe evidentiary hearing that focused on the protocol was conducted in camera.\\n\\nBoth parties and the court discussed the contents of the lethal injection protocol,\\n\\nbut neither party moved to admit the protocol into evidence or attach it as an\\n\\nexhibit to any motion or pleading.\\n\\n Less than three weeks before Hamm was set to be executed, the district court\\n\\ndenied Alabama’s motion for summary judgment and temporarily stayed Hamm’s\\n\\nexecution. In its publicly available orders denying summary judgment, the district\\n\\ncourt summarized Alabama’s lethal injection protocol and discussed how the\\n\\nprotocol applied to Hamm’s specific medical conditions. This Court vacated the\\n\\ndistrict court’s stay but directed the court to obtain an independent medical\\n\\nexamination and make any concomitant factual findings by February 20—two days\\n\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 4 of 25\\n\\n\\nbefore Hamm’s execution date. The district court held another in camera hearing\\n\\non February 16 to hear testimony from the independent medical examiner. The\\n\\nexaminer testified that Hamm had accessible and usable veins in his lower\\n\\nextremities.\\n\\n Four days later, the district court denied Hamm’s request for a preliminary\\n\\ninjunction, summarizing the contents of the February 16 hearing and reasoning that\\n\\nAlabama’s lethal injection protocol, as applied to Hamm, did not present\\n\\n“sufficiently imminent dangers” and was not likely to result in serious illness or\\n\\nneedless suffering that would violate the Eighth Amendment. Hamm appealed.\\n\\nThis Court affirmed the district court but ordered Alabama to have ultrasound\\n\\ntechnology and a doctor at the execution.\\n\\n On the day of his execution—February 22, 2018—Hamm petitioned the\\n\\nSupreme Court for a stay and writ of certiorari. His petition was denied. Alabama\\n\\nthen attempted to execute Hamm, but after several unsuccessful efforts to insert a\\n\\nneedle, called off the execution an hour before its midnight deadline. The botched\\n\\nexecution attempt received national media coverage.\\n\\n Hamm filed a second amended complaint describing Alabama’s failed\\n\\nefforts to execute him, but both parties agreed to dismiss these claims (some with\\n\\nprejudice and some without prejudice) on the same day that the claims were filed.\\n\\nTwo days later, the district court dismissed the action. On March 28, the same day\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 5 of 25\\n\\n\\nthe court dismissed the action, Alabama Media Group,1 the Montgomery\\n\\nAdvertiser, and the Associated Press (collectively, Intervenors) moved to intervene\\n\\nin Hamm’s case under Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to unseal\\n\\nthe records, transcripts, and briefs discussing Alabama’s execution protocol. On\\n\\nMarch 30, the court granted intervention as a matter of right under Rule 24(a),2 but\\n\\nreserved ruling on the request for access to the protocol and related documents. In\\n\\nresponse to the request for access, Alabama asked the court to reconsider its\\n\\ndecision to allow intervention and, alternatively, argued that the request for access\\n\\nshould be denied because (1) the lethal injection protocol was not a publicly\\n\\naccessible judicial record, and (2) the Intervenors had no common law right of\\n\\naccess to the protocol.\\n\\n The district court denied Alabama’s request to reconsider intervention and\\n\\ngranted Intervenors’ motion to unseal the protocol and related records. The court\\n\\nemphasized that Hamm’s case had occurred under rushed circumstances, and\\n\\nconcluded that failure to formally file the protocol did not make it a non-judicial\\n\\nrecord because the court “needed and relied upon the protocol to resolve [the\\n\\nState’s] motion for summary judgment and Mr. Hamm’s request for injunctive\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n1\\n Advance Local Media, an Intervenor in this case, does business as the Alabama Media Group.\\n2\\n The district court noted that permissive intervention was proper under Rule 24(b) as well.\\n\\n\\n 5\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 6 of 25\\n\\n\\nrelief,” and other judicial records referred to the protocol.3 The court also found\\n\\nthat Alabama failed to show interests sufficient to overcome the public’s common\\n\\nlaw right of access to the protocol.\\n\\n The district court issued two orders. The first order clarified what it\\n\\nunsealed, including redacted versions of (1) the protocol, (2) the sealed transcript\\n\\nof the January 31 in camera evidentiary hearing, (3) the sealed transcript of the\\n\\nFebruary 16 closed medical examiner hearing, and (4) Hamm’s motion for leave to\\n\\nsupplement his first amended complaint. The second order instructed Alabama to\\n\\nfile, under seal, a redacted copy of the protocol for the court to review before\\n\\nreleasing it. Alabama appealed and moved to stay the release of the protocol\\n\\npending this appeal. The district court granted Alabama’s motion to stay; we now\\n\\nconsider the state’s appeal.\\n\\n II. The Common Law Right of Access to Judicial Records\\n\\n Whether a document is a “judicial record” subject to the common law right\\n\\nof access is a question of law we review de novo. Accord In re U.S. for an Order\\n\\nPursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 2703(D), 707 F.3d 283, 290 (4th Cir. 2013). We\\n\\nreview a decision to unseal documents for abuse of discretion. FTC v. AbbVie\\n\\nProds., LLC, 713 F.3d 54, 61 (11th Cir. 2013). Under the abuse of discretion\\n\\n\\n\\n3\\n For example, Hamm’s sealed motion for leave to supplement his first amended complaint\\nquotes both the protocol and the January 31 hearing discussing the protocol.\\n\\n\\n 6\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 7 of 25\\n\\n\\nstandard, a court has a range of choices available to it. See McLane Co., Inc. v.\\n\\nEEOC, 137 S. Ct. 1159, 1169 (2017); United States v. Frazier, 387 F.3d 1244,\\n\\n1259 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc).\\n\\n “It is clear that the courts of this country recognize a general right to inspect\\n\\nand copy public records and documents, including judicial records and\\n\\ndocuments.” Nixon v. Warner Commc’ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597, 98 S. Ct. 1306,\\n\\n1312 (1978). The media and public presumptively have a right to access judicial\\n\\nrecords. Chicago Tribune Co. v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 263 F.3d 1304, 1311\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2001) (per curiam). The common law right of access to judicial records\\n\\n“‘establish[es] a general presumption that criminal and civil actions should be\\n\\nconducted publicly’ and ‘includes the right to inspect and copy public records and\\n\\ndocuments.’ It is ‘an essential component of our system of justice’ and ‘is\\n\\ninstrumental in securing the integrity of the process.’” AbbVie Prods., LLC, 713\\n\\nF.3d at 62 (quoting Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1311). 4 Access to public and\\n\\njudicial records protects “the citizen’s desire to keep a watchful eye on the\\n\\nworkings of public agencies, and . . . a newspaper publisher’s intention to publish\\n\\ninformation concerning the operation of government.” Nixon, 435 U.S. at 597–98,\\n\\n\\n4\\n In the past, we have recognized that both judicial proceedings and judicial records are\\npresumptively available to the public because “[j]udges deliberate in private but issue public\\ndecisions after public arguments based on public records. . . . Any step that withdraws an\\nelement of the judicial process from public view makes the ensuing decision look more like fiat\\nand requires rigorous justification.” Perez-Guerrero v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 717 F.3d 1224, 1235\\n(11th Cir. 2013) (quoting Hicklin Eng’g, L.C. v. Bartell, 439 F.3d 346, 348 (7th Cir. 2006)).\\n\\n\\n 7\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 8 of 25\\n\\n\\n98 S. Ct. at 1312 (citations omitted); see also Romero v. Drummond Co., Inc., 480\\n\\nF.3d 1234, 1246 (11th Cir. 2007) (finding that these public concerns were at the\\n\\n“heart of the interest protected by the right of access”). Judges should exercise\\n\\ndiscretion in deciding to release judicial records and should exhibit a “sensitive\\n\\nappreciation of the circumstances that led to their production.” Nixon, 435 U.S. at\\n\\n603, 98 S. Ct. at 1315. 5\\n\\n A. Judicial Records\\n\\n To determine whether Alabama’s lethal injection protocol is subject to the\\n\\ncommon law right of access, we must first determine whether the protocol\\n\\nconstitutes a judicial record. Citing our prior decisions in Chicago Tribune and\\n\\nAbbVie Products, Alabama argues that its lethal injection protocol is not a judicial\\n\\nrecord because its protocol was never formally filed with the district court and is\\n\\nnot in the electronic docket. Alabama’s interpretation is foreclosed by precedent in\\n\\nNewman v. Graddick, and thus we reject Alabama’s argument.\\n\\n In both Chicago Tribune and AbbVie Products, materials accompanying\\n\\nmotions were filed with a district court during the course of litigation. Both\\n\\ndecisions acknowledged the filed status of the materials while emphasizing a\\n\\n\\n\\n5\\n Courts retain jurisdiction to unseal judicial records and may allow parties to intervene well after\\njudgment in a dispute. See, e.g., AbbVie Prods., LLC, 713 F.3d at 58 (affirming district court\\ndetermination to modify protective order after three years); cf. Brown v. Advantage Eng’g, Inc.,\\n960 F.2d 1013, 1015–16 (11th Cir. 1992) (recognizing that a district court had jurisdiction to\\ndecide a motion to intervene to unseal records that had been sealed more than six months prior).\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 9 of 25\\n\\n\\ndistinction between documents filed with discovery motions and those filed with\\n\\nsubstantive motions requiring judicial action. See AbbVie Prods., LLC, 713 F.3d at\\n\\n63–64 (“[W]hether a document is a judicial record depend[s] on the type of filing it\\n\\naccompanied. A complaint and its exhibits, which are integral to the ‘judicial\\n\\nresolution of the merits’ of any action, are surely ‘subject to the common-law\\n\\nright.’”); Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1312 (“[M]aterial filed with discovery\\n\\nmotions is not subject to the common-law right of access, whereas discovery\\n\\nmaterial filed in connection with pretrial motions that require judicial resolution of\\n\\nthe merits is subject to the common-law right.”).\\n\\n In the present case, unlike in AbbVie Products and Chicago Tribune, the\\n\\nIntervenors are seeking access to materials that did not accompany motions filed in\\n\\nthe district court. The specific language in AbbVie Products and Chicago Tribune\\n\\nregarding materials filed with motions to the court, then, does not clearly apply to\\n\\nthe facts before us. Our decision in Newman v. Graddick, 696 F.2d 796 (11th Cir.\\n\\n1983), is more instructive. In Newman, a district court approved a consent decree\\n\\nunder which state officials would reduce overcrowding in county jails; the court\\n\\nlater ordered the state to submit lists of prisoners least deserving of incarceration as\\n\\novercrowding worsened. 696 F.2d at 798–99. In response to requests from the\\n\\npress, the district court then unsealed these lists. Although the prisoner lists were\\n\\nnot formally filed with the district court and did not appear on the court’s docket,\\n\\n\\n\\n 9\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 10 of 25\\n\\n\\nwe held on appeal that the lists had become “part of the court proceedings in the\\n\\ncase” and thus considered them subject to the common law right of access. Id. at\\n\\n803. In light of Newman’s result, we hold that materials submitted by litigants—\\n\\nwhether or not they are formally filed with the district court—that are “integral to\\n\\nthe ‘judicial resolution of the merits’” in any action taken by that court are subject\\n\\nto the common law right of access and the necessary balancing of interests that the\\n\\nright entails. See AbbVie Prods., LLC, 713 F.3d at 64 (quoting Chicago Tribune\\n\\nCo., 263 F.3d at 1312).\\n\\n Alabama asserts that, under AbbVie Products and Chicago Tribune,\\n\\nmaterials must be formally filed with a court to constitute judicial records. If these\\n\\ncases truly did impose such a formal filing requirement, they would conflict with\\n\\nour decision in Newman. To the extent that Alabama’s interpretation of AbbVie\\n\\nProducts and Chicago Tribune conflicts with Newman, Newman controls. “When\\n\\nwe have conflicting case law, we follow our oldest precedent.” United States v.\\n\\nMadden, 733 F.3d 1314, 1319 (11th Cir. 2013); see also Arias v. Cameron, 776\\n\\nF.3d 1262, 1273 n.8 (11th Cir. 2015) (“When circuit authority is in conflict, a\\n\\npanel should look to the line of authority containing the earliest case because a\\n\\ndecision of a prior panel cannot be overturned by a later panel.”).\\n\\n The mere filing of a document does not transform it into a judicial record.\\n\\nSee Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1312. For example, we have determined that\\n\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 11 of 25\\n\\n\\nwhen documents have been filed in discovery, they only constitute judicial records\\n\\nif they are filed with pretrial motions “that require judicial resolution of the merits”\\n\\nof an action. Id. Courts generally should not permit public access to discovery\\n\\nmaterials that are not filed with substantive motions because discovery is\\n\\n“essentially a private process” meant to “assist trial preparation.” United States v.\\n\\nAnderson, 799 F.2d 1438, 1441 (11th Cir. 1986). Filed or unfiled materials\\n\\nunearthed during discovery may be private, and a large portion of discovery\\n\\nmaterials will not assist a court in resolving matters in a case. We have never held,\\n\\nhowever, that filing is required in order to turn a document into a judicial record—\\n\\nespecially when that document may help a court to resolve the merits of an action.\\n\\nInstead, we have attempted to apply “a more refined approach” that accounts for\\n\\n“the tradition favoring access.” Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1312. Other courts\\n\\nhave taken similar approaches. Accord United States v. Wecht, 484 F.3d 194, 208\\n\\n(3d Cir. 2007), as amended (July 2, 2007) (“In general, the common law right\\n\\nattaches to any document that is considered a judicial record, which depends on\\n\\nwhether the document has been filed with the court, or otherwise somehow\\n\\nincorporated or integrated into a district court’s adjudicatory proceedings.”\\n\\n(internal quotation marks omitted)); Bond v. Utreras, 585 F.3d 1061, 1073–75 (7th\\n\\nCir. 2009) (holding that “the public has a presumptive right to access discovery\\n\\nmaterials that are filed with the court, used in a judicial proceeding, or otherwise\\n\\n\\n\\n 11\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 12 of 25\\n\\n\\nconstitute ‘judicial records,’” and noting that even discovery documents “used in a\\n\\ncourt proceeding” which “consequently . . . could influence or underpin [a] judicial\\n\\ndecision” should be “presumptively open to public inspection unless they meet the\\n\\ndefinition of trade secret or other categories of bona fide long-term confidentiality”\\n\\n(emphasis added) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)); In re Cendant\\n\\nCorp., 260 F.3d 183, 192 (3d Cir. 2001) (“[A] document may still be construed as\\n\\na judicial record, absent filing, if a court interprets or enforces the terms of that\\n\\ndocument, or requires that it be submitted to the court under seal.”); cf. FTC v.\\n\\nAbbVie Prods. LLC, 713 F.3d 54, 63 (11th Cir. 2013) (explaining that “[t]he\\n\\noverwhelming majority of documents disclosed during discovery are likely\\n\\nirrelevant to the underlying issues and will not be ‘heard or read by counsel’ or ‘by\\n\\nthe court or other judicial officer,’” but public access is presumed for “materials\\n\\nthat invoke ‘judicial resolution of the merits’” (citations omitted)).\\n\\n This appeal arose under a unique set of circumstances, and thus we keep our\\n\\nholding narrow in comporting with our own precedent. Alabama’s lethal injection\\n\\nprotocol may not have been formally filed under the rushed timeline of Hamm’s\\n\\napproaching execution, but the protocol constitutes a judicial record subject to the\\n\\ncommon law right of access because it was submitted to the district court to\\n\\nresolve disputed substantive motions in the litigation, was discussed and analyzed\\n\\nby all parties in evidentiary hearings and arguments, and was unambiguously\\n\\n\\n\\n 12\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 13 of 25\\n\\n\\nintegral to the court’s resolution of the substantive motions in Hamm’s as-applied\\n\\nchallenge to the protocol.6\\n\\n B. Common Law Right of Access\\n\\n After establishing that Alabama’s protocol is a judicial record, we must now\\n\\ndetermine whether the district court abused its discretion in unsealing the protocol\\n\\nafter finding it subject to the common law right of access. Generally, “the\\n\\ncommon-law right of access standard as it applies to particular documents requires\\n\\nthe court to balance competing interests of the parties,” Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d\\n\\nat 1312, in light of “the relevant facts and circumstances of the particular case,”\\n\\nPerez-Guerrero v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 717 F.3d 1224, 1235 (11th Cir. 2013). Where a\\n\\nparty seeks to protect material under Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil\\n\\nProcedure, and the material is then admitted in connection with a substantive\\n\\nmotion, “confidentiality imposed by Rule 26 is [not] automatically forgone”;\\n\\nrather, courts still conduct a balancing test to compare the respective interests of\\n\\nthe parties. Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1313.\\n\\n “The common law right of access may be overcome by a showing of good\\n\\ncause, which requires balanc[ing] the asserted right of access against the other\\n\\n\\n\\n6\\n The parties discussed the protocol with the district court in an in camera hearing, and the\\ndistrict court noted that substantive motions in this case incorporated and referred to the protocol.\\nThe court relied upon—and cited to—the protocol in denying Alabama’s motion for summary\\njudgment “as to the merits of Mr. Hamm’s as-applied claim”; the court also relied upon the\\nprotocol in denying Hamm’s request for a preliminary injunction.\\n\\n\\n 13\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 14 of 25\\n\\n\\nparty’s interest in keeping the information confidential.” Romero v. Drummond\\n\\nCo., Inc., 480 F.3d 1234, 1246 (11th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\nCourts determine whether good cause exists by looking to the nature and character\\n\\nof the information in question. See id. When evaluating good cause, a court\\n\\nshould consider relevant factors including “whether the records are sought for such\\n\\nillegitimate purposes as to promote public scandal or gain unfair commercial\\n\\nadvantage, whether access is likely to promote public understanding of historically\\n\\nsignificant events, and whether the press has already been permitted substantial\\n\\naccess to the contents of the records.”7 Newman v. Graddick, 696 F.2d 796, 803\\n\\n(11th Cir. 1983). A court should also consider the consistency of a party’s reliance\\n\\nwhere the party files a document subject to a protective order. AbbVie Prods.,\\n\\nLLC, 713 F.3d at 68.\\n\\n To determine whether the district court abused its discretion in granting\\n\\npublic access to Alabama’s protocol, we look to its analysis of these factors. The\\n\\ndistrict court considered the nature and character of the information in the lethal\\n\\ninjection protocol, finding that the protocol and its related records “clearly concern\\n\\na matter of great public concern, i.e., how Alabama carries out its executions.”\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n7\\n In Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc., the Supreme Court described examples of “public\\nscandal” as “publication of the painful and sometimes disgusting details of a divorce case,” or\\n“reservoirs of libelous statements for press consumption.” 435 U.S. 589, 598, 98 S. Ct. 1306,\\n1312 (1978).\\n\\n\\n 14\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 15 of 25\\n\\n\\nThe court noted that “[c]apital punishment is a hotly contested issue that involves\\n\\nan irrevocable punishment for prisoners convicted of terrible crimes. The public\\n\\nhas a great interest in understanding how the State carries out its punishment.”\\n\\n The district court rejected Alabama’s argument that the Intervenors sought\\n\\nthe protocol for an improper purpose, concluding that “public discussion is not the\\n\\nsame as public scandal. . . . And the fact that the Intervenors may take a position\\n\\nabout the death penalty does not make their intent to publish factual matter about\\n\\nhow Alabama conducts its executions ‘scandalous.’” The court also considered\\n\\nwhether access to the protocol would likely promote understanding of a historically\\n\\nsignificant event. The court found that this factor weighed in favor of unsealing\\n\\nthe documents because “access to the lethal injection protocol may help the public\\n\\nto understand the context of the State’s efforts to execute [Hamm]. It may also\\n\\nhelp the public to understand how the same scenario might be repeated or avoided\\n\\nunder the protocol as it currently stands.”\\n\\n The district court went on to say that the press already had access to some\\n\\ninformation about the protocol because the court had referred “in broad terms [to]\\n\\naspects of the protocol in its memorandum opinion about Defendants’ motion for\\n\\nsummary judgment.” Alabama argues that the press will not gain any new\\n\\nsignificant information from the protocol because the only portion of the protocol\\n\\nat issue in Hamm’s case—the procedure for venous access—has already been\\n\\n\\n\\n 15\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 16 of 25\\n\\n\\ndiscussed by the district court and Hamm’s counsel, and is therefore accessible to\\n\\nthe public. The court concluded, however, that currently available information\\n\\nabout the protocol was not an adequate replacement for the actual protocol. The\\n\\ncourt explained that, “in an attempt to avoid sealing or redacting the memorandum\\n\\nopinion, the court kept its summary of the protocol deliberately vague, highlighting\\n\\nwhat the protocol does not contain instead of what it does provide.” Furthermore,\\n\\n“[Alabama] will keep the lethal injection protocol secret from the public unless the\\n\\ncourt unseals it. And the court’s vague summary of portions of the lethal injection\\n\\nprotocol and its gaps cannot truly substitute for the document itself.”\\n\\n The district court also evaluated whether Alabama relied on the protective\\n\\norder issued to keep the protocol confidential. The court acknowledged that\\n\\nAlabama has always sought to keep the protocol confidential, but ultimately\\n\\ndecided that “the fact that [Alabama] zealously guard[s] information about a matter\\n\\nof great public concern does not tip the scales against disclosure. The court\\n\\nconcludes that the considerations in favor of unsealing the records greatly\\n\\noutweigh [Alabama’s] interest in maintaining secrecy.” Finally, the court\\n\\nconsidered Alabama’s contention that its lethal injection protocol contains\\n\\nsensitive security information. The court recognized that certain parts of the lethal\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 16\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 17 of 25\\n\\n\\ninjection protocol should remain sealed due to these potentially valid concerns and\\n\\nnoted that these parts of the protocol could be easily redacted.8\\n\\n After considering and weighing all these factors, the district court held that\\n\\n“the public’s common law right of access mandates the release of the lethal\\n\\ninjection protocol and related court records.” The court added, however, that it\\n\\nwould not unseal the protocol in full—rather, “[a]ny information that could be used\\n\\nto track the locations of personnel before, during, and after the execution, or that\\n\\ncould be used to identify the people involved in the execution, will be redacted.”\\n\\nThe court then resolved to consult with Alabama to determine which parts of the\\n\\nprotocol needed to be redacted. The district court’s thorough analysis of the\\n\\nfactors listed in our precedent, and its tailored conclusion—allowing for redaction\\n\\nof information that implicated Alabama’s proffered security concerns—did not\\n\\nconstitute an abuse of discretion.\\n\\n III. Intervention\\n\\n We review the grant of a motion for permissive intervention for abuse of\\n\\ndiscretion, and the grant of a motion to intervene as of right de novo. See Georgia\\n\\nv. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 302 F.3d 1242, 1249 (11th Cir. 2002). We review\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n8\\n Alabama has not provided any other concrete security concerns, either in the district court or on\\nappeal, beyond concern for protecting the identities of individual participants in the execution\\nprocess. Redaction of identifying information in the protocol will eliminate this concern. At the\\ntime of oral argument, Alabama still had not taken the district court’s offer to redact the protocol.\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 18 of 25\\n\\n\\nsubsidiary factual findings for clear error. Id. We review a court’s determination\\n\\nof timeliness for intervention for abuse of discretion. Walters v. Atlanta, 803 F.2d\\n\\n1135, 1151 n.16 (11th Cir. 1986).\\n\\n “The press has standing to intervene in actions to which it is otherwise not a\\n\\nparty in order to petition for access to court proceedings and records.” In re\\n\\nPetition of Tribune Co., 784 F.2d 1518, 1521 (11th Cir. 1986). Under Rule 24(a)\\n\\nof the Federal Rules Civil Procedure, a court must allow timely intervention by\\n\\nanyone who “claims an interest relating to the property or transaction that is the\\n\\nsubject of the action, and is so situated that disposing of the action may as a\\n\\npractical matter impair or impede the movant’s ability to protect its interest, unless\\n\\nexisting parties adequately represent that interest.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 24(a)(2). Rule\\n\\n24(b) allows courts to permit timely intervention by anyone with “a claim or\\n\\ndefense that shares with the main action a common question of law or fact,” id. at\\n\\n24(b)(1)(B), but courts must exercise discretion and consider whether the\\n\\nintervention will “unduly delay or prejudice the adjudication of the original parties’\\n\\nrights,” id. at 24(b)(3).\\n\\n The district court granted intervention under Rule 24(a) for the Intervenors\\n\\nhere, but the court also recognized that intervention would be proper under Rule\\n\\n24(b). Intervention under either Rule 24(a) or 24(b) must be timely filed.\\n\\nIntervention may be timely filed even if it occurs after a case has concluded;\\n\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 19 of 25\\n\\n\\ntimeliness depends on the circumstances of each case. Cf. Salvors, Inc. v.\\n\\nUnidentified Wrecked & Abandoned Vessel, 861 F.3d 1278, 1294 (11th Cir. 2017)\\n\\n(finding intervention timely even though the contested order was entered 33 years\\n\\nearlier); Chicago Tribune, 263 F.3d at 1308 (noting timely intervention by\\n\\nmembers of the media “in the months following settlement” of the original case).\\n\\n Courts consider four factors in assessing timeliness: (1) the length of time\\n\\nduring which the would-be intervenor knew or reasonably should have known of\\n\\nhis interest in the case before petitioning for leave to intervene; (2) the extent of the\\n\\nprejudice that existing parties may suffer as a result of the would-be intervenor’s\\n\\nfailure to apply for intervention as soon as he actually knew or reasonably should\\n\\nhave known of his interest; (3) the extent of the prejudice that the would-be\\n\\nintervenor may suffer if denied the opportunity to intervene; and (4) the existence\\n\\nof unusual circumstances weighing for or against a determination of timeliness.\\n\\nSalvors, 861 F.3d at 1294. Mere knowledge that an action is pending, without\\n\\nappreciation of the potential adverse effect an adjudication of that action may have\\n\\non one’s interests, does not preclude intervention. Walters v. City of Atlanta, 803\\n\\nF.2d 1135, 1151 n.16 (11th Cir. 1986). “The most important consideration in\\n\\ndetermining timeliness is whether any existing party to the litigation will be\\n\\nharmed or prejudiced by the proposed intervenor’s delay in moving to intervene.\\n\\nIn fact, this may well be the only significant consideration when the proposed\\n\\n\\n\\n 19\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 20 of 25\\n\\n\\nintervenor seeks intervention of right.” McDonald v. E. J. Lavino Co., 430 F.2d\\n\\n1065, 1073 (5th Cir. 1970) (citations omitted).9\\n\\n Alabama argues that the Intervenors did not make a timely motion to\\n\\nintervene because the Intervenors knew that they had an interest in Hamm’s case as\\n\\nearly as January 18, when a reporter associated with Alabama Media Group\\n\\nreported on the case filings. Alabama did not submit a proposed confidentiality\\n\\norder until January 30, and did not produce the protocol until the hearing on\\n\\nJanuary 31, which is when the district court imputed an interest to the Intervenors.\\n\\nThe Intervenors did not seek to intervene until March 28. Using the district court’s\\n\\nchosen date, we still find that this factor cuts slightly against timeliness of\\n\\nintervention.\\n\\n Alabama also argues that it was prejudiced by the Intervenors’ untimely\\n\\nintervention for two reasons. First, had Alabama known that the press would seek\\n\\n\\n\\n9\\n Though the former Fifth Circuit recognized in McDonald that “intervention after judgment is\\nunusual and not often granted,” it also noted that “[t]he most important consideration in\\ndetermining timeliness is whether any existing party to the litigation will be harmed or\\nprejudiced by the proposed intervenors; delay in moving to intervene.” 430 F.2d at 1073\\n(citations omitted). McDonald binds us. Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1207 (11th\\nCir. 1981) (en banc) (holding that all Fifth Circuit decisions handed down prior to close of\\nbusiness on September 30, 1981, are binding precedent in the Eleventh Circuit). Moreover, other\\ncircuits have recognized that timeliness concerns may be less significant when intervention is\\n“not on the merits, but for the sole purpose of challenging a protective order.” United Nuclear\\nCorp. v. Cranford Ins. Co., 905 F.2d 1424, 1427 (10th Cir. 1990) (allowing intervention three\\nyears after a case was settled); see also Blum v. Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Inc., 712\\nF.3d 1349, 1353–54 (9th Cir. 2013); Pansy v. Borough of Stroudsburg, 23 F.3d 772, 779 (3d Cir.\\n1994) (“[T]he growing consensus among the courts of appeals [is] that intervention to challenge\\nconfidentiality orders may take place long after a case has been terminated.”)\\n\\n\\n 20\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 21 of 25\\n\\n\\naccess to the protocol, it would not have voluntarily turned over the protocol\\n\\nduring the case, and would have challenged any court decision requiring\\n\\ndisclosure. Second, if the press had intervened earlier, Alabama could have taken\\n\\na different approach to the joint dismissal of the case and the finalized settlement\\n\\nagreement with Hamm. 10 The district court rejected these arguments, finding first\\n\\nthat if Alabama did not voluntarily produce the protocol, the court would have\\n\\nordered Alabama to do so—thus, Alabama ultimately would have had to turn over\\n\\nthe protocol. The court then found that Alabama and Hamm could not have\\n\\nreached any agreement about unsealing records in their settlement because neither\\n\\nparty sought to unseal the records.11\\n\\n Alabama argues that the Intervenors will not suffer prejudice if they cannot\\n\\nintervene in Hamm’s case because the Intervenors will not lose the opportunity to\\n\\naccess the protocol in other ongoing or future lethal injection cases. This argument\\n\\nis unpersuasive. The mere fact that members of the press could attempt—in future\\n\\nor ongoing cases—to intervene and seek access to Alabama’s execution protocol\\n\\ndoes not mean that the Intervenors are not prejudiced in this case. The Intervenors\\n\\nclaim that they have a common law right to access the lethal injection protocol\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n10\\n Alabama did not provide any details about how it might have changed its settlement agreement\\nwith Hamm had members of the press sought to intervene before settlement.\\n11\\n We also note that Alabama and Hamm could not have bound third parties or the court as to\\nsealing issues.\\n\\n\\n 21\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 22 of 25\\n\\n\\nincluded as a judicial record in Hamm’s case. Denial of this right constitutes an\\n\\ninjury even if the press might have another opportunity to obtain a copy of\\n\\nAlabama’s protocol in a different case. Even if a copy of the protocol were\\n\\navailable in the future, Intervenors may be prejudiced by delay in gaining access to\\n\\nthat record. Cf. Neb. Press Ass’n v. Stuart, 423 U.S. 1327, 1329, 96 S. Ct. 251,\\n\\n254 (1975) (in analyzing a prior restraint in the First Amendment context, holding\\n\\nthat “each passing day” may constitute a separate and cognizable harm where “a\\n\\ndirect prior restraint is imposed upon the reporting of news by the media”).\\n\\nMoreover, there is no way to ensure that other copies of this same protocol—as\\n\\napplied in Hamm’s case—will be available in future cases. Alabama could change\\n\\nits protocol at any time, which would render the protocol used in Hamm’s case\\n\\nunnecessary for future death penalty litigation. In addition, challenges to the\\n\\nprotocol are sometimes barred by the statute of limitations, and there is no\\n\\nevidence that Alabama regularly files this protocol in litigation.\\n\\n Finally, no unusual circumstances appear to militate for or against the\\n\\nIntervenors’ intervention in Hamm’s case. In considering the totality of the\\n\\ncircumstances and evaluating the alleged prejudice to each party, the district court\\n\\nreasonably concluded that the Intervenors timely intervened in Hamm’s case. The\\n\\ndistrict court’s conclusion did not constitute an abuse of discretion. This\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 22\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 23 of 25\\n\\n\\ndetermination of timeliness was necessary to meet the requirements for\\n\\nintervention under either Rule 24(a) or Rule 24(b).\\n\\n Alabama also challenges the intervention based on other requirements of\\n\\nRule 24. Alabama first argues that intervention under Rule 24(a) was improper\\n\\nbecause the Intervenors are not “so situated that disposition of the action, as a\\n\\npractical matter, may impede or impair [their] ability to protect that interest.”\\n\\nAlabama claims that the Intervenors’ asserted interest in accessing the protocol—\\n\\ninforming the public as to whether the failure to execute Hamm was due to a\\n\\nproblem with the protocol—is not impaired by the disposition of Hamm’s case.\\n\\nAlabama presumes that the Intervenors may have other opportunities to access the\\n\\nprotocol, regardless of what happens in this case. We previously addressed this\\n\\nargument above in evaluating timeliness, and we reject it for the same reasons\\n\\nhere. Thus, we conclude that intervention as of right was appropriate under Rule\\n\\n24(a). 12\\n\\n\\n12\\n Moreover, it would not have been an abuse of discretion for the district court to grant\\nintervention under Rule 24(b). Many circuits recognize that parties “seeking to intervene in a\\ncase for the limited purpose of unsealing judicial records” need not show a “strong nexus of fact\\nor law” to the issues in the original case. Flynt v. Lombardi, 782 F.3d 963, 967 (8th Cir. 2015)\\n(quoting Beckman Indus., Inc. v. Int’l Ins. Co., 966 F.2d 470, 474 (9th Cir. 1992)); see also\\nJessup v. Luther, 227 F.3d 993, 997–99 (7th Cir. 2000) (“[A]lthough there is ample justification\\nfor the common fact or law requirement when the proposed intervenors seek to become a party to\\nthe action, [t]here is no reason to require such a strong nexus of fact or law when a party seeks to\\nintervene only for the purpose of modifying a protective order.” (internal quotation marks\\nomitted)); EEOC v. Nat’l Children’s Ctr., Inc., 146 F.3d 1042, 1045 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (“[C]ourts\\nhave been willing to adopt generous interpretations of Rule 24(b) because of the need for ‘an\\neffective mechanism for third-party claims of access to information generated through judicial\\nproceedings.’” (quoting Public Citizen v. Liggett Grp., Inc., 858 F.2d 775, 783 (1st Cir. 1988)));\\n\\n\\n 23\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 24 of 25\\n\\n\\n V. Conclusion\\n\\n Our own precedent in Newman compels us to find that Alabama’s lethal\\n\\ninjection protocol—submitted to the court in connection with a litigated dispute,\\n\\ndiscussed in proceedings and motions by all parties, and relied upon by the court to\\n\\ndispose of substantive motions—is a judicial record. Judicial records provide\\n\\ngrounds upon which a court relies in deciding cases, and thus the public has a valid\\n\\ninterest in accessing these records to ensure the continued integrity and\\n\\ntransparency of our governmental and judicial offices. This public right of access,\\n\\nbased in the common law, may only be overcome when a court determines—after\\n\\nbalancing the respective competing interests of all parties—that the party seeking\\n\\nto keep the information confidential has shown good cause. Here, the district court\\n\\ndid not abuse its discretion. The court properly balanced the interests of Alabama\\n\\nand the Intervenors, concluding that Alabama had not shown good cause sufficient\\n\\nto overcome the common law right of access. The court also properly granted\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nPansy v. Borough of Stroudsburg, 23 F.3d 772, 778 (3rd Cir. 1994) (“By virtue of the fact that\\nthe Newspapers challenge the validity of the Order of Confidentiality entered in the main action,\\nthey meet the requirement of Fed. R. Civ. P. 24(b)(2) that their claim must have ‘a question of\\nlaw or fact in common’ with the main action.”). The Intervenors here seek to determine whether\\nthe district court’s protective order preventing disclosure of the protocol was justified. They\\nwant to access the protocol in order to analyze what role, if any, the protocol played in\\nAlabama’s failed execution of Hamm. The district court did not abuse its discretion in deciding\\nthat the Intervenors’ asserted interests for intervening—for the limited purpose of unsealing\\njudicial records—provided an adequate nexus for intervention under Rule 24(b).\\n\\n\\n 24\\n\\f Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 25 of 25\\n\\n\\nintervention under Rule 24 for Intervenors seeking to assert their common law\\n\\nright of access to the lethal injection protocol. Accordingly, we affirm.\\n\\n AFFIRMED.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 25\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1355,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4601264,"string":"4,601,264"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Michael ST. HUBERT, Defendant - Appellant."},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"United States v. Michael St. Hubert"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-19"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"16-10874"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Carnes, Tjoflat, Marcus, Wilson, Pryor, Martin, Jordan, Rosenbaum, Newsom, Branch\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"Judge Grant did not participate in the decision to rehear this case en banc\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 1 of 90\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 16-10874\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 1:15-cr-20621-FAM-1\\n\\n\\n\\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA,\\n\\n Plaintiff - Appellee,\\n\\nversus\\n\\nMICHAEL ST. HUBERT,\\n\\n Defendant - Appellant.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Southern District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n\\n\\nBefore ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM\\nPRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, and\\nBRANCH, Circuit Judges. *\\n\\n\\n\\n *\\n Judge Grant did not participate in the decision to rehear this case en banc. Judge Julie\\nCarnes participated in the en banc poll that was conducted in this case before taking senior status\\non June 18, 2018.\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 2 of 90\\n\\n\\nBY THE COURT:\\n\\n A member of this Court in active service having requested a poll on whether\\n\\nthis case should be reheard by the Court sitting en banc, and a majority of the\\n\\njudges in active service on this Court having voted against granting a rehearing en\\n\\nbanc, it is ORDERED that this case will not be reheard en banc.\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 3 of 90\\n\\n\\nTJOFLAT, Circuit Judge, joined by ED CARNES, Chief Judge, and WILLIAM\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4378517/\", \"author_raw\": \"Judge Grant did not participate in the decision to rehear this case en banc\"}, {\"author\": \"PRYOR, NEWSOM, and BRANCH, Circuit Judges, concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"PRYOR, NEWSOM, and BRANCH, Circuit Judges, concurring in the denial of\\nrehearing en banc.\\n\\n Two dissents—those by Judges Wilson and Martin—have seized upon this\\n\\ndirect appeal case as an opportunity to criticize our Court’s processing and\\n\\npublishing of orders on federal prisoners’ applications to file successive motions\\n\\nunder 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). Those dissents not only distort the factual context but\\n\\nalso contain unfounded attacks on the integrity of the Court as an institution. So,\\n\\nregrettably, a response is required to set the record straight.\\n\\n These two dissents focus on only prisoners’ post-conviction applications to\\n\\nfile successive § 2255 motions. To place the subject matter of the dissents in\\n\\ncontext, it is necessary to describe first (1) the nature of the instant direct-appeal\\n\\ncase and (2) how, after a direct appeal, a federal prisoner has yet another\\n\\npost-conviction opportunity to challenge his sentence through an initial 28 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 2255 motion. Second, I explain how Congress has strictly limited prisoners’\\n\\napplications to file successive § 2255 motions that seek to challenge yet again a\\n\\nfederal conviction and sentence that has long since become final.\\n\\n Third, to correct the record about our Court’s published orders ruling on\\n\\nsuch applications, I provide the statistics that show how our Court has published\\n\\nonly 1 to 2% of its orders on post-conviction applications to file successive § 2255\\n\\nmotions, even in 2016, the year on which the dissenters focus. Lastly, contrary to\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 4 of 90\\n\\n\\nwhat the dissents claim, I discuss how all published orders of this Court are always\\n\\nsubject to further review, such as the en banc poll in this very case. As explained\\n\\nbelow, there simply isn’t (nor has there ever been) any crisis about our Court’s\\n\\npublished orders.\\n\\n I. INSTANT CASE IS DIRECT CRIMINAL APPEAL\\n\\n Let’s start with what type of proceeding the instant case is and is not. This\\n\\ncriminal case is a direct appeal, wherein the appellant-defendant St. Hubert\\n\\nchallenges his two federal firearm convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). St.\\n\\nHubert has never disputed that he had and brandished a firearm while robbing an\\n\\nAutoZone store on January 21, 2015, and while attempting to rob another\\n\\nAutoZone store on January 27, 2015. United States v. St. Hubert, 909 F.3d 335,\\n\\n338–40 (11th Cir. 2018).\\n\\n Rather, St. Hubert contends that his admitted Hobbs Act robbery crimes do\\n\\nnot qualify as predicate “crimes of violence” under § 924(c)(3)’s definitions. Id. at\\n\\n340. After briefing and oral argument, a panel of this Court affirmed St. Hubert’s\\n\\nfirearm convictions, concluding his predicate armed robbery offenses qualify as\\n\\ncrimes of violence under § 924(c)(3)’s residual and elements clauses. See id. at\\n\\n344–53. In affirming, the St. Hubert panel followed, in part, this Court’s binding\\n\\nprecedent in In re Saint Fleur, 824 F.3d 1337, 1340–41 (11th Cir. 2016), which\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 5 of 90\\n\\n\\nheld that Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 924(c)(3)(A)’s elements clause. St. Hubert, 909 F.3d at 345–46.\\n\\n In doing so, our St. Hubert panel pointed out that five other circuits, like our\\n\\nIn re Saint Fleur published order, had held that Hobbs Act robbery is a crime of\\n\\nviolence under § 924(c)(3)(A)’s elements clause. United States v. Barrett, 903\\n\\nF.3d 166, 174 (2d Cir. 2018), petition for cert. filed, No. 18-6985 (U.S. Dec. 11,\\n\\n2018); United States v. Melgar-Cabrera, 892 F.3d 1053, 1064–66 (10th Cir.), cert.\\n\\ndenied, 139 S. Ct. 494 (2018); Diaz v. United States, 863 F.3d 781, 783–84 (8th\\n\\nCir. 2017); United States v. Gooch, 850 F.3d 285, 291–92 (6th Cir.), cert. denied,\\n\\n137 S. Ct. 2230 (2017); United States v. Rivera, 847 F.3d 847, 848–49 (7th Cir.),\\n\\ncert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 2228 (2017). Since that time, two other circuits have held\\n\\nthe same. United States v. Bowens, 907 F.3d 347, 353–54 (5th Cir. 2018), petition\\n\\nfor cert. filed, No. 18-7612 (U.S. Jan. 28, 2019); United States v. Garcia-Ortiz, 904\\n\\nF.3d 102, 106–09 (1st Cir. 2018), petition for cert. filed, No. 18-7176 (U.S. Dec.\\n\\n27, 2018). As to Hobbs Act robbery, our Court is simply not an outlier.\\n\\n In addition to direct appeals like this case, a federal prisoner has a second\\n\\npost-conviction opportunity to challenge his sentence by timely filing an initial\\n\\n§ 2255 motion in the district court. Section 2255(a) provides:\\n\\n A prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of\\n Congress claiming the right to be released upon the ground that the\\n sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the\\n United States, or that the court was without jurisdiction to impose such\\n 5\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 6 of 90\\n\\n\\n sentence, or that the sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized\\n by law, or is otherwise subject to collateral attack, may move the court\\n which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence.\\n\\n28 U.S.C. § 2255(a). If the district court denies the initial § 2255 motion, the\\n\\nfederal prisoner may directly appeal that ruling to this Court. Id. § 2255(d).\\n\\n In short, as important factual context, the dissents do not address, or\\n\\ncomplain about, direct appeals or initial § 2255 motions, whereby a federal\\n\\nprisoner already has had two post-conviction opportunities to challenge his\\n\\nsentence. Rather, the dissents ignore those two avenues of redress and are using\\n\\nthis direct-appeal case as a vehicle to write about only a third type of\\n\\npost-conviction proceeding: a federal prisoner’s application to file a second or\\n\\nsuccessive § 2255 motion pursuant to § 2255(h). I therefore turn to § 2255(h),\\n\\nwhich restricts prisoners’ applications to file successive § 2255 motions.\\n\\n II. PRISONERS’ APPLICATIONS TO FILE SUCCESSIVE § 2255\\n MOTIONS\\n\\n After a federal prisoner has used his two post-conviction opportunities to\\n\\nchallenge his sentence (through a direct appeal and an initial § 2255 motion),\\n\\nCongress has narrowly and significantly limited the subsequent or successive times\\n\\na federal prisoner can challenge his final sentence. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). In the\\n\\n§ 2255(h) statute, Congress has restricted such successive post-conviction\\n\\nchallenges to only two types of highly circumscribed claims: (1) claims based on\\n\\n“newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a\\n 6\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 7 of 90\\n\\n\\nwhole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no\\n\\nreasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty of the offense”; or\\n\\n(2) claims based on “a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on\\n\\ncollateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.” Id.\\n\\n Congress imposed these restrictions on successive § 2255 motions in order\\n\\nto achieve finality of federal criminal judgments and to stop an endless flow of\\n\\npost-conviction petitions by federal prisoners in the federal courts. See Gonzalez v.\\n\\nSec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 366 F.3d 1253, 1269 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc) (“The\\n\\ncentral purpose behind the [Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act\\n\\n(“AEDPA”)] was to ensure greater finality of state and federal court judgments in\\n\\ncriminal cases, and to that end its provisions greatly restrict the filing of second or\\n\\nsuccessive petitions.”); see also Williams v. Warden, 713 F.3d 1332, 1338 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2013) (“Congress expressed its clear intent to impose a jurisdictional\\n\\nlimitation on a federal court’s ability to grant a habeas petitioner what is effectively\\n\\na third bite at the apple after failing to obtain relief on direct appeal or in his first\\n\\npostconviction proceeding.”); Gilbert v. United States, 640 F.3d 1293, 1311 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2011) (en banc) (“The statutory bar against second or successive motions is\\n\\none of the most important AEDPA safeguards for finality of judgment.”).\\n\\n Significantly here, Congress required all federal prisoners to get advance\\n\\npermission from a federal appellate court in order to even file a successive\\n\\n\\n 7\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 8 of 90\\n\\n\\npost-conviction § 2255 motion in a federal district court. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h) (“A\\n\\nsecond or successive motion must be certified . . . by a panel of the appropriate\\n\\ncourt of appeals . . . .”). And Congress has limited the authority of this appellate\\n\\nCourt to grant applications only to where the prisoner’s application “makes a prima\\n\\nfacie showing that the application satisfies the requirements of [§ 2255(h)].” See\\n\\n28 U.S.C. §§ 2244(b)(3)(C), 2255(h). Accordingly, as relevant here, for our Court\\n\\nto grant a federal prisoner’s post-conviction application, the prisoner must make a\\n\\nprima facie showing that a new substantive rule of constitutional law retroactively\\n\\napplied to his case and invalidated his sentence. Id. Further, Congress has directed\\n\\nappellate courts to rule on such applications to file successive § 2255 motions\\n\\nwithin 30 days from the filing. See id. § 2244(b)(3)(D) (“The court of appeals\\n\\nshall grant or deny the authorization to file a second or successive application not\\n\\nlater than 30 days after the filing of the motion.”).\\n\\n These substantial restrictions on federal prisoners filing successive § 2255\\n\\npost-conviction motions are not our rules, but Congress’s statutory mandates to\\n\\nfederal courts. After a final judgment and an initial § 2255 post-conviction motion,\\n\\nthere is no federal court jurisdiction to consider a successive § 2255 motion except\\n\\nfor these two limited types of claims specified in § 2255(h).\\n\\n Although Congress’s statutory restrictions on federal court jurisdiction are\\n\\nsubstantial, the Supreme Court has at times, albeit not often, issued decisions that\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 9 of 90\\n\\n\\nultimately fall within the scope of § 2255(h)(2). As an example, in 2015, the U.S.\\n\\nSupreme Court issued its decision in Johnson v. United States, which held that the\\n\\n“residual clause” definition of a “violent felony” in the Armed Career Criminal Act\\n\\n(“ACCA”) was unconstitutionally vague. --- U.S. ---, 135 S. Ct. 2551, 2555–58,\\n\\n2563 (2015). The ACCA imposes a sentence enhancement if a convicted federal\\n\\nprisoner was already convicted of three prior “violent felonies.” 18 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 924(e)(1). Thereafter, the Supreme Court in Welch v. United States held that\\n\\nJohnson announced a new substantive rule that applies retroactively on collateral\\n\\nreview to federal sentences enhanced under the ACCA. 578 U.S. __, __, __, 136\\n\\nS. Ct. 1257, 1264–65, 1268 (2016).\\n\\n After Johnson invalidated the ACCA’s residual clause and as shown by this\\n\\nCourt’s statistics in Table 1 below, a large number of federal prisoners’\\n\\napplications—2,258 applications in our Court in 2016 alone—were filed seeking\\n\\nleave to file second or successive § 2255 motions based on Johnson’s ACCA\\n\\nruling about the residual clause. And in 2016, our Court issued 2,282 orders on\\n\\nthose 2,258 applications and a few applications carried over from the end of the\\n\\nprior year.\\n\\n As required by Congress, the prisoners had to file in this Court before filing\\n\\nin the district court and had to show a prima facie case that Johnson applied to\\n\\ntheir sentences. The Court carefully reviewed each and every individual\\n\\n\\n 9\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 10 of 90\\n\\n\\napplication. The Court determined that some of those federal prisoners who filed\\n\\nwere not even sentenced under the ACCA, and Johnson did not apply to their cases\\n\\nat all. See, e.g., In re Griffin, 823 F.3d 1350, 1354–56 (11th Cir. 2016) (holding\\n\\nthat Johnson’s vagueness ruling does not apply to prisoners sentenced under the\\n\\ncareer offender sentencing guidelines). In its review, this Court also readily\\n\\ndetermined that other prisoners had an ACCA-enhanced sentence, but that—based\\n\\non our prior Court precedent—the prisoners’ prior convictions qualified as violent\\n\\nfelonies under the ACCA’s elements clause, without regard to the ACCA’s\\n\\nresidual clause invalidated in Johnson. See, e.g., In re Rogers, 825 F.3d 1335,\\n\\n1341 (11th Cir. 2016) (holding that, under this Court’s prior precedent in Turner v.\\n\\nWarden Coleman FCI (Medium), 709 F.3d 1328 (11th Cir. 2013), the defendant’s\\n\\nprior Florida convictions for aggravated assault and aggravated battery qualified as\\n\\nviolent felonies under the ACCA’s elements clause); In re Robinson, 822 F.3d\\n\\n1196, 1197 (11th Cir. 2016) (holding that, under this Court’s prior precedent in\\n\\nUnited States v. Lockley, 632 F.3d 1238 (11th Cir. 2011), United States v. Hill, 799\\n\\nF.3d 1318 (11th Cir. 2015) (per curiam), and Turner, the defendant’s prior Florida\\n\\nconvictions for armed robbery and aggravated battery qualified as violent felonies\\n\\nunder the ACCA’s elements clause).\\n\\n In addition, some prisoners claimed the ACCA sentencing decisions in\\n\\nJohnson and Welch invalidated their sentences (or convictions) under wholly\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 11 of 90\\n\\n\\nseparate federal statutes, such as 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) and its “crime of violence”\\n\\ndefinition. In those cases, this Court determined that Johnson’s residual clause\\n\\nholding did not apply to companion § 924(c) crimes and that, even assuming\\n\\nJohnson did, the prisoners’ crimes qualified under § 924(c)’s elements clause,\\n\\nwhich likewise was not affected by Johnson. See, e.g., In re Sams, 830 F.3d 1234,\\n\\n1236, 1238–39 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Colon, 826 F.3d 1301, 1302–03, 1305 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2016); In re Saint Fleur, 824 F.3d at 1338–40.\\n\\n The dissents improperly criticize our Court for publishing some of our 2,282\\n\\norders in these cases in 2016. However, the dissents ignore that our Court\\n\\npublished only 31, or 1.36%, of our large volume of 2,282 orders in 2016. In fact,\\n\\ntaking the five-year period from April 1, 2013 to April 1, 2018,1 our Court\\n\\npublished only 1.2% of its orders in § 2255(h) applications.\\n\\n To accurately show these facts, I include two tables of statistics below,\\n\\nwhich demonstrate that this Court published a total of 45 orders from April 1, 2013\\n\\nto April 1, 2018. 2 Given the dissents primarily criticize our 2016 published orders\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 1\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4378517/\", \"author_raw\": \"PRYOR, NEWSOM, and BRANCH, Circuit Judges, concurring\"}, {\"author\": \"This is the five-year period used in Judge Jordan’s concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"This is the five-year period used in Judge Jordan’s concurring opinion and Appendix.\\nSee Jordan, J., concurring op. at 8–9.\\n 2\\n As used in this opinion, the year is defined as April 1 of the listed year to March 31 of\\nthe subsequent year with April 1 as the applicable year date. For consistency, Tables 1 and 2 use\\nthe same timeframe and decision dates—April 1 to March 31—as Judge Jordan’s Appendix\\nattached to his concurring opinion. Thus, year 2013 is April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014; year\\n2014 is April 1, 2014 to March 31, 2015; year 2015 is April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016; year\\n2016 is April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017; and year 2017 is April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018.\\n 11\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 12 of 90\\n\\n\\nas to applications to file successive § 2255(h) motions, Tables 1 and 2 separate the\\n\\ntotal 45 published orders by year and category of order: either § 2255(h) or\\n\\n§ 2244(b).3 Table 1 shows that 39 of those 45 orders were published in § 2255(h)\\n\\napplications from April 1, 2013 to April 1, 2018 and that 31 of those 39 orders\\n\\nwere published in 2016. Table 2 shows that only 6 of those 45 orders were\\n\\npublished in § 2244(b) applications from 2013 to 2018. 4\\n\\n Table 1: Number of Applications for Leave to\\n File Successive § 2255(h) in the Eleventh Circuit\\n For Years from April 1, 2013 to April 1, 2018\\n\\n Year 5 § 2255(h) Orders of Published % of Published\\n Applications Terminations Orders\\n 2013 264 273 1 0.37%\\n 2014 219 224 1 0.45%\\n 2015 226 187 4 2.14%\\n 2016 2,258 2,282 31 1.36%\\n 2017 293 294 2 0.68%\\n TOTAL 3,260 3,260 39 1.20%\\n\\n\\n\\n 3\\n Section 2244(b) governs the filing of successive habeas corpus applications by state\\nprisoners under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. See § 2244(b).\\n 4\\n To be clear and again for consistency, the 45 total number of our Court’s published\\norders in Tables 1 and 2 below are the same as the number of orders listed in the Appendix of\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4378517/\", \"author_raw\": \"This is the five-year period used in Judge Jordan’s concurring\"}, {\"author\": \"Judge Jordan’s concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"Judge Jordan’s concurring opinion, which accurately and helpfully lists all of this Court’s\\npublished orders in both § 2255(h) and § 2244(b) applications from April 1, 2013 to April 1,\\n2018. That Appendix combines them, and the tables separate the 45 published orders by\\ncategory: 39 on § 2255(h) applications and 6 on § 2244(b) applications.\\n 5\\n Defined as April 1 of the listed year to March 31 of the subsequent year with April 1 as\\nthe applicable year date. See supra note 2. For context, Welch was decided on April 18, 2016,\\nwhich explains the increased volume of § 2255(h) applications in 2016 (i.e., April 1, 2016 to\\nMarch 31, 2017).\\n 12\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 13 of 90\\n\\n\\n Table 2: Number of Applications for Leave to\\n File Successive § 2244(b) in the Eleventh Circuit\\n For Years from April 1, 2013 to April 1, 2018\\n\\n Year § 2244(b) Orders of Published % of Published\\n Applications Terminations Orders\\n 2013 344 336 1 0.30%\\n 2014 310 316 3 0.95%\\n 2015 320 324 2 0.62%\\n 2016 274 270 0 0.00%\\n 2017 283 290 0 0.00%\\n TOTAL 1,531 1,536 6 0.39%\\n\\n\\n In 2016 after the Johnson and Welch decisions, there was a heightened need\\n\\nto publish at least some of these 2,282 orders to establish precedent, to provide\\n\\nconsistency in panel rulings in so many cases, and to facilitate the administration\\n\\nof these matters. In some cases, it was not hard to see the right answer. In 2016, 8\\n\\nof the 31 published orders in § 2255(h) cases granted the applications and 23\\n\\ndenied the applications.6 Further, the dissents fail to note that in all pro se\\n\\napplication cases in our Circuit, including every single application in 2016 to file a\\n\\n\\n\\n All six of the published § 2244(b) orders involved death penalty cases where appellate\\ncounsel represented the defendant. Thus, we primarily focus, as the dissents do, on our\\npublished orders in § 2255(h) cases.\\n 6\\n There were also four published orders during the 2015 year (April 1, 2015 to March 31,\\n2016), all of which involved claims based on Johnson. Three of those orders denied the\\napplications, and one order held the application in abeyance. In re Franks, 815 F.3d 1281 (11th\\nCir. 2016) (denied), abrogation recognized by In re Robinson, 822 F.3d at 1199; In re Johnson,\\n814 F.3d 1259 (11th Cir. 2016) (held in abeyance), vacated, 815 F.3d 733 (11th Cir. 2016) (en\\nbanc); In re Starks, 809 F.3d 1211 (11th Cir. 2016) (denied); In re Rivero, 797 F.3d 986 (11th\\nCir. 2015) (denied).\\n 13\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 14 of 90\\n\\n\\nsuccessive § 2255 motion, our Court’s Staff Attorney’s Office prepared legal\\n\\nmemoranda addressing the Johnson-Welch issues and, in many cases, reviewed\\n\\npresentence investigation reports and sentencing transcripts. In addition, in some\\n\\nprisoners’ cases, there were legal memoranda filed by a federal public defender or\\n\\nthe government or both later on.\\n\\n Contrary to the dissents’ criticisms, and as Table 1 demonstrates, our Court\\n\\npublished a very small percentage of these orders ruling on applications to file\\n\\nsuccessive § 2255 motions. Although our Court published more in 2016 than in\\n\\nother years, largely in the wake of Johnson and Welch, the percentage still stayed\\n\\nexceedingly small at 1.36%. 7 And to be clear, all of this Court’s judges—\\n\\nincluding those who dissent today—have joined in these orders.\\n\\n Notably too, in 2016 alone, the dissenters—as at least two members of the\\n\\nassigned three-judge panel (and sometimes all three members)—published 14 of\\n\\ntheir own orders on prisoners’ applications to file successive § 2255 motions based\\n\\non Johnson. Thus, the dissenters published 14 of the 31 published orders in 2016.\\n\\nThat is roughly 45%. See In re Hunt, 835 F.3d 1277 (11th Cir. 2016); In re\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 7\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4378517/\", \"author_raw\": \"Judge Jordan’s concurring\"}, {\"author\": \"We recognize, as Judge Jordan’s concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"We recognize, as Judge Jordan’s concurring opinion aptly points out, that other circuits\\ntogether have published 80 orders on successive applications in this same 5-year time frame and\\nonly 20 orders in 2016. Jordan, J., concurring op. at 3. The concurrence properly recommends\\nthat our Court should exercise caution in deciding to publish an order disposing of a successive\\n§ 2255 application, and “we [should] use the publication option sparingly.” Id. at 4. Given our\\nheavy caseload, Table 1 shows a 1 to 2% publication rate in 2016, which indicates we did so.\\n 14\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 15 of 90\\n\\n\\nParker, 832 F.3d 1250 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Chance, 831 F.3d 1335 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2016), abrogation recognized by Curry v. United States, 714 F. App’x 968 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2018); In re Jones, 830 F.3d 1295 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Gomez, 830 F.3d\\n\\n1225 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Davis, 829 F.3d 1297 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Clayton,\\n\\n829 F.3d 1254 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Sapp, 827 F.3d 1334 (11th Cir. 2016); In re\\n\\nParker, 827 F.3d 1286 (11th Cir. 2016); In re McCall, 826 F.3d 1308 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2016); In re Rogers, 825 F.3d 1335 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Adams, 825 F.3d 1283\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2016); In re Pinder, 824 F.3d 977 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Robinson, 822\\n\\nF.3d 1196 (11th Cir. 2016).\\n\\n Before that, in 2015, there were only four published orders in such § 2255(h)\\n\\napplications, yet the dissenters, as at least two members of the assigned three-judge\\n\\npanel, published two of those four orders—50% that year. 8 In re Johnson, 814\\n\\nF.3d 1259; In re Starks, 809 F.3d 1211.\\n\\n None of the dissents tell the reader this full story. 9\\n\\n\\n 8\\n See supra notes 4 and 6.\\n 9\\n This is not the first time these dissenters have voiced criticisms of the judges of this\\nCourt as to its published orders and rulings on Johnson-based claims. For example, the\\ndissenters themselves recently published an order denying a state prisoner’s application for leave\\nto file a successive § 2254 habeas petition, in which the petitioner argued he had received\\nineffective assistance of counsel. See In re Williams, 898 F.3d 1098 (11th Cir. 2018). The\\ndissenters attached to that order separate “concurrences” (that are similar to the dissents in this\\ncase) even though the In re Williams case had nothing to do with Johnson, Welch, or federal\\nprisoners’ successive § 2255 motions. Id. at 1099–1105 (Wilson, J., specially concurring); id. at\\n1105–10 (Martin, J., specially concurring). These concurrences also omit critical background\\nfacts, as do other opinions that the dissenters have filed in recent years. See, e.g., United States\\nv. Seabrooks, 839 F.3d 1326, 1349–50 (11th Cir. 2016) (Martin, J., concurring in the judgment);\\n 15\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 16 of 90\\n\\n\\n III. PUBLISHED PANEL ORDERS AS BINDING CIRCUIT PRECEDENT\\n\\n Having placed this subject matter in context, I now turn to the dissents’\\n\\nattacks on our Court’s rule: that published panel orders are binding precedent\\n\\nunder our prior panel precedent rule.\\n\\n First, that published panel orders are binding precedent is not a new rule.\\n\\nSee In re Lambrix, 776 F.3d 789, 794 (11th Cir. 2015) (“To be clear, our prior-\\n\\npanel-precedent rule applies with equal force as to prior panel decisions published\\n\\nin the context of applications to file second or successive petitions. In other words,\\n\\npublished three-judge orders issued under § 2244(b) are binding precedent in our\\n\\ncircuit.”); United States v. Kaley, 579 F.3d 1246, 1255–56 (11th Cir. 2009)\\n\\n(applying In re Provenzano, 215 F.3d 1233 (11th Cir. 2000), a published three-\\n\\njudge order); In re Provenzano, 215 F.3d at 1235 (applying as binding prior-panel\\n\\nprecedent In re Medina, 109 F.3d 1556 (11th Cir. 1997), a published three-judge\\n\\norder); see also In re Hill, 777 F.3d 1214, 1222–23 (11th Cir. 2015) (applying as\\n\\nbinding precedent In re Henry, 757 F.3d 1151 (11th Cir. 2014), a published three-\\n\\njudge order); St. Hubert, 909 F.3d at 346 (concluding our Circuit already considers\\n\\npublished three-judge orders as binding precedent).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nIn re Clayton, 829 F.3d at 1263–67 (Martin, J., concurring in the result); In re McCall, 826 F.3d\\nat 1311–12 (Martin, J., concurring); In re Saint Fleur, 824 F.3d at 1341–44 (Martin, J.,\\nconcurring). It is now time for a response.\\n 16\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 17 of 90\\n\\n\\n Second, the dissenters incorrectly state that our Court’s published orders are\\n\\ninsulated from further review. Contrary to the dissents, no published panel order in\\n\\nany case in our Court is insulated from further review.\\n\\n For example, whenever a panel publishes an order in any case in our Court,\\n\\nany one of the active members of this Court can sua sponte request an en banc poll\\n\\nin the exact same case asking that the published order be vacated and the case be\\n\\nheard en banc. See Lambrix, 776 F.3d at 794; see also In re Johnson, 815 F.3d\\n\\n733, 733 (11th Cir. 2016) (en banc) (granting rehearing en banc in a successive\\n\\napplication case after a member of this Court requested a poll); In re Morgan, 717\\n\\nF.3d 1186, 1187 (11th Cir. 2013) (en banc) (denying rehearing en banc in a\\n\\nsuccessive application case after a member of this Court requested a poll); 11th\\n\\nCir. R. 35, I.O.P. 5 (“Any active Eleventh Circuit judge may request that the court\\n\\nbe polled on whether rehearing en banc should be granted whether or not a petition\\n\\nfor rehearing en banc has been filed by a party.”). If the majority of the active\\n\\njudges vote to do so, this Court sitting en banc sua sponte can vacate that published\\n\\npanel order and rehear that same case. See In re Johnson, 815 F.3d at 733; 11th\\n\\nCir. R. 35-10 (“[T]he effect of granting a rehearing en banc is to vacate the panel\\n\\nopinion and the corresponding judgment.”). The real problem for the dissenters, it\\n\\nseems to me, is that they have not garnered the majority votes needed to vacate the\\n\\nparticular published panel orders with which they disagree.\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 18 of 90\\n\\n\\n In addition, each and every subsequent case following that initial published\\n\\norder provides a second avenue of review. This direct appeal in St. Hubert’s case\\n\\naptly illustrates this second available avenue of review of binding precedent\\n\\nestablished in a published panel order.\\n\\n Here, the St. Hubert panel relied on our binding precedent in In re Saint\\n\\nFleur, a published panel order. St. Hubert, 909 F.3d at 345–46 (following In re\\n\\nSaint Fleur’s holding that Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as a crime of violence\\n\\nunder § 924(c)(3)(A)’s elements clause, and thus Saint Fleur’s sentence was valid\\n\\neven if Johnson rendered § 924(c)(3)(B)’s residual clause unconstitutional). Every\\n\\ntime a panel applies this In re Saint Fleur precedent (as the St. Hubert panel did\\n\\nhere), any active member of the Court can ask for en banc review of that In re\\n\\nSaint Fleur precedent established in our Court’s published panel order. Such an en\\n\\nbanc poll was taken in this very case. Simply put, our Circuit law established in\\n\\npublished panel orders, such as the In re Saint Fleur precedent, is subject to an en\\n\\nbanc poll request each and every time it is applied in a subsequent case (like St.\\n\\nHubert’s).\\n\\n Again, the problem for the dissenters is that the law established in the In re\\n\\nSaint Fleur published order is sound, and thus the dissenters have been unable to\\n\\ngarner the majority votes needed to change that In re Saint Fleur precedent by\\n\\ntaking St. Hubert en banc. Moreover, after our Court’s In re Saint Fleur published\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 19 of 90\\n\\n\\norder in 2016, at least seven of our sister circuits have reached the same holding\\n\\nthat Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as a crime of violence under § 924(c)(3)(A)’s\\n\\nelements clause. See Bowens, 907 F.3d at 353–54; Garcia-Ortiz, 904 F.3d at 106–\\n\\n09; Barrett, 903 F.3d at 174; Melgar-Cabrera, 892 F.3d at 1064–66; Diaz, 863\\n\\nF.3d at 783–84; Gooch, 850 F.3d at 291–92; Rivera, 847 F.3d at 848–49. 10\\n\\n One dissent also points to, and criticizes by name, eight published orders by\\n\\nour Court from 2016 to 2018 about what constitutes a violent felony under the\\n\\nACCA or a crime of violence under § 924(c). See Martin, J., dissenting at 14. But\\n\\nas Table 1 above makes obvious, this is a byproduct of the large number of cases\\n\\nthat required and received our attention in 2016 to 2018. Surely, the number of\\n\\npublished panel orders in 2016 to 2018 should be placed in the context of our 2016\\n\\nto 2018 caseload in this regard.\\n\\n It also bears mentioning that since we published these eight orders, other\\n\\ncircuits have reached the same conclusions as many of them about what constitutes\\n\\na violent felony or a crime of violence. For example, in In re Hines, 824 F.3d\\n\\n1334, 1336–37 (11th Cir. 2016), cited in Judge Martin’s dissent on page 19, this\\n\\nCourt held that armed federal bank robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) and (d)\\n\\nqualifies as a crime of violence under § 924(c)(3)(A)’s elements clause. In In re\\n\\n\\n 10\\n Indeed, in this instant direct appeal case, the panel has not only followed In re Saint\\nFleur, but also has taken time to expand upon why Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as a crime of\\nviolence under § 924(c)(3)(A)’s elements clause. See St. Hubert, 909 F.3d at 345–51.\\n 19\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 20 of 90\\n\\n\\nSams, 830 F.3d at 1239, this Court further held that bank robbery solely under\\n\\n§ 2113(a) qualifies as a crime of violence under § 924(c)(3)(A)’s elements clause.\\n\\nLike In re Hines and In re Sams, nine other circuits have held that companion\\n\\nfederal convictions for bank robbery under § 2113(a) or armed bank robbery under\\n\\n§ 2113(a) and (d) qualify as either violent felonies under the ACCA’s elements\\n\\nclause or as crimes of violence under the elements clauses of § 924(c) or U.S.S.G.\\n\\n§ 4B1.2(a). See United States v. Deiter, 890 F.3d 1203, 1210–13 (10th Cir. 2018)\\n\\n(holding bank robbery under § 2113(a) is a violent felony under the ACCA’s\\n\\nelements clause); United States v. Harper, 869 F.3d 624, 625–27 (8th Cir. 2017)\\n\\n(holding bank robbery under § 2113(a) is a crime of violence under § 4B1.2(a)’s\\n\\nelements clause); United States v. Brewer, 848 F.3d 711, 713–16 (5th Cir. 2017)\\n\\n(same); United States v. McBride, 826 F.3d 293, 295–96 (6th Cir. 2016) (same);\\n\\nUnited States v. Johnson, 899 F.3d 191, 203–04 (3d Cir. 2018) (holding that both\\n\\nbank robbery and armed bank robbery qualify as crimes of violence under\\n\\n§ 924(c)’s elements clause); United States v. Watson, 881 F.3d 782, 784–86 (9th\\n\\nCir. 2018) (same); Hunter v. United States, 873 F.3d 388, 390 (1st Cir. 2017)\\n\\n(same); United States v. Armour, 840 F.3d 904, 907–09 (7th Cir. 2016) (same);\\n\\nUnited States v. McNeal, 818 F.3d 141, 151–57 (4th Cir. 2016) (same).\\n\\n Similarly, in In re Smith, 829 F.3d 1276, 1280 (11th Cir. 2016), also cited in\\n\\nJudge Martin’s dissent on page 19, this Court held that federal carjacking under 18\\n\\n\\n 20\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 21 of 90\\n\\n\\nU.S.C. § 2119 qualifies as a crime of violence under § 924(c)(3)(A)’s elements\\n\\nclause. Four other circuits have likewise held that federal carjacking under § 2119\\n\\nqualifies as a crime of violence under § 924(c)(3)(A)’s elements clause. See\\n\\nUnited States v. Cruz-Rivera, 904 F.3d 63, 66 (1st Cir. 2018); United States v.\\n\\nGutierrez, 876 F.3d 1254, 1255–57 (9th Cir. 2017), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 1602\\n\\n(2018); United States v. Jones, 854 F.3d 737, 740–41 & n.2 (5th Cir.), cert. denied,\\n\\n138 S. Ct. 242 (2017); United States v. Evans, 848 F.3d 242, 246–48 (4th Cir.),\\n\\ncert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 2253 (2017).\\n\\n The judges of this Court may have valid differences of opinion about the\\n\\nlegal issues involving the ACCA’s definition of a violent felony or § 924(c)’s\\n\\ndefinition of a crime of violence, as discussed in these 31 published orders during\\n\\n2016 and the 4 published orders during 2015. However, it is incorrect to say, as\\n\\nthe dissents do, that binding precedent established in published panel orders of this\\n\\nCourt, like In re Saint Fleur, are insulated from all further review. In the wake of\\n\\nJohnson and Welch, the judges of this Court and the Court’s dedicated staff\\n\\nattorneys and law clerks worked long hours faithfully reviewing and considering\\n\\n2,282 prisoners’ applications in 2016 alone. This concurrence is done to afford the\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 21\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 22 of 90\\n\\n\\nneeded context to the process and our Court’s having published 31 orders on those\\n\\napplications to file successive § 2255 motions in 2016.11\\n\\n For all of these reasons, I concur in this Court’s denial of rehearing en banc\\n\\n(1) as to whether Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as a crime of violence under\\n\\n§ 924(c)’s definitions and (2) as to our Court’s rule that published panel orders\\n\\nconstitute binding precedent. 12\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 11\\n In a similar vein, the dissenters have attacked our decisions ruling that Johnson applied\\nto the ACCA but not to the advisory sentencing guidelines. See In re Hunt, 835 F.3d at 1278–80\\n(Wilson, J., concurring), 1280–84 (Rosenbaum, J., concurring), 1284–89 (Jill Pryor, J.,\\nconcurring); In re Anderson, 829 F.3d 1290, 1294–97 (11th Cir. 2016) (Martin, J., dissenting); In\\nre Clayton, 829 F.3d at 1257–64 (Martin, J., concurring), 1267–70 (Rosenbaum, J., concurring),\\n1274–76 (Jill Pryor, J., concurring); In re McCall, 826 F.3d at 1310–11 (Martin, J., concurring);\\nIn re Robinson, 822 F.3d at 1198 n.2 (Martin, J., concurring); United States v. Matchett, 802\\nF.3d 1185, 1193–96 (11th Cir. 2015).\\n Despite these criticisms, the Supreme Court in Beckles v. United States, 580 U.S. __, __,\\n137 S. Ct. 886, 890 (2017), ultimately held, as we have, that Johnson does not apply to the\\nadvisory sentencing guidelines. Sometimes there is disagreement between judges about legal\\nissues, but that should not give rise to the unfounded accusations in some of the dissents in the\\nlast few years about our rulings on applications to file successive motions.\\n 12\\n Judge Martin’s dissent at pages 5-6 criticizes the “stacking” of St. Hubert’s two\\n§ 924(c) sentences in South Florida. St. Hubert was sentenced to 7 years on his first § 924(c)\\nconviction for using a firearm during a January 21 robbery and to the statutory mandatory\\nconsecutive 25 years on his second § 924(c) conviction for using a firearm during a January 27\\nrobbery. See St. Hubert, 909 F.3d at 339–40.\\n The dissent fails to mention that St. Hubert was indicted for 13 crimes, including six\\nseparate § 924(c) firearm crimes, five separate armed robberies, and one attempted armed\\nrobbery between December 23, 2014, and January 27, 2015. Id. In exchange for St. Hubert’s\\nplea to just two § 924(c) crimes, the government agreed to dismiss the 11 other counts.\\n 22\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 23 of 90\\n\\n\\nWILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judge, respecting the denial of rehearing en banc:\\n\\n Consider a hypothetical. A defendant is convicted of a federal crime and\\n\\nsentenced to a term of imprisonment. His conviction and sentence are affirmed on\\n\\nappeal. He brings a collateral challenge, see 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a), but it fails.\\n\\nPerhaps he brings more than one collateral challenge; all of them fail. Eventually,\\n\\nin some other case, the Supreme Court announces a new rule of law that applies\\n\\nretroactively to cases on collateral review. But the new rule plainly cannot benefit\\n\\nthe prisoner—either because it does not apply to his situation or because applying\\n\\nit would make no difference to his conviction or sentence. Even so, he applies to\\n\\nthis Court for permission to file a second, third, or umpteenth collateral challenge\\n\\nbased on the new rule. Does the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act\\n\\nrequire that we grant his application and create unnecessary work for the district\\n\\ncourt? Judge Martin’s dissent appears to contend that the answer is “yes.” Our\\n\\nCourt has disagreed.\\n\\n I join Judge Tjoflat’s opinion in full, but I write separately to answer our\\n\\ncolleague’s challenge and to defend our commonsense practice of denying\\n\\nprisoners’ applications to file doomed collateral challenges that cannot possibly\\n\\nbring them relief. The basis of our colleague’s argument that denying these\\n\\napplications contravenes “the plain mandate” of the Act is not entirely clear.\\n\\nDissenting Op. of Martin, J., at 60. Her dissent draws an insistent but far from self-\\n\\n\\n 23\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 24 of 90\\n\\n\\nexplanatory distinction between a “prima facie showing” and a “merits decision,”\\n\\nand it suggests that we held in In re Holladay, 331 F.3d 1169 (11th Cir. 2003), that\\n\\nour prima facie assessment of a prisoner’s application to file a second or successive\\n\\ncollateral challenge must not touch “the merits” of the claims the prisoner wishes\\n\\nto raise. But we explained in Holladay itself—indeed, we said it was “manifestly\\n\\nobvious”—that we would deny applications that had no “reasonable likelihood” of\\n\\nresulting in relief. Id. at 1173. After all, whenever a circuit court denies an\\n\\napplication for a second or successive motion, it necessarily decides that the\\n\\napplication has no merit. And the circuit courts collectively deny thousands of\\n\\nthese applications on the merits every year.\\n\\n To vindicate the strong interest in the finality of fully litigated criminal\\n\\nconvictions, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act imposes “stringent\\n\\nrequirements for the filing of a second or successive [collateral challenge],” id.\\n\\n(quoting Bennett v. United States, 119 F.3d 468, 469–70 (7th Cir. 1997)), and, as\\n\\nJudge Martin’s dissent acknowledges, it gives courts of appeals “a gatekeeping\\n\\nfunction” with respect to the enforcement of those requirements, Dissenting Op. of\\n\\nMartin, J., at 84. Before a federal prisoner may file a second or successive section\\n\\n2255 motion in the district court, he must apply to “the appropriate court of\\n\\nappeals” for permission to do so. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A); see id. § 2255(h)\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 24\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 25 of 90\\n\\n\\n(incorporating these procedures for federal prisoners). The court of appeals must\\n\\nthen “certif[y] as provided in section 2244” that the motion will “contain—\\n\\n (1) newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the\\n evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and\\n convincing evidence that no reasonable factfinder would have found\\n the movant guilty of the offense; or\\n\\n (2) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on\\n collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously\\n unavailable.”\\n\\nId. § 2255(h); see also id. § 2244(b)(2) (analogous requirements for state prisoners\\n\\nwith minor differences in wording). We are permitted to authorize a second or\\n\\nsuccessive challenge only if we “determine[] that the application makes a prima\\n\\nfacie showing that [it] satisfies the[se] requirements.” Id. § 2244(b)(3)(C).\\n\\n Judge Martin’s dissent revolves around the three words “prima facie\\n\\nshowing,” but that phrase does not interpret itself. Often, a “prima facie case” or\\n\\n“prima facie showing” refers to what a plaintiff must prove to shift the burden of\\n\\nproof or production to the defendant. See Dissenting Op. of Martin, J., at 69 (citing\\n\\nBlack’s Law Dictionary for a definition in this vein). The dissent provides as two\\n\\nexamples the burden-shifting frameworks that govern claims of racial\\n\\ndiscrimination in jury selection, see Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), and\\n\\nworkplace discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, see McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). See Dissenting Op. of Martin, J., at\\n\\n69–71. In these frameworks, “prima facie showing” has a purely formal meaning:\\n 25\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 26 of 90\\n\\n\\nit defines the set of elements proof of which suffices to raise a presumption of\\n\\nliability, subject to rebuttal if the defense meets some specified burden of its own.\\n\\n But this formal sense of the phrase “prima facie showing” does not fit\\n\\nsection 2244(b)(3)(C). The statutory restrictions on second or successive collateral\\n\\nchallenges plainly do not set up a burden-shifting framework. A prisoner’s prima\\n\\nfacie showing of compliance with section 2255(h) does not create any presumption\\n\\nthat the government must rebut with an adequate showing of its own. Indeed, the\\n\\nprima facie showing does not even create a presumption of compliance with\\n\\nsection 2255(h); the district court approaches that question de novo. See In re\\n\\nMoss, 703 F.3d 1301, 1303 (11th Cir. 2013). So how does our “prima facie”\\n\\ninspection of the prisoner’s application differ from the district court’s plenary\\n\\nassessment? The Act demands an answer to this question, but the dissent’s\\n\\nanalogies to burden-shifting frameworks do not help us find it.\\n\\n When “prima facie showing” cannot bear a formal definition, it sometimes\\n\\nbears instead a functional meaning. For example, the Board of Immigration\\n\\nAppeals describes the standard for reopening of removal proceedings as requiring\\n\\n“a prima facie showing of eligibility” for the relief sought. In re L-O-G-, 21 I. & N.\\n\\nDec. 413, 415 (BIA 1996); see also Matter of Sipus, 14 I. & N. Dec. 229, 230 (BIA\\n\\n1972) (referring to “a prima facie case for reopening”). Judge Martin’s dissent\\n\\nprovides this example, see Dissenting Op. of Martin, J., at 71–72, but it\\n\\n\\n 26\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 27 of 90\\n\\n\\nundermines the argument that “prima facie showing” has a rigid meaning that\\n\\ncategorically excludes consideration of the merits. The Board has made clear that\\n\\n“[n]o hard and fast rule can be laid down as to what constitutes a sufficient\\n\\nshowing of a prima facie case for reopening.” Sipus, 14 I. & N. Dec. at 231; accord\\n\\nL-O-G-, 21 I. & N. Dec. at 418 (“[T]here are no easy rules for deciding what\\n\\nmakes a prima facie case . . . and what does not.”).\\n\\n Instead, in this context, a prima facie showing is simply whatever “satisf[ies]\\n\\n[the Board] that it would be worthwhile to develop the issues further at a plenary\\n\\nhearing on reopening.” Sipus, 14 I. & N. Dec. at 231. This standard is not blind to\\n\\nthe merits. On the contrary, it requires “a reasonable likelihood of success on the\\n\\nmerits” in the judgment of the Board, and, under this standard, the Board has\\n\\ndenied motions for reopening for a variety of merits-related reasons. L-O-G-, 21 I.\\n\\n& N. Dec. at 420. For example, in Sipus, the movant’s “new facts” were plainly\\n\\ninadequate to support eligibility for relief, so the Board could not “infer . . . that\\n\\nshe [might] be able to prove [eligibility] if given a chance at a reopened hearing.”\\n\\n14 I. & N. Dec. at 231. The Board has also denied a motion for reopening based on\\n\\nits discretionary determination in the first instance that the movant had been\\n\\nconvicted of “a particularly serious crime,” making him legally ineligible for relief.\\n\\nIn re S-V-, 22 I. & N. Dec. 1306, 1309 (BIA 2000), disapproved on other grounds\\n\\nby Amir v. Gonzales, 467 F.3d 921, 927 (6th Cir. 2006).\\n\\n\\n 27\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 28 of 90\\n\\n\\n In the foundational decision about section 2244(b)(3)(C), the Seventh\\n\\nCircuit interpreted it to include a similar “worthwhileness” standard: “By ‘prima\\n\\nfacie showing’ we understand . . . simply a sufficient showing of possible merit to\\n\\nwarrant a fuller exploration by the district court.” Bennett, 119 F.3d at 469. The\\n\\nSeventh Circuit made clear that this definition did not treat “prima facie showing”\\n\\nas a legal term of art with a formal meaning because it was articulated “without\\n\\nguidance in the statutory language or history or case law.” Id. In Holladay, we\\n\\nadopted this language from Bennett, see 331 F.3d at 1173–74, and every other\\n\\nnumbered circuit has done the same. See Rodriguez v. Superintendent, Bay State\\n\\nCorr. Ctr., 139 F.3d 270, 273 (1st Cir. 1998); Bell v. United States, 296 F.3d 127,\\n\\n128 (2d Cir. 2002); Goldblum v. Klem, 510 F.3d 204, 219 (3d Cir. 2007); In re\\n\\nWilliams, 330 F.3d 277, 281 (4th Cir. 2003); Reyes-Requena v. United States, 243\\n\\nF.3d 893, 899 (5th Cir. 2001); In re Lott, 366 F.3d 431, 432–33 (6th Cir. 2004);\\n\\nJohnson v. United States, 720 F.3d 720, 720 (8th Cir. 2013); Woratzeck v. Stewart,\\n\\n118 F.3d 648, 650 (9th Cir. 1997); United States v. Murphy, 887 F.3d 1064, 1068\\n\\n(10th Cir. 2018).\\n\\n Although Judge Martin’s dissent invokes the Bennett-Holladay standard to\\n\\nlament the supposed good old days “when this Court honored the statutorily\\n\\nimposed limitations of a prima facie review,” Dissenting Op. of Martin, J., at 73,\\n\\nthe Seventh Circuit in Bennett did not describe its definition as especially\\n\\n\\n 28\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 29 of 90\\n\\n\\npermissive or as one that required courts of appeals to close their eyes to the\\n\\nimpossibility of relief. On the contrary, when Donald Bennett sought permission to\\n\\nfile a third section 2255 motion under the “newly discovered evidence” gateway\\n\\nfor successive motions, see 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h)(1), the Bennett court stressed that\\n\\nhe bore a “very heavy burden” of “ha[ving] to show, albeit only prima facie, that\\n\\nthe newly discovered evidence would have established [his innocence] by clear and\\n\\nconvincing evidence,” and it denied his application because the evidence he relied\\n\\non was plainly inadequate. 119 F.3d at 469. In part, Bennett’s burden was\\n\\nespecially heavy because he wanted to relitigate an insanity defense that itself\\n\\nrequired clear and convincing proof, so his burden of proof was clear-and-\\n\\nconvincing squared. See id. But Bennett makes clear that a court of appeals’ “prima\\n\\nfacie” inspection of an application under section 2255(h) does not require it to\\n\\nclose its eyes to the merits altogether. After all, how could “a fuller exploration” be\\n\\n“warrant[ed],” id., when it would serve only to waste the district court’s time and\\n\\nbe of no use to the prisoner?\\n\\n Perhaps our colleague would limit the Bennett court’s willingness to\\n\\nacknowledge that a motion is certainly doomed to the “newly discovered evidence”\\n\\ngateway, but she cannot take that position and eulogize Holladay at the same time\\n\\nbecause Holladay followed the same approach with respect to the “new rule”\\n\\ngateway, 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h)(2); see also id. § 2244(b)(2)(A). When Alabama\\n\\n\\n 29\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 30 of 90\\n\\n\\ndeath-row inmate Glenn Holladay sought leave to file a second federal habeas\\n\\npetition based on the Supreme Court’s novel holding that the Constitution bars the\\n\\nexecution of the mentally retarded, see Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), we\\n\\nheld that Atkins provided a retroactive new rule of constitutional law, but\\n\\n“[i]mportantly” that holding “[did] not terminate our analysis.” 331 F.3d at 1173.\\n\\nDescribing the identification of a new rule as “merely . . . the minimum showing\\n\\nthat [a petitioner] must make,” we held that it was “manifestly obvious that in\\n\\norder to make a prima facie showing” based on Atkins, “Holladay also must\\n\\ndemonstrate . . . a reasonable likelihood that he [was] in fact mentally retarded.”\\n\\nId.; accord In re Morris, 328 F.3d 739, 740–41 (5th Cir. 2003); In re Bowling, 422\\n\\nF.3d 434, 436 (6th Cir. 2005). “Were it otherwise,” we reasoned, “literally any\\n\\nprisoner under a death sentence could bring an Atkins claim in a second or\\n\\nsuccessive petition,” and “[n]o rational argument can possibly be made” that the\\n\\nAct requires us to permit the inundation of the district courts with wholly meritless\\n\\nsecond or successive collateral challenges every time the Supreme Court\\n\\nannounces a new rule. Holladay, 331 F.3d at 1173 n.1.\\n\\n Under Holladay’s sensible regime, a prisoner cannot discharge his prima\\n\\nfacie burden merely by invoking a new rule; as we phrased the standard in a later\\n\\ndecision, he must also “show a reasonable likelihood that he would benefit from\\n\\nthe new rule he seeks to invoke in a second or successive [challenge].” In re\\n\\n\\n 30\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 31 of 90\\n\\n\\nHenry, 757 F.3d 1151, 1162 (11th Cir. 2014); cf. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,\\n\\n679 (2009) (distinguishing legal conclusions in a complaint from the “show[ing]”\\n\\nof entitlement to relief required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2)). To put\\n\\nit tersely, the prisoner must show that the new rule has some “bearing on his case.”\\n\\nHenry, 757 F.3d at 1162.\\n\\n Judge Martin may disagree with Holladay—as the Tenth Circuit did in a\\n\\ndecision that her dissent cites favorably, see Ochoa v. Sirmons, 485 F.3d 538, 545\\n\\n(10th Cir. 2007)—but in that case she should not invoke its authority while\\n\\nrejecting its rule, which we applied in all of the orders to which her dissent takes\\n\\nexception. See Dissenting Op. of Martin, J., at 75–77. For example, a prisoner\\n\\nwhose sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act “does not turn on the\\n\\nvalidity of the residual clause,” In re Thomas, 823 F.3d 1345, 1349 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2016), is a prisoner who cannot possibly benefit from the Supreme Court’s holding\\n\\nthat the residual clause is unconstitutionally vague, see Johnson v. United States,\\n\\n135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015). So is a prisoner whose conviction for carrying a firearm\\n\\nduring and in relation to a crime of violence, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), or whose\\n\\nsentence under the former career-offender sentencing guideline, United States\\n\\nSentencing Guidelines Manual §§ 4B1.1–4B1.2 (Nov. 2015), would stand whether\\n\\nor not Johnson affects section 924(c) or the career-offender guideline. In declining\\n\\nto permit “literally any prisoner under [an Armed Career Criminal Act, section\\n\\n\\n 31\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 32 of 90\\n\\n\\n924(c), or career-offender] sentence [to] bring a[] [Johnson] claim in a second or\\n\\nsuccessive petition,” Holladay, 331 F.3d at 1173 n.1, we have not “exceeded [our]\\n\\nstatutory mandate,” Dissenting Op. of Martin, J., at 74. Instead, we have executed\\n\\nour statutory mandate as we interpreted it in Holladay, which, as the dissent\\n\\nreminds us, “is still binding precedent for our Circuit.” Id. at 73.\\n\\n The logic of Holladay exposes any rigid dichotomy between a prisoner’s\\n\\n“prima facie showing” and “the merits” of his claim as untenable. True, whether\\n\\nJohnson or any other new rule that a prisoner invokes really supports his claim is a\\n\\nquestion that relates to “the merits.” But it is no less true that a prisoner’s prima\\n\\nfacie showing must include the demonstration that his motion will “contain,” 28\\n\\nU.S.C. § 2255(h)(2), or “rel[y] on,” id. § 2244(b)(2)(A), a new rule of\\n\\nconstitutional law, and that requirement demands more than that the prisoner write\\n\\nthe magic word “Johnson.” If a new rule plainly does not apply to a prisoner’s\\n\\nsituation or applying it would make no difference to his conviction and sentence,\\n\\nthen he necessarily cannot “show a reasonable likelihood that that he would benefit\\n\\nfrom the new rule,” and his application fails at the starting gate for the same reason\\n\\nhis collateral challenge would fail on the merits. Henry, 757 F.3d at 1162. So it is\\n\\nno wonder that we and other courts have frequently referred to “the merits” in\\n\\nasking whether an application satisfies section 2255(h). See, e.g., In re Baptiste,\\n\\n828 F.3d 1337, 1340 (11th Cir. 2016) (calling the denial of a previous application\\n\\n\\n 32\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 33 of 90\\n\\n\\nraising the same claim a “reject[ion] on the merits”); Henry, 757 F.3d at 1157 n.9\\n\\n(“As the dissenting opinion sees the case, Henry should be entitled to file a second\\n\\nor successive petition under § 2244(b)(2) because he’s made a sufficient merits\\n\\nshowing.”); id. at 1169 (Martin, J., dissenting) (“I must also address the merits of\\n\\nMr. Henry’s case.”); id. at 1170 (“I view the merits . . . differently than the\\n\\nMajority.”); Ezell v. United States, 778 F.3d 762, 765 (9th Cir. 2015) (“reach[ing]\\n\\nthe merits” of a prisoner’s application for leave to file a second or successive\\n\\nmotion).\\n\\n There is nothing remotely strange about this partial overlap between a\\n\\nthreshold inquiry and the merits. Consider “the somewhat analogous certificate of\\n\\nappealability . . . context,” In re Saint Fleur, 824 F.3d 1337, 1343 (11th Cir. 2016)\\n\\n(Martin, J., concurring), in which “[a] certificate of appealability may issue . . .\\n\\nonly if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a\\n\\nconstitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). The Supreme Court has\\n\\n“emphasized” that this inquiry “is not coextensive with a merits analysis.” Buck v.\\n\\nDavis, 137 S. Ct. 759, 773 (2017). But as the Court explained in the same\\n\\ndiscussion, “[o]f course when a court of appeals . . . determines that a prisoner’s\\n\\nclaim is not even debatable, that necessarily means the prisoner has failed to show\\n\\nthat his claim is meritorious.” Id. at 774. Indeed, the Supreme Court itself has\\n\\naffirmed the denial of a certificate of appealability based on its determination that a\\n\\n\\n 33\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 34 of 90\\n\\n\\nhabeas petitioner’s claim failed as a matter of constitutional law. See Weeks v.\\n\\nAngelone, 528 U.S. 225, 234 (2000) (posing the dispositive question “whether the\\n\\nConstitution requires anything more” than the jury instructions the petitioner\\n\\nchallenged and “hold[ing] that it does not”). In the second-or-successive context as\\n\\nin the appealability framework, that a threshold procedural inquiry and the merits\\n\\nare not coextensive does not mean that they do not overlap.\\n\\n Even in the Batson and Title VII examples—which, as I have explained, do\\n\\nnot clarify what section 2244(b)(3)(C) means when it refers to “a prima facie\\n\\nshowing”—a plaintiff’s prima facie case is not independent of “the merits.” If a\\n\\ncourt rejects a Batson claim because the claimant has failed to establish the\\n\\nrequisite prima facie showing, nobody would dispute that the court has rejected\\n\\nthat claim on the merits. See Brown v. Alexander, 543 F.3d 94, 103 (2d Cir. 2008)\\n\\n(applying the framework for claims “adjudicated on the merits in [s]tate court,” 28\\n\\nU.S.C. § 2254(d), to a “decision that a prima facie case had not been made out\\n\\nunder Batson”); Franklin v. Sims, 538 F.3d 661, 666 (7th Cir. 2008) (same). And if\\n\\na court grants summary judgment against a Title VII claim because the plaintiff has\\n\\nfailed to discharge his prima facie burden under McDonnell Douglas, nobody\\n\\nwould dispute that that claim too has been decided on the merits. See Morón-\\n\\nBarradas v. Dep’t of Educ. of P.R., 488 F.3d 472, 478–80 (1st Cir. 2007) (granting\\n\\npreclusive effect to a Puerto Rico court’s determination that a Title VII plaintiff\\n\\n\\n 34\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 35 of 90\\n\\n\\nhad failed to establish a prima facie case of discrimination). In each of these cases,\\n\\nany distinction between “the merits question” and “the prima facie showing alone”\\n\\ncollapses when the plaintiff fails at step one. Dissenting Op. of Martin, J., at 70;\\n\\nsee also Jackson v. United States, 875 F.3d 1089, 1091 n.4 (11th Cir. 2017)\\n\\n(explaining that the dismissal of a complaint with prejudice for failure to state a\\n\\nclaim is ordinarily “an adjudication on the merits”).\\n\\n So what remains of Judge Martin’s critique after we discard the mistaken\\n\\npremise that merits are merits, threshold inquiries are threshold inquiries, and\\n\\nnever the twain shall meet? Her dissent objects to eight published orders because\\n\\nthey decided that particular offenses were crimes of violence or violent felonies,\\n\\nsee Dissenting Op. of Martin, J., at 75–77, but it never explains how it is\\n\\ninconsistent with our gatekeeping function under section 2255(h) to deny\\n\\napplications based on questions of law—which we usually think it is our job to\\n\\nanswer—and a routine examination of judicial records—which we must often\\n\\nwade into in any event to determine whether a motion would indeed be “second or\\n\\nsuccessive.” See Evans-García v. United States, 744 F.3d 235, 240 (1st Cir. 2014)\\n\\n(“[A] circuit court should deny certification where it is clear as a matter of law, and\\n\\nwithout the need to consider contested evidence, that the petitioner’s identified\\n\\nconstitutional rule does not apply to the petitioner’s situation.”); cf. S-V-, 22 I. &\\n\\nN. Dec. at 1309 (finding no “prima facie eligibility for withholding of removal”\\n\\n\\n 35\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 36 of 90\\n\\n\\nbased on the Board’s discretionary first-instance determination that the movant’s\\n\\nrobbery conviction was for a “particularly serious crime”). The dissent protests that\\n\\n“the heavily abridged second or successive application procedures” impair our\\n\\nability to make a reasoned decision, Dissenting Op. of Martin, J., at 76, but it never\\n\\nexplains why 30 days is too little time for three judges with the help of their law\\n\\nclerks and staff attorneys to research and decide the discrete legal issue whether a\\n\\nparticular offense is or is not a crime of violence, an inquiry with which our Court\\n\\nhas plenty of experience. See id. at 61 (observing that “[t]he issue of what\\n\\nconstitutes a crime of violence . . . has been the subject of extensive consideration\\n\\nin this Circuit”).\\n\\n This Court is not the only circuit that has published orders denying\\n\\nprisoners’ applications on the ground that Johnson could not benefit them because\\n\\ntheir predicate offenses were crimes of violence. See In re Irby, 858 F.3d 231 (4th\\n\\nCir. 2017); Dawkins v. United States, 809 F.3d 953 (7th Cir. 2016). And, as long as\\n\\nwe are on the subject of persuasive authority, several of our sister circuits have\\n\\ndisagreed with Judge Martin’s “permissive[]” notion of how the application\\n\\nprocess should work in other ways. Dissenting Op. of Martin, J., at 73. For\\n\\nexample, five circuits—four not counting ours—have held that the Act permits\\n\\ncourts of appeals to deny second or successive collateral challenges based on\\n\\nmanifest untimeliness, at least in certain circumstances. See In re Williams, 759\\n\\n\\n 36\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 37 of 90\\n\\n\\nF.3d 66, 68–69 (D.C. Cir. 2014); In re Vassell, 751 F.3d 267, 271 (4th Cir. 2014);\\n\\nIn re Lewis, 484 F.3d 793, 798 (5th Cir. 2007); In re Hill, 437 F.3d 1080, 1083\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2006); Outlaw v. Sternes, 233 F.3d 453, 455 (7th Cir. 2000); see also In\\n\\nre Jackson, 826 F.3d 1343, 1350 & n.8 (11th Cir. 2016) (acknowledging that a\\n\\n“hands-off approach” with respect to timeliness “will not suit every application”\\n\\nand reaffirming Hill). The First Circuit has held that it can rely on judicial records\\n\\nto determine that an applicant is outside the scope of a new rule. See Evans-\\n\\nGarcía, 744 F.3d at 240. And the Fifth and Eighth Circuits have held that a second\\n\\nor successive collateral challenge does not “contain” or “rel[y] on” a new rule\\n\\nwhen it “depends on recognition of a second new rule” that would be an extension\\n\\nof the first. Donnell v. United States, 826 F.3d 1014, 1016 (8th Cir. 2016); accord\\n\\nIn re Arnick, 826 F.3d 787, 788 (5th Cir. 2016). Now is not the time to examine\\n\\nwhether all of these decisions were correct; lest we forget, the Court today is\\n\\ndenying rehearing en banc of a direct appeal. But it is significant that the dissent’s\\n\\nminimalist concept of our gatekeeping function would unsettle not just our own\\n\\npractices but also those of many of our sister circuits.\\n\\n The dissent complains that “[t]he members of this Court are bound to treat\\n\\n[our published orders] as binding precedent in this Circuit, unless and until the\\n\\nSupreme Court or this Court sitting en banc reverses each of them, one by one,”\\n\\nbut the same is true of all of our precedents. Dissenting Op. of Martin, J., at 83. Of\\n\\n\\n 37\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 38 of 90\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4378517/\", \"author_raw\": \"We recognize, as Judge Jordan’s concurring\"}, {\"author\": \"course, Judge Martin and our other dissenting\", \"type\": \"dissent\", \"text\": \"course, Judge Martin and our other dissenting colleagues are free to disagree with\\n\\nthe legal conclusions that panels have reached in the course of denying\\n\\napplications to file second or successive motions. But if they do, they would be\\n\\nbetter served by trying to persuade the rest of us to reconsider those holdings en\\n\\nbanc, see Concurring Op. of Tjoflat, J., at 17–22, than by rehashing their position\\n\\nthat we cannot deny the doomed applications of prisoners who cannot achieve\\n\\nrelief, compare, e.g., Dissenting Op. of Wilson, J., at 53–57, and Dissenting Op. of\\n\\nMartin, J., at 64–84, with Ovalles v. United States, 905 F.3d 1231, 1266–73 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2018) (en banc) (Martin, J., dissenting); In re Williams, 898 F.3d 1095, 1100–\\n\\n05 (11th Cir. 2018) (Wilson, J., specially concurring); id. at 1105–10 (Martin, J.,\\n\\nspecially concurring); In re Hernandez, 857 F.3d 1162, 1165–66 (11th Cir. 2017)\\n\\n(Martin, J., concurring in result); In re Clayton, 829 F.3d 1254, 1263–67 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2016) (Martin, J., concurring in result); In re McCall, 826 F.3d 1308, 1311–12\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2016) (Martin, J., concurring); In re Colon, 826 F.3d 1301, 1308 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2016) (Martin, J., dissenting); and Saint Fleur, 824 F.3d at 1341–44 (Martin,\\n\\nJ., concurring).\\n\\n Finally, some of the complaints in Judge Martin’s dissent less reflect\\n\\ndisagreement with our precedents than dissatisfaction with Congress’s policy\\n\\nchoices. The dissent laments that the Act gives prisoners only “one chance to\\n\\ncollaterally attack their sentence as a matter of right” and that the chance “comes\\n\\n\\n 38\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 39 of 90\\n\\n\\ntoo soon” for some convicts with lengthy sentences, Dissenting Op. of Martin, J.,\\n\\nat 64, but the statutory system of alternating limitations periods constitutes an\\n\\nintegral part of Congress’s orderly regulation of federal postconviction review, see\\n\\n28 U.S.C. §§ 2244(d), 2255(f). The dissent charges us with abusing our\\n\\n“gatekeeping function” “to lock the gate and throw away the key,” Dissenting Op.\\n\\nof Martin, J., at 84, but we have done no more than to execute our gatekeeping\\n\\nfunction under the Act as we have understood it at least ever since we held in\\n\\nHolladay that not every application that incants a new rule opens the lock. The\\n\\ndissent protests that “prisoners sentenced in Alabama, Florida and Georgia may be\\n\\nserving illegal sentences for which they have no remedy,” id., but Congress has\\n\\nemphatically rejected an error-correction-at-all-costs model of postconviction\\n\\nreview.\\n\\n Instead, Congress has decided that collateral litigation, like all things, must\\n\\neventually come to an end. And we are bound to respect that mandate.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 39\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 40 of 90\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4378517/\", \"author_raw\": \"course, Judge Martin and our other dissenting\"}, {\"author\": \"JORDAN, Circuit Judge, concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"JORDAN, Circuit Judge, concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc.\\n The panel in this case has held that published orders issued by three-judge\\n\\npanels on applications for leave to file second or successive habeas corpus petitions\\n\\nor motions to vacate, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2244(b)(2)-(3), 2255(h), constitute\\n\\nbinding precedent in our circuit. See United States v. St. Hubert, 909 F.3d 335, 345-\\n\\n46 (11th Cir. 2018). I voted against rehearing this case en banc because I cannot\\n\\nthink of a workable common-law principle that denies precedential effect to such\\n\\norders. If there is going to be some change in the effect given to these orders, I\\n\\nbelieve that will need to be done by way of a court rule (e.g., a rule providing [as we\\n\\nhave done with unpublished opinions] that such orders do not have precedential\\n\\neffect, or a rule providing that such orders will only be binding in the second or\\n\\nsuccessive application context, or a rule providing that such orders can be published\\n\\nonly when there has been adversarial briefing).1\\n\\n Nevertheless, I have institutional concerns about our recent practice of\\n\\npublishing so many of these orders. I include myself as part of the problematic trend,\\n\\nas I have authored one of these orders, see In re Moss, 703 F.3d 1301 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2013), and have also been a member of panels which have issued others.\\n\\n\\n\\n ******\\n\\n\\n 1\\n I am not aware of any rules in other circuits addressing this issue.\\n 40\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 41 of 90\\n\\n\\n Applications under §§ 2244(b)(2)-(3) and 2255(h) are different in significant\\n\\nrespects from the matters usually handled by three-judge panels. Those differences\\n\\nstrongly suggest that we should exercise more caution in deciding to publish an order\\n\\ndisposing of an application, particularly on substantive issues of first impression.\\n\\n First, the applications must be decided within 30 days of filing. See §\\n\\n2244(b)(3)(D). Although this time limit is not mandatory in the jurisdictional sense,\\n\\nsee, e.g., In re Davis, 565 F.3d 810, 813 (11th Cir. 2009) (order issued in April of\\n\\n2009 for an application filed in October of 2008 asserting actual innocence), we try\\n\\nvery hard to meet the compressed timeline imposed by Congress. But, practically\\n\\nspeaking, we do not have 30 full days to do our work. The panel usually receives\\n\\nthe staff attorney memorandum on the application (which is often pro se) a week or\\n\\ntwo from the date of filing, leaving only two to three weeks to rule on the application\\n\\n(while, of course, tending to numerous other matters, including other applications).\\n\\nThis abbreviated schedule, which does not generally exist with respect to the other\\n\\nmotions we handle on a daily or weekly basis, can lead to rulings without sufficient\\n\\ntime for analysis and reflection. And that, in turn, can result in mistakes.\\n\\n Second, in this circuit the applications are almost always ruled upon without\\n\\nadversarial participation or briefing. Sometimes we decide only on the basis of a\\n\\npro se litigant’s submission, as supplemented by a staff attorney memorandum. In\\n\\na system like ours, that means that we may miss something important (e.g., critical\\n\\n\\n 41\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 42 of 90\\n\\n\\nparts of the district court record, or an issue we did not think of ourselves) on the\\n\\nquick road to decision and publication.\\n\\n Third, the applications result in decisions that are not generally reviewable.\\n\\nPursuant to § 2244(b)(3)(E), orders on applications are not appealable and cannot be\\n\\nthe subject of a petition for rehearing or for a writ of certiorari. Panels have on\\n\\noccasion revisited their orders sua sponte (for example, when the staff attorney’s\\n\\noffice has called a panel’s attention to a mistake), but relying on a panel to identify\\n\\nand recognize its own error without assistance from the parties once the application\\n\\nis adjudicated is certainly not the norm in appellate procedure. I recognize that it is\\n\\nan open question whether an order disposing of an application can be the subject of\\n\\na sua sponte en banc proceeding. But even if that limited avenue exists, the absence\\n\\nof typical channels of review provides an additional institutional reason to publish\\n\\nfewer of these now-binding orders.\\n\\n In sum, when we review and rule on applications pursuant to §§ 2244(b) and\\n\\n2255(h), “major aspects of the normal appellate process [are] absent.” United States\\n\\nv. Glover, 731 F.2d 41, 49 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (Mikva, J., dissenting about then-existing\\n\\nsummary affirmance procedures). “There are no briefs, no oral arguments, [and] no\\n\\ncollegiality of the decisional process. There is no time for deliberation, and very\\n\\nlittle dialogue on the merits, on the process, or the result.” Id. at 50. We are stuck\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 42\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 43 of 90\\n\\n\\nwith the 30-day limit that Congress has set for us, but that deadline should mean less\\n\\npublished orders, not more.\\n\\n *****\\n\\n In the last five years (2013-18) we lead the country by a significant margin in\\n\\nthe number of published orders issued under §§ 2244(b)(2)-(3) and 2255(h). In that\\n\\nfive-year period, ending April 1, 2018, we have published 45 such orders, while all\\n\\nof the other circuits combined have published 80 orders. The next closest circuits to\\n\\nours in publication are the Fifth Circuit with 14 and the Sixth Circuit with 12. The\\n\\nremaining circuits have fewer than 10 each: First Circuit (7); Second Circuit (6);\\n\\nThird Circuit (3); Fourth Circuit (6); Seventh Circuit (8); Eighth Circuit (9); Ninth\\n\\nCircuit (7); Tenth Circuit (7); and D.C. Circuit (1). And a number of the published\\n\\norders in the other circuits were issued only after adversarial briefing and/or oral\\n\\nargument. 2\\n\\n Two years ago, in the wake of Johnson v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 2551\\n\\n(2015), and Welch v. United States, 136 S.Ct. 1257 (2016), we received around 2,000\\n\\napplications under §§ 2244(b)(2)-(3) and 2255(h) (mostly filed by federal prisoners\\n\\nunder § 2255(h)). Given this avalanche of filings, and the 30-day clock, there were\\n\\ndays when I (and probably every judge then on the court) would review 40-50\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\\n The published orders from our court and from the other circuits during this five-year\\nperiod are listed in the attached appendix.\\n 43\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 44 of 90\\n\\n\\napplications and have time for little else. Yet, despite the overwhelming number of\\n\\napplications we received, and the very limited time we had to resolve them, in 2016\\n\\nwe managed to publish 35 of our orders. In that same year, our sister circuits\\n\\npublished a total of just 20 orders: First Circuit (0); Second Circuit (0); Third Circuit\\n\\n(0); Fourth Circuit (3); Fifth Circuit (4); Sixth Circuit (3); Seventh Circuit (4); Eighth\\n\\nCircuit (3); Ninth Circuit (1); Tenth Circuit (2); and D.C. Circuit (0). If the other\\n\\ncircuits can get by without adding to the pages in the Federal Reporter, we should\\n\\nbe able to as well.\\n\\n ******\\n\\n Publishing orders issued under §§ 2244(b)(2)-(3) and 2255(h) sometimes\\n\\nmakes sense. For example, in In re Holladay, 331 F.3d 1169, 1173-74 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2003), we explained what a “prima facie case” means under § 2244(b). Given that\\n\\nthe “prima facie case” requirement applies to all applications filed, it was important\\n\\nto have a general governing standard for all panels to apply.\\n\\n But there are downsides to publishing too many of these orders, which now\\n\\nconstitute binding precedent. I hope that in the coming years we will use the\\n\\npublication option sparingly.\\n\\n\\n\\n Appendix of Published Orders under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2244(b) & 2255(h) in\\n the Circuit Courts of Appeals from April 1, 2013, to April 1, 2018\\n First Circuit\\n\\n\\n 44\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 45 of 90\\n\\n\\nPagan-San Miguel v. United States, 736 F.3d 44 (1st Cir. 2013)\\nEvans-Garcia v. United States, 744 F.3d 235 (1st Cir. 2014)\\nButterworth v. United States, 775 F.3d 459 (1st Cir. 2015)\\nPakala v. United States, 804 F.3d 139 (1st Cir. 2015)\\nBucci v. United States, 809 F.3d 23 (1st Cir. 2015)\\nMoore v. United States, 871 F.3d 72 (1st Cir. 2017)\\nHardy v. United States, 871 F.3d 85 (1st Cir. 2017)\\n\\n\\n Second Circuit\\nGallagher v. United States, 711 F.3d 315 (2d Cir. 2013)\\nUnited States v. Redd, 735 F.3d 88 (2d Cir. 2013)\\nHerrera-Gomez v. United States, 755 F.3d 142 (2d Cir. 2014)\\nMarmolejos v. United States, 789 F.3d 66 (2d Cir. 2015)\\nCarranza v. United States, 794 F.3d 237 (2d Cir. 2015)\\nWashington v. United States, 868 F.3d 64 (2d Cir. 2017)\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n Third Circuit\\nIn re Pendleton, 732 F.3d 280 (3d Cir. 2013) (adversarial briefing/oral argument)\\nUnited States v. Winkelman, 746 F.3d 134 (3d Cir. 2014)\\nIn re Hoffner, 870 F.3d 301 (3d Cir. 2017)\\n\\n\\n Fourth Circuit\\nIn re Vassell, 751 F.3d 267 (4th Cir. 2014) (adversarial briefing/oral argument)\\nIn re Hubbard, 825 F.3d 225 (4th Cir. 2016) (adversarial briefing/oral argument)\\nIn re McFadden, 826 F.3d 706 (4th Cir. 2016) (adversarial briefing/oral argument)\\nIn re Wright, 826 F.3d 774 (4th Cir. 2016) (adversarial briefing/oral argument)\\nIn re Irby, 858 F.3d 231 (4th Cir. 2017) (adversarial briefing/oral argument)\\nIn re Phillips, 879 F.3d 542 (4th Cir. 2018) (adversarial briefing/oral argument)\\n\\n\\n Fifth Circuit\\n\\n 45\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 46 of 90\\n\\n\\nIn re Kemper, 735 F.3d 211 (5th Cir. 2013)\\nIn re Campbell, 750 F.3d 523 (5th Cir. 2014)\\nIn re Coleman, 768 F.3d 367 (5th Cir. 2014)\\nIn re Jackson, 776 F.3d 292 (5th Cir. 2015)\\nIn re Young, 789 F.3d 518 (5th Cir. 2015)\\nIn re Chase, 804 F.3d 738 (5th Cir. 2015)\\nIn re Williams, 806 F.3d 322 (5th Cir. 2015)\\nIn re Fields, 826 F.3d 785 (5th Cir. 2016) (adversarial briefing)\\nIn re Arnick, 826 F.3d 787 (5th Cir. 2016)\\nIn re Hensley, 836 F.3d 504 (5th Cir. 2016)\\nIn re Lott, 838 F.3d 522 (5th Cir. 2016)\\nIn re Cathey, 857 F.3d 221 (5th Cir. 2017) (adversarial briefing)\\nIn re Dockery, 869 F.3d 356 (5th Cir. 2017)\\nIn re Rodriguez, 885 F.3d 915 (5th Cir. 2018)\\n\\n\\n Sixth Circuit\\nIn re Liddell, 722 F.3d 737 (6th Cir. 2013)\\nIn re Mazzio, 756 F.3d 487 (6th Cir. 2014) (adversarial briefing)\\nIn re Watkins, 810 F.3d 375 (6th Cir. 2015)\\nIn re Embry, 831 F.3d 377 (6th Cir. 2016) (adversarial briefing)\\nIn re Patrick, 833 F.3d 584 (6th Cir. 2016) (adversarial briefing)\\nIn re Sargent, 837 F.3d 675 (6th Cir. 2016) (adversarial briefing)\\nIn re Tibbetts, 869 F.3d 403 (6th Cir. 2017) (adversarial briefing)\\nIn re Coley, 871 F.3d 455 (6th Cir. 2017) (adversarial briefing)\\nIn re Conzelmann, 872 F.3d 375 (6th Cir. 2017)\\nIn re Campbell, 874 F.3d 454 (6th Cir. 2017) (adversarial briefing)\\nIn re Lee, 880 F.3d 242 (6th Cir. 2018)\\nIn re Black, 881 F.3d 430 (6th Cir. 2018) (adversarial briefing)\\n\\n\\n Seventh Circuit\\nCroft v. Williams, 773 F.3d 170 (7th Cir. 2014)\\n\\n 46\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 47 of 90\\n\\n\\nPrice v. United States, 795 F.3d 731 (7th Cir. 2015) (adversarial briefing)\\nDawkins v. United States, 809 F.3d 953 (7th Cir. 2016) (adversarial briefing)\\nHill v. United States, 827 F.3d 560 (7th Cir. 2016) (adversarial briefing)\\nMorris v. United States, 827 F.3d 696 (7th Cir. 2016) (adversarial briefing)\\nDawkins v. United States, 829 F.3d 549 (7th Cir. 2016) (adversarial briefing)\\nKelly v. Brown, 851 F.3d 686 (7th Cir. 2017) (adversarial briefing)\\nSusinka v. United States, 855 F.3d 728 (7th Cir. 2017)\\n\\n\\n Eighth Circuit\\nWilliams v. United States, 705 F.3d 293 (8th Cir. 2013)\\nJohnson v. United States, 720 F.3d 720 (8th Cir. 2013)\\nWoods v. United States, 805 F.3d 1152 (8th Cir. 2015)\\nGoodwin v. Steele, 814 F.3d 901 (8th Cir. 2014)\\nDonnell v. United States, 826 F.3d 1014 (8th Cir. 2016)\\nHolder v. United States, 836 F.3d 891 (8th Cir. 2016)\\nAllen v. United States, 836 F.3d 894 (8th Cir. 2016)\\nDavis v. Kelley, 854 F.3d 967 (8th Cir. 2017)\\nWilliams v. Kelley, 858 F.3d 464 (8th Cir. 2017)\\n\\n\\n Ninth Circuit\\nJones v. Ryan, 733 F.3d 825 (9th Cir. 2013)\\nHughes v. United States, 770 F.3d 814 (9th Cir. 2014) (adversarial briefing/oral argument)\\nEzell v. United States, 778 F.3d 762 (9th Cir. 2015) (adversarial briefing)\\nGage v. Chappell, 793 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. 2015) (adversarial briefing/oral argument)\\nOrona v. United States, 826 F.3d 1196 (9th Cir. 2016) (adversarial briefing)\\nSherrod v. United States, 858 F.3d 1240 (9th Cir. 2017) (adversarial briefing)\\nArazola-Galea v. United States, 876 F.3d 1257 (9th Cir. 2017) (adversarial briefing)\\n\\n\\n Tenth Circuit\\nIn re Graham, 714 F.3d 1181 (10th Cir. 2013)\\nIn re Weathersby, 717 F.3d 1108 (10th Cir. 2013)\\n\\n 47\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 48 of 90\\n\\n\\nIn re Payne, 733 F.3d 1027 (10th Cir. 2013)\\nIn re Gieswein, 802 F.3d 1143 (10th Cir. 2015)\\nIn re Encinias, 821 F.3d 1224 (10th Cir. 2016)\\nIn re Barrett, 840 F.3d 1223 (10th Cir. 2016)\\nIn re Jones, 847 F.3d 1293 (10th Cir. 2017)\\n\\n\\n Eleventh Circuit\\nIn re Moss, 703 F.3d 1301 (11th Cir. 2013)\\nIn re Morgan, 713 F.3d 1365 (11th Cir. 2013)\\nIn re Hill, 715 F.3d 284 (11th Cir. 2013)\\nIn re Henry, 757 F.3d 1151 (11th Cir. 2014)\\nIn re Lambrix, 776 F.3d 789 (11th Cir. 2015)\\nIn re Hill, 777 F.3d 1214 (11th Cir. 2015)\\nIn re Rivero, 797 F.3d 986 (11th Cir. 2015)\\nIn re Everett, 797 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 2015)\\nIn re Starks, 809 F.3d 1211 (11th Cir. Jan. 8, 2016)\\nIn re Bolin, 811 F.3d 403 (11th Cir. Jan. 4, 2016)\\nIn re Johnson, 814 F.3d 1259 (11th Cir. Feb. 26, 2016)\\nIn re Franks, 815 F.3d 1281 (11th Cir. Jan. 6, 2016)\\nIn re Robinson, 822 F.3d 1196 (11th Cir. Apr. 19, 2016)\\nIn re Thomas, 823 F.3d 1345 (11th Cir. May 25, 2016)\\nIn re Griffin, 823 F.3d 1350 (11th Cir. May 25, 2016)\\nIn re Pinder, 824 F.3d 977 (11th Cir. Jun. 1, 2016)\\nIn re Hines, 824 F.3d 1334 (11th Cir. Jun. 8, 2016)\\nIn re St. Fleur, 824 F.3d 1337 (11th Cir. Jun. 8, 2016)\\nIn re Adams, 825 F.3d 1283 (11th Cir. Jun. 15, 2016)\\nIn re Hires, 825 F.3d 1297 (11th Cir. Jun. 15, 2016)\\nIn re Rogers, 825 F.3d 1335 (11th Cir. Jun. 17, 2016)\\nIn re Colon, 826 F.3d 1301 (11th Cir. Jun. 24, 2016)\\nIn re McCall, 826 F.3d 1308 (11th Cir. Jun. 17, 2016)\\nIn re Jackson, 826 F.3d 1343 (11th Cir. Jun. 24, 2016)\\n\\n 48\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 49 of 90\\n\\n\\nIn re Williams, 826 F.3d 1351 (11th Cir. Jun. 24, 2016)\\nIn re Parker, 827 F.3d 1286 (11th Cir. Jul. 7, 2016)\\nIn re Gordon, 827 F.3d 1289 (11th Cir. Jul. 8, 2016)\\nIn re Sapp, 827 F.3d 1334 (11th Cir. Jul. 7, 2016)\\nIn re Baptiste, 828 F.3d 1337 (11th Cir. Jul. 13, 2016)\\nIn re Clayton, 829 F.3d 1254 (11th Cir. Jul. 18, 2016)\\nIn re Smith, 829 F.3d 1276 (11th Cir. Jul. 18, 2016)\\nIn re Burgest, 829 F.3d 1285 (11th Cir. Jul. 21, 2016)\\nIn re Watt, 829 F.3d 1287 (11th Cir. Jul. 21, 2016)\\nIn re Anderson, 829 F.3d 1290 (11th Cir. Jul. 22, 2016)\\nIn re Davis, 829 F.3d 1297 (11th Cir. Jul. 21, 2016)\\nIn re Gomez, 830 F.3d 1225 (11th Cir. Jul. 25, 2016)\\nIn re Sams, 830 F.3d 1234 (11th Cir. Jul. 26, 2016)\\nIn re Moore, 830 F.3d 1268 (11th Cir. Jul. 27, 2016)\\nIn re Bradford, 830 F.3d 1273 (11th Cir. Jul. 27, 2016)\\nIn re Jones, 830 F.3d 1295 (11th Cir. Jul. 27, 2016)\\nIn re Chance, 831 F.3d 1335 (11th Cir. Aug. 2, 2016)\\nIn re Parker, 832 F.3d 1250 (11th Cir. Aug. 10, 2016)\\nIn re Hunt, 835 F.3d 1277 (11th Cir. Jul. 18, 2016)\\nIn re Hernandez, 857 F.3d 1162 (11th Cir. 2017)\\nIn re Welch, 884 F.3d 1319 (11th Cir. 2018)\\n\\n\\n D.C. Circuit\\nIn re Williams, 759 F.3d 66 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (adversarial briefing/oral argument)\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 49\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 50 of 90\\n\\n\\nWILSON, Circuit Judge, joined by MARTIN and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges,\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4378517/\", \"author_raw\": \"JORDAN, Circuit Judge, concurring\"}, {\"author\": \"joined as to Part II by ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, dissenting\", \"type\": \"dissent\", \"text\": \"joined as to Part II by ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, dissenting from the denial of\\nrehearing en banc:\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Before the Supreme Court decided Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. 1204\\n\\n(2018), a panel of this Court attempted to sustain the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 924(c) and Mr. St. Hubert’s convictions under it. See generally United States v.\\n\\nSt. Hubert (St. Hubert I), 883 F.3d 1319 (11th Cir. 2018), vacated and replaced,\\n\\n909 F.3d 335 (11th Cir. 2018). In pursuit of that goal, the panel: (A) relied on two\\n\\npublished panel orders, which had been decided based on forty-three and ninety-\\n\\neight words of argument, respectively, see id. at 1328–29; (B) held that attempting\\n\\nto commit a crime of violence is itself a crime of violence, see id. at 1333–34; (C)\\n\\nsuggested that we use the modified categorical approach instead of the categorical\\n\\napproach, see id. at 1334–36; and (D) attempted to predict what the Supreme Court\\n\\nwould hold in Dimaya, concluding that “no matter the outcome” of Dimaya,\\n\\n§ 924(c) would stand. See id. at 1336–37.\\n\\n The panel has now backed away from some of those holdings. And for good\\n\\nreason—it is difficult to predict what the Supreme Court will do. The Supreme\\n\\nCourt in Dimaya “demolished” the superficial differences between § 924(c),\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 50\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 51 of 90\\n\\n\\nJohnson’s ACCA, and Dimaya’s § 16(b) on which the St. Hubert I opinion relied.1\\n\\nLikewise, the panel now embraces the conduct-based approach that this Court\\n\\nadopted in Ovalles II, see 905 F.3d at 1251–52, without mention of its previous\\n\\nunwavering defense of the categorical approach and the modified categorical\\n\\napproach. Compare United States v. St. Hubert (St. Hubert II), 909 F.3d 335, 344–\\n\\n46 (11th Cir. 2018), with St. Hubert I, 883 F.3d at 1330–31, 1334–37; see also\\n\\nOvalles I, 861 F.3d at 1268–69 (applying the categorical approach without\\n\\nquestion).\\n\\n Neither Ovalles II nor St. Hubert II explain what has changed since Ovalles I\\n\\nor St. Hubert I, or since we first applied the categorical approach to § 924(c) in\\n\\nUnited States v. McGuire, 706 F.3d 1333 (11th Cir. 2013). This is, I suspect,\\n\\nbecause nothing has changed, except that Justice Thomas wrote a strong dissent in\\n\\nDimaya. See 138 S. Ct. at 1242–59 (Thomas, J., dissenting). This dissent took\\n\\n\\n 1\\n See Ovalles v. United States (Ovalles II), 905 F.3d 1231, 1233–34 (11th Cir. 2018) (en\\nbanc); see also En Banc Oral Argument Recording for Ovalles II, 11th Cir. No. 17-10172, at\\n58:32, http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/system/files_force/oral_argument _recordings/17-\\n10172.mp3?download=1 (“With all due respect to the panel . . . I think that Dimaya fairly well\\ndemolishes the textual differences that the panel here identified.”). The original St. Hubert\\nopinion incorporated the superficial distinctions proffered by the original Ovalles panel opinion\\nin distinguishing § 924(c) from the ACCA. See St. Hubert I, 883 F.3d at 1328. St. Hubert I\\noffered similar differences between § 924(c) and Dimaya’s § 16(b). Compare id. at 1336–37,\\nwith Ovalles v. United States (Ovalles I), 861 F.3d 1257, 1265–67 (11th Cir. 2017), vacated, 889\\nF.3d 1259 (11th Cir. 2018) (en banc). None of these distinctions survive Dimaya. See generally\\nOvalles II, 905 F.3d at 1239 (“In short, in the course of rebuffing the government’s attempts to\\ndistinguish § 16’s residual clause from the ACCA’s, the Dimaya Court explicitly rejected the\\nvery same arguments that the panel in this case had adopted as a means of distinguishing\\n§ 924(c)(3)’s residual clause—calling them minor linguistic disparities that didn’t make any real\\ndifference.” (alteration adopted and internal quotation marks omitted)).\\n 51\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 52 of 90\\n\\n\\nissue with statutory language that has not changed in at least twelve years, well\\n\\nbefore McGuire issued. I find it odd, therefore, that this Court now holds that\\n\\nJustice Thomas’s dissent drawing attention to the unchanged language could (or\\n\\n“must”) suddenly and unexpectedly trigger the doctrine of constitutional doubt.\\n\\nCf. Ovalles II, 905 F.3d at 1238–39. Indeed, no other circuit has so contorted itself\\n\\nto salvage § 924(c), despite our en banc finding that such an interpretation is\\n\\nlegally required. Id. at 1244 (concluding that § 924(c)’s residual clause “must” be\\n\\n“read to incorporate a conduct-based interpretation” under the constitutional doubt\\n\\ncannon). Contra United States v. Eshetu, 898 F.3d 36, 37 (D.C. Cir. 2018)\\n\\n(“Dimaya nowise calls into question [the] requirement of a categorical approach\\n\\n[for § 924(c)].”); United States v. Salas, 889 F.3d 681, 685–86 (10th Cir. 2018)\\n\\n(applying categorical approach to § 924(c) and invalidating that provision, after\\n\\nDimaya).\\n\\n But Judge Jill Pryor eloquently and thoroughly explained the flaws in the\\n\\nOvalles II opinion, and it is therefore unnecessary to reiterate those points here.\\n\\nSee Ovalles II, 905 F.3d at 1277–79 (Jill Pryor, J., dissenting). Judge Jill Pryor has\\n\\nalso cataloged the problems with the panel’s adherence to its rule that attempting a\\n\\ncrime of violence is necessarily itself a crime of violence, and I join her dissent in\\n\\nfull. See infra at 85–90 (Jill Pryor, J., dissenting from the denial of rehearing en\\n\\nbanc); see also Ovalles II, 905 F.3d at 1297–99 (Jill Pryor, J., dissenting).\\n\\n\\n 52\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 53 of 90\\n\\n\\n II.\\n\\n What particularly troubles me, however, is the panel’s reaffirmation of its\\n\\nrule that published panel orders from the second or successive context bind all\\n\\npanels of this Court, even those deciding fully briefed and argued merits appeals.\\n\\nSee St. Hubert II, 909 F.3d at 345–46. I have previously explained the grave\\n\\nproblems inherent in this rule, In re Williams, 898 F.3d 1098, 1100–05 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2018) (Wilson, J., specially concurring), and Judge Martin has worked for years to\\n\\nexpose our Court’s indefensible overreach in deciding second or successive\\n\\napplications, see, e.g., id. at 1105 (Martin, J., specially concurring). In light of\\n\\ntheir importance, I will briefly reiterate the major procedural flaws in allowing\\n\\nsuch hurried, uncontested, and unappealable orders to bind this Court.\\n\\n When a prisoner asks this Court for permission to file a second or successive\\n\\nhabeas petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2244 and 2255, we must grant or deny the\\n\\nrequest on an emergency thirty-day basis. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(D). We make\\n\\nour decision based on the prisoner’s application, which is written with a pen or\\n\\ntypewriter on an extremely constraining form. See 11th Cir. R. 22-3(a). Few\\n\\nprisoners manage to squeeze more than 100 words into the permitted space. Some\\n\\nhave attorneys, but they are subject to the same restrictive form as are pro se\\n\\nlitigants. Nothing else is filed on our docket. The government never files a\\n\\nresponsive pleading, and we never grant oral argument. Most troublingly, the\\n\\n\\n 53\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 54 of 90\\n\\n\\norders that come out of this lackluster process are unappealable.2 28 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 2244(b)(3)(E) (“The grant or denial of an authorization by a court of appeals to\\n\\nfile a second or successive application shall not be appealable and shall not be the\\n\\nsubject of a petition for rehearing or for a writ of certiorari.”).\\n\\n This stands in stark contrast to the practices of the other circuits, which often\\n\\nhear oral argument and read particularized government briefs, and which consider\\n\\nthe statutory thirty-day time limit to be optional. And, likely recognizing the\\n\\nunenviable process that generates these second or successive orders, all other\\n\\ncircuits publish substantially fewer orders than we do.3 This process also differs\\n\\ngreatly from that of our merits appeals, in which we have no time constraints, we\\n\\nhave government briefing (and, when issuing a published opinion, we have\\n\\ntypically heard oral argument), and we have a full record. Of course, parties may\\n\\nappeal merits decisions to the Supreme Court and may ask for panel or en banc\\n\\nrehearing in this Court.\\n\\n Incredibly, despite this alarming contrast in process, by declining to take this\\n\\ncase en banc, the full Court has ratified the rule that these hastily-written,\\n\\n\\n 2\\n For a more in-depth discussion of these constraints. See In re Williams, 898 F.3d at\\n1101–05. For instance, sometimes the government files a “standing brief” or writes an\\nindividualized brief after the panel order issues. Id. at 1102–03 n.9. And death cases have their\\nown procedures in this Circuit. See generally 11th Cir. R. 22-4. Further, we have, on occasion,\\ndisregarded the thirty-day limit, in violation of our now-binding precedent. In re Williams, 898\\nF.3d at 1103 n.7.\\n 3\\n See generally In re Williams, 898 F.3d at 1102–10.\\n 54\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 55 of 90\\n\\n\\nuncontested orders bind all panels, including merits panels. These super-\\n\\nprecedents are not appealable to the Supreme Court, and may not be the subject of\\n\\na petition for rehearing. Thus, a panel deciding a substantive issue in a published\\n\\norder insulates itself from essentially any review. 4 Despite the inability to seek\\n\\nrehearing en banc or appeal to the Supreme Court, these published panel orders are\\n\\nnow afforded the same precedential weight as merits decisions.\\n\\n Such a decision should have weighed greatly on this Court, and it should\\n\\nhave been sufficient for en banc consideration. It is inconceivable that this Court\\n\\nwould want all motions panels, merits panels, and lower courts in the Circuit to be\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n Sua sponte rehearing appears to be the only practically conceivable remedy for a\\nmistake in a published panel order, and it is the remedy often proffered in asserting that these\\norders “are not beyond all review.” See, e.g., In re Lambrix, 776 F.3d 789, 794 (11th Cir. 2015).\\nThis is not much of a failsafe, considering that we have reheard only one out of our more than\\n10,000 panel orders en banc, see In re Williams, 898 F.3d at 1098, despite our unique decisional\\napproach that is “fraught with hazard and subject to error.” In re Leonard, 655 F. App’x 765,\\n778–79 (11th Cir. 2016) (Martin, J., concurring).\\n There is also a theoretical possibility of our certifying a question involving a published\\norder to the Supreme Court, see In re Williams, 898 F.3d at 1110 (Martin, J., concurring); see\\nalso 28 U.S.C. § 1254(2); Sup. Ct. R. 19, and a now-retired Justice once implied that he would\\nhave been open to such a question. See Felker v. Turpin, 518 U.S. 651, 667 (1996) (Souter, J.,\\nconcurring). Although I would welcome any avenue of Supreme Court review of these orders,\\nthat Court has only accepted four certified questions since 1946, and has accepted none since\\n1981. See United States v. Seale, 558 U.S. 985, 985 (2009) (Stevens, J., respecting the dismissal\\nof the certified question); Aaron Nielson, The Death of the Supreme Court’s Certified Question\\nJurisdiction, 59 CATH. U. L. REV. 483, 484–85 (2010).\\n So, if a panel declines to correct a mistake in a published panel order, that panel can be\\noverruled only by: (A) sua sponte en banc rehearing by this court—which has happened for one\\nout of more than 10,000 orders; or (B) the Supreme Court’s acceptance of a certified question—\\nwhich has happened four times in the last seventy-two years. This purported backstop is\\nillusory, and it should not be used as a justification for allowing these orders to bind merits\\npanels.\\n 55\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 56 of 90\\n\\n\\nbound on substantive issues by an order decided on the basis of forty-three words\\n\\nof pro se argument, in under thirty-days, with no avenue of appeal or review. It is\\n\\nsimilarly inconceivable that this Court would establish this rule without rehearing\\n\\nen banc. Because I cannot support such a rule, I dissent from the denial of\\n\\nrehearing en banc.\\n\\n Judge Tjoflat takes offense to my dissent, which sheds light on what I\\n\\nbelieve is an unfair process.5 Thoughtful and respectful disagreement is essential\\n\\nto our constitutional directive—“[t]he premise of our adversarial system is that\\n\\nappellate courts . . . [are] arbiters of legal questions presented and argued by the\\n\\nparties before them.” Carducci v. Regan, 714 F.2d 171, 177 (D.C. Cir. 1983)\\n\\n(Scalia, J.). There is sometimes impassioned but collegial disagreement about the\\n\\nanswers to those questions. But to turn substantive disagreement into a sweeping\\n\\ncharge that contrary views are “attacks on the integrity of the court as an\\n\\ninstitution” is another thing entirely. It is the great respect for both this Court as an\\n\\ninstitution and the judicial role that leads members of this Court to dissent. And if\\n\\nanyone has the duty to raise concerns about the fairness of this Court’s process for\\n\\n\\n 5\\n Judge Tjoflat says the dissenters here lack credibility to criticize our Court for\\npublishing Johnson orders when we have done so ourselves. See Tjoflat Op. at 12–13. He\\nwould apparently instead have us effectively forfeit our votes on Johnson entirely—ensuring that\\nthe majority’s view of Johnson is the only view with the force of binding precedent. But once\\nthe Court decided to use published Johnson orders as the vehicle for developing our habeas law,\\nwe had little choice. Declining to participate would have abdicated our responsibility to develop\\nEleventh Circuit law by effectively assigning our votes to our colleagues who continued to insist\\non publishing such orders.\\n 56\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 57 of 90\\n\\n\\nresolving a category of appeals, it is a member of this Court. Consistent with that\\n\\nduty, I will continue to express disagreement when important issues are at stake.\\n\\nIn another case, when Judge Tjoflat is in the minority, he will be entitled to do the\\n\\nsame.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 57\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 58 of 90\\n\\n\\nMARTIN, Circuit Judge, with whom JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judge, joins,\\ndissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc:\\n\\n Federal judges who decide cases in groups are bound to have differences of\\n\\nopinions about how those cases are decided. I’ve always understood that it is the\\n\\ndiscussion of those differing views that furthers the development and evolution of\\n\\nthe laws and precedent that govern us all. My understanding does not appear to be\\n\\nunique, because if there is any member of this court who has not written a\\n\\ndissenting opinion, they have not been on this court for very long. As for this\\n\\ndissent, it is certainly not an attack on the institution of the federal courts, to which\\n\\nI have devoted the last eighteen years of my professional life. Rather, this dissent\\n\\nis intended to honor the role I have been given on this court. I understand my oath\\n\\nto require me to point out procedures or interpretations of the law that I view as\\n\\nhampering our ability to administer justice to the people who come before us. If I\\n\\nhave distorted any fact in this opinion, I request that someone tell me what that fact\\n\\nis so that I can correct my mistake.\\n\\n As my colleagues have pointed out, this case is the direct appeal of Michael\\n\\nSt. Hubert, who was sentenced to serve a 32-year prison sentence in 2016.\\n\\nAlthough this is Mr. St. Hubert’s first opportunity to challenge his conviction and\\n\\nsentence in this court, his opportunity is limited by rulings this court has made in\\n\\nour habeas jurisprudence. So while Mr. St. Hubert is sitting in prison, his case has\\n\\ngenerated what I view as a healthy discussion of how it came to pass that he will be\\n 58\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 59 of 90\\n\\n\\nrequired to serve the entirety of a sentence that could not be legally imposed upon\\n\\nhim if he were sentenced today. Six of the twelve of the active judges on this court\\n\\nhave written opinions about Mr. Hubert’s case, so it seems to have merited a\\n\\nvaluable exchange of viewpoints.\\n\\n Michael St. Hubert was 37-years-old when he pled guilty to two firearms\\n\\ncharges brought against him under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). At that 2016 hearing, the\\n\\nDistrict Judge explained that Mr. St. Hubert would not be a free man until after his\\n\\n69th birthday. Then, in a sprawling opinion reviewing Mr. St. Hubert’s direct\\n\\nappeal, a panel of this Court affirmed Mr. St. Hubert’s convictions and 32-year\\n\\nsentence, holding that the offenses underlying his convictions—Hobbs Act robbery\\n\\nand attempted Hobbs Act robbery—qualify as crimes of violence under § 924(c)’s\\n\\nresidual and use-of-force clauses. See United States v. St. Hubert (“St. Hubert\\n\\nII”) 6, 909 F.3d 335 (11th Cir. 2018).\\n\\n There are several problems with the panel opinion that I believe deserve the\\n\\nattention of the en banc Court. Judge Wilson and Judge Jill Pryor each cogently\\n\\naddress some of those problems, and I am privileged to join their dissents in full.\\n\\n\\n\\n 6\\n As the term St. Hubert II would indicate, we are not discussing the original opinion\\nissued by the panel ruling on Mr. St. Hubert’s direct appeal of his conviction and sentence. The\\npanel originally issued an opinion ruling against Mr. St. Hubert on February 28, 2018. See\\nUnited States v. St. Hubert, 883 F.3d 1319 (11th Cir. 2018). On November 15, 2018, the panel\\nvacated its February 2018 opinion and issued its second and broader opinion ruling against Mr.\\nSt. Hubert. St. Hubert II, 909 F.3d at 335, 337. It is this second opinion which is now the\\nsubject of these dissents to denial of en banc review.\\n 59\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 60 of 90\\n\\n\\nSee Wilson, J., dissenting op. at 50–57 (discussing the St. Hubert II panel’s\\n\\ntroubling reaffirmation of its ruling that published panel orders from the second or\\n\\nsuccessive context bind all panels of this Court); Jill Pryor, J., dissenting op. at 85–\\n\\n90 (arguing the panel erroneously held attempting a crime of violence itself\\n\\nequates to a crime of violence).\\n\\n In writing separately, I echo some of my colleagues’ concerns. But beyond\\n\\nthat, Mr. St. Hubert’s case offers a valuable illustration of why I’ve been\\n\\nconcerned about how this Circuit has parlayed the limited authority given it under\\n\\n28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) (statute governing second or successive habeas petitions) to\\n\\nstop thorough consideration of the issues presented by people like Mr. St. Hubert,\\n\\neven on his direct appeal. It is an aberration that a statute meant to govern the\\n\\ntreatment of inmates who seek to file a second or successive § 2255 motion now\\n\\nserves as a tool for this Court to limit the review of prison sentences on direct\\n\\nappeal. I am convinced this aberration results from our Court failing to follow the\\n\\nplain mandate of 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(C). Since this is his case, I will begin\\n\\nwith Mr. St. Hubert.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Michael St. Hubert pled guilty to two counts of using, carrying, and\\n\\nbrandishing a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). A conviction under\\n\\n§ 924(c) is warranted only if a defendant uses a firearm during a “crime of violence\\n\\n\\n 60\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 61 of 90\\n\\n\\nor drug trafficking crime.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). Mr. St. Hubert appealed his\\n\\nconvictions and 32-year sentence to this Court, arguing that his underlying\\n\\noffenses—Hobbs Act robbery and attempted Hobbs Act robbery—do not qualify\\n\\nas crimes of violence required to support a conviction under § 924(c).\\n\\n His is no pro forma challenge. His appeal raises the now-hot topic,\\n\\nunresolved by the Supreme Court, of whether Hobbs Act robbery and attempted\\n\\nHobbs Act robbery qualify as violent felonies so as to justify his convictions for\\n\\nusing a firearm in connection with “any crime of violence.” 18 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 924(c)(1)(A). The issue of what constitutes a crime of violence under § 924(c)\\n\\nhas been the subject of extensive consideration in this Circuit as well as our sister\\n\\ncircuits. See, e.g., Ovalles v. United States, 905 F.3d 1231, 1234 (11th Cir. 2018)\\n\\n(en banc) (prescribing a conduct-based approach for determining whether an\\n\\noffense qualifies as a crime-of-violence under § 924(c)(3)’s residual clause); id. at\\n\\n1277–99 (Jill Pryor, J., dissenting, joined by three judges of this Court) (arguing\\n\\nthe categorical approach must govern § 924(c)’s definition of “crime of violence”\\n\\nand contending § 924(c)’s residual clause is void for vagueness under this\\n\\napproach); see also, e.g., United States v. Eshetu, 898 F.3d 36, 37 (D.C. Cir. 2018)\\n\\n(per curiam) (vacating § 924(c) convictions in light of Sessions v. Dimaya, 584\\n\\nU.S. __, 138 S. Ct. 1204 (2018), and leaving for the full D.C. Circuit the question\\n\\nof whether a conduct-based construction might save § 924(c)’s residual clause);\\n\\n\\n 61\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 62 of 90\\n\\n\\nUnited States v. Salas, 889 F.3d 681, 684–86 (10th Cir. 2018) (vacating § 924(c)\\n\\nconviction in light of Dimaya).\\n\\n For Mr. St. Hubert and others who were convicted of § 924(c) violations\\n\\nwithin the Eleventh Circuit, the answers to these questions may be especially\\n\\nconsequential. Penalties for § 924(c) are notoriously harsh—requiring a 5-to-\\n\\n10-year sentence for a first conviction and a mandatory minimum and consecutive\\n\\n25-year sentence for a second, and a third, etc. 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A), (1)(C),\\n\\n(1)(D)(ii). Under the statute at the time of his conviction, each of Mr. St. Hubert’s\\n\\ntwo § 924(c) convictions had to carry separate, consecutive sentences. Id.\\n\\n§ 924(c)(1)(A), (1)(D)(ii). In south Florida, where Mr. St. Hubert was charged and\\n\\nconvicted, prosecutors have routinely charged more than one § 924(c) count, which\\n\\nis sometimes referred to as “stacking” those charges. This charging decision\\n\\nleaves the sentencing court no choice but to add decades to sentences of defendants\\n\\nwho took part in a crime spree that involved firearms in more than one location.\\n\\nSpecifically, for Mr. St. Hubert, the decision to charge him with the second\\n\\n§ 924(c) violation added 25 years to his sentence. Notably, the recently enacted\\n\\nFirst Step Act of 2018 would not have permitted this type of “stacking” of § 924(c)\\n\\ncharges in Mr. St. Hubert’s case. See S. Res. 756, 115th Cong. § 403 (2018)\\n\\n(enacted). To say it plainly, this new law would today prohibit 25 years of the 32-\\n\\nyear sentence imposed on Mr. St. Hubert in 2016.\\n\\n\\n 62\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 63 of 90\\n\\n\\n Also notable, available data indicates that federal prosecutors in different\\n\\nparts of the country have different practices related to charging a defendant with a\\n\\n§ 924(c) violation for one, or two, or every incident in which a gun was used or\\n\\ncarried during a crime spree. See U.S. Sentencing Comm’n, Report to Congress:\\n\\nMandatory Minimum Penalties for Firearms Offenses in the Federal Criminal\\n\\nJustice System 22 (2018) (explaining, in fiscal year 2016, Southern Florida was\\n\\none of only 8 districts out of 78 reporting any cases in which more than one count\\n\\nof § 924(c) was charged). Thus, the random factors of time and geography mean\\n\\nthat Mr. St. Hubert will serve a significantly longer sentence than a person who\\n\\ncommitted precisely the same crime but did so more recently or in another part of\\n\\nthe country.\\n\\n The panel rejected Mr. St. Hubert’s arguments about the nature of his prior\\n\\nconvictions. It deemed both his Hobbs Act robbery and attempted Hobbs Act\\n\\nrobbery to be crimes of violence under both § 924(c)’s residual clause and its use-\\n\\nof-force clause. See St. Hubert II, 909 F.3d at 344–53. By my count, the St.\\n\\nHubert II panel opinion ruled against Mr. St. Hubert in four different ways. Two\\n\\nof those rulings alone would have ended his appeal by affirming his convictions\\n\\nand 32-year sentence. I say the alternative holdings reach beyond what was\\n\\nnecessary to decide Mr. St. Hubert’s case. Even so, those gratuitous rulings bind\\n\\nfuture panels of this Court in cases for which they should have been allowed a\\n\\n\\n 63\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 64 of 90\\n\\n\\nfresh look. Here, I will address one especially harmful holding: that the St. Hubert\\n\\nII panel was bound to characterize Mr. St. Hubert’s crimes as “violent” because\\n\\npanels of this Court had done so in earlier rulings denying applications for leave to\\n\\nfile second or successive § 2255 motions. See St. Hubert II, 909 F.3d at 345–46.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n The ruling that causes Mr. St. Hubert to lose his direct appeal is mandated\\n\\nby this court’s habeas jurisprudence. For that reason, my discussion will include a\\n\\nbrief overview of the remedies available to inmates who are years into serving a\\n\\nlong sentence, which they believe should be shortened due to a recent development\\n\\nin the law. Generally, a prisoner suffering under a sentence he contends is illegal\\n\\nmust seek relief by way of motion authorized under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. However,\\n\\nthe Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 renders this quite a\\n\\nnarrow path to relief. For example, prisoners are generally given one chance to\\n\\ncollaterally attack their sentence as a matter of right, and this they must do within\\n\\none year of when it became final. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(1). For inmates like Mr. St.\\n\\nHubert, who have been sentenced to serve decades-long terms in prison, this one-\\n\\ntime right to review comes too soon. Almost always, the law that defined and\\n\\ngoverned an inmate’s sentence when it was imposed develops and evolves during\\n\\nhis many years behind bars. Even so, those prisoners who already filed a § 2255\\n\\nmotion within the one-year permitted by statute are strictly limited in their ability\\n\\n\\n 64\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 65 of 90\\n\\n\\nto bring to the courts any legal issue that later developed regarding their sentence.\\n\\nFor starters, these inmates cannot file another motion (a “second or successive”\\n\\nmotion, by the terms of the statute) without getting permission from this Court.\\n\\nSee 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h).\\n\\n And the statute governing this “get permission” process is quite specific. It\\n\\ndirects that “[a] motion in the court of appeals for an order authorizing the district\\n\\ncourt to consider a second or successive application shall be determined by a three-\\n\\njudge panel of the court of appeals.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(B). Also, “[t]he court\\n\\nof appeals may authorize the filing of a second or successive application only if it\\n\\ndetermines that the application makes a prima facie showing that the application\\n\\nsatisfies the requirements of this subsection.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(C). The\\n\\nstatute sets a time-limit for this authorization: “[t]he court of appeals shall grant or\\n\\ndeny the authorization to file a second or successive application not later than 30\\n\\ndays after the filing of the motion.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(D). And although the\\n\\nstatute does not expressly prohibit briefing in this context, the panel must rule\\n\\nwithin the 30-day time limit, so briefing is nearly impossible. Indeed, the statute\\n\\nmakes no provision for the government having custody of the prisoner to even\\n\\nknow that the inmate applied to file a second or successive petition. Returning to\\n\\nthe statute, its remaining provision removes every possible avenue for the appeal of\\n\\nthis “prima facie” determination: “[t]he grant or denial of an authorization to file a\\n\\n\\n 65\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 66 of 90\\n\\n\\nsecond or successive application shall not be appealable and shall not be the\\n\\nsubject of a petition for rehearing or for a writ of certiorari.” 28 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 2244(b)(3)(E). From my point of view, it is this prohibition on review that most\\n\\ninvites abuse.\\n\\n The language of this statute simply does not authorize courts of appeal to\\n\\nmake merits decisions about the correctness of an inmate’s sentence when he is\\n\\nmerely seeking permission to file a habeas petition in District Court. A panel\\n\\npresented with a second or successive application is not empowered by the statute\\n\\nto decide in the first instance whether an inmate is entitled to relief. I agree with\\n\\nJudge William Pryor that where Supreme Court or existing Eleventh Circuit\\n\\nprecedent already obviously forecloses a prisoner’s claim, we should deny his\\n\\napplication. But where there is an open merits question, the statute calls for the\\n\\ncase to go to the District Court for consideration of that question in the first\\n\\ninstance.\\n\\n I offer the example of a case brought by a man named Stony Lester, because\\n\\nit illustrates how our get-permission process should operate. See In re Stoney\\n\\nLester, No. 16-11730-A, slip op. Mr. Lester sought leave to file a second or\\n\\nsuccessive § 2255 motion in light of the Supreme Court’s holding in Johnson. He\\n\\nsought to challenge his Sentencing Guideline-based, career-offender designation as\\n\\nunconstitutionally vague. Lester, No. 16-11730, slip op. at 2. Even though the\\n\\n\\n 66\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 67 of 90\\n\\n\\npanel disagreed about whether Mr. Lester would ultimately succeed on his claim, it\\n\\ngranted his application. Id. at 9. The panel explained it wasn’t entirely clear\\n\\nwhether Eleventh Circuit precedent foreclosed Mr. Lester’s claim. See id. at 4–5\\n\\n(discussing whether prior precedent that would have foreclosed the claim had been\\n\\nabrogated by decisions of the Supreme Court). Without clear precedent dictating\\n\\nthe outcome of Mr. Lester’s case, and because the panel recognized that at the\\n\\napplication stage, “we do not hear from the government, the application lacks a\\n\\nmeaningful opportunity to brief the merits of his case, we have no record, and we\\n\\ndo not have the time necessary to decide anything beyond the prima facie\\n\\nquestion,” the panel sent the case to the District Court so it could take the first pass\\n\\nat answering the thorny, open question Mr. Lester’s case presented. Id. at 5\\n\\n(quotations marks and citations omitted).\\n\\n Two judges on the panel authored concurrences to that order. Judge\\n\\nWilliam Pryor stated Mr. Lester had “made a prima facie showing that he is\\n\\nentitled to relief and that the district court, with the assistance of adversarial\\n\\nbriefing must address the merits in the first instance.” But Judge Pryor “wrote\\n\\nseparately to express [his] view that [Mr.] Lester [wa]s likely not entitled to relief.”\\n\\nId. at 10 (William Pryor, J., concurring in result only). He did not, I note,\\n\\n“collapse[]” the distinction between Mr. Lester’s prima facie showing and his case\\n\\non the merits. William Pryor, J., concurring op. at 35. Judge Jill Pryor also fully\\n\\n\\n 67\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 68 of 90\\n\\n\\nconcurred in the order granting Mr. Lester’s application. Lester, No. 16-11730,\\n\\nslip op. at 13 (Jill Pryor, J., concurring). She also wrote separately, but she\\n\\nexplained why she believed Mr. Lester might be entitled to relief. Mr. Lester’s\\n\\npanel properly acted as a gatekeeper, sending his case to the District Court to\\n\\ninterpret our precedent, intervening Supreme Court decisions, and the disparate\\n\\nviews of the two Judge Pryors.\\n\\n Unfortunately, our Court has not proceeded in this manner for all of these\\n\\ncases. In considering hundreds of applications (particularly since the Supreme\\n\\nCourt decided Samuel Johnson’s case, Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. __, 135\\n\\nS. Ct. 2551 (2015)), this Court has denied authorization to prisoners who plainly\\n\\nmade out a prima facie case that they could meet the requirements of the statute,\\n\\nbased on the panel’s view that the prisoner would later lose on the merits anyway.\\n\\nSee In re McCall, 826 F.3d 1308, 1311–12 (11th Cir. 2016) (Martin, J.,\\n\\nconcurring) (describing “[o]ur court’s massive effort to decide the merits of\\n\\nhundreds of habeas cases within 30 days each, all over the span of just a few\\n\\nweeks” in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision rendering Johnson\\n\\nretroactive). These merits decisions are in direct violation of the text of\\n\\n§ 2244(b)(3)(C), which vests the three-judge panels reviewing these applications\\n\\nwith power only to “determine[]” that the prisoner has made a prima facie\\n\\nshowing.\\n\\n\\n 68\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 69 of 90\\n\\n\\n A “prima facie” showing is nothing more than a showing “[s]ufficient to\\n\\nestablish a fact or raise a presumption unless disproved or rebutted; based on what\\n\\nseems to be true on first examination, even though it may later be proved to be\\n\\nuntrue.” Prima Facie, Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014); see also Prima\\n\\nFacie Case, Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014) (defining prima facie case as\\n\\n“[a] party’s production of enough evidence to allow the fact-trier to infer the fact at\\n\\nissue and rule in the party’s favor.”). “Prima Facie” is a term often used in the law,\\n\\nmost familiarly in the employment context, and it ordinarily refers to an initial\\n\\nshowing of a meritorious claim. See Texas Dep’t of Comm. Affairs v. Burdine,\\n\\n450 U.S. 248, 253, 101 S. Ct. 1089, 1094 (1981) (describing the burden of\\n\\nestablishing a prima facie case of employment discrimination as “not onerous”).\\n\\nPlainly the party making the prima facie showing is not required to show he has a\\n\\nwinning case. He need only show enough to allow a preliminary determination\\n\\nthat he could prevail, subject to further proof.\\n\\n There are many contexts in which courts evaluate whether a case deserves to\\n\\nproceed on the merits by requiring a party to make a prima facie showing. For\\n\\nexample, in the context of jury selection, a party can make a prima facie showing\\n\\nof “purposeful racial discrimination” by demonstrating “that the totality of the\\n\\nrelevant facts gives rise to an inference of discriminatory purpose.” Batson v.\\n\\nKentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 93–94, 106 S. Ct. 1712, 1721 (1986). This prima facie\\n\\n\\n 69\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 70 of 90\\n\\n\\nshowing then shifts the burden to the other side to “demonstrate that permissible\\n\\nracially neutral selection criteria and procedures have produced the monochromatic\\n\\nresult.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). And only if a neutral reason is offered does\\n\\nthe trial court analyze the merits. See id. at 98, 106 S. Ct. at 1724; cf. Purkett v.\\n\\nElem, 514 U.S. 765, 768, 115 S. Ct. 1769, 1771 (1995) (holding a Court of\\n\\nAppeals erred by combining Batson’s second and third steps). Thus, the merits\\n\\nquestion of whether a party engaged in racial discrimination when it selected a jury\\n\\nsimply cannot be answered based on the prima facie showing alone. But of course\\n\\nin this context there is an opportunity for adversarial testing. And if a court were\\n\\nto overstep its authority by making a merits decision at the “prima facie showing”\\n\\nstage, the offended party can point out the error to that court or on appeal. Not so\\n\\nfor an inmate erroneously forced to prove his merits case at the “get permission”\\n\\nstage.\\n\\n Similarly, in employment cases, the prima facie showing is a tool for\\n\\ndistributing the burden for producing evidence. A court considering claims of\\n\\nworkplace discrimination first looks to the person alleging discrimination to show\\n\\n“actions taken by the employer from which one can infer, if such actions remain\\n\\nunexplained, that it is more likely than not that such actions were based on a\\n\\ndiscriminatory criterion illegal under Title VII.” Young v. United Parcel Service,\\n\\nInc., 575 U.S. __, 135 S. Ct. 1338, 1354 (2015) (quotation marks omitted). Once\\n\\n\\n 70\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 71 of 90\\n\\n\\nthis prima facie showing—not an onerous one—is made, the burden shifts to the\\n\\nemployer to offer a nondiscriminatory reason for the employment action. See id.\\n\\n(quotation marks omitted). Again here, even though some adversarial testing can\\n\\noccur, courts are not allowed to cut off the search for truth once the prima facie\\n\\nshowing has been made. And here too, courts that force a merits decision at the\\n\\nprima facie evaluation stage can be challenged on rehearing and on appeal. Not so\\n\\nfor inmates seeking to file a second or successive petition, however, because\\n\\n§ 2244(b)(3)(E) does not provide them such recourse.\\n\\n Judge William Pryor argues that my reference to these examples is\\n\\nmisplaced because 28 U.S.C. § 2255, unlike Batson or employment discrimination\\n\\nchallenges, does not implicate a burden shifting framework. William Pryor, J.,\\n\\nconcurring op. at 25–27. But his fine distinction is too fine. The general principle\\n\\nthat a prima facie showing exists separate and apart from a final determination of\\n\\nthe merits applies with equal force to non-burden shifting schemes.\\n\\n For example, a petitioner in the immigration context is required to make a\\n\\nprima facie showing when she is seeking to reopen either her asylum case; a\\n\\nwithholding of removal ruling; or a waiver of inadmissibility ruling. And the\\n\\nBoard of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) has long made clear that these types of\\n\\nrelief “will not be granted unless the [petitioner] establishes a prima facie case of\\n\\neligibility for the underlying relief sought.” In re S-V-, 22 I. & N. Dec. 1306, 1307\\n\\n\\n 71\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 72 of 90\\n\\n\\n(BIA 2000), disapproved on other grounds by Amir v. Gonzales, 467 F.3d 921,\\n\\n927 (6th Cir. 2006). The “prima facie showing” sufficient to reopen proceedings is\\n\\none that makes the petitioner’s case seem “worthwhile” of further development. In\\n\\nre L-O-G-, 21 I. & N. Dec. 413, 419 (BIA 1996). More to the point, the BIA has\\n\\nexplicitly cautioned that “[i]n considering a motion to reopen, the [BIA] should not\\n\\nprejudge the merits of a case before the alien has had an opportunity to prove the\\n\\ncase.” Id. The BIA has expressed its concern that “[f]requently, it will be difficult\\n\\nto assess from motion papers alone what . . . will occur . . . in a given case.” Id.\\n\\n This concern is real for Mr. St. Hubert’s appeal too. He presents important\\n\\n(and certainly impactful) questions about whether his prior convictions for Hobbs\\n\\nAct Robbery and attempted Hobbs Act Robbery qualify as crimes of violence (as\\n\\nthat term is used in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)) so as to require his 32-year sentence. This\\n\\nCourt did not decide these questions in the regular order. In ruling against Mr. St.\\n\\nHubert on these questions, the panel relied upon rulings made under the limited\\n\\nauthority of § 2244(b)(3), instead of allowing the full and adversarial testing his\\n\\narguments deserve on his direct appeal. Some time ago, a three-judge panel of this\\n\\nCourt, without adversarial briefing, under a 30-day deadline, and in a process not\\n\\nsubject to standard appeal or review, held that a Hobbs Act robbery conviction\\n\\nqualifies as a crime of violence under § 924(c)’s use-of-force clause. In re Saint\\n\\nFleur, 824 F.3d 1337, 1340–41 (11th Cir. 2016) (per curiam); see also In re Colon,\\n\\n\\n 72\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 73 of 90\\n\\n\\n826 F.3d 1301, 1305 (11th Cir. 2016) (per curiam) (relying on Saint Fleur to\\n\\nconclude that aiding and abetting Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as a crime of\\n\\nviolence under § 924(c)’s use-of-force clause). This Court’s decisions on whether\\n\\nattempted Hobbs Act robbery constitutes a crime of violence suffer from other\\n\\nshortcomings, well-articulated by Judge Jill Pryor in her dissent. Jill Pryor, J.,\\n\\ndissenting op. at 86–90.\\n\\n There was a time when this Court honored the statutorily imposed\\n\\nlimitations of a prima facie review. In In re Holladay, 331 F.3d 1169 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2003), a decision that is still binding precedent for our Circuit, we said the\\n\\n“requisite showing” was “a sufficient showing of possible merit to warrant a fuller\\n\\nexploration by the district court.” Id. at 1173–74 (quotation marks omitted)\\n\\n(adopting the standard set in Bennett v. United States, 119 F.3d 468, 469 (7th\\n\\nCir.1997)); see also Cohen v. Office Depot, Inc., 204 F.3d 1069, 1072 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2000) (“[W]here two prior panel decisions conflict we are bound to follow the\\n\\noldest one.”). Other courts agree that the standard for allowing a second or\\n\\nsuccessive petition should be interpreted permissively and should not involve a\\n\\nmerits analysis of the claim by the Court of Appeals. See In re Hoffner, 870 F.3d\\n\\n301, 308 (3d Cir. 2017) (explaining that whether an application “relies on” a new\\n\\nrule cannot be based on “whether the claim has merit, because [the Third Circuit]\\n\\ndoes not address the merits at all in our gatekeeping function”); Ochoa v. Sirmons,\\n\\n\\n 73\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 74 of 90\\n\\n\\n485 F.3d 538, 541 (10th Cir. 2007) (per curiam) (“This statutory mandate does not\\n\\ndirect the appellate court to engage in a preliminary merits assessment. Rather, it\\n\\nfocuses our inquiry solely on the conditions specified in § 2244(b) that justify\\n\\nraising a new habeas claim.”); see also Holladay, 331 F.3d at 1173 (“[I]f in light of\\n\\nthe documents submitted with the application it appears reasonably likely that the\\n\\napplication satisfies the stringent requirements for the filing of a second or\\n\\nsuccessive petition, we shall grant the application” (quotations omitted and\\n\\nalterations adopted)). The proper view is that in deciding whether to allow a\\n\\nsecond or successive petition, the three-judge panel is not empowered to speculate\\n\\nabout what a District Court might do if the second or successive motion is allowed\\n\\nto proceed.\\n\\n I view the Eleventh Circuit as having routinely exceeded its statutory\\n\\nmandate in this regard. Notwithstanding the narrowness of the inquiry authorized\\n\\nby the language of § 2244, this Circuit has regularly and unnecessarily reached\\n\\nbeyond the questions of whether an inmate’s request to file a § 2255 motion\\n\\n“contain[s]” a new rule, 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h), and whether he has made a “prima\\n\\nfacie showing” to instead address the merits of his claim. Specifically, after\\n\\nreceiving hundreds of applications seeking relief based on the Supreme Court’s\\n\\ndecision in Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. ___, 135 S. Ct. 2551, “[t]he judges\\n\\nof this court, myself included, [started] combing through sealed records from the\\n\\n\\n 74\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 75 of 90\\n\\n\\nprisoner’s original sentencing hearing and . . . mak[ing] a decision about whether\\n\\nthe prisoner w[ould] win if we let him file his § 2255 motion in district court.” In\\n\\nre Clayton, 829 F.3d 1254, 1257 (11th Cir. 2016) (Martin, J., concurring). Later,\\n\\nwe codified this approach. See In re Thomas, 823 F.3d 1345, 1349 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2016) (per curiam) (concluding an applicant failed to make a prima facie showing\\n\\nunder § 2255 because the sentencing record indicated the District Court did not\\n\\nrely on the portion of the Armed Career Criminal Act invalidated in Johnson); see\\n\\nalso Beeman v. United States, 871 F.3d 1215, 1221 & n.1 (11th Cir. 2017)\\n\\n(expressly adopting Thomas as providing the relevant approach to analyzing\\n\\n§ 2255 motions brought pursuant to Johnson). To reiterate, In re Thomas was an\\n\\nopinion of great consequence for our Circuit and for people sentenced to prison\\n\\nterms here. Yet its holding was beyond the ability of the inmate to challenge. See\\n\\n28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(E).\\n\\n This Court has now issued hundreds of rulings on the merits of prisoners’\\n\\nclaims in the context of their mere application to proceed in District Court. Before\\n\\nMr. St. Hubert’s appeal was decided, this Court published, by my count, eight\\n\\nopinions resolving, on review of an application to file a second or successive\\n\\n§ 2255 motion, the important and often difficult question of whether certain\\n\\noffenses are “crime[s] of violence” or “violent felon[ies]” under the elements\\n\\nclauses in § 924(c)(3)(A), (e)(2)(B)(i), or United States Sentencing Guidelines\\n\\n\\n 75\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 76 of 90\\n\\n\\n§ 4B1.2(a). See In re Welch, 884 F.3d 1319, 1323–25 (11th Cir. 2018) (per\\n\\ncuriam) (Alabama first degree robbery and Alabama first degree assault); In re\\n\\nHines, 824 F.3d 1334, 1337 (11th Cir. 2016) (per curiam) (bank robbery in\\n\\nviolation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), (d)); Saint Fleur, 824 F.3d at 1341 (Hobbs Act\\n\\nrobbery); Colon, 826 F.3d at 1305 (aiding-and-abetting Hobbs Act robbery); In re\\n\\nSmith, 829 F.3d 1276, 1280–81 (11th Cir. 2016) (per curiam) (carjacking in\\n\\nviolation of 18 U.S.C. § 2119); In re Watt, 829 F.3d 1287, 1289–90 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2016) (per curiam) (aiding and abetting assault of a postal employee); In re Sams,\\n\\n830 F.3d 1234, 1239 (11th Cir. 2016) (per curiam) (bank robbery in violation of 18\\n\\nU.S.C. § 2113(a)); In re Burgest, 829 F.3d 1285, 1287 (11th Cir. 2016) (per\\n\\ncuriam) (Florida manslaughter and kidnapping). Now in standing behind St.\\n\\nHubert II, this Court has institutionalized these appeal-proof panel opinions as the\\n\\nprecedent of this Circuit. It is notable that some of these opinions decided the\\n\\nmerits of claims in the face of dissents by my colleagues and me warning that the\\n\\nheavily abridged second or successive application procedures are ill-suited to\\n\\nanswering such questions. See, e.g., Colon, 826 F.3d at 1308 (Martin, J.,\\n\\ndissenting) (“Deciding the merits of not-yet-filed § 2255 motions in this way is\\n\\nespecially dangerous in cases like Mr. Colon’s that turn on a complex question of\\n\\nfirst impression.”); Smith, 829 F.3d at 1285 (Jill Pryor, J., dissenting) (“We\\n\\ncertainly have never held that the [carjacking] statute would qualify categorically\\n\\n\\n 76\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 77 of 90\\n\\n\\neven setting aside the residual clause in § 924(c). It would be impractical and\\n\\nimprudent to decide this complex question in the first instance here.”). Outside of\\n\\nthe second or successive application setting, our Court rules would ordinarily\\n\\nrequire an oral argument panel to consider a topic upon which the panel could not\\n\\nreach unanimity. 11th Cir. R. 34-3(b)(3).\\n\\n III.\\n\\n In his concurrence, Judge Tjoflat attempts to mitigate the extent of the harm\\n\\nfrom this practice by saying that only a few of the orders deciding the merits of\\n\\nclaims presented in second or successive applications have been published.\\n\\nTjoflat, J., concurring op. at 11. But it is not the number of published opinions I\\n\\ntake issue with. I take issue with the practice itself. As Mr. St. Hubert’s case\\n\\nillustrates, any one published order that prematurely and in my view mistakenly\\n\\nresolves an open merits question forecloses that issue for all future panels. See\\n\\nOvalles v. United States, 905 F.3d 1231, 1268 (11th Cir. 2018) (Martin, J.,\\n\\ndissenting) (describing the outsized effect of a few published second or successive\\n\\napplication rulings that resolved open questions of law). No critical mass of\\n\\npublished merits orders is necessary to establish the law in our Circuit and affect\\n\\nhundreds of inmates.\\n\\n Take for example In re Smith, which held for the first time that carjacking in\\n\\nviolation of 18 U.S.C. § 2119 “clearly” qualifies as a crime of violence under\\n\\n\\n 77\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 78 of 90\\n\\n\\n§ 924(c)’s use-of-force clause. 829 F.3d at 1280–81. As Judge Jill Pryor\\n\\nexplained in a dissent to that decision, the Smith majority’s conclusion was hardly\\n\\nobvious and only tenuously supported by our prior case law. In re Smith, 829 F.3d\\n\\n1276, 1281–85 (11th Cir. 2016) (Jill Pryor, J., dissenting). Nevertheless, the rule\\n\\nset out in Smith became the rule in this Circuit. All later panels considering\\n\\ndenials of § 2255 motions and requests for authorization to file second or\\n\\nsuccessive § 2255 motions must rely on Smith—as our prior panel precedent rule\\n\\nmandates—to decide the same issue. See, e.g., Grant v. United States, 694 F.\\n\\nApp’x 756, 758 (11th Cir. 2017) (unpublished) (mem.) (“Grant’s argument that\\n\\ncarjacking is not a crime of violence under § 924(c)’s force clause is foreclosed by\\n\\nour opinion in Smith. Therefore, Grant’s convictions under § 924(c) were proper\\n\\nbecause carjacking satisfies § 924(c)’s force clause, and the district court did not\\n\\nerr in denying his § 2255 motion to vacate on this ground.”). It is not the number\\n\\nof published orders that thwarts defendants’ efforts to have our Court fully\\n\\nconsider their claims, it is the breadth of their reach.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4378517/\", \"author_raw\": \"joined as to Part II by ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, dissenting\"}, {\"author\": \"Judge Tjoflat says my dissenting\", \"type\": \"dissent\", \"text\": \"Judge Tjoflat says my dissenting colleagues and I engage in the very\\n\\npractice we criticize, because we have been on panels that published certain orders\\n\\non prisoners’ applications to file second or successive § 2255 motions. Tjoflat, J.,\\n\\nconcurring op. at 14–15. But not one of the 14 orders he points to resolved for the\\n\\nfirst time a then-open question about whether a certain offense qualifies as a crime\\n\\n\\n 78\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 79 of 90\\n\\n\\nof violence or a violent felony under the elements clause of § 924(c)(3)(A),\\n\\n(e)(2)(B)(i), or United States Sentencing Guidelines § 4B1.2(a). None of our\\n\\nopinions bound future panels to grant relief to any prisoner based on their criminal\\n\\nhistory. To the contrary, eight of the fourteen orders denied the prisoner relief\\n\\nbased on a straightforward application of existing Circuit precedent. In re Hunt,\\n\\n835 F.3d 1277 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Parker, 832 F.3d 1250 (11th Cir. 2016); In re\\n\\nJones, 830 F.3d 1295 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Clayton, 829 F.3d 1254 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2016); In re Sapp, 827 F.3d 1334 (11th Cir. 2016); In re McCall, 826 F.3d 1308\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2016); In re Rogers, 825 F.3d 1335 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Robinson,\\n\\n822 F.3d 1196 (11th Cir. 2016). Six of those eight published orders featured at\\n\\nleast one concurrence that offered criticism of the Circuit’s existing precedent the\\n\\npanel was compelled to apply. See, e.g., In re Hunt, 835 F.3d 1277, 1279 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2016) (Wilson, J., concurring) (“Although Hunt’s Guidelines-based claim is\\n\\ncurrently foreclosed by [United States v.] Matchett, I write separately to explain\\n\\nwhy I disagree with the holding in Matchett.”); In re Parker, 832 F.3d 1250, 1250–\\n\\n51 (11th Cir. 2016) (Rosenbaum, J., concurring) (“I agree that In re Baptiste\\n\\nrequires us to dismiss Leslie Parker’s request for authorization to file a second or\\n\\nsuccessive habeas petition. I write separately because I continue to believe that\\n\\nBaptiste’s interpretation of 28 U.S.C. 2244(b)(1) . . . is incorrect as a matter of\\n\\nlaw.” (citation omitted)); In re Jones, 830 F.3d 1295, 1297–1305 (11th Cir. 2016)\\n\\n\\n 79\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 80 of 90\\n\\n\\n(Rosenbaum, J., concurring) (offering four reasons why Baptiste, the decision that\\n\\nprecluded the prisoner’s request for relief, was wrongly decided); In re Clayton,\\n\\n829 F.3d 1254, 1256–76 (11th Cir. 2016) (Martin, J., concurring) (criticizing\\n\\nMatchett, which precluded the prisoner’s request for relief); In re Sapp, 827 F.3d\\n\\n1334, 1337 (11th Cir. 2016) (Jordan, Rosenbaum, & Jill Pryor, JJ., concurring)\\n\\n(“Although we are bound by Griffin, we write separately to explain why we\\n\\nbelieve Griffin is deeply flawed and wrongly decided.”); In re McCall, 826 F.3d\\n\\n1308 (11th Cir. 2016) (Martin, J., concurring) (criticizing Griffin and Matchett,\\n\\nwhich precluded the prisoner’s request for relief).\\n\\n The remaining six orders cited by Judge Tjoflat granted the prisoners’\\n\\napplications but did not decide the merits question. We sent the prisoners’ cases to\\n\\nthe District Court to resolve the unsettled merits question in the first instance. In re\\n\\nChance, 831 F.3d 1335 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Gomez, 830 F.3d 1225 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2016); In re Davis, 829 F.3d 1297 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Parker, 827 F.3d 1286\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2016); In re Adams, 825 F.3d 1283 (11th Cir. 2016); In re Pinder, 824\\n\\nF.3d 977 (11th Cir. 2016). For example in Pinder, we explained “the law [was]\\n\\nunsettled on whether the rule announced in Johnson invalidates Pinder’s sentence,”\\n\\nbut “[w]hat’s clear however is that Pinder has made a prima facie showing that his\\n\\nmotion contains a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on\\n\\ncollateral review by the Supreme Court.” 824 F.3d at 979 (omission adopted,\\n\\n\\n 80\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 81 of 90\\n\\n\\nquotation marks omitted, citation omitted). These orders are simply different than\\n\\nthe published orders that resolved open merits questions.\\n\\n Judge Tjoflat also writes that St. Hubert II merely echoed an already-clear\\n\\nrule in our Circuit about how to treat published orders resolving requests for\\n\\nauthorization to file a second or successive § 2255 motion. Tjoflat, concurring op.\\n\\nat 16. But the St. Hubert II panel opinion tells us this is not so. St. Hubert II\\n\\ndecided, once and for all, that merits decisions reached in the second or successive\\n\\napplication context are binding precedent on direct appeal. 909 F.3d at 346 (“Lest\\n\\nthere be any doubt, we now hold in this direct appeal that law established in\\n\\npublished three-judge orders issues pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) in the context\\n\\nof applications for leave to file second or successive § 2255 motions is binding\\n\\nprecedent on all subsequent panels of this Court, including those reviewing direct\\n\\nappeals and collateral attacks, unless and until it is overruled or undermined to the\\n\\npoint of abrogation by the Supreme Court or by this court sitting en banc.”\\n\\n(alteration adopted, quotation omitted, citation omitted)). This decision has great\\n\\nconsequence. It curtails our review of claims made by prisoners like Mr. St.\\n\\nHubert, even on direct appeal.\\n\\n His criticisms aside, Judge Tjoflat seems to acknowledge our Court has\\n\\nreached beyond merely determining whether an application to file a second or\\n\\nsuccessive § 2255 motion makes the required prima facie showing. He notes for\\n\\n\\n 81\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 82 of 90\\n\\n\\nexample a series of orders in which “this Court determined that Johnson’s residual\\n\\nclause holding did not apply to companion § 924(c) crimes and that, even\\n\\nassuming Johnson did, the prisoners’ crimes qualified under § 924(c)’s elements\\n\\nclause, which likewise was not affected by Johnson.” Tjoflat, J., concurring op. at\\n\\n11. Judge Tjoflat also recognizes that “[i]n 2016 after the Johnson and Welch\\n\\ndecisions, there was a heightened need to publish at least some of these 2,282\\n\\norders to establish precedent.” Id. at 13. Both of these points demonstrate rather\\n\\nthan refute my view. I know of no reason why these published opinions should not\\n\\nhave been the product of the usual robust process that ordinarily attends our Circuit\\n\\nprecedent.\\n\\n Judge Tjoflat and I disagree on the upshot of this overreach, however.\\n\\nWhile he may find it comforting that we’ve exceeded Congress’s mandate only\\n\\nsparingly, I do not. Neither do I believe our Court can justify our overreach\\n\\nbecause the merits decisions we make in this context might match those made by\\n\\nother Circuits after more thorough review. In the same way, I do not share Judge\\n\\nTjoflat’s apparent comfort that we have our Staff Attorney’s Office give us advice\\n\\non merits issues better left to U.S. District Judges to decide. See Tjoflat, J.,\\n\\nconcurring op. at 14, 21. Finally in this regard, I take no comfort in the backstop\\n\\nof a sua sponte en banc call by an active member of this Court. See id. at 18. This\\n\\nprocess would require a member of this Court to identify a wrongly decided merits\\n\\n\\n 82\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 83 of 90\\n\\n\\norder for which no petition for rehearing en banc has been filed; succeed in an en\\n\\nbanc call; and persuade the full en banc court to reverse the panel decision. And\\n\\nthis is a process the prisoner cannot himself initiate and generally is excluded from\\n\\nparticipating. I do not disagree with Judge Tjoflat when he says about us that\\n\\n“[t]he real problem for the dissenters” is that we “have not garnered the majority\\n\\nvotes needed to vacate the particular published panel orders with which [we]\\n\\ndisagree.” Id. at 17. But just because we hold a minority of the positions on this\\n\\ncourt does not necessarily mean we are wrong.\\n\\n IV.\\n\\n The members of this court are bound to treat the St. Hubert II panel’s\\n\\nholdings as binding precedent in this Circuit, unless and until the Supreme Court or\\n\\nthis Court sitting en banc reverses each of them, one by one. See United States v.\\n\\nArcher, 531 F.3d 1347, 1352 (11th Cir. 2008) (explaining that, under this Circuit’s\\n\\nprior panel precedent rule, this Court is bound to follow a prior panel’s holding\\n\\nunless it has been overruled or undermined to the point of abrogation by our en\\n\\nbanc Court or by the Supreme Court). Nothing in the limited § 2255 authorization\\n\\nprocedure was designed for resolving whether a given offense qualifies as a crime\\n\\nof violence or violent felony. See Wilson, J., dissenting op. at 53–56 (describing\\n\\nthe limited nature of § 2255 authorization procedures). This Court unnecessarily\\n\\nand prematurely addressed these issues and, in so doing, exceeded its statutory\\n\\n\\n 83\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 84 of 90\\n\\n\\nmandate. As a result, prisoners sentenced in Alabama, Florida and Georgia may be\\n\\nserving illegal sentences for which they have no remedy.\\n\\n Congress gave us a gatekeeping function. We’ve used it to lock the gate and\\n\\nthrow away the key. The full court should have taken up this matter of great\\n\\nconsequence. I dissent from its decision not to do so.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 84\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 85 of 90\\n\\n\\nJILL PRYOR, Circuit Judge, with whom WILSON and MARTIN, Circuit Judges,\\njoin, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc:\\n\\n I join in full Judge Wilson’s and Judge Martin’s compelling dissents. The\\n\\ninstitutional (and, possibly, constitutional) problems with treating published panel\\n\\norders as binding on all subsequent panels are significant and, at a minimum,\\n\\nworthy of en banc review. I write separately to express my disagreement with the\\n\\npanel opinion’s holding that an attempt to commit an offense that qualifies under\\n\\n18 U.S.C. § 924(c)’s elements clause itself necessarily constitutes an elements\\n\\nclause offense.\\n\\n The statute at issue in Mr. St. Hubert’s case, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c),\\n\\ncriminalizes and imposes mandatory enhanced sentences for using or carrying a\\n\\nfirearm “during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime”\\n\\nor possessing a firearm in furtherance of such a crime. 18. U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A).\\n\\nSection 924(c)(3) defines “crime of violence” as “an offense that is a felony and”:\\n\\n (A) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical\\n force against the person or property of another, or\\n\\n (B) that by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against\\n the person or property of another may be used in the course of\\n committing the offense.\\n\\nId. § 924(c)(3). Subsection (A) is known as the “elements clause,” and subsection\\n\\n(B) is known as the “residual clause.”\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 85\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 86 of 90\\n\\n\\n The panel opinion considered whether Mr. St. Hubert’s conviction for\\n\\nattempted Hobbs Act robbery qualified as a violent felony under 18 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 924(c)’s elements clause. See United States v. St. Hubert, 909 F.3d 335, 351-53\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2018). An individual commits Hobbs Act robbery when he “obstructs,\\n\\ndelays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in\\n\\ncommerce, by robbery . . . or attempts or conspires so to do, or commits or\\n\\nthreatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or\\n\\npurpose to” commit robbery under the statute. 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a). “[R]obbery,”\\n\\nin turn, is defined as “the unlawful taking or obtaining of personal property from\\n\\nthe person or in the presence of another, against his will, by means of actual or\\n\\nthreatened force, or violence, or fear of injury, immediate or future.” Id.\\n\\n§ 1951(b)(1). Under federal law, to be convicted for an attempt crime, the\\n\\ndefendant must (1) have the specific intent to engage in the criminal conduct he is\\n\\ncharged with attempting and (2) engage in an overt act, defined as “a substantial\\n\\nstep toward the commission of that crime and which strongly corroborates [his]\\n\\ncriminal intent.” United States v. Rothenberg, 610 F.3d 621, 626 (11th Cir. 2010);\\n\\nsee also United States v. Murrell, 368 F.3d 1283, 1286 (11th Cir. 2004).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 86\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 87 of 90\\n\\n\\n The panel opinion concluded that attempted Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as\\n\\na predicate offense under § 924(c)’s elements clause.1 See St. Hubert, 909 F.3d at\\n\\n352. To get to that conclusion, the opinion made two right turns before it took a\\n\\nwrong turn, but the wrong turn led to a logical and legal dead end. First, the\\n\\nopinion said, “the definition of a crime of violence in [the elements clause] equates\\n\\nthe use of force with attempted force, and thus the text of [the elements clause]\\n\\nmakes clear that actual force need not be used for a crime to qualify” as a crime of\\n\\nviolence. Id. No disagreement here. Second, “a completed Hobbs Act robbery\\n\\nitself qualifies as a crime of violence under [§ 924(c)’s elements clause] and,\\n\\ntherefore, attempt to commit Hobbs Act robbery requires that St. Hubert intended\\n\\nto commit every element of Hobbs Act robbery, including the taking of property in\\n\\na forcible manner.” Id. That is because “a defendant must intend to commit every\\n\\nelement of the completed crime in order to be guilty of attempt.” Id. So far so\\n\\ngood.\\n\\n But then the opinion concluded: “‘[A]n attempt to commit a crime should\\n\\nbe treated as an attempt to commit every element of that crime’”; thus, “when a\\n\\nsubstantive offense qualifies as a violent felony under [§ 924(c)’s elements clause],\\n\\n\\n\\n 1\\n I do not address the opinion’s alternative holding that Mr. St. Hubert’s attempted Hobbs\\nAct robbery conviction falls within § 924(c)’s residual clause, a holding that rested upon the en\\nbanc Court’s decision in Ovalles v. United States, 905 F.3d 1231 (11th Cir. 2018) (en banc). See\\nSt. Hubert, 909 F.3d at 346-47. I dissented in that case, see Ovalles, 905 F.3d at 1277-99 (Jill\\nPryor, J., dissenting), and continue to disagree with its holding and reasoning.\\n 87\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 88 of 90\\n\\n\\nan attempt to commit that offense also is a violent felony.” Id. (quoting Hill v.\\n\\nUnited States, 877 F.3d 717, 719 (7th Cir. 2017)). This is where the panel opinion\\n\\n(and the Hill opinion upon which it relied) went wrong. Logic permits no\\n\\ninference from the fact of a conviction for an attempt crime that the person\\n\\nattempted to commit every element of the substantive offense. The panel was able\\n\\nto bridge this logical gap only by converting intent to commit each element of the\\n\\nsubstantive offense (proof of which is necessary to convict someone of an attempt\\n\\ncrime) into attempt to commit each element of the substantive offense (which is\\n\\nnot necessary to convict someone of an attempt crime). Intending to commit each\\n\\nelement of a crime involving the use of force simply is not the same attempting to\\n\\ncommit each element of that crime. By the alchemy of transmuting intent to\\n\\ncommit each element into attempt to commit each element, the panel conjured the\\n\\nconclusion that anyone convicted of an attempt to commit a crime involving force\\n\\nmust have been found beyond a reasonable doubt to have attempted to use force.\\n\\nThat’s the logical flaw.\\n\\n Now the legal flaw: the panel’s transformation of an attempted offense into\\n\\nan attempt to commit each element of the offense does not align with the actual\\n\\nelements of an attempt offense. Rothenberg, 610 F.3d at 626; Murrell, 368 F.3d at\\n\\n1286. So it is incorrect to say that a person necessarily attempts to use physical\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 88\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 89 of 90\\n\\n\\nforce within the meaning of § 924(c)’s elements clause just because he attempts a\\n\\ncrime that, if completed, would be violent.\\n\\n Conviction for an attempt crime also requires an overt act, but that element\\n\\ndoes not fill the panel opinion’s logical gap. We can easily imagine that a person\\n\\nmay engage in an overt act—in the case of robbery, for example, overt acts might\\n\\ninclude renting a getaway van, parking the van a block from the bank, and\\n\\napproaching the bank’s door before being thwarted—without having used,\\n\\nattempted to use, or threatened to use force. Would this would-be robber have\\n\\nintended to use, attempt to use, or threaten to use force? Sure. Would he\\n\\nnecessarily have attempted to use force? No. So an individual’s conduct may\\n\\nsatisfy all the elements of an attempt to commit an elements-clause offense without\\n\\nanything more than intent to use elements-clause force and some act (in\\n\\nfurtherance of the intended offense) that does not involve the use, attempted use, or\\n\\nthreatened use of such force. The panel opinion’s conclusion that an attempt to\\n\\ncommit a crime of violence necessarily is itself a crime of violence simply does not\\n\\nhold up.\\n\\n By declining to rehear this case en banc, our court not only ignores the\\n\\nserious institutional concerns my colleagues describe in their dissents, but it also\\n\\nmisses the chance to reexamine the panel’s flawed logic as to attempt crimes. This\\n\\nmissed opportunity perpetuates unlawfully lengthy sentences for people convicted\\n\\n\\n 89\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 90 of 90\\n\\n\\nof attempt crimes. And the panel opinion’s erroneous holding reaches beyond\\n\\n§ 924(c) because this court already has applied that holding to the Armed Career\\n\\nCriminal Act, which increases the sentence for any person convicted of being a\\n\\nfelon in possession of a firearm who has three prior convictions for violent felonies\\n\\nor serious drug offenses. See Hylor v. United States, 896 F.3d 1219, 1223 (11th\\n\\nCir. 2018) (majority opinion); id. at 1224-27 (Jill Pryor, J., concurring in result)\\n\\n(making essentially the same argument I make today).\\n\\n District courts within our circuit lead the pack in imposing sentences under\\n\\nthese enhancement statutes. 2 It is critically important that we of all circuits get this\\n\\nright. I dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\\n In 2016—the last year for which the United States Sentencing Commission has reported\\ncomplete data—only the Fourth Circuit’s district courts handed down more sentences under\\n§ 924(c) than ours did. See United States Sentencing Comm’n, Mandatory Minimum Penalties\\nfor Firearms Offenses in the Federal Criminal Justice System 72-74 (2018). That same year,\\ndistrict courts within our circuit imposed more sentences enhanced under the Armed Career\\nCriminal Act than any other circuit. Id. at 36 (reporting that in 2016 the Eleventh Circuit’s\\ndistrict courts handed down 26.6% of ACCA-enhanced sentences, by far the most of any circuit).\\n 90\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4378517/\", \"author_raw\": \"Judge Tjoflat says my dissenting\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"CARNES"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"TJOFLAT"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"MARCUS"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":"WILSON; PRYOR; MARTIN; JORDAN; ROSENBAUM; NEWSOM; BRANCH"},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":9,"string":"9"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":5,"string":"5"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4601264/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Michael ST. HUBERT, Defendant - Appellant.\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-19\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: Yes\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 1 of 90\n\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n ________________________\n\n No. 16-10874\n ________________________\n\n D.C. Docket No. 1:15-cr-20621-FAM-1\n\n\n\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA,\n\n Plaintiff - Appellee,\n\nversus\n\nMICHAEL ST. HUBERT,\n\n Defendant - Appellant.\n\n ________________________\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the Southern District of Florida\n ________________________\n\n\n\nBefore ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM\nPRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, and\nBRANCH, Circuit Judges. *\n\n\n\n *\n Judge Grant did not participate in the decision to rehear this case en banc. Judge Julie\nCarnes participated in the en banc poll that was conducted in this case before taking senior status\non June 18, 2018.\n\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 2 of 90\n\n\nBY THE COURT:\n\n A member of this Court in active service having requested a poll on whether\n\nthis case should be reheard by the Court sitting en banc, and a majority of the\n\njudges in active service on this Court having voted against granting a rehearing en\n\nbanc, it is ORDERED that this case will not be reheard en banc.\n\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 3 of 90\n\n\nTJOFLAT, Circuit Judge, joined by ED CARNES, Chief Judge, and WILLIAM\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Michael ST. HUBERT, Defendant - Appellant.\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-19\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: Yes\\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 1 of 90\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 16-10874\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 1:15-cr-20621-FAM-1\\n\\n\\n\\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA,\\n\\n Plaintiff - Appellee,\\n\\nversus\\n\\nMICHAEL ST. HUBERT,\\n\\n Defendant - Appellant.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Southern District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n\\n\\nBefore ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM\\nPRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, and\\nBRANCH, Circuit Judges. *\\n\\n\\n\\n *\\n Judge Grant did not participate in the decision to rehear this case en banc. Judge Julie\\nCarnes participated in the en banc poll that was conducted in this case before taking senior status\\non June 18, 2018.\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 2 of 90\\n\\n\\nBY THE COURT:\\n\\n A member of this Court in active service having requested a poll on whether\\n\\nthis case should be reheard by the Court sitting en banc, and a majority of the\\n\\njudges in active service on this Court having voted against granting a rehearing en\\n\\nbanc, it is ORDERED that this case will not be reheard en banc.\\n\\n Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 3 of 90\\n\\n\\nTJOFLAT, Circuit Judge, joined by ED CARNES, Chief Judge, and WILLIAM\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1356,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4601361,"string":"4,601,361"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"ORION MARINE CONSTRUCTION, INC., as Owner of Barges M-1801, M-1802, M-1701 and M-1402, Their Engines, Tackle, Appurtenances, Equipment, Etc., in a Cause of Exoneration From or Limitation of Liability, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. Elizabeth CARROLL, Defendant, Daniel F. Bowen, Et Al., Claimants, Mark Dawson, Christine M. Dawson, Claimants - Appellees."},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Orion Marine Construction, Inc. v. Mark Dawson"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-20"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"17-11961"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Marcus, Newsom, Anderson\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 1 of 33\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 17-11961\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 8:15-cv-01136-MSS-TGW\\n\\nORION MARINE CONSTRUCTION, INC.,\\nas owner of Barges M-1801, M-1802,\\nM-1701 and M-1402, their engines, tackle,\\nappurtenances, equipment, etc., in a cause\\nof exoneration from or limitation of liability,\\n\\n Plaintiff - Appellant,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nELIZABETH CARROLL,\\n\\n Defendant,\\n\\nDANIEL F. BOWEN, et al.,\\n\\n Claimants,\\n\\nMARK DAWSON,\\nCHRISTINE M. DAWSON,\\n Claimants - Appellees.\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Middle District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n (March 20, 2019)\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 2 of 33\\n\\n\\nBefore MARCUS, NEWSOM, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nNEWSOM, Circuit Judge:\\n\\n This admiralty appeal requires us to navigate uncharted waters in order to\\n\\ndetermine what constitutes sufficient notice of a claim under the Shipowner’s\\n\\nLimitation of Liability Act, 46 U.S.C. §§ 30501, et seq. The Act establishes a\\n\\nprocedure by which a shipowner can limit its liability for certain claims involving\\n\\none of its vessels to the value of the vessel plus its then-pending freight. Id. §\\n\\n30505(a). Importantly here, to invoke the Act’s protection, the shipowner must\\n\\nbring a limitation-of-liability action in federal court “within 6 months after a\\n\\nclaimant gives the owner written notice of a claim.” Id. § 30511(a). If the owner\\n\\nmeets the six-month statutory deadline, and then creates a qualifying limitation\\n\\n“fund,” all related lawsuits against the owner “shall cease,” leaving the claimants\\n\\nto pursue their rights in the limitation proceeding. Id. § 30511.\\n\\n In connection with a large bridge-construction project in Florida, Orion\\n\\nMarine Construction used four barges to drive piles into the seabed. After\\n\\nnumerous local residents complained that their homes had been damaged by\\n\\nvibrations caused by the barges’ pile-driving activities, Orion filed a limitation\\n\\naction under the Act. Claimants Mark and Christine Dawson moved to dismiss\\n\\nOrion’s suit, arguing that Orion had received adequate notice of the claims against\\n\\nit more than six months before it filed, that the action was therefore time-barred,\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 3 of 33\\n\\n\\nand, accordingly, that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The\\n\\ndistrict court agreed and granted the Dawsons’ motion to dismiss. We reverse.\\n\\n This appeal presents several interesting and important questions about the\\n\\nmeaning and operation of the Act:\\n\\n First, does § 30511(a)’s six-month filing deadline erect a jurisdictional\\n\\nbarrier to suit, as the Dawsons contend and the district court concluded? We hold\\n\\nthat it does not, and that it is instead (like most timely-filing requirements) a non-\\n\\njurisdictional claim-processing rule.\\n\\n Second, what constitutes “written notice of a claim” within the meaning of\\n\\n§ 30511(a)? We hold that in order to trigger the six-month filing period, a\\n\\nclaimant (not someone else) must provide the shipowner or its agent (not someone\\n\\nelse) with written (not oral) notice that reveals a “reasonable possibility” that his\\n\\nclaim will exceed the value of the vessel(s) at issue.\\n\\n Third, does a shipowner incur a duty to investigate known or potential\\n\\nclaims immediately upon receipt of a claimant’s notice, as the district court\\n\\nconcluded? We hold that it does not, and that the duty to investigate arises only if\\n\\nthe notice reveals the required “reasonable possibility.”\\n\\n Finally, did Orion receive the statutorily required written notice—revealing\\n\\na reasonable possibility of claims that would exceed the value of its barges—more\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 4 of 33\\n\\n\\nthan six months before it filed its limitation action? We hold that it did not, and,\\n\\naccordingly, that its suit was timely filed.\\n\\n I\\n\\n A\\n\\n The pertinent facts here are undisputed. In 2011, Orion―a company\\n\\nspecializing in marine construction―contracted with the Florida Department of\\n\\nTransportation (FDOT) to rebuild the Pinellas Bayway Bridge in Pinellas County,\\n\\nFlorida. As part of the project, Orion’s barges were used to drive concrete piles\\n\\ninto the bay floor. Hundreds of local residents complained that the vibrations\\n\\ncreated by Orion’s pile-driving damaged their surrounding properties, and 247 of\\n\\nthem eventually filed formal claims in the limitation action that gave rise to this\\n\\nappeal.\\n\\n Early on, though, the claims trickled in slowly. Between March 2012 and\\n\\nJune 2014, only nine residents lodged complaints—typically alleging cracks in\\n\\ntheir homes, patios, and driveways, or leaks in their pools—with either Orion,\\n\\nFDOT, or Orion’s third-party administrator, FARA Insurance. We focus here on\\n\\nthese first nine claimants because they (alone among the 247) made their\\n\\ncomplaints before November 11, 2014—and thus, critically, more than six months\\n\\nbefore Orion filed suit on May 11, 2015.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 5 of 33\\n\\n\\n In response to a few of these early complaints, Orion dispatched an\\n\\ninvestigator to assess the alleged damage. Some of the cracks that he observed, he\\n\\nreported, were “old,” and others were “minor” and “cosmetic.” As for one of the\\n\\nreported pool leaks, he found that it was “just a crack in a PVC pipe.” Orion\\n\\ninstalled vibration monitors at two residents’ homes; the numbers came back “low”\\n\\nat one and “very, very low” at the other.\\n\\n According to Orion, around December 2014 or January 2015 it began to\\n\\nreceive property-damage claims “in bulk” from a public adjuster, beginning with\\n\\n11 additional complaints during those two months alone. This flood of new\\n\\nclaims, Orion says, prompted it to file its limitation action on May 11, 2015.\\n\\n B\\n\\n Mark and Christine Dawson—who lodged one of the original nine\\n\\ncomplaints—moved to dismiss Orion’s action on the ground that it was untimely\\n\\nand, therefore, that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Orion’s\\n\\naction was time-barred, they asserted, because Orion had received “written notice\\n\\nof a claim” within the meaning of 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a) prior to November 11,\\n\\n2014―and thus earlier than the statutorily specified six-months mark before it\\n\\nfiled. Orion responded that none of the nine original claims provided it with\\n\\nproper notice under the Act because (1) a number of the complaints were not\\n\\n“written,” as the Act requires, and (2) in any event, the complaints failed to reveal\\n\\n\\n 5\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 6 of 33\\n\\n\\na “reasonable possibility” that the claims would exceed the aggregate value of the\\n\\nfour vessels used during the bridge construction.\\n\\n Because it “lacked sufficient factual information” about which of the\\n\\noriginal nine claims were made when, to whom, and in what form, the district court\\n\\ndenied the Dawsons’ motion without prejudice and ordered the parties to conduct\\n\\nlimited discovery on the timeliness issue. Discovery revealed a hodge-podge of\\n\\nformal and informal oral and written complaints, which were submitted to various\\n\\nemployees at Orion, FDOT, and FARA. When FDOT received complaints, it\\n\\nmemorialized them in written summaries or emails, which it then forwarded to\\n\\nOrion. FARA typically responded to the complaints that it received by\\n\\nacknowledging them, disclaiming any assumption of coverage, advising that\\n\\nconstruction was ongoing, requesting copies of—or that the claimant maintain\\n\\nrecords of—photos and repair quotes, and agreeing to investigate further. In an\\n\\neffort to impose some order—and to facilitate our own analysis—we will group the\\n\\ncomplaints into the following categories: (a) oral complaints that were (i) made to\\n\\nand memorialized in writing by Orion or (ii) made to and memorialized in writing\\n\\nby FARA or FDOT and then forwarded to Orion; and (b) written complaints that\\n\\nwere (i) made to FARA and then forwarded to Orion or (ii) made to FDOT and\\n\\nthen forwarded to Orion.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 6\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 7 of 33\\n\\n\\n Based on the information obtained during discovery, Orion emphasized that\\n\\nnone of the nine original claimants had provided “written notice” to it and that only\\n\\nfour had provided written notice to anyone—two to FDOT and two to FARA.\\n\\nMoreover, Orion said, none of the nine presented specific damage computations (in\\n\\nany form) before November 11, 2014. Estimates that Orion received after the\\n\\ncompletion of the bridge revealed the total amount of claimed damages by written\\n\\nnotice to be $164,901.10 and the total from all pre-November 11, 2014 notices\\n\\n(both oral and written) to be $330,046.22.1 Because neither number exceeds the\\n\\naggregate value of the four barges used during the\\n\\nconstruction―$1,258,217.00―Orion contended that the nine original claimants’\\n\\nnotices didn’t start the six-month clock on its obligation to file a limitation action.\\n\\nRather, Orion reiterated, “[i]t was not until a public adjuster began signing up\\n\\nclaimants in droves in December 2014 . . . that [it] was reasonably on notice the\\n\\nclaims may exceed the value of its vessels.” Accordingly, Orion argued, its May\\n\\n11, 2015 filing fell comfortably within the six-month period prescribed by the Act.\\n\\n C\\n\\n Following discovery, the Dawsons renewed their motion to dismiss,\\n\\nreiterating that because Orion’s action was untimely under § 30511(a), the district\\n\\n\\n\\n1\\n Orion explained that because two of the claimants never filed claims in the limitation action or\\nmade specific demands, their estimated damages remain unknown.\\n\\n 7\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 8 of 33\\n\\n\\ncourt lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the case. The district court granted\\n\\nthe motion and dismissed Orion’s complaint, concluding that “Orion was aware or\\n\\nshould have been aware that claims against it would likely exceed the value of the\\n\\nvessel[s] . . . certainly no later than November 11, 2014,” and, accordingly, that its\\n\\nlimitation action filed on May 11, 2015 was “untimely and must be dismissed for\\n\\nlack of jurisdiction.”\\n\\n In so holding, the district court admitted that it was “[w]ithout any case law\\n\\ndirectly analogous to the case at hand” and, accordingly, that it had to “extrapolate\\n\\nfrom the available precedent to determine whether the nine [original] complaints\\n\\nconstituted notice.” In so doing, it considered all nine pre-November 11, 2014\\n\\nnotices “in the aggregate” and the sufficiency of those communications “as a\\n\\nwhole.” Significantly, as to the form of notice, the district court concluded “that\\n\\nboth the written complaints Orion received directly from the [c]laimants or by\\n\\nforward from the FDOT, and the memorialized oral complaints Orion received\\n\\n[either directly or from FDOT or FARA] constitute ‘written’ notice under the Act.”\\n\\nThe district court further reasoned that the complaints that Orion received before\\n\\nNovember 11, 2014 triggered a duty—which it found Orion breached—to\\n\\ninvestigate any “potential” additional claims that might be asserted by owners of\\n\\nother properties in the surrounding area.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 9 of 33\\n\\n\\n Orion timely appealed to this Court, arguing that the district court erred in\\n\\nconcluding (1) that § 30511(a)’s six-month filing requirement is jurisdictional and\\n\\n(2) that the nine original claimants provided adequate notice under the Act. In\\n\\nsupport of the latter contention, Orion argued that the district court erred by\\n\\nholding (a) that even oral complaints, if later memorialized, satisfy the Act’s\\n\\n“written notice” requirement, (b) that the nine pre-November 11, 2014 notices\\n\\nidentified “limitable” claims even though the record revealed no reasonable\\n\\npossibility that the alleged damages (no matter how measured) would exceed the\\n\\nvalue of the barges used during construction, and (c) that Orion was obligated to\\n\\ninvestigate the possibility of additional claims immediately upon receipt of the\\n\\ninitial complaints.\\n\\n We consider those issues in turn.\\n\\n II\\n\\n We begin, as we must, with jurisdiction. A number of courts—including at\\n\\nleast two of our sister circuits—have held, as the district court did here, that\\n\\n§ 30511(a)’s six-month time bar constitutes a jurisdictional limitation. See, e.g., In\\n\\nre Eckstein Marine Serv., L.L.C., 672 F.3d 310, 315 (5th Cir. 2012); Cincinnati\\n\\nGas & Elec. Co. v. Abel, 533 F.2d 1001, 1003 (6th Cir. 1976). We disagree.\\n\\n Not long ago, in Secretary v. Preston, 873 F.3d 877 (11th Cir. 2017), we had\\n\\noccasion to survey the Supreme Court’s recent precedent outlining the distinction\\n\\n\\n 9\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 10 of 33\\n\\n\\nbetween true jurisdictional limitations and non-jurisdictional “claim-processing”\\n\\nrules—and, in particular, concerning the jurisdictional-ness of statutory time bars.\\n\\nSee id. at 881–82. What we said there—about ERISA’s six-year statute of\\n\\nrepose—applies here pretty much foursquare. As a general matter, we observed\\n\\nthat in recent years, “the Supreme Court has set out to impose some discipline on\\n\\nthe previously slippery use of the term ‘jurisdictional.’” Id. at 881. “In so doing,”\\n\\nwe recounted, “the Court has emphasized—repeatedly—that statutory limitation\\n\\nperiods and other filing deadlines ‘ordinarily are not jurisdictional’ and that a\\n\\nparticular time bar should be treated as jurisdictional ‘only if Congress has clearly\\n\\nstated that it is.’” Id. (quoting Musacchio v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 709, 716–17\\n\\n(2016)). Establishing the required clear statement, we explained, is a tall task—a\\n\\nparty must “demonstrat[e] that ‘traditional tools of statutory construction . . .\\n\\nplainly show that Congress imbued a procedural bar with jurisdictional\\n\\nconsequences.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. 1625,\\n\\n1632 (2015)).\\n\\n More particularly, the considerations that we emphasized in Preston in\\n\\nconcluding that ERISA’s statute of repose is not jurisdictional lead us to the same\\n\\nconclusion about § 30511(a). First, we observed that the language of the provision\\n\\nthere at issue “d[id] not ‘speak in jurisdictional terms or refer in any way to the\\n\\njurisdiction of the district courts.’” Id. at 882 (quoting Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp.,\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 11 of 33\\n\\n\\n546 U.S. 500, 515 (2006)). “When,” we said, “a statute ‘speaks only to a claim’s\\n\\ntimeliness, not to a court’s power,’ it should be treated as non-jurisdictional.” Id.\\n\\n(quoting Kwai Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1632). Just so here. Section 30511(a)’s\\n\\nlanguage—“[t]he action must be brought within 6 months”—does not “plainly\\n\\nshow that Congress imbued” the deadline “with jurisdictional consequences.”\\n\\nKwai Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1632. Rather, it “reads like an ordinary, run-of-the-\\n\\nmill statute of limitations, spelling out a litigant’s filing obligations without\\n\\nrestricting a court’s authority.” Id. at 1633 (internal quotation marks and citation\\n\\nomitted). In short, § 30511(a)’s text reveals a filing deadline of the sort that the\\n\\nSupreme Court has consistently called a “quintessential claim-processing rule[].”\\n\\nHenderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S. 428, 435 (2011).\\n\\n Second, and relatedly, we stressed in Preston that Congress’s “use of\\n\\nmandatory language”—there, “No action may be commenced”—does not alone\\n\\nimpart jurisdictional significance. “The Supreme Court,” we noted, “has flatly\\n\\n‘rejected the notion that all mandatory prescriptions, however emphatic, are . . .\\n\\nproperly typed jurisdictional.’” 873 F.3d at 882 (quoting Henderson, 562 U.S. at\\n\\n439). Not even sweeping proscriptions like “no action shall be brought,” Jones v.\\n\\nBock, 549 U.S. 199, 220 (2007), and “shall be forever barred,” Kwai Fun Wong,\\n\\n135 S. Ct. at 1633–38, will do the trick. See Preston, 873 F.3d at 882. Rather, we\\n\\nsummarized, “[u]nder clear Supreme Court precedent, it is only an express\\n\\n\\n 11\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 12 of 33\\n\\n\\nreference to jurisdiction, not firmness more generally, that counts.” Id. Section\\n\\n30511(a)’s mandatory phrasing, therefore—“The action must be brought within 6\\n\\nmonths”—provides no basis for inferring a jurisdictional limitation.\\n\\n Finally, just as in Preston, “[s]tatutory context”—and in particular, the\\n\\nlocation of the time bar within the statute’s architecture—confirms § 30511(a)’s\\n\\n“non-jurisdictional character.” Id. Here, as there, Congress situated the filing\\n\\nperiod among provisions that describe the standards and procedures that govern the\\n\\ncause of action—and (well) away from those that allocate jurisdiction. Congress,\\n\\nthat is, didn’t write the six-month bar into 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1), which gives federal\\n\\ndistrict courts original jurisdiction over “any civil case of admiralty or maritime\\n\\njurisdiction.” Instead, it placed the time limit in Chapter 305 of Title 46, which is\\n\\ntitled “Exoneration and Limitation of Liability” and which prescribes the\\n\\nmechanics of shipowner suits—liability caps, apportionment, personal-injury and\\n\\nwrongful-death actions, etc. (Tellingly, § 30511(a)’s six-month deadline is\\n\\nrepeated in Rule F(1) of the Supplemental Admiralty and Maritime Claims Rules,\\n\\nwhich are located in an addendum to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.) The\\n\\nfact that here—again, just as in Preston—Congress “separat[ed]” the filing\\n\\ndeadline from the jurisdictional grant fortifies our determination that § 30511(a)’s\\n\\nsix-month “time bar is not jurisdictional.” Preston, 873 F.3d at 882 (quoting Kwai\\n\\nFun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1633).\\n\\n\\n 12\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 13 of 33\\n\\n\\n “Because we find no clear textual indication” that § 30511(a)’s six-month\\n\\ntime bar “was intended to limit courts’ subject matter jurisdiction,” id.—because,\\n\\nin short, it does nothing “special, beyond setting an exception-free deadline,” Kwai\\n\\nFun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1632—we hold that the provision is an ordinary non-\\n\\njurisdictional claim-processing rule, and that the district court erred in concluding\\n\\notherwise.2\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n Where, you might ask, does that leave us procedurally? Fair question.\\n\\nGiven the peculiarities of this particular case, the proper course, we think, is to\\n\\nevaluate the merits of the parties’ contentions—about whether the nine original\\n\\n(i.e., pre-November 11, 2014) claimants gave Orion notice sufficient to commence\\n\\n\\n2\\n We are untroubled by the fact that our holding in this respect places us athwart the consensus of\\ncourts to address § 30511(a)’s jurisdictional status. Many of the decisions holding—or\\nassuming, really—that § 30511(a) limits courts’ subject matter jurisdiction predate the Supreme\\nCourt’s recent effort to “bring some discipline” to the use of the term “jurisdictional.”\\nHenderson, 562 U.S. at 435. Moreover, and in any event—and with respect—we think that\\nmany of the § 30511(a) decisions represent the sort of “drive-by jurisdictional rulings,” Reed\\nElsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154, 161 (2010), that the Supreme Court has condemned.\\nSee, e.g., Cincinnati Gas, 533 F.2d at 1003 (relying on a 1939 district court decision for the\\nproposition that if a deadline is a condition precedent then it must be jurisdictional—a\\nmechanical rationale that the Supreme Court has since rejected); Complaint of Tom-Mac, Inc., 76\\nF.3d 678, 682 (5th Cir. 1996) (assuming that § 30511(a)’s predecessor’s filing deadline is\\njurisdictional without elaboration or citation to authority); In re Waterfront License Corp., 231\\nF.R.D. 693, 699 (S.D. Fla. 2005) (same); In re Eckstein, 672 F.3d at 315 & n.11, n.12 (relying on\\nCincinnati Gas, Complaint of Tom-Mac, and In re Waterfront License Corp., as well as an earlier\\nFifth Circuit decision holding the Federal Tort Claims Act’s statute of limitations is\\njurisdictional—a decision that the Supreme Court has since expressly abrogated); In re\\nComplaint of RLB Contracting, Inc., 773 F.3d 596, 601 & n.5, 602 & n.14 (5th Cir. 2014)\\n(relying without analysis on In re Eckstein).\\n\\n\\n\\n 13\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 14 of 33\\n\\n\\n§ 30511(a)’s six-month clock—under a summary-judgment standard. For reasons\\n\\njust explained, despite its label, the Dawsons’ Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss for\\n\\nlack of subject matter jurisdiction is more accurately considered a Rule 12(b)(6)\\n\\nmotion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Because the district court considered\\n\\nmaterials outside the pleadings in deciding the Dawsons’ motion, though—and\\n\\nindeed, affirmatively directed discovery—that motion may properly be converted\\n\\ninto a motion for summary judgment. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(d). Given that (1) the\\n\\nparties here conducted discovery on the timeliness issue, (2) the Dawsons\\n\\nalternatively framed their motion as one for summary judgment and Orion\\n\\nmaintained that it should have been reviewed under a summary-judgment rubric,\\n\\n(3) the parties agree (and have reiterated before us) that there are no disputed\\n\\nmaterial facts, and (4) the parties further agree that the timeliness issue is squarely\\n\\npresented on appeal, we feel confident proceeding to decide the merits under a\\n\\nsummary-judgment standard, reviewing the district court’s decision de novo. Cf.\\n\\nMiller v. Herman, 600 F.3d 726, 731–33 (7th Cir. 2010) (confronting a similar\\n\\n“procedural hiccup” and opting to treat a Rule 12(b)(1) motion as a Rule 12(b)(6)\\n\\nmotion, which was properly converted to, and thus reviewed as, a summary-\\n\\njudgment motion).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 14\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 15 of 33\\n\\n\\n III\\n\\n Our consideration of the merits comprises several issues, which we will\\n\\naddress in turn. First, which of two competing doctrinal tests—which we have\\n\\nacknowledged but have never (until now) had to choose between—governs the\\n\\ndetermination whether a claimant’s notice is sufficient under § 30511(a)? Second,\\n\\nwhat forms and methods of notice qualify as “written notice” within the meaning\\n\\nof the Act? And third, what does it mean for a claimant’s notice to reveal—as we\\n\\nhold it must in order to start the statutory clock and trigger a duty to investigate\\n\\nadditional claims—a “reasonable possibility” that his claim will exceed the value\\n\\nof the shipowner’s vessel(s)?\\n\\n A\\n\\n Because the Act doesn’t define “written notice of a claim,” courts have been\\n\\nleft to formulate tests to determine whether a claimant’s notice suffices under\\n\\n§ 30511(a). Under one, which originated in the Second Circuit’s decision in\\n\\nDoxsee Sea Clam Co. v. Brown, “[n]otice will be sufficient if it informs the vessel\\n\\nowner of an actual or potential claim . . . which may exceed the value of the vessel\\n\\n. . . and is subject to limitation.” 13 F.3d 550, 554 (2d Cir. 1994) (internal citations\\n\\nomitted). The Seventh Circuit has since adopted the Doxsee standard with one\\n\\nimportant refinement—elaborating on the word “may,” that court held that “the\\n\\nwritten notice of a claim must reveal a ‘reasonable possibility’ that the claim made\\n\\n\\n 15\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 16 of 33\\n\\n\\nis one subject to limitation.” In re Complaint of McCarthy Bros. Co./Clark Bridge,\\n\\n83 F.3d 821, 829 (7th Cir. 1996) (citing Complaint of Tom-Mac, 76 F.3d at 683).\\n\\nThe competing test requires only that the claimant’s notice (1) demand a right or\\n\\nsupposed right, (2) blame the vessel owner for any damage or loss, and (3) call on\\n\\nthe vessel owner for anything due. See Rodriguez Moreira v. Lemay, 659 F. Supp.\\n\\n89, 91 (S.D. Fla. 1987).\\n\\n We have twice noted the existence of these two tests―first in Paradise\\n\\nDivers, Inc. v. Upmal, 402 F.3d 1087 (11th Cir. 2005), and then, a year later, in\\n\\nP.G. Charter Boats, Inc. v. Soles, 437 F.3d 1140 (11th Cir. 2006). On both\\n\\noccasions, we found it unnecessary to choose between them. The district court\\n\\nhere did the same thing, concluding that the claimants’ notices satisfied both. But\\n\\nfor reasons that we’ll explain, the distinction between the two standards actually\\n\\nmatters here. Although we have described these two tests as “similar,” Paradise\\n\\nDivers, 402 F.3d at 1090, there is one crucial difference: What we’ll call the\\n\\n“Doxsee/McCarthy test” entails an amount/value element that the “Moreira test”\\n\\ndoes not—namely, it requires that the notice reveal a “reasonable possibility” that\\n\\nthe claim will exceed the value of the offending vessel(s). No one―not even\\n\\nOrion―disputes that the claimants’ notices would meet the Moreira standard.\\n\\nInstead, Orion contends that the claimants’ notices fail the Doxsee/McCarthy test\\n\\nbecause the notices (even considered in the aggregate) failed to convey a\\n\\n\\n 16\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 17 of 33\\n\\n\\nreasonable possibility that the claims’ total value would exceed the value of its\\n\\nbarges.\\n\\n With the lines thus drawn—and because we agree that Orion can’t win under\\n\\nMoreira but has a fighting chance under Doxsee/McCarthy—the time has finally\\n\\ncome for us to decide which standard to apply. The answer, we think, is clear. For\\n\\nstarters, the Doxsee/McCarthy test is the most widely-accepted among our sister\\n\\ncircuits—in addition to the Second and Seventh Circuits, the Fifth has also\\n\\nembraced it, see In re Eckstein, 672 F.3d at 317—and indeed, it has been described\\n\\nas the “most authoritative.” Paradise Divers, 402 F.3d at 1090 (quoting McCarthy\\n\\nBros., 83 F.3d at 829). The Moreira test, by contrast, while perhaps once “found\\n\\nin many district court cases,” id., does not appear to have been adopted by any\\n\\ncircuit court, and generally seems to have fallen into desuetude since Doxsee was\\n\\ndecided.\\n\\n More substantively, the key distinction between the two tests—namely, that\\n\\nDoxsee/McCarthy incorporates an amount/value element (in the form of the\\n\\n“reasonable possibility” showing) that Moreira doesn’t—underscores the\\n\\nsuperiority of the former. Doxsee/McCarthy’s reasonable-possibility requirement\\n\\nserves the six-month limitation period’s purpose by encouraging shipowners to act\\n\\npromptly while at the same time eliminating consideration of small-value cases\\n\\nunlikely to benefit from the Act’s protection. In contrast, by requiring a shipowner\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 18 of 33\\n\\n\\nto initiate limitation proceedings regardless of the amount likely at issue, the\\n\\nMoreira test would (1) “obligate a shipowner to go to the expense of posting\\n\\nsecurity and taking the other steps necessary to commence a limitation proceeding”\\n\\neven when the claims indicate that doing so would be “wholly unnecessary,” (2)\\n\\n“encourage claimants to understate the amount of their damage in the hope that the\\n\\nshipowner would be misled into not filing a timely petition for limitation,” and (3)\\n\\n“serve no purpose other than to clog the courts with unneeded petitions and cause\\n\\ngreat expense to shipowners without in any way benefiting claimants.” Complaint\\n\\nof Morania Barge No. 190, Inc., 690 F.2d 32, 34 (2d Cir. 1982).\\n\\n For all of these reasons, we hold that the Doxsee/McCarthy test is the\\n\\ncontrolling standard for determining the sufficiency of notice under § 30511(a).\\n\\n B\\n\\n That leads us to the question whether claimants’ notices here satisfied the\\n\\nDoxsee/McCarthy standard—which, as we have described it before and adopt it\\n\\ntoday, requires a claimant to give the shipowner written notice that reveals a\\n\\n“reasonable possibility” of a claim that exceeds the value of the vessel(s). See P.G.\\n\\nCharter Boats, 437 F.3d at 1143.\\n\\n Orion argues that claimants’ notices fail this test (1) because some of them\\n\\nwere not “written” at all, as § 30511(a) plainly requires, and (2) because, in any\\n\\nevent, the notices—even including those made orally—“never demonstrated a\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 19 of 33\\n\\n\\nreasonable possibility of a claim exceeding the value of the vessel, and to this day,\\n\\neven added together, Claimants’ filed claims do not.” Br. for Appellant at 21. The\\n\\nDawsons, by contrast, contend that the district court properly determined that the\\n\\npre-November 11, 2014 claims―when considered in the aggregate and including\\n\\nthe oral complaints that were later reduced to writing―provided notice sufficient\\n\\nto allow Orion to evaluate its overall exposure, and thus triggered Orion’s duty to\\n\\ninvestigate and to file suit within six months.\\n\\n 1\\n\\n First things first: Which of the pre-November 11, 2014 complaints qualify as\\n\\n“written notice” within the meaning of the Act? And more particularly, what of\\n\\nthe district court’s conclusion “that both the written complaints Orion received\\n\\ndirectly from the Claimants or by forward from the FDOT, and the memorialized\\n\\noral complaints Orion received [either directly or from FDOT or FARA] constitute\\n\\n‘written’ notice under the Act”? Put simply, in so holding, the district court erred.\\n\\nSection 30511(a) couldn’t be clearer about what we have called its “writing”\\n\\nrequirement. See P.G. Charter Boats, 437 F.3d at 1143. The statute says, in no\\n\\nuncertain terms, that the six-month filing period begins to run when “a claimant\\n\\ngives the owner written notice of a claim.” 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a). Broken down\\n\\ninto its constituent parts, that straightforward provision requires that the claimant\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 19\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 20 of 33\\n\\n\\n(not someone else) give the owner (not someone else) written (not oral) notice of\\n\\nhis claim.\\n\\n As noted earlier, the complaints lodged by the original nine claimants can be\\n\\ngrouped into the following categories: (a) oral complaints that were (i) made to and\\n\\nmemorialized in writing by Orion or (ii) made to and memorialized by FARA or\\n\\nFDOT and then forwarded to Orion; and (b) written complaints that were (i) made\\n\\nto FARA and forwarded to Orion or (ii) made to FDOT and forwarded to Orion.\\n\\nWe will consider each type of complaint in turn.\\n\\n a\\n\\n As an initial matter, we think it clear—contrary to the district court’s\\n\\ndetermination—that the memorialized oral complaints don’t qualify.\\n\\n The complaints that were made orally to Orion and that it later reduced to\\n\\nwriting—those are easy. No reasonable interpretation of § 30511(a)’s text—\\n\\nrequiring that the “claimant give[] the owner written notice”—could include a\\n\\nvessel owner’s own written notes recording a claimant’s oral report. In that\\n\\ncircumstance, no “written notice” has been provided at all—by anyone, to anyone.\\n\\nWhat about the complaints that were made orally to FARA and/or FDOT, which\\n\\nthey then memorialized and forwarded to Orion? Closer, but still no cigar. In that\\n\\ncircumstance, Orion might have received written notice from someone, but it\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 20\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 21 of 33\\n\\n\\ndidn’t receive written notice from a claimant, as § 30511(a) expressly requires. 3\\n\\nThe fact that someone, somewhere has reduced an oral communication to writing\\n\\ndoesn’t transform an invalid oral notice into a valid written notice under the Act.4\\n\\n b\\n\\n What, though, about the written notices provided by the claimants to FARA\\n\\nand/or FDOT, which were then forwarded to Orion? Much closer. The Second\\n\\nCircuit has held that “[i]t is settled that a notice of claim may be received by an\\n\\nagent of the vessel owner,” Doxsee, 13 F.3d at 553, and that seems right to us as a\\n\\nmatter of hornbook agency law. See, e.g., Restatement (Third) of Agency § 5.03\\n\\n\\n\\n3\\n The district court suggested that FDOT was a “potential claimant” by way of the\\nindemnification provision in Orion’s contract—and therefore, that the oral claims memorialized\\nby FDOT could constitute written notice by a claimant. That is incorrect. The Supreme Court\\nhas made clear that contracts entered into by vessel owners are personal and not subject to the\\nAct. See, e.g., Am. Car & Foundry Co. v. Brassert, 289 U.S. 261, 264 (1933); Richardson v.\\nHarmon, 222 U.S. 96, 106 (1911). Accordingly, no claim made by FDOT against Orion\\npursuant to their contract would be subject to limitation, and FDOT could never be a “claimant”\\nin a limitation action.\\n4\\n In support of its conclusion that the memorialized oral complaints should be considered, the\\ndistrict court cited only the magistrate’s report and recommendation in Paradise Divers for the\\nproposition that “although a notice of claim must obviously be in writing, the notice need not\\ntake any particular form.” Doc. 634 at 16 (quoting In re Paradise Divers, Inc., No. 03-10021\\nCIV, 2003 WL 25731109, at *4 (S.D. Fla. Nov. 9, 2003)). But that statement doesn’t support the\\ndistrict court’s position. Rather, the Paradise Divers R&R sought only to clarify what other\\ncircuits have expressly held―that informal written notice, such as a letter sent by a claimant or\\nhis attorney, will suffice under the Act in lieu of a formal complaint. See, e.g., RLB Contracting,\\n773 F.3d at 603; Doxsee, 13 F.3d at 554. The Act’s plain text still requires that the claimant\\nprovide written notice to the owner. 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a).\\n The district court also emphasized that Orion acted on the memorialized oral\\ncomplaints—and thus, the theory presumably goes, had actual knowledge of them. But even\\nactual knowledge of alleged damage is no substitute for the written notice required by the Act.\\nSee, e.g., Moreira, 659 F. Supp. at 91.\\n\\n 21\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 22 of 33\\n\\n\\n(Am. Law Inst. 2006) (observing that, as a general rule, “[f]or purposes of a\\n\\nprincipal’s legal relations with a third party, notice of a fact that an agent knows or\\n\\nhas reason to know is imputed to the principal if knowledge of the fact is material\\n\\nto the agent’s duties to the principal”). And for that matter, even Orion admits that\\n\\n“written notice provided to an agent might be imputed to the principal.” Reply Br.\\n\\nfor Appellant at 6. So the sufficiency of the written notices sent to FARA and/or\\n\\nFDOT hinges on whether they were Orion’s agents.\\n\\n It seems reasonably clear to us—and no one here disputes—that FARA was\\n\\nOrion’s agent for claims-processing purposes. FARA had at the very least\\n\\napparent―and probably even actual―authority to act on Orion’s behalf; indeed, it\\n\\nwas hired specifically to assist Orion with the adjustment of claims. See\\n\\nRestatement (Third) of Agency §§ 3.01, 3.03 (describing actual and apparent\\n\\nauthority). Accordingly, any claimant who gave written notice to FARA, as\\n\\nOrion’s agent, satisfied § 30511(a)’s writing requirement.\\n\\n Those who gave written notice only to FDOT (which the claimants describe\\n\\nas Orion’s “project partner”) stand on different footing. So far as we can tell, the\\n\\nrecord contains no evidence that Orion—as the would-be principal—made any\\n\\n“manifestation” that would have clothed FDOT with either actual or apparent\\n\\nauthority to accept claim notices on Orion’s behalf. See id. §§ 3.01, 3.03\\n\\n(emphasizing that the “manifestation” that gives rise to an agent’s authority must\\n\\n\\n 22\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 23 of 33\\n\\n\\nemanate from the principal). Perhaps not surprisingly, then, the record\\n\\ndemonstrates that when FDOT received complaints, it simply—and consistently—\\n\\nredirected them to Orion rather than attempting to process them. 5 Because FDOT\\n\\n(unlike FARA) had no authority to act as Orion’s agent for claims-processing\\n\\npurposes, written notice provided to FDOT didn’t meet § 30511(a)’s written-\\n\\nnotice-to-owner requirement.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n So to sum up, the district court erred in holding that all of the claims—oral\\n\\nand written, and to whomever communicated—constituted “written notice” to the\\n\\n“owner” under § 30511(a). Complaints delivered orally and later reduced to\\n\\nwriting (by anyone) don’t qualify. Nor do the written complaints submitted to\\n\\nFDOT, which had no authority to act as Orion’s claims-processing agent. Only the\\n\\nwritten complaints submitted in writing to Orion—either directly or through\\n\\nFARA, its agent—satisfy § 30511(a)’s “written notice” requirement.\\n\\n 2\\n\\n Having said that, even if we were to consider―as the district court\\n\\nerroneously did―the oral and written complaints lodged by all nine of the pre-\\n\\n\\n5\\n In fairness, the record does reveal one instance in which an FDOT employee sent a copy of a\\nproperty-damage form to a claimant with instructions that the claimant complete the form and\\ncopy her on the submission “so that [she could] make sure Orion receive[d] the documentation.”\\nDispositively, though, that “manifestation”—assuming it was one—wasn’t made by Orion,\\nwhich (as explained in text) agency law requires in order to establish apparent authority.\\n\\n 23\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 24 of 33\\n\\n\\nNovember 11, 2014 claimants, their notices still fail the Doxsee/McCarthy test\\n\\nbecause they don’t reveal a “reasonable possibility” that the claims, even\\n\\nconsidered (as the district court put it) “in the aggregate,” would exceed the value\\n\\nof Orion’s barges.6 Here’s why.\\n\\n a\\n\\n It is undisputed that the four Orion barges involved in the pile-driving were\\n\\nvalued, collectively, at no less than $1,258,217.00. The question, then, is whether\\n\\nthe nine original claimants’ notices revealed a reasonable possibility that their\\n\\nclaims, collectively, would exceed that amount. It is clear to us that they didn’t.\\n\\n Let’s first review the sort of damage that the claimants alleged. In general,\\n\\nthe homeowners complained that Orion’s pile-driving had caused (1) external\\n\\ncracks in their homes’ walls, chimneys, porches, and driveways, (2) internal cracks\\n\\n\\n\\n6\\n Although there is nothing in the Act explicitly stating that the value of claims should be\\nconsidered cumulatively, we will assume for present purposes that it is permissible to do so, as\\nno one here seems to dispute that we may aggregate the value both of individual property\\nowners’ claims and of Orion’s four barges for purposes of determining whether the claimants’\\nnotices reveal the required “reasonable possibility.” We do note a distinction between this case\\nand the Fifth Circuit’s decision in RLB Contracting, on which the district court here relied. In\\nparticular, the district court pointed to the Fifth Circuit’s statement that § 30511(a)’s “statutory\\ntext does not foreclose the possibility of aggregate notice; it only requires the claimant to give\\n‘the owner written notice,’ not a written notice.” 773 F.3d at 603. To be clear, though, RLB\\nContracting was different—the court there sanctioned aggregating multiple notices from a single\\nclaimant pertaining to a single incident, not (as here) multiple notices from multiple claimants\\narising out of multiple incidents. And while the Fifth Circuit was correct that the statute does not\\nrequire a written notice, it does require “written notice of a claim.” 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a)\\n(emphasis added). Even so, we needn’t tarry on the aggregate-notice issue here, because, as we\\nexplain in text, even if we consider all nine of the original claimants’ notices together, they don’t\\nreveal a reasonable possibility that the claims would exceed the value of Orion’s four barges.\\n 24\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 25 of 33\\n\\n\\nin drywall and around windows, ceilings, and fireplaces, and (3) leaks in their\\n\\nswimming pools and related water lines. The most extensive—and arguably most\\n\\nserious—complaints came from Mary White. After lodging a general complaint\\n\\nabout damage in May 2012, she filed a more detailed grievance a year later.\\n\\nThere, she said that her home had “sustained substantial damage from the work\\n\\nthat is being done building the new Byway bridge.” In particular, she complained\\n\\nabout “cracking in every room in [her] home (including around the windows and\\n\\nceilings, and . . . along [her] marble fireplace),” “cracks in [her] new cement\\n\\ndriveway,” “dropped pavers in [her] patio,” “a leak in [her] swimming pool,” and\\n\\n“a wet spot in [her] downstairs room.” Six months thereafter, White followed up,\\n\\nalleging that she “had additional cracks in all [her] rooms.”\\n\\n Another homeowner, Robert Orsi, lodged a series of complaints, the most\\n\\ndescriptive of which alleged damage to his “chimney and . . . front entrance,”\\n\\n“cracks . . . above [his] door [that] made opening the door all the way difficult,”\\n\\nand cracks “at the top of [his] stairs” that he feared suggested “issues with the\\n\\nconcrete header over the doorway.” Another couple, Mark and Christine\\n\\nDawson—the appellees here—repeatedly complained about “damage to [their]\\n\\nswimming pool”—in particular, about “damage to [the] lines to [the] swimming\\n\\npool caused by pile driving vibration.” They also alleged, more vaguely, that “[i]n\\n\\naddition to the pool leaks,” they had “a list of other issues that have happened, and\\n\\n\\n 25\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 26 of 33\\n\\n\\ncontinue to happen.” The other homeowners’ complaints were similar, albeit less\\n\\ndetailed—“leak in [my] pool,” “cracking on [my] ceiling,” “cracks in [my] home,”\\n\\n“a lot of damage,” etc.\\n\\n As already noted, in response to several of the early complaints, Orion sent\\n\\none of its agents to investigate. He determined that the alleged damage to White’s\\n\\nhome was “minor” and “cosmetic,” that the cracks in Orsi’s house were “old” and\\n\\nthat the damage was “very minor cosmetic stuff,” and that the Dawsons’ pool leak\\n\\nwas “just a crack in a PVC pipe.” Orion installed vibration monitors at White’s\\n\\nand Orsi’s homes; the numbers registered “low” at Orsi’s and “very, very low” at\\n\\nWhite’s.\\n\\n The question, then, is whether these notices revealed a reasonable possibility\\n\\nthat the claims—in the aggregate, we have said we will assume—would exceed the\\n\\nbarges’ $1,258,217.00 value. We think it clear that they didn’t. In explaining why\\n\\nnot, it will be useful to compare this case with two recent Fifth Circuit decisions\\n\\nthat have unpacked the reasonable-possibility standard. In Eckstein, a shipowner\\n\\ncontended that a claimant’s state-court complaint failed to reveal a reasonable\\n\\npossibility that his claim would exceed a vessel’s $750,000 value. In disagreeing,\\n\\nthe Fifth Circuit emphasized the seriousness of the claimant’s physical injuries,\\n\\nsustained when he became “entangled in a line and was pulled into a mooring bit.”\\n\\n672 F.3d at 313. The claimant’s injuries were not only gruesome—according to\\n\\n\\n 26\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 27 of 33\\n\\n\\neyewitness testimony, his “foot was hanging off of his leg at . . . a 90 degree angle”\\n\\nand there was “blood everywhere”—but also “permanent and catastrophic.” Id. at\\n\\n317–18. He required “multiple surgeries including debridement, the insertion of\\n\\nhardware to treat his bone fractures, and a skin graft.” Id. at 318. In his complaint,\\n\\nhe sought “compensation for the remainder of his lifetime, including past loss of\\n\\nearning, future loss of earning capacity, past and future disability, past and future\\n\\ndisfigurement, past and future medical and hospital expenses, past and future pain\\n\\nand mental anguish, and maintenance and c[u]re.” Id. at 317. The Fifth Circuit\\n\\nheld that the claimant’s complaint “alleging catastrophic and permanent injuries\\n\\nraised at least a reasonable possibility that his claim might exceed” the ship’s\\n\\n$750,000 value and, accordingly, that “it was [the shipowner’s] responsibility to\\n\\nconduct an investigation, and to file a limitation action within six months.” Id. at\\n\\n319.\\n\\n The Fifth Circuit faced the reasonable-possibility issue again in RLB\\n\\nContracting. In that case, a fishing boat carrying a family had collided with a\\n\\nship’s floating dredge pipe; “[a]ll occupants of the fishing boat were thrown\\n\\noverboard, suffering various physical injuries, and [a child] was killed.” 773 F.3d\\n\\nat 599. Following Eckstein, the court held that a series of letters sent by the\\n\\nfamily’s lawyer—including one emphasizing “the nature of the injuries, bystander\\n\\nclaims, graphic photos, [and] the PTSD claims”—revealed a reasonable possibility\\n\\n\\n 27\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 28 of 33\\n\\n\\nof a claim exceeding the vessel’s $750,000 value. Id. at 600. Put simply, the Fifth\\n\\nCircuit concluded, the shipowner “should have realized that an action involving the\\n\\ndeath of a child would easily exceed $750,000 in potential damages.” Id. at 606.\\n\\n Needless to say, the nature and severity of the property damage alleged here\\n\\npale in comparison to the claims for “permanent and catastrophic” personal injuries\\n\\nin Eckstein and wrongful death in RLB Contracting. And on the other side of the\\n\\nledger, the value of the vessels here—more than $1.2 million—is significantly\\n\\nhigher than in those cases. Even considering the notices provided by all nine of the\\n\\noriginal claimants, we hold that they failed to reveal a reasonable possibility of\\n\\nclaims exceeding the value of Orion’s four barges.\\n\\n b\\n\\n In concluding otherwise, the district court relied not on an empirical (or even\\n\\nanecdotal) valuation of the pre-November 11, 2014 claims—or a comparison of\\n\\nthose claims with the acknowledged value of Orion’s barges—but rather on twin\\n\\ndeterminations (1) that Orion had a duty to investigate both known and potential\\n\\nclaims “immediately” upon receiving the homeowners’ notices and (2) that it failed\\n\\nto do so. The key passage of the district court’s opinion:\\n\\n Had Orion fulfilled its obligation to investigate immediately upon\\n knowing of the claims and the uncertainty of their value or if it had\\n simply filed its petition to limit liability in the face of this uncertainty,\\n it would have either discovered that its losses were much greater than\\n the specific claims about which it knew or it would have limited its\\n liability in any event from all claims known or unknown occasioned\\n 28\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 29 of 33\\n\\n\\n by the alleged injury caused by its pile-driving activity. Instead Orion\\n did nothing, and that inaction is fatal to its Complaint to limit liability.\\n\\nDoc. 634 at 23. In so concluding, the district court erred, both as a matter of law\\n\\nand as a matter of undisputed fact.\\n\\n First, as to the law: The district court stated (and restated) that Orion had a\\n\\nlegal duty to investigate known and potential property-damage claims\\n\\n“immediately” upon learning of them. For support, the court quoted the Fifth\\n\\nCircuit’s decision in RLB Contracting, which in turn quoted that court’s earlier\\n\\ndecision in Eckstein:\\n\\n The purpose of the reasonable possibility standard is to place the\\n burden of investigating potential claims on the vessel owner:\\n\\n The Limitation Act provides generous statutory\\n protection to the vessel owners who reap all of its\\n benefits. When there is uncertainty as to whether a claim\\n will exceed the vessel’s value, the reasonable possibility\\n standard places the risk and the burdens associated with\\n that risk on the owner. In other words, if doubt exists as\\n to the total amount of the claims or as to whether they\\n will exceed the value of the ship the owner will not be\\n excused from satisfying the statutory time bar since he\\n may institute a limitation proceeding even when the total\\n amount claimed is uncertain.\\n\\nDoc. 634 at 20 (quoting RLB Contracting, 773 F.3d at 602 (quoting Eckstein, 672\\n\\nF.3d at 317–18)) (additional internal quotation marks and citations omitted).\\n\\n The district court, though, prematurely cut short its quotation from RLB\\n\\nContracting. Just two sentences later—and again invoking its earlier decision in\\n\\n\\n 29\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 30 of 33\\n\\n\\nEckstein—the Fifth Circuit clearly explained when a shipowner’s duty to\\n\\ninvestigate arises: “‘[O]nce a reasonable possibility has been raised, it becomes\\n\\nthe vessel owner’s responsibility to initiate a prompt investigation and determine\\n\\nwhether to file a limitation action.’” 773 F.3d at 603 (quoting Eckstein, 672 F.3d\\n\\nat 317) (emphasis added). RLB does not say―as the district court here phrased\\n\\nit―that the shipowner has an “obligation to investigate immediately upon knowing\\n\\nof the claims.” And in fact, Eckstein, which RLB followed, flatly rejects the\\n\\ndistrict court’s investigate-immediately-upon-receipt position: “The Limitation\\n\\nAct’s six-month timeline does not automatically begin to run when a vessel owner\\n\\nlearns a claimant has filed a lawsuit. It is triggered only if and when the written\\n\\nnotice reveals a ‘reasonable possibility’ that the claim will exceed the value of the\\n\\nvessel, and therefore that the vessel owner might benefit from the Limitation Act’s\\n\\nprotection.” 672 F.3d at 317 (emphasis added).\\n\\n We think that the Fifth Circuit has it exactly right. While we agree with the\\n\\ndistrict court that a claimant’s notice needn’t include a specific demand for\\n\\ndamages, and while it’s true that the vessel owner bears the burden of\\n\\n“uncertainty” and “doubt” as to the amount of alleged damages, it remains the case\\n\\nthat the claimant’s notice must reveal a reasonable possibility that the claims may\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 30\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 31 of 33\\n\\n\\nexceed the offending vessel’s value. It is at that point—but not before—that the\\n\\nshipowner’s duty to investigate arises.7\\n\\n Because Orion’s duty to investigate didn’t arise “automatically” or\\n\\n“immediately” upon the filing of claims, it didn’t violate that duty in the way the\\n\\ndistrict court concluded. Indeed, and to the contrary, because (for reasons already\\n\\nexplained) the claimants’ notices here didn’t reveal a reasonable possibility of\\n\\nclaims exceeding $1,258,217.00, Orion’s duty to investigate never materialized—\\n\\nmeaning, by definition, that it couldn’t have violated that duty, as the district court\\n\\nheld.\\n\\n Now, briefly, as to the facts: It simply isn’t accurate, as the district court\\n\\nsaid, that “Orion did nothing.” Doc. 634 at 23. As already explained, the\\n\\nundisputed facts demonstrate that, in response to the first several complaints, Orion\\n\\nsent one of its agents to investigate. That agent visited the White, Orsi, and\\n\\nDawson residences, observed the alleged damage, and conducted vibration\\n\\nmonitoring. He concluded that the problems were either “old,” “minor,” or\\n\\n“cosmetic”—or perhaps all three—and that the vibration measurements ranged\\n\\n\\n7\\n And to be clear, the Fifth Circuit is hardly alone in concluding that a shipowner’s duty to\\ninvestigate does not arise “automatically” or “immediately,” but rather only if and when a\\nclaimant’s notice reveals a reasonable possibility of a claim that exceeds the vessel’s value. The\\nSecond and Seventh Circuits have said the same thing, see McCarthy, 83 F.3d at 829 (“[T]he\\nwritten notice of claim must reveal a ‘reasonable possibility’ that the claim made is one subject\\nto limitation.” (emphasis added)); Doxsee, 13 F.3d at 554 (“Notice will be sufficient if it informs\\nthe vessel owner of an actual or potential claim . . . which may exceed the value of the vessel . . .\\nand is subject to limitation.” (emphasis added)).\\n 31\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 32 of 33\\n\\n\\nfrom “low” to “very, very low.” Thus, faced with claims of uncertain value—and\\n\\neven without concluding that the notices underlying those claims revealed the\\n\\nrequisite “reasonable possibility”—Orion investigated and determined (in its\\n\\nopinion, with certainty) that the alleged damage was minor.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n In sum, the notices that Orion had received prior to November 11, 2014\\n\\ndidn’t reveal a reasonable possibility that the residents’ claims would exceed the\\n\\nvalue of its four barges, and Orion’s preliminary investigation confirmed that\\n\\nconclusion. Had Orion bulled ahead with a limitation action at that point—as the\\n\\ndistrict court concluded the law required—it would have “serve[d] no purpose\\n\\nother than to clog the courts with [an] unneeded petition[].” Morania Barge, 690\\n\\nF.2d at 34.\\n\\n IV\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, we hold as follows:\\n\\n 1. The six-month filing deadline specified by 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a) is a\\n\\nnon-jurisdictional claim-processing rule, and a shipowner’s failure to meet it does\\n\\nnot deprive the district court of subject matter jurisdiction but rather provides a\\n\\nbasis on which to dismiss the owner’s limitation action on the merits.\\n\\n 2. In order to trigger § 30511(a)’s six-month filing period, a claimant\\n\\n(not someone else) must provide the shipowner or its agent (not someone else)\\n\\n\\n 32\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 33 of 33\\n\\n\\nwith a written (not oral) notice that reveals a “reasonable possibility” of a claim\\n\\nthat will exceed the value of the vessel(s) at issue.\\n\\n 3. A shipowner’s duty to investigate known or potential claims does not\\n\\narise immediately upon receipt of a claimant’s notice, but only if the notice reveals\\n\\na reasonable possibility that the underlying claim exceeds the value of the\\n\\nvessel(s).\\n\\n 4. The notices provided by the first nine claimants here—i.e., those who\\n\\nlodged complaints before November 11, 2014—failed to reveal the required\\n\\nreasonable possibility, and thus neither started the six-month clock nor obligated\\n\\nOrion to investigate.\\n\\n REVERSED AND REMANDED.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 33\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4378614/\", \"author_raw\": \"NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"MARCUS"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"NEWSOM"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"ANDERSON"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4601361/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: ORION MARINE CONSTRUCTION, INC., as Owner of Barges M-1801, M-1802, M-1701 and M-1402, Their Engines, Tackle, Appurtenances, Equipment, Etc., in a Cause of Exoneration From or Limitation of Liability, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. Elizabeth CARROLL, Defendant, Daniel F. Bowen, Et Al., Claimants, Mark Dawson, Christine M. Dawson, Claimants - Appellees.\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-20\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 1 of 33\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n ________________________\n\n No. 17-11961\n ________________________\n\n D.C. Docket No. 8:15-cv-01136-MSS-TGW\n\nORION MARINE CONSTRUCTION, INC.,\nas owner of Barges M-1801, M-1802,\nM-1701 and M-1402, their engines, tackle,\nappurtenances, equipment, etc., in a cause\nof exoneration from or limitation of liability,\n\n Plaintiff - Appellant,\n\n versus\n\nELIZABETH CARROLL,\n\n Defendant,\n\nDANIEL F. BOWEN, et al.,\n\n Claimants,\n\nMARK DAWSON,\nCHRISTINE M. DAWSON,\n Claimants - Appellees.\n ________________________\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the Middle District of Florida\n ________________________\n\n (March 20, 2019)\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 2 of 33\n\n\nBefore MARCUS, NEWSOM, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.\n\nNEWSOM, Circuit Judge:\n\n This admiralty appeal requires us to navigate uncharted waters in order to\n\ndetermine what constitutes sufficient notice of a claim under the Shipowner’s\n\nLimitation of Liability Act, 46 U.S.C. §§ 30501, et seq. The Act establishes a\n\nprocedure by which a shipowner can limit its liability for certain claims involving\n\none of its vessels to the value of the vessel plus its then-pending freight. Id. §\n\n30505(a). Importantly here, to invoke the Act’s protection, the shipowner must\n\nbring a limitation-of-liability action in federal court “within 6 months after a\n\nclaimant gives the owner written notice of a claim.” Id. § 30511(a). If the owner\n\nmeets the six-month statutory deadline, and then creates a qualifying limitation\n\n“fund,” all related lawsuits against the owner “shall cease,” leaving the claimants\n\nto pursue their rights in the limitation proceeding. Id. § 30511.\n\n In connection with a large bridge-construction project in Florida, Orion\n\nMarine Construction used four barges to drive piles into the seabed. After\n\nnumerous local residents complained that their homes had been damaged by\n\nvibrations caused by the barges’ pile-driving activities, Orion filed a limitation\n\naction under the Act. Claimants Mark and Christine Dawson moved to dismiss\n\nOrion’s suit, arguing that Orion had received adequate notice of the claims against\n\nit more than six months before it filed, that the action was therefore time-barred,\n\n\n 2\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 3 of 33\n\n\nand, accordingly, that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The\n\ndistrict court agreed and granted the Dawsons’ motion to dismiss. We reverse.\n\n This appeal presents several interesting and important questions about the\n\nmeaning and operation of the Act:\n\n First, does § 30511(a)’s six-month filing deadline erect a jurisdictional\n\nbarrier to suit, as the Dawsons contend and the district court concluded? We hold\n\nthat it does not, and that it is instead (like most timely-filing requirements) a non-\n\njurisdictional claim-processing rule.\n\n Second, what constitutes “written notice of a claim” within the meaning of\n\n§ 30511(a)? We hold that in order to trigger the six-month filing period, a\n\nclaimant (not someone else) must provide the shipowner or its agent (not someone\n\nelse) with written (not oral) notice that reveals a “reasonable possibility” that his\n\nclaim will exceed the value of the vessel(s) at issue.\n\n Third, does a shipowner incur a duty to investigate known or potential\n\nclaims immediately upon receipt of a claimant’s notice, as the district court\n\nconcluded? We hold that it does not, and that the duty to investigate arises only if\n\nthe notice reveals the required “reasonable possibility.”\n\n Finally, did Orion receive the statutorily required written notice—revealing\n\na reasonable possibility of claims that would exceed the value of its barges—more\n\n\n\n\n 3\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 4 of 33\n\n\nthan six months before it filed its limitation action? We hold that it did not, and,\n\naccordingly, that its suit was timely filed.\n\n I\n\n A\n\n The pertinent facts here are undisputed. In 2011, Orion―a company\n\nspecializing in marine construction―contracted with the Florida Department of\n\nTransportation (FDOT) to rebuild the Pinellas Bayway Bridge in Pinellas County,\n\nFlorida. As part of the project, Orion’s barges were used to drive concrete piles\n\ninto the bay floor. Hundreds of local residents complained that the vibrations\n\ncreated by Orion’s pile-driving damaged their surrounding properties, and 247 of\n\nthem eventually filed formal claims in the limitation action that gave rise to this\n\nappeal.\n\n Early on, though, the claims trickled in slowly. Between March 2012 and\n\nJune 2014, only nine residents lodged complaints—typically alleging cracks in\n\ntheir homes, patios, and driveways, or leaks in their pools—with either Orion,\n\nFDOT, or Orion’s third-party administrator, FARA Insurance. We focus here on\n\nthese first nine claimants because they (alone among the 247) made their\n\ncomplaints before November 11, 2014—and thus, critically, more than six months\n\nbefore Orion filed suit on May 11, 2015.\n\n\n\n\n 4\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 5 of 33\n\n\n In response to a few of these early complaints, Orion dispatched an\n\ninvestigator to assess the alleged damage. Some of the cracks that he observed, he\n\nreported, were “old,” and others were “minor” and “cosmetic.” As for one of the\n\nreported pool leaks, he found that it was “just a crack in a PVC pipe.” Orion\n\ninstalled vibration monitors at two residents’ homes; the numbers came back “low”\n\nat one and “very, very low” at the other.\n\n According to Orion, around December 2014 or January 2015 it began to\n\nreceive property-damage claims “in bulk” from a public adjuster, beginning with\n\n11 additional complaints during those two months alone. This flood of new\n\nclaims, Orion says, prompted it to file its limitation action on May 11, 2015.\n\n B\n\n Mark and Christine Dawson—who lodged one of the original nine\n\ncomplaints—moved to dismiss Orion’s action on the ground that it was untimely\n\nand, therefore, that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Orion’s\n\naction was time-barred, they asserted, because Orion had received “written notice\n\nof a claim” within the meaning of 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a) prior to November 11,\n\n2014―and thus earlier than the statutorily specified six-months mark before it\n\nfiled. Orion responded that none of the nine original claims provided it with\n\nproper notice under the Act because (1) a number of the complaints were not\n\n“written,” as the Act requires, and (2) in any event, the complaints failed to reveal\n\n\n 5\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 6 of 33\n\n\na “reasonable possibility” that the claims would exceed the aggregate value of the\n\nfour vessels used during the bridge construction.\n\n Because it “lacked sufficient factual information” about which of the\n\noriginal nine claims were made when, to whom, and in what form, the district court\n\ndenied the Dawsons’ motion without prejudice and ordered the parties to conduct\n\nlimited discovery on the timeliness issue. Discovery revealed a hodge-podge of\n\nformal and informal oral and written complaints, which were submitted to various\n\nemployees at Orion, FDOT, and FARA. When FDOT received complaints, it\n\nmemorialized them in written summaries or emails, which it then forwarded to\n\nOrion. FARA typically responded to the complaints that it received by\n\nacknowledging them, disclaiming any assumption of coverage, advising that\n\nconstruction was ongoing, requesting copies of—or that the claimant maintain\n\nrecords of—photos and repair quotes, and agreeing to investigate further. In an\n\neffort to impose some order—and to facilitate our own analysis—we will group the\n\ncomplaints into the following categories: (a) oral complaints that were (i) made to\n\nand memorialized in writing by Orion or (ii) made to and memorialized in writing\n\nby FARA or FDOT and then forwarded to Orion; and (b) written complaints that\n\nwere (i) made to FARA and then forwarded to Orion or (ii) made to FDOT and\n\nthen forwarded to Orion.\n\n\n\n\n 6\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 7 of 33\n\n\n Based on the information obtained during discovery, Orion emphasized that\n\nnone of the nine original claimants had provided “written notice” to it and that only\n\nfour had provided written notice to anyone—two to FDOT and two to FARA.\n\nMoreover, Orion said, none of the nine presented specific damage computations (in\n\nany form) before November 11, 2014. Estimates that Orion received after the\n\ncompletion of the bridge revealed the total amount of claimed damages by written\n\nnotice to be $164,901.10 and the total from all pre-November 11, 2014 notices\n\n(both oral and written) to be $330,046.22.1 Because neither number exceeds the\n\naggregate value of the four barges used during the\n\nconstruction―$1,258,217.00―Orion contended that the nine original claimants’\n\nnotices didn’t start the six-month clock on its obligation to file a limitation action.\n\nRather, Orion reiterated, “[i]t was not until a public adjuster began signing up\n\nclaimants in droves in December 2014 . . . that [it] was reasonably on notice the\n\nclaims may exceed the value of its vessels.” Accordingly, Orion argued, its May\n\n11, 2015 filing fell comfortably within the six-month period prescribed by the Act.\n\n C\n\n Following discovery, the Dawsons renewed their motion to dismiss,\n\nreiterating that because Orion’s action was untimely under § 30511(a), the district\n\n\n\n1\n Orion explained that because two of the claimants never filed claims in the limitation action or\nmade specific demands, their estimated damages remain unknown.\n\n 7\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 8 of 33\n\n\ncourt lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the case. The district court granted\n\nthe motion and dismissed Orion’s complaint, concluding that “Orion was aware or\n\nshould have been aware that claims against it would likely exceed the value of the\n\nvessel[s] . . . certainly no later than November 11, 2014,” and, accordingly, that its\n\nlimitation action filed on May 11, 2015 was “untimely and must be dismissed for\n\nlack of jurisdiction.”\n\n In so holding, the district court admitted that it was “[w]ithout any case law\n\ndirectly analogous to the case at hand” and, accordingly, that it had to “extrapolate\n\nfrom the available precedent to determine whether the nine [original] complaints\n\nconstituted notice.” In so doing, it considered all nine pre-November 11, 2014\n\nnotices “in the aggregate” and the sufficiency of those communications “as a\n\nwhole.” Significantly, as to the form of notice, the district court concluded “that\n\nboth the written complaints Orion received directly from the [c]laimants or by\n\nforward from the FDOT, and the memorialized oral complaints Orion received\n\n[either directly or from FDOT or FARA] constitute ‘written’ notice under the Act.”\n\nThe district court further reasoned that the complaints that Orion received before\n\nNovember 11, 2014 triggered a duty—which it found Orion breached—to\n\ninvestigate any “potential” additional claims that might be asserted by owners of\n\nother properties in the surrounding area.\n\n\n\n\n 8\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 9 of 33\n\n\n Orion timely appealed to this Court, arguing that the district court erred in\n\nconcluding (1) that § 30511(a)’s six-month filing requirement is jurisdictional and\n\n(2) that the nine original claimants provided adequate notice under the Act. In\n\nsupport of the latter contention, Orion argued that the district court erred by\n\nholding (a) that even oral complaints, if later memorialized, satisfy the Act’s\n\n“written notice” requirement, (b) that the nine pre-November 11, 2014 notices\n\nidentified “limitable” claims even though the record revealed no reasonable\n\npossibility that the alleged damages (no matter how measured) would exceed the\n\nvalue of the barges used during construction, and (c) that Orion was obligated to\n\ninvestigate the possibility of additional claims immediately upon receipt of the\n\ninitial complaints.\n\n We consider those issues in turn.\n\n II\n\n We begin, as we must, with jurisdiction. A number of courts—including at\n\nleast two of our sister circuits—have held, as the district court did here, that\n\n§ 30511(a)’s six-month time bar constitutes a jurisdictional limitation. See, e.g., In\n\nre Eckstein Marine Serv., L.L.C., 672 F.3d 310, 315 (5th Cir. 2012); Cincinnati\n\nGas & Elec. Co. v. Abel, 533 F.2d 1001, 1003 (6th Cir. 1976). We disagree.\n\n Not long ago, in Secretary v. Preston, 873 F.3d 877 (11th Cir. 2017), we had\n\noccasion to survey the Supreme Court’s recent precedent outlining the distinction\n\n\n 9\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 10 of 33\n\n\nbetween true jurisdictional limitations and non-jurisdictional “claim-processing”\n\nrules—and, in particular, concerning the jurisdictional-ness of statutory time bars.\n\nSee id. at 881–82. What we said there—about ERISA’s six-year statute of\n\nrepose—applies here pretty much foursquare. As a general matter, we observed\n\nthat in recent years, “the Supreme Court has set out to impose some discipline on\n\nthe previously slippery use of the term ‘jurisdictional.’” Id. at 881. “In so doing,”\n\nwe recounted, “the Court has emphasized—repeatedly—that statutory limitation\n\nperiods and other filing deadlines ‘ordinarily are not jurisdictional’ and that a\n\nparticular time bar should be treated as jurisdictional ‘only if Congress has clearly\n\nstated that it is.’” Id. (quoting Musacchio v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 709, 716–17\n\n(2016)). Establishing the required clear statement, we explained, is a tall task—a\n\nparty must “demonstrat[e] that ‘traditional tools of statutory construction . . .\n\nplainly show that Congress imbued a procedural bar with jurisdictional\n\nconsequences.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. 1625,\n\n1632 (2015)).\n\n More particularly, the considerations that we emphasized in Preston in\n\nconcluding that ERISA’s statute of repose is not jurisdictional lead us to the same\n\nconclusion about § 30511(a). First, we observed that the language of the provision\n\nthere at issue “d[id] not ‘speak in jurisdictional terms or refer in any way to the\n\njurisdiction of the district courts.’” Id. at 882 (quoting Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp.,\n\n\n 10\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 11 of 33\n\n\n546 U.S. 500, 515 (2006)). “When,” we said, “a statute ‘speaks only to a claim’s\n\ntimeliness, not to a court’s power,’ it should be treated as non-jurisdictional.” Id.\n\n(quoting Kwai Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1632). Just so here. Section 30511(a)’s\n\nlanguage—“[t]he action must be brought within 6 months”—does not “plainly\n\nshow that Congress imbued” the deadline “with jurisdictional consequences.”\n\nKwai Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1632. Rather, it “reads like an ordinary, run-of-the-\n\nmill statute of limitations, spelling out a litigant’s filing obligations without\n\nrestricting a court’s authority.” Id. at 1633 (internal quotation marks and citation\n\nomitted). In short, § 30511(a)’s text reveals a filing deadline of the sort that the\n\nSupreme Court has consistently called a “quintessential claim-processing rule[].”\n\nHenderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S. 428, 435 (2011).\n\n Second, and relatedly, we stressed in Preston that Congress’s “use of\n\nmandatory language”—there, “No action may be commenced”—does not alone\n\nimpart jurisdictional significance. “The Supreme Court,” we noted, “has flatly\n\n‘rejected the notion that all mandatory prescriptions, however emphatic, are . . .\n\nproperly typed jurisdictional.’” 873 F.3d at 882 (quoting Henderson, 562 U.S. at\n\n439). Not even sweeping proscriptions like “no action shall be brought,” Jones v.\n\nBock, 549 U.S. 199, 220 (2007), and “shall be forever barred,” Kwai Fun Wong,\n\n135 S. Ct. at 1633–38, will do the trick. See Preston, 873 F.3d at 882. Rather, we\n\nsummarized, “[u]nder clear Supreme Court precedent, it is only an express\n\n\n 11\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 12 of 33\n\n\nreference to jurisdiction, not firmness more generally, that counts.” Id. Section\n\n30511(a)’s mandatory phrasing, therefore—“The action must be brought within 6\n\nmonths”—provides no basis for inferring a jurisdictional limitation.\n\n Finally, just as in Preston, “[s]tatutory context”—and in particular, the\n\nlocation of the time bar within the statute’s architecture—confirms § 30511(a)’s\n\n“non-jurisdictional character.” Id. Here, as there, Congress situated the filing\n\nperiod among provisions that describe the standards and procedures that govern the\n\ncause of action—and (well) away from those that allocate jurisdiction. Congress,\n\nthat is, didn’t write the six-month bar into 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1), which gives federal\n\ndistrict courts original jurisdiction over “any civil case of admiralty or maritime\n\njurisdiction.” Instead, it placed the time limit in Chapter 305 of Title 46, which is\n\ntitled “Exoneration and Limitation of Liability” and which prescribes the\n\nmechanics of shipowner suits—liability caps, apportionment, personal-injury and\n\nwrongful-death actions, etc. (Tellingly, § 30511(a)’s six-month deadline is\n\nrepeated in Rule F(1) of the Supplemental Admiralty and Maritime Claims Rules,\n\nwhich are located in an addendum to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.) The\n\nfact that here—again, just as in Preston—Congress “separat[ed]” the filing\n\ndeadline from the jurisdictional grant fortifies our determination that § 30511(a)’s\n\nsix-month “time bar is not jurisdictional.” Preston, 873 F.3d at 882 (quoting Kwai\n\nFun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1633).\n\n\n 12\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 13 of 33\n\n\n “Because we find no clear textual indication” that § 30511(a)’s six-month\n\ntime bar “was intended to limit courts’ subject matter jurisdiction,” id.—because,\n\nin short, it does nothing “special, beyond setting an exception-free deadline,” Kwai\n\nFun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1632—we hold that the provision is an ordinary non-\n\njurisdictional claim-processing rule, and that the district court erred in concluding\n\notherwise.2\n\n * * *\n\n Where, you might ask, does that leave us procedurally? Fair question.\n\nGiven the peculiarities of this particular case, the proper course, we think, is to\n\nevaluate the merits of the parties’ contentions—about whether the nine original\n\n(i.e., pre-November 11, 2014) claimants gave Orion notice sufficient to commence\n\n\n2\n We are untroubled by the fact that our holding in this respect places us athwart the consensus of\ncourts to address § 30511(a)’s jurisdictional status. Many of the decisions holding—or\nassuming, really—that § 30511(a) limits courts’ subject matter jurisdiction predate the Supreme\nCourt’s recent effort to “bring some discipline” to the use of the term “jurisdictional.”\nHenderson, 562 U.S. at 435. Moreover, and in any event—and with respect—we think that\nmany of the § 30511(a) decisions represent the sort of “drive-by jurisdictional rulings,” Reed\nElsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154, 161 (2010), that the Supreme Court has condemned.\nSee, e.g., Cincinnati Gas, 533 F.2d at 1003 (relying on a 1939 district court decision for the\nproposition that if a deadline is a condition precedent then it must be jurisdictional—a\nmechanical rationale that the Supreme Court has since rejected); Complaint of Tom-Mac, Inc., 76\nF.3d 678, 682 (5th Cir. 1996) (assuming that § 30511(a)’s predecessor’s filing deadline is\njurisdictional without elaboration or citation to authority); In re Waterfront License Corp., 231\nF.R.D. 693, 699 (S.D. Fla. 2005) (same); In re Eckstein, 672 F.3d at 315 & n.11, n.12 (relying on\nCincinnati Gas, Complaint of Tom-Mac, and In re Waterfront License Corp., as well as an earlier\nFifth Circuit decision holding the Federal Tort Claims Act’s statute of limitations is\njurisdictional—a decision that the Supreme Court has since expressly abrogated); In re\nComplaint of RLB Contracting, Inc., 773 F.3d 596, 601 & n.5, 602 & n.14 (5th Cir. 2014)\n(relying without analysis on In re Eckstein).\n\n\n\n 13\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 14 of 33\n\n\n§ 30511(a)’s six-month clock—under a summary-judgment standard. For reasons\n\njust explained, despite its label, the Dawsons’ Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss for\n\nlack of subject matter jurisdiction is more accurately considered a Rule 12(b)(6)\n\nmotion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Because the district court considered\n\nmaterials outside the pleadings in deciding the Dawsons’ motion, though—and\n\nindeed, affirmatively directed discovery—that motion may properly be converted\n\ninto a motion for summary judgment. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(d). Given that (1) the\n\nparties here conducted discovery on the timeliness issue, (2) the Dawsons\n\nalternatively framed their motion as one for summary judgment and Orion\n\nmaintained that it should have been reviewed under a summary-judgment rubric,\n\n(3) the parties agree (and have reiterated before us) that there are no disputed\n\nmaterial facts, and (4) the parties further agree that the timeliness issue is squarely\n\npresented on appeal, we feel confident proceeding to decide the merits under a\n\nsummary-judgment standard, reviewing the district court’s decision de novo. Cf.\n\nMiller v. Herman, 600 F.3d 726, 731–33 (7th Cir. 2010) (confronting a similar\n\n“procedural hiccup” and opting to treat a Rule 12(b)(1) motion as a Rule 12(b)(6)\n\nmotion, which was properly converted to, and thus reviewed as, a summary-\n\njudgment motion).\n\n\n\n\n 14\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 15 of 33\n\n\n III\n\n Our consideration of the merits comprises several issues, which we will\n\naddress in turn. First, which of two competing doctrinal tests—which we have\n\nacknowledged but have never (until now) had to choose between—governs the\n\ndetermination whether a claimant’s notice is sufficient under § 30511(a)? Second,\n\nwhat forms and methods of notice qualify as “written notice” within the meaning\n\nof the Act? And third, what does it mean for a claimant’s notice to reveal—as we\n\nhold it must in order to start the statutory clock and trigger a duty to investigate\n\nadditional claims—a “reasonable possibility” that his claim will exceed the value\n\nof the shipowner’s vessel(s)?\n\n A\n\n Because the Act doesn’t define “written notice of a claim,” courts have been\n\nleft to formulate tests to determine whether a claimant’s notice suffices under\n\n§ 30511(a). Under one, which originated in the Second Circuit’s decision in\n\nDoxsee Sea Clam Co. v. Brown, “[n]otice will be sufficient if it informs the vessel\n\nowner of an actual or potential claim . . . which may exceed the value of the vessel\n\n. . . and is subject to limitation.” 13 F.3d 550, 554 (2d Cir. 1994) (internal citations\n\nomitted). The Seventh Circuit has since adopted the Doxsee standard with one\n\nimportant refinement—elaborating on the word “may,” that court held that “the\n\nwritten notice of a claim must reveal a ‘reasonable possibility’ that the claim made\n\n\n 15\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 16 of 33\n\n\nis one subject to limitation.” In re Complaint of McCarthy Bros. Co./Clark Bridge,\n\n83 F.3d 821, 829 (7th Cir. 1996) (citing Complaint of Tom-Mac, 76 F.3d at 683).\n\nThe competing test requires only that the claimant’s notice (1) demand a right or\n\nsupposed right, (2) blame the vessel owner for any damage or loss, and (3) call on\n\nthe vessel owner for anything due. See Rodriguez Moreira v. Lemay, 659 F. Supp.\n\n89, 91 (S.D. Fla. 1987).\n\n We have twice noted the existence of these two tests―first in Paradise\n\nDivers, Inc. v. Upmal, 402 F.3d 1087 (11th Cir. 2005), and then, a year later, in\n\nP.G. Charter Boats, Inc. v. Soles, 437 F.3d 1140 (11th Cir. 2006). On both\n\noccasions, we found it unnecessary to choose between them. The district court\n\nhere did the same thing, concluding that the claimants’ notices satisfied both. But\n\nfor reasons that we’ll explain, the distinction between the two standards actually\n\nmatters here. Although we have described these two tests as “similar,” Paradise\n\nDivers, 402 F.3d at 1090, there is one crucial difference: What we’ll call the\n\n“Doxsee/McCarthy test” entails an amount/value element that the “Moreira test”\n\ndoes not—namely, it requires that the notice reveal a “reasonable possibility” that\n\nthe claim will exceed the value of the offending vessel(s). No one―not even\n\nOrion―disputes that the claimants’ notices would meet the Moreira standard.\n\nInstead, Orion contends that the claimants’ notices fail the Doxsee/McCarthy test\n\nbecause the notices (even considered in the aggregate) failed to convey a\n\n\n 16\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 17 of 33\n\n\nreasonable possibility that the claims’ total value would exceed the value of its\n\nbarges.\n\n With the lines thus drawn—and because we agree that Orion can’t win under\n\nMoreira but has a fighting chance under Doxsee/McCarthy—the time has finally\n\ncome for us to decide which standard to apply. The answer, we think, is clear. For\n\nstarters, the Doxsee/McCarthy test is the most widely-accepted among our sister\n\ncircuits—in addition to the Second and Seventh Circuits, the Fifth has also\n\nembraced it, see In re Eckstein, 672 F.3d at 317—and indeed, it has been described\n\nas the “most authoritative.” Paradise Divers, 402 F.3d at 1090 (quoting McCarthy\n\nBros., 83 F.3d at 829). The Moreira test, by contrast, while perhaps once “found\n\nin many district court cases,” id., does not appear to have been adopted by any\n\ncircuit court, and generally seems to have fallen into desuetude since Doxsee was\n\ndecided.\n\n More substantively, the key distinction between the two tests—namely, that\n\nDoxsee/McCarthy incorporates an amount/value element (in the form of the\n\n“reasonable possibility” showing) that Moreira doesn’t—underscores the\n\nsuperiority of the former. Doxsee/McCarthy’s reasonable-possibility requirement\n\nserves the six-month limitation period’s purpose by encouraging shipowners to act\n\npromptly while at the same time eliminating consideration of small-value cases\n\nunlikely to benefit from the Act’s protection. In contrast, by requiring a shipowner\n\n\n 17\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 18 of 33\n\n\nto initiate limitation proceedings regardless of the amount likely at issue, the\n\nMoreira test would (1) “obligate a shipowner to go to the expense of posting\n\nsecurity and taking the other steps necessary to commence a limitation proceeding”\n\neven when the claims indicate that doing so would be “wholly unnecessary,” (2)\n\n“encourage claimants to understate the amount of their damage in the hope that the\n\nshipowner would be misled into not filing a timely petition for limitation,” and (3)\n\n“serve no purpose other than to clog the courts with unneeded petitions and cause\n\ngreat expense to shipowners without in any way benefiting claimants.” Complaint\n\nof Morania Barge No. 190, Inc., 690 F.2d 32, 34 (2d Cir. 1982).\n\n For all of these reasons, we hold that the Doxsee/McCarthy test is the\n\ncontrolling standard for determining the sufficiency of notice under § 30511(a).\n\n B\n\n That leads us to the question whether claimants’ notices here satisfied the\n\nDoxsee/McCarthy standard—which, as we have described it before and adopt it\n\ntoday, requires a claimant to give the shipowner written notice that reveals a\n\n“reasonable possibility” of a claim that exceeds the value of the vessel(s). See P.G.\n\nCharter Boats, 437 F.3d at 1143.\n\n Orion argues that claimants’ notices fail this test (1) because some of them\n\nwere not “written” at all, as § 30511(a) plainly requires, and (2) because, in any\n\nevent, the notices—even including those made orally—“never demonstrated a\n\n\n 18\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 19 of 33\n\n\nreasonable possibility of a claim exceeding the value of the vessel, and to this day,\n\neven added together, Claimants’ filed claims do not.” Br. for Appellant at 21. The\n\nDawsons, by contrast, contend that the district court properly determined that the\n\npre-November 11, 2014 claims―when considered in the aggregate and including\n\nthe oral complaints that were later reduced to writing―provided notice sufficient\n\nto allow Orion to evaluate its overall exposure, and thus triggered Orion’s duty to\n\ninvestigate and to file suit within six months.\n\n 1\n\n First things first: Which of the pre-November 11, 2014 complaints qualify as\n\n“written notice” within the meaning of the Act? And more particularly, what of\n\nthe district court’s conclusion “that both the written complaints Orion received\n\ndirectly from the Claimants or by forward from the FDOT, and the memorialized\n\noral complaints Orion received [either directly or from FDOT or FARA] constitute\n\n‘written’ notice under the Act”? Put simply, in so holding, the district court erred.\n\nSection 30511(a) couldn’t be clearer about what we have called its “writing”\n\nrequirement. See P.G. Charter Boats, 437 F.3d at 1143. The statute says, in no\n\nuncertain terms, that the six-month filing period begins to run when “a claimant\n\ngives the owner written notice of a claim.” 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a). Broken down\n\ninto its constituent parts, that straightforward provision requires that the claimant\n\n\n\n\n 19\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 20 of 33\n\n\n(not someone else) give the owner (not someone else) written (not oral) notice of\n\nhis claim.\n\n As noted earlier, the complaints lodged by the original nine claimants can be\n\ngrouped into the following categories: (a) oral complaints that were (i) made to and\n\nmemorialized in writing by Orion or (ii) made to and memorialized by FARA or\n\nFDOT and then forwarded to Orion; and (b) written complaints that were (i) made\n\nto FARA and forwarded to Orion or (ii) made to FDOT and forwarded to Orion.\n\nWe will consider each type of complaint in turn.\n\n a\n\n As an initial matter, we think it clear—contrary to the district court’s\n\ndetermination—that the memorialized oral complaints don’t qualify.\n\n The complaints that were made orally to Orion and that it later reduced to\n\nwriting—those are easy. No reasonable interpretation of § 30511(a)’s text—\n\nrequiring that the “claimant give[] the owner written notice”—could include a\n\nvessel owner’s own written notes recording a claimant’s oral report. In that\n\ncircumstance, no “written notice” has been provided at all—by anyone, to anyone.\n\nWhat about the complaints that were made orally to FARA and/or FDOT, which\n\nthey then memorialized and forwarded to Orion? Closer, but still no cigar. In that\n\ncircumstance, Orion might have received written notice from someone, but it\n\n\n\n\n 20\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 21 of 33\n\n\ndidn’t receive written notice from a claimant, as § 30511(a) expressly requires. 3\n\nThe fact that someone, somewhere has reduced an oral communication to writing\n\ndoesn’t transform an invalid oral notice into a valid written notice under the Act.4\n\n b\n\n What, though, about the written notices provided by the claimants to FARA\n\nand/or FDOT, which were then forwarded to Orion? Much closer. The Second\n\nCircuit has held that “[i]t is settled that a notice of claim may be received by an\n\nagent of the vessel owner,” Doxsee, 13 F.3d at 553, and that seems right to us as a\n\nmatter of hornbook agency law. See, e.g., Restatement (Third) of Agency § 5.03\n\n\n\n3\n The district court suggested that FDOT was a “potential claimant” by way of the\nindemnification provision in Orion’s contract—and therefore, that the oral claims memorialized\nby FDOT could constitute written notice by a claimant. That is incorrect. The Supreme Court\nhas made clear that contracts entered into by vessel owners are personal and not subject to the\nAct. See, e.g., Am. Car & Foundry Co. v. Brassert, 289 U.S. 261, 264 (1933); Richardson v.\nHarmon, 222 U.S. 96, 106 (1911). Accordingly, no claim made by FDOT against Orion\npursuant to their contract would be subject to limitation, and FDOT could never be a “claimant”\nin a limitation action.\n4\n In support of its conclusion that the memorialized oral complaints should be considered, the\ndistrict court cited only the magistrate’s report and recommendation in Paradise Divers for the\nproposition that “although a notice of claim must obviously be in writing, the notice need not\ntake any particular form.” Doc. 634 at 16 (quoting In re Paradise Divers, Inc., No. 03-10021\nCIV, 2003 WL 25731109, at *4 (S.D. Fla. Nov. 9, 2003)). But that statement doesn’t support the\ndistrict court’s position. Rather, the Paradise Divers R&R sought only to clarify what other\ncircuits have expressly held―that informal written notice, such as a letter sent by a claimant or\nhis attorney, will suffice under the Act in lieu of a formal complaint. See, e.g., RLB Contracting,\n773 F.3d at 603; Doxsee, 13 F.3d at 554. The Act’s plain text still requires that the claimant\nprovide written notice to the owner. 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a).\n The district court also emphasized that Orion acted on the memorialized oral\ncomplaints—and thus, the theory presumably goes, had actual knowledge of them. But even\nactual knowledge of alleged damage is no substitute for the written notice required by the Act.\nSee, e.g., Moreira, 659 F. Supp. at 91.\n\n 21\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 22 of 33\n\n\n(Am. Law Inst. 2006) (observing that, as a general rule, “[f]or purposes of a\n\nprincipal’s legal relations with a third party, notice of a fact that an agent knows or\n\nhas reason to know is imputed to the principal if knowledge of the fact is material\n\nto the agent’s duties to the principal”). And for that matter, even Orion admits that\n\n“written notice provided to an agent might be imputed to the principal.” Reply Br.\n\nfor Appellant at 6. So the sufficiency of the written notices sent to FARA and/or\n\nFDOT hinges on whether they were Orion’s agents.\n\n It seems reasonably clear to us—and no one here disputes—that FARA was\n\nOrion’s agent for claims-processing purposes. FARA had at the very least\n\napparent―and probably even actual―authority to act on Orion’s behalf; indeed, it\n\nwas hired specifically to assist Orion with the adjustment of claims. See\n\nRestatement (Third) of Agency §§ 3.01, 3.03 (describing actual and apparent\n\nauthority). Accordingly, any claimant who gave written notice to FARA, as\n\nOrion’s agent, satisfied § 30511(a)’s writing requirement.\n\n Those who gave written notice only to FDOT (which the claimants describe\n\nas Orion’s “project partner”) stand on different footing. So far as we can tell, the\n\nrecord contains no evidence that Orion—as the would-be principal—made any\n\n“manifestation” that would have clothed FDOT with either actual or apparent\n\nauthority to accept claim notices on Orion’s behalf. See id. §§ 3.01, 3.03\n\n(emphasizing that the “manifestation” that gives rise to an agent’s authority must\n\n\n 22\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 23 of 33\n\n\nemanate from the principal). Perhaps not surprisingly, then, the record\n\ndemonstrates that when FDOT received complaints, it simply—and consistently—\n\nredirected them to Orion rather than attempting to process them. 5 Because FDOT\n\n(unlike FARA) had no authority to act as Orion’s agent for claims-processing\n\npurposes, written notice provided to FDOT didn’t meet § 30511(a)’s written-\n\nnotice-to-owner requirement.\n\n * * *\n\n So to sum up, the district court erred in holding that all of the claims—oral\n\nand written, and to whomever communicated—constituted “written notice” to the\n\n“owner” under § 30511(a). Complaints delivered orally and later reduced to\n\nwriting (by anyone) don’t qualify. Nor do the written complaints submitted to\n\nFDOT, which had no authority to act as Orion’s claims-processing agent. Only the\n\nwritten complaints submitted in writing to Orion—either directly or through\n\nFARA, its agent—satisfy § 30511(a)’s “written notice” requirement.\n\n 2\n\n Having said that, even if we were to consider―as the district court\n\nerroneously did―the oral and written complaints lodged by all nine of the pre-\n\n\n5\n In fairness, the record does reveal one instance in which an FDOT employee sent a copy of a\nproperty-damage form to a claimant with instructions that the claimant complete the form and\ncopy her on the submission “so that [she could] make sure Orion receive[d] the documentation.”\nDispositively, though, that “manifestation”—assuming it was one—wasn’t made by Orion,\nwhich (as explained in text) agency law requires in order to establish apparent authority.\n\n 23\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 24 of 33\n\n\nNovember 11, 2014 claimants, their notices still fail the Doxsee/McCarthy test\n\nbecause they don’t reveal a “reasonable possibility” that the claims, even\n\nconsidered (as the district court put it) “in the aggregate,” would exceed the value\n\nof Orion’s barges.6 Here’s why.\n\n a\n\n It is undisputed that the four Orion barges involved in the pile-driving were\n\nvalued, collectively, at no less than $1,258,217.00. The question, then, is whether\n\nthe nine original claimants’ notices revealed a reasonable possibility that their\n\nclaims, collectively, would exceed that amount. It is clear to us that they didn’t.\n\n Let’s first review the sort of damage that the claimants alleged. In general,\n\nthe homeowners complained that Orion’s pile-driving had caused (1) external\n\ncracks in their homes’ walls, chimneys, porches, and driveways, (2) internal cracks\n\n\n\n6\n Although there is nothing in the Act explicitly stating that the value of claims should be\nconsidered cumulatively, we will assume for present purposes that it is permissible to do so, as\nno one here seems to dispute that we may aggregate the value both of individual property\nowners’ claims and of Orion’s four barges for purposes of determining whether the claimants’\nnotices reveal the required “reasonable possibility.” We do note a distinction between this case\nand the Fifth Circuit’s decision in RLB Contracting, on which the district court here relied. In\nparticular, the district court pointed to the Fifth Circuit’s statement that § 30511(a)’s “statutory\ntext does not foreclose the possibility of aggregate notice; it only requires the claimant to give\n‘the owner written notice,’ not a written notice.” 773 F.3d at 603. To be clear, though, RLB\nContracting was different—the court there sanctioned aggregating multiple notices from a single\nclaimant pertaining to a single incident, not (as here) multiple notices from multiple claimants\narising out of multiple incidents. And while the Fifth Circuit was correct that the statute does not\nrequire a written notice, it does require “written notice of a claim.” 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a)\n(emphasis added). Even so, we needn’t tarry on the aggregate-notice issue here, because, as we\nexplain in text, even if we consider all nine of the original claimants’ notices together, they don’t\nreveal a reasonable possibility that the claims would exceed the value of Orion’s four barges.\n 24\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 25 of 33\n\n\nin drywall and around windows, ceilings, and fireplaces, and (3) leaks in their\n\nswimming pools and related water lines. The most extensive—and arguably most\n\nserious—complaints came from Mary White. After lodging a general complaint\n\nabout damage in May 2012, she filed a more detailed grievance a year later.\n\nThere, she said that her home had “sustained substantial damage from the work\n\nthat is being done building the new Byway bridge.” In particular, she complained\n\nabout “cracking in every room in [her] home (including around the windows and\n\nceilings, and . . . along [her] marble fireplace),” “cracks in [her] new cement\n\ndriveway,” “dropped pavers in [her] patio,” “a leak in [her] swimming pool,” and\n\n“a wet spot in [her] downstairs room.” Six months thereafter, White followed up,\n\nalleging that she “had additional cracks in all [her] rooms.”\n\n Another homeowner, Robert Orsi, lodged a series of complaints, the most\n\ndescriptive of which alleged damage to his “chimney and . . . front entrance,”\n\n“cracks . . . above [his] door [that] made opening the door all the way difficult,”\n\nand cracks “at the top of [his] stairs” that he feared suggested “issues with the\n\nconcrete header over the doorway.” Another couple, Mark and Christine\n\nDawson—the appellees here—repeatedly complained about “damage to [their]\n\nswimming pool”—in particular, about “damage to [the] lines to [the] swimming\n\npool caused by pile driving vibration.” They also alleged, more vaguely, that “[i]n\n\naddition to the pool leaks,” they had “a list of other issues that have happened, and\n\n\n 25\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 26 of 33\n\n\ncontinue to happen.” The other homeowners’ complaints were similar, albeit less\n\ndetailed—“leak in [my] pool,” “cracking on [my] ceiling,” “cracks in [my] home,”\n\n“a lot of damage,” etc.\n\n As already noted, in response to several of the early complaints, Orion sent\n\none of its agents to investigate. He determined that the alleged damage to White’s\n\nhome was “minor” and “cosmetic,” that the cracks in Orsi’s house were “old” and\n\nthat the damage was “very minor cosmetic stuff,” and that the Dawsons’ pool leak\n\nwas “just a crack in a PVC pipe.” Orion installed vibration monitors at White’s\n\nand Orsi’s homes; the numbers registered “low” at Orsi’s and “very, very low” at\n\nWhite’s.\n\n The question, then, is whether these notices revealed a reasonable possibility\n\nthat the claims—in the aggregate, we have said we will assume—would exceed the\n\nbarges’ $1,258,217.00 value. We think it clear that they didn’t. In explaining why\n\nnot, it will be useful to compare this case with two recent Fifth Circuit decisions\n\nthat have unpacked the reasonable-possibility standard. In Eckstein, a shipowner\n\ncontended that a claimant’s state-court complaint failed to reveal a reasonable\n\npossibility that his claim would exceed a vessel’s $750,000 value. In disagreeing,\n\nthe Fifth Circuit emphasized the seriousness of the claimant’s physical injuries,\n\nsustained when he became “entangled in a line and was pulled into a mooring bit.”\n\n672 F.3d at 313. The claimant’s injuries were not only gruesome—according to\n\n\n 26\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 27 of 33\n\n\neyewitness testimony, his “foot was hanging off of his leg at . . . a 90 degree angle”\n\nand there was “blood everywhere”—but also “permanent and catastrophic.” Id. at\n\n317–18. He required “multiple surgeries including debridement, the insertion of\n\nhardware to treat his bone fractures, and a skin graft.” Id. at 318. In his complaint,\n\nhe sought “compensation for the remainder of his lifetime, including past loss of\n\nearning, future loss of earning capacity, past and future disability, past and future\n\ndisfigurement, past and future medical and hospital expenses, past and future pain\n\nand mental anguish, and maintenance and c[u]re.” Id. at 317. The Fifth Circuit\n\nheld that the claimant’s complaint “alleging catastrophic and permanent injuries\n\nraised at least a reasonable possibility that his claim might exceed” the ship’s\n\n$750,000 value and, accordingly, that “it was [the shipowner’s] responsibility to\n\nconduct an investigation, and to file a limitation action within six months.” Id. at\n\n319.\n\n The Fifth Circuit faced the reasonable-possibility issue again in RLB\n\nContracting. In that case, a fishing boat carrying a family had collided with a\n\nship’s floating dredge pipe; “[a]ll occupants of the fishing boat were thrown\n\noverboard, suffering various physical injuries, and [a child] was killed.” 773 F.3d\n\nat 599. Following Eckstein, the court held that a series of letters sent by the\n\nfamily’s lawyer—including one emphasizing “the nature of the injuries, bystander\n\nclaims, graphic photos, [and] the PTSD claims”—revealed a reasonable possibility\n\n\n 27\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 28 of 33\n\n\nof a claim exceeding the vessel’s $750,000 value. Id. at 600. Put simply, the Fifth\n\nCircuit concluded, the shipowner “should have realized that an action involving the\n\ndeath of a child would easily exceed $750,000 in potential damages.” Id. at 606.\n\n Needless to say, the nature and severity of the property damage alleged here\n\npale in comparison to the claims for “permanent and catastrophic” personal injuries\n\nin Eckstein and wrongful death in RLB Contracting. And on the other side of the\n\nledger, the value of the vessels here—more than $1.2 million—is significantly\n\nhigher than in those cases. Even considering the notices provided by all nine of the\n\noriginal claimants, we hold that they failed to reveal a reasonable possibility of\n\nclaims exceeding the value of Orion’s four barges.\n\n b\n\n In concluding otherwise, the district court relied not on an empirical (or even\n\nanecdotal) valuation of the pre-November 11, 2014 claims—or a comparison of\n\nthose claims with the acknowledged value of Orion’s barges—but rather on twin\n\ndeterminations (1) that Orion had a duty to investigate both known and potential\n\nclaims “immediately” upon receiving the homeowners’ notices and (2) that it failed\n\nto do so. The key passage of the district court’s opinion:\n\n Had Orion fulfilled its obligation to investigate immediately upon\n knowing of the claims and the uncertainty of their value or if it had\n simply filed its petition to limit liability in the face of this uncertainty,\n it would have either discovered that its losses were much greater than\n the specific claims about which it knew or it would have limited its\n liability in any event from all claims known or unknown occasioned\n 28\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 29 of 33\n\n\n by the alleged injury caused by its pile-driving activity. Instead Orion\n did nothing, and that inaction is fatal to its Complaint to limit liability.\n\nDoc. 634 at 23. In so concluding, the district court erred, both as a matter of law\n\nand as a matter of undisputed fact.\n\n First, as to the law: The district court stated (and restated) that Orion had a\n\nlegal duty to investigate known and potential property-damage claims\n\n“immediately” upon learning of them. For support, the court quoted the Fifth\n\nCircuit’s decision in RLB Contracting, which in turn quoted that court’s earlier\n\ndecision in Eckstein:\n\n The purpose of the reasonable possibility standard is to place the\n burden of investigating potential claims on the vessel owner:\n\n The Limitation Act provides generous statutory\n protection to the vessel owners who reap all of its\n benefits. When there is uncertainty as to whether a claim\n will exceed the vessel’s value, the reasonable possibility\n standard places the risk and the burdens associated with\n that risk on the owner. In other words, if doubt exists as\n to the total amount of the claims or as to whether they\n will exceed the value of the ship the owner will not be\n excused from satisfying the statutory time bar since he\n may institute a limitation proceeding even when the total\n amount claimed is uncertain.\n\nDoc. 634 at 20 (quoting RLB Contracting, 773 F.3d at 602 (quoting Eckstein, 672\n\nF.3d at 317–18)) (additional internal quotation marks and citations omitted).\n\n The district court, though, prematurely cut short its quotation from RLB\n\nContracting. Just two sentences later—and again invoking its earlier decision in\n\n\n 29\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 30 of 33\n\n\nEckstein—the Fifth Circuit clearly explained when a shipowner’s duty to\n\ninvestigate arises: “‘[O]nce a reasonable possibility has been raised, it becomes\n\nthe vessel owner’s responsibility to initiate a prompt investigation and determine\n\nwhether to file a limitation action.’” 773 F.3d at 603 (quoting Eckstein, 672 F.3d\n\nat 317) (emphasis added). RLB does not say―as the district court here phrased\n\nit―that the shipowner has an “obligation to investigate immediately upon knowing\n\nof the claims.” And in fact, Eckstein, which RLB followed, flatly rejects the\n\ndistrict court’s investigate-immediately-upon-receipt position: “The Limitation\n\nAct’s six-month timeline does not automatically begin to run when a vessel owner\n\nlearns a claimant has filed a lawsuit. It is triggered only if and when the written\n\nnotice reveals a ‘reasonable possibility’ that the claim will exceed the value of the\n\nvessel, and therefore that the vessel owner might benefit from the Limitation Act’s\n\nprotection.” 672 F.3d at 317 (emphasis added).\n\n We think that the Fifth Circuit has it exactly right. While we agree with the\n\ndistrict court that a claimant’s notice needn’t include a specific demand for\n\ndamages, and while it’s true that the vessel owner bears the burden of\n\n“uncertainty” and “doubt” as to the amount of alleged damages, it remains the case\n\nthat the claimant’s notice must reveal a reasonable possibility that the claims may\n\n\n\n\n 30\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 31 of 33\n\n\nexceed the offending vessel’s value. It is at that point—but not before—that the\n\nshipowner’s duty to investigate arises.7\n\n Because Orion’s duty to investigate didn’t arise “automatically” or\n\n“immediately” upon the filing of claims, it didn’t violate that duty in the way the\n\ndistrict court concluded. Indeed, and to the contrary, because (for reasons already\n\nexplained) the claimants’ notices here didn’t reveal a reasonable possibility of\n\nclaims exceeding $1,258,217.00, Orion’s duty to investigate never materialized—\n\nmeaning, by definition, that it couldn’t have violated that duty, as the district court\n\nheld.\n\n Now, briefly, as to the facts: It simply isn’t accurate, as the district court\n\nsaid, that “Orion did nothing.” Doc. 634 at 23. As already explained, the\n\nundisputed facts demonstrate that, in response to the first several complaints, Orion\n\nsent one of its agents to investigate. That agent visited the White, Orsi, and\n\nDawson residences, observed the alleged damage, and conducted vibration\n\nmonitoring. He concluded that the problems were either “old,” “minor,” or\n\n“cosmetic”—or perhaps all three—and that the vibration measurements ranged\n\n\n7\n And to be clear, the Fifth Circuit is hardly alone in concluding that a shipowner’s duty to\ninvestigate does not arise “automatically” or “immediately,” but rather only if and when a\nclaimant’s notice reveals a reasonable possibility of a claim that exceeds the vessel’s value. The\nSecond and Seventh Circuits have said the same thing, see McCarthy, 83 F.3d at 829 (“[T]he\nwritten notice of claim must reveal a ‘reasonable possibility’ that the claim made is one subject\nto limitation.” (emphasis added)); Doxsee, 13 F.3d at 554 (“Notice will be sufficient if it informs\nthe vessel owner of an actual or potential claim . . . which may exceed the value of the vessel . . .\nand is subject to limitation.” (emphasis added)).\n 31\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 32 of 33\n\n\nfrom “low” to “very, very low.” Thus, faced with claims of uncertain value—and\n\neven without concluding that the notices underlying those claims revealed the\n\nrequisite “reasonable possibility”—Orion investigated and determined (in its\n\nopinion, with certainty) that the alleged damage was minor.\n\n * * *\n\n In sum, the notices that Orion had received prior to November 11, 2014\n\ndidn’t reveal a reasonable possibility that the residents’ claims would exceed the\n\nvalue of its four barges, and Orion’s preliminary investigation confirmed that\n\nconclusion. Had Orion bulled ahead with a limitation action at that point—as the\n\ndistrict court concluded the law required—it would have “serve[d] no purpose\n\nother than to clog the courts with [an] unneeded petition[].” Morania Barge, 690\n\nF.2d at 34.\n\n IV\n\n For the foregoing reasons, we hold as follows:\n\n 1. The six-month filing deadline specified by 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a) is a\n\nnon-jurisdictional claim-processing rule, and a shipowner’s failure to meet it does\n\nnot deprive the district court of subject matter jurisdiction but rather provides a\n\nbasis on which to dismiss the owner’s limitation action on the merits.\n\n 2. In order to trigger § 30511(a)’s six-month filing period, a claimant\n\n(not someone else) must provide the shipowner or its agent (not someone else)\n\n\n 32\n\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 33 of 33\n\n\nwith a written (not oral) notice that reveals a “reasonable possibility” of a claim\n\nthat will exceed the value of the vessel(s) at issue.\n\n 3. A shipowner’s duty to investigate known or potential claims does not\n\narise immediately upon receipt of a claimant’s notice, but only if the notice reveals\n\na reasonable possibility that the underlying claim exceeds the value of the\n\nvessel(s).\n\n 4. The notices provided by the first nine claimants here—i.e., those who\n\nlodged complaints before November 11, 2014—failed to reveal the required\n\nreasonable possibility, and thus neither started the six-month clock nor obligated\n\nOrion to investigate.\n\n REVERSED AND REMANDED.\n\n\n\n\n 33\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: ORION MARINE CONSTRUCTION, INC., as Owner of Barges M-1801, M-1802, M-1701 and M-1402, Their Engines, Tackle, Appurtenances, Equipment, Etc., in a Cause of Exoneration From or Limitation of Liability, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. Elizabeth CARROLL, Defendant, Daniel F. Bowen, Et Al., Claimants, Mark Dawson, Christine M. Dawson, Claimants - Appellees.\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-20\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 1 of 33\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 17-11961\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 8:15-cv-01136-MSS-TGW\\n\\nORION MARINE CONSTRUCTION, INC.,\\nas owner of Barges M-1801, M-1802,\\nM-1701 and M-1402, their engines, tackle,\\nappurtenances, equipment, etc., in a cause\\nof exoneration from or limitation of liability,\\n\\n Plaintiff - Appellant,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nELIZABETH CARROLL,\\n\\n Defendant,\\n\\nDANIEL F. BOWEN, et al.,\\n\\n Claimants,\\n\\nMARK DAWSON,\\nCHRISTINE M. DAWSON,\\n Claimants - Appellees.\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Middle District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n (March 20, 2019)\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 2 of 33\\n\\n\\nBefore MARCUS, NEWSOM, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nNEWSOM, Circuit Judge:\\n\\n This admiralty appeal requires us to navigate uncharted waters in order to\\n\\ndetermine what constitutes sufficient notice of a claim under the Shipowner’s\\n\\nLimitation of Liability Act, 46 U.S.C. §§ 30501, et seq. The Act establishes a\\n\\nprocedure by which a shipowner can limit its liability for certain claims involving\\n\\none of its vessels to the value of the vessel plus its then-pending freight. Id. §\\n\\n30505(a). Importantly here, to invoke the Act’s protection, the shipowner must\\n\\nbring a limitation-of-liability action in federal court “within 6 months after a\\n\\nclaimant gives the owner written notice of a claim.” Id. § 30511(a). If the owner\\n\\nmeets the six-month statutory deadline, and then creates a qualifying limitation\\n\\n“fund,” all related lawsuits against the owner “shall cease,” leaving the claimants\\n\\nto pursue their rights in the limitation proceeding. Id. § 30511.\\n\\n In connection with a large bridge-construction project in Florida, Orion\\n\\nMarine Construction used four barges to drive piles into the seabed. After\\n\\nnumerous local residents complained that their homes had been damaged by\\n\\nvibrations caused by the barges’ pile-driving activities, Orion filed a limitation\\n\\naction under the Act. Claimants Mark and Christine Dawson moved to dismiss\\n\\nOrion’s suit, arguing that Orion had received adequate notice of the claims against\\n\\nit more than six months before it filed, that the action was therefore time-barred,\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 3 of 33\\n\\n\\nand, accordingly, that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The\\n\\ndistrict court agreed and granted the Dawsons’ motion to dismiss. We reverse.\\n\\n This appeal presents several interesting and important questions about the\\n\\nmeaning and operation of the Act:\\n\\n First, does § 30511(a)’s six-month filing deadline erect a jurisdictional\\n\\nbarrier to suit, as the Dawsons contend and the district court concluded? We hold\\n\\nthat it does not, and that it is instead (like most timely-filing requirements) a non-\\n\\njurisdictional claim-processing rule.\\n\\n Second, what constitutes “written notice of a claim” within the meaning of\\n\\n§ 30511(a)? We hold that in order to trigger the six-month filing period, a\\n\\nclaimant (not someone else) must provide the shipowner or its agent (not someone\\n\\nelse) with written (not oral) notice that reveals a “reasonable possibility” that his\\n\\nclaim will exceed the value of the vessel(s) at issue.\\n\\n Third, does a shipowner incur a duty to investigate known or potential\\n\\nclaims immediately upon receipt of a claimant’s notice, as the district court\\n\\nconcluded? We hold that it does not, and that the duty to investigate arises only if\\n\\nthe notice reveals the required “reasonable possibility.”\\n\\n Finally, did Orion receive the statutorily required written notice—revealing\\n\\na reasonable possibility of claims that would exceed the value of its barges—more\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 4 of 33\\n\\n\\nthan six months before it filed its limitation action? We hold that it did not, and,\\n\\naccordingly, that its suit was timely filed.\\n\\n I\\n\\n A\\n\\n The pertinent facts here are undisputed. In 2011, Orion―a company\\n\\nspecializing in marine construction―contracted with the Florida Department of\\n\\nTransportation (FDOT) to rebuild the Pinellas Bayway Bridge in Pinellas County,\\n\\nFlorida. As part of the project, Orion’s barges were used to drive concrete piles\\n\\ninto the bay floor. Hundreds of local residents complained that the vibrations\\n\\ncreated by Orion’s pile-driving damaged their surrounding properties, and 247 of\\n\\nthem eventually filed formal claims in the limitation action that gave rise to this\\n\\nappeal.\\n\\n Early on, though, the claims trickled in slowly. Between March 2012 and\\n\\nJune 2014, only nine residents lodged complaints—typically alleging cracks in\\n\\ntheir homes, patios, and driveways, or leaks in their pools—with either Orion,\\n\\nFDOT, or Orion’s third-party administrator, FARA Insurance. We focus here on\\n\\nthese first nine claimants because they (alone among the 247) made their\\n\\ncomplaints before November 11, 2014—and thus, critically, more than six months\\n\\nbefore Orion filed suit on May 11, 2015.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 5 of 33\\n\\n\\n In response to a few of these early complaints, Orion dispatched an\\n\\ninvestigator to assess the alleged damage. Some of the cracks that he observed, he\\n\\nreported, were “old,” and others were “minor” and “cosmetic.” As for one of the\\n\\nreported pool leaks, he found that it was “just a crack in a PVC pipe.” Orion\\n\\ninstalled vibration monitors at two residents’ homes; the numbers came back “low”\\n\\nat one and “very, very low” at the other.\\n\\n According to Orion, around December 2014 or January 2015 it began to\\n\\nreceive property-damage claims “in bulk” from a public adjuster, beginning with\\n\\n11 additional complaints during those two months alone. This flood of new\\n\\nclaims, Orion says, prompted it to file its limitation action on May 11, 2015.\\n\\n B\\n\\n Mark and Christine Dawson—who lodged one of the original nine\\n\\ncomplaints—moved to dismiss Orion’s action on the ground that it was untimely\\n\\nand, therefore, that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Orion’s\\n\\naction was time-barred, they asserted, because Orion had received “written notice\\n\\nof a claim” within the meaning of 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a) prior to November 11,\\n\\n2014―and thus earlier than the statutorily specified six-months mark before it\\n\\nfiled. Orion responded that none of the nine original claims provided it with\\n\\nproper notice under the Act because (1) a number of the complaints were not\\n\\n“written,” as the Act requires, and (2) in any event, the complaints failed to reveal\\n\\n\\n 5\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 6 of 33\\n\\n\\na “reasonable possibility” that the claims would exceed the aggregate value of the\\n\\nfour vessels used during the bridge construction.\\n\\n Because it “lacked sufficient factual information” about which of the\\n\\noriginal nine claims were made when, to whom, and in what form, the district court\\n\\ndenied the Dawsons’ motion without prejudice and ordered the parties to conduct\\n\\nlimited discovery on the timeliness issue. Discovery revealed a hodge-podge of\\n\\nformal and informal oral and written complaints, which were submitted to various\\n\\nemployees at Orion, FDOT, and FARA. When FDOT received complaints, it\\n\\nmemorialized them in written summaries or emails, which it then forwarded to\\n\\nOrion. FARA typically responded to the complaints that it received by\\n\\nacknowledging them, disclaiming any assumption of coverage, advising that\\n\\nconstruction was ongoing, requesting copies of—or that the claimant maintain\\n\\nrecords of—photos and repair quotes, and agreeing to investigate further. In an\\n\\neffort to impose some order—and to facilitate our own analysis—we will group the\\n\\ncomplaints into the following categories: (a) oral complaints that were (i) made to\\n\\nand memorialized in writing by Orion or (ii) made to and memorialized in writing\\n\\nby FARA or FDOT and then forwarded to Orion; and (b) written complaints that\\n\\nwere (i) made to FARA and then forwarded to Orion or (ii) made to FDOT and\\n\\nthen forwarded to Orion.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 6\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 7 of 33\\n\\n\\n Based on the information obtained during discovery, Orion emphasized that\\n\\nnone of the nine original claimants had provided “written notice” to it and that only\\n\\nfour had provided written notice to anyone—two to FDOT and two to FARA.\\n\\nMoreover, Orion said, none of the nine presented specific damage computations (in\\n\\nany form) before November 11, 2014. Estimates that Orion received after the\\n\\ncompletion of the bridge revealed the total amount of claimed damages by written\\n\\nnotice to be $164,901.10 and the total from all pre-November 11, 2014 notices\\n\\n(both oral and written) to be $330,046.22.1 Because neither number exceeds the\\n\\naggregate value of the four barges used during the\\n\\nconstruction―$1,258,217.00―Orion contended that the nine original claimants’\\n\\nnotices didn’t start the six-month clock on its obligation to file a limitation action.\\n\\nRather, Orion reiterated, “[i]t was not until a public adjuster began signing up\\n\\nclaimants in droves in December 2014 . . . that [it] was reasonably on notice the\\n\\nclaims may exceed the value of its vessels.” Accordingly, Orion argued, its May\\n\\n11, 2015 filing fell comfortably within the six-month period prescribed by the Act.\\n\\n C\\n\\n Following discovery, the Dawsons renewed their motion to dismiss,\\n\\nreiterating that because Orion’s action was untimely under § 30511(a), the district\\n\\n\\n\\n1\\n Orion explained that because two of the claimants never filed claims in the limitation action or\\nmade specific demands, their estimated damages remain unknown.\\n\\n 7\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 8 of 33\\n\\n\\ncourt lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the case. The district court granted\\n\\nthe motion and dismissed Orion’s complaint, concluding that “Orion was aware or\\n\\nshould have been aware that claims against it would likely exceed the value of the\\n\\nvessel[s] . . . certainly no later than November 11, 2014,” and, accordingly, that its\\n\\nlimitation action filed on May 11, 2015 was “untimely and must be dismissed for\\n\\nlack of jurisdiction.”\\n\\n In so holding, the district court admitted that it was “[w]ithout any case law\\n\\ndirectly analogous to the case at hand” and, accordingly, that it had to “extrapolate\\n\\nfrom the available precedent to determine whether the nine [original] complaints\\n\\nconstituted notice.” In so doing, it considered all nine pre-November 11, 2014\\n\\nnotices “in the aggregate” and the sufficiency of those communications “as a\\n\\nwhole.” Significantly, as to the form of notice, the district court concluded “that\\n\\nboth the written complaints Orion received directly from the [c]laimants or by\\n\\nforward from the FDOT, and the memorialized oral complaints Orion received\\n\\n[either directly or from FDOT or FARA] constitute ‘written’ notice under the Act.”\\n\\nThe district court further reasoned that the complaints that Orion received before\\n\\nNovember 11, 2014 triggered a duty—which it found Orion breached—to\\n\\ninvestigate any “potential” additional claims that might be asserted by owners of\\n\\nother properties in the surrounding area.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 9 of 33\\n\\n\\n Orion timely appealed to this Court, arguing that the district court erred in\\n\\nconcluding (1) that § 30511(a)’s six-month filing requirement is jurisdictional and\\n\\n(2) that the nine original claimants provided adequate notice under the Act. In\\n\\nsupport of the latter contention, Orion argued that the district court erred by\\n\\nholding (a) that even oral complaints, if later memorialized, satisfy the Act’s\\n\\n“written notice” requirement, (b) that the nine pre-November 11, 2014 notices\\n\\nidentified “limitable” claims even though the record revealed no reasonable\\n\\npossibility that the alleged damages (no matter how measured) would exceed the\\n\\nvalue of the barges used during construction, and (c) that Orion was obligated to\\n\\ninvestigate the possibility of additional claims immediately upon receipt of the\\n\\ninitial complaints.\\n\\n We consider those issues in turn.\\n\\n II\\n\\n We begin, as we must, with jurisdiction. A number of courts—including at\\n\\nleast two of our sister circuits—have held, as the district court did here, that\\n\\n§ 30511(a)’s six-month time bar constitutes a jurisdictional limitation. See, e.g., In\\n\\nre Eckstein Marine Serv., L.L.C., 672 F.3d 310, 315 (5th Cir. 2012); Cincinnati\\n\\nGas & Elec. Co. v. Abel, 533 F.2d 1001, 1003 (6th Cir. 1976). We disagree.\\n\\n Not long ago, in Secretary v. Preston, 873 F.3d 877 (11th Cir. 2017), we had\\n\\noccasion to survey the Supreme Court’s recent precedent outlining the distinction\\n\\n\\n 9\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 10 of 33\\n\\n\\nbetween true jurisdictional limitations and non-jurisdictional “claim-processing”\\n\\nrules—and, in particular, concerning the jurisdictional-ness of statutory time bars.\\n\\nSee id. at 881–82. What we said there—about ERISA’s six-year statute of\\n\\nrepose—applies here pretty much foursquare. As a general matter, we observed\\n\\nthat in recent years, “the Supreme Court has set out to impose some discipline on\\n\\nthe previously slippery use of the term ‘jurisdictional.’” Id. at 881. “In so doing,”\\n\\nwe recounted, “the Court has emphasized—repeatedly—that statutory limitation\\n\\nperiods and other filing deadlines ‘ordinarily are not jurisdictional’ and that a\\n\\nparticular time bar should be treated as jurisdictional ‘only if Congress has clearly\\n\\nstated that it is.’” Id. (quoting Musacchio v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 709, 716–17\\n\\n(2016)). Establishing the required clear statement, we explained, is a tall task—a\\n\\nparty must “demonstrat[e] that ‘traditional tools of statutory construction . . .\\n\\nplainly show that Congress imbued a procedural bar with jurisdictional\\n\\nconsequences.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. 1625,\\n\\n1632 (2015)).\\n\\n More particularly, the considerations that we emphasized in Preston in\\n\\nconcluding that ERISA’s statute of repose is not jurisdictional lead us to the same\\n\\nconclusion about § 30511(a). First, we observed that the language of the provision\\n\\nthere at issue “d[id] not ‘speak in jurisdictional terms or refer in any way to the\\n\\njurisdiction of the district courts.’” Id. at 882 (quoting Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp.,\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 11 of 33\\n\\n\\n546 U.S. 500, 515 (2006)). “When,” we said, “a statute ‘speaks only to a claim’s\\n\\ntimeliness, not to a court’s power,’ it should be treated as non-jurisdictional.” Id.\\n\\n(quoting Kwai Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1632). Just so here. Section 30511(a)’s\\n\\nlanguage—“[t]he action must be brought within 6 months”—does not “plainly\\n\\nshow that Congress imbued” the deadline “with jurisdictional consequences.”\\n\\nKwai Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1632. Rather, it “reads like an ordinary, run-of-the-\\n\\nmill statute of limitations, spelling out a litigant’s filing obligations without\\n\\nrestricting a court’s authority.” Id. at 1633 (internal quotation marks and citation\\n\\nomitted). In short, § 30511(a)’s text reveals a filing deadline of the sort that the\\n\\nSupreme Court has consistently called a “quintessential claim-processing rule[].”\\n\\nHenderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S. 428, 435 (2011).\\n\\n Second, and relatedly, we stressed in Preston that Congress’s “use of\\n\\nmandatory language”—there, “No action may be commenced”—does not alone\\n\\nimpart jurisdictional significance. “The Supreme Court,” we noted, “has flatly\\n\\n‘rejected the notion that all mandatory prescriptions, however emphatic, are . . .\\n\\nproperly typed jurisdictional.’” 873 F.3d at 882 (quoting Henderson, 562 U.S. at\\n\\n439). Not even sweeping proscriptions like “no action shall be brought,” Jones v.\\n\\nBock, 549 U.S. 199, 220 (2007), and “shall be forever barred,” Kwai Fun Wong,\\n\\n135 S. Ct. at 1633–38, will do the trick. See Preston, 873 F.3d at 882. Rather, we\\n\\nsummarized, “[u]nder clear Supreme Court precedent, it is only an express\\n\\n\\n 11\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 12 of 33\\n\\n\\nreference to jurisdiction, not firmness more generally, that counts.” Id. Section\\n\\n30511(a)’s mandatory phrasing, therefore—“The action must be brought within 6\\n\\nmonths”—provides no basis for inferring a jurisdictional limitation.\\n\\n Finally, just as in Preston, “[s]tatutory context”—and in particular, the\\n\\nlocation of the time bar within the statute’s architecture—confirms § 30511(a)’s\\n\\n“non-jurisdictional character.” Id. Here, as there, Congress situated the filing\\n\\nperiod among provisions that describe the standards and procedures that govern the\\n\\ncause of action—and (well) away from those that allocate jurisdiction. Congress,\\n\\nthat is, didn’t write the six-month bar into 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1), which gives federal\\n\\ndistrict courts original jurisdiction over “any civil case of admiralty or maritime\\n\\njurisdiction.” Instead, it placed the time limit in Chapter 305 of Title 46, which is\\n\\ntitled “Exoneration and Limitation of Liability” and which prescribes the\\n\\nmechanics of shipowner suits—liability caps, apportionment, personal-injury and\\n\\nwrongful-death actions, etc. (Tellingly, § 30511(a)’s six-month deadline is\\n\\nrepeated in Rule F(1) of the Supplemental Admiralty and Maritime Claims Rules,\\n\\nwhich are located in an addendum to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.) The\\n\\nfact that here—again, just as in Preston—Congress “separat[ed]” the filing\\n\\ndeadline from the jurisdictional grant fortifies our determination that § 30511(a)’s\\n\\nsix-month “time bar is not jurisdictional.” Preston, 873 F.3d at 882 (quoting Kwai\\n\\nFun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1633).\\n\\n\\n 12\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 13 of 33\\n\\n\\n “Because we find no clear textual indication” that § 30511(a)’s six-month\\n\\ntime bar “was intended to limit courts’ subject matter jurisdiction,” id.—because,\\n\\nin short, it does nothing “special, beyond setting an exception-free deadline,” Kwai\\n\\nFun Wong, 135 S. Ct. at 1632—we hold that the provision is an ordinary non-\\n\\njurisdictional claim-processing rule, and that the district court erred in concluding\\n\\notherwise.2\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n Where, you might ask, does that leave us procedurally? Fair question.\\n\\nGiven the peculiarities of this particular case, the proper course, we think, is to\\n\\nevaluate the merits of the parties’ contentions—about whether the nine original\\n\\n(i.e., pre-November 11, 2014) claimants gave Orion notice sufficient to commence\\n\\n\\n2\\n We are untroubled by the fact that our holding in this respect places us athwart the consensus of\\ncourts to address § 30511(a)’s jurisdictional status. Many of the decisions holding—or\\nassuming, really—that § 30511(a) limits courts’ subject matter jurisdiction predate the Supreme\\nCourt’s recent effort to “bring some discipline” to the use of the term “jurisdictional.”\\nHenderson, 562 U.S. at 435. Moreover, and in any event—and with respect—we think that\\nmany of the § 30511(a) decisions represent the sort of “drive-by jurisdictional rulings,” Reed\\nElsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154, 161 (2010), that the Supreme Court has condemned.\\nSee, e.g., Cincinnati Gas, 533 F.2d at 1003 (relying on a 1939 district court decision for the\\nproposition that if a deadline is a condition precedent then it must be jurisdictional—a\\nmechanical rationale that the Supreme Court has since rejected); Complaint of Tom-Mac, Inc., 76\\nF.3d 678, 682 (5th Cir. 1996) (assuming that § 30511(a)’s predecessor’s filing deadline is\\njurisdictional without elaboration or citation to authority); In re Waterfront License Corp., 231\\nF.R.D. 693, 699 (S.D. Fla. 2005) (same); In re Eckstein, 672 F.3d at 315 & n.11, n.12 (relying on\\nCincinnati Gas, Complaint of Tom-Mac, and In re Waterfront License Corp., as well as an earlier\\nFifth Circuit decision holding the Federal Tort Claims Act’s statute of limitations is\\njurisdictional—a decision that the Supreme Court has since expressly abrogated); In re\\nComplaint of RLB Contracting, Inc., 773 F.3d 596, 601 & n.5, 602 & n.14 (5th Cir. 2014)\\n(relying without analysis on In re Eckstein).\\n\\n\\n\\n 13\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 14 of 33\\n\\n\\n§ 30511(a)’s six-month clock—under a summary-judgment standard. For reasons\\n\\njust explained, despite its label, the Dawsons’ Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss for\\n\\nlack of subject matter jurisdiction is more accurately considered a Rule 12(b)(6)\\n\\nmotion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Because the district court considered\\n\\nmaterials outside the pleadings in deciding the Dawsons’ motion, though—and\\n\\nindeed, affirmatively directed discovery—that motion may properly be converted\\n\\ninto a motion for summary judgment. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(d). Given that (1) the\\n\\nparties here conducted discovery on the timeliness issue, (2) the Dawsons\\n\\nalternatively framed their motion as one for summary judgment and Orion\\n\\nmaintained that it should have been reviewed under a summary-judgment rubric,\\n\\n(3) the parties agree (and have reiterated before us) that there are no disputed\\n\\nmaterial facts, and (4) the parties further agree that the timeliness issue is squarely\\n\\npresented on appeal, we feel confident proceeding to decide the merits under a\\n\\nsummary-judgment standard, reviewing the district court’s decision de novo. Cf.\\n\\nMiller v. Herman, 600 F.3d 726, 731–33 (7th Cir. 2010) (confronting a similar\\n\\n“procedural hiccup” and opting to treat a Rule 12(b)(1) motion as a Rule 12(b)(6)\\n\\nmotion, which was properly converted to, and thus reviewed as, a summary-\\n\\njudgment motion).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 14\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 15 of 33\\n\\n\\n III\\n\\n Our consideration of the merits comprises several issues, which we will\\n\\naddress in turn. First, which of two competing doctrinal tests—which we have\\n\\nacknowledged but have never (until now) had to choose between—governs the\\n\\ndetermination whether a claimant’s notice is sufficient under § 30511(a)? Second,\\n\\nwhat forms and methods of notice qualify as “written notice” within the meaning\\n\\nof the Act? And third, what does it mean for a claimant’s notice to reveal—as we\\n\\nhold it must in order to start the statutory clock and trigger a duty to investigate\\n\\nadditional claims—a “reasonable possibility” that his claim will exceed the value\\n\\nof the shipowner’s vessel(s)?\\n\\n A\\n\\n Because the Act doesn’t define “written notice of a claim,” courts have been\\n\\nleft to formulate tests to determine whether a claimant’s notice suffices under\\n\\n§ 30511(a). Under one, which originated in the Second Circuit’s decision in\\n\\nDoxsee Sea Clam Co. v. Brown, “[n]otice will be sufficient if it informs the vessel\\n\\nowner of an actual or potential claim . . . which may exceed the value of the vessel\\n\\n. . . and is subject to limitation.” 13 F.3d 550, 554 (2d Cir. 1994) (internal citations\\n\\nomitted). The Seventh Circuit has since adopted the Doxsee standard with one\\n\\nimportant refinement—elaborating on the word “may,” that court held that “the\\n\\nwritten notice of a claim must reveal a ‘reasonable possibility’ that the claim made\\n\\n\\n 15\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 16 of 33\\n\\n\\nis one subject to limitation.” In re Complaint of McCarthy Bros. Co./Clark Bridge,\\n\\n83 F.3d 821, 829 (7th Cir. 1996) (citing Complaint of Tom-Mac, 76 F.3d at 683).\\n\\nThe competing test requires only that the claimant’s notice (1) demand a right or\\n\\nsupposed right, (2) blame the vessel owner for any damage or loss, and (3) call on\\n\\nthe vessel owner for anything due. See Rodriguez Moreira v. Lemay, 659 F. Supp.\\n\\n89, 91 (S.D. Fla. 1987).\\n\\n We have twice noted the existence of these two tests―first in Paradise\\n\\nDivers, Inc. v. Upmal, 402 F.3d 1087 (11th Cir. 2005), and then, a year later, in\\n\\nP.G. Charter Boats, Inc. v. Soles, 437 F.3d 1140 (11th Cir. 2006). On both\\n\\noccasions, we found it unnecessary to choose between them. The district court\\n\\nhere did the same thing, concluding that the claimants’ notices satisfied both. But\\n\\nfor reasons that we’ll explain, the distinction between the two standards actually\\n\\nmatters here. Although we have described these two tests as “similar,” Paradise\\n\\nDivers, 402 F.3d at 1090, there is one crucial difference: What we’ll call the\\n\\n“Doxsee/McCarthy test” entails an amount/value element that the “Moreira test”\\n\\ndoes not—namely, it requires that the notice reveal a “reasonable possibility” that\\n\\nthe claim will exceed the value of the offending vessel(s). No one―not even\\n\\nOrion―disputes that the claimants’ notices would meet the Moreira standard.\\n\\nInstead, Orion contends that the claimants’ notices fail the Doxsee/McCarthy test\\n\\nbecause the notices (even considered in the aggregate) failed to convey a\\n\\n\\n 16\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 17 of 33\\n\\n\\nreasonable possibility that the claims’ total value would exceed the value of its\\n\\nbarges.\\n\\n With the lines thus drawn—and because we agree that Orion can’t win under\\n\\nMoreira but has a fighting chance under Doxsee/McCarthy—the time has finally\\n\\ncome for us to decide which standard to apply. The answer, we think, is clear. For\\n\\nstarters, the Doxsee/McCarthy test is the most widely-accepted among our sister\\n\\ncircuits—in addition to the Second and Seventh Circuits, the Fifth has also\\n\\nembraced it, see In re Eckstein, 672 F.3d at 317—and indeed, it has been described\\n\\nas the “most authoritative.” Paradise Divers, 402 F.3d at 1090 (quoting McCarthy\\n\\nBros., 83 F.3d at 829). The Moreira test, by contrast, while perhaps once “found\\n\\nin many district court cases,” id., does not appear to have been adopted by any\\n\\ncircuit court, and generally seems to have fallen into desuetude since Doxsee was\\n\\ndecided.\\n\\n More substantively, the key distinction between the two tests—namely, that\\n\\nDoxsee/McCarthy incorporates an amount/value element (in the form of the\\n\\n“reasonable possibility” showing) that Moreira doesn’t—underscores the\\n\\nsuperiority of the former. Doxsee/McCarthy’s reasonable-possibility requirement\\n\\nserves the six-month limitation period’s purpose by encouraging shipowners to act\\n\\npromptly while at the same time eliminating consideration of small-value cases\\n\\nunlikely to benefit from the Act’s protection. In contrast, by requiring a shipowner\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 18 of 33\\n\\n\\nto initiate limitation proceedings regardless of the amount likely at issue, the\\n\\nMoreira test would (1) “obligate a shipowner to go to the expense of posting\\n\\nsecurity and taking the other steps necessary to commence a limitation proceeding”\\n\\neven when the claims indicate that doing so would be “wholly unnecessary,” (2)\\n\\n“encourage claimants to understate the amount of their damage in the hope that the\\n\\nshipowner would be misled into not filing a timely petition for limitation,” and (3)\\n\\n“serve no purpose other than to clog the courts with unneeded petitions and cause\\n\\ngreat expense to shipowners without in any way benefiting claimants.” Complaint\\n\\nof Morania Barge No. 190, Inc., 690 F.2d 32, 34 (2d Cir. 1982).\\n\\n For all of these reasons, we hold that the Doxsee/McCarthy test is the\\n\\ncontrolling standard for determining the sufficiency of notice under § 30511(a).\\n\\n B\\n\\n That leads us to the question whether claimants’ notices here satisfied the\\n\\nDoxsee/McCarthy standard—which, as we have described it before and adopt it\\n\\ntoday, requires a claimant to give the shipowner written notice that reveals a\\n\\n“reasonable possibility” of a claim that exceeds the value of the vessel(s). See P.G.\\n\\nCharter Boats, 437 F.3d at 1143.\\n\\n Orion argues that claimants’ notices fail this test (1) because some of them\\n\\nwere not “written” at all, as § 30511(a) plainly requires, and (2) because, in any\\n\\nevent, the notices—even including those made orally—“never demonstrated a\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 19 of 33\\n\\n\\nreasonable possibility of a claim exceeding the value of the vessel, and to this day,\\n\\neven added together, Claimants’ filed claims do not.” Br. for Appellant at 21. The\\n\\nDawsons, by contrast, contend that the district court properly determined that the\\n\\npre-November 11, 2014 claims―when considered in the aggregate and including\\n\\nthe oral complaints that were later reduced to writing―provided notice sufficient\\n\\nto allow Orion to evaluate its overall exposure, and thus triggered Orion’s duty to\\n\\ninvestigate and to file suit within six months.\\n\\n 1\\n\\n First things first: Which of the pre-November 11, 2014 complaints qualify as\\n\\n“written notice” within the meaning of the Act? And more particularly, what of\\n\\nthe district court’s conclusion “that both the written complaints Orion received\\n\\ndirectly from the Claimants or by forward from the FDOT, and the memorialized\\n\\noral complaints Orion received [either directly or from FDOT or FARA] constitute\\n\\n‘written’ notice under the Act”? Put simply, in so holding, the district court erred.\\n\\nSection 30511(a) couldn’t be clearer about what we have called its “writing”\\n\\nrequirement. See P.G. Charter Boats, 437 F.3d at 1143. The statute says, in no\\n\\nuncertain terms, that the six-month filing period begins to run when “a claimant\\n\\ngives the owner written notice of a claim.” 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a). Broken down\\n\\ninto its constituent parts, that straightforward provision requires that the claimant\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 19\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 20 of 33\\n\\n\\n(not someone else) give the owner (not someone else) written (not oral) notice of\\n\\nhis claim.\\n\\n As noted earlier, the complaints lodged by the original nine claimants can be\\n\\ngrouped into the following categories: (a) oral complaints that were (i) made to and\\n\\nmemorialized in writing by Orion or (ii) made to and memorialized by FARA or\\n\\nFDOT and then forwarded to Orion; and (b) written complaints that were (i) made\\n\\nto FARA and forwarded to Orion or (ii) made to FDOT and forwarded to Orion.\\n\\nWe will consider each type of complaint in turn.\\n\\n a\\n\\n As an initial matter, we think it clear—contrary to the district court’s\\n\\ndetermination—that the memorialized oral complaints don’t qualify.\\n\\n The complaints that were made orally to Orion and that it later reduced to\\n\\nwriting—those are easy. No reasonable interpretation of § 30511(a)’s text—\\n\\nrequiring that the “claimant give[] the owner written notice”—could include a\\n\\nvessel owner’s own written notes recording a claimant’s oral report. In that\\n\\ncircumstance, no “written notice” has been provided at all—by anyone, to anyone.\\n\\nWhat about the complaints that were made orally to FARA and/or FDOT, which\\n\\nthey then memorialized and forwarded to Orion? Closer, but still no cigar. In that\\n\\ncircumstance, Orion might have received written notice from someone, but it\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 20\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 21 of 33\\n\\n\\ndidn’t receive written notice from a claimant, as § 30511(a) expressly requires. 3\\n\\nThe fact that someone, somewhere has reduced an oral communication to writing\\n\\ndoesn’t transform an invalid oral notice into a valid written notice under the Act.4\\n\\n b\\n\\n What, though, about the written notices provided by the claimants to FARA\\n\\nand/or FDOT, which were then forwarded to Orion? Much closer. The Second\\n\\nCircuit has held that “[i]t is settled that a notice of claim may be received by an\\n\\nagent of the vessel owner,” Doxsee, 13 F.3d at 553, and that seems right to us as a\\n\\nmatter of hornbook agency law. See, e.g., Restatement (Third) of Agency § 5.03\\n\\n\\n\\n3\\n The district court suggested that FDOT was a “potential claimant” by way of the\\nindemnification provision in Orion’s contract—and therefore, that the oral claims memorialized\\nby FDOT could constitute written notice by a claimant. That is incorrect. The Supreme Court\\nhas made clear that contracts entered into by vessel owners are personal and not subject to the\\nAct. See, e.g., Am. Car & Foundry Co. v. Brassert, 289 U.S. 261, 264 (1933); Richardson v.\\nHarmon, 222 U.S. 96, 106 (1911). Accordingly, no claim made by FDOT against Orion\\npursuant to their contract would be subject to limitation, and FDOT could never be a “claimant”\\nin a limitation action.\\n4\\n In support of its conclusion that the memorialized oral complaints should be considered, the\\ndistrict court cited only the magistrate’s report and recommendation in Paradise Divers for the\\nproposition that “although a notice of claim must obviously be in writing, the notice need not\\ntake any particular form.” Doc. 634 at 16 (quoting In re Paradise Divers, Inc., No. 03-10021\\nCIV, 2003 WL 25731109, at *4 (S.D. Fla. Nov. 9, 2003)). But that statement doesn’t support the\\ndistrict court’s position. Rather, the Paradise Divers R&R sought only to clarify what other\\ncircuits have expressly held―that informal written notice, such as a letter sent by a claimant or\\nhis attorney, will suffice under the Act in lieu of a formal complaint. See, e.g., RLB Contracting,\\n773 F.3d at 603; Doxsee, 13 F.3d at 554. The Act’s plain text still requires that the claimant\\nprovide written notice to the owner. 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a).\\n The district court also emphasized that Orion acted on the memorialized oral\\ncomplaints—and thus, the theory presumably goes, had actual knowledge of them. But even\\nactual knowledge of alleged damage is no substitute for the written notice required by the Act.\\nSee, e.g., Moreira, 659 F. Supp. at 91.\\n\\n 21\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 22 of 33\\n\\n\\n(Am. Law Inst. 2006) (observing that, as a general rule, “[f]or purposes of a\\n\\nprincipal’s legal relations with a third party, notice of a fact that an agent knows or\\n\\nhas reason to know is imputed to the principal if knowledge of the fact is material\\n\\nto the agent’s duties to the principal”). And for that matter, even Orion admits that\\n\\n“written notice provided to an agent might be imputed to the principal.” Reply Br.\\n\\nfor Appellant at 6. So the sufficiency of the written notices sent to FARA and/or\\n\\nFDOT hinges on whether they were Orion’s agents.\\n\\n It seems reasonably clear to us—and no one here disputes—that FARA was\\n\\nOrion’s agent for claims-processing purposes. FARA had at the very least\\n\\napparent―and probably even actual―authority to act on Orion’s behalf; indeed, it\\n\\nwas hired specifically to assist Orion with the adjustment of claims. See\\n\\nRestatement (Third) of Agency §§ 3.01, 3.03 (describing actual and apparent\\n\\nauthority). Accordingly, any claimant who gave written notice to FARA, as\\n\\nOrion’s agent, satisfied § 30511(a)’s writing requirement.\\n\\n Those who gave written notice only to FDOT (which the claimants describe\\n\\nas Orion’s “project partner”) stand on different footing. So far as we can tell, the\\n\\nrecord contains no evidence that Orion—as the would-be principal—made any\\n\\n“manifestation” that would have clothed FDOT with either actual or apparent\\n\\nauthority to accept claim notices on Orion’s behalf. See id. §§ 3.01, 3.03\\n\\n(emphasizing that the “manifestation” that gives rise to an agent’s authority must\\n\\n\\n 22\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 23 of 33\\n\\n\\nemanate from the principal). Perhaps not surprisingly, then, the record\\n\\ndemonstrates that when FDOT received complaints, it simply—and consistently—\\n\\nredirected them to Orion rather than attempting to process them. 5 Because FDOT\\n\\n(unlike FARA) had no authority to act as Orion’s agent for claims-processing\\n\\npurposes, written notice provided to FDOT didn’t meet § 30511(a)’s written-\\n\\nnotice-to-owner requirement.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n So to sum up, the district court erred in holding that all of the claims—oral\\n\\nand written, and to whomever communicated—constituted “written notice” to the\\n\\n“owner” under § 30511(a). Complaints delivered orally and later reduced to\\n\\nwriting (by anyone) don’t qualify. Nor do the written complaints submitted to\\n\\nFDOT, which had no authority to act as Orion’s claims-processing agent. Only the\\n\\nwritten complaints submitted in writing to Orion—either directly or through\\n\\nFARA, its agent—satisfy § 30511(a)’s “written notice” requirement.\\n\\n 2\\n\\n Having said that, even if we were to consider―as the district court\\n\\nerroneously did―the oral and written complaints lodged by all nine of the pre-\\n\\n\\n5\\n In fairness, the record does reveal one instance in which an FDOT employee sent a copy of a\\nproperty-damage form to a claimant with instructions that the claimant complete the form and\\ncopy her on the submission “so that [she could] make sure Orion receive[d] the documentation.”\\nDispositively, though, that “manifestation”—assuming it was one—wasn’t made by Orion,\\nwhich (as explained in text) agency law requires in order to establish apparent authority.\\n\\n 23\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 24 of 33\\n\\n\\nNovember 11, 2014 claimants, their notices still fail the Doxsee/McCarthy test\\n\\nbecause they don’t reveal a “reasonable possibility” that the claims, even\\n\\nconsidered (as the district court put it) “in the aggregate,” would exceed the value\\n\\nof Orion’s barges.6 Here’s why.\\n\\n a\\n\\n It is undisputed that the four Orion barges involved in the pile-driving were\\n\\nvalued, collectively, at no less than $1,258,217.00. The question, then, is whether\\n\\nthe nine original claimants’ notices revealed a reasonable possibility that their\\n\\nclaims, collectively, would exceed that amount. It is clear to us that they didn’t.\\n\\n Let’s first review the sort of damage that the claimants alleged. In general,\\n\\nthe homeowners complained that Orion’s pile-driving had caused (1) external\\n\\ncracks in their homes’ walls, chimneys, porches, and driveways, (2) internal cracks\\n\\n\\n\\n6\\n Although there is nothing in the Act explicitly stating that the value of claims should be\\nconsidered cumulatively, we will assume for present purposes that it is permissible to do so, as\\nno one here seems to dispute that we may aggregate the value both of individual property\\nowners’ claims and of Orion’s four barges for purposes of determining whether the claimants’\\nnotices reveal the required “reasonable possibility.” We do note a distinction between this case\\nand the Fifth Circuit’s decision in RLB Contracting, on which the district court here relied. In\\nparticular, the district court pointed to the Fifth Circuit’s statement that § 30511(a)’s “statutory\\ntext does not foreclose the possibility of aggregate notice; it only requires the claimant to give\\n‘the owner written notice,’ not a written notice.” 773 F.3d at 603. To be clear, though, RLB\\nContracting was different—the court there sanctioned aggregating multiple notices from a single\\nclaimant pertaining to a single incident, not (as here) multiple notices from multiple claimants\\narising out of multiple incidents. And while the Fifth Circuit was correct that the statute does not\\nrequire a written notice, it does require “written notice of a claim.” 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a)\\n(emphasis added). Even so, we needn’t tarry on the aggregate-notice issue here, because, as we\\nexplain in text, even if we consider all nine of the original claimants’ notices together, they don’t\\nreveal a reasonable possibility that the claims would exceed the value of Orion’s four barges.\\n 24\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 25 of 33\\n\\n\\nin drywall and around windows, ceilings, and fireplaces, and (3) leaks in their\\n\\nswimming pools and related water lines. The most extensive—and arguably most\\n\\nserious—complaints came from Mary White. After lodging a general complaint\\n\\nabout damage in May 2012, she filed a more detailed grievance a year later.\\n\\nThere, she said that her home had “sustained substantial damage from the work\\n\\nthat is being done building the new Byway bridge.” In particular, she complained\\n\\nabout “cracking in every room in [her] home (including around the windows and\\n\\nceilings, and . . . along [her] marble fireplace),” “cracks in [her] new cement\\n\\ndriveway,” “dropped pavers in [her] patio,” “a leak in [her] swimming pool,” and\\n\\n“a wet spot in [her] downstairs room.” Six months thereafter, White followed up,\\n\\nalleging that she “had additional cracks in all [her] rooms.”\\n\\n Another homeowner, Robert Orsi, lodged a series of complaints, the most\\n\\ndescriptive of which alleged damage to his “chimney and . . . front entrance,”\\n\\n“cracks . . . above [his] door [that] made opening the door all the way difficult,”\\n\\nand cracks “at the top of [his] stairs” that he feared suggested “issues with the\\n\\nconcrete header over the doorway.” Another couple, Mark and Christine\\n\\nDawson—the appellees here—repeatedly complained about “damage to [their]\\n\\nswimming pool”—in particular, about “damage to [the] lines to [the] swimming\\n\\npool caused by pile driving vibration.” They also alleged, more vaguely, that “[i]n\\n\\naddition to the pool leaks,” they had “a list of other issues that have happened, and\\n\\n\\n 25\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 26 of 33\\n\\n\\ncontinue to happen.” The other homeowners’ complaints were similar, albeit less\\n\\ndetailed—“leak in [my] pool,” “cracking on [my] ceiling,” “cracks in [my] home,”\\n\\n“a lot of damage,” etc.\\n\\n As already noted, in response to several of the early complaints, Orion sent\\n\\none of its agents to investigate. He determined that the alleged damage to White’s\\n\\nhome was “minor” and “cosmetic,” that the cracks in Orsi’s house were “old” and\\n\\nthat the damage was “very minor cosmetic stuff,” and that the Dawsons’ pool leak\\n\\nwas “just a crack in a PVC pipe.” Orion installed vibration monitors at White’s\\n\\nand Orsi’s homes; the numbers registered “low” at Orsi’s and “very, very low” at\\n\\nWhite’s.\\n\\n The question, then, is whether these notices revealed a reasonable possibility\\n\\nthat the claims—in the aggregate, we have said we will assume—would exceed the\\n\\nbarges’ $1,258,217.00 value. We think it clear that they didn’t. In explaining why\\n\\nnot, it will be useful to compare this case with two recent Fifth Circuit decisions\\n\\nthat have unpacked the reasonable-possibility standard. In Eckstein, a shipowner\\n\\ncontended that a claimant’s state-court complaint failed to reveal a reasonable\\n\\npossibility that his claim would exceed a vessel’s $750,000 value. In disagreeing,\\n\\nthe Fifth Circuit emphasized the seriousness of the claimant’s physical injuries,\\n\\nsustained when he became “entangled in a line and was pulled into a mooring bit.”\\n\\n672 F.3d at 313. The claimant’s injuries were not only gruesome—according to\\n\\n\\n 26\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 27 of 33\\n\\n\\neyewitness testimony, his “foot was hanging off of his leg at . . . a 90 degree angle”\\n\\nand there was “blood everywhere”—but also “permanent and catastrophic.” Id. at\\n\\n317–18. He required “multiple surgeries including debridement, the insertion of\\n\\nhardware to treat his bone fractures, and a skin graft.” Id. at 318. In his complaint,\\n\\nhe sought “compensation for the remainder of his lifetime, including past loss of\\n\\nearning, future loss of earning capacity, past and future disability, past and future\\n\\ndisfigurement, past and future medical and hospital expenses, past and future pain\\n\\nand mental anguish, and maintenance and c[u]re.” Id. at 317. The Fifth Circuit\\n\\nheld that the claimant’s complaint “alleging catastrophic and permanent injuries\\n\\nraised at least a reasonable possibility that his claim might exceed” the ship’s\\n\\n$750,000 value and, accordingly, that “it was [the shipowner’s] responsibility to\\n\\nconduct an investigation, and to file a limitation action within six months.” Id. at\\n\\n319.\\n\\n The Fifth Circuit faced the reasonable-possibility issue again in RLB\\n\\nContracting. In that case, a fishing boat carrying a family had collided with a\\n\\nship’s floating dredge pipe; “[a]ll occupants of the fishing boat were thrown\\n\\noverboard, suffering various physical injuries, and [a child] was killed.” 773 F.3d\\n\\nat 599. Following Eckstein, the court held that a series of letters sent by the\\n\\nfamily’s lawyer—including one emphasizing “the nature of the injuries, bystander\\n\\nclaims, graphic photos, [and] the PTSD claims”—revealed a reasonable possibility\\n\\n\\n 27\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 28 of 33\\n\\n\\nof a claim exceeding the vessel’s $750,000 value. Id. at 600. Put simply, the Fifth\\n\\nCircuit concluded, the shipowner “should have realized that an action involving the\\n\\ndeath of a child would easily exceed $750,000 in potential damages.” Id. at 606.\\n\\n Needless to say, the nature and severity of the property damage alleged here\\n\\npale in comparison to the claims for “permanent and catastrophic” personal injuries\\n\\nin Eckstein and wrongful death in RLB Contracting. And on the other side of the\\n\\nledger, the value of the vessels here—more than $1.2 million—is significantly\\n\\nhigher than in those cases. Even considering the notices provided by all nine of the\\n\\noriginal claimants, we hold that they failed to reveal a reasonable possibility of\\n\\nclaims exceeding the value of Orion’s four barges.\\n\\n b\\n\\n In concluding otherwise, the district court relied not on an empirical (or even\\n\\nanecdotal) valuation of the pre-November 11, 2014 claims—or a comparison of\\n\\nthose claims with the acknowledged value of Orion’s barges—but rather on twin\\n\\ndeterminations (1) that Orion had a duty to investigate both known and potential\\n\\nclaims “immediately” upon receiving the homeowners’ notices and (2) that it failed\\n\\nto do so. The key passage of the district court’s opinion:\\n\\n Had Orion fulfilled its obligation to investigate immediately upon\\n knowing of the claims and the uncertainty of their value or if it had\\n simply filed its petition to limit liability in the face of this uncertainty,\\n it would have either discovered that its losses were much greater than\\n the specific claims about which it knew or it would have limited its\\n liability in any event from all claims known or unknown occasioned\\n 28\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 29 of 33\\n\\n\\n by the alleged injury caused by its pile-driving activity. Instead Orion\\n did nothing, and that inaction is fatal to its Complaint to limit liability.\\n\\nDoc. 634 at 23. In so concluding, the district court erred, both as a matter of law\\n\\nand as a matter of undisputed fact.\\n\\n First, as to the law: The district court stated (and restated) that Orion had a\\n\\nlegal duty to investigate known and potential property-damage claims\\n\\n“immediately” upon learning of them. For support, the court quoted the Fifth\\n\\nCircuit’s decision in RLB Contracting, which in turn quoted that court’s earlier\\n\\ndecision in Eckstein:\\n\\n The purpose of the reasonable possibility standard is to place the\\n burden of investigating potential claims on the vessel owner:\\n\\n The Limitation Act provides generous statutory\\n protection to the vessel owners who reap all of its\\n benefits. When there is uncertainty as to whether a claim\\n will exceed the vessel’s value, the reasonable possibility\\n standard places the risk and the burdens associated with\\n that risk on the owner. In other words, if doubt exists as\\n to the total amount of the claims or as to whether they\\n will exceed the value of the ship the owner will not be\\n excused from satisfying the statutory time bar since he\\n may institute a limitation proceeding even when the total\\n amount claimed is uncertain.\\n\\nDoc. 634 at 20 (quoting RLB Contracting, 773 F.3d at 602 (quoting Eckstein, 672\\n\\nF.3d at 317–18)) (additional internal quotation marks and citations omitted).\\n\\n The district court, though, prematurely cut short its quotation from RLB\\n\\nContracting. Just two sentences later—and again invoking its earlier decision in\\n\\n\\n 29\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 30 of 33\\n\\n\\nEckstein—the Fifth Circuit clearly explained when a shipowner’s duty to\\n\\ninvestigate arises: “‘[O]nce a reasonable possibility has been raised, it becomes\\n\\nthe vessel owner’s responsibility to initiate a prompt investigation and determine\\n\\nwhether to file a limitation action.’” 773 F.3d at 603 (quoting Eckstein, 672 F.3d\\n\\nat 317) (emphasis added). RLB does not say―as the district court here phrased\\n\\nit―that the shipowner has an “obligation to investigate immediately upon knowing\\n\\nof the claims.” And in fact, Eckstein, which RLB followed, flatly rejects the\\n\\ndistrict court’s investigate-immediately-upon-receipt position: “The Limitation\\n\\nAct’s six-month timeline does not automatically begin to run when a vessel owner\\n\\nlearns a claimant has filed a lawsuit. It is triggered only if and when the written\\n\\nnotice reveals a ‘reasonable possibility’ that the claim will exceed the value of the\\n\\nvessel, and therefore that the vessel owner might benefit from the Limitation Act’s\\n\\nprotection.” 672 F.3d at 317 (emphasis added).\\n\\n We think that the Fifth Circuit has it exactly right. While we agree with the\\n\\ndistrict court that a claimant’s notice needn’t include a specific demand for\\n\\ndamages, and while it’s true that the vessel owner bears the burden of\\n\\n“uncertainty” and “doubt” as to the amount of alleged damages, it remains the case\\n\\nthat the claimant’s notice must reveal a reasonable possibility that the claims may\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 30\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 31 of 33\\n\\n\\nexceed the offending vessel’s value. It is at that point—but not before—that the\\n\\nshipowner’s duty to investigate arises.7\\n\\n Because Orion’s duty to investigate didn’t arise “automatically” or\\n\\n“immediately” upon the filing of claims, it didn’t violate that duty in the way the\\n\\ndistrict court concluded. Indeed, and to the contrary, because (for reasons already\\n\\nexplained) the claimants’ notices here didn’t reveal a reasonable possibility of\\n\\nclaims exceeding $1,258,217.00, Orion’s duty to investigate never materialized—\\n\\nmeaning, by definition, that it couldn’t have violated that duty, as the district court\\n\\nheld.\\n\\n Now, briefly, as to the facts: It simply isn’t accurate, as the district court\\n\\nsaid, that “Orion did nothing.” Doc. 634 at 23. As already explained, the\\n\\nundisputed facts demonstrate that, in response to the first several complaints, Orion\\n\\nsent one of its agents to investigate. That agent visited the White, Orsi, and\\n\\nDawson residences, observed the alleged damage, and conducted vibration\\n\\nmonitoring. He concluded that the problems were either “old,” “minor,” or\\n\\n“cosmetic”—or perhaps all three—and that the vibration measurements ranged\\n\\n\\n7\\n And to be clear, the Fifth Circuit is hardly alone in concluding that a shipowner’s duty to\\ninvestigate does not arise “automatically” or “immediately,” but rather only if and when a\\nclaimant’s notice reveals a reasonable possibility of a claim that exceeds the vessel’s value. The\\nSecond and Seventh Circuits have said the same thing, see McCarthy, 83 F.3d at 829 (“[T]he\\nwritten notice of claim must reveal a ‘reasonable possibility’ that the claim made is one subject\\nto limitation.” (emphasis added)); Doxsee, 13 F.3d at 554 (“Notice will be sufficient if it informs\\nthe vessel owner of an actual or potential claim . . . which may exceed the value of the vessel . . .\\nand is subject to limitation.” (emphasis added)).\\n 31\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 32 of 33\\n\\n\\nfrom “low” to “very, very low.” Thus, faced with claims of uncertain value—and\\n\\neven without concluding that the notices underlying those claims revealed the\\n\\nrequisite “reasonable possibility”—Orion investigated and determined (in its\\n\\nopinion, with certainty) that the alleged damage was minor.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n In sum, the notices that Orion had received prior to November 11, 2014\\n\\ndidn’t reveal a reasonable possibility that the residents’ claims would exceed the\\n\\nvalue of its four barges, and Orion’s preliminary investigation confirmed that\\n\\nconclusion. Had Orion bulled ahead with a limitation action at that point—as the\\n\\ndistrict court concluded the law required—it would have “serve[d] no purpose\\n\\nother than to clog the courts with [an] unneeded petition[].” Morania Barge, 690\\n\\nF.2d at 34.\\n\\n IV\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, we hold as follows:\\n\\n 1. The six-month filing deadline specified by 46 U.S.C. § 30511(a) is a\\n\\nnon-jurisdictional claim-processing rule, and a shipowner’s failure to meet it does\\n\\nnot deprive the district court of subject matter jurisdiction but rather provides a\\n\\nbasis on which to dismiss the owner’s limitation action on the merits.\\n\\n 2. In order to trigger § 30511(a)’s six-month filing period, a claimant\\n\\n(not someone else) must provide the shipowner or its agent (not someone else)\\n\\n\\n 32\\n\\f Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 33 of 33\\n\\n\\nwith a written (not oral) notice that reveals a “reasonable possibility” of a claim\\n\\nthat will exceed the value of the vessel(s) at issue.\\n\\n 3. A shipowner’s duty to investigate known or potential claims does not\\n\\narise immediately upon receipt of a claimant’s notice, but only if the notice reveals\\n\\na reasonable possibility that the underlying claim exceeds the value of the\\n\\nvessel(s).\\n\\n 4. The notices provided by the first nine claimants here—i.e., those who\\n\\nlodged complaints before November 11, 2014—failed to reveal the required\\n\\nreasonable possibility, and thus neither started the six-month clock nor obligated\\n\\nOrion to investigate.\\n\\n REVERSED AND REMANDED.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 33\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1357,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4602166,"string":"4,602,166"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Jacqueline LEWIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF UNION CITY, GEORGIA, Chief of Police Charles Odom, in His Official and Individual Capacities, Defendant -Appellees."},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Jacqueline Lewis v. City of Union City, Georgia"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-21"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"15-11362"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 1 of 100\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 15-11362\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 1:12-cv-04038-RWS\\n\\nJACQUELINE LEWIS,\\n\\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nCITY OF UNION CITY, GEORGIA,\\nCHIEF OF POLICE CHARLES ODOM,\\nin his official and individual capacities,\\n\\n Defendant -Appellees.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Northern District of Georgia\\n ________________________\\n\\n (March 21, 2019)\\n\\n ON PETITION FOR REHEARING\\n\\nBefore ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM\\nPRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM,\\nBRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nNEWSOM, Circuit Judge, delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ED\\nCARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR,\\nJORDAN, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges, joined.\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 2 of 100\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4379419/\", \"author_raw\": \"NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:\"}, {\"author\": \"ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, filed an opinion concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in\\npart, in which MARTIN and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges, joined.\\n\\nNEWSOM, Circuit Judge:\\n\\n Faced with a defendant’s motion for summary judgment, a plaintiff asserting\\n\\nan intentional-discrimination claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,\\n\\nthe Equal Protection Clause, or 42 U.S.C. § 1981 must make a sufficient factual\\n\\nshowing to permit a reasonable jury to rule in her favor. She can do so in a variety\\n\\nof ways, one of which is by navigating the now-familiar three-part burden-shifting\\n\\nframework established by the Supreme Court in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v.\\n\\nGreen, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). Under that framework, the plaintiff bears the initial\\n\\nburden of establishing a prima facie case of discrimination by proving, among\\n\\nother things, that she was treated differently from another “similarly situated”\\n\\nindividual―in court-speak, a “comparator.” Texas Dep’t of Cmty. Affairs v.\\n\\nBurdine, 450 U.S. 248, 258–59 (1981) (citing McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at\\n\\n804). The obvious question: Just how “similarly situated” must a plaintiff and her\\n\\ncomparator(s) be?\\n\\n To date, our attempts to answer that question have only sown confusion. In\\n\\nsome cases, we have required a proper comparator to be “nearly identical” to the\\n\\nplaintiff. See, e.g., Nix v. WLCY Radio/Rahall Commc’ns, 738 F.2d 1181, 1185\\n\\n(11th Cir. 1984) (citations omitted). In others, we have expressly rejected a\\n\\nnearly-identical standard. See, e.g., Alexander v. Fulton Cty., 207 F.3d 1303,\\n\\n 2\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 3 of 100\\n\\n\\n1333–34 (11th Cir. 2000). In still others, without even mentioning the nearly-\\n\\nidentical benchmark, we have deemed it sufficient that the plaintiff and the\\n\\ncomparator engaged in the “same or similar” conduct. See, e.g., Holifield v. Reno,\\n\\n115 F.3d 1555, 1562 (11th Cir. 1997) (per curiam). And to make matters worse, in\\n\\nstill others we have applied both the nearly-identical and same-or-similar standards\\n\\nsimultaneously. See, e.g., Maniccia v. Brown, 171 F.3d 1364, 1368 (11th Cir.\\n\\n1999). It’s a mess.\\n\\n In an effort to clean up, and to clarify once and for all the proper standard for\\n\\ncomparator evidence in intentional-discrimination cases, we took this case en banc\\n\\nand instructed the parties to address the following issue:\\n\\n The Supreme Court has held that in order to make out a prima facie\\n case of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,\\n the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, or 42\\n U.S.C. § 1981, a plaintiff must prove, among other things, that she\\n was treated differently from another “similarly situated” individual.\\n What standard does the phrase “similarly situated” impose on the\\n plaintiff: (1) “same or similar,” (2) “nearly identical,” or (3) some\\n other standard?\\n\\n Our plaintiff-appellant’s position is twofold. First, as a procedural matter,\\n\\nshe urges us to “move” any qualitative analysis of comparator evidence out of the\\n\\ninitial prima facie stage of the McDonnell Douglas analysis, where it historically\\n\\nhas resided, and into the third-tier pretext stage. Second, as a substantive matter,\\n\\nshe contends that we should jettison both the same-or-similar and nearly-identical\\n\\ntests in favor of what she calls a “flexible, common-sense” standard, which the\\n 3\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 4 of 100\\n\\n\\nSeventh Circuit seems to have embraced: “So long as the distinctions between the\\n\\nplaintiff and the proposed comparators are not ‘so significant that they render the\\n\\ncomparison effectively useless,’ the similarly-situated requirement is satisfied.”\\n\\nAppellant’s En Banc Br. at 34 (quoting Coleman v. Donahoe, 667 F.3d 835, 846\\n\\n(7th Cir. 2012)).\\n\\n Not surprisingly, the defendants-appellees see things differently. First, they\\n\\ninsist that the comparator evaluation should remain part of the prima facie stage of\\n\\nthe McDonnell Douglas analysis. Second, they urge us to keep the nearly-identical\\n\\nstandard, which, they say, reflects the dominant rule in our case law and most\\n\\naccurately captures what the Supreme Court’s understanding of the phrase\\n\\n“similarly situated.”\\n\\n For the reasons that follow, we hold, as an initial matter, that a meaningful\\n\\ncomparator analysis must be conducted at the prima facie stage of McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas’s burden-shifting framework, and should not be “move[d]” to the pretext\\n\\nstage. With respect to the standard itself, we hold that the proper test for\\n\\nevaluating comparator evidence is neither plain-old “same or similar” nor “nearly\\n\\nidentical,” as our past cases have discordantly suggested. Nor is it the Seventh\\n\\nCircuit’s so-long-as-the-comparison-isn’t-useless test. Rather, we conclude that a\\n\\nplaintiff asserting an intentional-discrimination claim under McDonnell Douglas\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 5 of 100\\n\\n\\nmust demonstrate that she and her proffered comparators were “similarly situated\\n\\nin all material respects.”\\n\\n I\\n\\n A\\n\\n Jacqueline Lewis, an African-American woman, started working for the\\n\\nUnion City Police Department as a patrol officer in 2001 and was promoted to\\n\\ndetective in 2008. She suffered a heart attack the following year but was cleared\\n\\nto return to work without any restrictions.\\n\\n In 2010, then-Police Chief Charles Odom announced a new policy requiring\\n\\nall officers to carry Tasers. As part of the training associated with the new policy,\\n\\nofficers had to receive a five-second Taser shock. 1 After hearing about the Taser\\n\\npolicy and being scheduled for separate pepper-spray training, Lewis became\\n\\nconcerned that she might be at an increased risk of injury because of her earlier\\n\\nheart attack. Lewis’s doctor agreed and, due to what she described as “several\\n\\nchronic conditions including a heart condition,” she informed Chief Odom that she\\n\\n“would not recommend” that either a Taser or pepper spray be used either “on or\\n\\nnear” Lewis.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n1\\n Chief Odom required the Taser shock so that officers could, e.g., evaluate the appropriate\\ncircumstances under which to use the Taser, testify in court about the effects of the shock, and\\ndevelop confidence that the shock is survivable.\\n\\n 5\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 6 of 100\\n\\n\\n Because as a detective Lewis would inevitably be (at the very least) “near”\\n\\npepper spray—and under the new policy, Tasers, as well—Chief Odom concluded\\n\\nthat the restrictions described by Lewis’s doctor prevented her from performing the\\n\\nessential duties of her job. Accordingly, Lewis was placed on unpaid\\n\\nadministrative leave “until such time [as her doctor] release[d] [her] to return to\\n\\nfull and active duty.” Lewis was instructed “to complete the necessary FMLA\\n\\npaperwork concerning [her] absence” and told that she could use her accrued paid\\n\\nleave until it was expended. After a few weeks, Lewis had exhausted all of her\\n\\naccrued leave but still hadn’t completed the necessary FMLA paperwork. As a\\n\\nresult, her absence was deemed “unapproved” and she was terminated pursuant to\\n\\nthe Union City Personnel Policy, which stated that “[a]ny unapproved leave of\\n\\nabsence [is] cause for dismissal.”\\n\\n B\\n\\n Lewis brought this action against Union City and Chief Odom (together,\\n\\n“the City”), alleging, as relevant here, race and gender discrimination in violation\\n\\nof Title VII, the Equal Protection Clause, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. 2 The City moved\\n\\nfor summary judgment, and Lewis filed a response in which she identified as\\n\\ncomparators two other Union City police officers whom she claimed had been\\n\\n\\n\\n2\\n Lewis also brought claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.\\nThose claims are not before the en banc court.\\n\\n 6\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 7 of 100\\n\\n\\ntreated more favorably. The first was Sergeant Cliff McClure, a white man who\\n\\nfailed the “balance” portion of a physical-fitness test in 2014 (nearly four years\\n\\nafter the events culminating in Lewis’s termination) and was given 90 days of\\n\\nunpaid administrative leave to remedy the conditions that caused him to fail.\\n\\nMcClure retook (and passed) the test within the 90-day period and returned to\\n\\nwork. The second was Officer Walker Heard, a white man who failed an “agility”\\n\\ntest in 2013 (almost three years after Lewis’s firing) and was also placed on unpaid\\n\\nadministrative leave for 90 days. Heard was offered (and ultimately declined) a\\n\\nposition as a dispatcher. The offer, however, remained open for approximately 11\\n\\nmonths while Heard’s attorney negotiated with the City regarding allegations that\\n\\nhe suffered from a disability. In the end, Heard was terminated after 449 days on\\n\\nunpaid administrative leave because he was unable to demonstrate his fitness to be\\n\\na patrol officer. 3\\n\\n The district court granted summary judgment to the City, concluding as to\\n\\nthe race- and gender-discrimination claims that Lewis’s “proffered comparators\\n\\nd[id] not qualify under either [the ‘nearly identical’ or the ‘same or similar’]\\n\\nstandard.”\\n\\n\\n3\\n Lewis also proffered a third comparator in her response―Officer Francisco Cedeno, a Latino\\nman who initially communicated his doctor’s concerns that he not be exposed to a Taser shock\\nwhile he was recovering from heart surgery but eventually agreed to be shocked in the leg.\\nLewis has since abandoned any contention that Cedeno is a valid comparator. See Br. of\\nAppellant at 22 n.8.\\n\\n 7\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 8 of 100\\n\\n\\n Over Judge Tjoflat’s dissent, a panel of this Court reversed, holding in\\n\\nrelevant part that Lewis had presented enough evidence to create a genuine issue of\\n\\nmaterial fact as to her race- and gender-discrimination claims. Lewis v. City of\\n\\nUnion City, 877 F.3d 1000, 1004 (11th Cir. 2017), reh’g en banc granted, opinion\\n\\nvacated, Lewis v. City of Union City, 893 F.3d 1352 (11th Cir. 2018). In\\n\\nparticular, the panel determined that McClure and Heard were valid comparators\\n\\nfor purposes of assessing Lewis’s prima facie case. 877 F.3d at 1015–18. In the\\n\\ncourse of so holding, the panel acknowledged that “[t]his Circuit often has applied\\n\\nor referred to a ‘nearly identical’ standard to determine whether proposed\\n\\ncomparators are similarly situated,” but it rejected that test, which, it reasoned,\\n\\napplies only in workplace-misconduct cases. Id. at 1017 n.11.\\n\\n We vacated the panel’s opinion and took this case en banc to clarify the\\n\\nproper standard for comparator evidence in intentional-discrimination cases.4\\n\\n II\\n\\n This case arises principally under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,\\n\\nwhich makes it unlawful for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge\\n\\nany individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to\\n\\n\\n\\n4\\n We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. Jones v. Dillard’s, Inc., 331\\nF.3d 1259, 1262 (11th Cir. 2003). Summary judgment is appropriate only when no genuine\\nissue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.\\nR. Civ. P. 56(a); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322–23 (1986).\\n\\n 8\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 9 of 100\\n\\n\\nhis compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such\\n\\nindividual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–\\n\\n2(a)(1). “The language of Title VII makes plain the purpose of Congress to assure\\n\\nequality of employment opportunities and to eliminate those discriminatory\\n\\npractices and devices” that have been used to disadvantage racial, gender, and\\n\\nreligious minorities in the workplace. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411\\n\\nU.S. 792, 800 (1973). 5\\n\\n In order to survive summary judgment, a plaintiff alleging intentional\\n\\ndiscrimination must present sufficient facts to permit a jury to rule in her favor.\\n\\nOne way that she can do so is by satisfying the burden-shifting framework set out\\n\\nin McDonnell Douglas.6 When proceeding under McDonnell Douglas, the\\n\\nplaintiff bears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of discrimination\\n\\nby showing (1) that she belongs to a protected class, (2) that she was subjected to\\n\\n\\n\\n5\\n As already noted, Lewis also presented race- and gender-related claims under the Equal\\nProtection Clause and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. The same analysis—and in particular, the McDonnell\\nDouglas burden-shifting framework—applies to those claims, as well. See Standard v. A.B.E.L.\\nServs., Inc., 161 F.3d 1318, 1330 (11th Cir. 1998) (“Standard alleges that he was terminated on\\nthe basis of his race and national origin (Caucasian–American), in violation of Title VII and 42\\nU.S.C. § 1981. Both of these statutes have the same requirements of proof and use the same\\nanalytical framework, therefore we shall explicitly address the Title VII claim with the\\nunderstanding that the analysis applies to the § 1981 claim as well.”).\\n6\\n A plaintiff can also present direct evidence of discriminatory intent, see, e.g., Jefferson v.\\nSewon America, Inc., 891 F.3d 911, 921–22 (11th Cir. 2018), or demonstrate a “convincing\\nmosaic” of circumstantial evidence that warrants an inference of intentional discrimination, see,\\ne.g., Smith v. Lockheed-Martin Corp., 644 F.3d 1321, 1328 (11th Cir. 2011) (citation and\\nquotation marks omitted).\\n\\n 9\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 10 of 100\\n\\n\\nan adverse employment action, (3) that she was qualified to perform the job in\\n\\nquestion, and (4) that her employer treated “similarly situated” employees outside\\n\\nher class more favorably. See, e.g., Holifield v. Reno, 115 F.3d 1555, 1561–62\\n\\n(11th Cir. 1997) (citing McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802). If the plaintiff\\n\\nsucceeds in making out a prima facie case, the burden shifts to the defendant to\\n\\narticulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its actions. Tex. Dep’t of\\n\\nCmty. Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253 (1981). Finally, should the defendant\\n\\ncarry its burden, the plaintiff must then demonstrate that the defendant’s proffered\\n\\nreason was merely a pretext for unlawful discrimination, an obligation that\\n\\n“merges with the [plaintiff’s] ultimate burden of persuading the [factfinder] that\\n\\nshe has been the victim of intentional discrimination.” Id. at 256.\\n\\n The question before the en banc court is whether Lewis adequately showed\\n\\nthat the City treated “similarly situated” employees outside her class more\\n\\nfavorably than her. That question, in turn—and in the light of the parties’\\n\\ncontentions—comprises two subsidiary questions. First, should the “similarly\\n\\nsituated”—i.e., comparator—analysis be conducted at the prima facie stage of the\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas framework, as we (and the Supreme Court) have traditionally\\n\\nheld, or should it instead be reserved for the pretext stage? Second, and in either\\n\\nevent, what is the proper standard for determining whether a plaintiff and her\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 11 of 100\\n\\n\\ncomparators are “similarly situated”? We turn to a consideration of those\\n\\nquestions.7\\n\\n A\\n\\n All here seem to agree that the qualitative assessment of comparator\\n\\nevidence has historically occurred in—and been an integral part of—the plaintiff’s\\n\\nprima facie case. In her brief, for instance, Lewis recites the black-letter principle\\n\\nthat in order to make out a prima facie case in a wrongful-termination action like\\n\\nthis, “a plaintiff must show that she: (1) is a member of a protected class; (2) was\\n\\nqualified for the position from which she was terminated; (3) was terminated; and\\n\\n(4) was treated less favorably than similarly situated employees outside her\\n\\nprotected class.” Appellant’s En Banc Br. at 21 (citing, e.g., St. Mary’s Honor\\n\\nCtr. v Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 506 (1993)) (emphasis added). Even so, Lewis now\\n\\nasks us to “move” the similarly-situated comparison out of the initial prima facie\\n\\nstage of the McDonnell Douglas analysis and into the tertiary pretext stage. Id. at\\n\\n15, 30. For the reasons that follow, we decline to do so.\\n\\n For starters, the Supreme Court has repeatedly (and consistently) included a\\n\\ncomparator-evidence assessment—using one formulation or another—as an\\n\\nelement of a plaintiff’s prima facie case. Beginning in McDonnell Douglas itself,\\n\\n\\n7\\n McDonnell Douglas’s burden-shifting framework applies to claims arising under a host of\\nfederal antidiscrimination laws. Our analysis and conclusions regarding the “similarly situated”\\nissue here apply to cases brought under those statutes, as well.\\n\\n 11\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 12 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe Court emphasized that a Title VII plaintiff—there bringing a failure-to-hire\\n\\nclaim—carries his prima facie burden “by showing (i) that he belongs to a racial\\n\\nminority; (ii) that he applied and was qualified for a job for which the employer\\n\\nwas seeking applicants; (iii) that, despite his qualifications, he was rejected;\\n\\nand”—importantly here—“(iv) that, after his rejection, the position remained open\\n\\nand the employer continued to seek applicants from persons of complainant’s\\n\\nqualifications.” 411 U.S. at 802. The Court reiterated a similar four-part prima\\n\\nfacie test in Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 575 (1978), and\\n\\nagain in St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U.S. at 506. Most recently, in\\n\\nYoung v. United Parcel Service, Inc., the Court applied the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework to a failure-to-accommodate claim arising under the Pregnancy\\n\\nDiscrimination Act, and in so doing restated yet again the required four-step test:\\n\\n“[A] plaintiff . . . may make out a prima facie case by showing, as in McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas, [1] that she belongs to the protected class, [2] that she sought\\n\\naccommodation, [3] that the employer did not accommodate her, and [4] that the\\n\\nemployer did accommodate others ‘similar in their ability or inability to work.’”\\n\\n135 S. Ct. 1338, 1354 (2015) (enumeration added).\\n\\n The Supreme Court has located the comparator analysis in McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas’s preliminary stage for good reason. Lest we forget, the plaintiff’s burden\\n\\nat step one is to show a prima facie case of something in particular—namely,\\n\\n\\n 12\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 13 of 100\\n\\n\\nunlawful intentional “discrimination.” See, e.g., McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at\\n\\n802 (“The complainant in a Title VII trial must carry the initial burden under the\\n\\nstatute of establishing a prima facie case of racial discrimination.” (emphasis\\n\\nadded)); Burdine, 450 U.S. at 252–53 (“discrimination”); St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at\\n\\n506 (“discrimination”). “The prima facie case serves an important function,” the\\n\\nSupreme Court has said, in that “it eliminates the most common nondiscriminatory\\n\\nreasons” for the employer’s treatment of the plaintiff—and in so doing “give[s]\\n\\nrise to an inference of unlawful discrimination.” Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253–54; see\\n\\nalso Furnco, 438 U.S. at 577 (same); Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431\\n\\nU.S. 324, 358 (1977) (same). A successful prima facie showing thus establishes a\\n\\n“legally mandatory, rebuttable presumption” of intentional discrimination,\\n\\nBurdine, 450 U.S. at 254 n.7, that “produces a required conclusion in the absence\\n\\nof explanation” by the employer, St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 506 (quotation marks\\n\\nomitted). In other words, establishing a prima facie case of discrimination entitles\\n\\nthe plaintiff to judgment—to victory—if the employer either can’t, won’t, or\\n\\ndoesn’t provide a nondiscriminatory explanation for its actions. See Burdine, 450\\n\\nU.S. at 254 (“[I]f the employer is silent in the face of the presumption, the court\\n\\nmust enter judgment for the plaintiff because no issue of fact remains in the\\n\\ncase.”). It follows, therefore, that at the prima facie stage the plaintiff must show a\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 13\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 14 of 100\\n\\n\\npotential “winner”—i.e., enough to give rise to a valid inference that her employer\\n\\nengaged in unlawful intentional “discrimination.” 8\\n\\n So what exactly is this “discrimination,” an inference of which is the object\\n\\nof the plaintiff’s prima facie case? As we have said many times—and as all of us\\n\\nknow intuitively—“[d]iscrimination consists of treating like cases differently.”\\n\\nN.L.R.B. v. Collier, 553 F.2d 425, 428 (5th Cir. 1977) (emphasis added); see also,\\n\\ne.g., Frosty Morn Meats, Inc. v. N.L.R.B., 296 F.2d 617, 621 (5th Cir. 1961). The\\n\\nconverse, of course, is also true: Treating different cases differently is not\\n\\ndiscriminatory, let alone intentionally so. See Nix v. WLCY Radio/Rahall\\n\\nCommc’ns, 738 F.2d 1181, 1186 (11th Cir. 1984) (“[I]f an employer applies a rule\\n\\ndifferently to people it believes are differently situated, no discriminatory intent has\\n\\nbeen shown.”) (quoting Chescheir v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 713 F.2d 1142, 1148\\n\\n(5th Cir. 1983)) (emphasis added).\\n\\n By its very nature, therefore, discrimination is a comparative concept—it\\n\\nrequires an assessment of whether “like” (or instead different) people or things are\\n\\nbeing treated “differently.” In light of that reality—and because a sufficient prima\\n\\nfacie showing gives rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination—“mov[ing]”\\n\\n\\n8\\n To be clear, none of this is to say that a plaintiff’s prima facie and ultimate burdens are\\nequivalent—the Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that they aren’t. See, e.g., St. Mary’s,\\n509 U.S. at 515; Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255 n.8; see also infra at 27 n.15. The point is simply that,\\nin order to move forward, a plaintiff must at least offer evidence that creates a valid inference\\nthat her employer’s conduct was in fact illegally discriminatory.\\n\\n 14\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 15 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe comparator analysis out of the initial prima facie stage and into the tertiary\\n\\npretext stage, as Lewis requests, would make no sense. Were we to do so, a\\n\\nplaintiff could demonstrate a potential winner at step one by showing only (1) that\\n\\nshe belongs to a protected class, (2) that she suffered some adverse employment\\n\\naction, and (3) that she was qualified to perform the job in question. But even\\n\\nconclusive proof of those three elements can’t entitle a plaintiff to judgment on a\\n\\nclaim for unlawful discrimination. Absent a qualitative comparison at the prima\\n\\nfacie stage—i.e., without determining whether the employer treated like cases\\n\\ndifferently—there’s no way of knowing (or even inferring) that discrimination is\\n\\nafoot. Think about it: Every qualified minority employee who gets fired, for\\n\\ninstance, necessarily satisfies the first three prongs of the traditional prima facie\\n\\ncase. But that employee could have been terminated because she was chronically\\n\\nlate, because she had a foul mouth, or for any of a number of other\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reasons. It is only by demonstrating that her employer has\\n\\ntreated “like” employees “differently”—i.e., through an assessment of\\n\\ncomparators—that a plaintiff can supply the missing link and provide a valid basis\\n\\nfor inferring unlawful discrimination.\\n\\n You see the problem: Lewis’s proposal that the qualitative assessment of\\n\\ncomparator evidence be “move[d]” out of the prima facie stage and into the pretext\\n\\nstage would allow the plaintiff to proceed—and potentially to win—without any\\n\\n\\n 15\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 16 of 100\\n\\n\\ngood ground for presuming that discrimination has occurred. Doing so would\\n\\neffectively shift to the defendant the burden of disproving discrimination—which\\n\\nis precisely what the Supreme Court has forbidden. See, e.g., Burdine, 450 U.S. at\\n\\n253, 254–58 (rejecting rules that placed too stringent a burden on a gender-\\n\\ndiscrimination defendant and emphasizing that the “ultimate burden of persuading\\n\\nthe trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff\\n\\nremains at all times with the plaintiff”).9\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n We have no trouble concluding, therefore, that a meaningful comparator\\n\\nanalysis must remain part of the prima facie case. In order to defeat summary\\n\\njudgment, a Title VII plaintiff proceeding under McDonnell Douglas must prove,\\n\\nas a preliminary matter, not only that she is a member of a protected class, that she\\n\\nsuffered an adverse employment action, and that she was qualified for the job in\\n\\n\\n\\n9\\n We reject Lewis’s (and the dissent’s) suggestion that McDonnell Douglas itself somehow\\nindicates that the analysis of comparators should be relegated to the tertiary pretext stage. While\\nit’s true that the Court there considered at the pretext phase whether white employees had\\nengaged in conduct of “comparable seriousness” to the African-American plaintiff’s, that fact\\nalone says nothing about the propriety—or in light of subsequent Supreme Court precedent,\\nnecessity—of conducting a comparative analysis as part of the prima facie stage. Evidence\\nnecessary and proper to support a plaintiff’s prima facie case may of course be used, later as it\\nwere, to demonstrate that the defendant’s explanation for its conduct was pretextual. See, e.g.,\\nReeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 143 (2000) (observing that “although\\nthe presumption of discrimination ‘drops out of the picture’ once the defendant meets its burden\\nof production, . . . the trier of fact may still consider the evidence establishing the plaintiff’s\\nprima facie case and ‘inferences properly drawn therefrom . . . on the issue of whether the\\ndefendant’s explanation is pretextual’”) (quoting Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255 ).\\n\\n 16\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 17 of 100\\n\\n\\nquestion, but also that she was treated less favorably than “similarly situated”\\n\\nindividuals outside her class.\\n\\n B\\n\\n Having resolved that a comparator analysis must be conducted at the prima\\n\\nfacie stage of the McDonnell Douglas framework—and not relegated to the pretext\\n\\nphase—we must now decide exactly what sort of showing the phrase “similarly\\n\\nsituated” requires a plaintiff to make and, in so doing, begin to flesh out the\\n\\nstandard’s parameters.\\n\\n As we’ve already confessed, we’ve made something of a hash of the\\n\\n“similarly situated” issue, bouncing back and forth (and back and forth) between\\n\\ntwo standards―“nearly identical” and “same or similar.” Compare, e.g., Nix, 738\\n\\nF.2d at 1185 (“nearly identical”), with, e.g., Holifield, 115 F.3d at 1562 (“same or\\n\\nsimilar”), and, e.g., Maniccia v. Brown, 171 F.3d 1364, 1368 (11th Cir. 1999)\\n\\n(both). We took this case en banc principally to determine whether we should\\n\\ncontinue to apply one of those standards, or instead adopt some other test.\\n\\n 1\\n\\n As an initial matter, no one seems to be advocating the same-or-similar\\n\\nstandard—presumably because it is simultaneously too strict and too lenient, and\\n\\nthus incoherent. The terms “same” and “similar” denote different things. In\\n\\nordinary usage, “same” means precise, jot-for-jot correspondence—clearly too\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 18 of 100\\n\\n\\nexacting. See Webster’s Second New International Dictionary 2209 (1944).\\n\\n“Similar,” a much flabbier concept that includes among its definitions “somewhat\\n\\nlike,” id. at 2340, has its own problems—chief among them that it adds absolutely\\n\\nnothing to the general “similarly situated” standard.\\n\\n Lewis’s principal concern is that we reject the nearly-identical test, which\\n\\nshe finds too “rigid.” She urges us instead to adopt the Seventh Circuit’s “flexible,\\n\\ncommon-sense” standard pursuant to which the “similarly situated” requirement is\\n\\nsatisfied “[s]o long as the distinctions between the plaintiff and the proposed\\n\\ncomparators are not ‘so significant that they render the comparison effectively\\n\\nuseless.’” Appellant’s En Banc Br. at 34 (quoting Coleman v. Donahoe, 667 F.3d\\n\\n835, 846 (7th Cir. 2012)). The City, by contrast, wants us to keep the nearly-\\n\\nidentical standard, which, it says, reflects the dominant theme in our case law and\\n\\nmost accurately captures the Supreme Court’s understanding of the phrase\\n\\n“similarly situated.”\\n\\n We conclude that neither party’s proposal quite fits the bill. For reasons we\\n\\nwill explain, Lewis’s not-useless standard is too lax, and the City’s (and\\n\\noccasionally our own) nearly-identical test is too strict. We hold, instead—without\\n\\ntrying to force an artificial gloss—that a plaintiff must show that she and her\\n\\ncomparators are “similarly situated in all material respects.” That standard, we\\n\\nthink, best and most fairly implements federal statutory prohibitions on\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 19 of 100\\n\\n\\n“discrimination,” properly balances the need to protect employees from invidious\\n\\ndiscrimination with the deference owed to employers’ rational business judgments,\\n\\nand sensibly serves considerations of sound judicial administration by making\\n\\nsummary judgment available in appropriate (but by no means all) cases.\\n\\n 2\\n\\n In assessing the parties’ positions—and adopting our own—we take as our\\n\\nlodestars (1) the ordinary meaning of the term “discrimination” and (2) the twin\\n\\npolicies that the Supreme Court has said animate the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework’s prima facie case. First, “discrimination”: Discrimination, as we have\\n\\nexplained, is the act of “treating like cases differently.” E.g., Collier, 553 F.2d at\\n\\n428 (emphasis added). Quintessential discrimination—the Platonic form, if you\\n\\nwill—therefore requires true “like[ness],” perfect apples-to-apples identity. As\\n\\nLewis and her amici correctly explain, however, in the real world (and real\\n\\nworkplaces) “doppelgangers are like unicorns”—they don’t exist. So practically\\n\\nspeaking, at least, perfect identity is a non-starter. But in adopting a comparator\\n\\nstandard, we must not stray too far from paradigmatic notions of discrimination,\\n\\nlest we sanction a regime in which treating different things differently violates\\n\\nTitle VII, which clearly it does not. Second, and relatedly, we must be mindful of\\n\\nthe two functions that the Supreme Court has said the prima facie case is designed\\n\\nto serve—(1) to eliminate “the most common nondiscriminatory reasons” for an\\n\\n\\n 19\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 20 of 100\\n\\n\\nemployer’s conduct, and (2) to provide a sound basis for an “inference of unlawful\\n\\ndiscrimination.” Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253–54; see also Furnco, 438 U.S. at 577;\\n\\nYoung, 135 S. Ct. at 1354.\\n\\n It’s clear, we think, that Lewis’s proposed standard—which, again, deems\\n\\nthe similarly-situated standard satisfied “[s]o long as the distinctions between the\\n\\nplaintiff and the proposed comparators are not ‘so significant that they render the\\n\\ncomparison effectively useless’”—fails these tests. In its looseness, Lewis’s\\n\\nstandard departs too dramatically from the essential sameness that is necessary to a\\n\\npreliminary determination that the plaintiff’s employer has engaged in unlawful\\n\\n“discrimination.” A plaintiff and a comparator might be alike in some (even\\n\\nrandom) sense, such that a comparison wouldn’t necessarily be irrelevant or crazy.\\n\\nBut without closer correspondence, the comparison wouldn’t provide any sound\\n\\nbasis for eliminating legitimate reasons for an employer’s conduct or validly\\n\\ninferring discriminatory animus.\\n\\n Separately, Lewis’s not-useless standard risks giving courts too much\\n\\nleeway to upset employers’ valid business judgments. In applying McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas, the Supreme Court has stressed the importance of striking an appropriate\\n\\nbalance between employee protection and employer discretion. In McKennon v.\\n\\nNashville Banner Publishing Co., for instance, the Court observed that federal\\n\\nantidiscrimination statutes do “not constrain employers from exercising significant\\n\\n\\n 20\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 21 of 100\\n\\n\\nother prerogatives and discretions in the course of the hiring, promoting, and\\n\\ndischarging of their employees,” and emphasized that courts deciding cases arising\\n\\nunder those laws “must recognize” not only “the important claims of the\\n\\nemployee[s]” but also “the legitimate interests of the employer.” 513 U.S. 352,\\n\\n361 (1995). The reason for deference, the Court has explained, is that “[c]ourts are\\n\\ngenerally less competent than employers to restructure business practices, and\\n\\nunless mandated to do so by Congress they should not attempt it.” Furnco, 438\\n\\nU.S. at 578. By permitting cases to proceed on the most meager showing of\\n\\nsimilarity between a plaintiff and her comparators, Lewis’s not-useless standard\\n\\nwould thrust courts into staffing decisions that bear no meaningful indicia of\\n\\nunlawful discrimination.\\n\\n Finally, it seems to us inevitable that Lewis’s proposal would effectively\\n\\neliminate summary judgment as a tool for winnowing out meritless claims.\\n\\nIndeed, forestalling summary judgment appears to be a feature of the not-useless\\n\\nstandard, not a bug. Lewis repeatedly touts her standard as not only “flexible” but\\n\\nalso inherently “factual.” E.g., Appellant’s En Banc Br. at 16, 34; Appellant’s En\\n\\nBanc Reply Br. at 9. So long, she says, as there are “enough common features to\\n\\nallow meaningful comparison, the question of equivalence should be left to a jury\\n\\nto decide.” Appellant’s En Banc Br. at 16. Lewis’s amici likewise stress that\\n\\n“[a]ny comparison will necessarily entail fact-finding and weighing of evidence,\\n\\n\\n 21\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 22 of 100\\n\\n\\nwhich, of course, is the job of the jury”—and therefore contend that it is “only in\\n\\ncases of the most dissimilar proposed comparators, without any other indicia of\\n\\ndiscriminatory intent, that summary judgment may be supported.” Br. of Amici for\\n\\nAppellant at 16. That’s just too low a bar. Without prejudging, it seems to us\\n\\ninconceivable, for instance, that nearly every one of the hundreds of Title VII cases\\n\\nfiled in this Circuit last year warranted a full trial.\\n\\n While Lewis’s standard is clearly too lenient, the City’s is too strict—or at\\n\\nleast has the appearance of being too strict. Although we have employed it for\\n\\nsome time now―albeit inconsistently―the nearly-identical standard gives off the\\n\\nwrong “vibe.” Despite the adverb “nearly”―and our repeated reassurances that\\n\\n“comparators need not be the plaintiff’s doppelgangers,” Flowers v. Troup County,\\n\\nGeorgia, School District, 803 F.3d 1327, 1340 (11th Cir. 2015), and, even more\\n\\nexplicitly, that “‘[n]early identical’ . . . does not mean ‘exactly identical,’” McCann\\n\\nv. Tillman, 526 F.3d 1370, 1374 n.4 (11th Cir. 2008)―there is a risk that litigants,\\n\\ncommentators, and (worst of all) courts have come to believe that it requires\\n\\nsomething akin to doppelganger-like sameness. Although we must take care not to\\n\\nventure too far from the form—“apples should be compared to apples”—we must\\n\\nalso remember that “[e]xact correlation is neither likely nor necessary.”\\n\\nDartmouth Review v. Dartmouth Coll., 889 F.2d 13, 19 (1st Cir. 1989), overruled\\n\\non other grounds by Educadores Puertorriqueños en Acción v. Hernandez, 367\\n\\n\\n 22\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 23 of 100\\n\\n\\nF.3d 61 (1st Cir. 2004). And we are not willing to take the risk that the nearly-\\n\\nidentical test is causing courts reflexively to dismiss potentially valid\\n\\nantidiscrimination cases.10\\n\\n 3\\n\\n So, we are left to try to find the sweet spot between Lewis’s squishy not-\\n\\nuseless standard and the City’s preferred nearly-identical standard. For reasons\\n\\nexplained below, we hold that a plaintiff proceeding under McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nmust show that she and her comparators are “similarly situated in all material\\n\\nrespects.”11\\n\\n a\\n\\n As an initial matter, what does it mean for a plaintiff and her comparators to\\n\\nbe “similarly situated in all material respects”? Fair question. Of course, precisely\\n\\nwhat sort of similarity the in “all material respects” standard entails will have to be\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n10\\n Naturally, we must resist the dissent’s colorful characterization of our opinion as “drop[ping]\\nan anvil on the employer’s side of the balance,” and thereby “shrink[ing] the number of\\npotentially discriminated-against plaintiffs who will have an opportunity to see trial,” Dissenting\\nOp. at 33–35—particularly given that we are rejecting as too strict the “nearly identical”\\nstandard that has pervaded our case law for decades.\\n11\\n To be clear, the “similarly situated in all material respects” standard that we embrace today\\napplies to all discrimination claims pursued under McDonnell Douglas. We reject the panel’s\\nsuggestion that a different standard should apply in workplace-misconduct cases than in, say,\\nfailure-to-hire cases. See Lewis, 877 F.3d at 1017 n.11.\\n\\n 23\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 24 of 100\\n\\n\\nworked out on a case-by-case basis, in the context of individual circumstances.\\n\\nBut we are not without guideposts.12\\n\\n We know, for instance, that the plaintiff and her comparators need not be\\n\\n“similar in all but the protected ways.” Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1354. A plaintiff\\n\\nneedn’t prove, therefore, that she and her comparators are identical save for their\\n\\nrace or gender, as the case may be. Not even the nearly-identical standard requires\\n\\nthat level of exactitude. Nor is it necessary for a plaintiff to prove purely formal\\n\\nsimilarities—e.g., that she and her comparators had precisely the same title. See\\n\\nLathem v. Dep’t of Children & Youth Servs., 172 F.3d 786, 793 (11th Cir. 1999)\\n\\n(“The relevant inquiry is not whether the employees hold the same job titles, but\\n\\nwhether the employer subjected them to different employment policies.”) (citation\\n\\nomitted). Nor will minor differences in job function disqualify a would-be\\n\\ncomparator. See, e.g., Ercegovich v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 154 F.3d 344,\\n\\n353 (6th Cir. 1998) (concluding that minor “differences in . . . job activities” did\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n12\\n Happily—and helpfully—we aren’t really breaking new ground in adopting an “all material\\nrespects” standard. We ourselves have used comparable phrasing in the past, although we’ve\\noften cluttered it up with a nearly-identical or same-or-similar gloss. See, e.g., Smith v.\\nLockheed-Martin Corp., 644 F.3d 1321, 1326 n.17 (11th Cir. 2011); Holifield, 115 F.3d at 1562.\\nSeveral of our sister circuits have likewise adopted some version of this standard. See, e.g.,\\nYoung v. Builders Steel Co., 754 F.3d 573, 578 (8th Cir. 2014); Moran v. Selig, 447 F.3d 748,\\n755 (9th Cir. 2006); Ercegovich v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 154 F.3d 344, 352 (6th Cir.\\n1998); Shumway v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 118 F.3d 60, 64 (2d Cir. 1997) (citation omitted);\\nMitchell v. Toledo Hosp., 964 F.2d 577, 583 (6th Cir. 1992) .\\n\\n 24\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 25 of 100\\n\\n\\nnot “automatically” disqualify plaintiff’s proffered comparators, at least where\\n\\nthey held “related human resources positions”).\\n\\n Having said that, we can also envision the sorts of similarities that will, in\\n\\nthe main, underlie a valid comparison. Ordinarily, for instance, a similarly situated\\n\\ncomparator—\\n\\n\\n • will have engaged in the same basic conduct (or misconduct) as the plaintiff,\\n see, e.g., Mitchell v. Toledo Hosp., 964 F.2d 577, 580, 583 (6th Cir. 1992)\\n (holding that a plaintiff terminated for “misuse of [an employer’s] property”\\n could not rely on comparators allegedly guilty of “absenteeism” and\\n “insubordination”)13;\\n\\n • will have been subject to the same employment policy, guideline, or rule as\\n the plaintiff, see, e.g., Lathem, 172 F.3d at 793 (holding that a plaintiff’s\\n proffered comparators were valid where all were subject to the same\\n “workplace rules or policies”);\\n\\n • will ordinarily (although not invariably) have been under the jurisdiction of\\n the same supervisor as the plaintiff, see, e.g., Jones v. Gerwens, 874 F.2d\\n 1534, 1541 (11th Cir. 1989) (observing that “disciplinary measures\\n undertaken by different supervisors may not be comparable for purposes of\\n Title VII analysis”); and\\n\\n • will share the plaintiff’s employment or disciplinary history, see, e.g.,\\n Tennial v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 840 F.3d 292, 304 (6th Cir. 2016)\\n (explaining that “[d]ifferences in experience and disciplinary history” can\\n disqualify a plaintiff’s proffered comparators).\\n\\n\\n13\\n This principle has its limits, of course. As the City acknowledged in response to questioning\\nat oral argument, for instance, an African-American female who gets fired because she routinely\\narrives to work an hour late could surely point, as a valid comparator, to a white male who\\nroutinely shoves off an hour early—at least absent some good reason (say, a regularly scheduled\\na.m. staff meeting) for concluding that morning absences are more detrimental to workplace\\nefficiency or morale than those in the afternoon. See Oral Arg. Tr. at 46:12 et seq.\\n\\n 25\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 26 of 100\\n\\n\\nIn short, as its label indicates―“all material respects”―a valid comparison will\\n\\nturn not on formal labels, but rather on substantive likenesses. To borrow phrasing\\n\\nfrom a recent Supreme Court decision, a plaintiff and her comparators must be\\n\\nsufficiently similar, in an objective sense, that they “cannot reasonably be\\n\\ndistinguished.” Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1355. 14\\n\\n b\\n\\n Now, why “similarly situated in all material respects”? Most importantly,\\n\\nwe think that it (unlike the parties’ dueling proposals) hews closely, but also\\n\\nrealistically, to the ordinary meaning of “discrimination” and, when met, satisfies\\n\\n\\n14\\n The dissent argues at length that Young somehow supports—indeed compels—a different\\nresult here. See Dissenting Op. at 66–76. With respect, we think the dissent over- and misreads\\nthe Supreme Court’s decision there. We’ll highlight just two key distinctions. First, the plain\\ntext of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, at issue in Young, requires employers to treat “women\\naffected by pregnancy . . . the same for all employment-related purposes . . . as other persons not\\nso affected but similar in their ability or inability to work.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(k) (emphasis\\nadded). As the italicized language makes clear, the comparator analysis under the PDA focuses\\non a single criterion—one’s ability to do the job. Although similar, it’s not exactly the same as\\nthe more holistic, comprehensive “all material respects” standard that we all agree applies in this\\ncase. Second, and in any event, the fundamental question in Young, as here, was whether the\\nemployer’s actions gave rise to valid inference of unlawful discrimination. See Young, 135 S.\\nCt. at 1354. The plaintiff in Young, who had sought a waiver of a lifting requirement during her\\npregnancy, met her prima facie burden by pointing to seven separate classes of non-pregnant\\nemployees whom her employer had accommodated—three of those classes enjoyed group-wide\\naccommodations pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement, and four other classes of\\n“[s]everal employees” had been accommodated on an ad hoc, but seemingly regular, basis. See\\nid. at 1346–47. The sheer numbers were overwhelming. The plaintiff’s allegations in Young\\nshowed that the employer had “accommodate[d] most nonpregnant employees with lifting\\nlimitations while categorically failing to accommodate pregnant employees with lifting\\nlimitations.” Id. at 1354. As the Court put the matter, rhetorically, “why, when the employer\\naccommodated so many, could it not accommodate pregnant women as well?” Id. at 1355. As\\nexplained below, Lewis’s prima facie evidence—which consists entirely of comparisons to two\\nother officers, neither of whose situations had even arisen at the time Lewis was fired—pales in\\ncomparison to the evidence in Young.\\n 26\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 27 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe twin aims of the prima facie case—“eliminat[ing] the most common\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reasons” for an employer’s action and thereby “giv[ing] rise to\\n\\nan inference of unlawful discrimination,” Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253–54. An all-\\n\\nmaterial-respects standard also leaves employers the necessary breathing space to\\n\\nmake appropriate business judgments. See McKennon, 513 U.S. at 361; Furnco,\\n\\n438 U.S. at 578. An employer is well within its rights to accord different treatment\\n\\nto employees who are differently situated in “material respects”—e.g., who\\n\\nengaged in different conduct, who were subject to different policies, or who have\\n\\ndifferent work histories. Finally, the all-material-respects standard serves the\\n\\ninterest of sound judicial administration by allowing for summary judgment in\\n\\nappropriate cases―namely, where the comparators are simply too dissimilar to\\n\\npermit a valid inference that invidious discrimination is afoot.15\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n We conclude, therefore, that it is not enough for a plaintiff proceeding under\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas to show only that a comparison with identifiable employees\\n\\noutside her class wouldn’t be “useless.” We also hold, though, that a plaintiff\\n\\n15\\n One final point: We recognize, of course, that the Supreme Court has said that a plaintiff’s\\nprima facie burden is “not onerous,” Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253, and we are not concerned that our\\nstandard violates that directive. To be clear, the “not onerous” descriptor doesn’t pertain to the\\nsubstantive standard that governs the prima facie analysis―whether Lewis’s not-useless\\nstandard, the City’s nearly-identical standard, or our all-material-respects standard. Rather, it is\\nsimply an acknowledgement that, by its nature, a prima facie case is preliminary, and thus is “not\\nas burdensome as succeeding on ‘an ultimate finding of fact as to’ a discriminatory employment\\naction.” Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1354 (quoting Furnco, 438 U.S. at 576).\\n\\n 27\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 28 of 100\\n\\n\\nneedn’t show that she and her comparators were “nearly identical.” Instead, she\\n\\nmust demonstrate—as part of her prima facie case—that she and her comparators\\n\\nare “similarly situated in all material respects.”16\\n\\n III\\n\\n Having settled on—and begun to flesh out—a standard to govern the\\n\\n“similarly situated” issue, we must now apply it to Lewis’s case. We conclude that\\n\\nLewis has not made out a prima facie case because she and her proffered\\n\\ncomparators—Sergeant McClure and Officer Heard—were not “similarly situated\\n\\nin all material respects.” To be clear, in so concluding, we consider only Lewis’s\\n\\nown presentation and facts not reasonably subject to dispute.17\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n16\\n One final word about the “similarly situated in all material respects” standard. It’s clear that\\nthe dissent doesn’t much like our elaboration of that standard—calling it too “rigorous” some 25\\ntimes. See Dissenting Op. at 34, 35, 38, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 53, 56, 57, 62, 64, 74, 97, 98.\\nWhat remains unclear, though, is how the dissent would operationalize the same standard. Its\\nopinion offers no real guidance, saying only that it would do so in a more “generalized” fashion.\\nSee id. at 34, 37, 41, 42, 43, 45, 48, 50, 51, 61, 68, 74, 89. The dissent doesn’t seem to\\nembrace—at least explicitly—Lewis’s freewheeling not-useless test, which, as we have\\nexplained, would effectively foreclose summary judgment in discrimination cases. It’s hard to\\nknow, though, how the dissent would flesh out the all-material-respects standard, or when (if\\never) summary judgment would be appropriate under its rendition of that standard.\\n17\\n The dissent is thus quite mistaken in its persistent suggestions that we are indulging the City’s\\n“stated reasons” and thereby “collapsing the first two stages of the McDonnell Douglas inquiry.”\\nDissenting Op. at 53. And, indeed, the dissent acknowledges that the key bases for\\ndistinguishing McClure and Heard are means of “show[ing] that Lewis was not similarly\\nsituated to her proposed comparators”; it simply says that they are not “only” that but “also”\\nreflect the City’s “stated reasons for why it took the action of putting Lewis on administrative\\nleave.” Dissenting Op. at 51. That strikes us as totally unremarkable. The point—on which all\\nseem to agree—is that there are material differences between Lewis’s situation, on the one hand,\\nfrom McClure’s and Heard’s, on the other.\\n 28\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 29 of 100\\n\\n\\n Lewis contends that she and her comparators were “similarly situated”—\\n\\neven, she says, under a strict nearly-identical test—because they “were all placed\\n\\non administrative leave by the City when they could not meet a physical\\n\\nqualification of the job of police officer.” Appellant’s En Banc Br. at 13. But\\n\\nLewis’s broad-brush summary glosses over critical differences. Lewis and her\\n\\ncomparators were placed on leave years apart and pursuant to altogether different\\n\\npersonnel policies and, perhaps even more importantly, for altogether different\\n\\nconditions.\\n\\n McClure and Heard were placed on leave pursuant to the Police\\n\\nDepartment’s Physical Fitness/Medical Examinations policy—which, as the\\n\\ndissent acknowledges, “had not yet been issued when Lewis was fired” and,\\n\\nindeed, wouldn’t be promulgated for another two years. Dissenting Op. at 91.\\n\\nThat policy states that an officer who is “not deemed fit for duty will be placed on\\n\\nunpaid administrative leave for a period of ninety (90) days”—the purpose being to\\n\\nallow the officer time to improve his or her health and fitness through training,\\n\\ndiet, and exercise. Lewis, on the other hand, was placed on leave pursuant to the\\n\\nUnion City Personnel Policy, which provides in relevant part that “[a]ny\\n\\nunapproved leave of absence [is] cause for dismissal.” As already explained, after\\n\\nLewis’s doctor determined that a Taser—which Lewis would be required to\\n\\ncarry—couldn’t be used “on” or even “near” her, Lewis was instructed to apply for\\n\\n\\n 29\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 30 of 100\\n\\n\\nFMLA leave and told that she could use any other accumulated leave “until . . .\\n\\nexpired.” When Lewis failed to apply for FMLA leave and exhausted her other\\n\\nleave, she was terminated on the ground that, under the Personnel Policy, she was\\n\\nabsent without permission.18\\n\\n The fact that the City applied different personnel policies to Lewis and her\\n\\ncomparators is unsurprising, because they were contending with very different\\n\\nunderlying conditions. McClure and Heard flunked physical-fitness requirements\\n\\nrelated, respectively, to “balance” and “agility.” Both were placed on leave for 90\\n\\ndays to remedy the problems that caused their failures. McClure was cleared by\\n\\nhis doctor to re-take the balance test, took and passed it, and returned to work;\\n\\nHeard was unable to demonstrate his fitness and (following an extended\\n\\nnegotiation with the City) was eventually terminated. For present purposes, the\\n\\nimportant point is that the deficient physical-fitness benchmarks that sidelined\\n\\nMcClure and Heard were at least theoretically (and in McClure’s case, actually)\\n\\n\\n18\\n Presumably in an effort to shrink the distinctions between Lewis and her comparators, the\\ndissent strains to link the physical-fitness and personnel policies. The dissent’s theory seems to\\ngo something like this: (1) True, as a formal matter, Lewis and her comparators were subject to\\ndifferent policies; and (2) true, the physical-fitness policy pursuant to which Heard and McClure\\nwere placed on leave didn’t even exist at the time Lewis was fired; but (3) because the record\\ndoesn’t reveal any other source of “power” by which the City could promulgate an involuntary-\\nleave policy, the physical-fitness policy must be understood as deriving from “Chapter 6, § 1.A.,\\nin the Union City Personnel Policy Handbook”; and (4) Chapter 6 was also the source of\\nauthority for the City’s decision to place Lewis on leave; therefore, (5) the polices are (our\\nparaphrase) basically the same. See Dissenting Op. 84–92. Even beyond our general doubt that\\nthe post-Lewis physical-fitness policy must necessarily emanate from the employee handbook,\\nwe simply can’t indulge the dissent’s attenuated chain of connectedness.\\n\\n 30\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 31 of 100\\n\\n\\nremediable. Lewis, by contrast, failed a training requirement—pertaining\\n\\nspecifically to the carriage and use of a deadly weapon—on the ground that she\\n\\nsuffered from what her doctor described as a “chronic” heart condition, see Doc.\\n\\n58-3 at 6, and what she herself has called a “permanent” heart injury, see Doc. 72\\n\\nat 8. And unlike McClure, for instance, Lewis was never cleared by her doctor to\\n\\nparticipate in the required training. 19\\n\\n For these reasons—because they were subject to different personnel policies\\n\\nand placed on leave for different underlying conditions—we conclude that\\n\\nMcClure and Heard were not similar to Lewis “in all material respects,” and thus\\n\\nwere not valid comparators for purposes of Lewis’s prima facie case.\\n\\n IV\\n\\n In sum, we hold that when a plaintiff relies on the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nburden-shifting framework to prove an intentional-discrimination claim using\\n\\n\\n\\n19\\n The dissent tellingly does not deny that unlike McClure and Heard, who were diagnosed with\\nwhat appeared to be temporary conditions, Lewis’s ailment was “chronic” and “permanent.”\\nInstead, the dissent strains to suggest that because the City twice told Lewis that she was being\\nplaced on leave “until” her doctor released her for active duty, it must have anticipated an\\neventual clearance and return. Dissenting Op. at 78–79. The dissent is asking the word “until”\\ncarry more weight than it can bear. The City’s “until” communications were agnostic as to the\\nlikelihood of Lewis’s return; they manifested no expectation one way or the other. Their point\\nwas simply to inform Lewis that without a doctor’s note—hard proof—she could not return to\\nservice. And of course, as we know—and as the dissent does not deny—Lewis’s doctor never\\ncleared her for Taser training. (Nor was there any likelihood that she would do so, given that in\\nher last communication with the City—even after Lewis’s termination—she continued to\\n“recommend that [Lewis] not be Tasered secondary to [her] medical condition,” Doc. 69-1 at 50,\\nbecause she still “did not know how the ‘Taser’ would affect Lewis,” id. at 54.)\\n\\n 31\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 32 of 100\\n\\n\\ncircumstantial evidence, she must demonstrate—as part of her prima facie case—\\n\\nthat she was treated differently from other individuals with whom she was\\n\\nsimilarly situated in all material respects. We further hold that Lewis has failed to\\n\\ndo so.\\n\\n The case is REMANDED to the panel for proceedings consistent with this\\n\\nopinion.20\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n20\\n Neither Lewis’s ADA claims, see supra at 6 n.2, nor her “convincing mosaic” theory of Title\\nVII liability, see supra at 9 n.6, are before the en banc court. Those issues, and any other\\npending matters, are remanded to the panel for resolution in the first instance.\\n 32\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 33 of 100\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, joined by MARTIN and JILL PRYOR, Circuit\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4379419/\", \"author_raw\": \"ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, filed an opinion concurring\"}, {\"author\": \"Judges, concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"Judges, concurring in part and dissenting in part:\\n\\n The Supreme Court created the McDonnell Douglas 1 framework as a delicate\\n\\nbalance between an employee’s right to work free from discrimination and an\\n\\nemployer’s right to take action against an employee for any nondiscriminatory\\n\\nreason. Today, the Majority Opinion drops an anvil on the employer’s side of the\\n\\nbalance. Though the Majority Opinion correctly defines “similarly situated” within\\n\\nthe McDonnell Douglas framework as “similarly situated in all material respects,”\\n\\nMaj. Op. at 5, it one-sidedly implements and interprets this standard to the\\n\\nemployer’s redounding benefit. As a result, plaintiffs proceeding by circumstantial\\n\\nevidence in this Circuit will have a difficult time budging the now-off-kilter balance\\n\\nand surviving summary judgment.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 1\\n McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 801–04 (1973).\\n 33\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 34 of 100\\n\\n\\n First, faced with how and where to implement the “similarly situated”\\n\\nstandard, the Majority Opinion rigorously2 applies the standard entirely3 at the prima\\n\\nfacie stage of the McDonnell Douglas analysis. Yet that construction of the prima\\n\\nfacie case rebukes its parent: McDonnell Douglas and its progeny explicitly and\\n\\nimplicitly require a generalized application of the “similarly situated” standard at the\\n\\ninitial, prima facie juncture and a more particularized one at the pretext phase of the\\n\\nframework—after the employer has satisfied its burden of coming forward with its\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reason for adverse action. In ratcheting up the prima facie stage’s\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\\n I regret that the Majority Opinion seems to take offense at my use of this word. See Maj.\\nOp. at 28 n.16. It prefers to use the word “meaningful” to describe its application of the “similarly\\nsituated” standard. See id. at 4, 16. But this preference sows confusion in the discussion since the\\nMajority Opinion construes what a “meaningful” application of the comparator standard is far\\nmore strictly than others who have used that same word to describe the proper application of the\\n“similarly situated” standard. For example, the Majority Opinion criticizes the Seventh Circuit’s\\narticulation of the “similarly situated” standard as “too lax.” See Maj. Op. at 18 (quoting Lewis’s\\nEn Banc Br. at 34 (quoting Coleman v. Donahoe, 667 F.3d 835, 846 (7th Cir. 2012)). But as it\\nturns out, the Seventh Circuit has used the very same word—“meaningful”—as the Majority\\nOpinion to describe its understanding of the degree of similarity the “similarly situated” standard\\nrequires. See Coleman, 667 F.3d at 841 (quoting Humphries v. CBOCS W., Inc., 474 F.3d 387,\\n405 (7th Cir. 2007)) (“[T]he similarly-situated inquiry is flexible, common-sense, and factual. It\\nasks ‘essentially, are there enough common features between the individuals to allow a\\nmeaningful comparison?’”) (emphasis added). So to avoid confusion and to be precise about the\\nlevel of likeness the Majority Opinion’s application of the “similarly situated” standard actually\\nrequires—and not with any intent to offend the Majority Opinion—I refer to the Majority\\nOpinion’s application of the “similarly situated” standard as “rigorous.”\\n 3\\n See, e.g., Maj. Op. at 10 (characterizing where in the McDonnell Douglas framework the\\n“similarly situated” analysis should occur as an either-or proposition: “[S]hould the ‘similarly\\nsituated’—i.e., comparator—analysis be conducted at the prima facie stage of the McDonnell\\nDouglas framework, . . . or should it instead be reserved for the pretext stage?”) (emphasis added).\\nThe Majority Opinion’s analysis itself also neither identifies nor leaves any aspect of the “similarly\\nsituated” analysis to be conducted at the pretext stage. Nor does the Majority Opinion ever\\ndisclaim that it conducts the entire comparator inquiry at the prima facie stage.\\n 34\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 35 of 100\\n\\n\\n“similarly situated” standard, the Majority Opinion defies the purpose of Title VII\\n\\nand the McDonnell Douglas framework.\\n\\n How the “similarly situated” inquiry is implemented matters: if it is turned up\\n\\ntoo high at the prima facie stage, it sweeps in the employer’s nondiscriminatory\\n\\nreasons. And considering the employer’s nondiscriminatory reasons at the prima\\n\\nfacie stage flouts Supreme Court precedent. It also affects whether the employee\\n\\never has a chance to demonstrate that the employer’s reasons were pretextual or\\n\\nwhether the court must instead blindly accept the employer’s untested assertions as\\n\\na non-discriminatory basis for the employer’s decision. So by locating a rigorous\\n\\n“similarly situated” requirement at the prima facie stage of the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework, the Majority Opinion shrinks the number of potentially discriminated-\\n\\nagainst plaintiffs who will have an opportunity to see trial—or even to challenge\\n\\ntheir employers’ proffered reasons for taking action against them.\\n\\n And the errors do not end there. In applying the “similarly situated” standard\\n\\nto Lewis’s facts, the Majority Opinion overly broadly construes the term “material”\\n\\nin that standard. As a result, it requires comparators to be similarly situated in\\n\\nimmaterial ways. The Majority Opinion also omits key facts showing that Lewis\\n\\nand her two chosen comparators were “similarly situated” in all material ways, while\\n\\nviolating an elementary principle of summary-judgment review by assuming facts\\n\\nin favor of the Department that are not supported by the record.\\n\\n\\n 35\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 36 of 100\\n\\n\\n We will almost always be able to find a difference between a plaintiff and her\\n\\nproposed comparators if we strain our eyes looking hard enough. But as the Majority\\n\\nOpinion stresses, the “similarly situated” test is meant to ensure only that “apples\\n\\n[are] compared to apples.” Maj. Op. at 22. By focusing on trivial differences,\\n\\nthough, the Majority Opinion uses the word “material” to bar meaningful\\n\\ncomparisons between Honeycrisp and SnapDragon apples. 4 So the Majority\\n\\nOpinion finds that Lewis’s claim fails because her doctor’s note recommending\\n\\nagainst Tasing and pepper-spraying her rendered her too dissimilar from her\\n\\ncomparators who had balance and agility issues—even though the upshot of all three\\n\\nofficers’ conditions was that the City deemed them all physically unfit to patrol the\\n\\nstreets of Union City and, in turn, relied on that fact to put them all on administrative\\n\\nleave. Meanwhile, Lewis, an African-American woman, received only 21 days of\\n\\nadministrative leave before being fired, but one white male comparator enjoyed 449\\n\\ndays before his dismissal and the other got up to 90 days to demonstrate he had\\n\\nbecome physically fit enough to resume his duties.\\n\\n In applying the “similarly situated” standard to Lewis’s facts to eliminate\\n\\ncomparators who actually were similarly situated to her in all material respects, the\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n Honeycrisp and Snapdragon apples are two of the roughly 7,500 varieties of apples in the\\nworld. https://extension.illinois.edu/apples/facts.cfm (last visited Mar. 19, 2019). Created by\\nCornell University and the New York Apple Growers, the SnapDragon apple boasts the\\nHoneycrisp apple as a parent. http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/08/snapdragon-and-rubyfrost-\\nare-new-apple-varieties (last visited Mar. 19, 2019).\\n 36\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 37 of 100\\n\\n\\nMajority Opinion contradicts 46 years of Supreme Court precedent, elevates the\\n\\n“similarly situated” requirement to one of form over substance, and incorrectly\\n\\nconcludes that the district court did not err in entering summary judgment against\\n\\nLewis.\\n\\n I respectfully dissent from these errors.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n I begin with the Majority Opinion’s error in how and where it has\\n\\nimplemented the “similarly situated” standard within the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework.\\n\\n In Section A, I explain that the Supreme Court established the McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas burden-shifting framework to allow plaintiffs who lack direct evidence of\\n\\ndiscrimination to nonetheless obtain fair scrutiny of their claims that they have been\\n\\ndiscriminated against in the workplace—that is, as a delicate balance between\\n\\nemployers’ rights to make legitimate personnel decisions and employees’ rights to\\n\\nbe free from “those discriminatory practices . . . which have fostered racially\\n\\nstratified job environments . . . .” McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S.\\n\\n792, 800 (1973). Section B demonstrates that the Supreme Court’s remarks about\\n\\nhow the McDonnell Douglas analysis works demand the conclusion that the\\n\\ncomparator requirement is minimal and generalized at the plaintiff’s initial burden—\\n\\nthe prima facie stage—and progresses to more specificity only at the last stage—the\\n\\n\\n 37\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 38 of 100\\n\\n\\npretext inquiry—of the framework. Next, Section C shows that the Supreme Court’s\\n\\nactual analyses in McDonnell Douglas itself and in its progeny followed this funnel-\\n\\nlike application of the “similarly situated” requirement in the specificity they\\n\\nrequired of comparator evidence. In Section D, I explain how the Majority\\n\\nOpinion’s decision to move the entire “similarly situated” inquiry into the prima\\n\\nfacie case inflicts a significant blow on a plaintiff’s ability to establish discrimination\\n\\nin circumstantial cases and upsets the delicate balance struck by the McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas framework. And finally, Section E explores how the Majority Opinion errs\\n\\nand concludes that conducting the complete and rigorous comparator analysis at the\\n\\nprima-facie-case stage is fatally flawed.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n “[I]t is abundantly clear that Title VII tolerates no racial discrimination, subtle\\n\\nor otherwise.” McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 801. Title VII’s prohibitions against\\n\\ndiscrimination undoubtedly “reflect an important national policy,” U.S. Postal Serv.\\n\\nBd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 716 (1983), because of “society’s\\n\\nconsensus that discrimination . . . is a profound wrong of tragic dimension,”\\n\\nPatterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 188 (1989). To effectuate Title\\n\\nVII’s broad, nationally important remedial purposes, the Supreme Court has\\n\\ncautioned against issuing opinions that “signal[] one inch of retreat from Congress’\\n\\npolicy to forbid discrimination in the private, as well as the public, sphere.” Id.\\n\\n\\n 38\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 39 of 100\\n\\n\\n Yet despite this unyielding mandate, plaintiffs often face a paradox: “Unless\\n\\nthe employer is a latter-day George Washington, employment discrimination is as\\n\\ndifficult to prove as who chopped down the cherry tree,” Thornbrough v. Columbus\\n\\n& Greenville R. Co., 760 F.2d 633, 638 (5th Cir. 1985), because employers of “even\\n\\nminimal sophistication will neither admit discriminatory animus nor leave a paper\\n\\ntrail demonstrating it . . . .” Riordan v. Kempiners, 831 F.2d 690, 697 (7th Cir.\\n\\n1987); see also Grigsby v. Reynolds Metals Co., 821 F.2d 590, 595 (11th Cir. 1987)\\n\\n(“[P]laintiffs . . . rarely are fortunate enough to have access to direct evidence of\\n\\nintentional discrimination.”). To chip away at that paradox, “[c]ourts today must be\\n\\nincreasingly vigilant” because “[t]he sophisticated would-be violator has made our\\n\\njob a little more difficult.” Aman v. Cort Furniture Rental Corp., 85 F.3d 1074,\\n\\n1082 (3d Cir. 1996).\\n\\n That’s where McDonnell Douglas comes in. The “entire purpose” of\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas “is to compensate for the fact that direct evidence of intentional\\n\\ndiscrimination is hard to come by.” Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228,\\n\\n271 (1989) (O’Connor, J., concurring), superseded in part by The Civil Rights Act\\n\\nof 1991, Tit. I, § 107(a), 105 Stat. 1075 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–2(m)); see\\n\\nalso Grigsby, 821 F.2d at 595 (“The McDonnell Douglas-Burdine patterns of proof\\n\\nwere designed to ease the evidentiary burdens on employment discrimination\\n\\nplaintiffs . . . .”). So the McDonnell Douglas framework is “designed to assure that\\n\\n\\n 39\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 40 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe ‘plaintiff [has] his day in court despite the unavailability of direct evidence.’”\\n\\nTrans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U.S. 111, 121 (1985) (alteration in\\n\\noriginal) (quoting Loeb v. Textron, Inc., 600 F.2d 1003, 1014 (1st Cir. 1979)).\\n\\n B.\\n\\n To accomplish this aim, McDonnell Douglas established a delicately balanced\\n\\nthree-step framework, allocating the burden of production and the order for the\\n\\npresentation of proof in a funnel-like way that narrows from the first step of the\\n\\nframework to the third. See St. Mary’s Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 506\\n\\n(1993). The Supreme Court has described the McDonnell Douglas framework as\\n\\n“progressively . . . sharpen[ing] the inquiry into the elusive factual question of\\n\\nintentional discrimination.” Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255 n.8.\\n\\n At the first step of the McDonnell Douglas framework, the plaintiff must set\\n\\nforth a prima facie case of discrimination. Tex. Dep’t of Cmty. Affairs v. Burdine,\\n\\n450 U.S. 248, 252-53 (1981). We have construed that requirement to mean that a\\n\\nplaintiff must show that (1) she belongs to a protected group, (2) she was subjected\\n\\nto an adverse employment action, (3) she was qualified to perform the job in\\n\\nquestion, and (4) her employer more favorably treated “similarly situated”\\n\\nemployees outside her protected group. See, e.g., Holifield v. Reno, 115 F.3d 1555,\\n\\n1561–62 (11th Cir. 1997) (citation omitted). The Supreme Court has noted that at\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 40\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 41 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe first phase of the framework, “[t]he burden . . . is not onerous,”5 Burdine, 450\\n\\nU.S. at 253, and, in fact, is “minimal,” St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 506.\\n\\n Following the Court’s lead, we in the past have ourselves described the\\n\\nplaintiff’s prima facie burden as “light,” Turlington v. Atlanta Gas Light Co., 135\\n\\nF.3d 1428, 1432 (11th Cir. 1998), and as “a low bar to hurdle,” Flowers v. Troup\\n\\nCty., Sch. Dist., 803 F.3d 1327, 1336 (11th Cir. 2015). Other Circuits have also\\n\\nobserved that the prima facie case requires only a “small showing” that can be\\n\\n“easily made,” Caraballo-Caraballo v. Corr. Admin., 892 F.3d 53, 57 (1st Cir.\\n\\n2018), because it was “not meant to stymie plaintiffs,” Cline v. Catholic Diocese of\\n\\nToledo, 206 F.3d 651, 660 (6th Cir. 2000). As the Supreme Court has explained, the\\n\\nprima facie phase anticipates that the plaintiff need make only a “generalized”\\n\\nshowing of the elements of its case. St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 516.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 5\\n The Majority Opinion attempts to dismiss the Supreme Court’s bedrock principle that\\nMcDonnell Douglas’s prima facie burden is “not onerous” by simultaneously calling it a mere\\n“descriptor [that] doesn’t pertain to the substantive standard that governs the prima facie analysis”\\nand “simply an acknowledgement that, by its nature, a prima facie case is preliminary, and thus is\\nnot as burdensome as succeeding on an ultimate finding of fact as to a discriminatory employment\\naction.” Maj. Op. at 27 n.15 (citing Young v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 135 S. Ct. 1338, 1354\\n(2015) (quoting Furnco Const. Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 576 (1978)). This is a lot like the\\nBlack Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail dismissing his dismembering as “just a flesh\\nwound.” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/quotes?ref_=tt_ql_trv_4 (last visited Mar. 19,\\n2019). Both grievously understate the significance of what they minimize. On top of that, most\\nrespectfully, the Majority Opinion’s effort to split hairs is nonsensical, and neither McDonnell\\nDouglas nor any of its progeny—Young and Furnco included—in fact, supports the notion that\\nMcDonnell Douglas’s “not onerous” burden does not apply to the substantive standards that\\ngovern the prima facie case. See infra at Sections I.E, II.A (pp. 33-44).\\n 41\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 42 of 100\\n\\n\\n This “minimal” burden to make a “generalized” showing at the prima facie\\n\\nstage ensures the prima facie case acts as a hill and not a mountain in these\\n\\nnotoriously difficult-to-prove cases. An employee often finds herself at a significant\\n\\ndisadvantage to an employer when it comes to knowing the reasons for the\\n\\nemployer’s employment decision and to having access to information concerning\\n\\nboth that decision and potential comparators. So we have recognized “that the prima\\n\\nfacie case is designed to include only evidence that is objectively verifiable and\\n\\neither easily obtainable or within the plaintiff’s possession.” Vessels v. Atlanta\\n\\nIndep. Sch. Sys., 408 F.3d 763, 769 (11th Cir. 2005) (citing Walker v. Mortham, 158\\n\\nF.3d 1177, 1192–93 (11th Cir. 1998)); see also Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 271\\n\\n(O’Connor, J., concurring).6\\n\\n This, of course, makes even more sense in light of the prima facie case’s\\n\\ndesign to eliminate only “the most common nondiscriminatory reasons” for the\\n\\nemployment action. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253–54; see also Maj. Op. at 13 (citations\\n\\nomitted).\\n\\n Once a plaintiff clears that “low bar” by establishing a prima facie case, the\\n\\nemployer—who is in the best position to know why it took action—must come\\n\\nforward with a nondiscriminatory reason for its employment action. See Burdine,\\n\\n\\n 6\\n As I have noted, Justice O’Connor has remarked that “the entire purpose of the McDonnell\\nDouglas prima facie case is to compensate for the fact that direct evidence of intentional\\ndiscrimination is hard to come by.”\\n 42\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 43 of 100\\n\\n\\n450 U.S. at 255. Only after the defendant offers its nondiscriminatory reason at the\\n\\nsecond stage of the McDonnell Douglas framework does “the factual inquiry\\n\\n[‘sharpen’ and] proceed[] to a new level of specificity” at the third McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas juncture—the pretext phase. Id. at 255 & n.8.\\n\\n Significantly, the Supreme Court has explained that at this third stage, “the\\n\\ninquiry now turns from the few generalized factors that establish a prima facie case\\n\\nto the specific proofs and rebuttals of discriminatory motivation the parties have\\n\\nintroduced.” St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 516. Only here does the “plaintiff’s burden of\\n\\nshowing pretext ‘merge[]’ with the ultimate burden of demonstrating unlawful\\n\\ndiscrimination.” Clark v. Huntsville City Bd. of Educ., 717 F.2d 525, 529 (11th Cir.\\n\\n1983) (quoting Burdine, 450 U.S. at 256).\\n\\n Seizing on Supreme Court jurisprudence, several of our sister Circuits have\\n\\nexpressly observed that the funnel-like nature of the McDonnell Douglas framework\\n\\ndemands a funnel-like inquiry into comparators, narrowing from the “minimal,”\\n\\n“generalized,” and “not onerous” burden at the prima facie stage to a burden of more\\n\\nheightened specificity at the pretext stage. For example, the Sixth Circuit has\\n\\nexplained that “a general weighing of the qualifications of [the plaintiff] and [her\\n\\ncomparator] is necessary at the prima facie stage; however, this light review must\\n\\nbe distinguished from the more rigorous comparison conducted at the later stages of\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 43\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 44 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe McDonnell Douglas analysis.” Provenzano v. LCI Holdings, Inc., 663 F.3d 806,\\n\\n813–14 (6th Cir. 2011).\\n\\n Other Circuits have also arrived at this same conclusion. For instance, the\\n\\nEighth Circuit has opined that “the low-threshold standard [for determining at the\\n\\nprima facie stage whether employees are similarly situated] more accurately reflects\\n\\nSupreme Court precedent.” Wimbley v. Cashion, 588 F.3d 959, 962 (8th Cir. 2009)\\n\\n(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Similarly, the Tenth Circuit has\\n\\nremarked that “while evidence that a defendant treated a plaintiff differently than\\n\\nsimilarly-situated employees is certainly sufficient to establish a prima facie case, it\\n\\nis ‘[e]specially relevant’ to show pretext if the defendant proffers a legitimate,\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment action.” EEOC v.\\n\\nHorizon/CMS Healthcare Corp., 220 F.3d 1184, 1195 n.6 (10th Cir. 2000).7\\n\\n In fact, before today, we ourselves had caselaw that implicitly recognized that\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas required the “similarly situated” standard to be applied more\\n\\ngenerally at the prima facie stage before applying that standard more rigorously at\\n\\n\\n\\n 7\\n See also Lee v. Kansas City S. Ry. Co., 574 F.3d 253, 262 (5th Cir. 2009) (“We should\\nnot be understood to say that the distinctions noted by KCS are not relevant; indeed they might\\nvery well prove to be relevant [at the pretext stage] in the event that KCS proffers a legitimate\\nnondiscriminatory explanation . . . . But our sole task today is to determine whether Lee satisfied\\nhis burden of establishing a prima facie case . . . .”); Coleman, 667 F.3d at 859 n.7 (describing\\nCircuits that “channel comparator evidence into the pretext phase of the sequence” as “hewing\\nmore closely to McDonnell Douglas); Simpson v. Kay Jewelers, Div. of Sterling, Inc., 142 F.3d\\n639, 646 (3d Cir. 1998).\\n\\n 44\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 45 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe pretext juncture. For example, in Walker v. Mortham, 158 F.3d 1177, 1192\\n\\n(11th Cir. 1998), a failure-to-promote case, we warned that courts are “prohibit[ed]\\n\\nfrom requiring a plaintiff to prove” at the prima facie stage that she had the same\\n\\nqualifications as the applicant that the employer promoted. As Judge Tjoflat\\n\\ncogently explained, forcing the plaintiff to make such a rigorous showing at the\\n\\nprima facie stage “runs contrary to the policies underlying the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nprima facie case.” Id. Based on the language and purpose of McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nand its progeny, as I have explained, we were right to reach this conclusion.\\n\\n This dichotomous approach to the rigor applied to proposed comparators\\n\\naccords with the difference in what the prima facie and pretext stages are meant to\\n\\ndo. In contrast to the pretext stage, plaintiffs do not have the “ultimate burden of\\n\\ndemonstrating unlawful discrimination” at the prima face phase. Burdine, 450 U.S.\\n\\nat 256. Instead, the plaintiff’s prima facie burden is “quite different,” Furnco Const.\\n\\nCorp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 575 (1978), and “not as burdensome as succeeding\\n\\non ‘an ultimate finding of fact as to’ a discriminatory employment action, Young v.\\n\\nUnited Parcel Serv., Inc., 135 S. Ct. 1338, 1354 (2015) (quoting Furnco, 438 U.S.\\n\\nat 576). So it is critical for a court to require a plaintiff to satisfy only her “not\\n\\nonerous,” “generalized” burden at the prima facie juncture, instead of applying the\\n\\n“more rigorous standard at the prima facie stage,” which “‘conflate[s] the prima\\n\\nfacie case with the ultimate issue of discrimination . . . .’” Rodgers v. U.S. Bank,\\n\\n\\n 45\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 46 of 100\\n\\n\\nN.A., 417 F.3d 845, 852 (8th Cir. 2005), abrogated on other grounds by Torgerson\\n\\nv. City of Rochester, 643 F.3d 1031 (8th Cir. 2011) (quoting Williams v. Ford Motor\\n\\nCo., 14 F.3d 1305, 1308 (8th Cir. 1994)). Yet the Majority Opinion, after\\n\\nintroducing its hyper-specific prima facie comparator analysis, provides no\\n\\nindication as to how it expects the inquiry to “proceed[] to a new level of specificity”\\n\\nat the pretext stage. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255. By maxing out the specificity at the\\n\\nprima facie stage, it simply ignores Supreme Court precedent.\\n\\n C.\\n\\n Courts’ practices of reserving the specificity of the comparator inquiry for the\\n\\npretext stage comport not only with the Supreme Court’s language in McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas and its progeny but also with those cases’ actual analyses. In McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas, the plaintiff, a mechanic who had previously been laid off by McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas, applied for reemployment and was turned down. 411 U.S. at 794–96. The\\n\\nplaintiff filed suit, alleging, as relevant here, race discrimination. Id. at 796–97. The\\n\\nSupreme Court concluded that the plaintiff had successfully met his prima facie\\n\\nburden by showing that McDonnell Douglas “sought mechanics, [the plaintiff’s]\\n\\ntrade, and continued to do so after [the plaintiff’s] rejection”; that McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas did not dispute the plaintiff’s qualifications; and that McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nacknowledged that the plaintiff’s prior work performance was satisfactory. Id. at\\n\\n802.\\n\\n\\n 46\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 47 of 100\\n\\n\\n At the second stage, McDonnell Douglas stated that it had declined to rehire\\n\\nthe plaintiff because he had previously participated in civil disobedience against\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas. Id. at 803.\\n\\n Turning to the pretext phase of the inquiry, the Supreme Court remanded the\\n\\ncase to allow the plaintiff “a fair opportunity to show that [McDonnell Douglas’s]\\n\\nstated reason for [the plaintiff’s] rejection was in fact pretext.” Id. at 804. And for\\n\\nthe first time in the three-step analysis, the Supreme Court became more specific\\n\\nabout comparator evidence. Whereas at the prima facie stage the Supreme Court\\n\\naccepted as comparators any white mechanic who had been rehired, at the pretext\\n\\njuncture, the Supreme Court explained, “Especially relevant to [a pretext showing]\\n\\nwould be evidence that white employees involved in acts against petitioner of\\n\\ncomparable seriousness to the [plaintiff’s civil disobedience] were nevertheless\\n\\nretained or rehired.” Id. (emphasis added). So only at the pretext stage did the\\n\\nSupreme Court determine that considering McDonnell Douglas’s treatment of white\\n\\nmechanics who engaged in acts of “comparable seriousness,” as opposed to simply\\n\\nwhite mechanics, was appropriate.\\n\\n Indeed, the Supreme Court has never rigorously scrutinized comparators at\\n\\nthe prima facie stage. 8 For instance, in Furnco, the Court determined that the\\n\\n\\n 8\\n The Majority Opinion characterizes this factually and legally accurate discussion of\\nMcDonnell Douglas’s treatment of the comparator inquiry as “suggest[ing] that McDonnell\\nDouglas itself somehow indicates that the analysis of comparators should be relegated to the\\n 47\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 48 of 100\\n\\n\\nplaintiffs satisfied their prima facie burden by showing only that they were qualified,\\n\\n“and the employer continued to seek persons of similar qualifications.” 438 U.S. at\\n\\n576. And in St. Mary’s, the Court found the prima facie burden satisfied when the\\n\\nplaintiff demonstrated only that he “was qualified for the position . . . , that he was\\n\\ndemoted from that position . . . , and . . . that the position remained open and was\\n\\nultimately filled by a white man.” 509 U.S. at 506.\\n\\n In short, the purpose of the McDonnell Douglas framework, the language of\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas and its progeny, and the analysis set forth in McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas itself all unmistakably demonstrate that the “similarly situated”\\n\\nrequirement must be applied in a “generalized,” “minimal” way at the prima facie\\n\\nstage and in a more “particulari[zed]” way at the pretext phase.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\ntertiary pretext stage.” Maj. Op. at 16 n.9. To be clear, that is not the point I make. The point is\\nthat beginning with McDonnell Douglas, the Supreme Court has always conducted the comparator\\nanalysis in a “generalized” and “not onerous” way at the prima facie stage and a more rigorous\\nway at the pretext stage. That is irrefutable. And tellingly, the Majority Opinion makes no effort\\nto refute it—even though it does not follow it. Nor, despite its general invocation of “subsequent\\nSupreme Court precedent,” id., does the Majority Opinion identify a single case where, at the\\nprima facie stage, the Supreme Court conducted the rigorous type of comparator inquiry at the\\nprima facie stage the Majority Opinion insists upon today. Instead of responding substantively by\\npointing to Supreme Court precedent supporting its position that the rigorous and complete\\ncomparator inquiry occurs at the prima facie stage, the Majority Opinion redirects, incorrectly\\nsuggesting that I disagree that it is “prop[er]” and “necess[ary]” to “conduct[] a comparative\\nanalysis as part of the prima facie stage.” Id. I don’t. I am certain that McDonnell Douglas and\\nits progeny require a comparator inquiry at the prima facie stage—a “not onerous” and\\n“generalized” comparator inquiry.\\n 48\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 49 of 100\\n\\n\\n D.\\n\\n The Majority Opinion’s insistence on creating a rigorous one-stop shop for\\n\\nanalyzing comparators at the prima facie stage throws the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework’s delicate balance out of whack. It effectively considers the employer’s\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reasons (the second-stage inquiry) at the first stage—the prima\\n\\nfacie case—without providing the protection of allowing the employee to present\\n\\nevidence and argument challenging those reasons as pretext for discrimination. As\\n\\na result, the Majority Opinion’s heightened application of the “similarly situated”\\n\\nstandard at the prima facie juncture significantly reduces the employee’s chances of\\n\\nsurviving summary judgment.\\n\\n Supreme Court precedent precludes what the Majority Opinion does. In\\n\\nparticular, the Supreme Court prohibits consideration, at the prima facie stage, of the\\n\\nemployer’s reason for its actions, since allowing the employer’s reason for its actions\\n\\nto seep into the prima facie inquiry unfairly weights McDonnell Douglas’s delicate\\n\\nbalance in favor of the employer.\\n\\n But before we can fully appreciate Supreme Court precedent on this point, we\\n\\nmust pause briefly to consider the interconnected relationship between the rigor\\n\\napplied to the “similarly situated” comparator inquiry and the employer’s stated\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reason for its actions. When we do, we find that the “similarly\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 49\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 50 of 100\\n\\n\\nsituated” comparator requirement and the employer’s nondiscriminatory reason for\\n\\nits actions can be two sides of a single coin.\\n\\n Employers often argue as their nondiscriminatory reason that the plaintiff and\\n\\nher comparator’s situations differed in some way that justified the different\\n\\ntreatment. In other words, employers tend to assert that the plaintiff and her\\n\\nproposed comparator were not “similarly situated.” So if we allow the employer’s\\n\\nview of who is “similarly situated” to the plaintiff to govern the “similarly situated”\\n\\ninquiry at the prima facie stage, we necessarily import into the prima facie phase the\\n\\nemployer’s reason for its actions—even though McDonnell Douglas prohibits such\\n\\nconsideration until the second and third junctures of the framework.\\n\\n In fact, we need not look any further than the Majority Opinion to see this\\n\\nprinciple at work. Though Lewis met her “generalized,” “not onerous,” and\\n\\n“minimal” prima facie burden to establish she was “similarly situated” to McClure\\n\\nand Heard when she showed that all three were patrol officers put on administrative\\n\\nleave by the Department because they were not physically fit for duty, the Majority\\n\\nOpinion nonetheless concludes that she failed to satisfy her burden. And it does so\\n\\nbecause it reasons that Lewis “was placed on leave pursuant to the Union City\\n\\nPersonnel Policy” on administrative leave, while “McClure and Heard were placed\\n\\non leave pursuant to the Police Department’s Physical Fitness/Medical\\n\\nExaminations policy,” and Lewis “suffered . . . a ‘chronic’ heart condition,” while\\n\\n\\n 50\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 51 of 100\\n\\n\\nMcClure and Heard had “balance” and “agility” problems, respectively. Maj. Op.\\n\\nat 29-31.\\n\\n But, of course, these are not only ways of purporting to show that Lewis was\\n\\nnot similarly situated to her proposed comparators; they also reflect the\\n\\nDepartment’s stated reasons for why it took the action of putting Lewis on\\n\\nadministrative leave.9 Now, to be clear, and as explained further at Section II.B.\\n\\n(pages 59-66), infra, that Lewis met her prima facie burden does not mean we do\\n\\nnot consider these offered nondiscriminatory reasons for the Department’s actions,\\n\\nwhich effectively propose a more particularized application of the “similarly\\n\\n\\n 9\\n The Majority Opinion confusedly suggests I somehow endorse the idea that, at the prima\\nfacie stage, Lewis was not “similarly situated” with McClure and Heard because Lewis “was\\nplaced on leave pursuant to the Union City Personnel Policy” on administrative leave, while\\n“McClure and Heard were placed on leave pursuant to the Police Department’s Physical\\nFitness/Medical Examinations policy,” and Lewis “suffered . . . a ‘chronic’ heart condition,’ while\\nMcClure and Heard had “balance” and “agility problems,” respectively. See Maj. Op. at 28 n.17.\\nI don’t. The Majority Opinion misses my point: the Department’s view of why McClure and Heard\\nshould not be appropriate comparators for Lewis is just another way the Department states its\\npurported nondiscriminatory reason for its actions against Lewis—something that should not be\\nconsidered under the McDonnell Douglas framework until the second and third stages, or else we\\nimport the second and third parts of the McDonnell Douglas analysis into the prima facie stage.\\nAs I have explained elsewhere in this opinion, at the prima facie stage, the comparator burden is\\n“not onerous,” “minimal,” and “generalized.” It becomes more particularized at the pretext\\njuncture. Here, Lewis asserted (and I explore further infra at 56-58), that she and her comparators\\nhad similar job responsibilities, had similar job titles, had similar seniority, and were supervised\\nby the same person. And most important, the Department put all three on involuntary\\nadministrative leave for being physically unfit for duty. Yet Lewis presented evidence that the\\nDepartment gave Lewis just 21 days of administrative leave while affording McClure and Heard\\n90 and 449 days of administrative leave, respectively. For purposes of satisfying her\\n“generalized,” “minimal,” and “not onerous” prima facie “similarly situated” burden, this suffices.\\nWhether the Department’s response to Lewis’s prima facie case suggests that, in fact, the\\nDepartment had a nonpretextual, nondiscriminatory reason for considering Lewis and her\\ncomparators not to be similarly situated is a consideration for the more particularized comparator\\ninquiry at the third stage of the McDonnell Douglas framework.\\n 51\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 52 of 100\\n\\n\\nsituated” standard. We must. But we do so at the pretext stage, after the employer\\n\\npresents them at McDonnell Douglas’s second stage.\\n\\n The Majority Opinion’s failure to follow this sequence is wrong for at least\\n\\ntwo reasons. First, the Supreme Court in U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors v.\\n\\nAikens, 460 U.S. 711 (1983), prohibits us from using the employer’s\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reason to find that the plaintiff failed to establish her prima facie\\n\\ncase. In Aikens, the district court reversed its initial findings that the plaintiff had\\n\\nsatisfied his prima facie burden, upon considering the defendant’s explanation for\\n\\nwhy the employee was not promoted. See id. at 716. The Supreme Court found this\\n\\nanalysis fundamentally flawed. Once the employer “responds to the plaintiff’s proof\\n\\nby offering evidence of the reason for the plaintiff’s rejection,” the Court explained,\\n\\nwhether or not the plaintiff made out a prima facie case “is no longer relevant.” Id.\\n\\nat 714.\\n\\n Rather, by providing its nondiscriminatory reason, the employer moves the\\n\\ninquiry to the pretext stage, where we must decide the “ultimate question” of whether\\n\\nits action against the plaintiff was discriminatory. Id. At this point, courts cannot\\n\\nresolve the case by returning to the prima facie stage. Id. at 717. So under Aikens,\\n\\ncourts may not consider the employer’s nondiscriminatory reasons offered at the\\n\\nsecond McDonnell Douglas stage to determine that a plaintiff has failed to establish\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 52\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 53 of 100\\n\\n\\na prima facie case.10 Yet disappointingly, the Majority Opinion never even attempts\\n\\nto explain how it can be squared with Aikens.\\n\\n Second, by collapsing the first two stages of the McDonnell Douglas inquiry\\n\\ninto the prima facie phase, the Majority Opinion not only strays from Aikens, it also\\n\\ninflicts significant consequences on McDonnell Douglas’s delicate balance—and\\n\\ntherefore on plaintiffs. If the rigorous application of the “similarly situated”\\n\\nrequirement occurs at the prima facie stage, it forecloses the plaintiff from\\n\\nchallenging the employer’s stated reasons for why it deems the plaintiff not similarly\\n\\nsituated to more favorably treated potential comparators. Instead, the court must\\n\\n\\n\\n 10\\n Our sister Circuits have fallen in line with what Aikens demands. For instance, then-\\nJudge Kavanaugh wrote for the District of Columbia Circuit that “as we read the Supreme Court\\nprecedents beginning with Aikens, the prima facie case is a largely unnecessary sideshow” because\\n“by the time the district court considers an employer’s motion for summary judgment . . . the\\nemployer ordinarily will have asserted a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the challenged\\ndecision . . . .” Brady v. Office of Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 494 (D.C. Cir. 2008); see also\\nid. (“[W]here an . . . employer has asserted a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason . . . in\\nconsidering an employer’s motion for summary judgment or judgment as a matter of law in those\\ncircumstances, the district court must resolve one central question: Has the employee [shown\\npretext]?”); Riser v. Target Corp., 458 F.3d 817, 820–21 (8th Cir. 2006) (reasoning that, in a Title\\nVII case, on review of a district court’s grant of summary judgment, an appellate court should\\nfocus on the ultimate question of retaliation or employment discrimination rather than on the prima\\nfacie burden so that the court may “see the forest through the trees”); Noble v. Brinker Int’l, Inc.,\\n391 F.3d 715, 720–21 (6th Cir. 2004) (finding that once the defendant produced purportedly non-\\ndiscriminatory justifications for its actions, “our duty, given Aikens, is simply to determine whether\\n[the plaintiff] produced sufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding of intentional\\ndiscrimination”). And before today, we likewise heeded Aikens’s command. Collado v. United\\nParcel Serv., Co., 419 F.3d 1143, 1151 (11th Cir. 2005) (“[O]nce the [inquiry] has proceeded to\\nthe second step of the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework, the first step, which is the\\nprima facie issue, should be left behind.”). Although Aikens came to the Supreme Court after the\\ncase had already gone to trial, “it makes no sense to apply Aikens post-trial but not at the summary-\\njudgment stage.” Wells v. Colo. Dep’t of Transp., 325 F.3d 1205, 1227 (Hartz, J., writing\\nseparately) (10th Cir. 2003).\\n 53\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 54 of 100\\n\\n\\nsimply accept the employer’s reason because it masquerades as the plaintiff’s failure\\n\\nto show that she was “similarly situated” to her proposed comparator and prevents\\n\\nthe plaintiff from establishing her prima facie case. And if the court concludes the\\n\\nplaintiff has not made out a prima facie case, the plaintiff cannot reach the third stage\\n\\nof the McDonnell Douglas framework, which is the first place a plaintiff can\\n\\nchallenge the employer’s stated reasons for its actions.\\n\\n If, on the other hand, the heightened inquiry into “similarly situated”\\n\\ncomparators occurs at the pretext stage, the plaintiff receives the chance to\\n\\ndemonstrate pretext. And to the extent that a plaintiff can raise a material issue of\\n\\nfact concerning the employer’s stated reason for its employment action—that is, cast\\n\\ndoubt on the truthfulness of the employer’s classification of the plaintiff as not\\n\\n“similarly situated” to more favorably treated employees—the plaintiff has the\\n\\nchance to do so and can survive summary judgment. See Burdine, 450 U.S. at 256\\n\\n(reasoning that at the pretext stage, the employee “now must have the opportunity to\\n\\ndemonstrate that the proffered reason was not the true reason for the employment\\n\\ndecision.”); cf. id. at 256 n.10 (“Indeed, there may be some cases where the\\n\\nplaintiff’s initial evidence [its prima facie case], combined with effective cross-\\n\\nexamination of the defendant, will suffice to discredit the defendant’s explanation”).\\n\\n So locating the more onerous “similarly situated” standard at the pretext\\n\\njuncture instead of frontloading it in the prima facie case effectuates McDonnell\\n\\n\\n 54\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 55 of 100\\n\\n\\nDouglas’s purpose to allow a plaintiff who lacks direct proof of discrimination—by\\n\\ndefinition, the only type of plaintiff who relies on the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework—a chance to show that the same employer who might not have been\\n\\nforthright about its reasons for taking action against her (thus causing her to have to\\n\\nuse the McDonnell Douglas analysis to prove her case) may not be entirely candid\\n\\nin litigation where it defends its actions.\\n\\n Before today, we recognized the problem and impermissibility of collapsing\\n\\nthe McDonnell Douglas framework. For instance, because an employee’s “job\\n\\nperformance is bound up” with the pretext inquiry, we deferred heavily scrutinizing\\n\\nthat issue until the pretext stage to avoid eliding the stages of the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework. Alvarez v. Royal Atl. Developers, Inc., 610 F.3d 1253, 1265 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2010). In the same vein, we warned against holding that nondiscriminatory reasons\\n\\nare “sufficient to defeat the prima facie case” because such a rule “cannot be squared\\n\\nwith the structure and purpose of the McDonnell Douglas framework.” Vessels, 408\\n\\nF.3d at 769.\\n\\n Other Circuits have identified this problem, too. For example, in Ortiz v.\\n\\nNorton, 254 F.3d 889, 895 (10th Cir. 2001), the Tenth Circuit explained, “Short-\\n\\ncircuiting the analysis at the prima facie stage frustrates a plaintiff’s ability to\\n\\nestablish that the defendant’s proffered reasons were pretextual and/or that [the\\n\\nprotected status] was the determining factor . . . .” (citation and internal quotation\\n\\n\\n 55\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 56 of 100\\n\\n\\nmarks omitted); see also Horizon/CMS Healthcare Corp., 220 F.3d at 1193–95 &\\n\\n1195 n.7 (explaining that applying a rigorous “similarly situated” standard in the\\n\\nprima facie case “compress[es] the three stages of the McDonnell Douglas analysis”\\n\\nand “denie[s] [the plaintiff] the opportunity to show that the reasons advanced by\\n\\nthe defendant were pretextual”).\\n\\n Simply put, in the context of summary judgment, requiring the plaintiff to\\n\\nmake a heightened showing of the “similarly situated” requirement at the prima facie\\n\\nstage heavily weights down the employer’s side of McDonnell Douglas’s delicate\\n\\nemployee-employer balance. So by applying a searching “similarly situated”\\n\\ninquiry that considers the employer’s nondiscriminatory reasons at the prima facie\\n\\nstage, the Majority Opinion severely errs. And its error ensures that at least some\\n\\nplaintiffs with potentially valid claims of discrimination will never get the\\n\\nopportunity to show that the employer’s offered reason is a cover for\\n\\ndiscrimination.11\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 11\\n The Majority Opinion suggests that today it lessens the plaintiff’s burden imposed by\\nour prior use of the “nearly identical” language “that has pervaded our case law for decades.” Maj.\\nOp. at 23 n.10. And, at first glance, the “similarly situated in all material respects” standard looks\\nlike a less strict standard than the “nearly identical” standard. To be sure, I fully agree with and\\napplaud the phrasing of the standard as “similarly situated in all material respects.” But looks can\\nbe deceiving. And here, as I have explained, the Majority Opinion’s decision to conduct the entire\\nand rigorous comparator analysis at the prima facie stage marks a plaintiff-adverse departure from\\nprior cases of ours like Walker, which conducted the comparator analysis as a general inquiry at\\nthe prima facie stage and as a more particularized one at the pretext stage. So in reality, the\\nMajority Opinion’s implementation of the standard makes the plaintiff’s burden significantly\\nheavier.\\n 56\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 57 of 100\\n\\n\\n E.\\n\\n Three errors the Majority Opinion makes lead it to mistakenly conclude that\\n\\nthe “similarly situated” requirement must be employed rigorously at the prima facie\\n\\nstage: (1) it emphasizes the employer’s interest over the employee’s interest, rather\\n\\nthan balancing them like McDonnell Douglas’s framework was intended to do; (2)\\n\\nit misses the point of McDonnell Douglas and its progeny; and (3) it imagines a non-\\n\\nexistent deluge of potentially undeserving victorious employment plaintiffs if the\\n\\n“similarly situated” standard is not rigorously applied at the prima facie stage. I\\n\\ndiscuss each error, in turn, below.\\n\\n First, the Majority Opinion contends that imposing a rigorous “similarly\\n\\nsituated” standard at the prima facie stage is warranted because it furthers “the twin\\n\\naims of the prima facie case—eliminating the most common nondiscriminatory\\n\\nreasons for an employer’s action and thereby giving rise to an inference of unlawful\\n\\ndiscrimination.” Maj. Op. at 26-27 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\nThe Majority Opinion also identifies a third aim of the prima facie standard:\\n\\n“winnowing out meritless claims” while “leav[ing] employers the necessary\\n\\nbreathing space to make appropriate business judgments.” Maj. Op. at 21, 27.\\n\\n No doubt all of these things are important. But as the Supreme Court has\\n\\nrecognized, so are the employee’s interests in being able to earn a livelihood without\\n\\nbeing discriminated against and in having a chance to prove her case, despite the\\n\\n\\n 57\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 58 of 100\\n\\n\\ndifference in her access (versus that of her employer) to information about the\\n\\nemployment action. Indeed, “Title VII[] balance[s] between employee rights and\\n\\nemployer prerogatives.” Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 243 (plurality opinion).\\n\\nAnd in turn, “[the McDonnell Douglas] balance of burdens is the direct result of\\n\\nTitle VII’s balance of rights.” Id. at 245.\\n\\n Yet critically, the Majority Opinion and its decision to locate the heightened\\n\\n“similarly situated” standard in the prima facie case fail to properly account for\\n\\nemployee interests and circumstances. So contrary to what McDonnell Douglas and\\n\\nits progeny anticipated, by focusing on the employer’s interests, the Majority\\n\\nOpinion naturally winds up with a system decidedly weighted towards the employer\\n\\ninstead of delicately balanced between the interests of both parties. See supra at\\n\\nSection I.D. That system is irreconcilable with the robust protection against\\n\\nworkplace discrimination Congress intended Title VII to secure. See, e.g.,\\n\\nTeamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 348 (1977) (“The primary purpose of Title\\n\\nVII was to assure equality of employment opportunities and to eliminate . . .\\n\\ndiscriminatory practices . . . .” (internal quotation marks omitted)).\\n\\n Second, the Majority Opinion clashes with McDonnell Douglas and its\\n\\nprogeny. Perhaps the most obvious illustration of this comes from the Majority\\n\\nOpinion’s exile of McDonnell Douglas’s “not onerous” prima facie standard—a\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 58\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 59 of 100\\n\\n\\ncenterpiece of its delicate balance of employers’ and employees’ rights—to a single\\n\\nfootnote in a misguided effort to render it meaningless. See Maj. Op. at 27 n.15.\\n\\n The Majority Opinion tries to hide the “not onerous” elephant in the\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas framework by wishing it away as a mere “descriptor that\\n\\ndoesn’t pertain to the substantive standard that governs the prima facie analysis.”\\n\\nId. In the Majority Opinion’s view, then, the plaintiff’s burden to establish a prima\\n\\nfacie case is “not onerous” with respect to something other than her burden to\\n\\nestablish a prima facie case under the substance of the standards governing the prima\\n\\nfacie case.\\n\\n Wait . . . what?\\n\\n Of course, whether standards are onerous or not governs whether the\\n\\nplaintiff’s burden on the prima facie case is onerous or not. It makes no sense to\\n\\nspeak of the plaintiff’s prima facie burden as “not onerous” if the plaintiff must, in\\n\\nfact, satisfy an onerous substantive standard to meet her prima facie burden.\\n\\n Nor does the Majority Opinion’s reliance on the quotation from Young, 135\\n\\nS. Ct. at 1354 (quoting Furnco, 438 U.S. at 576), respond to this problem. The\\n\\nMajority Opinion opines that McDonnell Douglas’s description of the plaintiff’s\\n\\nprima facie burden as “not onerous” is “simply an acknowledgement that, by its\\n\\nnature, a prima facie case is preliminary, and thus is ‘not as burdensome as\\n\\nsucceeding on ‘an ultimate finding of fact as to’ a discriminatory employment\\n\\n\\n 59\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 60 of 100\\n\\n\\naction.’” Maj. Op. at 27 n.15 (quoting Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1354 (quoting Furnco,\\n\\n438 U.S. at 576)).\\n\\n But the Young quotation comes from Young’s recognition that a plaintiff\\n\\npresents a prima facie case by “showing actions taken by the employer from which\\n\\none can infer, if such actions remain unexplained, that it is more likely than not that\\n\\nsuch actions were based on a discriminatory criterion illegal under Title VII,” and\\n\\nthat required showing “is not as burdensome as succeeding on an ultimate finding of\\n\\nfact as to a discriminatory employment action.” Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1354 (cleaned\\n\\nup). Neither that statement nor anything in Young’s (or any other Supreme Court\\n\\nprecedent’s) discussion somehow supports the notion that the “not onerous”\\n\\nlanguage does not apply to the substantive standards governing the prima facie stage\\n\\nor that the “not onerous” language applies to something other than the substantive\\n\\nstandards at the prima facie stage. They just don’t. 12\\n\\n And even overlooking these hiccups, dismissing the Supreme Court’s “not\\n\\nonerous” statement as some supposedly superfluous “descriptor” writes off and\\n\\nliterally relegates to footnote status a central tenet of the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework. As I have noted, McDonnell Douglas and its progeny demonstrate in\\n\\ncase after case that, in fact, the plaintiff’s “minimal” burden at the prima facie stage\\n\\n\\n 12\\n In fact, to the contrary, Young’s analysis leaves no doubt that the “not onerous” language\\ndoes apply to the substantive standards at the prima facie stage. See infra at Section II.A (pages\\n33-44).\\n 60\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 61 of 100\\n\\n\\nrefers to the plaintiff’s “minimal” burden under the substantive standards that govern\\n\\nthe prima facie case. See supra at Section I.C. The Supreme Court has never once,\\n\\neither implicitly or explicitly, moved one iota away from this standard in the over\\n\\nforty years since it decided McDonnell Douglas.13 Yet the Majority Opinion treats\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas as an out-of-Circuit intermediate appellate decision, leaving its\\n\\nmain point unobserved and proceeding as if that case were, at most, potentially\\n\\npersuasive authority, yet of no actual persuasive value. So much for Justice Scalia’s\\n\\nreminder that “what is required to establish the McDonnell Douglas prima facie case\\n\\nis infinitely less than what a directed verdict demands.” St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 515.\\n\\nForget “infinitely less”; the holding the Majority Opinion announces today is nearly\\n\\nindistinguishable from what a directed verdict demands.\\n\\n I cannot agree with this. So long as we remain bound by the Supreme Court\\n\\nand the “descriptors” that Court gives us in instructing us how to conduct the\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas analysis, we have no authority to implement standards in a way\\n\\nthat expressly contradicts those “descriptors.”\\n\\n\\n\\n 13\\n The Majority Opinion suggests that “Supreme Court precedent” after McDonnell\\nDouglas supports close scrutiny of comparators at the prima facie stage. Maj. Op. at 16 n.9. What\\nthat subsequent precedent is the Majority Opinion does not say. And identifying such a case would\\nbe impossible because at the prima facie stage, the Court has only ever required that the plaintiff\\nmake a generalized showing that she had similar qualifications to the employee that the employer\\ntreated better. See supra at 15-16, 36-37, 40-41. So with apologies to Jerry Maguire, I respectfully\\nsay to the Majority Opinion, “Show us the precedent.” See Jerry Maguire (1996) (Quotes), “Show\\nme the money!” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116695/quotes/qt0389257 (last visited Mar. 19,\\n2019).\\n 61\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 62 of 100\\n\\n\\n Third, the Majority Opinion misconceives the consequences of the plaintiff’s\\n\\nestablishment of a prima facie case. The Majority Opinion states that “[a] successful\\n\\nprima facie showing . . . entitles the plaintiff to judgment—to victory—if the\\n\\nemployer . . . doesn’t provide a nondiscriminatory explanation for its actions,” Maj.\\n\\nOp. at 13, intimating that we will be overcome by a flood of undeserving victorious\\n\\nemployment plaintiffs if we do not rigorously apply the “similarly situated” standard\\n\\nat the prima facie stage. But establishing a prima facie case at summary judgment\\n\\nis not the golden ticket to automatic recovery that the Majority Opinion indicates.\\n\\n First, in the real world, if a plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, virtually\\n\\nno employer completely declines at the second stage of McDonnell Douglas to offer\\n\\na nondiscriminatory reason for its actions. Indeed, that is the point of why the\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas framework is necessary—no employer is likely to admit it took\\n\\nemployment action for discriminatory reasons or sit back and do nothing if so\\n\\naccused. So it is not surprising that we appear to have no opinion at all in our Circuit\\n\\nprecedent where an employer altogether failed to try to offer a nondiscriminatory\\n\\nreason for its action. 14\\n\\n\\n 14\\n The unpublished opinion Smith v. Thomasville Georgia, Case No. 16-16848, ___ F.\\nApp’x ___, 2018 WL 4771672 (11th Cir. 2018), appears to be the closest any case comes, but even\\nit does not fit the bill. There, one of numerous plaintiffs sued, alleging that he should have been\\nconsidered for a position as an assistant chief. Id. at *11. After the plaintiff established his prima\\nfacie case, the defendant offered as a nondiscriminatory reason for not hiring the plaintiff for that\\nposition that the plaintiff had not expressed any interest in it. Id. But, we explained, under\\nCarmichael v. Birmingham Saw Works, 738 F.2d 1126, 1133–34 (11th Cir. 1984), that does not\\ncount as a “legitimate” reason when a position is filled through informal procedures and the\\n 62\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 63 of 100\\n\\n\\n Second, even if that unicorn of an employer who offers no nondiscriminatory\\n\\nreason for its actions exists somewhere out there, establishing a prima facie case at\\n\\nsummary judgment still does not necessarily automatically end the case. Rather, as\\n\\nthe Supreme Court noted in St. Mary’s, even if the defendant does not meet its\\n\\nburden of production, “[i]f reasonable minds could differ as to whether a\\n\\npreponderance of the evidence establishes the facts of a prima facie case, then a\\n\\nquestion of fact does remain, which the trier of fact will be called upon to answer.”\\n\\nId. at 509–10.\\n\\n So the plaintiff’s establishment of an unrebutted prima facie case does not\\n\\nhand her a ticket to skip the trial and go directly to the Clerk’s Office to collect a\\n\\njudgment; that happens only when the employer offers no nondiscriminatory reason\\n\\nfor its actions and reasonable minds could not disagree about whether the employer\\n\\nintentionally discriminated against the plaintiff. See Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing\\n\\nProd., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 146 (2000) (“[I]n St. Mary’s . . . we held that the\\n\\nfactfinder’s rejection of the employer’s legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its\\n\\naction does not compel judgment for the plaintiff.”) (emphasis in original); see also\\n\\nWalker, 158 F.3d at 1184 (“The prima facie case, standing alone, puts the evidence\\n\\nin equipoise—although one could reasonably conclude that the plaintiff was not\\n\\n\\n\\nplaintiff had no notice or opportunity to apply for the position. Id. So even in Smith, it wasn’t that\\nthe employer did not attempt to offer an allegedly nondiscriminatory reason for its conduct; it was\\nthat the court did not accept it.\\n 63\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 64 of 100\\n\\n\\nhired because of her sex, one could just as reasonably conclude that the plaintiff was\\n\\nnot hired because the employer did not like the suit she was wearing . . . .”).\\n\\n Because the Majority Opinion makes these three critical errors in its analysis,\\n\\nit incorrectly concludes that the “similarly situated” standard must be rigorously\\n\\napplied during the prima facie stage of the McDonnell Douglas analysis. In doing\\n\\nso, it disrupts McDonnell Douglas’s delicate balance by playing favorites, elevating\\n\\nthe interests of employers while ignoring the interests of employees. As a result, the\\n\\nMajority Opinion’s location of the rigorous “similarly situated” application will\\n\\nleave victims of discrimination remediless at the first stage of the McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas framework, denying them the chance to show that the employer’s stated\\n\\nreason for its action may be nothing more than a smokescreen to cover\\n\\ndiscriminatory intent. Title VII requires more than that.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n The Majority Opinion compounds employee-adverse error in how it applies\\n\\nthe term “material” in the “similarly situated” standard. Section A below explains\\n\\nthe Majority Opinion’s mistake, and Section B shows how a correct application of\\n\\nthe term to all relevant facts in Lewis’s case requires the conclusion that, for\\n\\npurposes of surviving summary judgment, Lewis sufficiently demonstrated she was\\n\\nsimilarly situated to her two chosen comparators, McClure and Heard.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 64\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 65 of 100\\n\\n\\n A.\\n\\n “Material,” of course, means “[b]eing both relevant and consequential; crucial\\n\\n. . . .” Material, The American Heritage Dictionary (5th ed. 2011). So in the context\\n\\nof the McDonnell Douglas framework, a comparator who is “similarly situated in all\\n\\nmaterial respects” is a comparator who was similarly situated to the employee in all\\n\\nways necessarily crucial to—but only in those ways necessarily crucial to—the\\n\\nemployer’s decision to take action against the employee. And if any material issue\\n\\nof fact 15 exists concerning whether a nondiscriminatory factor (or reason) was\\n\\nnecessarily crucial to the employer’s employment action, it raises a material issue of\\n\\nfact concerning whether the employer’s proposed narrower comparator class is\\n\\nactually “similarly situated” to the plaintiff. As a result, the case must survive\\n\\nsummary judgment.\\n\\n To see what this means in practice, we must look to what the Supreme Court\\n\\nhas said about comparators and how it has applied the concept. Once again, we\\n\\nbegin with McDonnell Douglas. As I have noted, McDonnell Douglas, a failure-to-\\n\\nhire case, discussed the comparator inquiry in terms of “comparable seriousness.” It\\n\\ninstructed that, at the pretext stage, the district court should consider “evidence that\\n\\nwhite employees involved in acts against [the company] of comparable seriousness\\n\\n\\n 15\\n Of course, “material issue of fact” is a term of art used in analyzing whether summary\\njudgment should be granted. To avoid confusion, I use quotation marks whenever I am discussing\\n“material” from the “similarly situated” standard.\\n 65\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 66 of 100\\n\\n\\nto the ‘stall-in’ [the plaintiff participated in before being laid off by the company]\\n\\nwere nevertheless retained or rehired.” Id. at 804. In other words, a person need not\\n\\nhave engaged in a “stall-in” to be a proper comparator in McDonnell Douglas.\\n\\nRather, he must have been involved in only acts of “comparable seriousness”—that\\n\\nis, behavior that, when considered by the employer, would necessarily trigger the\\n\\nsame employment decision as an employee’s participation in a “stall-in” would.\\n\\n And more recently, in Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 1338\\n\\n(2015), which the Majority Opinion points out holds that “the plaintiff and her\\n\\ncomparators need not be similar in all but the protected ways,” Maj. Op. at 24\\n\\n(quoting Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1354) (internal quotation marks omitted), the Supreme\\n\\nCourt further illustrated how similar a proper comparator must be. 16 There, the\\n\\nplaintiffs sued under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, alleging that UPS had\\n\\ndiscriminated against her on the basis of her pregnancy. Id. at 1344.\\n\\n UPS required drivers like Young to be able to lift up to 70 pounds. Id. But\\n\\nwhen Young became pregnant, her doctor told her not to lift more than 20 pounds.\\n\\nId. So UPS told Young she could not work while she was under a lifting restriction.\\n\\n\\n\\n 16\\n Young involved the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (“PDA”), which makes it illegal to\\ntreat pregnant workers less favorably than nonpregnant workers “similar in their ability or inability\\nto work.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(k). In this way, the PDA contains different language than Title VII.\\nBut the Supreme Court nonetheless applies the McDonnell Douglas framework in PDA cases just\\nas it does in Title VII cases. See Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1353–54. And, as the Majority Opinion\\nagrees, see Maj. Op. at 24, the “similar in their ability or inability to work” language is the\\nequivalent of the “similarly situated” requirement in the Title VII context.\\n 66\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 67 of 100\\n\\n\\nId. Young brought suit, arguing that UPS more favorably treated non-pregnant\\n\\nworkers “who were similar in their inability to work.” Id. (internal quotation marks\\n\\nand alteration omitted). The Supreme Court concluded that, at the prima facie stage,\\n\\na genuine dispute existed “as to whether UPS provided more favorable treatment to\\n\\nat least some employees whose situation cannot reasonably be distinguished from\\n\\nYoung’s,” so it returned Young’s case to the district court for determination of the\\n\\npretext inquiry. Id. at 1355 (emphasis added). Among those employees Young held\\n\\nup as comparators were the following:\\n\\n 1. union members whose collective-bargaining agreement with UPS\\n promised to provide temporary alternative work assignments if the\\n employees were “unable to perform their normal work assignments\\n due to an on-the-job injury”;\\n\\n 2. union members whose collective-bargaining agreement with UPS\\n provided that UPS would “make a good faith effort to comply . . .\\n with requests for a reasonable accommodation because of a\\n permanent disability” under the Americans With Disabilities Act;\\n\\n 3. union members whose collective-bargaining agreement stated that\\n UPS would give “inside” jobs to drivers who had lost their\\n Department of Transportation (“DOT”) certifications because of a\\n failed medical exam, a lost driver’s license, or involvement in a\\n motor vehicle accident;\\n\\n 4. employees who received accommodations, such as a 10-pound\\n lifting limitation) after suffering varied disabilities, such as a foot\\n injury or an arm injury, on the job;\\n\\n 5. employees who received accommodations after injury, where the\\n record was unclear as whether the injury occurred on or off the job,\\n such as a recurring knee injury, an ankle injury, a stroke, or a leg\\n injury;\\n 67\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 68 of 100\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 6. employees who received “inside” jobs after losing their DOT\\n certifications; and\\n\\n 7. employees who received accommodations even though they\\n incurred their disabilities, such as an ankle injury or cancer, off the\\n job.\\n\\nId. at 1346–47.\\n\\n Young highlights the problems with the Majority Opinion’s analysis. First,\\n\\nYoung applied a generalized comparator standard at the prima facie stage of the\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas analysis. To be sure, the Court’s opinion did not reveal\\n\\nprecisely which, if not all, of the widely varied proposed comparators’ situations it\\n\\ndeemed “[]not reasonably . . . distinguish[able] from Young’s.” Id. at 1346–47. But\\n\\nit nonetheless allowed all of them to proceed to the pretext inquiry. And in doing\\n\\nso, the Court found genuine issues of material fact about whether all of these other\\n\\nemployees were proper comparators at the generalized prima facie stage. That\\n\\nmeans it could not conclude that the differences between the proposed comparators\\n\\nand Young were necessarily “material” for purposes of the prima facie “similarly\\n\\nsituated” inquiry.\\n\\n So to really understand what the Supreme Court has considered “material” for\\n\\npurposes of the prima facie comparator inquiry, we must look more closely at who\\n\\nthe Supreme Court concluded could not necessarily be ruled out as comparators.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 68\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 69 of 100\\n\\n\\nAnd when we do that, we find that the Court cast a pretty wide net in performing the\\n\\ncomparator inquiry at the prima facie stage.\\n\\n For example, at this prima facie phase of the inquiry, among others, the Court\\n\\nfound the following groups of people appropriate comparators for a pregnant woman\\n\\nwho temporarily could not lift more than 20 pounds: (1) non-pregnant employees\\n\\nwho could not drive because they literally lacked the qualifications (a license or a\\n\\nDOT certification); (2) non-pregnant employees who could not drive because they\\n\\nhad permanent disabilities that made them physically unable to drive; and (3) non-\\n\\npregnant employees who permanently could not lift 70 pounds. Young, 135 S. Ct.\\n\\nat 1346–47. That’s a broad variety of fish caught in the comparator net. And it\\n\\ncontrasts significantly with the Majority Opinion’s view of the scope of the\\n\\n“similarly situated” inquiry at the prima facie stage.\\n\\n Second, although at the prima facie stage the Supreme Court found a material\\n\\nissue of fact concerning whether all of the proposed comparators were sufficiently\\n\\nsimilarly situated, it nonetheless sent the case to the district court to determine at the\\n\\npretext phase whether a material question of fact existed regarding UPS’s reason for\\n\\ntreating pregnant women differently—that is, UPS’s reason why it did not view\\n\\nYoung’s proposed comparators as “similarly situated” to her. So based on this\\n\\nruling, Young received the opportunity to present evidence and argument showing\\n\\nthat UPS’s more narrowly proposed comparators class was pretextual. That means\\n\\n\\n 69\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 70 of 100\\n\\n\\nthat the Supreme Court recognized that employees as differently situated from\\n\\nYoung as non-pregnant drivers who lost their DOT certifications or licenses and\\n\\npermanently injured non-pregnant drivers could conceivably be appropriate\\n\\ncomparators for the temporarily pregnant Young—even at the pretext phase of the\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas framework.\\n\\n The Majority Opinion, though it mentions McDonnell Douglas and Young\\n\\nmore than once, dismisses these cases’ lessons about proper comparators. And it\\n\\ndoesn’t even try to explain how its interpretation of what the “similarly situated”\\n\\nrequirement demands is consistent with the comparators Young and McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas actually allowed. Perhaps that is because it is not. Instead, the Majority\\n\\nOpinion attempts to distinguish Young in two ways: (1) on the basis of the language\\n\\nof the “similarly situated” standard that appears in the Pregnancy Discrimination Act\\n\\n(“PDA”), which governed in Young, and (2) on the basis that the “sheer numbers”\\n\\nof non-pregnant employees UPS accommodated were “overwhelming,” Maj. Op. at\\n\\n26 n.14, while the Department treated only Heard and McClure differently than\\n\\nLewis. Id. Neither succeeds.\\n\\n First, contrary to the Majority Opinion’s wishful thinking, the language of the\\n\\nPDA’s “similarly situated” requirement does not render Young’s lessons concerning\\n\\nthe “similarly situated” requirement inapplicable in the gender- and race-\\n\\ndiscrimination context. True, the PDA phrases its “similarly situated” requirement\\n\\n\\n 70\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 71 of 100\\n\\n\\ndifferently than we state ours today, since under the PDA, employers must treat\\n\\n“women affected by pregnancy . . . the same for all employment-related purposes . .\\n\\n. as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work.” 42\\n\\nU.S.C. § 2000e(k). But the PDA’s focus on the plaintiff and her comparators’\\n\\ninability to work is precisely what makes Young applicable to Lewis’s case. Indeed,\\n\\nLewis’s claim is that she was “similar [to Heard and McClure] in [her] ability or\\n\\ninability to work” when the Department involuntarily put her, McClure, and Heard\\n\\non administrative leave for being physically unfit for duty. So Young is instructive\\n\\non this key point in Lewis’s case. And even the Majority Opinion concedes Young’s\\n\\nrelevance in the context of evaluating comparators for purposes of determining\\n\\nwhether they are “similar in their ability or inability to work.” See Maj. Op. at 26\\n\\nn.14, 24.\\n\\n As to the Majority Opinion’s second basis for attempting to distinguish\\n\\nYoung, it fares no better than the first. The Majority Opinion contends that Young is\\n\\nnot instructive because it involved “overwhelming” “numbers” of comparators,\\n\\nwhereas Lewis identifies only two comparators.17 So by the Majority Opinion’s\\n\\nreasoning, an employer can discriminate with impunity, as long as the employer is\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 17\\n The Majority Opinion also incorrectly seems to suggest that Young involved only comparators\\nwho could not do their jobs because they could not lift boxes. Maj. Op. at 26 n.14. In fact, though, as I\\nhave noted, the Supreme Court also accepted as potential comparators individuals could not work because\\nthey had been stripped of their DOT certifications.\\n 71\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 72 of 100\\n\\n\\ncareful to treat fewer than “overwhelming” “numbers” of similarly situated\\n\\ncomparators better than the plaintiff.\\n\\n Clearly, that is unacceptable under the law. And the Majority Opinion’s\\n\\nefforts to distinguish Young in a footnote, see Maj. Op. at 26 n.14, fail miserably.\\n\\n Because the Majority Opinion does not engage with McDonnell Douglas and\\n\\nYoung’s actual applications of the comparator requirement, we are left to discern for\\n\\nourselves the guiding principles concerning the meaning of “material” that we can\\n\\ntake from the analyses of McDonnell Douglas and Young.\\n\\n We know from McDonnell Douglas’s “comparable seriousness” requirement\\n\\nthat appropriate comparators include individuals with circumstances or who engaged\\n\\nin conduct that would necessarily trigger the same employment decision by the\\n\\nemployer—at least until and unless, at the pretext stage, the employer can\\n\\ndemonstrate a nondiscriminatory reason why such individuals are not appropriate\\n\\ncomparators, for which the plaintiff does not raise a material issue of fact.\\n\\n And Young goes even further. It suggests at the prima facie stage that in a\\n\\ncase where a plaintiff seeks a job accommodation, employees whose circumstances\\n\\ncause them to be unable to perform essential aspects of the same job that the plaintiff\\n\\nholds may be appropriate comparators for a plaintiff who cannot perform an essential\\n\\npart of her job—even if the essential function that the employee cannot do or the\\n\\nreason the plaintiff cannot perform an essential function is different than that of the\\n\\n\\n 72\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 73 of 100\\n\\n\\ncomparators. Of course, at the pretext stage, some or all of these proposed\\n\\ncomparators may prove not to be appropriate comparators. But that depends on\\n\\nwhether the plaintiff can point to a material issue of fact concerning whether the\\n\\nemployer’s reason for treating the proposed comparators differently than the\\n\\nplaintiff—raised at McDonnell Douglas’s second stage—is pretextual.\\n\\n Despite the guidance McDonnell Douglas and Young offer, they cannot\\n\\nprovide complete guidance to resolve every case. Indeed, “[t]he facts necessarily\\n\\nwill vary in Title VII cases,” McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802 n.13, so “case-\\n\\nby-case” analysis will be required, “in the context of individual circumstances,” Maj.\\n\\nOp. at 24. And unfortunately, neither I nor anyone else I’m aware of can articulate\\n\\na checklist that will necessarily apply in every single case. Even the Supreme Court\\n\\nitself has recognized this fact. See Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N. A., 534 U.S. 506, 506–\\n\\n07 (2002) (“The precise requirements of the prima facie case can vary with the\\n\\ncontext and were ‘never intended to be rigid, mechanized, or ritualistic.’”) (quoting\\n\\nFurnco, 438 U.S. at 577); see also Sprint/United Mgmt. Co. v. Mendelsohn, 552 U.S.\\n\\n379, 387–88 (2008) (“The question whether evidence of discrimination by other\\n\\nsupervisors is relevant in an individual ADEA case is fact based and depends on\\n\\nmany factors, including how closely related the evidence is to the plaintiff’s\\n\\ncircumstances and theory of the case.”).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 73\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 74 of 100\\n\\n\\n Nevertheless, besides the considerations we can draw from the McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas and Young analyses, factors such as whether the plaintiff and the proposed\\n\\ncomparators had the same supervisor or a similar employment or disciplinary\\n\\nhistory, and whether the proposed comparator and the plaintiff had fairly comparable\\n\\npositions may also be relevant, even at the prima facie stage. For example, an\\n\\nemployee whose job it is to drive and an employee whose job does not require any\\n\\ndriving may be subject to materially different consequences when it comes to the\\n\\nsignificance to their employment status of an off-duty car accident, and if that is the\\n\\ncase, the driver would obviously know that. Such employees are not “similarly\\n\\nsituated” at the prima facie stage.\\n\\n But the biggest principle we take from Supreme Court precedent on the level\\n\\nof specificity required in applying the “similarly situated” standard is that the\\n\\nstandard applies in a “generalized,” “not onerous,” and “minimal” way at the prima\\n\\nfacie stage and in a more rigorous way at the pretext stage. So at the second phase\\n\\nof the McDonnell Douglas framework, an employer’s stated reasons for its action\\n\\ncan fairly and severely narrow—and even completely eliminate—the field of\\n\\n“similarly situated” comparators. And if they do, that ends the action, unless the\\n\\nplaintiff can raise a material issue of fact concerning whether the employer’s stated\\n\\nreason was pretextual.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 74\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 75 of 100\\n\\n\\n Instead of following this principle, the Majority Opinion requires courts to\\n\\nperform the heightened “similarly situated” inquiry at the prima facie stage, and it\\n\\nengages in a hyper-detailed application of the standard at that juncture. 18 So\\n\\nlegitimate questions about how detailed similarities between a plaintiff and her\\n\\ncomparators must be before losing meaning get disposed of without the employer’s\\n\\nreasons ever being subjected to pretext testing.\\n\\n If the Majority Opinion’s analysis were correct, in Young, at the prima facie\\n\\nstage, the Supreme Court would have upheld summary judgment to UPS for all the\\n\\nreasons the Fourth Circuit noted: some of Young’s proposed comparators were\\n\\n“‘disabled under the ADA’” whereas Young was not; other comparators were\\n\\n“‘injured on the job,’” whereas she was not. Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1348 (quoting\\n\\nYoung v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 707 F.3d 437, 450 (4th Cir. 2013)). But, of\\n\\ncourse, that did not happen. Rather, the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Circuit\\n\\nerred and that Young should be allowed to proceed to the pretext stage to present the\\n\\n\\n\\n 18\\n The Majority Opinion complains that I “offer no real guidance” as to how the “similarly\\nsituated” standard is “operationalize[d].” Maj. Op. at 28 n.16. That is simply not accurate. See\\nsupra at 40-43. Nor is the Majority Opinion’s own explanation of how it “operationalize[s]” its\\nstandard is any more precise than mine. See, e.g., Maj. Op. at 24 (admitting that the standard “will\\nhave to be worked out on a case-by-case basis, in the context of individual circumstances”), 25\\n(stating that a “similarly situated” comparator will “[o]rdinarily” meet four qualities, including one\\nthat retreats further from creating a rule by stating a second time that a comparator “will ordinarily\\n(though not invariably) have been under the jurisdiction of the same supervisor as the plaintiff”).\\nAnd, as I have noted, unlike the “similarly situated” standard this opinion describes, the Majority\\nOpinion entirely fails to explain how its “similarly situated” standard accounts for comparators\\naccepted under McDonnell Douglas’s and Young’s analyses.\\n\\n 75\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 76 of 100\\n\\n\\nwhole menu of comparators enumerated above. Id. at 1355-56. It is simply\\n\\nimpossible to square the Majority Opinion with how the Supreme Court has\\n\\ninstructed lower courts to effectuate McDonnell Douglas.\\n\\n The Majority Opinion makes this error because it allows the matching of\\n\\ncharacteristics of comparators to become an exercise for its own sake. We must\\n\\nalways remember our purpose in identifying “similarly situated” comparators. At\\n\\nthe prima facie stage, we match characteristics to determine only whether the\\n\\nplaintiff and her comparators are similar enough that we can confidently rule out\\n\\ndiscrimination as a basis for the employer’s action—without hearing the employer’s\\n\\nreason for its action and without allowing the plaintiff an opportunity to cast doubt\\n\\nupon that articulated reason. And at the pretext stage, we evaluate characteristics to\\n\\nascertain only whether the plaintiff and her comparators are similar enough that we\\n\\ncannot confidently rule out discrimination as a basis for the employer’s action—\\n\\neven considering the plaintiff’s efforts to show pretext. If we are any more\\n\\ndemanding than that, we fail to restrict our comparison to “material” similarities and\\n\\nviolate the purpose of Title VII and the McDonnell Douglas framework.\\n\\n B.\\n\\n To demonstrate how the “similarly situated” standard should be applied under\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas and its progeny, I apply it in this section to Lewis’s facts.\\n\\nBefore I can do that, though, I must take a moment to identify some important facts\\n\\n\\n 76\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 77 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe Majority Opinion leaves out and to correct some inferences the Majority Opinion\\n\\nmistakenly draws from the facts it does mention. For these reasons, Section 1 sets\\n\\nforth the relevant facts, and Section 2 applies the correct “similarly situated”\\n\\nstandard to them in conducting the McDonnell Douglas analysis.\\n\\n 1.\\n\\na. The Facts Leading to Lewis’s Termination\\n\\n Lewis began working at the Union City Police Department as a police officer\\n\\nin 2001. In 2008, the Department promoted her to the position of detective.\\n\\n The following year, on January 29, 2009, Lewis suffered a heart attack.\\n\\nLewis’s cardiologist described her heart attack as “relatively small because it hadn’t\\n\\naffected her heart function,” and she had no blockage. After taking the month of\\n\\nFebruary 2009 off, Lewis returned to full, active duty on March 2, 2009.\\n\\n When she started back, her lieutenant, Jerry Hester, told her that detectives\\n\\ndid not respond directly to calls but that they waited to be called out specifically.\\n\\nHester assigned “children and women crimes” to the “lady” detectives and gave “the\\n\\nmore aggressive stuff” to himself or Sergeant Cliff McClure.\\n\\n In June 2010, the Department implemented a policy requiring all officers in a\\n\\nposition to make an arrest or supervise an arrestee, which included detectives, to\\n\\ncarry a Taser. To become certified to carry a Taser, the Department required, among\\n\\nother things, for officers to receive a five-second Taser shock.\\n\\n\\n 77\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 78 of 100\\n\\n\\n Similarly, pepper-spray training, which was necessary for pepper-spray\\n\\ncertification, involved exposure to pepper spray. Though Lewis had been exposed\\n\\nto pepper spray when she was at the police academy, she was not certified in its use.\\n\\n To remedy this circumstance, on June 14, 2010, the Department scheduled\\n\\nLewis for pepper-spray training, including pepper-spray exposure, three days later,\\n\\non June 17, 2010.\\n\\n The very next day, June 15, 2010, Lewis’s doctor gave her a letter that\\n\\n“recommend[ed] that a Taser gun or [pepper] spray [not] be used on or near [Lewis]\\n\\nsecondary to her chronic conditions [including a heart condition].” The letter further\\n\\nrequested that the Department “[p]lease take [the doctor’s recommendation] into\\n\\nconsideration when making any decisions about occupational training.” Lewis\\n\\nprovided the Department with that letter the following day, June 16, 2010.\\n\\n And the day after that, Thursday, June 17, 2010, Assistant Chief of Police Lee\\n\\nBrown issued a letter to Lewis “plac[ing] [her] on administrative leave without\\n\\ncompensation until such time your physician releases you to return to full and active\\n\\nduty.” The letter further advised, “You need to contact Tracie McCord in Human\\n\\nResources to complete the necessary FMLA [Family Medical Leave Act] paperwork\\n\\nconcerning your absence. You presently have accrued leave that you may utilize\\n\\nuntil the time such leave is expended.”\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 78\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 79 of 100\\n\\n\\n Lewis contacted McCord’s office the next Monday, June 21, 2010. On June\\n\\n22, McCord’s assistant called Lewis back and scheduled an appointment for Lewis\\n\\nand McCord to meet on Wednesday, June 23, 2010.\\n\\n At the June 23 meeting, McCord gave Lewis FMLA paperwork and told\\n\\nLewis to ask her doctor to call Brown to see whether there was any way that Lewis\\n\\ncould be safely Tased.\\n\\n That same day, Lewis called her doctor and left a message seeking to have her\\n\\ndoctor schedule a time to call Brown and to fill out the FMLA forms. Lewis’s\\n\\ndoctor’s office returned the call and made a July 7 appointment for Lewis to bring\\n\\nthe FMLA paperwork.\\n\\n In the meantime, on July 1, 2010, Lewis sent Police Chief Charles Odom a\\n\\nletter asking that he permit her to “resume [her] duties as [she] had been doing\\n\\nwithout limitation until [she] was recently placed on administrative leave.” She\\n\\nclarified that she was “only asking for an accommodation on the [T]aser and [pepper-\\n\\nspray] training until everything [wa]s cleared up with [her] doctor.” Later that day,\\n\\nBrown responded on behalf of himself and Odom. He stated, “[U]ntil your doctor\\n\\nreleases you for duty, your request is denied.”\\n\\n The following day, Friday, July 2, 2010, Lewis emailed Brown to advise him\\n\\nthat her doctor was out on vacation until Wednesday, July 7, the date upon which\\n\\nshe had already scheduled an appointment with the doctor and would provide her\\n\\n\\n 79\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 80 of 100\\n\\n\\nwith the FMLA paperwork. Lewis also requested that Brown give her his cellphone\\n\\nnumber so she could put her doctor directly in touch with Brown.\\n\\n The next communication in the record occurred after the July 4 holiday, on\\n\\nTuesday, July 6, 2010. In that email from Lewis to Brown, Lewis sent a\\n\\n“reminder/follow up” to her Friday email to Brown, reminding Brown that her\\n\\ndoctor was on vacation until Wednesday and that she had an appointment at noon\\n\\non Wednesday, so she could give the doctor the FMLA paperwork. Lewis again\\n\\nrequested Brown’s cellphone number to provide to her physician so the doctor could\\n\\ncall him directly. Later that day, Brown instructed Lewis to have her doctor call the\\n\\noffice number to schedule a time to “have a conversation about the situation.”\\n\\n The following day, July 7, 2010, Lewis went to see her doctor and provided\\n\\nthe doctor with the FMLA paperwork to fill out. Although the doctor did not prepare\\n\\nthe paperwork before Lewis left, the doctor advised Lewis that she was going to\\n\\ncontact the Police Department. So Lewis called McCord and left her a message that\\n\\nthe doctor would be calling that day. But the doctor did not call, and no one told\\n\\nLewis.\\n\\n Instead, the next morning, at 11:15 a.m., Captain Mike Jones and Lieutenant\\n\\nKen Hester visited Lewis and served her with a letter from Brown immediately\\n\\nterminating her employment. The letter explained,\\n\\n As of Thursday, July 8, 2010, at 1000 hours, you\\n have not provided the City of Union City with any\\n 80\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 81 of 100\\n\\n\\n paperwork requesting Family and Medical Leave. You\\n have not contacted me or any other City official\\n concerning your status in relation to returning to active\\n duty. You are absent without leave.\\n\\n Union City Personnel Policy Chapter 6, Section 1,\\n c, (Leaves of Absence) states, “Any unapproved leave of\\n absence will be cause for dismissal.” Because you have\\n exhausted all of your accrued leave and have failed to\\n complete and turn in the necessary paperwork to be placed\\n on Family and Medical Leave, your absence is unapproved\\n and you are terminated effective immediately.\\n\\nNobody told Lewis before her termination that if she did not turn in her FMLA\\n\\npaperwork by July 7, any adverse action would befall her.\\n\\n After receiving the termination letter, Lewis called her doctor to ask whether\\n\\nthe doctor had called the Police Department, as the two had agreed the doctor would.\\n\\nThe doctor’s assistant said that the doctor intended to call the Department on her\\n\\nlunch hour that day. So Lewis emphasized the importance, explaining that she had\\n\\nbeen fired from her position.\\n\\n Lewis’s doctor then called Odom that same day. Odom told the doctor “he\\n\\nwas concerned about [Lewis’s] being released back to full duty and still being under\\n\\n[the doctor’s] care.” The doctor responded that she “release[s] people back to work\\n\\nduty and still care[s] [for] them in the office.” Odom “also wondered if . . . Lewis\\n\\ninfluenced [the doctor’s] decision to recommend that [Lewis] not use the Taser or\\n\\npepper spray.” The doctor replied that “pepper spray was not as much [of] a\\n\\n\\n\\n 81\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 82 of 100\\n\\n\\nconcern” as “be[ing]” Tased. As the doctor explained the problem, the doctor “did\\n\\nnot know how the ‘Taser’ would affect Lewis.”\\n\\n In the course of the litigation in this case, Odom later conceded in his\\n\\ndeposition testimony that if Lewis had brought in a document from her doctor stating\\n\\nthat she could be exposed to pepper spray, “she probably would have been put back\\n\\nto work . . . .” He further admitted that during the July 8 conversation between\\n\\nBrown and Lewis’s doctor, in light of the doctor’s expressed withdrawal of the\\n\\npepper-spray concerns, nothing precluded Brown from asking the doctor for a note\\n\\nstating that Lewis could proceed with pepper-spray training. Yet Brown did not do\\n\\nso. Odom explained this fact by noting that the conversation did not occur until after\\n\\nLewis’s termination earlier that same day.\\n\\n Also on July 8, 2010, Lewis notified Odom of her intent to appeal her\\n\\ntermination. The City Manager affirmed Lewis’s termination on July 23, 2010.\\n\\nb. The Proposed Comparators\\n\\n As comparators, Lewis proposed Walker Heard, a white male who served as\\n\\na master patrol officer, and Cliff McClure, a white male who worked as a sergeant\\n\\nin the Criminal Investigations Division.\\n\\n Heard was placed on administrative leave after failing a physical-agility test,\\n\\nsince he was not fit for duty. He was given 90 days of administrative leave within\\n\\nwhich to work with medical professionals and pass the fitness-for-duty test. But\\n\\n\\n 82\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 83 of 100\\n\\n\\ninstead of Heard passing the test, near the end of the 90-day period, Heard’s attorney\\n\\nsent a letter to the Department stating that Heard had a disability and requesting that\\n\\nthe fitness-for-duty test be waived.\\n\\n Although Odom did not waive the test, he also did not terminate Heard’s\\n\\nemployment at the end of the 90-day administrative-leave period. Rather, Odom\\n\\noffered Heard the chance to transfer to a dispatcher position, which did not require\\n\\nhim to pass the fitness-for-duty test that patrol officers had to take. Odom held the\\n\\ndispatcher position open for Heard for eleven months before demanding a decision\\n\\nand finally terminating him when he declined the transfer. In all, Heard was on\\n\\nadministrative leave for 449 days before he was finally fired.\\n\\n The Department placed McClure on administrative leave because he failed a\\n\\nbalance test, so he was rendered unfit for duty. McClure received up to a 90-day\\n\\nperiod of administrative leave within which to work with medical professionals to\\n\\nremedy his balance test and requalify as fit for duty. Before the 90-day period\\n\\nexpired, McClure successfully completed his physical-fitness test and was deemed\\n\\nfit to return to duty.\\n\\nc. The Policies the Department Invoked\\n\\n The Department relies on portions of two policies in this case. I summarize\\n\\neach in turn.\\n\\n i. Union City Employee Handbook: Personnel Policy Chapter 6 (Leaves\\n of Absence)\\n 83\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 84 of 100\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n Odom testified that the Department placed Lewis on leave under the Union\\n\\nCity Employee Handbook’s Personnel Policy on leaves of absence, which is found\\n\\nat Chapter 6.\\n\\n Section 1.A. of that policy provides, in relevant part, “A regular full-time\\n\\nemployee may be granted leave of absence without pay at the discretion of the\\n\\nDepartment Director and the City Manager. An employee may also be placed on\\n\\nleave of absence status without application.” As relevant here, § 1.A. imposes a 180-\\n\\nday limit on any such leave. Finally, if an employee is placed on administrative\\n\\nleave without pay, she may choose to take any portion of it as paid leave to the extent\\n\\nshe has paid leave available. But whether or not she chooses to take any of her\\n\\nunpaid administrative leave as available paid leave is “up to the individual\\n\\nemployee,” since the option to use paid leave during unpaid administrative leave is\\n\\nfor the benefit of the employee. As a result, according to the City Manager, who\\n\\nwas responsible for reviewing and revising the Union City Employee Handbook,\\n\\nwhether the employee opts to use paid leave for any portion of her unpaid\\n\\nadministrative leave is “irrelevant” to and does not affect the length of the\\n\\nadministrative-leave period.\\n\\n Turning to § 7 of the City’s leave-of-absence policy, that covers FMLA\\n\\nabsences. That section has a subsection called “Notification and Reporting\\n\\nRequirements,” § 7.F. But absent from that section is any deadline for the\\n 84\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 85 of 100\\n\\n\\nsubmission of FMLA paperwork where, as in this case, the employee is put on\\n\\nadministrative leave by the City and told to subsequently “complete the necessary\\n\\nFMLA paperwork concerning [the] absence” (as opposed to scheduling FMLA leave\\n\\nherself). Section 7.B. also authorizes “[a]n eligible employee [to] apply available\\n\\naccrued leave to all approved absences where all or a portion of their normal base\\n\\nsalary would otherwise be unpaid.”\\n\\n The last part of Chapter 6 that is pertinent is § 1.C., which the Department\\n\\nrelied on in the letter terminating Lewis’s employment. That provision states, “Any\\n\\nunapproved leave of absence will be cause for dismissal.”\\n\\n ii. The Union City Police Department’s Physical-Fitness Policy\\n\\n In January 2013, after Lewis left but before Heard and McClure were placed\\n\\non administrative leave, the Department created a policy requiring all sworn officers\\n\\nto pass an annual physical-fitness test. 19 Under the policy, any officer who did not\\n\\npass the annual fitness test was sent to physicians for a less strenuous fitness-for-\\n\\nduty test. If the officer failed that test, the officer was placed on administrative leave\\n\\nwithout pay for 90 days. The officer then had that 90-day period to improve his or\\n\\nher health to the point where the officer could pass the fitness-for-duty test. At the\\n\\nend of the 90-day period, physicians administered a second fitness-for-duty test. If\\n\\n\\n\\n 19\\n No copy of the policy appears in the record, so the description of it in this dissent is taken\\nfrom Odom’s articulation of the policy.\\n 85\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 86 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe officer passed, the officer was reinstated. But if the officer failed, the officer was\\n\\n“deemed unfit for duty and [was] subject to termination.”\\n\\n The “governing force” for the Department’s authority to involuntarily place\\n\\nofficers on administrative leave came from the Union City Personnel Policy\\n\\nHandbook, which governed all City employees. The Handbook “set the baseline”\\n\\nfor the Department. As a result, the Department generally could not exceed its\\n\\nproscriptions, since the Handbook and the Department’s policies are “[v]ery similar”\\n\\nto the relationship between “State laws” and “County laws.”\\n\\n The Department’s issuance of the physical-fitness policy’s 90-day\\n\\nadministrative-leave provision and the Department’s placing of Lewis on\\n\\nadministrative leave both involved the Department’s exercise of its authority to\\n\\ninvoluntarily put an officer on administrative leave for being physically unfit for\\n\\nduty. Viewed in the light most favorable to Lewis, the record yields the reasonable\\n\\ninference that the Department’s authority to involuntarily place Lewis on\\n\\nadministrative leave for being physically unfit for duty and the Department’s\\n\\ndecision to put physically unfit officers involuntarily on 90 days of administrative\\n\\nleave were exercises of the same power: the authority referenced in Chapter 6, §\\n\\n1.A., in the Union City Personnel Policy Handbook for the Department to put an\\n\\nemployee involuntarily on administrative leave for up to 180 days. In fact, both\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 86\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 87 of 100\\n\\n\\nexercises were “governed” by the Union City Personnel Policy Handbook since the\\n\\nHandbook put a 180-day restrictor cap on the Department’s discretion.\\n\\n This is unsurprising since both cases involve the same action—placing an\\n\\nofficer involuntarily on administrative leave—for the same reason—being\\n\\nphysically unfit for duty. Plus, both exercises fall within the policy’s boundaries\\n\\nrequiring fewer than 180 days’ leave. Nor did the Department put the physical-\\n\\nfitness policy or any other evidence suggesting that anything other than the\\n\\ndiscretion referenced in the Personnel Policy Handbook was the source of its power\\n\\nto put officers involuntarily on administrative leave for 90 days for being physically\\n\\nunfit for duty into the summary judgment record. Rather, the record contains only\\n\\none source of authority for the Department to put someone involuntarily on\\n\\nadministrative leave: Chapter 6 of the Personnel Policy Handbook.20\\n\\n Odom attested that both Heard and McClure were placed on administrative\\n\\nleave pursuant to the 90-day administrative-leave portion of the physical-fitness\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 20\\n The Majority Opinion says it “simply can’t indulge” this inference, Maj. Op. at 30 n.18,\\neven though it is based on the evidence of record and does nothing more than view the facts in the\\nlight most favorable to the non-moving party—here, Lewis. But elementary principles of summary\\njudgment say otherwise. On a motion for summary judgment, “courts are required to view the\\nfacts and draw reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the party opposing the summary\\njudgment motion.” Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 378 (2007) (citation, quotation marks, and\\nalterations omitted). And for the reasons I have identified, this is certainly a reasonable inference.\\nNor has the Majority Opinion offered any reason why this is not a reasonable inference from the\\nrecord.\\n 87\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 88 of 100\\n\\n\\npolicy. 21 While McClure was able to pass the second fitness-for-duty test and return\\n\\nto work, Heard was not. But as explained in Section II.B.1.b above, Heard’s\\n\\nemployment was not terminated at the end of the 90-day period. Instead, he\\n\\nremained on administrative leave for a total of 449 days before Odom ended his\\n\\nemployment.\\n\\n 2.\\n\\n Lewis satisfied her comparator burden at both the prima facie stage and the\\n\\npretext stage, allowing her to survive summary judgment. As I explain below,\\n\\nmaterial questions of fact exist about whether the Department’s stated\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reasons were necessarily crucial to the Department’s dissimilar\\n\\ntreatment of Lewis and her comparators.\\n\\n Significantly, Heard and McClure’s situations cannot “reasonably be\\n\\ndistinguished” from Lewis’s. Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1355; see also Caraballo-\\n\\nCaraballo, 892 F.3d at 60 (stating that in the “in all relevant respects” standard,\\n\\n“reasonableness is the touchstone” and “[t]he court must decide whether a prudent\\n\\nperson, looking objectively at the plaintiff and her comparator would think them\\n\\n\\n 21\\n The Majority Opinion suggests that Heard and McClure were not proper comparators\\nbecause the Department did not adopt the physical-fitness policy until two years after it terminated\\nLewis. Maj. Op. at 29. But again, in viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Lewis, we\\nmust accept for purposes of summary judgment that the Department’s decision to put Lewis on\\nadministrative leave for being physically unfit for duty and its issuance of the administrative-leave\\nportion of the physical-fitness policy were exercises of the same power. And the Majority Opinion\\ndoes not cite any authority that rules out comparators simply because the employer dealt with them\\nafter the plaintiff. Perhaps that’s because there is no such authority.\\n 88\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 89 of 100\\n\\n\\nroughly equivalent”) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). Lewis and\\n\\nher comparators had similar job responsibilities, had similar job titles, had similar\\n\\nseniority, and were supervised by the same person, Odom. And most important, the\\n\\nDepartment put all three on involuntary administrative leave for being physically\\n\\nunfit for duty. Yet Lewis presented evidence that the Department gave Lewis just\\n\\n21 days of administrative leave while affording McClure and Heard 90 and 449 days\\n\\nof administrative leave, respectively.\\n\\n This is plenty to meet Lewis’s “generalized” and “minimal” prima facie\\n\\nburden. To put it in McDonnell Douglas’s “comparable seriousness” terms, see 411\\n\\nU.S. 804, Lewis’s physical condition triggered the same employment decision by\\n\\nthe Department as did McClure’s and Heard’s—the Department placed all three\\n\\ninvoluntarily on administrative leave because they were not fit for duty and indicated\\n\\nthat they could not return to duty until they were fit to do so.\\n\\n And if we compare Lewis’s situation to that of Young in Young, Lewis bears\\n\\na closer resemblance to her proposed comparators than Young did to her accepted\\n\\ncomparators. As I have noted, in Lewis’s case, she and her comparators all could\\n\\nnot do what the Department deemed an essential aspect of their work for the same\\n\\nreason—they were all physically unfit for duty. But in Young, where the plaintiff\\n\\ncould not deliver packages because she temporarily had a physical restriction\\n\\nconcerning how much weight she could lift, some of her approved comparators\\n\\n\\n 89\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 90 of 100\\n\\n\\ncould not work as drivers for reasons unrelated to their health—they had been\\n\\nstripped of their licenses or DOT certifications.\\n\\n In light of Lewis’s similarities to her comparators, at the prima facie stage, we\\n\\ncannot confidently rule out discrimination as a basis for the employer’s action,\\n\\nwithout hearing the employer’s reason for its action and without allowing the\\n\\nplaintiff an opportunity to cast doubt upon that articulated reason.\\n\\n Since these facts establish a prima facie case for Lewis, we turn to the\\n\\nDepartment’s nondiscriminatory reasons for firing Lewis after giving her only 21\\n\\ndays of administrative leave. The Department has offered four reasons for its action,\\n\\nand Lewis asserts each is pretextual. Before I address each reason in turn, I note a\\n\\nfew ways in which a plaintiff may create a material issue of fact concerning pretext.\\n\\n Among others, a plaintiff can survive the pretext stage by casting sufficient\\n\\ndoubt on the defendant’s proffered nondiscriminatory reasons to permit a reasonable\\n\\nfactfinder to conclude that the employer’s proffered “reasons were not what actually\\n\\nmotivated its conduct.” Cooper-Houston v. Southern Ry. Co., 37 F.3d 603, 605 (11th\\n\\nCir. 1994) (citation omitted). The plaintiff can also demonstrate pretext if she shows\\n\\nthe employer’s articulated reason is false and that the false reason hid discrimination.\\n\\nSee St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 515; Hurlbert v. St. Mary’s Health Care Sys., Inc., 439\\n\\nF.3d 1286, 1298 (11th Cir. 2006) (citing as evidence of pretext “an employer’s\\n\\nfailure to articulate clearly and consistently the reason for an employee’s\\n\\n\\n 90\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 91 of 100\\n\\n\\ndischarge”). And the plaintiff can show pretext if she establishes that the employer\\n\\nhas failed to clearly articulate and follow its formal policies. See Hinson v. Clinch\\n\\nCty., Ga. Bd. of Educ., 231 F.3d 821, 831 (11th Cir. 2000) (finding issue of fact on\\n\\npretext reversing because employer failed to raise a concern directly with the\\n\\nemployee). All of these ways of demonstrating pretext come into play in this case.\\n\\n First, the Department asserts that it provided the comparators with more than\\n\\n21 days’ administrative leave under the Department’s physical-fitness policy, which\\n\\ndid not exist when Lewis worked there. And to be sure, the physical-fitness policy\\n\\nhad not yet been issued when Lewis was fired.\\n\\n But viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Lewis, as we must, the\\n\\nphysical-fitness policy is nothing more than a statement of how the Department\\n\\nexercises its authority as identified in Chapter 6, section 1.A. of the City Employee\\n\\nHandbook, to place an officer on administrative leave when that officer is not\\n\\nphysically fit to perform her duties. So the record shows that Odom had just two\\n\\nopportunities to use the discretion afforded to him by Chapter 6, section 1.A. of the\\n\\nCity Employee Handbook to promulgate administrative-leave policies for officers\\n\\nwho were physically incapable of policing. He couldn’t have behaved more\\n\\ndifferently.\\n\\n First, when Odom had Lewis, an African-American woman before him, he, at\\n\\nbest, gave her 21 days of administrative leave before firing her. But when he\\n\\n\\n 91\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 92 of 100\\n\\n\\nexercised his discretion to grant leave without an African-American woman in front\\n\\nof him, he provided officers with 90 days of administrative leave—more than four\\n\\ntimes as much as he gave Lewis.\\n\\n Second, when Odom had Lewis, an African-American woman to consider, he\\n\\ngave no warning before firing her after 21 days of administrative leave. But under\\n\\nthe policy Odom promulgated after Lewis’s departure to apply generally to all\\n\\nofficers who were physically unfit for duty, he provided an express warning that\\n\\ntheir leave would expire in 90 days if they did not remedy their fitness-for-duty\\n\\ndeficiency.\\n\\n And third, in Heard’s case, Odom skated right by Chapter 6, § 1.A’s 180-day\\n\\ncap and gave Heard 449 days of unpaid administrative leave—21 times the number\\n\\nof days he gave Lewis and 269 days more than the City’s administrative-leave policy\\n\\nallowed (and 359 days more than the Department’s physical-fitness policy\\n\\npermitted). A reasonable jury could find that the Department did not consistently\\n\\nexercise its authority in placing physically unfit officers on administrative leave and\\n\\nthat the Department did not comply with its own policies. A reasonable jury could\\n\\nfurther conclude that these inconsistencies reveal discriminatory motivation.\\n\\n The Department offers as a second nondiscriminatory reason for its actions\\n\\nthat Lewis’s condition was permanent, while Heard’s and McClure’s were not\\n\\nnecessarily so. But this reason also has three holes in it.\\n\\n\\n 92\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 93 of 100\\n\\n\\n First, as I have noted, in Young, the Supreme Court concluded that temporarily\\n\\ndisabled employees could be proper comparators for permanently disabled\\n\\nemployees. Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1346–47. We have no authority to demand more\\n\\nsimilarity than the Supreme Court. And the Majority Opinion does not say why the\\n\\npermanently disabled were acceptable comparators to the temporary disabled in\\n\\nYoung, yet they are not here.\\n\\n Second, even if we could set aside Young, in the light most favorable to Lewis,\\n\\nthe record shows the Department itself did not appear to believe that Lewis’s lack of\\n\\nphysical fitness for duty was permanent. For example, in the June 17, 2010, letter\\n\\nputting Lewis on administrative leave, Brown stated that Lewis was on such leave\\n\\n“until such time your physician releases you to return to full and active duty.” And\\n\\nLewis also advised the Department that she did not expect her lack of physical fitness\\n\\nto be permanent, asking the Department on July 1, 2010, for “an accommodation . .\\n\\n. until everything is cleared up with my doctor.” Even in the letter firing Lewis, the\\n\\nDepartment said it placed Lewis on administrative leave “until [her] physician\\n\\nreleased [her] to return to full and active duty.”\\n\\n Plus, the Department had a history of working with others with heart\\n\\nconditions to allow them to receive a milder version of a Tasing than officers without\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 93\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 94 of 100\\n\\n\\nheart conditions received.22 So the Department had firsthand knowledge and\\n\\nexperience that a heart condition did not necessarily mean that Lewis would never\\n\\nbe fit for duty. And Lewis was in daily contact with the Department about the\\n\\npossibility of having her doctor see if something could be worked out with Brown\\n\\nto resolve the Tasing and pepper spray issues. 23 In the light most favorable to Lewis,\\n\\nthese facts demonstrate that both parties viewed Lewis’s return to fitness for duty to\\n\\nbe a possibility. 24 So a reasonable jury could conclude that the alleged permanence\\n\\n\\n 22\\n Specifically, rather than shooting the Taser darts into their backs from ten to fourteen\\nfeet away, the Department laid the officers on the floor, clipped alligator clips to one of each\\nofficer’s legs, and administered the shock that way.\\n 23\\n The Majority Opinion argues that Lewis’s doctor “never cleared her for Taser training.”\\nMaj. Op. at 31 n.19. True. But that tells only part of the story. During Odom’s discussion with\\nLewis’s doctor, after Lewis had been terminated—the only time anyone from the Department ever\\nspoke with Lewis’s doctor, despite Lewis’s efforts to arrange for Brown to speak with her doctor\\nbefore she was fired—Odom never told Lewis’s doctor that an option existed to expose Lewis to\\nthe more moderate Tase it was willing to give other officers with heart conditions. So we have no\\nway of knowing whether, had Lewis’s doctor been offered this option, Lewis’s doctor would have\\nwithdrawn her objection. And even if Lewis’s doctor had not, that Lewis could not be Tased did\\nnot mean she could not work a non-patrol position, such as one like the dispatcher position offered\\nto and maintained open for Heard for eleven months.\\n 24\\n The Majority Opinion asserts that this also is not a reasonable inference from the record.\\nMaj. Op. at 31 n.19. In so claiming, the Majority Opinion not only ignores certain facts, it makes\\nthe mistake of construing other facts in the light most favorable to the moving party—the\\nDepartment—instead of the nonmoving party—Lewis. In particular, the Majority Opinion rests\\nits entire position that the Department viewed Lewis’s physical unfitness for duty as a permanent\\nstate of affairs when it put her on administrative leave on its argument that the word “until,” in the\\nDepartment’s written communications to Lewis was “agnostic as to the likelihood of Lewis’s\\nreturn.” Id. Sure, that interpretation may well be one way of reading the Department’s written\\nletters to Lewis. But another reasonable way of reading them is as reflecting the Department’s\\nknowledge that Lewis’s state of unfitness for duty was not necessarily permanent—particularly in\\nlight of its knowledge that it had found ways to render other officers with heart conditions fit for\\nduty. And that is the view we are required to take under the summary-judgment standard, since it\\nis the reasonable view that is most favorable to the nonmoving party. Indeed, the Majority Opinion\\nhas offered no reason for why that view is not a reasonable one on this record. Instead, the Majority\\nOpinion ignores the Supreme Court’s warning in Reeves that a court may not “impermissibly\\nsubstitute[] its judgment concerning the weight of the evidence for the jury’s.” 530 U.S. at 153.\\n 94\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 95 of 100\\n\\n\\nof Lewis’s condition was not the true reason for the Department’s actions and rather,\\n\\nthat excuse hid discriminatory motivation.\\n\\n And third, even assuming, arguendo, the Department considered Lewis’s\\n\\nphysical unfitness for duty to be permanent—a conclusion that is not supported by\\n\\nthe record, when Heard’s unfitness for duty was determined not to be temporary, the\\n\\nDepartment offered him the opportunity to take a job with the Department that did\\n\\nnot require him to go out on patrol. Odom offered no such alternative to Lewis\\n\\nbefore or after firing her, even though he admitted that the Department had enough\\n\\ninformation on the same day Lewis was fired to offer her a different position that\\n\\nwould not have required her to patrol the streets. So a reasonable jury could\\n\\nconclude that the Department did not consistently apply its policies and that it failed\\n\\nto do so for discriminatory reasons.\\n\\n The Department offered yet another (a third) reason for firing Lewis at the\\n\\ntime it terminated her employment—that she was “absent without leave” because\\n\\nher paid leave supposedly expired. But a reasonable jury could find that that reason\\n\\nhas no support in the record. Rather, on June 17, 2010, the Department placed Lewis\\n\\non “administrative leave without compensation until such time your physician\\n\\nreleases you.” Lewis remained on that leave until the moment the Department fired\\n\\nher. And according to the City Manager, whether she had or chose to take paid leave\\n\\nfor any portion of her otherwise-unpaid administrative-leave period was “irrelevant”\\n\\n\\n 95\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 96 of 100\\n\\n\\nto the administrative-leave status on which the Department placed her. So contrary\\n\\nto the Department’s stated reason, a reasonable jury could ascertain that Lewis was\\n\\nnot “absent without leave” when the Department fired her; she was on the very\\n\\nadministrative leave the Department forced her to take. And based on that, a\\n\\nreasonable jury could conclude that the Department’s third stated reason was pretext\\n\\nfor discrimination.\\n\\n Closely related to the Department’s contention that Lewis was absent without\\n\\nleave is its fourth stated reason for firing Lewis: that Lewis missed some unspoken\\n\\ndeadline by which to file her FMLA paperwork. But that’s just it: no deadline was\\n\\never stated—not in the daily communications between the parties, not in the City’s\\n\\nEmployee Handbook, and not anywhere else in the record. Plus, under the terms of\\n\\nthe June 17, 2010, letter, everyone knew Lewis would take FMLA leave after she\\n\\nexhausted her paid leave,25 and it’s not like Lewis disappeared from the\\n\\nDepartment’s radar screen without a trace. On the contrary, Lewis was in regular\\n\\ncommunication with the Department, informing it on a daily basis of her progress in\\n\\nobtaining the FMLA paperwork from her doctor. A reasonable jury could infer that\\n\\nthe Department’s sudden imposition of an apparently previously non-existent\\n\\ndeadline for submitting FMLA paperwork suggests a cover for discrimination.26\\n\\n\\n 25\\n In fact, on July 6, Brown told Lewis that she was “currently on FMLA Leave with our\\ndepartment.”\\n 26\\n Technically, another reason exists for why there a genuine issue of material fact about whether\\nLewis was “absent without leave.” The Department fired her at 10:00 a.m. and she appears to have had at\\n 96\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 97 of 100\\n\\n\\n Indeed, the Department’s failure to warn Lewis that once her accrued leave\\n\\nexpired she would be terminated rather than placed on unpaid-leave status is just the\\n\\nsort of arbitrary action that Justice Rehnquist noted could be probative of\\n\\ndiscriminatory intent. See Furnco, 438 U.S. at 577 (“[W]e know from our\\n\\nexperience that more often than not people do not act in a totally arbitrary manner,\\n\\nwithout any underlying reasons, especially in a business setting. Thus, when all\\n\\nlegitimate reasons for [the adverse employment action] have been eliminated as\\n\\npossible reasons for the employer’s actions, it is more likely than not [that] the\\n\\nemployer, who we generally assume acts only with some reason, based his decision\\n\\non an impermissible consideration such as race.”).\\n\\n So in sum, Lewis established both at the prima facie and pretext stages that,\\n\\nat the very least, material questions of fact exist concerning whether she was\\n\\n“similarly situated” to Heard and McClure in all “material” respects. But the\\n\\nMajority Opinion engages in a rigorous application of the “similarly situated”\\n\\nstandard at the prima facie case, and it construes the term “material” to include\\n\\nimmaterial comparisons. So Lewis’s case, which should survive summary judgment\\n\\nunder the McDonnell Douglas framework, dies at the prima facie stage. And Lewis\\n\\ndoes not even get the chance to contest the Department’s reasons for terminating her\\n\\n\\n\\nleast half-an-hour more of accrued leave remaining at that time. So a jury could conclude that the City’s\\nreason was pretextual since Lewis may not actually have been absent without leave at the time the City\\nfired her.\\n 97\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 98 of 100\\n\\n\\nemployment. That’s unfortunate since the City’s reasons for its action are, when\\n\\nviewed in the light most favorable to Lewis, suspect.\\n\\n III.\\n\\n In sum, I respectfully dissent from the Majority’s decisions to apply a rigorous\\n\\n“similarly situated” standard at the prima facie stage and to overbroadly construe the\\n\\nterm “material” within the “similarly situated” standard. These errors, which\\n\\ncontravene Title VII’s purpose, are particularly troubling in light of recent studies\\n\\non employment discrimination. Even though Title VII has been at work for close to\\n\\n45 years, we cannot, unfortunately, say that discrimination has been eradicated. To\\n\\nthe contrary, a recent study in the Harvard Business Review found that hiring\\n\\ndiscrimination against African-Americans and Latino-Americans has not declined at\\n\\nall in the last 25 years. See Lincoln Quillian, et. al, Hiring Discrimination Against\\n\\nBlack American Hasn’t Decline in 25 Years, Harvard Business Review, Oct. 11,\\n\\n2017, available at https://hbr.org/2017/10/hiring-discrimination-against-black-\\n\\namericans-hasnt-declined-in-25-years. Another study found that Asian-Americans\\n\\nand African-Americans were twice as likely to receive interviews if they scrubbed\\n\\nall racial cues from their résumés. Dina Gerdeman, Minorities Who ‘Whiten’ Job\\n\\nResumes Get More Interviews, Harvard Business School, May 17, 2017, available\\n\\nat https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-\\n\\ninterviews.\\n\\n\\n 98\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 99 of 100\\n\\n\\n And a recent study from Pew Research concluded that four in ten women have\\n\\nreported that their employers discriminated against them because of their gender.\\n\\nSee Kim Parker & Cary Funk, Gender Discrimination Comes In Many Forms for\\n\\nToday’s Working Women, Pew Research, Dec. 14, 2017, available at\\n\\nhttp://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/14/gender-discrimination-comes-\\n\\nin-many-forms-for-todays-working-women/.27 Plus, women are “still\\n\\nsystematically sideline[d]” once they become pregnant, seeing their hourly wages\\n\\nchopped by four percent. Natalie Kitroeff and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, “Pregnancy\\n\\nDiscrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies,” The New York\\n\\nTimes, Feb. 8, 2019, available at\\n\\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/15/business/pregnancy-\\n\\ndiscrimination.html.\\n\\n Of course, employers usually don’t post help-wanted signs reading “blacks\\n\\nneed not apply,” and they are generally astute enough not to ask women about plans\\n\\nto start a family. Instead, discrimination today often surreptitiously sits behind a veil\\n\\nof subtlety, with the boss handing out the plum assignments to male officers while\\n\\nrelegating the “lady” detectives to “less aggressive” “children crimes.” See supra at\\n\\n\\n 27\\n This discrimination is not limited to just race and gender, either. For example, in 2017,\\nthe Employment Opportunity Commission reported that it received 84,254 workplace-\\ndiscrimination charges and that it secured $398 million for victims of all types of protected classes.\\nEqual Employment Opportunity Commission, EEOC Releases Fiscal Year 2017 Enforcement and\\nLitigation Data, Jan. 25, 2018, available at https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/1-25-\\n18.cfm.\\n 99\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 100 of 100\\n\\n\\n45. Using codewords or subtlety does not make discrimination any less of a problem\\n\\nunder Title VII. And because Title VII tolerates none of it, we should be particularly\\n\\ncautious before ratcheting up plaintiffs’ “not onerous” prima facie burden, in\\n\\nviolation of McDonnell Douglas and its progeny.\\n\\n I respectfully dissent from the Majority Opinion’s errors.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 100\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4379419/\", \"author_raw\": \"Judges, concurring\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"ED CARNES"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"TJOFLAT"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"MARCUS"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":2,"string":"2"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":"WILSON; WILLIAM PRYOR; MARTIN; JORDAN; ROSENBAUM; JILL PRYOR; NEWSOM; BRANCH; GRANT"},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"ED CARNES\": \", Chief\", \"TJOFLAT\": \", Circuit\", \"MARCUS\": \", Circuit\", \"WILSON\": \", Circuit\", \"WILLIAM PRYOR\": \", Circuit\", \"MARTIN\": \", Circuit\", \"JORDAN\": \", Circuit\", \"ROSENBAUM\": \", Circuit\", \"JILL PRYOR\": \", Circuit\", \"NEWSOM\": \", Circuit\", \"BRANCH\": \", Circuit\", \"GRANT\": \", Circuit\"}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":2,"string":"2"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4602166/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Jacqueline LEWIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF UNION CITY, GEORGIA, Chief of Police Charles Odom, in His Official and Individual Capacities, Defendant -Appellees.\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-21\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 1 of 100\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n ________________________\n\n No. 15-11362\n ________________________\n\n D.C. Docket No. 1:12-cv-04038-RWS\n\nJACQUELINE LEWIS,\n\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\n\n versus\n\nCITY OF UNION CITY, GEORGIA,\nCHIEF OF POLICE CHARLES ODOM,\nin his official and individual capacities,\n\n Defendant -Appellees.\n\n ________________________\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the Northern District of Georgia\n ________________________\n\n (March 21, 2019)\n\n ON PETITION FOR REHEARING\n\nBefore ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM\nPRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM,\nBRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.\n\nNEWSOM, Circuit Judge, delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ED\nCARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR,\nJORDAN, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges, joined.\n\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 2 of 100\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Jacqueline LEWIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF UNION CITY, GEORGIA, Chief of Police Charles Odom, in His Official and Individual Capacities, Defendant -Appellees.\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-21\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 1 of 100\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 15-11362\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 1:12-cv-04038-RWS\\n\\nJACQUELINE LEWIS,\\n\\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nCITY OF UNION CITY, GEORGIA,\\nCHIEF OF POLICE CHARLES ODOM,\\nin his official and individual capacities,\\n\\n Defendant -Appellees.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Northern District of Georgia\\n ________________________\\n\\n (March 21, 2019)\\n\\n ON PETITION FOR REHEARING\\n\\nBefore ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM\\nPRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM,\\nBRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nNEWSOM, Circuit Judge, delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ED\\nCARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR,\\nJORDAN, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges, joined.\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 2 of 100\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1358,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4602369,"string":"4,602,369"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"GEORGIA MUSLIM VOTER PROJECT, Asian-Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, Plaintiffs - Appellees, v. Brian KEMP, in His Official Capacity as the Secretary of State of Georgia, Defendant - Appellant, Gwinnett County Board of Voter Registration and Elections, on Behalf of Itself and All Others Similarly Situated, Defendant. Rhonda J. Martin, Dana Bowers, Jasmine Clark, Smythe Duval, Jeanne Dufort, the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, Inc., Plaintiffs - Appellees, v. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State of Georgia, Defendant - Appellant, Rebecca N. Sullivan, Et Al., Defendants."},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"GEORGIA MUSLIM VOTER PROJECT v. Kemp"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-21"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"18-14502-GG; 18-14503-GG"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Tjoflat, Pryor, Newsom\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888178/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}, {\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"040dissent\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888179/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}, {\"author\": \"United States District Judge\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 1 of 78\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n No. 18-14502-GG\\n\\nGEORGIA MUSLIM VOTER PROJECT,\\nASIAN-AMERICANS ADVANCING JUSTICE-ATLANTA,\\n\\n Plaintiffs - Appellees,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nBRIAN KEMP,\\nin his official capacity as the Secretary of State of Georgia,\\n\\n Defendant - Appellant,\\n\\nGWINNETT COUNTY BOARD OF VOTER REGISTRATION AND ELECTIONS,\\non behalf of itself and all others similarly situated,\\n\\n\\n Defendant.\\n\\n\\n No. 18-14503-GG\\n\\nRHONDA J. MARTIN,\\nDANA BOWERS,\\nJASMINE CLARK,\\nSMYTHE DUVAL,\\nJEANNE DUFORT,\\nTHE GEORGIA COALITION FOR THE PEOPLE'S AGENDA, INC.,\\n\\n Plaintiffs - Appellees,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nBRIAN KEMP,\\nSecretary of State of Georgia,\\n\\n Defendant - Appellant,\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 2 of 78\\n\\n\\nREBECCA N. SULLIVAN, et al.,\\n\\n Defendants.\\n\\n\\n On Appeal from the United States\\n District Court for the Northern District of Georgia\\n\\n\\nBEFORE: TJOFLAT, JILL PRYOR, and NEWSOM, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nBY THE COURT:\\n\\n On November 2, 2018, we denied the Emergency Motion for Stay of Injunction Pending Appeal\\n\\nfiled by Appellant Brian Kemp and advised at that time that one judge dissented and separate opinions\\n\\nwould follow. Today, we issue those opinions.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 3 of 78\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4379622/\", \"author_raw\": \"United States District Judge\"}, {\"author\": \"JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judge, concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judge, concurring in the denial of the motion for a stay.\\n\\n On the eve of the 2018 general election, and in the wake of a surge in\\n\\ninterest in voting by mail in Georgia, the Georgia Muslim Voter’s Project and\\n\\nAsian-Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta filed suit challenging the State’s lack\\n\\nof prerejection procedures for redress when an elector’s signature on an absentee\\n\\nballot application or absentee ballot appears not to match the signature on her voter\\n\\nregistration card. For such a perceived mismatch, the State offered only notice of\\n\\nrejection and an opportunity to try again, whether by mail or by voting in person.\\n\\nBut for other absentee ballot deficiencies, the State offered a more robust system of\\n\\nprerejection notice and an opportunity to be heard. Finding a likely violation of\\n\\nprocedural due process, the district court entered an injunction in which it ordered\\n\\nthe Secretary of State of Georgia to instruct county elections officials to provide\\n\\nprerejection notice and an opportunity to be heard in the event of a perceived\\n\\nsignature mismatch. In so doing, the district court borrowed heavily from existing\\n\\nvoting procedures pertaining to other ballot deficiencies, which had been passed by\\n\\nGeorgia’s legislature and long followed by state and local officials, to craft a\\n\\nnarrow remedy for a narrow class of ballot applications and ballots.\\n\\n When the Secretary moved in this Court for a stay pending appeal from the\\n\\ninjunction, we denied the stay, concluding that the district court had not abused its\\n\\ndiscretion in crafting the relief it ordered. See Cumulus Media, Inc. v. Clear\\n 3\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 4 of 78\\n\\n\\nChannel Commc’ns, Inc., 304 F.3d 1167, 1171 (11th Cir. 2002) (“[The district\\n\\ncourt’s] judgments, about the viability of a plaintiff’s claims and the balancing of\\n\\nequities and the public interest, are the district court’s to make and we will not set\\n\\nthem aside unless the district court has abused its discretion in making them.”).\\n\\nOur order denying the Secretary’s motion issued days before the November 2018\\n\\nelection, and in it we noted that opinions would follow. This is my opinion,\\n\\nwritten as if it had been issued contemporaneously with that order.1\\n\\n I. BACKGROUND\\n\\n A. Georgia’s Statutory Absentee Voting Scheme\\n\\n Like many states, Georgia permits electors to vote by mail, for any reason,\\n\\nthrough a process it calls absentee voting. See O.C.G.A. § 21-2-380(a), (b).\\n\\nAbsentee electors must follow a two-step process, first applying for and second\\n\\nvoting via an absentee ballot. Id. §§ 21-2-381, -383, -384. At both steps, an\\n\\nabsentee elector must sign the application or ballot, and at both steps that signature\\n\\nis compared by elections officials to the elector’s voter registration card signature.\\n\\nId. § 21-2-381(b)(1) (absentee ballot applications); id. §§ 21-2-384(b),\\n\\n(c), - 386(a)(1)(B), (C) (absentee ballots). If the county elections official\\n\\n\\n 1\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4379622/\", \"author_raw\": \"JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judge, concurring\"}, {\"author\": \"I agree with Judge Newsom’s concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"I agree with Judge Newsom’s concurring opinion that this case is now moot, since the\\nelection has passed. But one member of the panel dissented from our order denying the motion\\nfor a stay pending appeal, and he has since written a dissenting opinion explaining his reasons\\nfor declining to join the majority. I explain here why I believe the motion properly was denied.\\n 4\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 5 of 78\\n\\n\\nreviewing submissions concludes that the signatures match at the application stage,\\n\\nan absentee ballot issues; if the signatures match at the absentee ballot stage, and\\n\\nthere are no other deficiencies, the absentee elector’s vote is counted. Id. § 21-2-\\n\\n381(b)(2)(A) (absentee ballot applications); id. § 21-2-386(a)(1)(B) (absentee\\n\\nballots). If the official concludes that the signature on the absentee ballot\\n\\napplication or absentee ballot does not match that of the elector’s voter registration\\n\\ncard, then the application or ballot is rejected. Id. § 21-2-381(b)(3) (absentee\\n\\nballot applications); id. § 21-2-386(a)(1)(C) (absentee ballots). At issue in this\\n\\ncase is the process offered to absentee electors whose signatures on absentee ballot\\n\\napplications and absentee ballots are deemed a mismatch.\\n\\n Georgia law has no provision by which an absentee elector notified of a\\n\\nperceived mismatch may contest the decision, cure the mismatch, or prove her\\n\\nidentity before the absentee application or absentee ballot is rejected for a signature\\n\\nmismatch. Instead, the law provides that after the application or ballot is rejected,\\n\\nthe county board of registrars2 or absentee ballot clerk is required to “promptly\\n\\nnotify” the elector of the rejection. Id. § 21-2-381(b)(3) (absentee ballot\\n\\napplications); id. § 21-2-386(a)(1)(C) (absentee ballots).3 The law does not\\n\\n\\n 2\\n County boards of registrars are empowered by state law to conduct primaries and\\nelections and to oversee the registration of electors and absentee balloting procedures. See\\ngenerally O.C.G.A. § 21-2-40.\\n 3\\n For example, within three days of rejection of an absentee ballot, Gwinnett County\\n 5\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 6 of 78\\n\\n\\nprevent the absentee elector from trying again, either by filling out a new\\n\\napplication or by completing a new ballot. Nor does the law prevent an able\\n\\nabsentee elector from voting in person, either during early voting hours or on\\n\\nElection Day. Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 183-1-14-.09.\\n\\n Still, perceived signature mismatches are a bit of an outlier: Georgia law\\n\\nprovides prerejection procedures for other flaws in absentee ballot applications and\\n\\nabsentee ballots, just not for a signature mismatch. If the registrar or absentee\\n\\nballot clerk determines that an absentee ballot application lacks information such\\n\\nthat the official cannot determine the absentee elector’s identity, Georgia law\\n\\nprovides that the official must “write to request additional information” from the\\n\\nelector instead of rejecting the application outright. O.C.G.A. § 21-2-381(b)(4).\\n\\nIf the board of registrars has probable cause to believe based on an absentee ballot\\n\\nthat the “elector is not qualified to remain on the list of electors,” the board must,\\n\\n“if practical, notify the challenged elector and afford such elector an opportunity to\\n\\nanswer,” and then “shall proceed to conduct a hearing on the challenge on an\\n\\nexpedited basis prior to the certification of the consolidated returns of the election\\n\\nsuperintendent.” Id. § 21-2-230(b), (g). If the absentee elector fails to prove her\\n\\neligibility at this stage, she may appeal to the superior court within 10 days of the\\n\\n\\nprovides the absentee elector with a letter stating the reasons for the rejection, a new application\\nfor an absentee ballot, and information about how to vote by other means.\\n 6\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 7 of 78\\n\\n\\nboard of registrars’ decision. Id. § 21-2-230(g) (cross-referencing O.C.G.A. § 21-\\n\\n2-229(e)). If the board of registrars believes that an absentee ballot has some\\n\\nother deficiency that does not affect the elector’s qualifications to remain on the\\n\\nlist of electors—for example, if the absentee elector failed to provide the required\\n\\nidentification—and “it is not practical to conduct a hearing prior to the close of the\\n\\npolls,” then elections officials must treat the ballot as a “challenged” ballot—that\\n\\nis, a provisional ballot. Id. §§ 21-2-230(e), (i), -386(e), -419. If the absentee\\n\\nelector provides the board of registrars with the required identification no more\\n\\nthan three days after the election, then her vote is counted. Id. § 21-2-419(c)(1);\\n\\nGa. Comp. R. & Regs. 183-1-14-.03(2), (3), (5). If the absentee elector fails to do\\n\\nso, then the ballot is not counted and the absentee elector is so notified. Ga.\\n\\nComp. R. & Regs. 183-1-14-.03(5); O.C.G.A. § 21-2-419(d)(1). If necessary\\n\\nbased on these procedures, the election returns are adjusted and a corrected return\\n\\nis certified. O.C.G.A. § 21-2-230(g), -493(l). Again, under Georgia law these\\n\\nprerejection procedures are inapplicable to absentee ballot applications and ballots\\n\\nwith perceived signature mismatches.\\n\\nB. The Proceedings Below\\n\\n The Georgia Muslim Voter Project and Asian-Americans Advancing\\n\\nJustice-Atlanta (collectively, “GMVP”) caught wind of an October 12, 2018 news\\n\\narticle reporting increased rates of rejection of absentee ballot applications and\\n 7\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 8 of 78\\n\\n\\nabsentee ballots in Gwinnett County due to perceived signature mismatches. Four\\n\\ndays later, the organizations filed suit in the Northern District of Georgia against\\n\\nBrian Kemp, in his official capacity as Secretary of State of Georgia,4 and the\\n\\nGwinnett County Board of Registrars and Elections, on behalf of itself and\\n\\nsimilarly situated boards of registrars in all 159 Georgia counties. As relevant to\\n\\nthis appeal, GMVP alleged that Georgia’s absentee voting scheme violated\\n\\nprocedural due process insofar as the State failed to provide prerejection notice, an\\n\\nopportunity to be heard, and a chance to appeal for absentee electors whose\\n\\nabsentee ballot applications or absentee ballots contained a perceived mismatched\\n\\nsignature.\\n\\n GMVP moved for an injunction to prevent elections officials from rejecting\\n\\nabsentee ballot applications and absentee ballots due to perceived signature\\n\\nmismatches without these prerejection procedures. After holding a hearing, the\\n\\ndistrict court determined that it was substantially likely that the Georgia’s statutory\\n\\nprocedures for rejecting absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots facially\\n\\nviolated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of procedural due process. The\\n\\ndistrict court found that the other factors courts consider in deciding whether to\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n Secretary Kemp also was a candidate for governor of Georgia in the November 2018\\nelection. He won that election, and a new Secretary of State has assumed his prior position.\\nFor ease of reference, I use the term “the Secretary” throughout.\\n 8\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 9 of 78\\n\\n\\ngrant injunctions—irreparable injury, harm to the opposing party, and the public\\n\\ninterest—also weighed in favor of granting injunctive relief.\\n\\n The district court thereafter entered an injunction5 in which it ordered the\\n\\nSecretary of State’s Office to issue the following instructions, reproduced in full\\n\\nhere, to all county boards of registrars, boards of elections, election\\n\\nsuperintendents, and absentee ballot clerks:\\n\\n 1) All county officials responsible for processing absentee ballots shall\\n not reject any absentee ballots due to an alleged signature mismatch.\\n Instead, for all ballots where a signature mismatch is perceived, the\\n county elections official shall treat this absentee ballot as a\\n provisional ballot, which shall be held separate and apart from the\\n other absentee ballots. See O.C.G.A. § 21-2-419; Ga. Comp. R. &\\n Regs. 183-1-14-.03(2). The county elections official shall then\\n provide pre-rejection notice and an opportunity to resolve the\\n alleged signature discrepancy to the absentee voter. This process\\n shall be done in good faith and is limited to confirming the identity\\n of the absentee voter consistent with existing voter identification\\n laws. See O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-417, -417.1. The elections official is\\n required to send rejection notice via first-class mail and also\\n electronic means, as available or otherwise required by law. See\\n O.C.G.A. § 21-2-384(a)(2). This process shall include allowing the\\n absentee voter to send or rely upon a duly authorized attorney or\\n attorney in fact to present proper identification. This process shall\\n be done prior to the certification of the consolidated returns of the\\n election by the election superintendent. See O.C.G.A. § 21-2-\\n 230(g). The absentee voter shall have the right to appeal any\\n absentee ballot rejection following the outcome of the\\n\\n 5\\n Although the district court labeled its order a “Temporary Restraining Order,” GMVP\\nDoc. 32 at 2, it actually was an immediately appealable preliminary injunction. See 28 U.S.C.\\n§ 1292(a)(1); Fernandez-Roque v. Smith, 671 F.2d 426, 429 (11th Cir. 1982) (explaining that the\\nfunctional effect of an order controls and that an order is an injunction if, rather than “merely\\npreserving the status quo,” it “grant[s] most or all of the substantive relief requested”).\\n 9\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 10 of 78\\n\\n\\n aforementioned process, as designated in O.C.G.A. § 21-2-229(e).\\n Any aforementioned appeals that are not resolved as of 5 p.m. on\\n the day of the certification deadline shall not delay certification and\\n shall not require recertification of the election results unless those\\n votes would change the outcome of the election. See O.C.G.A.\\n § 21-2-493(l).\\n\\n 2) All county elections officials responsible for processing absentee\\n ballot applications shall not reject any absentee ballot application\\n due to an alleged signature mismatch. Instead, for all ballot\\n applications where a signature mismatch is perceived, the county\\n elections official shall, in addition to the procedure specified in\\n O.C.G.A. § 21-2-381(b), provide a provisional absentee ballot to the\\n absentee voter along with information as to the process that will be\\n followed in reviewing the provisional ballot. The outer envelope\\n of the absentee ballot provided shall be marked provisional. Once\\n any provisional ballot is received, the procedure outlined in section\\n 1 above is to be followed.\\n\\n 3) This injunction applies to all absentee ballot applications and\\n absentee ballots rejected solely on the basis of signature mismatches\\n submitted in this current election. This injunction does not apply\\n to voters who have already cast an in-person vote.\\n\\nGMVP Doc. 32 at 2-3.6\\n\\n The Secretary filed an emergency motion to stay the injunction pending\\n\\nappeal, arguing that laches barred GMVP’s claims and that GMVP was unlikely to\\n\\nprevail on the merits of the facial due process challenge.7 Only the Secretary\\n\\n\\n 6\\n “Doc. #” refers to the numbered entry on the district court’s docket. Unless otherwise\\nnoted, citations are to the GMVP v. Secretary case in the district court.\\n 7\\n Several electors and the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, Inc. (collectively,\\nthe “Electors”) separately filed suit against the Secretary, members of the Gwinnett County\\nBoard of Voter Registration and Elections, and members of the State Election Board. The State\\nElection Board is tasked with promulgating rules and regulations that will “obtain uniformity in\\nthe practices and proceedings of superintendents, registrars, deputy registrars, poll officers, and\\n 10\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 11 of 78\\n\\n\\nmoved for a stay; the Gwinnett County Board of Voter Registration and Elections\\n\\ndid not. The district court denied the Secretary’s motion. The Secretary then\\n\\nfiled in this Court an Emergency Motion for Stay of Injunction Pending Appeal.\\n\\nWe summarily denied the motion for a stay. Judge Tjoflat dissented from our\\n\\nsummary order denying a stay and now has provided his reasons for doing so.\\n\\nThis is my response.\\n\\n II. LEGAL STANDARDS\\n\\n “A stay of a preliminary injunction requires the exercise of our judicial\\n\\ndiscretion, and the party requesting the stay must demonstrate that the\\n\\ncircumstances justify the exercise of that discretion.” Democratic Exec. Comm. of\\n\\n\\n\\nother officials” and facilitate the “fair, legal, and orderly conduct of primaries and elections.”\\nState Election Board Duties, http://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/state_election_board (last\\naccessed March 18, 2019).\\n The Electors brought substantive due process and equal protection claims arising from\\nthe rejection of absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots with perceived signature\\nmismatches. The Electors sought an injunction on these grounds, rather than on the basis of\\nprocedural due process. Without consolidating the cases, the district court held a joint hearing\\nat which it entertained both motions for injunctive relief. There, the court expressed its\\ninclination to grant relief only on GMVP’s procedural due process claim and heard argument\\nprimarily on GMVP’s request for an injunction on that claim. When the district court granted\\nthe injunction, it entered the injunction onto the dockets in both cases. The district court denied\\nthe Electors’ motion for an injunction but noted in its order that the Secretary remained enjoined\\nas set forth in the GMVP case.\\n We consolidated both cases on appeal. The Secretary argues here that he “is especially\\nlikely to succeed on the merits of his appeal” of the injunction entered onto the docket in the\\nElectors’ case because the Electors did not raise a procedural due process claim. Mot. for Stay\\nat 13 n.3. But based on the context in which the injunction was entered on the docket in the\\nElectors’ case, I do not read the injunction as granting the Electors any relief separate and apart\\nfrom the relief granted to GMVP. I therefore reject the Secretary’s argument.\\n 11\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 12 of 78\\n\\n\\nFla. v. Lee, 915 F.3d 1312, 1317 (11th Cir. 2019). In deciding whether to grant a\\n\\nstay of an injunction pending appeal, the Court considers the following factors,\\n\\nwhich mirror the factors the district court considered in entering the injunction:\\n\\n (1) whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing that it is likely\\n to succeed on the merits, (2) whether the applicant will be irreparably\\n injured absent a stay, (3) whether issuance of the stay will substantially\\n injure the other parties interested in the proceeding, and (4) where the\\n public interest lies.\\n\\nId. (citing Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009)). The first two factors are\\n\\nthe “most critical.” Nken, 556 U.S. at 434. As to the first factor, “[i]t is not\\n\\nenough that the chance of success on the merits be better than negligible.” Id.\\n\\n(internal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\n As to the second factor, irreparable injury, “even if [a party] establish[es] a\\n\\nlikelihood of success on the merits, the absence of a substantial likelihood of\\n\\nirreparable injury would, standing alone, make [a stay] improper.” Siegel v.\\n\\nLePore, 234 F.3d 1163, 1176 (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc).8 That is because “[a]\\n\\nshowing of irreparable injury is the sine qua non of injunctive relief.” Id. (internal\\n\\nquotation marks omitted). “[T]he asserted irreparable injury must be neither\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 8\\n Siegel arose in the context of an appeal from the denial of a preliminary injunction, not\\nfrom a motion to stay a preliminary injunction. 234 F.3d at 1168. Because we use the Nken\\nfactors for both inquiries, however, Siegel is directly applicable to this case.\\n 12\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 13 of 78\\n\\n\\nremote nor speculative, but actual and imminent.” Id. (internal quotation marks\\n\\nomitted).\\n\\n On appeal we do all of this legal legwork through the lens of an abuse of\\n\\ndiscretion standard of review. Lee, 915 F.3d at 1317. In so doing, we review de\\n\\nnovo any legal conclusions and for clear error any factual conclusions underlying\\n\\nthe district court’s exercise of its discretion. Id. But the weight to be afforded\\n\\nany given factor and the ultimate weighing of the factors together are\\n\\nquintessential exercises of discretion that we reverse only if that discretion is\\n\\nabused. See Osmose, Inc. v. Viance, LLC, 612 F.3d 1298, 1320-21 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2010); BellSouth Telecommc’ns, Inc. v. MCImetro Access Transmission Servs.,\\n\\nLLC, 425 F.3d 964, 968-70 (11th Cir. 2005).\\n\\n In determining whether the plaintiffs showed a substantial likelihood of\\n\\nsuccess on the merits of the procedural due process claim, the district court was\\n\\nobliged to apply the framework from Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976).\\n\\nUnder Mathews, a court determining what process is due in connection with a\\n\\npotential deprivation of a liberty or property interest must balance three\\n\\nconsiderations:\\n\\n First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action;\\n second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the\\n procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or\\n substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government’s\\n interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and\\n 13\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 14 of 78\\n\\n\\n administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural\\n requirement would entail.\\n\\nId. at 335. We must apply this test “to the generality of cases, not the rare\\n\\nexceptions.” Id. at 344.\\n\\n III. DISCUSSION\\n\\n In this section, I first explain why the Secretary’s failure to show that he is\\n\\nlikely to suffer irreparable harm requires that his motion for a stay be denied\\n\\nwithout regard to any of the other Nken factors. Second, I respond to the\\n\\nSecretary’s argument as to the other Nken factors and explain why they also do not\\n\\nweigh in favor of a stay pending appeal. Third, I address my dissenting\\n\\ncolleague’s remaining concerns about the denial of the stay pending appeal.\\n\\n A. The Secretary Has Made No Strong Showing that the Injunction Would\\n Cause Him Irreparable Injury.\\n\\n Starting with irreparable injury, the Secretary argues that the district court’s\\n\\ninjunction would cause irreparable harm because the injunction prevents it “‘from\\n\\neffectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people,’” upsets the election\\n\\nprocess, and “risks introducing confusion, uncertainty, and inaccuracy during a\\n\\ngeneral election” such that this Nken factor “strongly favors granting a stay.”\\n\\nMot. for Stay at 22-23 (quoting Hand v. Scott, 888 F.3d 1206, 1207 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2018)). I disagree. First, the injunction does not prevent the Secretary from\\n\\neffectuating any statutes because it does not negate the effects of any statutes.\\n 14\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 15 of 78\\n\\n\\nInstead, it adds procedural protections. Second, the Secretary has failed to\\n\\nsubstantiate any “injury following from the simple preparation on paper of a plan\\n\\nto carry out the [district] court’s directives”—the only thing the injunction required\\n\\nthe Secretary to do. See Garcia-Mir v. Meese, 781 F.2d 1450, 1455 (11th Cir.\\n\\n1986).\\n\\n I might view the risk of irreparable harm differently had any other defendant\\n\\nmoved for a stay or signaled that the injunction had in fact led to confusion,\\n\\nuncertainty, or inaccuracy. But no other defendant so moved, and in fact the\\n\\nevidence in this case belies the Secretary’s conclusory assertion that the injunction\\n\\nwill irreparably harm the State’s voting procedures. On the same day the\\n\\ninjunction was entered, the Secretary sent a four-page bulletin to county elections\\n\\nofficials statewide instructing them to comply with the injunction and explaining in\\n\\nsome detail how to do so. The Secretary has submitted no evidence or even\\n\\nargument that any county has reported difficulty complying with the guidance;\\n\\nindeed, the Chair of the Board of Registrars of one of Georgia’s most populous\\n\\ncounties testified that compliance with the injunction as instructed by the Secretary\\n\\nwas “pretty straightforward” and “easily doable” and would “not really add any\\n\\nburdens to what we are already doing.” GMVP Doc. 37-1 at 2-3. The Chair\\n\\nstated he did “not believe that it will be difficult to implement the guidance . . .\\n\\neven with a week left until Election Day.” Id. at 2.\\n 15\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 16 of 78\\n\\n\\n Our precedent makes clear that the Secretary’s failure to show that the\\n\\ninjunction would cause irreparable injury is an adequate and independent basis for\\n\\ndenying the motion to stay pending appeal. See Siegel, 234 F.3d at 1176. In any\\n\\nevent, because the Secretary argues that he can satisfy all of the Nken factors—and\\n\\nmy dissenting colleague agrees—I discuss the remaining factors in the sections that\\n\\nfollow.\\n\\n B. The Secretary Has Made No Strong Showing that He Is Likely to\\n Succeed on Appeal.\\n\\n The Secretary advances three arguments for why the district court abused its\\n\\ndiscretion in entering the injunction requiring state officials to provide prerejection\\n\\nprocesses to absentee ballot applicants and electors whose ballot applications and\\n\\nballots suffer from perceived signature mismatches. First, he argues that the\\n\\nplaintiffs’ challenge does not satisfy the requirements of a facial challenge and\\n\\ntherefore fails as a matter of law, merits aside. Second, and relatedly, he argues\\n\\nthat the district court erred in weighing the Mathews factors such that the facial\\n\\nchallenge fails on the merits. Third, he contends that the plaintiffs’ challenge\\n\\nlikely is barred by the doctrine of laches. For the reasons that follow, I disagree\\n\\non all three fronts. Where the dissent’s arguments are different from the\\n\\nSecretary’s, I address those points as well.9\\n\\n\\n 9\\n I focus my discussion primarily on the injunction as it relates to absentee ballots, as\\n 16\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 17 of 78\\n\\n\\n\\n 1. The Secretary has made no strong showing that the district court likely erred\\n in concluding that the plaintiffs could advance a facial challenge.\\n\\n The Secretary argued in the district court that GMVP’s procedural due\\n\\nprocess challenge could only be construed as a facial challenge because GMVP\\n\\nfailed to identify any absentee elector to whom the signature mismatch procedure\\n\\nhad been unconstitutionally applied. And, the Secretary argued, GMVP could not\\n\\nadvance a facial challenge because it could not under any circumstances prove that\\n\\nGeorgia’s absentee election law would be “‘unconstitutional in all of its\\n\\napplications.’” GMVP Doc. 24 at 19 (quoting Wash. State Grange v. Wash. State\\n\\nRepub. Party, 552 U.S. 442, 449 (2008)). The Secretary explained that this is\\n\\nbecause an elector who applies for an absentee ballot “weeks before the election\\n\\nand is immediately notified of the rejection,” action “permitted if not\\n\\ncontemplated” by the absentee ballot application statute, has not been deprived of a\\n\\nright without due process. Id. at 19-20. Nor, for that matter, the Secretary\\n\\nargued, would an elector whose absentee ballot is rejected “and who is\\n\\nimmediately notified and provided an opportunity to cast another absentee ballot,\\n\\n\\n\\nopposed to absentee ballot applications, because neither the Secretary nor the dissent makes any\\nargument specifically about the latter.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 18 of 78\\n\\n\\nwhich is not subsequently rejected,” suffer from deprivation of a right without due\\n\\nprocess. Id. at 20. The district court agreed with the Secretary that GMVP could\\n\\nnot advance an as-applied challenge but disagreed that GMVP could not advance a\\n\\nfacial challenge.\\n\\n On appeal, the Secretary again argues that GMVP cannot advance a valid\\n\\nfacial challenge. He reiterates the argument he made in the district court—that\\n\\nGMVP cannot show that Georgia’s statutory procedures are constitutionally\\n\\ndeficient “for all voters in all circumstances under which signatures are rejected.”\\n\\nMot. for Stay at 14.\\n\\n The dissenting opinion also asserts that GMVP cannot advance a facial\\n\\nchallenge, but for a reason further afield than the Secretary’s. The dissent says\\n\\nthat GMVP’s challenge to Georgia’s absentee ballot signature mismatch procedure\\n\\nfails as a matter of law because “countless mail-in voters’ signatures are\\n\\ndetermined by election officials to match,” and their votes are counted.\\n\\nDissenting Op. at 50. In other words, plenty of absentee electors never suffer from\\n\\na perceived signature mismatch on their absentee ballot applications or absentee\\n\\nballots, so GMVP cannot show that Georgia’s absentee ballot procedures are\\n\\nunconstitutional in all of their applications.\\n\\n I take on the dissent’s argument first, followed by the Secretary’s. The\\n\\ndissent’s focus on absentee electors who are unaffected by Georgia’s signature\\n 18\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 19 of 78\\n\\n\\nmismatch provisions overlooks the Supreme Court’s instruction that when\\n\\nreviewing a facial challenge we do not consider instances in which a statute\\n\\n“do[es] no work.” City of Los Angeles, Calif. v. Patel, 135 S. Ct. 2443, 2451\\n\\n(2015). “Legislation is measured for consistency with the Constitution by its\\n\\nimpact on those whose conduct it affects.” Planned Parenthood of Se. Pa. v.\\n\\nCasey, 505 U.S. 833, 894 (1992). “The proper focus of the constitutional inquiry\\n\\nis the group for whom the law is a restriction, not the group for whom the law is\\n\\nirrelevant.” Id. (emphasis added). Georgia’s signature mismatch procedures are\\n\\nirrelevant for those absentee electors who have no signature mismatch. Thus, I\\n\\nrespectfully reject the dissent’s argument.\\n\\n The Secretary’s narrower argument also fails to persuade me. The\\n\\nSecretary points out that an absentee elector whose ballot application or ballot is\\n\\nrejected for a perceived signature mismatch but who receives a rejection notice in\\n\\ntime to try again (although there is no guarantee that he will) can either attempt to\\n\\nsubmit another absentee ballot application and/or absentee ballot (although there is\\n\\nno guarantee that second ballot will not be deemed another signature mismatch) or\\n\\ncan vote in person (provided he is physically able to do so). True, but immaterial\\n\\nfor purposes of determining whether GMVP is entitled to advance a facial\\n\\nchallenge. That is because if Georgia’s signature mismatch procedure violates the\\n\\ndictates of procedural due process by failing to provide adequate predeprivation\\n 19\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 20 of 78\\n\\n\\nnotice and opportunity to be heard, then any postdeprivation opportunity to take\\n\\nadvantage of entirely different procedures does not cure the due process violation.\\n\\nThat brings me to the merits of the procedural due process challenge, which I\\n\\naddress in the section that follows.\\n\\n 2. The Secretary has made no strong showing that the district court likely erred\\n in weighing the Mathews factors.\\n\\n The Secretary challenges the weight the district court assigned each of the\\n\\nMathews factors. For the reasons that follow, I find no error.\\n\\n a. The Private Interest at Stake\\n\\n As to the first of the Mathews factors, the private interest at stake, the\\n\\nSecretary faults the district court for defining the interest at stake—too broadly—as\\n\\nthe fundamental right to vote. Instead, the Secretary argues, the private interest at\\n\\nstake “is only the narrow interest in voting by mail,” which is “modest” for most\\n\\nelectors who could instead simply vote in person. Mot. for Stay at 15.\\n\\n As an initial matter, I disagree that the district court so broadly defined the\\n\\nprivate interest at stake. The district court determined that the private interest at\\n\\nstake here “implicates the individual’s fundamental right to vote” and therefore is\\n\\n“substantial.” GMVP Doc. 28 at 23 (emphasis added). It is undeniably true that\\n\\nthe interest in voting absentee implicates the right to vote. Indeed, the parties\\n\\n\\n\\n 20\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 21 of 78\\n\\n\\nappear to agree that the private interest at stake is the interest in voting by mail—\\n\\nthat is, by absentee ballot.\\n\\n The Secretary’s real disagreement is with the district court’s determination\\n\\nthat the interest in voting absentee is substantial. But the Secretary has failed to\\n\\nmeet his burden of showing that the district court likely erred. As the district\\n\\ncourt explained, that the interest in voting by absentee ballot implicates the\\n\\nfundamental right to vote lends it more than modest weight. And even though the\\n\\nSecretary posits that an absentee elector rejected for a perceived signature\\n\\nmismatch may still have ample time to vote in person, he has not shown that this\\n\\nelector represents the “generality of cases.” Mathews, 424 U.S. at 344.\\n\\n To the contrary, given the statutory and regulatory scheme Georgia has\\n\\nconstructed for absentee voting, the Secretary’s hypothetical likely does not cover\\n\\nthe generality of cases. Although any elector in Georgia may vote by absentee\\n\\nballot, Georgia’s Administrative Code suggests that electors applying for absentee\\n\\nballots often do so because they are elderly, physically disabled, or residing\\n\\ntemporarily or permanently outside the voting precinct on Election Day, either\\n\\nbecause of military obligations or because they have taken up residence overseas.\\n\\nSee Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 183-1-14-.01(3) (listing these categories of absentee\\n\\nelectors along with a category for “[n]o reason is provided”). Individuals falling\\n\\ninto these categories are likely to have difficulty appearing in person to vote.\\n 21\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 22 of 78\\n\\n\\nMoreover, the ability to appear in person depends on receiving rejection notice in\\n\\ntime to do so. Although Georgia’s code requires that rejection notices “promptly”\\n\\nissue, O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-381(b)(3), -386(a)(1)(C), there is no time frame specified.\\n\\nThe Secretary points to nothing in the record to suggest that in the generality of\\n\\ncases absentee electors apply for and cast ballots early enough within the voting\\n\\nperiod such that they would benefit from a “prompt” notice, whatever that means.\\n\\n In sum, the Secretary has failed to show that the district court likely erred in\\n\\ngiving this first Mathews factor substantial weight.\\n\\n b. The Risk of an Erroneous Deprivation\\n\\n As to the second Mathews factor, the Secretary argues that the risk of an\\n\\nerroneous deprivation is small considering the relatively low percentages of\\n\\nabsentee ballot applications and absentee ballots that were rejected for perceived\\n\\nsignature mismatches in previous elections. And, the Secretary again stresses,\\n\\nrejections must be accompanied by notice, and this notice provides electors with\\n\\nample time to either mail in another absentee ballot application or absentee ballot\\n\\nor vote in person. The Secretary’s arguments, however, do nothing to refute the\\n\\ndistrict court’s determination that although “the risk of an erroneous deprivation is\\n\\nby no means enormous, permitting an absentee elector to resolve an alleged\\n\\nsignature discrepancy nevertheless has the very tangible benefit of avoiding\\n\\ndisenfranchisement” for that elector. GMVP Doc. 28 at 24. Because the\\n 22\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 23 of 78\\n\\n\\nSecretary has not even argued that this determination was in error, he cannot show\\n\\nthat the district court likely erred in finding that this second Mathews factor weighs\\n\\nin favor of GMVP.10\\n\\n c. The Government’s Interest and Burden\\n\\n As to the final Mathews factor, the district court found “that additional\\n\\nprocedures would involve minimal administrative burdens while still furthering the\\n\\nState’s” interest. Id. at 26. The Secretary disagrees, arguing that the injunction’s\\n\\nprocedures for absentee ballot applications or absentee ballots with a perceived\\n\\nsignature mismatch impose substantial burdens on the State. As I explain below,\\n\\nthe Secretary’s arguments do not convince me that the district court erroneously\\n\\nweighed this factor.\\n\\n First, the Secretary takes issue with the injunction’s requirement that the\\n\\nelector may send an attorney or attorney in fact to confirm the elector’s identity.\\n\\nThe Secretary argues that this predeprivation procedure burdens the State’s\\n\\nundisputed substantial interest in preventing voter fraud by permitting individuals\\n\\n\\n\\n 10\\n Further in analyzing the second Mathews factor, the district court explained that the\\n“probative value of additional procedures is high” given the risk of disenfranchisement. GMVP\\nDoc. 28 at 25. The Secretary objects that the injunction’s requirements “are unlikely to add\\nsignificant value to the prompt notice and generous opportunities for cure the statute already\\nprovides.” Mot. for Stay at 17. For the reasons I have explained, however, for many absentee\\nelectors the cure of showing up to vote simply will not be possible or practicable.\\n\\n\\n 23\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 24 of 78\\n\\n\\nother than the elector to confirm the elector’s identity, “without any kind of oath or\\n\\naffidavit, merely by possessing the [elector’s] identification.” Mot. for Stay at 18.\\n\\nThis is inaccurate: the injunction allows only “a duly authorized attorney or\\n\\nattorney in fact to present proper identification” on behalf of the elector; implicit is\\n\\na requirement that the attorney or attorney in fact demonstrate that she is duly\\n\\nauthorized. GMVP Doc. 32 at 2 (emphasis added). Moreover, the injunction is\\n\\nnot a leap into wholly unfamiliar territory: Georgia law already contemplates that\\n\\nsomeone other than the absentee elector may appear to prove the elector’s identity.\\n\\nSee O.C.G.A. § 21-2-381(a)(1)(B) (permitting a physically disabled elector to\\n\\npresent absentee ballot applications via her “mother, father, grandparent, aunt,\\n\\nuncle, sister, brother, spouse, son, daughter, niece, nephew, grandchild, son-in-law,\\n\\ndaughter-in-law, mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law of\\n\\nthe age of 18 or over”). Thus, this aspect of the injunction’s prerejection\\n\\nprocedure does not substantially burden the State’s interest in preventing voter\\n\\nfraud.\\n\\n Second, the Secretary argues that the injunction’s prerejection procedures\\n\\ncause administrative burdens because they “necessitate significant changes to how\\n\\nat least some counties track absentee ballot rejections[,] changes to the systems for\\n\\ntracking absentee ballot voters[,] and more.” Mot. for Stay at 18-19. Even\\n\\nassuming these changes would be required, the record does not support the\\n 24\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 25 of 78\\n\\n\\nSecretary’s assertion that they would create a substantial burden. In fact, as I\\n\\nexplained above in Part III.A., the evidence is to the contrary: by election\\n\\nofficials’ own reports, the injunction has caused little disruption. The Secretary\\n\\ntherefore has failed to persuade me as to administrative burdens.\\n\\n Third, the Secretary argues that the injunction’s prerejection right of appeal\\n\\nimposes other burdens, specifically, on county elections officials “who will have to\\n\\nappear and defend their rejection decisions, including on an expedited basis prior\\n\\nto certification of the election” and on state courts who now must hear “this new\\n\\nclass of appeals on an expedited basis.” Mot. for Stay at 19. In addition, the\\n\\nSecretary says, the injunction’s prerejection procedures inject the new burden of\\n\\nrequiring a system for recertification of election results if absentee ballots tied up\\n\\nin any unresolved appeals would change the outcome of the election—a system the\\n\\nSecretary says does not currently exist. Again, the Secretary has failed to meet his\\n\\nburden. As explained in Part I.A., these procedures are already statutorily in place\\n\\nfor absentee ballot application and absentee ballot defects other than signature\\n\\nmismatches. Contrary to the Secretary’s suggestion, the injunction does not\\n\\nrequire the creation of a new system, nor does it newly obligate county elections\\n\\nofficials or state courts to adjudicate disputes relating to the rejection of absentee\\n\\nballots.\\n\\n\\n 25\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 26 of 78\\n\\n\\n The burden on these entities may increase to some limited extent because of\\n\\nthis new class of ballot applications and ballots to which prerejection procedures\\n\\napply, but by the Secretary’s own calculation the number of perceived signature\\n\\nmismatches is quite low. And by the Secretary’s own admission, some of the\\n\\nprerejection procedures are unlikely to be used frequently. See Mot. for Stay at 18\\n\\n(“[I]t is hard to see what additional work the . . . right of appeal could do in any\\n\\ngiven case; either the voter will provide identification in the pre-rejection\\n\\nopportunity to resolve the alleged signature deficiency, or the voter will not . . . .”\\n\\n(internal quotation marks omitted)). For these reasons, I reject the Secretary’s\\n\\nargument that the third Mathews factor should weigh in his favor and that the\\n\\ndistrict court likely erred in concluding otherwise.11\\n\\n\\n 11\\n Also for these reasons, I disagree with the dissent that the injunction violates principles\\nof federalism by requiring counties in Georgia to “to craft ad hoc administrative tribunals” and\\nby requiring state courts to hear appeals from these tribunals. Dissenting Op. at 55. The\\nhearings the district court’s injunction contemplates already take place in Georgia, and the state\\nsuperior courts already hear appeals from the results of these hearings, where they are necessary.\\n The dissent opines that the injunction provides a poor remedy for absentee electors with\\nperceived signature mismatches and that a state-law procedural due process claim in superior\\ncourt would be just that—superior—but the dissent’s characterization of the process the\\ninjunction contemplates is inaccurate. The dissent argues that first the “voter must wait to see\\nwhether he or she receives rejection notice.” Id. True, but given the injunction’s requirement\\nthat the notice be sent by first-class mail and electronic means, this wait should not be onerous.\\nAnd in any event, an elector also would have to await a rejection notice before going straight to\\nthe superior court to file a lawsuit. Second, the dissent says, the “voter must then respond to the\\nnotice,” and “the [injunction] does not tell us the means of responding or the timeframe for\\ndoing so.” Id. This is simply not true. As to the means of responding, the injunction provides\\nthat the elector must respond by providing identification in accordance with O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-\\n417 and -417.7 and that the elector may “send or rely upon a duly authorized attorney or attorney\\nin fact to present proper identification,” GMVP Doc. 32 at 2. As\\n 26\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 27 of 78\\n\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n In conclusion, the Secretary has failed to show that the district court likely\\n\\nerred in determining the weight of any single Mathews factor. And when I\\n\\nexamine all of the factors together, I cannot say that the district court likely erred\\n\\nin weighing them. Thus, the Secretary has failed to make a strong showing that he\\n\\nis likely to succeed on the merits of his appeal.\\n\\n 3. The Secretary has made no strong showing that he is likely to succeed on the\\n merits of his laches argument.\\n\\n In the alternative to his main merits argument, the Secretary argues that we\\n\\nshould stay the district court’s injunction because the equitable doctrine of laches\\n\\nlikely bars the plaintiffs’ procedural due process challenge. To succeed on a\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nto the timeframe for responding, the injunction expressly requires that the elector’s response\\n“shall be done prior to the certification” of the election returns. Id. at 2-3 (citing O.C.G.A. § 21-\\n2-230(g)). Third, the dissent asserts, “[i]f the voter challenges the election official’s signature\\ndetermination, he or she attends a hearing held by an unknown adjudicator.” Dissenting Op. at\\n55. Again, this is inaccurate. The injunction expressly cites to O.C.G.A. § 21-2-230(g), which\\nprovides that the adjudicator in such a dispute is “the [county] board of registrars.” Fourth, the\\ndissent says that if the adjudicator upholds the signature mismatch determination, then the elector\\ncan appeal the decision to the superior court. Yes, according to procedures already delineated in\\nO.C.G.A. § 21-2-229(e). And although the dissent suggests that all of these steps are inevitable,\\nI disagree. In all likelihood, most electors will never file a lawsuit in the superior court, or even\\nseek a hearing before the board of registrars, because earlier steps in the predeprivation process\\nwill vindicate their rights. See Mot. for Stay at 18 (the Secretary arguing that “it is hard to see\\nwhat additional work” the right to appeal will do in light of the injunction’s other prerejection\\nprocedures). For this reason, I am unconvinced that an elector’s filing a procedural due process\\nclaim directly in the superior court is a superior process to the one the district court ordered.\\nAnd, of course, where state law is found to violate the federal Constitution, the district court is\\nempowered to remedy that violation without regard to whether a different—even superior—\\nremedy exists under the State’s constitution.\\n 27\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 28 of 78\\n\\n\\nlaches claim, the Secretary must show that the plaintiffs inexcusably delayed\\n\\nbringing their procedural due process claim and that the delay caused undue\\n\\nprejudice. Lee, 915 F.3d at 1326; see United States v. Barfield, 396 F.3d 1144,\\n\\n1150 (11th Cir. 2005).12 He cannot at this stage do so. As the district court\\n\\nexplained, it is undisputed that events of the 2018 election cycle sparked their\\n\\naction: for GMVP specifically, it was an October news report on increased rates\\n\\nof rejection of absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots in Gwinnett\\n\\nCounty due to perceived signature mismatches.13 Moreover, the Secretary does\\n\\nnot contest that laches is generally a factual question that requires factual\\n\\ndevelopment—something that is lacking at the early stage of this case. In light of\\n\\nthe plaintiffs’ allegations and the early stage of this litigation, I cannot say it is\\n\\nlikely that the Secretary will be able to prove inexcusable delay merely because\\n\\nGeorgia’s absentee voting statutes have been on the books for several years.\\n\\n Nor is the Secretary likely to establish undue prejudice. As explained in\\n\\ndetail above, the record in this case shows that the injunction caused and was\\n\\n\\n 12\\n “When the district court has weighed the proper factors in determining whether a\\ndefendant has proven the elements of laches, we review the district court’s decision for abuse of\\ndiscretion.” Angel Flight of Ga., Inc. v. Angel Flight Am. Inc., 522 F.3d 1200, 1207 (11th Cir.\\n2008). I apply this standard of review here because the Secretary does not argue that the district\\ncourt weighed improper factors.\\n 13\\n As for the Electors, they say it was the surge in litigation over the reliability of\\nGeorgia’s in-person voting system and corresponding increase in absentee voting, which was\\nseen as more dependable.\\n 28\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 29 of 78\\n\\n\\nexpected to cause little if any disruption to those tasked with administering the\\n\\n2018 election.\\n\\n Thus, on this record, the Secretary cannot make a strong showing that he is\\n\\nlikely to succeed on the merits of his laches argument.\\n\\n C. The Remaining Nken Factors Counsel Against a Stay of the District\\n Court’s Preliminary Injunction.\\n\\n As with the first and second factors, the remaining Nken factors— whether\\n\\nthe stay will substantially injure other interested parties and the public interest—do\\n\\nnot militate in favor of granting a stay of the injunction. “A stay would\\n\\ndisenfranchise many eligible electors whose ballots were rejected” for a perceived\\n\\nsignature mismatch even when they were eligible to vote. Lee, 915 F.3d at 1327.\\n\\n“And public knowledge that legitimate votes were not counted due to no fault of\\n\\nthe voters”—and with no prerejection notice to the voters that their votes would\\n\\nnot be counted and no opportunity to rectify that situation—“would be harmful to\\n\\nthe public’s perception of the election’s legitimacy.” Id. It is beyond dispute that\\n\\n“protecting public confidence in elections is deeply important—indeed, critical—to\\n\\ndemocracy.” Id. (citing Crawford v. Marion Cty. Election Bd., 553 U.S. 181, 197\\n\\n(2008) (plurality opinion)). Thus, the remaining Nken factors do not favor\\n\\ngranting a stay.\\n\\n\\n\\n 29\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 30 of 78\\n\\n\\n In sum, the Secretary has failed to make the requisite showing to justify a\\n\\nstay of the district court’s injunction. Before I conclude, I address some of the\\n\\npoints in my colleague’s dissent.\\n\\n D. Neither the Parratt Doctrine, nor Principles of Federalism and\\n Separation of Powers, nor the Equal Protection Clause Justifies a Stay\\n of the Injunction.\\n\\n Aside from those points I have already addressed, the dissent makes at least\\n\\nthree additional arguments for why we should stay the district court’s injunction\\n\\npending appeal. None of these arguments, taken individually or collectively,\\n\\nconvinces me.\\n\\n 1. The “Parratt Doctrine” does not doom GMVP’s due process claim.\\n\\n In addition to challenging the district court’s conclusion that GMVP was\\n\\nentitled to advance a facial due process challenge, the dissent argues that GMVP’s\\n\\nclaim fails under the so-called “Parratt doctrine.” Dissenting Op. at 49, 51-54. In\\n\\nParratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527 (1981), as in a related case, Hudson v. Palmer, 468\\n\\nU.S. 517 (1984), the Supreme Court held that when a state official was “not acting\\n\\npursuant to any established state procedure,” but rather was engaging in a\\n\\n“random, unauthorized” act, the State is in no position to provide predeprivation\\n\\nprocess, and postdeprivation process is all that is due. Zinermon v. Burch, 494\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 30\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 31 of 78\\n\\n\\nU.S. 113, 130 (1990). Parratt does not bar GMVP’s claim for predeprivation\\n\\nprocess in this case for two related reasons.14\\n\\n First, to my knowledge we have never applied Parratt to a facial procedural\\n\\ndue process challenge to an existing statutory or administrative scheme, and there\\n\\nis good reason not to, at least in this context. Indeed, my dissenting colleague\\n\\nappears not to disagree: he invokes Parratt only after opining (incorrectly, I\\n\\nthink) that GMVP’s claim can only be construed as an as-applied claim. In\\n\\nParratt, Hudson, and their progeny, see, e.g., McKinney v. Pate, 20 F.3d 1550,\\n\\n1562-63 (11th Cir. 1994) (en banc), the state actor whose actions were challenged\\n\\nwas acting contrary to established state customs or policies. In Parratt, a prison\\n\\nemployee allegedly negligently mishandled an inmate’s property. Parratt, 451\\n\\nU.S. at 530.15 In Hudson, a prison employee allegedly maliciously destroyed\\n\\ninmate property because of a “personal vendetta.” Zinermon, 494 U.S. at 129-30\\n\\n(citing Hudson, 548 U.S. at 521). In McKinney, members of a county Board of\\n\\nCommissioners allegedly were biased against the plaintiff. McKinney, 20 F.3d at\\n\\n1554; see id. at 1563 (“As any bias on the part of the Board was not sanctioned by\\n\\n\\n 14\\n There is a third potential reason: the Secretary has not argued in his motion for a stay\\npending appeal that Parratt applies. See Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins., 739 F.3d 678, 680\\n(11th Cir. 2014) (explaining that arguments not advanced by an appellant are deemed\\nabandoned).\\n 15\\n The Supreme Court subsequently held that a state actor is not liable under § 1983 for\\nnegligent conduct. See Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 336 (1986).\\n 31\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 32 of 78\\n\\n\\nthe state and was the product of the intentional acts of the commissioners,\\n\\nunder Parratt, only the state's refusal to provide a means to correct any error\\n\\nresulting from the bias would engender a procedural due process violation.”).\\n\\nHere, the state actor whose actions are challenged—the Secretary—is not alleged\\n\\nto have acted contrary to Georgia’s customs or policies. Rather, he is alleged to\\n\\nhave followed them. See Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 435-36\\n\\n(1982) (explaining that Parratt is inapplicable when “it is the state system itself\\n\\nthat destroys a complainant’s property interest, by operation of law”).\\n\\n Second, and relatedly, I disagree with the dissent’s characterization of\\n\\nsignature mismatch determinations as “‘random and unauthorized act[s] by a state\\n\\nemployee.’” Dissenting Op. at 51 (quoting Parratt, 451 U.S. at 539). The\\n\\nSupreme Court expressly has stated that Parratt does not apply where the state\\n\\nactor—here, the Secretary—“delegated to [its employees] the power and authority\\n\\nto effect the” alleged deprivation and the “concomitant duty to initiate the [state-\\n\\nlaw] procedural safeguards.” Zinermon, 494 U.S. at 138. These are precisely the\\n\\ncircumstances here. The Secretary has delegated to the county elections officials\\n\\nreviewing absentee ballot application and absentee ballot signatures the power and\\n\\nauthority to reject, without predeprivation procedures, perceived signature\\n\\nmismatches. In so doing, the elections officials, rather than engaging in random\\n\\nand unauthorized acts, are following procedures established and authorized by\\n 32\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 33 of 78\\n\\n\\nGeorgia law—that is, comparing signatures on absentee ballot applications and\\n\\nabsentee ballots to the signatures on electors’ voter registration cards. O.C.G.A.\\n\\n§ 21-2-381(b)(1) (absentee ballot applications), id. §§ 21-2-384(b), (c),\\n\\n- 386(a)(1)(B), (C) (absentee ballots). Those same elections officials initiate the\\n\\npostdeprivation processes in place for rejecting absentee ballot applications and\\n\\nabsentee ballots and providing instructions on how to vote despite the rejection.\\n\\nThus, “[u]nlike in Parratt and Hudson, this case does not represent the special\\n\\ninstance of the Mathews due process analysis where postdeprivation process is all\\n\\nthat is due because no predeprivation safeguards would be of use in preventing the\\n\\nkind of deprivation alleged.” Zinermon, 494 U.S. at 139.\\n\\n For these reasons, I cannot agree that Parratt applies to this case or in any\\n\\nway bars GMVP from obtaining relief.\\n\\n 2. The injunction does not violate principles of federalism or separation of\\n powers.\\n\\n The dissent argues that the district court violated the Constitution’s core\\n\\nprinciple of federalism by ordering an injunction that “inserted a new provision\\n\\ninto the [Georgia] Code.” Dissenting Op. at 57. The dissent describes this “new\\n\\nstatutory provision”—the contents of the injunction—as an “egregious[ ] . . .\\n\\noverreach.” Id. at 15-16. Comparing the lack of statutory prerejection\\n\\nprocedures for perceived signature mismatches against statutory procedures for\\n\\n 33\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 34 of 78\\n\\n\\nchallenges to electors’ eligibility to remain on a county’s list of electors, the\\n\\ndissent makes two points: the district court contravened the will of the Georgia\\n\\nlegislature by adding a procedural requirement and “the legislature deliberately\\n\\nomitted the [district court’s procedural requirement] because it would be\\n\\nimpossible to implement.” Id. at 17.\\n\\n As to the dissent’s first argument, “while federalism certainly respects\\n\\nstates’ rights, it also demands the supremacy of federal law when state law officials\\n\\noffend federally protected rights.” Lee, 915 F.3d at 1331. If the district court\\n\\nfinds that the State likely has failed to protect the federal right to due process, then\\n\\nit is the district court’s prerogative to grant relief even if the Georgia legislature did\\n\\nnot contemplate the remedy. And, as I have explained, rather than cutting an\\n\\nentirely new scheme from whole cloth, the district court’s injunction borrowed\\n\\nheavily from the processes already in place for other absentee ballot application\\n\\nand absentee ballot defects. See GMVP Doc. 32 at 2-3 (incorporating procedural\\n\\nprotections set forth in O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-230, -384, -417, -419).16 Although the\\n\\n\\n 16\\n The dissent cites two additional statutes—O.C.G.A. § 21-2-228 and O.C.G.A. § 21-2-\\n229—to illustrate how Georgia can legislate intricate procedures for administrative adjudication\\nand judicial review of voting processes when it wants to and that the legislature simply had no\\nwill to do so here. Aside from the fact that the legislature’s will must bend to the dictates of due\\nprocess, these two statutes are poor comparators for the procedures sought and ordered here.\\nChallenges to elector eligibility under these two statutes can be made at any time because they\\nconcern the right of an elector to remain on the county’s list of eligible electors. For that reason,\\nthe processes set forth in those statutes are more intricate and contemplate more thorough, time-\\nconsuming review. The district court’s injunction incorporated nothing of O.C.G.A. § 21-2-\\n 34\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 35 of 78\\n\\n\\nfederalism and separation-of-powers implications of any federal court’s injunction\\n\\nagainst state procedures is significant, narrow relief like that granted here does not\\n\\nso offend these principles as to violate the Constitution. See generally Goldberg\\n\\nv. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254 (1970) (mandating narrow reforms to a state agency’s\\n\\nprocedure that lacked adequate procedural due process protections). Indeed,\\n\\n“rather than undermining [Georgia’s] sovereignty, the preliminary injunction’s\\n\\nsolution actually respected it” by borrowing from existing statutory procedures\\n\\nrelating to absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots. Lee, 915 F.3d at\\n\\n1331.\\n\\n As to the dissent’s second argument, the record in this case suggests that the\\n\\nprocedural protections the district court ordered not only are possible to\\n\\nimplement, but in fact are rather simple to do. See GMVP Doc. 37-1 (Chair of the\\n\\nChatham County Board of Registrars’ testimony that compliance with the\\n\\ninjunction was “pretty straightforward” and “easily doable” and that he did “not\\n\\n\\n\\n228. And it incorporated O.C.G.A. § 21-2-229 only insofar as one subsection of that statute—\\nsubsection (e) permitting judicial review of the administrative decision—is expressly\\nincorporated into O.C.G.A. § 21-2-230. Section 230, from which the injunction rather heavily\\nborrowed, see supra at 9-10, 26-27 n.11, covers challenges to elector eligibility advanced much\\ncloser to the date of an election. See O.C.G.A. § 21-2-230(a) (“Such challenge may be made at\\nany time prior to the elector whose right to vote is being challenged voting at the elector’s\\npolling place or, if such elector cast an absentee ballot, prior to 5:00 P.M. on the day before the\\nelection”). This statutory scheme shows that the legislature also contemplated a more hurried\\npredeprivation review process for challenges occurring closer in time to an election (as would be\\nthe case for perceived signature mismatches).\\n 35\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 36 of 78\\n\\n\\nbelieve that it will be difficult to implement the guidance . . . even with a week left\\n\\nuntil Election Day”). Further, the existence of O.C.G.A. § 21-2-230, which\\n\\ngoverns challenges that occur once voting has begun and from which the\\n\\ninjunction here borrowed several procedures, demonstrates that the procedural\\n\\nprotections the district court ordered are possible to implement. The dissent\\n\\ndownplays the relevance of § 230 by saying that “the volume of challenges under\\n\\nthat section pales in comparison to the volume of signature reviews at issue here.”\\n\\nDissenting Op. at 60 n.32. This statement is unsubstantiated by any data, though,\\n\\nand the data we do have in the record does not indicate that the individual county\\n\\nregistrars’ offices would be burdened with herculean tasks. For example, of the\\n\\n524 absentee ballots Gwinnett County had rejected as of October 18, 2018, only 9\\n\\nwere due to perceived signature mismatches.\\n\\n I therefore disagree with the dissent that the injunction offends principles of\\n\\nfederalism and separation of powers.17\\n\\n 3. The injunction does not violate the Equal Protection Clause.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 17\\n The dissent makes a third argument for why the district court’s injunction violates\\nthese principles, saying the injunction is a re-writing of Georgia’s code and that the district court\\nhad no authority to do. My colleague made a nearly identical argument in a recent case, see Lee,\\n915 F.3d at 1347-48 (Tjoflat, J., dissenting). I disagree with his reasoning here for the same\\nreasons the majority in Lee rejected his argument there. See id. at 1331 (majority opinion).\\n\\n 36\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 37 of 78\\n\\n\\n Finally, the dissent argues that the injunction violates the Equal Protection\\n\\nClause. The dissent complains that the injunction left unfilled a number of details,\\n\\nincluding whether the board of registrars at the administrative hearing owes any\\n\\ndeference to the clerk who perceived the signature mismatch and, if so, under what\\n\\nstandard that decision is reviewed; whether and what evidence is admissible;\\n\\nwhether and how discovery may proceed; and who bears the burden of proof and\\n\\nwhat is that burden. And, the dissent says, the injunction violates equal protection\\n\\nbecause it “leaves election officials to fill in the details” of the prerejection notice\\n\\nand opportunity to be heard with a requirement “only that they do so ‘in good\\n\\nfaith.’” Dissenting Op. at 65 (quoting GMVP Doc. 32 at 2). Specifically, the\\n\\ndissent says that the injunction runs afoul of the principle that “‘[w]hen a court\\n\\norders a statewide remedy, there must be at least some assurance that the\\n\\nrudimentary requirements of equal treatment and fundamental fairness are\\n\\nsatisfied.’” Id. (quoting Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 109 (2000)).\\n\\n As an initial matter, I disagree that the injunction leaves unanswered each of\\n\\nthe questions the dissent poses. The injunction answers the questions of what\\n\\nevidence is admissible and who bears the burden of proof by its explicit reference\\n\\nto O.C.G.A. § 21-2-417. That statute provides that “each elector shall present\\n\\nproper identification to a poll worker”—placing the burden of proof on the\\n\\nelector—by presenting any of a list of identifying documents—the type of\\n 37\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 38 of 78\\n\\n\\nevidence that would be admissible. By its reference to O.C.G.A. § 21-2-230, the\\n\\ninjunction suggests that the board of registrars would owe no more deference to the\\n\\nofficial who identified a possible signature mismatch than the board would owe if\\n\\nit had probable cause to believe an elector was not eligible to remain on a voting\\n\\nlist. See O.C.G.A. § 21-2-230(b), (e). The injunction thus is not so standardless\\n\\nas to offend the Constitution.\\n\\n Moreover, I disagree that ordering county officials to act in “good faith”\\n\\nleaves us without any assurance that equal protection will be provided. Given that\\n\\nthe injunction provides cogent standards for prerejection process, requiring county\\n\\nofficials to act in “good faith” does not make it likely that counties will engage in\\n\\nsuch vastly different practices that those practices will run afoul of equal protection\\n\\nprinciples. Indeed, county officials already are tasked with acting in good faith to\\n\\ndetermine the eligibility of an elector who submits a provisional ballot. See\\n\\nO.C.G.A. § 21-2-419(b) (“The board of registrars shall immediately examine the\\n\\ninformation contained on [the elector’s provisional ballot] and make a good faith\\n\\neffort to determine whether the person casting the provisional ballot was entitled to\\n\\nvote in the primary or election.” (emphasis added)). As with that process, given\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 38\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 39 of 78\\n\\n\\nthe procedural parameters for making such a determination, I do not view the\\n\\nrequirement here that officials act in “good faith” as constitutionally infirm.18\\n\\n Finally, I note that the Secretary has not argued that the injunction violates\\n\\nthe Equal Protection Clause. He cannot satisfy his burden to show that he is\\n\\nentitled to a stay pending appeal if he does not make an argument, even a\\n\\nmeritorious one. I therefore respectfully disagree with the dissent that we should\\n\\ngrant a stay on equal protection grounds.\\n\\n IV. CONCLUSION\\n\\n The task of a federal Court of Appeals in reviewing a district court’s\\n\\npreliminary injunction is a narrow one: it must decide only whether the district\\n\\ncourt abused its discretion. In this case, the district court exercised its discretion\\n\\nnarrowly, hewing largely to preexisting state law and procedures in analogous\\n\\ncontexts to afford affected absentee electors a narrow form of relief. The\\n\\nSecretary’s arguments on appeal have failed to convince me that the district court’s\\n\\ncareful exercise of its discretion to provide this limited form of relief is so\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 18\\n The dissent also says that in contrast to the injunction, O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-228, 229, and\\n230 “each . . . answers the questions” the dissent poses, Dissenting Op. at 66, but that is untrue\\nfor the closest analogue to the signature mismatches at issue, § 230. Section 230 no more\\nanswers these questions than does the district court’s injunction. But, for the same reasons the\\nprerejection procedures in the district court’s injunction pass muster, § 230’s procedures comply\\nwith the dictates of equal protection.\\n 39\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 40 of 78\\n\\n\\negregious that this Court must overturn it. It is for these reasons that I voted to\\n\\ndeny the Secretary’s motion for a stay.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 40\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 41 of 78\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4379622/\", \"author_raw\": \"I agree with Judge Newsom’s concurring\"}, {\"author\": \"NEWSOM, J., CIRCUIT JUDGE, concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"NEWSOM, J., CIRCUIT JUDGE, concurring in the judgment:\\n\\n On November 2, 2018, I voted to deny then-Secretary Kemp’s motion to\\n\\nstay the district court’s injunction on the ground that he had not made the requisite\\n\\nshowing under Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418 (2009). I write separately today\\n\\nonly to emphasize my belief that our November 2 order refusing the stay says all\\n\\nthat needs to be said.\\n\\n On November 2, we had before us a live “case or controversy,” to be sure.\\n\\nThe November 2018 election was fast approaching, the district court had entered\\n\\nan injunction to which Kemp objected, and Kemp had filed an appeal and, with it,\\n\\na motion to stay. We denied the stay, the election went forward, Kemp was\\n\\nelected Governor, and the Office of the Secretary of State has since voluntarily\\n\\ndismissed its appeal of the district court’s injunction. So while our November 2\\n\\ndecision was not the least bit “advisory,” it seems to me that everything we say\\n\\ntoday—more than four months after the fact and with so much water under the\\n\\nbridge—is. In my judgment, we should not now opine on issues in a case that,\\n\\nthough once live, is now doubly (if not triply) moot—particularly given that\\n\\nnothing we can say at this point could even theoretically provide Kemp the relief\\n\\nhe once sought. Cf. Fleming v. Gutierrez, 785 F.3d 442, 445 (10th Cir. 2015)\\n\\n(“We cannot turn back the clock and create a world in which the County does not\\n\\nhave to administer the 2014 election under the strictures of the injunction.”); Stone\\n 41\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 42 of 78\\n\\n\\nv. Bd. of Election Comm’rs for City of Chicago, 643 F.3d 543, 544–45 (7th Cir.\\n\\n2011) (holding that an appeal of the decision to deny a preliminary injunction was\\n\\nmoot “[b]ecause the election has taken place”).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 42\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 43 of 78\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4379622/\", \"author_raw\": \"NEWSOM, J., CIRCUIT JUDGE, concurring\"}, {\"author\": \"TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge, dissenting\", \"type\": \"dissent\", \"text\": \"TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge, dissenting:\\n\\n This conflict centers on absentee voting under Georgia law. On October 25,\\n\\n2018, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia—in an\\n\\neffort to ensure that all absentee ballots for the general election would be\\n\\ncounted—entered a preliminary injunction that effectively rewrote Georgia’s\\n\\nelection code. Georgia’s Secretary of State (“the Secretary”) moved in this Court\\n\\nfor a stay of the injunction pending appeal. We denied the Motion; I dissented,\\n\\nnoting that an opinion would follow. I now explain my reasons for dissenting.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n Georgia permits registered voters to vote in person on Election Day, in\\n\\nperson early, or by mail. Ga. Code Ann. §§ 21-2-380 to -381.19 This case\\n\\nconcerns the last method—voting by mail—the details of which are set out in\\n\\nSections 21-2-381 and -386 of Georgia’s election code (“the Statutes”).\\n\\n To receive a mail-in ballot, a voter must first submit an application for a\\n\\nmail-in ballot. Id. § 21-2-381. When an application is received, the registrar or\\n\\nabsentee ballot clerk shall “compare the signature or mark of the elector on the\\n\\napplication with the signature or mark of the elector on the elector’s voter\\n\\n\\n 19\\n Georgia’s election code collectively refers to all voting that occurs before Election\\nDay, whether in person or by mail, as “absentee voting.”\\n 43\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 44 of 78\\n\\n\\nregistration card.” Id. § 21-2-381(b)(1). If the voter is found to be eligible, a\\n\\nballot is mailed out within three business days. Id. § 21-2-381(b)(2)(A); Ga.\\n\\nComp. R. & Regs. 183-1-14-.11. But if the voter is found to be ineligible, the\\n\\nregistrar or clerk shall “deny the application by writing the reason for rejection in\\n\\nthe proper space on the application and shall promptly notify the applicant in\\n\\nwriting of the ground of ineligibility.” Id. § 21-2-381(b)(3).\\n\\n The registrar or absentee ballot clerk follows a similar process for mail-in\\n\\nballots themselves. When a mail-in ballot is received, the registrar or clerk shall\\n\\n compare the signature or mark on the oath with the signature or mark\\n on the absentee elector’s voter registration card or the most recent\\n update to such absentee elector’s voter registration card and\\n application for absentee ballot or a facsimile of said signature or mark\\n taken from said card or application.\\n\\nId. § 21-2-386(a)(1)(B). If the signature appears to be valid, and other\\n\\ninformation appears to be correct, the ballot is certified. Id. If the signature\\n\\nappears to be invalid, however, the registrar or clerk “shall promptly notify the\\n\\nelector of such rejection.” Id. § 21-2-386(a)(1)(C).\\n\\n A voter whose signature is determined to be invalid receives process in the\\n\\nform of notice, id. §§ 21-2-381(b)(3), -386(a)(1)(C), as well as the “opportunity to\\n\\nvote in the primary, election, or runoff either by applying for a second absentee\\n\\nballot prior to the day before such primary, election, or runoff or by voting in\\n\\nperson at the elector’s polling place on the day of the primary, election, or runoff,”\\n 44\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 45 of 78\\n\\n\\nGa. Comp. R. & Regs. 183-1-14-.09(2).20\\n\\n Plaintiffs to this suit, Betty J. Jones, a registered voter in Georgia, and\\n\\nvarious advocacy groups, allege that the process set out in the Statutes is\\n\\nconstitutionally defective.21 The mail-in voting scheme is a facial violation of\\n\\nprocedural due process, they argue, because the Statutes do not set out any manner\\n\\nand method for appealing a determination that the signature on a mailed-in\\n\\napplication or ballot is invalid—that is, that it fails to match the signature on\\n\\nrecord.\\n\\n The District Court agreed and held that Plaintiffs were substantially likely to\\n\\nsucceed on the merits of their procedural due process claim. The Court reasoned\\n\\nthat Plaintiffs have a liberty interest in voting by mail-in ballot and that the balance\\n\\nof interests under Matthews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S. Ct. 893 (1976), the\\n\\ntest to determine what process is due in any situation, required Defendants to\\n\\nprovide notice and an opportunity to be heard before voters are first denied the\\n\\n\\n\\n 20\\n A voter who votes in person, whether on Election Day or before Election Day, is\\nverified by identification, not by signature. Ga. Code. Ann. § 21-2-417.\\n 21\\n A bit more about Plaintiffs:\\n Ms. Jones suffers from “circulation problems that make it very difficult for her to stand in\\nlong lines or walk and to vote in-person.” She submitted a mail-in ballot application in\\nSeptember 2018 that was rejected due to a signature mismatch. She then submitted additional\\nforms, but as of one week before Election Day, she had yet to receive an absentee ballot.\\n The advocacy groups are the Georgia Muslim Voter Project and Asian-Americans\\nAdvancing Justice-Atlanta.\\n 45\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 46 of 78\\n\\n\\nopportunity to vote by mail-in ballot.\\n\\n The District Court enjoined the Secretary to order election officials in\\n\\nGeorgia’s 159 counties to provide pre-rejection notice, to set up ad hoc\\n\\nadministrative tribunals to adjudicate signature disputes, and to allow an attorney\\n\\nto stand in for voters at those proceedings. The Court also vested Georgia’s\\n\\nsuperior courts, the state’s trial courts of general jurisdiction, Ga. Const. art. VI,\\n\\n§ 4, para. 1, with appellate jurisdiction over the tribunals:\\n\\n The county elections official shall . . . provide pre-rejection notice and\\n an opportunity to resolve the alleged signature discrepancy to the\\n absentee voter. This process shall be done in good faith and is\\n limited to confirming the identity of the absentee voter consistent with\\n existing voter identification laws. The elections official is required to\\n send rejection notice via first-class mail and also electronic means, as\\n available or as otherwise required by law. This process shall include\\n allowing the absentee voter to send or rely upon a duly authorized\\n attorney or attorney in fact to present proper identification. . . . The\\n absentee voter shall have the right to appeal any absentee ballot\\n rejection following the outcome of the aforementioned process, as\\n designated in [Ga. Code Ann.] § 21-2-229(e).\\n\\nGa. Muslim Voter Project v. Kemp, No. 1:18-cv-04776-LMM, slip op. at 2\\n\\n(N.D. Ga. Oct. 25, 2018) (temporary restraining order) (citations omitted).\\n\\n The Court also required, for mail-in ballot applications, that election\\n\\nofficials provide voters with provisional ballots:\\n\\n [F]or all ballot applications where a signature mismatch is perceived,\\n the county elections official shall . . . provide a provisional absentee\\n ballot to the absentee voter along with information as to the process\\n that will be followed in reviewing the provisional ballot. . . . Once\\n 46\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 47 of 78\\n\\n\\n any provisional ballot is received, the procedure outlined in section 1\\n above is to be followed.\\n\\nId. at 3. A provisional ballot is a ballot issued to a voter who is unable to produce\\n\\na type of statutorily enumerated identification at the polling place but who\\n\\nnonetheless “swear[s] or affirm[s] that the elector is the person identified in the\\n\\nelector’s voter certificate.” See Ga. Code Ann. § 21-2-417(b). The ballot is\\n\\ncounted only if officials verify the voter’s identification within the statutory\\n\\ntimeframe. Id.\\n\\n The Secretary moved in this Court under Federal Rule of Appellate\\n\\nProcedure 8 for a stay of the injunction pending appeal and in the alternative, for\\n\\nexpedited appeal, both of which the majority denied.22 Ga. Muslim Voter Project\\n\\nv. Kemp, No. 18-14502-GG, slip op. at 2 (11th Cir. Nov. 2, 2018). The majority\\n\\nbelieved that the Secretary had not made the requisite showing under Nken v.\\n\\n\\n\\n 22\\n This Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) to hear the motions. Under\\nan exception to the final-judgment rule, we have authority to review a district court’s grant of\\ninjunctions. 28 U.S.C. § 1291(a)(1). Though the District Court entered a temporary restraining\\norder (“TRO”) under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(b), not a preliminary injunction under\\nRule 65(a), the “label placed upon the order is not necessarily dispositive of its appealability.”\\nAT&T Broadband v. Tech Commc’ns, Inc., 381 F.3d 1309, 1314 (11th Cir. 2004) (citation\\nomitted). We treat a TRO as an injunction when “(1) the duration of the relief sought or granted\\nexceeds that allowed by a TRO (ten days), (2) the notice and hearing sought or afforded suggest\\nthat the relief sought was a preliminary injunction, and (3) the requested relief seeks to change\\nthe status quo.” Id. (citations omitted).\\n The TRO here is properly classified as a preliminary injunction because the TRO has no\\nexpiration, because the parties filed motions and the District Court held an evidentiary hearing,\\nand because the relief requires the Secretary to take new action.\\n 47\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 48 of 78\\n\\n\\nHolder, 556 U.S. 418, 129 S. Ct. 1749 (2009), which outlines the factors for\\n\\ndetermining whether a stay pending appeal is warranted.23 Id. The panel also\\n\\ninvoked its authority under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(b)(2) to\\n\\nconsolidate this case and a related case, Martin v. Kemp. Ga. Muslim Voter\\n\\nProject, slip op. at 2 (11th Cir. Nov. 2, 2018).\\n\\n B.\\n\\n The District Court committed three errors, each of which reveals that the\\n\\nSecretary makes a “strong showing that he is likely to succeed on the merits” and\\n\\nthat the “public interest lies” with granting the stay. See Nken, 556 U.S. at 434,\\n\\n129 S. Ct. at 1761.\\n\\n In Part II, I explain that Plaintiffs’ claim must rise or fall as a facial\\n\\nchallenge because, as the District Court observed, “Plaintiffs have not identified a\\n\\nvoter to whom [the Statutes] have been unconstitutionally applied.” Ga. Muslim\\n\\nVoter Project, slip op. at 19 (N.D. Ga. Oct. 24, 2018) (order granting temporary\\n\\nrestraining order). But Plaintiffs have not met their burden—under precedent of\\n\\n\\n\\n 23\\n In deciding whether the Court should grant a stay pending appeal, the factors are\\n (1) whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing that he is likely to\\n succeed on the merits; (2) whether the applicant will be irreparably injured absent\\n a stay; (3) whether issuance of the stay will substantially injure the other parties\\n interested in the proceeding; and (4) where the public interest lies.\\nNken, 556 U.S. at 434, 129 S. Ct. at 1761 (quoting Hilton v. Braunskill, 481 U.S. 770, 776, 107\\nS. Ct. 2113, 2119 (1987)).\\n 48\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 49 of 78\\n\\n\\nboth this Court and the Supreme Court—of showing that the Statutes are\\n\\nunconstitutional in all of their applications.\\n\\n In Part III, I explain that even if I were to construe Plaintiffs’ claim as an as-\\n\\napplied procedural due process challenge, their claim would still fail because—\\n\\nunder the Parratt doctrine, as expounded by this Court in McKinney—the\\n\\ndeprivations are random and unauthorized acts.24 Because Georgia provides a\\n\\nconstitutionally adequate remedy, the law requires Plaintiffs to seek relief in\\n\\nGeorgia superior court, not here.\\n\\n And in Part IV, I explain that even if I could conceive of a situation in which\\n\\nGeorgia afforded Plaintiffs no remedy, the District Court’s remedy—which takes a\\n\\nhacksaw to Georgia’s election code—is unconstitutional because it violates the\\n\\ndoctrine of federalism and the Equal Protection Clause. A federal court faced\\n\\nwith a facially unconstitutional state statute has but one remedy: strike down the\\n\\nstatute in toto. Applied here, that remedy would be to enjoin enforcement of\\n\\nGeorgia’s entire mail-in voting scheme. The Court’s remedy here is particularly\\n\\nabusive not only because it modifies the scheme, thus allowing it to stand, but\\n\\nbecause it allows the scheme to vary from county to county.\\n\\n\\n\\n 24\\n The cases are Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S. Ct. 1908 (1981), overruled on\\nother grounds by Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S. Ct. 662 (1986), and McKinney v.\\nPate, 20 F.3d 1550 (1994) (en banc).\\n 49\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 50 of 78\\n\\n\\n II.\\n\\n As an initial matter, Plaintiffs have no viable facial challenge to the Statutes.\\n\\n In Plaintiffs’ view, the “opportunity to be heard is—or is not—provided by\\n\\nthe statute on its face.” Ga. Muslim Voter Project, slip op. at 21 (N.D. Ga. Oct.\\n\\n24, 2018) (order granting temporary restraining order). As such, they must show\\n\\nthat “no set of circumstances exists under which the law would be valid.” J.R. v.\\n\\nHansen, 803 F.3d 1315, 1320 (11th Cir. 2015) (alteration omitted) (quoting Horton\\n\\nv. City of St. Augustine, 272 F.3d 1318, 1329 (11th Cir. 2001)); see also\\n\\nGeorgiaCarry.Org, Inc. v. Georgia, 687 F.3d 1244, 1261 (11th Cir. 2012)\\n\\n(requiring that, as to a facial challenge, a statute be “unconstitutional in all\\n\\napplications” (citing United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 107 S. Ct. 2095\\n\\n(1987))). To succeed on their procedural due process challenge, Plaintiffs must\\n\\nidentify a liberty interest that is burdened. Putting these two concepts together,\\n\\nthen, Plaintiffs must show that the identifiable liberty interest is burdened in all of\\n\\nthe law’s applications.\\n\\n For scores of Georgia’s mail-in voters, however, the Statutes are valid. The\\n\\nDistrict Court determined that Plaintiffs have a “right to apply for and vote via\\n\\nabsentee ballot.” Ga. Muslim Voter Project, slip op. at 22 (N.D. Ga. Oct. 24,\\n\\n2018) (order granting temporary restraining order). But countless mail-in voters’\\n\\nsignatures are determined by election officials to match. These voters\\n 50\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 51 of 78\\n\\n\\nsuccessfully apply for mail-in ballots and, when they return those ballots,\\n\\nsuccessfully have their votes counted. For these voters, then, the right to apply for\\n\\nand vote via mail-in ballot is not burdened at all. For this reason alone, Plaintiffs’\\n\\nfacial challenge to the Statutes fails as a matter of law.\\n\\n III.\\n\\n Even construed as an as-applied challenge, Plaintiffs’ procedural due\\n\\nprocess claim still fails.\\n\\n The state may not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property[] without\\n\\ndue process of law.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. A violation of procedural due\\n\\nprocess requires “(1) a deprivation of a constitutionally[] protected liberty or\\n\\nproperty interest; (2) state action; and (3) constitutionally inadequate process.”\\n\\nHansen, 803 F.3d at 1320 (alteration omitted) (quoting Grayden v. Rhodes, 345\\n\\nF.3d 1225, 1232 (11th Cir. 2003)). My focus is on the third element alone—the\\n\\nprocess due.\\n\\n The Supreme Court in Parratt v. Taylor told us what process is due in cases\\n\\nwhen, as here, we face the “impracticality of providing any meaningful\\n\\npredeprivation process,” given a “random and unauthorized act by a state\\n\\nemployee.” Parratt, 451 U.S. at 539, 541, 101 S. Ct. at 1915, 1916. In such\\n\\nsituations, “postdeprivation tort remedies are all the process that is due, simply\\n\\n\\n 51\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 52 of 78\\n\\n\\nbecause they are the only remedies the State could be expected to provide.”25\\n\\nZinermon, 494 U.S. at 128, 110 S. Ct. at 985. The only relevant question once we\\n\\ndetermine that Parratt applies is whether the state’s post-deprivation remedies are\\n\\nconstitutionally adequate. Cf. McKinney, 20 F.3d at 1562 (observing that\\n\\n“procedural due process violations do not become complete ‘unless and until the\\n\\nstate refuses to provide due process’” (quoting Zinermon, 494 U.S. at 123, 110 S.\\n\\nCt. at 983)).\\n\\n I explain below that this case is a textbook application of Parratt and that\\n\\nGeorgia provides a constitutionally adequate remedy. I also explain that the\\n\\nremedy in state court more effectively and efficiently resolves Plaintiffs’ grievance\\n\\nthan does the District Court’s solution.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n This case falls squarely within Parratt because it would be impracticable for\\n\\nGeorgia to provide additional pre-deprivation procedures. Cf. Fetner v. City of\\n\\nRoanoke, 813 F.2d 1183, 1185–86 (11th Cir. 1987) (“The touchstone in Parratt\\n\\nwas the impracticability of holding a hearing prior to the claimed deprivation.”\\n\\n\\n\\n 25\\n The Court explained that “Parratt is not an exception to the Mathews balancing test,\\nbut rather an application of that test to the unusual case in which one of the variables in the\\nMathews equation—the value of predeprivation safeguards—is negligible in preventing the kind\\nof deprivation at issue.” Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 129, 110 S. Ct. 975, 985 (1990).\\n\\n\\n 52\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 53 of 78\\n\\n\\n(citing Parratt, 451 U.S. at 539–41, 101 S. Ct. at 1914–16)).\\n\\n To state the obvious, the Statutes do not authorize election officials to\\n\\ndeprive eligible voters of the right to apply for and to vote by mail-in ballot.\\n\\nIndeed, the very fact that the Secretary would remove election officials shown to\\n\\nperform erroneous signature reviews reveals that election officials “lack[] the state-\\n\\nclothed authority to deprive persons of constitutionally protected interests.” See\\n\\nBurch v. Apalachee Cmty. Mental Health Servs., Inc., 840 F.2d 797, 801 n.9 (11th\\n\\nCir. 1988) (en banc) (emphasis omitted), aff’d sub nom. Zinermon v. Burch, 494\\n\\nU.S. 113, 110 S. Ct. 975 (1990); see also Dykes v. Hosemann, 776 F.2d 942, 952\\n\\n(11th Cir. 1985) (Tjoflat, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (reasoning\\n\\nthat state officials lack such authority when the state subjects them to\\n\\nconsequences for wrongdoing).\\n\\n I have no doubt, of course, that election officials make erroneous\\n\\ndeterminations. But the relevant question under Parratt is whether it is\\n\\npracticable for the state to do more. The volume of signatures at issue in this case\\n\\nprovides a ready answer to that question. As of November 2, 2018, 184,925 mail-\\n\\nin ballots had been returned statewide.26 And another 85,398 were still\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 26\\n Ga. Sec’y of State, Election Update 1 (Nov. 2, 2018),\\nhttp://sos.ga.gov/admin/uploads/ABSENTEE_TURNOUT_REPORT_11-2-181.pdf.\\n 53\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 54 of 78\\n\\n\\noutstanding.27 That’s 270,323 ballots. Recall, too, that a mail-in ballot does not\\n\\nissue before an application, which also requires a signature review. Ga. Code\\n\\nAnn. § 21-2-381. In short, Georgia’s election officials were in for 540,646\\n\\nsignature reviews this past election cycle. It is simply not practicable to provide\\n\\npre-deprivation notice and an opportunity to be heard when so many signature\\n\\nreviews are at issue.\\n\\n B.\\n\\n Plaintiffs have a remedy; it just isn’t a federal one.\\n\\n Georgia superior courts, the state’s courts of general jurisdiction, provide\\n\\nPlaintiffs a forum in which to sue the election officials. See Ga. Const. art. VI,\\n\\n§ 4, ¶ 1 (“The superior courts shall have jurisdiction in all cases, except as\\n\\notherwise provided in this Constitution.”). Plaintiffs, moreover, have a procedural\\n\\ndue process claim under the state constitution, which prohibits the deprivation of\\n\\n“life, liberty, or property except by due process of law,” id. art. I, § 1, para. 1, and\\n\\nwhich confers a private right of action, see, e.g., Atlanta Taxicab Co. Owners Ass’n\\n\\nv. City of Atlanta, 638 S.E.2d 307, 314 (Ga. 2006). In short, I have no doubt that a\\n\\nsuit in state court would make Plaintiffs whole—in other words, that they would be\\n\\nable to vote by mail-in ballot.28\\n\\n\\n 27\\n Ga. Sec’y of State, supra note 26, at 1.\\n 28\\n To entertain Plaintiffs’ procedural due process claim, the District Court must have\\n 54\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 55 of 78\\n\\n\\n When, as here, it is impracticable for a state like Georgia to provide pre-\\n\\ndeprivation process for erroneous signature reviews because the state must conduct\\n\\nover half a million reviews in short order, a post-deprivation suit against election\\n\\nofficials in state court is a constitutionally sufficient remedy.\\n\\n C.\\n\\n What the majority fails to realize is not just that a remedy in Georgia\\n\\nsuperior court is sufficient but that it is also superior.\\n\\n The District Court orders election officials to craft ad hoc administrative\\n\\ntribunals and vests Georgia’s superior courts with jurisdiction to review the\\n\\ntribunals’ decisions. The Court’s remedy requires Plaintiffs to leap through four\\n\\nhoops.\\n\\n • A voter must wait to see whether he or she receives rejection notice.\\n\\n • The voter must then respond to the notice. (The TRO does not tell us\\n\\n the means of responding or the timeframe for doing so.)\\n\\n • If the voter challenges the election official’s signature determination, he\\n\\n or she attends a hearing held by an unknown adjudicator. (The TRO\\n\\n does not tell us who.)\\n\\n\\nbelieved that a Georgia court, hearing Plaintiffs’ claim that they were unlawfully denied the right\\nto vote, would do nothing to redress Plaintiffs’ harm. Cf. McKinney, 20 F.3d at 1563 (“[U]nder\\nParratt, only the state’s refusal to provide a means to correct any error . . . would engender a\\nprocedural due process violation.”). I find that belief to be utterly implausible.\\n\\n 55\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 56 of 78\\n\\n\\n • If the adjudicator upholds the official’s signature determination, the voter\\n\\n can appeal the decision to the superior court.\\n\\n That’s a fatiguing process, which is made all the more frustrating by the fact\\n\\nthat Plaintiffs might still end up in superior court. I would send Plaintiffs directly\\n\\nto superior court—the neutral decisionmaker that wields the constitutional power\\n\\nto remedy their deprivations in the first instance.\\n\\n IV.\\n\\n Set all of this aside, now, and assume that Georgia’s mail-in voting scheme\\n\\ndoes violate procedural due process and thus that the District Court was right to\\n\\naward some remedy. The Court still violated two bedrock constitutional\\n\\nprinciples when it crafted its injunction. First, in re-writing Georgia’s election\\n\\ncode, the Court violated the doctrine of federalism, which prevents federal courts\\n\\nfrom taking action that, if done by a state’s own courts, would breach separation of\\n\\npowers. And second, it violated equal protection because in re-writing Georgia’s\\n\\nelection code, it created a system whereby the same mail-in application or ballot\\n\\nmight be counted in one Georgia county but not in another. The Supreme Court’s\\n\\ndecision in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 121 S. Ct. 525 (2000) (per curiam),\\n\\nforecloses any remedy that, like the District Court’s sweeping injunction, lacks\\n\\n“specific standards to ensure its equal application.” Id. at 106, 121 S. Ct. at 530.\\n\\nI explain each of the District Court’s errors in turn.\\n 56\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 57 of 78\\n\\n\\n A.\\n\\n The District Court wrongfully took its finding of a procedural due process\\n\\nviolation as an invitation to rewrite Georgia’s election code out of whole cloth. I\\n\\nillustrate how the Court inserted a new provision into the Code and then detail\\n\\nwhy, under the doctrine of federalism, that insertion amounts to a constitutional\\n\\nviolation.\\n\\n 1.\\n\\n The District Court’s injunction creates a new statutory provision in\\n\\nGeorgia’s election code. In relevant part, it requires county officials to provide\\n\\npre-rejection notice, to set up ad hoc administrative tribunals to adjudicate\\n\\nsignature disputes, and to allow an attorney to stand in for voters at those\\n\\nproceedings. It also vests Georgia’s superior courts with appellate jurisdiction\\n\\nover the tribunals:\\n\\n The county elections official shall . . . provide pre-rejection notice and\\n an opportunity to resolve the alleged signature discrepancy to the\\n absentee voter. This process shall be done in good faith and is\\n limited to confirming the identity of the absentee voter consistent with\\n existing voter identification laws. The elections official is required to\\n send rejection notice via first-class mail and also electronic means, as\\n available or as otherwise required by law. This process shall include\\n allowing the absentee voter to send or rely upon a duly authorized\\n attorney or attorney in fact to present proper identification. . . . The\\n absentee voter shall have the right to appeal any absentee ballot\\n rejection following the outcome of the aforementioned process, as\\n\\n\\n 57\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 58 of 78\\n\\n\\n designated in [Ga. Code Ann.] § 21-2-229(e).29\\n\\nGa. Muslim Voter Project, slip op. at 2 (N.D. Ga. Oct. 25, 2018) (temporary\\n\\nrestraining order) (citations omitted). For mail-in ballot applications with\\n\\nsignatures that are determined not to match, the injunction requires election\\n\\nofficials to provide voters with provisional ballots:\\n\\n [F]or all ballot applications where a signature mismatch is perceived,\\n the county elections official shall . . . provide a provisional absentee\\n ballot to the absentee voter along with information as to the process\\n that will be followed in reviewing the provisional ballot. . . . Once\\n any provisional ballot is received, the procedure outlined in section 1\\n above is to be followed.\\n\\nId. at 3.\\n\\n The egregiousness of the District Court’s overreaching is apparent once the\\n\\ninjunction is examined alongside Georgia’s election code. The code prescribes\\n\\nthree ways in which a voter’s qualifications or right to vote can be challenged.\\n\\nSee Ga. Code Ann. §§ 21-2-228 (challenges to voter qualifications by boards of\\n\\nregistrars), -229 (challenges to voter qualifications by other voters), -230\\n\\n(challenges to the right to vote by other voters).30 For those mechanisms,\\n\\n\\n\\n 29\\n The injunction presupposes a system of administrative tribunals because without an\\nadministrative hearing and a record thereof, the superior courts would be reviewing an\\nadministrative decision without any record before it.\\n 30\\n The difference between § 21-2-229 and § 21-2-230 seems to be that a voter can be\\nvalidly registered to vote yet not have the right to vote. For example, a person that meets all\\nqualifications but for age may register to vote if that person would reach the legal age within six\\nmonths of registration. Ga. Code Ann. § 21-2-216(c). That said, the person cannot actually\\n 58\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 59 of 78\\n\\n\\nGeorgia’s legislature outlined intricate procedures for administrative adjudication\\n\\nfollowed by judicial review in the superior courts. These procedures, each of\\n\\nwhich I set out fully in an appendix, see Appendix B, outline every possible detail\\n\\nof the adjudicatory process, including filing of a complaint, service of process,\\n\\nstandards for allowing a complaint to go forward, burdens of proof, allowances for\\n\\ndiscovery (including subpoenas), allocations of costs, and timeframes and\\n\\nprocedures for appeal.\\n\\n Sections 21-2-228, -229, and -230 collectively reveal two important facts:\\n\\nfirst, the District Court contravened Georgia’s legislature’s will when it wrote into\\n\\nthe election code its own provision and relatedly, the legislature deliberately\\n\\nomitted the Court’s provision because it would be impossible to implement.\\n\\n First, the level of detail that §§ 21-2-228, -229, and -230 provide prevent the\\n\\nDistrict Court from hiding behind any assertion that it was merely effectuating the\\n\\nlegislature’s intent; the legislature knew how to write the Court’s remedial scheme\\n\\nfor itself had it wanted to. Cf. Expressio Unius Est Exclusio Alterius, Black’s Law\\n\\nDictionary (10th ed. 2014) (“[T]o express or include one thing implies the\\n\\nexclusion of the other . . . .”). Said differently, the purposeful inclusion of the\\n\\nprocedures in §§ 21-2-228, -229, and -230 evidences the legislature’s purposeful\\n\\n\\n\\nvote until he or she reaches the legal age. Id.\\n 59\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 60 of 78\\n\\n\\nexclusion of them from the Statutes—sections within the same code title.31\\n\\n Second, the District Court’s remedy is unachievable, something that\\n\\nGeorgia’s legislature was well aware of when it declined to write the Court’s\\n\\nremedial scheme into the Statutes. The challenges created by §§ 21-2-228 and -\\n\\n229 can be conducted at any time because they concern counties’ and\\n\\nmunicipalities’ lists of voters, lists that are perpetually in existence. Indeed, § 21-\\n\\n2-228 charges counties and municipalities with examining voters’ qualifications\\n\\n“from time to time.” Ga. Code Ann. § 21-2-228(a). When examinations can\\n\\noccur throughout the year, administrative adjudications and judicial review are\\n\\nfeasible.32 Here, by contrast, all signature examinations would be forced to occur\\n\\nin a span of less than two months.33\\n\\n\\n\\n 31\\n In evaluating the legislature’s intent, we look to the election code as a whole. See\\nBlack Warrior Riverkeeper, Inc. v. Black Warrior Minerals, Inc., 734 F.3d 1297, 1302 (11th Cir.\\n2013) (“[T]he ‘fundamental canon of statutory construction is that the words of a statute must be\\nread in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme’ and that a\\ncourt should ‘fit, if possible, all parts into a harmonious whole.’” (alterations omitted) (citing\\nFDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 132–33, 120 S. Ct. 1291, 1301\\n(2000))).\\n 32\\n Examinations under § 21-2-229, which authorizes one elector to challenge another\\nelector’s qualifications, can also occur throughout the year. Though examinations under § 21-2-\\n230, which authorizes one elector to challenger another elector’s right to vote, occur once voting\\nhas begun, the volume of challenges under that section pales in comparison to the volume of\\nsignature reviews at issue here.\\n 33\\n The boards of registrars cannot issue mail-in ballots more than 49 days before a\\ngeneral election, Ga. Code Ann. § 21-2-384(a)(2), and the superintendents of elections must\\ntransmit consolidated returns to the secretary of state no later than 5:00 P.M. on the Monday\\nfollowing the election, id. § 21-2-493(k).\\n 60\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 61 of 78\\n\\n\\n 2.\\n\\n The Georgia Supreme Court—or for that matter, any Georgia court—could\\n\\nnot rewrite the Statutes as the District Court has done here. The Georgia\\n\\nConstitution requires strict separation of powers. See Ga. Const. art. I, § 2, para. 3\\n\\n(“The legislative, judicial, and executive powers shall forever remain separate and\\n\\ndistinct; and no person discharging the duties of one shall at the same time exercise\\n\\nthe functions of either of the others except as herein provided.”). That paragraph,\\n\\nat bare minimum, precludes judicial rewriting of statutes. See Robinson v. Boyd,\\n\\n701 S.E.2d 165, 168 (Ga. 2010) (“Under our system of separation of powers this\\n\\nCourt does not have the authority to rewrite statutes.” (alteration omitted) (quoting\\n\\nState v. Fielden, 629 S.E.2d 252 (Ga. 2006))); see also Lumpkin Cty. v. Ga.\\n\\nInsurers Insolvency Pool, 734 S.E.2d 880, 882 (Ga. 2012) (“[A] court of law is not\\n\\nauthorized to rewrite the statute by inserting additional language” (quoting\\n\\nAbdulkadir v. State, 610 S.E.2d 50, 53 (Ga. 2005))).\\n\\n Our Constitution, which enshrines federalism, requires us, as a federal court,\\n\\nto respect Georgia’s choice on its own governmental structure.34 As a sister\\n\\n\\n 34\\n The reason is simple: separation of powers within a state implements federalism’s\\npurpose in our constitutional structure. Whereas federal separation of powers secures liberty by\\ndiffusing power among coequal branches of the same sovereign, federalism further secures\\nliberty by diffusing power among different sovereigns. See, e.g., Bond v. United States, 564\\nU.S. 211, 222, 131 S. Ct. 2355, 2364 (2011) (“By denying any one government complete\\njurisdiction over all the concerns of public life, federalism protects the liberty of the individual\\nfrom arbitrary power.”); see also Metro. Wash. Airports Auth. v. Citizens for Abatement of\\n 61\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 62 of 78\\n\\n\\ncircuit has said, “Even the narrowest notion of federalism requires us to recognize\\n\\na state’s interest in preserving the separation of powers within its own\\n\\ngovernment as a compelling interest.” White, 416 F.3d at 773. The court\\n\\nexplained that a “state’s choice of how to organize its government is ‘a decision of\\n\\nthe most fundamental sort for a sovereign entity.’” Id. (quoting Gregory v.\\n\\nAshcroft, 501 U.S. 452, 460, 111 S. Ct. 2395, 2400 (1991)).\\n\\n So what was the District Court to do if it found, contrary to my conclusion,\\n\\nthat Georgia’s mail-in voting scheme violated procedural due process?\\n\\n The power that the Supremacy Clause, see U.S. Const. art. VI, para. 2,\\n\\ngrants federal courts that undertake judicial review of state statutes is limited to\\n\\nrefusing to apply state rules of decision that they believe are unconstitutional. See\\n\\nUnited States v. Frandsen, 212 F.3d 1231, 1235 (11th Cir. 2000) (“The remedy if\\n\\nthe facial challenge is successful is the striking down of the regulation . . . .” (citing\\n\\nStromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359, 369–70, 51 S. Ct. 532, 536 (1931))); see\\n\\nalso Henry M. Hart, Jr. & Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process 154 (1994)\\n\\n(“American courts have no general power of control over legislatures. Their\\n\\n\\n\\nAircraft Noise, Inc., 501 U.S. 252, 285, 111 S. Ct. 2298, 2316 (1991) (noting that federalism\\n“protects the rights of the people no less than separation-of-powers principles” (citing The\\nFederalist No. 51, at 323 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961))). If states in turn\\nchoose to embrace separation of powers, liberty is only further protected. Cf. Republican Party\\nof Minn. v. White, 416 F.3d 738, 773 (8th Cir. 2005) (“Separation of powers is a concept basic to\\nthe states’ constitutions as well as the federal Constitution.”).\\n 62\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 63 of 78\\n\\n\\npower, tout simple, is to treat as null an otherwise relevant statute which they\\n\\nbelieve to be beyond the powers of the legislature . . . .”). That power does not\\n\\nextend—as the District Court clearly believed—to prescribing new rules of\\n\\ndecision on the state’s behalf. See Virginia v. Am. Booksellers Ass’n, 484 U.S.\\n\\n383, 397, 108 S. Ct. 636, 645 (1988) (“[W]e will not rewrite a state law to conform\\n\\nit to constitutional requirements.”).35\\n\\n The District Court could impose no remedy other than full-on injunction of\\n\\nGeorgia’s mail-in voting scheme in all of its applications. The Court, in other\\n\\nwords, can offer Georgia a choice: forego mail-in voting altogether—a privilege\\n\\nthat the Constitution does not require states to confer—or rework the mail-in\\n\\nvoting scheme so that it accords with procedural due process. As a separate\\n\\nsovereign, Georgia is entitled to make that choice without the District Court’s\\n\\ninterference. Cf. Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U.S. 7, 18, 95 S. Ct. 1373, 1379 (1975)\\n\\n(holding that the means of remedying a constitutionally defective statute “plainly is\\n\\nan issue of state law to be resolved by the [state] courts on remand”); see also Eric\\n\\n\\n\\n 35\\n Remarkably, courts cannot rewrite statutes even by striking down language, rather than\\nby adding it. Take severability clauses—which this statute noticeably lacks. In Whole\\nWoman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 136 S. Ct. 2292 (2016), as revised (June 27, 2016), for example,\\nthe state defendant argued for a “narrowly tailored judicial remedy,” not facial invalidation, by\\npointing to a severability clause in Texas’ abortion statute. Id. at 2318−19. But the Supreme\\nCourt responded that a “severability clause is not grounds for a court to ‘devise a judicial remedy\\nthat entails quintessentially legislative work.’” Id. at 2319 (alterations omitted) (quoting Ayotte\\nv. Planned Parenthood of N. New Eng., 546 U.S. 320, 329, 126 S. Ct. 961, 968 (2006)).\\n 63\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 64 of 78\\n\\n\\nS. Fish, Choosing Constitutional Remedies, 63 UCLA L. Rev. 322, 350 (2016) (“In\\n\\nmost cases, courts do not permit themselves to add language. They cannot, for\\n\\ninstance, add new procedures to a statute to satisfy due process\\n\\nrequirements . . . .”).\\n\\n Here’s the long and short of it: the District Court violated the Constitution’s\\n\\ncommand to respect Georgia’s decision to separate its governmental functions.\\n\\nBecause Georgia has precluded its state’s courts from rewriting its legislative\\n\\nenactments, our Constitution prevents the District Court from doing the same.36\\n\\n B.\\n\\n The District Court not only rewrote Georgia’s election code, but it did so in\\n\\n\\n 36\\n Ironically, the District Court could not do to a statute passed by Congress what it today\\ndoes to one passed by Georgia’s legislature. See Harris v. Garner, 216 F.3d 970, 976 (11th Cir.\\n2000) (“[T]he role of the judicial branch is to apply statutory language, not to rewrite it.” (citing\\nBadaracco v. Comm’r, 464 U.S. 386, 398, 104 S. Ct. 756, 764 (1984) (“Courts are not\\nauthorized to rewrite a statute because they might deem its effects susceptible of\\nimprovement.”); then citing Blount v. Rizzi, 400 U.S. 410, 419, 91 S. Ct. 423, 429 (1971) (“[I]t is\\nfor Congress, not this Court, to rewrite the statute.”); then citing Korman v. HBC Florida, Inc.,\\n182 F.3d 1291, 1296 (11th Cir. 1999) (“It is not the business of courts to rewrite statutes.”)));\\nCalifano v. Westcott, 443 U.S. 76, 95, 99 S. Ct. 2655, 2666 (1979) (Powell, J., concurring in part\\nand dissenting in part) (reasoning that when a statute is held unconstitutional, “it is the duty and\\nfunction of the Legislative Branch to review its [statute] in light of [the court’s] decision and\\nmake such changes therein as it deems appropriate”); see also Fish, supra, at 339 (“[I]f judges\\ncould add language to statutes in ordinary cases, then the judiciary would effectively become a\\nsecond legislature.”).\\n The District Court’s behavior here is in fact worse. Whereas rewriting congressional\\nstatutes implicates only the separation of powers between Congress and the Judiciary—two\\ncoequal branches within the same sovereign—rewriting state statutes intrudes on the authority of\\na distinct sovereign. See Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 367 n.15, 90 S. Ct. 1792, 1811\\nn.15 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring in the result) (noting the “limited discretion [the] Court\\nenjoys to extend a policy for the State even as a constitutional remedy” (citations omitted)).\\n 64\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 65 of 78\\n\\n\\na completely standardless manner—in plain violation of what the Equal Protection\\n\\nClause requires.\\n\\n The District Court requires election officials to “provide pre-rejection notice\\n\\nand an opportunity to resolve the alleged signature discrepancy to the absentee\\n\\nvoter.” Ga. Muslim Voter Project, slip op. at 2 (N.D. Ga. Oct. 25, 2018)\\n\\n(temporary restraining order). It then leaves election officials to fill in the details\\n\\nof that process, requiring only that they do so “in good faith.” Id. Though “good\\n\\nfaith” may be sufficient for an agreement between two friends, it is constitutionally\\n\\ndefective guidance to protect the fundamental right to vote.\\n\\n As the Supreme Court explained in Bush v. Gore, “When a court orders a\\n\\nstatewide remedy, there must be at least some assurance that the rudimentary\\n\\nrequirements of equal treatment and fundamental fairness are satisfied.” 531 U.S.\\n\\nat 109, 121 S. Ct. at 532. There, various of Florida’s 67 counties employed a\\n\\nsystem whereby voters selected a candidate by punching through the ballot, thus\\n\\ncreating a hole next to the candidate’s name. Id. at 105, 121 S. Ct. at 530. But\\n\\nmany voters failed to fully punch the ballot, so the ballots contained partial\\n\\nperforations or, in some cases, only indentations. Id. The Florida Supreme Court\\n\\nordered each of Florida’s counties to divine the “intent of the voter.” Id. The\\n\\nCourt explained that the Florida Supreme Court’s command was “unobjectionable\\n\\nas an abstract proposition and a starting principle.” Id. at 106, 121 S. Ct. at 530.\\n 65\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 66 of 78\\n\\n\\nThe problem, however, “inhere[d] in the absence of specific standards to ensure its\\n\\nequal application.” Id. The Court discussed, for example, how the voter’s intent\\n\\nvaries based on whether, for a ballot to be legally counted, a chad must be\\n\\ncompletely punched, whether it must only be dimpled, or whether it must only be\\n\\npunched enough so that “any light could be seen.” Id. at 106−07, 121 S. Ct. at\\n\\n531.\\n\\n The District Court’s injunction is similarly standardless because it leaves\\n\\nnumerous questions unanswered:\\n\\n • Does the administrative tribunal owe any deference to the election\\n\\n official’s decision? If so, under what standard is the decision reviewed?\\n\\n • Is evidence admissible? If so, what evidence?\\n\\n • How is that evidence obtained, i.e., what discovery is available?\\n\\n • Who bears the burden of proof? What burden does that party face?\\n\\nBecause each county can answer these questions differently, Equal Protection rears\\n\\nits head. The irony, of course, is that Georgia’s legislature avoided these Bush v.\\n\\nGore problems when it crafted §§ 21-2-228, -229, and -230, each of which answers\\n\\nthe questions that the Court here left for “good faith” implementation.\\n\\n In short, the District Court could not, in crafting a remedy, create a system of\\n\\nuttlerly standardless review. When the processes for determining whether two\\n\\nsignatures match vary from county to county, the court has provided inadequate\\n 66\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 67 of 78\\n\\n\\nprotection for the fundamental right to vote.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 67\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 68 of 78\\n\\n\\nAppendix A: District Court’s Preliminary Injunction\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date\\n Case 1:18-cv-04789-LMM Filed: 03/21/2019\\n Document Page: 69Page\\n 32 Filed 10/25/18 of 781 of 4\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT\\n FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA\\n ATLANTA DIVISION\\n\\n\\nRHONDA J. MARTIN, et al., :\\n :\\n :\\n Plaintiffs, :\\n :\\nv. :\\n :\\nBRIAN KEMP, et al., : CIVIL ACTION NO.\\n : 1:18-CV-4776-LMM\\n :\\n Defendants. :\\n\\n\\n\\nGEORGIA MUSLIM VOTER :\\nPROJECT, et al., :\\n :\\n :\\n Plaintiffs, :\\n :\\nv. :\\n :\\nBRIAN KEMP, et al., : CIVIL ACTION NO.\\n : 1:18-CV-4789-LMM\\n :\\n :\\n Defendants. :\\n :\\n :\\n :\\n :\\n\\n Case Case: 18-14502 Date\\n 1:18-cv-04789-LMM Filed: 03/21/2019\\n Document Page: 70Page\\n 32 Filed 10/25/18 of 782 of 4\\n\\n\\n TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER\\n\\n Based upon the Court’s prior findings, see Martin Dkt. No. [23]; GMVP\\n\\nDkt. No. [28], the Secretary of State’s Office shall issue the following instructions\\n\\nto all county boards of registrars, boards of elections, election superintendents,\\n\\nand absentee clerks:\\n\\n 1) All county elections officials responsible for processing absentee ballots\\n\\n shall not reject any absentee ballots due to an alleged signature mismatch.\\n\\n Instead, for all ballots where a signature mismatch is perceived, the county\\n\\n elections official shall treat this absentee ballot as a provisional ballot,\\n\\n which shall be held separate and apart from the other absentee ballots. See\\n\\n O.C.G.A. § 21-2-419; Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 183-1-14-.03(2). The county\\n\\n elections official shall then provide pre-rejection notice and an opportunity\\n\\n to resolve the alleged signature discrepancy to the absentee voter. This\\n\\n process shall be done in good faith and is limited to confirming the identity\\n\\n of the absentee voter consistent with existing voter identification laws. See\\n\\n O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-417, -417.1. The elections official is required to send\\n\\n rejection notice via first-class mail and also electronic means, as available\\n\\n or as otherwise required by law. See O.C.G.A. § 21-2-384(a)(2). This\\n\\n process shall include allowing the absentee voter to send or rely upon a\\n\\n duly authorized attorney or attorney in fact to present proper\\n\\n identification. This process shall be done prior to the certification of the\\n\\n consolidated returns of the election by the election superintendent. See\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date\\n Case 1:18-cv-04789-LMM Filed: 03/21/2019\\n Document Page: 71Page\\n 32 Filed 10/25/18 of 783 of 4\\n\\n\\n O.C.G.A. § 21-2-230(g). The absentee voter shall have the right to appeal\\n\\n any absentee ballot rejection following the outcome of the aforementioned\\n\\n process, as designated in O.C.G.A. § 21-2-229(e). Any aforementioned\\n\\n appeals that are not resolved as of 5 p.m. on the day of the certification\\n\\n deadline shall not delay certification and shall not require recertification of\\n\\n the election results unless those votes would change the outcome of the\\n\\n election. See O.C.G.A. § 21-2-493(l).\\n\\n2) All county elections officials responsible for processing absentee ballot\\n\\n applications shall not reject any absentee ballot application due to an\\n\\n alleged signature mismatch. Instead, for all ballot applications where a\\n\\n signature mismatch is perceived, the county elections official shall, in\\n\\n addition to the procedure specified in O.C.G.A. § 21-2-381(b), provide a\\n\\n provisional absentee ballot to the absentee voter along with information as\\n\\n to the process that will be followed in reviewing the provisional ballot. The\\n\\n outer envelope of the absentee ballot provided shall be marked provisional.\\n\\n Once any provisional ballot is received, the procedure outlined in section 1\\n\\n above is to be followed.\\n\\n3) This injunction applies to all absentee ballot applications and absentee\\n\\n ballots rejected solely on the basis of signature mismatches submitted in\\n\\n this current election. This injunction does not apply to voters who have\\n\\n already cast an in-person vote.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\n Case Case: 18-14502 Date\\n 1:18-cv-04789-LMM Filed: 03/21/2019\\n Document Page: 72Page\\n 32 Filed 10/25/18 of 784 of 4\\n\\n\\nIT IS SO ORDERED this 25th day of October, 2018.\\n\\n\\n\\n _____________________________\\n Leigh Martin May\\n United States District Judge\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 73 of 78\\n\\n\\nAppendix B: Compiled Sections of Georgia’s Election Code\\n\\nSection 21-2-228\\n\\n Section 21-2-228 requires the state’s counties and municipalities to\\n\\nperiodically examine their electors’ qualifications. The board of registrars, upon\\n\\nquestioning the right of any existing elector to remain on the list of electors, “shall\\n\\ngive such person at least three days’ written notice of the date, time, and place of a\\n\\nhearing.” Id. § 21-2-228(d). The board must send notice by first-class mail or by\\n\\npersonal service by various law-enforcement officers. Id. If a majority of the\\n\\nregistrars determines that the elector lacks the necessary qualifications, the elector\\n\\nis removed from the list of electors and must be sent notice in the same manner\\n\\ndescribed above. Id. §§ 21-2-228(e), -228(b). An aggrieved elector “shall have a\\n\\nright of appeal.” Id. § 21-2-228(f). The elector exercises that right by “filing a\\n\\npetition with the clerk of the superior court within ten days after the date of the\\n\\ndecision of the registrars.” Id. The board must receive a copy of the petition.\\n\\nId. The board’s decision “shall stand” unless it is reversed by the court. Id.\\n\\n The board has broad investigatory powers. It may “require the production\\n\\nof books, papers, and other material” and “subpoena witnesses,” whom it may\\n\\nswear. Id. § 21-2-228(b). All with at least three days’ notice. Id. As to the\\n\\nwitnesses, all summonses, notices, and subpoenas issued by the board are required\\n\\nto be served by designated law-enforcement officers, who receive specified\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 74 of 78\\n\\n\\ncompensation for these services. Id. §21-2-228(c). The witnesses themselves\\n\\n“shall be allowed and paid the same mileage and fee as allowed and paid witnesses\\n\\nin civil actions in the superior court.” Id. The failure of a subpoenaed witness to\\n\\nattend or testify “shall be reported immediately by the registrars to the appropriate\\n\\nsuperior court.” Id. The court “shall order such witness to attend and testify,”\\n\\nand the witness, upon refusal, “shall be dealt with as for contempt.” Id.\\n\\nSection 21-2-229\\n\\n Section 21-2-229 allows one elector to challenge the qualifications of a\\n\\nperson “applying to register to vote” or “whose name appears on the list of\\n\\nelectors,” so long as the person is in the same county or municipality. Id. § 21-2-\\n\\n229(a). The challenge “shall be in writing and shall specify distinctly the\\n\\ngrounds.” Id. Upon receiving a challenge, the board of registrars “shall set a\\n\\nhearing,” notice of the date, time, and place of which “shall be served” upon the\\n\\nchallenger and the challenged party. Id. § 21-2-229(b). The challenged party\\n\\n“shall receive at least three days’ notice” in the manner provided for by § 21-2-\\n\\n228. Id. At the hearing, the burden of proof “shall be on the elector making the\\n\\nchallenge.” Id. § 21-2-229(c). After reaching a decision, the registrars “shall\\n\\nnotify the parties of their decision.” Id. § 21-2-229(d). If the challenge is\\n\\nsuccessful, the “application for registration shall be rejected or the person’s name\\n\\nremoved from the list of electors.” Id. The aggrieved elector “shall be notified”\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 75 of 78\\n\\n\\nin the manner provided for by § 21-2-228. Id. Both the challenger and the\\n\\nchallenged elector “shall have a right of appeal,” and the notice requirements for\\n\\nand consequences of appeal match those provided for by § 21-2-228. Id. § 21-2-\\n\\n229(e).\\n\\n Here too, the code confers broad discovery powers. Upon petition by the\\n\\nchallenger or the challenged elector, the board “shall have the authority to issue\\n\\nsubpoenas for the attendance of witnesses and the production of books, papers, and\\n\\nother material.”Id. § 21-2-229(c). The requesting party “shall be responsible to\\n\\nserve such subpoenas and, if necessary, to enforce the subpoenas by application to\\n\\nthe superior court.” Id. As is the case under § 21-2-228, the witnesses are\\n\\ncompensated. Id.\\n\\nSection 21-2-230\\n\\n Section 21-2-230 allows one elector to challenge the right of any elector to\\n\\nvote, again so long as the person is in the same county or municipality. Id. § 21-2-\\n\\n230(a). The challenge “shall be in writing and specify distinctly the grounds.”\\n\\nId. If the challenge is made to a mail-in absentee ballot, it must be lodged before\\n\\n5:00 p.m. on the day before the election; if it is made to an in-person absentee\\n\\nballot, or if it is made to any other method of voting, it must be made before the\\n\\nvote is cast. Id.\\n\\n The board “shall immediately consider such challenge and determine\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 76 of 78\\n\\n\\nwhether probable cause exists.” Id. § 21-2-230(b). If the board finds probable\\n\\ncause, it “shall notify the poll officers” of the challenged elector’s precinct or\\n\\nabsentee ballot precinct and “if practical, notify the challenged elector and afford\\n\\nsuch elector an opportunity to answer.” Id.\\n\\n What happens thereafter depends on whether the challenged elector casts a\\n\\nballot and on the grounds for the challenge.\\n\\n • If the challenged elector seeks to cast a vote at the polls, and if it is\\n\\n practical to conduct a hearing before the close of polls, the board “shall\\n\\n conduct such hearing and determine the merits of the challenge.” Id.\\n\\n § 21-2-230(h). If the board sustains the challenge, the elector “shall not\\n\\n be permitted to vote,” and if the grounds for the challenge are\\n\\n ineligibility to remain on the list of electors, the elector’s name “shall be\\n\\n removed from the list.” Id. If the board denies the challenge, the\\n\\n elector “shall be permitted to vote.” Id. Even if the polls have closed,\\n\\n the elector may still vote so long as he or she “proceeds to vote\\n\\n immediately after the decision of the registrars.” Id.\\n\\n • If the challenged elector seeks to cast a vote at the polls, but if it is\\n\\n impracticable to conduct a hearing before the close of polls or if the\\n\\n board at any time determines that it could not render a decision within a\\n\\n “reasonable time,” the elector “shall be permitted to vote by casting a\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 77 of 78\\n\\n\\n challenged ballot on the same type of ballot that is used . . . for\\n\\n provisional ballots.” Id. § 21-2-230(i). Here too, the elector may still\\n\\n vote even if the polls have closed, so long as he or she “proceeds to vote\\n\\n immediately after such determination of the registrars.” Id. If the\\n\\n challenge is based on the eligibility of the elector to remain on the list of\\n\\n electors, the board “shall proceed to finish the hearing prior to the\\n\\n certification of the consolidated returns of the election by the election\\n\\n superintendent.” Id. If the challenge is based on other grounds, the\\n\\n board does not need to take further action. Id. Both the challenger and\\n\\n the challenged elector may appeal the board’s decision in the same\\n\\n manner as is set out in § 21-2-229(e). Id.\\n\\n• If the challenged elector casts an absentee ballot, and if the challenge\\n\\n concerns the elector’s eligibility to remain on the list of electors, the\\n\\n board “shall proceed to conduct a hearing on the challenge on an\\n\\n expedited basis prior to the certification of the consolidated returns of the\\n\\n election.” Id. § 21-2-230(g). The election superintendent “shall not\\n\\n certify such consolidated returns until such hearing is complete and the\\n\\n registrars have rendered their decision on the challenge.” Id. If the\\n\\n board sustains the challenge, the challenged elector “shall be removed\\n\\n from the list of electors,” and the ballot “shall be rejected and not\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 78 of 78\\n\\n\\n counted.” Id. Both the challenger and the challenged elector may\\n\\n appeal the board’s decision in the same manner as is set out in § 21-2-\\n\\n 229(e). Id.\\n\\n• If the challenged elector casts an absentee ballot, but if it is impracticable\\n\\n to hold a hearing prior the close of polls, and if the challenge is not based\\n\\n on the elector’s qualifications to remain on the list of electors, the ballot\\n\\n “shall be treated as a challenged ballot” as provided for by § 21-2-386(e).\\n\\n Id. § 21-2-230(e).\\n\\n• If the challenged elector does not vote, absentee or otherwise, and if the\\n\\n challenge is based on the elector’s qualifications to remain on the list of\\n\\n electors, the board “shall proceed to hear the challenge” pursuant to the\\n\\n procedures of § 21-2-229. Id. § 21-2-230(f).\\n\\n• If the challenged elector does not vote, absentee or otherwise, and if the\\n\\n challenge is not based on the elector’s qualifications to remain on the list\\n\\n of electors, the board does not need to take further action. Id. § 21-2-\\n\\n 230(d).\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4379622/\", \"author_raw\": \"TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge, dissenting\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"TJOFLAT"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"PRYOR"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"NEWSOM"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":7,"string":"7"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":2,"string":"2"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":2,"string":"2"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4602369/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: GEORGIA MUSLIM VOTER PROJECT, Asian-Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, Plaintiffs - Appellees, v. Brian KEMP, in His Official Capacity as the Secretary of State of Georgia, Defendant - Appellant, Gwinnett County Board of Voter Registration and Elections, on Behalf of Itself and All Others Similarly Situated, Defendant. Rhonda J. Martin, Dana Bowers, Jasmine Clark, Smythe Duval, Jeanne Dufort, the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, Inc., Plaintiffs - Appellees, v. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State of Georgia, Defendant - Appellant, Rebecca N. Sullivan, Et Al., Defendants.\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-21\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: Yes\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 1 of 78\n\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n\n\n No. 18-14502-GG\n\nGEORGIA MUSLIM VOTER PROJECT,\nASIAN-AMERICANS ADVANCING JUSTICE-ATLANTA,\n\n Plaintiffs - Appellees,\n\n versus\n\nBRIAN KEMP,\nin his official capacity as the Secretary of State of Georgia,\n\n Defendant - Appellant,\n\nGWINNETT COUNTY BOARD OF VOTER REGISTRATION AND ELECTIONS,\non behalf of itself and all others similarly situated,\n\n\n Defendant.\n\n\n No. 18-14503-GG\n\nRHONDA J. MARTIN,\nDANA BOWERS,\nJASMINE CLARK,\nSMYTHE DUVAL,\nJEANNE DUFORT,\nTHE GEORGIA COALITION FOR THE PEOPLE'S AGENDA, INC.,\n\n Plaintiffs - Appellees,\n\n versus\n\nBRIAN KEMP,\nSecretary of State of Georgia,\n\n Defendant - Appellant,\n\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 2 of 78\n\n\nREBECCA N. SULLIVAN, et al.,\n\n Defendants.\n\n\n On Appeal from the United States\n District Court for the Northern District of Georgia\n\n\nBEFORE: TJOFLAT, JILL PRYOR, and NEWSOM, Circuit Judges.\n\nBY THE COURT:\n\n On November 2, 2018, we denied the Emergency Motion for Stay of Injunction Pending Appeal\n\nfiled by Appellant Brian Kemp and advised at that time that one judge dissented and separate opinions\n\nwould follow. Today, we issue those opinions.\n\n\n\n\n 2\n\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 3 of 78\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: GEORGIA MUSLIM VOTER PROJECT, Asian-Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, Plaintiffs - Appellees, v. Brian KEMP, in His Official Capacity as the Secretary of State of Georgia, Defendant - Appellant, Gwinnett County Board of Voter Registration and Elections, on Behalf of Itself and All Others Similarly Situated, Defendant. Rhonda J. Martin, Dana Bowers, Jasmine Clark, Smythe Duval, Jeanne Dufort, the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, Inc., Plaintiffs - Appellees, v. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State of Georgia, Defendant - Appellant, Rebecca N. Sullivan, Et Al., Defendants.\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-21\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: Yes\\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 1 of 78\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n No. 18-14502-GG\\n\\nGEORGIA MUSLIM VOTER PROJECT,\\nASIAN-AMERICANS ADVANCING JUSTICE-ATLANTA,\\n\\n Plaintiffs - Appellees,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nBRIAN KEMP,\\nin his official capacity as the Secretary of State of Georgia,\\n\\n Defendant - Appellant,\\n\\nGWINNETT COUNTY BOARD OF VOTER REGISTRATION AND ELECTIONS,\\non behalf of itself and all others similarly situated,\\n\\n\\n Defendant.\\n\\n\\n No. 18-14503-GG\\n\\nRHONDA J. MARTIN,\\nDANA BOWERS,\\nJASMINE CLARK,\\nSMYTHE DUVAL,\\nJEANNE DUFORT,\\nTHE GEORGIA COALITION FOR THE PEOPLE'S AGENDA, INC.,\\n\\n Plaintiffs - Appellees,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nBRIAN KEMP,\\nSecretary of State of Georgia,\\n\\n Defendant - Appellant,\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 2 of 78\\n\\n\\nREBECCA N. SULLIVAN, et al.,\\n\\n Defendants.\\n\\n\\n On Appeal from the United States\\n District Court for the Northern District of Georgia\\n\\n\\nBEFORE: TJOFLAT, JILL PRYOR, and NEWSOM, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nBY THE COURT:\\n\\n On November 2, 2018, we denied the Emergency Motion for Stay of Injunction Pending Appeal\\n\\nfiled by Appellant Brian Kemp and advised at that time that one judge dissented and separate opinions\\n\\nwould follow. Today, we issue those opinions.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\n Case: 18-14502 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 3 of 78\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1359,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4602856,"string":"4,602,856"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":""},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Jacqueline Lewis v. City of Union City, Georgia"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-21"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"15-11362"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 1 of 100\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 15-11362\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 1:12-cv-04038-RWS\\n\\nJACQUELINE LEWIS,\\n\\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nCITY OF UNION CITY, GEORGIA,\\nCHIEF OF POLICE CHARLES ODOM,\\nin his official and individual capacities,\\n\\n Defendant -Appellees.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Northern District of Georgia\\n ________________________\\n\\n (March 21, 2019)\\n\\n ON PETITION FOR REHEARING\\n\\nBefore ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM\\nPRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM,\\nBRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nNEWSOM, Circuit Judge, delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ED\\nCARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR,\\nJORDAN, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges, joined.\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 2 of 100\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4380109/\", \"author_raw\": \"NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:\"}, {\"author\": \"ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, filed an opinion concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in\\npart, in which MARTIN and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges, joined.\\n\\nNEWSOM, Circuit Judge:\\n\\n Faced with a defendant’s motion for summary judgment, a plaintiff asserting\\n\\nan intentional-discrimination claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,\\n\\nthe Equal Protection Clause, or 42 U.S.C. § 1981 must make a sufficient factual\\n\\nshowing to permit a reasonable jury to rule in her favor. She can do so in a variety\\n\\nof ways, one of which is by navigating the now-familiar three-part burden-shifting\\n\\nframework established by the Supreme Court in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v.\\n\\nGreen, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). Under that framework, the plaintiff bears the initial\\n\\nburden of establishing a prima facie case of discrimination by proving, among\\n\\nother things, that she was treated differently from another “similarly situated”\\n\\nindividual―in court-speak, a “comparator.” Texas Dep’t of Cmty. Affairs v.\\n\\nBurdine, 450 U.S. 248, 258–59 (1981) (citing McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at\\n\\n804). The obvious question: Just how “similarly situated” must a plaintiff and her\\n\\ncomparator(s) be?\\n\\n To date, our attempts to answer that question have only sown confusion. In\\n\\nsome cases, we have required a proper comparator to be “nearly identical” to the\\n\\nplaintiff. See, e.g., Nix v. WLCY Radio/Rahall Commc’ns, 738 F.2d 1181, 1185\\n\\n(11th Cir. 1984) (citations omitted). In others, we have expressly rejected a\\n\\nnearly-identical standard. See, e.g., Alexander v. Fulton Cty., 207 F.3d 1303,\\n\\n 2\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 3 of 100\\n\\n\\n1333–34 (11th Cir. 2000). In still others, without even mentioning the nearly-\\n\\nidentical benchmark, we have deemed it sufficient that the plaintiff and the\\n\\ncomparator engaged in the “same or similar” conduct. See, e.g., Holifield v. Reno,\\n\\n115 F.3d 1555, 1562 (11th Cir. 1997) (per curiam). And to make matters worse, in\\n\\nstill others we have applied both the nearly-identical and same-or-similar standards\\n\\nsimultaneously. See, e.g., Maniccia v. Brown, 171 F.3d 1364, 1368 (11th Cir.\\n\\n1999). It’s a mess.\\n\\n In an effort to clean up, and to clarify once and for all the proper standard for\\n\\ncomparator evidence in intentional-discrimination cases, we took this case en banc\\n\\nand instructed the parties to address the following issue:\\n\\n The Supreme Court has held that in order to make out a prima facie\\n case of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,\\n the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, or 42\\n U.S.C. § 1981, a plaintiff must prove, among other things, that she\\n was treated differently from another “similarly situated” individual.\\n What standard does the phrase “similarly situated” impose on the\\n plaintiff: (1) “same or similar,” (2) “nearly identical,” or (3) some\\n other standard?\\n\\n Our plaintiff-appellant’s position is twofold. First, as a procedural matter,\\n\\nshe urges us to “move” any qualitative analysis of comparator evidence out of the\\n\\ninitial prima facie stage of the McDonnell Douglas analysis, where it historically\\n\\nhas resided, and into the third-tier pretext stage. Second, as a substantive matter,\\n\\nshe contends that we should jettison both the same-or-similar and nearly-identical\\n\\ntests in favor of what she calls a “flexible, common-sense” standard, which the\\n 3\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 4 of 100\\n\\n\\nSeventh Circuit seems to have embraced: “So long as the distinctions between the\\n\\nplaintiff and the proposed comparators are not ‘so significant that they render the\\n\\ncomparison effectively useless,’ the similarly-situated requirement is satisfied.”\\n\\nAppellant’s En Banc Br. at 34 (quoting Coleman v. Donahoe, 667 F.3d 835, 846\\n\\n(7th Cir. 2012)).\\n\\n Not surprisingly, the defendants-appellees see things differently. First, they\\n\\ninsist that the comparator evaluation should remain part of the prima facie stage of\\n\\nthe McDonnell Douglas analysis. Second, they urge us to keep the nearly-identical\\n\\nstandard, which, they say, reflects the dominant rule in our case law and most\\n\\naccurately captures what the Supreme Court’s understanding of the phrase\\n\\n“similarly situated.”\\n\\n For the reasons that follow, we hold, as an initial matter, that a meaningful\\n\\ncomparator analysis must be conducted at the prima facie stage of McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas’s burden-shifting framework, and should not be “move[d]” to the pretext\\n\\nstage. With respect to the standard itself, we hold that the proper test for\\n\\nevaluating comparator evidence is neither plain-old “same or similar” nor “nearly\\n\\nidentical,” as our past cases have discordantly suggested. Nor is it the Seventh\\n\\nCircuit’s so-long-as-the-comparison-isn’t-useless test. Rather, we conclude that a\\n\\nplaintiff asserting an intentional-discrimination claim under McDonnell Douglas\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 5 of 100\\n\\n\\nmust demonstrate that she and her proffered comparators were “similarly situated\\n\\nin all material respects.”\\n\\n I\\n\\n A\\n\\n Jacqueline Lewis, an African-American woman, started working for the\\n\\nUnion City Police Department as a patrol officer in 2001 and was promoted to\\n\\ndetective in 2008. She suffered a heart attack the following year but was cleared\\n\\nto return to work without any restrictions.\\n\\n In 2010, then-Police Chief Charles Odom announced a new policy requiring\\n\\nall officers to carry Tasers. As part of the training associated with the new policy,\\n\\nofficers had to receive a five-second Taser shock. 1 After hearing about the Taser\\n\\npolicy and being scheduled for separate pepper-spray training, Lewis became\\n\\nconcerned that she might be at an increased risk of injury because of her earlier\\n\\nheart attack. Lewis’s doctor agreed and, due to what she described as “several\\n\\nchronic conditions including a heart condition,” she informed Chief Odom that she\\n\\n“would not recommend” that either a Taser or pepper spray be used either “on or\\n\\nnear” Lewis.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n1\\n Chief Odom required the Taser shock so that officers could, e.g., evaluate the appropriate\\ncircumstances under which to use the Taser, testify in court about the effects of the shock, and\\ndevelop confidence that the shock is survivable.\\n\\n 5\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 6 of 100\\n\\n\\n Because as a detective Lewis would inevitably be (at the very least) “near”\\n\\npepper spray—and under the new policy, Tasers, as well—Chief Odom concluded\\n\\nthat the restrictions described by Lewis’s doctor prevented her from performing the\\n\\nessential duties of her job. Accordingly, Lewis was placed on unpaid\\n\\nadministrative leave “until such time [as her doctor] release[d] [her] to return to\\n\\nfull and active duty.” Lewis was instructed “to complete the necessary FMLA\\n\\npaperwork concerning [her] absence” and told that she could use her accrued paid\\n\\nleave until it was expended. After a few weeks, Lewis had exhausted all of her\\n\\naccrued leave but still hadn’t completed the necessary FMLA paperwork. As a\\n\\nresult, her absence was deemed “unapproved” and she was terminated pursuant to\\n\\nthe Union City Personnel Policy, which stated that “[a]ny unapproved leave of\\n\\nabsence [is] cause for dismissal.”\\n\\n B\\n\\n Lewis brought this action against Union City and Chief Odom (together,\\n\\n“the City”), alleging, as relevant here, race and gender discrimination in violation\\n\\nof Title VII, the Equal Protection Clause, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. 2 The City moved\\n\\nfor summary judgment, and Lewis filed a response in which she identified as\\n\\ncomparators two other Union City police officers whom she claimed had been\\n\\n\\n\\n2\\n Lewis also brought claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.\\nThose claims are not before the en banc court.\\n\\n 6\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 7 of 100\\n\\n\\ntreated more favorably. The first was Sergeant Cliff McClure, a white man who\\n\\nfailed the “balance” portion of a physical-fitness test in 2014 (nearly four years\\n\\nafter the events culminating in Lewis’s termination) and was given 90 days of\\n\\nunpaid administrative leave to remedy the conditions that caused him to fail.\\n\\nMcClure retook (and passed) the test within the 90-day period and returned to\\n\\nwork. The second was Officer Walker Heard, a white man who failed an “agility”\\n\\ntest in 2013 (almost three years after Lewis’s firing) and was also placed on unpaid\\n\\nadministrative leave for 90 days. Heard was offered (and ultimately declined) a\\n\\nposition as a dispatcher. The offer, however, remained open for approximately 11\\n\\nmonths while Heard’s attorney negotiated with the City regarding allegations that\\n\\nhe suffered from a disability. In the end, Heard was terminated after 449 days on\\n\\nunpaid administrative leave because he was unable to demonstrate his fitness to be\\n\\na patrol officer. 3\\n\\n The district court granted summary judgment to the City, concluding as to\\n\\nthe race- and gender-discrimination claims that Lewis’s “proffered comparators\\n\\nd[id] not qualify under either [the ‘nearly identical’ or the ‘same or similar’]\\n\\nstandard.”\\n\\n\\n3\\n Lewis also proffered a third comparator in her response―Officer Francisco Cedeno, a Latino\\nman who initially communicated his doctor’s concerns that he not be exposed to a Taser shock\\nwhile he was recovering from heart surgery but eventually agreed to be shocked in the leg.\\nLewis has since abandoned any contention that Cedeno is a valid comparator. See Br. of\\nAppellant at 22 n.8.\\n\\n 7\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 8 of 100\\n\\n\\n Over Judge Tjoflat’s dissent, a panel of this Court reversed, holding in\\n\\nrelevant part that Lewis had presented enough evidence to create a genuine issue of\\n\\nmaterial fact as to her race- and gender-discrimination claims. Lewis v. City of\\n\\nUnion City, 877 F.3d 1000, 1004 (11th Cir. 2017), reh’g en banc granted, opinion\\n\\nvacated, Lewis v. City of Union City, 893 F.3d 1352 (11th Cir. 2018). In\\n\\nparticular, the panel determined that McClure and Heard were valid comparators\\n\\nfor purposes of assessing Lewis’s prima facie case. 877 F.3d at 1015–18. In the\\n\\ncourse of so holding, the panel acknowledged that “[t]his Circuit often has applied\\n\\nor referred to a ‘nearly identical’ standard to determine whether proposed\\n\\ncomparators are similarly situated,” but it rejected that test, which, it reasoned,\\n\\napplies only in workplace-misconduct cases. Id. at 1017 n.11.\\n\\n We vacated the panel’s opinion and took this case en banc to clarify the\\n\\nproper standard for comparator evidence in intentional-discrimination cases.4\\n\\n II\\n\\n This case arises principally under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,\\n\\nwhich makes it unlawful for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge\\n\\nany individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to\\n\\n\\n\\n4\\n We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. Jones v. Dillard’s, Inc., 331\\nF.3d 1259, 1262 (11th Cir. 2003). Summary judgment is appropriate only when no genuine\\nissue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.\\nR. Civ. P. 56(a); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322–23 (1986).\\n\\n 8\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 9 of 100\\n\\n\\nhis compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such\\n\\nindividual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–\\n\\n2(a)(1). “The language of Title VII makes plain the purpose of Congress to assure\\n\\nequality of employment opportunities and to eliminate those discriminatory\\n\\npractices and devices” that have been used to disadvantage racial, gender, and\\n\\nreligious minorities in the workplace. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411\\n\\nU.S. 792, 800 (1973). 5\\n\\n In order to survive summary judgment, a plaintiff alleging intentional\\n\\ndiscrimination must present sufficient facts to permit a jury to rule in her favor.\\n\\nOne way that she can do so is by satisfying the burden-shifting framework set out\\n\\nin McDonnell Douglas.6 When proceeding under McDonnell Douglas, the\\n\\nplaintiff bears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of discrimination\\n\\nby showing (1) that she belongs to a protected class, (2) that she was subjected to\\n\\n\\n\\n5\\n As already noted, Lewis also presented race- and gender-related claims under the Equal\\nProtection Clause and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. The same analysis—and in particular, the McDonnell\\nDouglas burden-shifting framework—applies to those claims, as well. See Standard v. A.B.E.L.\\nServs., Inc., 161 F.3d 1318, 1330 (11th Cir. 1998) (“Standard alleges that he was terminated on\\nthe basis of his race and national origin (Caucasian–American), in violation of Title VII and 42\\nU.S.C. § 1981. Both of these statutes have the same requirements of proof and use the same\\nanalytical framework, therefore we shall explicitly address the Title VII claim with the\\nunderstanding that the analysis applies to the § 1981 claim as well.”).\\n6\\n A plaintiff can also present direct evidence of discriminatory intent, see, e.g., Jefferson v.\\nSewon America, Inc., 891 F.3d 911, 921–22 (11th Cir. 2018), or demonstrate a “convincing\\nmosaic” of circumstantial evidence that warrants an inference of intentional discrimination, see,\\ne.g., Smith v. Lockheed-Martin Corp., 644 F.3d 1321, 1328 (11th Cir. 2011) (citation and\\nquotation marks omitted).\\n\\n 9\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 10 of 100\\n\\n\\nan adverse employment action, (3) that she was qualified to perform the job in\\n\\nquestion, and (4) that her employer treated “similarly situated” employees outside\\n\\nher class more favorably. See, e.g., Holifield v. Reno, 115 F.3d 1555, 1561–62\\n\\n(11th Cir. 1997) (citing McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802). If the plaintiff\\n\\nsucceeds in making out a prima facie case, the burden shifts to the defendant to\\n\\narticulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its actions. Tex. Dep’t of\\n\\nCmty. Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253 (1981). Finally, should the defendant\\n\\ncarry its burden, the plaintiff must then demonstrate that the defendant’s proffered\\n\\nreason was merely a pretext for unlawful discrimination, an obligation that\\n\\n“merges with the [plaintiff’s] ultimate burden of persuading the [factfinder] that\\n\\nshe has been the victim of intentional discrimination.” Id. at 256.\\n\\n The question before the en banc court is whether Lewis adequately showed\\n\\nthat the City treated “similarly situated” employees outside her class more\\n\\nfavorably than her. That question, in turn—and in the light of the parties’\\n\\ncontentions—comprises two subsidiary questions. First, should the “similarly\\n\\nsituated”—i.e., comparator—analysis be conducted at the prima facie stage of the\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas framework, as we (and the Supreme Court) have traditionally\\n\\nheld, or should it instead be reserved for the pretext stage? Second, and in either\\n\\nevent, what is the proper standard for determining whether a plaintiff and her\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 11 of 100\\n\\n\\ncomparators are “similarly situated”? We turn to a consideration of those\\n\\nquestions.7\\n\\n A\\n\\n All here seem to agree that the qualitative assessment of comparator\\n\\nevidence has historically occurred in—and been an integral part of—the plaintiff’s\\n\\nprima facie case. In her brief, for instance, Lewis recites the black-letter principle\\n\\nthat in order to make out a prima facie case in a wrongful-termination action like\\n\\nthis, “a plaintiff must show that she: (1) is a member of a protected class; (2) was\\n\\nqualified for the position from which she was terminated; (3) was terminated; and\\n\\n(4) was treated less favorably than similarly situated employees outside her\\n\\nprotected class.” Appellant’s En Banc Br. at 21 (citing, e.g., St. Mary’s Honor\\n\\nCtr. v Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 506 (1993)) (emphasis added). Even so, Lewis now\\n\\nasks us to “move” the similarly-situated comparison out of the initial prima facie\\n\\nstage of the McDonnell Douglas analysis and into the tertiary pretext stage. Id. at\\n\\n15, 30. For the reasons that follow, we decline to do so.\\n\\n For starters, the Supreme Court has repeatedly (and consistently) included a\\n\\ncomparator-evidence assessment—using one formulation or another—as an\\n\\nelement of a plaintiff’s prima facie case. Beginning in McDonnell Douglas itself,\\n\\n\\n7\\n McDonnell Douglas’s burden-shifting framework applies to claims arising under a host of\\nfederal antidiscrimination laws. Our analysis and conclusions regarding the “similarly situated”\\nissue here apply to cases brought under those statutes, as well.\\n\\n 11\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 12 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe Court emphasized that a Title VII plaintiff—there bringing a failure-to-hire\\n\\nclaim—carries his prima facie burden “by showing (i) that he belongs to a racial\\n\\nminority; (ii) that he applied and was qualified for a job for which the employer\\n\\nwas seeking applicants; (iii) that, despite his qualifications, he was rejected;\\n\\nand”—importantly here—“(iv) that, after his rejection, the position remained open\\n\\nand the employer continued to seek applicants from persons of complainant’s\\n\\nqualifications.” 411 U.S. at 802. The Court reiterated a similar four-part prima\\n\\nfacie test in Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 575 (1978), and\\n\\nagain in St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U.S. at 506. Most recently, in\\n\\nYoung v. United Parcel Service, Inc., the Court applied the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework to a failure-to-accommodate claim arising under the Pregnancy\\n\\nDiscrimination Act, and in so doing restated yet again the required four-step test:\\n\\n“[A] plaintiff . . . may make out a prima facie case by showing, as in McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas, [1] that she belongs to the protected class, [2] that she sought\\n\\naccommodation, [3] that the employer did not accommodate her, and [4] that the\\n\\nemployer did accommodate others ‘similar in their ability or inability to work.’”\\n\\n135 S. Ct. 1338, 1354 (2015) (enumeration added).\\n\\n The Supreme Court has located the comparator analysis in McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas’s preliminary stage for good reason. Lest we forget, the plaintiff’s burden\\n\\nat step one is to show a prima facie case of something in particular—namely,\\n\\n\\n 12\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 13 of 100\\n\\n\\nunlawful intentional “discrimination.” See, e.g., McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at\\n\\n802 (“The complainant in a Title VII trial must carry the initial burden under the\\n\\nstatute of establishing a prima facie case of racial discrimination.” (emphasis\\n\\nadded)); Burdine, 450 U.S. at 252–53 (“discrimination”); St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at\\n\\n506 (“discrimination”). “The prima facie case serves an important function,” the\\n\\nSupreme Court has said, in that “it eliminates the most common nondiscriminatory\\n\\nreasons” for the employer’s treatment of the plaintiff—and in so doing “give[s]\\n\\nrise to an inference of unlawful discrimination.” Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253–54; see\\n\\nalso Furnco, 438 U.S. at 577 (same); Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431\\n\\nU.S. 324, 358 (1977) (same). A successful prima facie showing thus establishes a\\n\\n“legally mandatory, rebuttable presumption” of intentional discrimination,\\n\\nBurdine, 450 U.S. at 254 n.7, that “produces a required conclusion in the absence\\n\\nof explanation” by the employer, St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 506 (quotation marks\\n\\nomitted). In other words, establishing a prima facie case of discrimination entitles\\n\\nthe plaintiff to judgment—to victory—if the employer either can’t, won’t, or\\n\\ndoesn’t provide a nondiscriminatory explanation for its actions. See Burdine, 450\\n\\nU.S. at 254 (“[I]f the employer is silent in the face of the presumption, the court\\n\\nmust enter judgment for the plaintiff because no issue of fact remains in the\\n\\ncase.”). It follows, therefore, that at the prima facie stage the plaintiff must show a\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 13\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 14 of 100\\n\\n\\npotential “winner”—i.e., enough to give rise to a valid inference that her employer\\n\\nengaged in unlawful intentional “discrimination.” 8\\n\\n So what exactly is this “discrimination,” an inference of which is the object\\n\\nof the plaintiff’s prima facie case? As we have said many times—and as all of us\\n\\nknow intuitively—“[d]iscrimination consists of treating like cases differently.”\\n\\nN.L.R.B. v. Collier, 553 F.2d 425, 428 (5th Cir. 1977) (emphasis added); see also,\\n\\ne.g., Frosty Morn Meats, Inc. v. N.L.R.B., 296 F.2d 617, 621 (5th Cir. 1961). The\\n\\nconverse, of course, is also true: Treating different cases differently is not\\n\\ndiscriminatory, let alone intentionally so. See Nix v. WLCY Radio/Rahall\\n\\nCommc’ns, 738 F.2d 1181, 1186 (11th Cir. 1984) (“[I]f an employer applies a rule\\n\\ndifferently to people it believes are differently situated, no discriminatory intent has\\n\\nbeen shown.”) (quoting Chescheir v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 713 F.2d 1142, 1148\\n\\n(5th Cir. 1983)) (emphasis added).\\n\\n By its very nature, therefore, discrimination is a comparative concept—it\\n\\nrequires an assessment of whether “like” (or instead different) people or things are\\n\\nbeing treated “differently.” In light of that reality—and because a sufficient prima\\n\\nfacie showing gives rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination—“mov[ing]”\\n\\n\\n8\\n To be clear, none of this is to say that a plaintiff’s prima facie and ultimate burdens are\\nequivalent—the Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that they aren’t. See, e.g., St. Mary’s,\\n509 U.S. at 515; Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255 n.8; see also infra at 27 n.15. The point is simply that,\\nin order to move forward, a plaintiff must at least offer evidence that creates a valid inference\\nthat her employer’s conduct was in fact illegally discriminatory.\\n\\n 14\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 15 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe comparator analysis out of the initial prima facie stage and into the tertiary\\n\\npretext stage, as Lewis requests, would make no sense. Were we to do so, a\\n\\nplaintiff could demonstrate a potential winner at step one by showing only (1) that\\n\\nshe belongs to a protected class, (2) that she suffered some adverse employment\\n\\naction, and (3) that she was qualified to perform the job in question. But even\\n\\nconclusive proof of those three elements can’t entitle a plaintiff to judgment on a\\n\\nclaim for unlawful discrimination. Absent a qualitative comparison at the prima\\n\\nfacie stage—i.e., without determining whether the employer treated like cases\\n\\ndifferently—there’s no way of knowing (or even inferring) that discrimination is\\n\\nafoot. Think about it: Every qualified minority employee who gets fired, for\\n\\ninstance, necessarily satisfies the first three prongs of the traditional prima facie\\n\\ncase. But that employee could have been terminated because she was chronically\\n\\nlate, because she had a foul mouth, or for any of a number of other\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reasons. It is only by demonstrating that her employer has\\n\\ntreated “like” employees “differently”—i.e., through an assessment of\\n\\ncomparators—that a plaintiff can supply the missing link and provide a valid basis\\n\\nfor inferring unlawful discrimination.\\n\\n You see the problem: Lewis’s proposal that the qualitative assessment of\\n\\ncomparator evidence be “move[d]” out of the prima facie stage and into the pretext\\n\\nstage would allow the plaintiff to proceed—and potentially to win—without any\\n\\n\\n 15\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 16 of 100\\n\\n\\ngood ground for presuming that discrimination has occurred. Doing so would\\n\\neffectively shift to the defendant the burden of disproving discrimination—which\\n\\nis precisely what the Supreme Court has forbidden. See, e.g., Burdine, 450 U.S. at\\n\\n253, 254–58 (rejecting rules that placed too stringent a burden on a gender-\\n\\ndiscrimination defendant and emphasizing that the “ultimate burden of persuading\\n\\nthe trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff\\n\\nremains at all times with the plaintiff”).9\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n We have no trouble concluding, therefore, that a meaningful comparator\\n\\nanalysis must remain part of the prima facie case. In order to defeat summary\\n\\njudgment, a Title VII plaintiff proceeding under McDonnell Douglas must prove,\\n\\nas a preliminary matter, not only that she is a member of a protected class, that she\\n\\nsuffered an adverse employment action, and that she was qualified for the job in\\n\\n\\n\\n9\\n We reject Lewis’s (and the dissent’s) suggestion that McDonnell Douglas itself somehow\\nindicates that the analysis of comparators should be relegated to the tertiary pretext stage. While\\nit’s true that the Court there considered at the pretext phase whether white employees had\\nengaged in conduct of “comparable seriousness” to the African-American plaintiff’s, that fact\\nalone says nothing about the propriety—or in light of subsequent Supreme Court precedent,\\nnecessity—of conducting a comparative analysis as part of the prima facie stage. Evidence\\nnecessary and proper to support a plaintiff’s prima facie case may of course be used, later as it\\nwere, to demonstrate that the defendant’s explanation for its conduct was pretextual. See, e.g.,\\nReeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 143 (2000) (observing that “although\\nthe presumption of discrimination ‘drops out of the picture’ once the defendant meets its burden\\nof production, . . . the trier of fact may still consider the evidence establishing the plaintiff’s\\nprima facie case and ‘inferences properly drawn therefrom . . . on the issue of whether the\\ndefendant’s explanation is pretextual’”) (quoting Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255 ).\\n\\n 16\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 17 of 100\\n\\n\\nquestion, but also that she was treated less favorably than “similarly situated”\\n\\nindividuals outside her class.\\n\\n B\\n\\n Having resolved that a comparator analysis must be conducted at the prima\\n\\nfacie stage of the McDonnell Douglas framework—and not relegated to the pretext\\n\\nphase—we must now decide exactly what sort of showing the phrase “similarly\\n\\nsituated” requires a plaintiff to make and, in so doing, begin to flesh out the\\n\\nstandard’s parameters.\\n\\n As we’ve already confessed, we’ve made something of a hash of the\\n\\n“similarly situated” issue, bouncing back and forth (and back and forth) between\\n\\ntwo standards―“nearly identical” and “same or similar.” Compare, e.g., Nix, 738\\n\\nF.2d at 1185 (“nearly identical”), with, e.g., Holifield, 115 F.3d at 1562 (“same or\\n\\nsimilar”), and, e.g., Maniccia v. Brown, 171 F.3d 1364, 1368 (11th Cir. 1999)\\n\\n(both). We took this case en banc principally to determine whether we should\\n\\ncontinue to apply one of those standards, or instead adopt some other test.\\n\\n 1\\n\\n As an initial matter, no one seems to be advocating the same-or-similar\\n\\nstandard—presumably because it is simultaneously too strict and too lenient, and\\n\\nthus incoherent. The terms “same” and “similar” denote different things. In\\n\\nordinary usage, “same” means precise, jot-for-jot correspondence—clearly too\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 18 of 100\\n\\n\\nexacting. See Webster’s Second New International Dictionary 2209 (1944).\\n\\n“Similar,” a much flabbier concept that includes among its definitions “somewhat\\n\\nlike,” id. at 2340, has its own problems—chief among them that it adds absolutely\\n\\nnothing to the general “similarly situated” standard.\\n\\n Lewis’s principal concern is that we reject the nearly-identical test, which\\n\\nshe finds too “rigid.” She urges us instead to adopt the Seventh Circuit’s “flexible,\\n\\ncommon-sense” standard pursuant to which the “similarly situated” requirement is\\n\\nsatisfied “[s]o long as the distinctions between the plaintiff and the proposed\\n\\ncomparators are not ‘so significant that they render the comparison effectively\\n\\nuseless.’” Appellant’s En Banc Br. at 34 (quoting Coleman v. Donahoe, 667 F.3d\\n\\n835, 846 (7th Cir. 2012)). The City, by contrast, wants us to keep the nearly-\\n\\nidentical standard, which, it says, reflects the dominant theme in our case law and\\n\\nmost accurately captures the Supreme Court’s understanding of the phrase\\n\\n“similarly situated.”\\n\\n We conclude that neither party’s proposal quite fits the bill. For reasons we\\n\\nwill explain, Lewis’s not-useless standard is too lax, and the City’s (and\\n\\noccasionally our own) nearly-identical test is too strict. We hold, instead—without\\n\\ntrying to force an artificial gloss—that a plaintiff must show that she and her\\n\\ncomparators are “similarly situated in all material respects.” That standard, we\\n\\nthink, best and most fairly implements federal statutory prohibitions on\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 19 of 100\\n\\n\\n“discrimination,” properly balances the need to protect employees from invidious\\n\\ndiscrimination with the deference owed to employers’ rational business judgments,\\n\\nand sensibly serves considerations of sound judicial administration by making\\n\\nsummary judgment available in appropriate (but by no means all) cases.\\n\\n 2\\n\\n In assessing the parties’ positions—and adopting our own—we take as our\\n\\nlodestars (1) the ordinary meaning of the term “discrimination” and (2) the twin\\n\\npolicies that the Supreme Court has said animate the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework’s prima facie case. First, “discrimination”: Discrimination, as we have\\n\\nexplained, is the act of “treating like cases differently.” E.g., Collier, 553 F.2d at\\n\\n428 (emphasis added). Quintessential discrimination—the Platonic form, if you\\n\\nwill—therefore requires true “like[ness],” perfect apples-to-apples identity. As\\n\\nLewis and her amici correctly explain, however, in the real world (and real\\n\\nworkplaces) “doppelgangers are like unicorns”—they don’t exist. So practically\\n\\nspeaking, at least, perfect identity is a non-starter. But in adopting a comparator\\n\\nstandard, we must not stray too far from paradigmatic notions of discrimination,\\n\\nlest we sanction a regime in which treating different things differently violates\\n\\nTitle VII, which clearly it does not. Second, and relatedly, we must be mindful of\\n\\nthe two functions that the Supreme Court has said the prima facie case is designed\\n\\nto serve—(1) to eliminate “the most common nondiscriminatory reasons” for an\\n\\n\\n 19\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 20 of 100\\n\\n\\nemployer’s conduct, and (2) to provide a sound basis for an “inference of unlawful\\n\\ndiscrimination.” Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253–54; see also Furnco, 438 U.S. at 577;\\n\\nYoung, 135 S. Ct. at 1354.\\n\\n It’s clear, we think, that Lewis’s proposed standard—which, again, deems\\n\\nthe similarly-situated standard satisfied “[s]o long as the distinctions between the\\n\\nplaintiff and the proposed comparators are not ‘so significant that they render the\\n\\ncomparison effectively useless’”—fails these tests. In its looseness, Lewis’s\\n\\nstandard departs too dramatically from the essential sameness that is necessary to a\\n\\npreliminary determination that the plaintiff’s employer has engaged in unlawful\\n\\n“discrimination.” A plaintiff and a comparator might be alike in some (even\\n\\nrandom) sense, such that a comparison wouldn’t necessarily be irrelevant or crazy.\\n\\nBut without closer correspondence, the comparison wouldn’t provide any sound\\n\\nbasis for eliminating legitimate reasons for an employer’s conduct or validly\\n\\ninferring discriminatory animus.\\n\\n Separately, Lewis’s not-useless standard risks giving courts too much\\n\\nleeway to upset employers’ valid business judgments. In applying McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas, the Supreme Court has stressed the importance of striking an appropriate\\n\\nbalance between employee protection and employer discretion. In McKennon v.\\n\\nNashville Banner Publishing Co., for instance, the Court observed that federal\\n\\nantidiscrimination statutes do “not constrain employers from exercising significant\\n\\n\\n 20\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 21 of 100\\n\\n\\nother prerogatives and discretions in the course of the hiring, promoting, and\\n\\ndischarging of their employees,” and emphasized that courts deciding cases arising\\n\\nunder those laws “must recognize” not only “the important claims of the\\n\\nemployee[s]” but also “the legitimate interests of the employer.” 513 U.S. 352,\\n\\n361 (1995). The reason for deference, the Court has explained, is that “[c]ourts are\\n\\ngenerally less competent than employers to restructure business practices, and\\n\\nunless mandated to do so by Congress they should not attempt it.” Furnco, 438\\n\\nU.S. at 578. By permitting cases to proceed on the most meager showing of\\n\\nsimilarity between a plaintiff and her comparators, Lewis’s not-useless standard\\n\\nwould thrust courts into staffing decisions that bear no meaningful indicia of\\n\\nunlawful discrimination.\\n\\n Finally, it seems to us inevitable that Lewis’s proposal would effectively\\n\\neliminate summary judgment as a tool for winnowing out meritless claims.\\n\\nIndeed, forestalling summary judgment appears to be a feature of the not-useless\\n\\nstandard, not a bug. Lewis repeatedly touts her standard as not only “flexible” but\\n\\nalso inherently “factual.” E.g., Appellant’s En Banc Br. at 16, 34; Appellant’s En\\n\\nBanc Reply Br. at 9. So long, she says, as there are “enough common features to\\n\\nallow meaningful comparison, the question of equivalence should be left to a jury\\n\\nto decide.” Appellant’s En Banc Br. at 16. Lewis’s amici likewise stress that\\n\\n“[a]ny comparison will necessarily entail fact-finding and weighing of evidence,\\n\\n\\n 21\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 22 of 100\\n\\n\\nwhich, of course, is the job of the jury”—and therefore contend that it is “only in\\n\\ncases of the most dissimilar proposed comparators, without any other indicia of\\n\\ndiscriminatory intent, that summary judgment may be supported.” Br. of Amici for\\n\\nAppellant at 16. That’s just too low a bar. Without prejudging, it seems to us\\n\\ninconceivable, for instance, that nearly every one of the hundreds of Title VII cases\\n\\nfiled in this Circuit last year warranted a full trial.\\n\\n While Lewis’s standard is clearly too lenient, the City’s is too strict—or at\\n\\nleast has the appearance of being too strict. Although we have employed it for\\n\\nsome time now―albeit inconsistently―the nearly-identical standard gives off the\\n\\nwrong “vibe.” Despite the adverb “nearly”―and our repeated reassurances that\\n\\n“comparators need not be the plaintiff’s doppelgangers,” Flowers v. Troup County,\\n\\nGeorgia, School District, 803 F.3d 1327, 1340 (11th Cir. 2015), and, even more\\n\\nexplicitly, that “‘[n]early identical’ . . . does not mean ‘exactly identical,’” McCann\\n\\nv. Tillman, 526 F.3d 1370, 1374 n.4 (11th Cir. 2008)―there is a risk that litigants,\\n\\ncommentators, and (worst of all) courts have come to believe that it requires\\n\\nsomething akin to doppelganger-like sameness. Although we must take care not to\\n\\nventure too far from the form—“apples should be compared to apples”—we must\\n\\nalso remember that “[e]xact correlation is neither likely nor necessary.”\\n\\nDartmouth Review v. Dartmouth Coll., 889 F.2d 13, 19 (1st Cir. 1989), overruled\\n\\non other grounds by Educadores Puertorriqueños en Acción v. Hernandez, 367\\n\\n\\n 22\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 23 of 100\\n\\n\\nF.3d 61 (1st Cir. 2004). And we are not willing to take the risk that the nearly-\\n\\nidentical test is causing courts reflexively to dismiss potentially valid\\n\\nantidiscrimination cases.10\\n\\n 3\\n\\n So, we are left to try to find the sweet spot between Lewis’s squishy not-\\n\\nuseless standard and the City’s preferred nearly-identical standard. For reasons\\n\\nexplained below, we hold that a plaintiff proceeding under McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nmust show that she and her comparators are “similarly situated in all material\\n\\nrespects.”11\\n\\n a\\n\\n As an initial matter, what does it mean for a plaintiff and her comparators to\\n\\nbe “similarly situated in all material respects”? Fair question. Of course, precisely\\n\\nwhat sort of similarity the in “all material respects” standard entails will have to be\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n10\\n Naturally, we must resist the dissent’s colorful characterization of our opinion as “drop[ping]\\nan anvil on the employer’s side of the balance,” and thereby “shrink[ing] the number of\\npotentially discriminated-against plaintiffs who will have an opportunity to see trial,” Dissenting\\nOp. at 33–35—particularly given that we are rejecting as too strict the “nearly identical”\\nstandard that has pervaded our case law for decades.\\n11\\n To be clear, the “similarly situated in all material respects” standard that we embrace today\\napplies to all discrimination claims pursued under McDonnell Douglas. We reject the panel’s\\nsuggestion that a different standard should apply in workplace-misconduct cases than in, say,\\nfailure-to-hire cases. See Lewis, 877 F.3d at 1017 n.11.\\n\\n 23\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 24 of 100\\n\\n\\nworked out on a case-by-case basis, in the context of individual circumstances.\\n\\nBut we are not without guideposts.12\\n\\n We know, for instance, that the plaintiff and her comparators need not be\\n\\n“similar in all but the protected ways.” Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1354. A plaintiff\\n\\nneedn’t prove, therefore, that she and her comparators are identical save for their\\n\\nrace or gender, as the case may be. Not even the nearly-identical standard requires\\n\\nthat level of exactitude. Nor is it necessary for a plaintiff to prove purely formal\\n\\nsimilarities—e.g., that she and her comparators had precisely the same title. See\\n\\nLathem v. Dep’t of Children & Youth Servs., 172 F.3d 786, 793 (11th Cir. 1999)\\n\\n(“The relevant inquiry is not whether the employees hold the same job titles, but\\n\\nwhether the employer subjected them to different employment policies.”) (citation\\n\\nomitted). Nor will minor differences in job function disqualify a would-be\\n\\ncomparator. See, e.g., Ercegovich v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 154 F.3d 344,\\n\\n353 (6th Cir. 1998) (concluding that minor “differences in . . . job activities” did\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n12\\n Happily—and helpfully—we aren’t really breaking new ground in adopting an “all material\\nrespects” standard. We ourselves have used comparable phrasing in the past, although we’ve\\noften cluttered it up with a nearly-identical or same-or-similar gloss. See, e.g., Smith v.\\nLockheed-Martin Corp., 644 F.3d 1321, 1326 n.17 (11th Cir. 2011); Holifield, 115 F.3d at 1562.\\nSeveral of our sister circuits have likewise adopted some version of this standard. See, e.g.,\\nYoung v. Builders Steel Co., 754 F.3d 573, 578 (8th Cir. 2014); Moran v. Selig, 447 F.3d 748,\\n755 (9th Cir. 2006); Ercegovich v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 154 F.3d 344, 352 (6th Cir.\\n1998); Shumway v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 118 F.3d 60, 64 (2d Cir. 1997) (citation omitted);\\nMitchell v. Toledo Hosp., 964 F.2d 577, 583 (6th Cir. 1992) .\\n\\n 24\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 25 of 100\\n\\n\\nnot “automatically” disqualify plaintiff’s proffered comparators, at least where\\n\\nthey held “related human resources positions”).\\n\\n Having said that, we can also envision the sorts of similarities that will, in\\n\\nthe main, underlie a valid comparison. Ordinarily, for instance, a similarly situated\\n\\ncomparator—\\n\\n\\n • will have engaged in the same basic conduct (or misconduct) as the plaintiff,\\n see, e.g., Mitchell v. Toledo Hosp., 964 F.2d 577, 580, 583 (6th Cir. 1992)\\n (holding that a plaintiff terminated for “misuse of [an employer’s] property”\\n could not rely on comparators allegedly guilty of “absenteeism” and\\n “insubordination”)13;\\n\\n • will have been subject to the same employment policy, guideline, or rule as\\n the plaintiff, see, e.g., Lathem, 172 F.3d at 793 (holding that a plaintiff’s\\n proffered comparators were valid where all were subject to the same\\n “workplace rules or policies”);\\n\\n • will ordinarily (although not invariably) have been under the jurisdiction of\\n the same supervisor as the plaintiff, see, e.g., Jones v. Gerwens, 874 F.2d\\n 1534, 1541 (11th Cir. 1989) (observing that “disciplinary measures\\n undertaken by different supervisors may not be comparable for purposes of\\n Title VII analysis”); and\\n\\n • will share the plaintiff’s employment or disciplinary history, see, e.g.,\\n Tennial v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 840 F.3d 292, 304 (6th Cir. 2016)\\n (explaining that “[d]ifferences in experience and disciplinary history” can\\n disqualify a plaintiff’s proffered comparators).\\n\\n\\n13\\n This principle has its limits, of course. As the City acknowledged in response to questioning\\nat oral argument, for instance, an African-American female who gets fired because she routinely\\narrives to work an hour late could surely point, as a valid comparator, to a white male who\\nroutinely shoves off an hour early—at least absent some good reason (say, a regularly scheduled\\na.m. staff meeting) for concluding that morning absences are more detrimental to workplace\\nefficiency or morale than those in the afternoon. See Oral Arg. Tr. at 46:12 et seq.\\n\\n 25\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 26 of 100\\n\\n\\nIn short, as its label indicates―“all material respects”―a valid comparison will\\n\\nturn not on formal labels, but rather on substantive likenesses. To borrow phrasing\\n\\nfrom a recent Supreme Court decision, a plaintiff and her comparators must be\\n\\nsufficiently similar, in an objective sense, that they “cannot reasonably be\\n\\ndistinguished.” Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1355. 14\\n\\n b\\n\\n Now, why “similarly situated in all material respects”? Most importantly,\\n\\nwe think that it (unlike the parties’ dueling proposals) hews closely, but also\\n\\nrealistically, to the ordinary meaning of “discrimination” and, when met, satisfies\\n\\n\\n14\\n The dissent argues at length that Young somehow supports—indeed compels—a different\\nresult here. See Dissenting Op. at 66–76. With respect, we think the dissent over- and misreads\\nthe Supreme Court’s decision there. We’ll highlight just two key distinctions. First, the plain\\ntext of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, at issue in Young, requires employers to treat “women\\naffected by pregnancy . . . the same for all employment-related purposes . . . as other persons not\\nso affected but similar in their ability or inability to work.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(k) (emphasis\\nadded). As the italicized language makes clear, the comparator analysis under the PDA focuses\\non a single criterion—one’s ability to do the job. Although similar, it’s not exactly the same as\\nthe more holistic, comprehensive “all material respects” standard that we all agree applies in this\\ncase. Second, and in any event, the fundamental question in Young, as here, was whether the\\nemployer’s actions gave rise to valid inference of unlawful discrimination. See Young, 135 S.\\nCt. at 1354. The plaintiff in Young, who had sought a waiver of a lifting requirement during her\\npregnancy, met her prima facie burden by pointing to seven separate classes of non-pregnant\\nemployees whom her employer had accommodated—three of those classes enjoyed group-wide\\naccommodations pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement, and four other classes of\\n“[s]everal employees” had been accommodated on an ad hoc, but seemingly regular, basis. See\\nid. at 1346–47. The sheer numbers were overwhelming. The plaintiff’s allegations in Young\\nshowed that the employer had “accommodate[d] most nonpregnant employees with lifting\\nlimitations while categorically failing to accommodate pregnant employees with lifting\\nlimitations.” Id. at 1354. As the Court put the matter, rhetorically, “why, when the employer\\naccommodated so many, could it not accommodate pregnant women as well?” Id. at 1355. As\\nexplained below, Lewis’s prima facie evidence—which consists entirely of comparisons to two\\nother officers, neither of whose situations had even arisen at the time Lewis was fired—pales in\\ncomparison to the evidence in Young.\\n 26\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 27 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe twin aims of the prima facie case—“eliminat[ing] the most common\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reasons” for an employer’s action and thereby “giv[ing] rise to\\n\\nan inference of unlawful discrimination,” Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253–54. An all-\\n\\nmaterial-respects standard also leaves employers the necessary breathing space to\\n\\nmake appropriate business judgments. See McKennon, 513 U.S. at 361; Furnco,\\n\\n438 U.S. at 578. An employer is well within its rights to accord different treatment\\n\\nto employees who are differently situated in “material respects”—e.g., who\\n\\nengaged in different conduct, who were subject to different policies, or who have\\n\\ndifferent work histories. Finally, the all-material-respects standard serves the\\n\\ninterest of sound judicial administration by allowing for summary judgment in\\n\\nappropriate cases―namely, where the comparators are simply too dissimilar to\\n\\npermit a valid inference that invidious discrimination is afoot.15\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n We conclude, therefore, that it is not enough for a plaintiff proceeding under\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas to show only that a comparison with identifiable employees\\n\\noutside her class wouldn’t be “useless.” We also hold, though, that a plaintiff\\n\\n15\\n One final point: We recognize, of course, that the Supreme Court has said that a plaintiff’s\\nprima facie burden is “not onerous,” Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253, and we are not concerned that our\\nstandard violates that directive. To be clear, the “not onerous” descriptor doesn’t pertain to the\\nsubstantive standard that governs the prima facie analysis―whether Lewis’s not-useless\\nstandard, the City’s nearly-identical standard, or our all-material-respects standard. Rather, it is\\nsimply an acknowledgement that, by its nature, a prima facie case is preliminary, and thus is “not\\nas burdensome as succeeding on ‘an ultimate finding of fact as to’ a discriminatory employment\\naction.” Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1354 (quoting Furnco, 438 U.S. at 576).\\n\\n 27\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 28 of 100\\n\\n\\nneedn’t show that she and her comparators were “nearly identical.” Instead, she\\n\\nmust demonstrate—as part of her prima facie case—that she and her comparators\\n\\nare “similarly situated in all material respects.”16\\n\\n III\\n\\n Having settled on—and begun to flesh out—a standard to govern the\\n\\n“similarly situated” issue, we must now apply it to Lewis’s case. We conclude that\\n\\nLewis has not made out a prima facie case because she and her proffered\\n\\ncomparators—Sergeant McClure and Officer Heard—were not “similarly situated\\n\\nin all material respects.” To be clear, in so concluding, we consider only Lewis’s\\n\\nown presentation and facts not reasonably subject to dispute.17\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n16\\n One final word about the “similarly situated in all material respects” standard. It’s clear that\\nthe dissent doesn’t much like our elaboration of that standard—calling it too “rigorous” some 25\\ntimes. See Dissenting Op. at 34, 35, 38, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 53, 56, 57, 62, 64, 74, 97, 98.\\nWhat remains unclear, though, is how the dissent would operationalize the same standard. Its\\nopinion offers no real guidance, saying only that it would do so in a more “generalized” fashion.\\nSee id. at 34, 37, 41, 42, 43, 45, 48, 50, 51, 61, 68, 74, 89. The dissent doesn’t seem to\\nembrace—at least explicitly—Lewis’s freewheeling not-useless test, which, as we have\\nexplained, would effectively foreclose summary judgment in discrimination cases. It’s hard to\\nknow, though, how the dissent would flesh out the all-material-respects standard, or when (if\\never) summary judgment would be appropriate under its rendition of that standard.\\n17\\n The dissent is thus quite mistaken in its persistent suggestions that we are indulging the City’s\\n“stated reasons” and thereby “collapsing the first two stages of the McDonnell Douglas inquiry.”\\nDissenting Op. at 53. And, indeed, the dissent acknowledges that the key bases for\\ndistinguishing McClure and Heard are means of “show[ing] that Lewis was not similarly\\nsituated to her proposed comparators”; it simply says that they are not “only” that but “also”\\nreflect the City’s “stated reasons for why it took the action of putting Lewis on administrative\\nleave.” Dissenting Op. at 51. That strikes us as totally unremarkable. The point—on which all\\nseem to agree—is that there are material differences between Lewis’s situation, on the one hand,\\nfrom McClure’s and Heard’s, on the other.\\n 28\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 29 of 100\\n\\n\\n Lewis contends that she and her comparators were “similarly situated”—\\n\\neven, she says, under a strict nearly-identical test—because they “were all placed\\n\\non administrative leave by the City when they could not meet a physical\\n\\nqualification of the job of police officer.” Appellant’s En Banc Br. at 13. But\\n\\nLewis’s broad-brush summary glosses over critical differences. Lewis and her\\n\\ncomparators were placed on leave years apart and pursuant to altogether different\\n\\npersonnel policies and, perhaps even more importantly, for altogether different\\n\\nconditions.\\n\\n McClure and Heard were placed on leave pursuant to the Police\\n\\nDepartment’s Physical Fitness/Medical Examinations policy—which, as the\\n\\ndissent acknowledges, “had not yet been issued when Lewis was fired” and,\\n\\nindeed, wouldn’t be promulgated for another two years. Dissenting Op. at 91.\\n\\nThat policy states that an officer who is “not deemed fit for duty will be placed on\\n\\nunpaid administrative leave for a period of ninety (90) days”—the purpose being to\\n\\nallow the officer time to improve his or her health and fitness through training,\\n\\ndiet, and exercise. Lewis, on the other hand, was placed on leave pursuant to the\\n\\nUnion City Personnel Policy, which provides in relevant part that “[a]ny\\n\\nunapproved leave of absence [is] cause for dismissal.” As already explained, after\\n\\nLewis’s doctor determined that a Taser—which Lewis would be required to\\n\\ncarry—couldn’t be used “on” or even “near” her, Lewis was instructed to apply for\\n\\n\\n 29\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 30 of 100\\n\\n\\nFMLA leave and told that she could use any other accumulated leave “until . . .\\n\\nexpired.” When Lewis failed to apply for FMLA leave and exhausted her other\\n\\nleave, she was terminated on the ground that, under the Personnel Policy, she was\\n\\nabsent without permission.18\\n\\n The fact that the City applied different personnel policies to Lewis and her\\n\\ncomparators is unsurprising, because they were contending with very different\\n\\nunderlying conditions. McClure and Heard flunked physical-fitness requirements\\n\\nrelated, respectively, to “balance” and “agility.” Both were placed on leave for 90\\n\\ndays to remedy the problems that caused their failures. McClure was cleared by\\n\\nhis doctor to re-take the balance test, took and passed it, and returned to work;\\n\\nHeard was unable to demonstrate his fitness and (following an extended\\n\\nnegotiation with the City) was eventually terminated. For present purposes, the\\n\\nimportant point is that the deficient physical-fitness benchmarks that sidelined\\n\\nMcClure and Heard were at least theoretically (and in McClure’s case, actually)\\n\\n\\n18\\n Presumably in an effort to shrink the distinctions between Lewis and her comparators, the\\ndissent strains to link the physical-fitness and personnel policies. The dissent’s theory seems to\\ngo something like this: (1) True, as a formal matter, Lewis and her comparators were subject to\\ndifferent policies; and (2) true, the physical-fitness policy pursuant to which Heard and McClure\\nwere placed on leave didn’t even exist at the time Lewis was fired; but (3) because the record\\ndoesn’t reveal any other source of “power” by which the City could promulgate an involuntary-\\nleave policy, the physical-fitness policy must be understood as deriving from “Chapter 6, § 1.A.,\\nin the Union City Personnel Policy Handbook”; and (4) Chapter 6 was also the source of\\nauthority for the City’s decision to place Lewis on leave; therefore, (5) the polices are (our\\nparaphrase) basically the same. See Dissenting Op. 84–92. Even beyond our general doubt that\\nthe post-Lewis physical-fitness policy must necessarily emanate from the employee handbook,\\nwe simply can’t indulge the dissent’s attenuated chain of connectedness.\\n\\n 30\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 31 of 100\\n\\n\\nremediable. Lewis, by contrast, failed a training requirement—pertaining\\n\\nspecifically to the carriage and use of a deadly weapon—on the ground that she\\n\\nsuffered from what her doctor described as a “chronic” heart condition, see Doc.\\n\\n58-3 at 6, and what she herself has called a “permanent” heart injury, see Doc. 72\\n\\nat 8. And unlike McClure, for instance, Lewis was never cleared by her doctor to\\n\\nparticipate in the required training. 19\\n\\n For these reasons—because they were subject to different personnel policies\\n\\nand placed on leave for different underlying conditions—we conclude that\\n\\nMcClure and Heard were not similar to Lewis “in all material respects,” and thus\\n\\nwere not valid comparators for purposes of Lewis’s prima facie case.\\n\\n IV\\n\\n In sum, we hold that when a plaintiff relies on the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nburden-shifting framework to prove an intentional-discrimination claim using\\n\\n\\n\\n19\\n The dissent tellingly does not deny that unlike McClure and Heard, who were diagnosed with\\nwhat appeared to be temporary conditions, Lewis’s ailment was “chronic” and “permanent.”\\nInstead, the dissent strains to suggest that because the City twice told Lewis that she was being\\nplaced on leave “until” her doctor released her for active duty, it must have anticipated an\\neventual clearance and return. Dissenting Op. at 78–79. The dissent is asking the word “until”\\ncarry more weight than it can bear. The City’s “until” communications were agnostic as to the\\nlikelihood of Lewis’s return; they manifested no expectation one way or the other. Their point\\nwas simply to inform Lewis that without a doctor’s note—hard proof—she could not return to\\nservice. And of course, as we know—and as the dissent does not deny—Lewis’s doctor never\\ncleared her for Taser training. (Nor was there any likelihood that she would do so, given that in\\nher last communication with the City—even after Lewis’s termination—she continued to\\n“recommend that [Lewis] not be Tasered secondary to [her] medical condition,” Doc. 69-1 at 50,\\nbecause she still “did not know how the ‘Taser’ would affect Lewis,” id. at 54.)\\n\\n 31\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 32 of 100\\n\\n\\ncircumstantial evidence, she must demonstrate—as part of her prima facie case—\\n\\nthat she was treated differently from other individuals with whom she was\\n\\nsimilarly situated in all material respects. We further hold that Lewis has failed to\\n\\ndo so.\\n\\n The case is REMANDED to the panel for proceedings consistent with this\\n\\nopinion.20\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n20\\n Neither Lewis’s ADA claims, see supra at 6 n.2, nor her “convincing mosaic” theory of Title\\nVII liability, see supra at 9 n.6, are before the en banc court. Those issues, and any other\\npending matters, are remanded to the panel for resolution in the first instance.\\n 32\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 33 of 100\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, joined by MARTIN and JILL PRYOR, Circuit\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4380109/\", \"author_raw\": \"ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, filed an opinion concurring\"}, {\"author\": \"Judges, concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"Judges, concurring in part and dissenting in part:\\n\\n The Supreme Court created the McDonnell Douglas 1 framework as a delicate\\n\\nbalance between an employee’s right to work free from discrimination and an\\n\\nemployer’s right to take action against an employee for any nondiscriminatory\\n\\nreason. Today, the Majority Opinion drops an anvil on the employer’s side of the\\n\\nbalance. Though the Majority Opinion correctly defines “similarly situated” within\\n\\nthe McDonnell Douglas framework as “similarly situated in all material respects,”\\n\\nMaj. Op. at 5, it one-sidedly implements and interprets this standard to the\\n\\nemployer’s redounding benefit. As a result, plaintiffs proceeding by circumstantial\\n\\nevidence in this Circuit will have a difficult time budging the now-off-kilter balance\\n\\nand surviving summary judgment.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 1\\n McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 801–04 (1973).\\n 33\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 34 of 100\\n\\n\\n First, faced with how and where to implement the “similarly situated”\\n\\nstandard, the Majority Opinion rigorously2 applies the standard entirely3 at the prima\\n\\nfacie stage of the McDonnell Douglas analysis. Yet that construction of the prima\\n\\nfacie case rebukes its parent: McDonnell Douglas and its progeny explicitly and\\n\\nimplicitly require a generalized application of the “similarly situated” standard at the\\n\\ninitial, prima facie juncture and a more particularized one at the pretext phase of the\\n\\nframework—after the employer has satisfied its burden of coming forward with its\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reason for adverse action. In ratcheting up the prima facie stage’s\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\\n I regret that the Majority Opinion seems to take offense at my use of this word. See Maj.\\nOp. at 28 n.16. It prefers to use the word “meaningful” to describe its application of the “similarly\\nsituated” standard. See id. at 4, 16. But this preference sows confusion in the discussion since the\\nMajority Opinion construes what a “meaningful” application of the comparator standard is far\\nmore strictly than others who have used that same word to describe the proper application of the\\n“similarly situated” standard. For example, the Majority Opinion criticizes the Seventh Circuit’s\\narticulation of the “similarly situated” standard as “too lax.” See Maj. Op. at 18 (quoting Lewis’s\\nEn Banc Br. at 34 (quoting Coleman v. Donahoe, 667 F.3d 835, 846 (7th Cir. 2012)). But as it\\nturns out, the Seventh Circuit has used the very same word—“meaningful”—as the Majority\\nOpinion to describe its understanding of the degree of similarity the “similarly situated” standard\\nrequires. See Coleman, 667 F.3d at 841 (quoting Humphries v. CBOCS W., Inc., 474 F.3d 387,\\n405 (7th Cir. 2007)) (“[T]he similarly-situated inquiry is flexible, common-sense, and factual. It\\nasks ‘essentially, are there enough common features between the individuals to allow a\\nmeaningful comparison?’”) (emphasis added). So to avoid confusion and to be precise about the\\nlevel of likeness the Majority Opinion’s application of the “similarly situated” standard actually\\nrequires—and not with any intent to offend the Majority Opinion—I refer to the Majority\\nOpinion’s application of the “similarly situated” standard as “rigorous.”\\n 3\\n See, e.g., Maj. Op. at 10 (characterizing where in the McDonnell Douglas framework the\\n“similarly situated” analysis should occur as an either-or proposition: “[S]hould the ‘similarly\\nsituated’—i.e., comparator—analysis be conducted at the prima facie stage of the McDonnell\\nDouglas framework, . . . or should it instead be reserved for the pretext stage?”) (emphasis added).\\nThe Majority Opinion’s analysis itself also neither identifies nor leaves any aspect of the “similarly\\nsituated” analysis to be conducted at the pretext stage. Nor does the Majority Opinion ever\\ndisclaim that it conducts the entire comparator inquiry at the prima facie stage.\\n 34\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 35 of 100\\n\\n\\n“similarly situated” standard, the Majority Opinion defies the purpose of Title VII\\n\\nand the McDonnell Douglas framework.\\n\\n How the “similarly situated” inquiry is implemented matters: if it is turned up\\n\\ntoo high at the prima facie stage, it sweeps in the employer’s nondiscriminatory\\n\\nreasons. And considering the employer’s nondiscriminatory reasons at the prima\\n\\nfacie stage flouts Supreme Court precedent. It also affects whether the employee\\n\\never has a chance to demonstrate that the employer’s reasons were pretextual or\\n\\nwhether the court must instead blindly accept the employer’s untested assertions as\\n\\na non-discriminatory basis for the employer’s decision. So by locating a rigorous\\n\\n“similarly situated” requirement at the prima facie stage of the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework, the Majority Opinion shrinks the number of potentially discriminated-\\n\\nagainst plaintiffs who will have an opportunity to see trial—or even to challenge\\n\\ntheir employers’ proffered reasons for taking action against them.\\n\\n And the errors do not end there. In applying the “similarly situated” standard\\n\\nto Lewis’s facts, the Majority Opinion overly broadly construes the term “material”\\n\\nin that standard. As a result, it requires comparators to be similarly situated in\\n\\nimmaterial ways. The Majority Opinion also omits key facts showing that Lewis\\n\\nand her two chosen comparators were “similarly situated” in all material ways, while\\n\\nviolating an elementary principle of summary-judgment review by assuming facts\\n\\nin favor of the Department that are not supported by the record.\\n\\n\\n 35\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 36 of 100\\n\\n\\n We will almost always be able to find a difference between a plaintiff and her\\n\\nproposed comparators if we strain our eyes looking hard enough. But as the Majority\\n\\nOpinion stresses, the “similarly situated” test is meant to ensure only that “apples\\n\\n[are] compared to apples.” Maj. Op. at 22. By focusing on trivial differences,\\n\\nthough, the Majority Opinion uses the word “material” to bar meaningful\\n\\ncomparisons between Honeycrisp and SnapDragon apples. 4 So the Majority\\n\\nOpinion finds that Lewis’s claim fails because her doctor’s note recommending\\n\\nagainst Tasing and pepper-spraying her rendered her too dissimilar from her\\n\\ncomparators who had balance and agility issues—even though the upshot of all three\\n\\nofficers’ conditions was that the City deemed them all physically unfit to patrol the\\n\\nstreets of Union City and, in turn, relied on that fact to put them all on administrative\\n\\nleave. Meanwhile, Lewis, an African-American woman, received only 21 days of\\n\\nadministrative leave before being fired, but one white male comparator enjoyed 449\\n\\ndays before his dismissal and the other got up to 90 days to demonstrate he had\\n\\nbecome physically fit enough to resume his duties.\\n\\n In applying the “similarly situated” standard to Lewis’s facts to eliminate\\n\\ncomparators who actually were similarly situated to her in all material respects, the\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n Honeycrisp and Snapdragon apples are two of the roughly 7,500 varieties of apples in the\\nworld. https://extension.illinois.edu/apples/facts.cfm (last visited Mar. 19, 2019). Created by\\nCornell University and the New York Apple Growers, the SnapDragon apple boasts the\\nHoneycrisp apple as a parent. http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/08/snapdragon-and-rubyfrost-\\nare-new-apple-varieties (last visited Mar. 19, 2019).\\n 36\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 37 of 100\\n\\n\\nMajority Opinion contradicts 46 years of Supreme Court precedent, elevates the\\n\\n“similarly situated” requirement to one of form over substance, and incorrectly\\n\\nconcludes that the district court did not err in entering summary judgment against\\n\\nLewis.\\n\\n I respectfully dissent from these errors.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n I begin with the Majority Opinion’s error in how and where it has\\n\\nimplemented the “similarly situated” standard within the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework.\\n\\n In Section A, I explain that the Supreme Court established the McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas burden-shifting framework to allow plaintiffs who lack direct evidence of\\n\\ndiscrimination to nonetheless obtain fair scrutiny of their claims that they have been\\n\\ndiscriminated against in the workplace—that is, as a delicate balance between\\n\\nemployers’ rights to make legitimate personnel decisions and employees’ rights to\\n\\nbe free from “those discriminatory practices . . . which have fostered racially\\n\\nstratified job environments . . . .” McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S.\\n\\n792, 800 (1973). Section B demonstrates that the Supreme Court’s remarks about\\n\\nhow the McDonnell Douglas analysis works demand the conclusion that the\\n\\ncomparator requirement is minimal and generalized at the plaintiff’s initial burden—\\n\\nthe prima facie stage—and progresses to more specificity only at the last stage—the\\n\\n\\n 37\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 38 of 100\\n\\n\\npretext inquiry—of the framework. Next, Section C shows that the Supreme Court’s\\n\\nactual analyses in McDonnell Douglas itself and in its progeny followed this funnel-\\n\\nlike application of the “similarly situated” requirement in the specificity they\\n\\nrequired of comparator evidence. In Section D, I explain how the Majority\\n\\nOpinion’s decision to move the entire “similarly situated” inquiry into the prima\\n\\nfacie case inflicts a significant blow on a plaintiff’s ability to establish discrimination\\n\\nin circumstantial cases and upsets the delicate balance struck by the McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas framework. And finally, Section E explores how the Majority Opinion errs\\n\\nand concludes that conducting the complete and rigorous comparator analysis at the\\n\\nprima-facie-case stage is fatally flawed.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n “[I]t is abundantly clear that Title VII tolerates no racial discrimination, subtle\\n\\nor otherwise.” McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 801. Title VII’s prohibitions against\\n\\ndiscrimination undoubtedly “reflect an important national policy,” U.S. Postal Serv.\\n\\nBd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 716 (1983), because of “society’s\\n\\nconsensus that discrimination . . . is a profound wrong of tragic dimension,”\\n\\nPatterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 188 (1989). To effectuate Title\\n\\nVII’s broad, nationally important remedial purposes, the Supreme Court has\\n\\ncautioned against issuing opinions that “signal[] one inch of retreat from Congress’\\n\\npolicy to forbid discrimination in the private, as well as the public, sphere.” Id.\\n\\n\\n 38\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 39 of 100\\n\\n\\n Yet despite this unyielding mandate, plaintiffs often face a paradox: “Unless\\n\\nthe employer is a latter-day George Washington, employment discrimination is as\\n\\ndifficult to prove as who chopped down the cherry tree,” Thornbrough v. Columbus\\n\\n& Greenville R. Co., 760 F.2d 633, 638 (5th Cir. 1985), because employers of “even\\n\\nminimal sophistication will neither admit discriminatory animus nor leave a paper\\n\\ntrail demonstrating it . . . .” Riordan v. Kempiners, 831 F.2d 690, 697 (7th Cir.\\n\\n1987); see also Grigsby v. Reynolds Metals Co., 821 F.2d 590, 595 (11th Cir. 1987)\\n\\n(“[P]laintiffs . . . rarely are fortunate enough to have access to direct evidence of\\n\\nintentional discrimination.”). To chip away at that paradox, “[c]ourts today must be\\n\\nincreasingly vigilant” because “[t]he sophisticated would-be violator has made our\\n\\njob a little more difficult.” Aman v. Cort Furniture Rental Corp., 85 F.3d 1074,\\n\\n1082 (3d Cir. 1996).\\n\\n That’s where McDonnell Douglas comes in. The “entire purpose” of\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas “is to compensate for the fact that direct evidence of intentional\\n\\ndiscrimination is hard to come by.” Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228,\\n\\n271 (1989) (O’Connor, J., concurring), superseded in part by The Civil Rights Act\\n\\nof 1991, Tit. I, § 107(a), 105 Stat. 1075 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–2(m)); see\\n\\nalso Grigsby, 821 F.2d at 595 (“The McDonnell Douglas-Burdine patterns of proof\\n\\nwere designed to ease the evidentiary burdens on employment discrimination\\n\\nplaintiffs . . . .”). So the McDonnell Douglas framework is “designed to assure that\\n\\n\\n 39\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 40 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe ‘plaintiff [has] his day in court despite the unavailability of direct evidence.’”\\n\\nTrans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U.S. 111, 121 (1985) (alteration in\\n\\noriginal) (quoting Loeb v. Textron, Inc., 600 F.2d 1003, 1014 (1st Cir. 1979)).\\n\\n B.\\n\\n To accomplish this aim, McDonnell Douglas established a delicately balanced\\n\\nthree-step framework, allocating the burden of production and the order for the\\n\\npresentation of proof in a funnel-like way that narrows from the first step of the\\n\\nframework to the third. See St. Mary’s Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 506\\n\\n(1993). The Supreme Court has described the McDonnell Douglas framework as\\n\\n“progressively . . . sharpen[ing] the inquiry into the elusive factual question of\\n\\nintentional discrimination.” Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255 n.8.\\n\\n At the first step of the McDonnell Douglas framework, the plaintiff must set\\n\\nforth a prima facie case of discrimination. Tex. Dep’t of Cmty. Affairs v. Burdine,\\n\\n450 U.S. 248, 252-53 (1981). We have construed that requirement to mean that a\\n\\nplaintiff must show that (1) she belongs to a protected group, (2) she was subjected\\n\\nto an adverse employment action, (3) she was qualified to perform the job in\\n\\nquestion, and (4) her employer more favorably treated “similarly situated”\\n\\nemployees outside her protected group. See, e.g., Holifield v. Reno, 115 F.3d 1555,\\n\\n1561–62 (11th Cir. 1997) (citation omitted). The Supreme Court has noted that at\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 40\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 41 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe first phase of the framework, “[t]he burden . . . is not onerous,”5 Burdine, 450\\n\\nU.S. at 253, and, in fact, is “minimal,” St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 506.\\n\\n Following the Court’s lead, we in the past have ourselves described the\\n\\nplaintiff’s prima facie burden as “light,” Turlington v. Atlanta Gas Light Co., 135\\n\\nF.3d 1428, 1432 (11th Cir. 1998), and as “a low bar to hurdle,” Flowers v. Troup\\n\\nCty., Sch. Dist., 803 F.3d 1327, 1336 (11th Cir. 2015). Other Circuits have also\\n\\nobserved that the prima facie case requires only a “small showing” that can be\\n\\n“easily made,” Caraballo-Caraballo v. Corr. Admin., 892 F.3d 53, 57 (1st Cir.\\n\\n2018), because it was “not meant to stymie plaintiffs,” Cline v. Catholic Diocese of\\n\\nToledo, 206 F.3d 651, 660 (6th Cir. 2000). As the Supreme Court has explained, the\\n\\nprima facie phase anticipates that the plaintiff need make only a “generalized”\\n\\nshowing of the elements of its case. St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 516.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 5\\n The Majority Opinion attempts to dismiss the Supreme Court’s bedrock principle that\\nMcDonnell Douglas’s prima facie burden is “not onerous” by simultaneously calling it a mere\\n“descriptor [that] doesn’t pertain to the substantive standard that governs the prima facie analysis”\\nand “simply an acknowledgement that, by its nature, a prima facie case is preliminary, and thus is\\nnot as burdensome as succeeding on an ultimate finding of fact as to a discriminatory employment\\naction.” Maj. Op. at 27 n.15 (citing Young v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 135 S. Ct. 1338, 1354\\n(2015) (quoting Furnco Const. Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 576 (1978)). This is a lot like the\\nBlack Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail dismissing his dismembering as “just a flesh\\nwound.” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/quotes?ref_=tt_ql_trv_4 (last visited Mar. 19,\\n2019). Both grievously understate the significance of what they minimize. On top of that, most\\nrespectfully, the Majority Opinion’s effort to split hairs is nonsensical, and neither McDonnell\\nDouglas nor any of its progeny—Young and Furnco included—in fact, supports the notion that\\nMcDonnell Douglas’s “not onerous” burden does not apply to the substantive standards that\\ngovern the prima facie case. See infra at Sections I.E, II.A (pp. 66-77).\\n 41\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 42 of 100\\n\\n\\n This “minimal” burden to make a “generalized” showing at the prima facie\\n\\nstage ensures the prima facie case acts as a hill and not a mountain in these\\n\\nnotoriously difficult-to-prove cases. An employee often finds herself at a significant\\n\\ndisadvantage to an employer when it comes to knowing the reasons for the\\n\\nemployer’s employment decision and to having access to information concerning\\n\\nboth that decision and potential comparators. So we have recognized “that the prima\\n\\nfacie case is designed to include only evidence that is objectively verifiable and\\n\\neither easily obtainable or within the plaintiff’s possession.” Vessels v. Atlanta\\n\\nIndep. Sch. Sys., 408 F.3d 763, 769 (11th Cir. 2005) (citing Walker v. Mortham, 158\\n\\nF.3d 1177, 1192–93 (11th Cir. 1998)); see also Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 271\\n\\n(O’Connor, J., concurring).6\\n\\n This, of course, makes even more sense in light of the prima facie case’s\\n\\ndesign to eliminate only “the most common nondiscriminatory reasons” for the\\n\\nemployment action. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253–54; see also Maj. Op. at 13 (citations\\n\\nomitted).\\n\\n Once a plaintiff clears that “low bar” by establishing a prima facie case, the\\n\\nemployer—who is in the best position to know why it took action—must come\\n\\nforward with a nondiscriminatory reason for its employment action. See Burdine,\\n\\n\\n 6\\n As I have noted, Justice O’Connor has remarked that “the entire purpose of the McDonnell\\nDouglas prima facie case is to compensate for the fact that direct evidence of intentional\\ndiscrimination is hard to come by.”\\n 42\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 43 of 100\\n\\n\\n450 U.S. at 255. Only after the defendant offers its nondiscriminatory reason at the\\n\\nsecond stage of the McDonnell Douglas framework does “the factual inquiry\\n\\n[‘sharpen’ and] proceed[] to a new level of specificity” at the third McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas juncture—the pretext phase. Id. at 255 & n.8.\\n\\n Significantly, the Supreme Court has explained that at this third stage, “the\\n\\ninquiry now turns from the few generalized factors that establish a prima facie case\\n\\nto the specific proofs and rebuttals of discriminatory motivation the parties have\\n\\nintroduced.” St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 516. Only here does the “plaintiff’s burden of\\n\\nshowing pretext ‘merge[]’ with the ultimate burden of demonstrating unlawful\\n\\ndiscrimination.” Clark v. Huntsville City Bd. of Educ., 717 F.2d 525, 529 (11th Cir.\\n\\n1983) (quoting Burdine, 450 U.S. at 256).\\n\\n Seizing on Supreme Court jurisprudence, several of our sister Circuits have\\n\\nexpressly observed that the funnel-like nature of the McDonnell Douglas framework\\n\\ndemands a funnel-like inquiry into comparators, narrowing from the “minimal,”\\n\\n“generalized,” and “not onerous” burden at the prima facie stage to a burden of more\\n\\nheightened specificity at the pretext stage. For example, the Sixth Circuit has\\n\\nexplained that “a general weighing of the qualifications of [the plaintiff] and [her\\n\\ncomparator] is necessary at the prima facie stage; however, this light review must\\n\\nbe distinguished from the more rigorous comparison conducted at the later stages of\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 43\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 44 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe McDonnell Douglas analysis.” Provenzano v. LCI Holdings, Inc., 663 F.3d 806,\\n\\n813–14 (6th Cir. 2011).\\n\\n Other Circuits have also arrived at this same conclusion. For instance, the\\n\\nEighth Circuit has opined that “the low-threshold standard [for determining at the\\n\\nprima facie stage whether employees are similarly situated] more accurately reflects\\n\\nSupreme Court precedent.” Wimbley v. Cashion, 588 F.3d 959, 962 (8th Cir. 2009)\\n\\n(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Similarly, the Tenth Circuit has\\n\\nremarked that “while evidence that a defendant treated a plaintiff differently than\\n\\nsimilarly-situated employees is certainly sufficient to establish a prima facie case, it\\n\\nis ‘[e]specially relevant’ to show pretext if the defendant proffers a legitimate,\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment action.” EEOC v.\\n\\nHorizon/CMS Healthcare Corp., 220 F.3d 1184, 1195 n.6 (10th Cir. 2000).7\\n\\n In fact, before today, we ourselves had caselaw that implicitly recognized that\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas required the “similarly situated” standard to be applied more\\n\\ngenerally at the prima facie stage before applying that standard more rigorously at\\n\\n\\n\\n 7\\n See also Lee v. Kansas City S. Ry. Co., 574 F.3d 253, 262 (5th Cir. 2009) (“We should\\nnot be understood to say that the distinctions noted by KCS are not relevant; indeed they might\\nvery well prove to be relevant [at the pretext stage] in the event that KCS proffers a legitimate\\nnondiscriminatory explanation . . . . But our sole task today is to determine whether Lee satisfied\\nhis burden of establishing a prima facie case . . . .”); Coleman, 667 F.3d at 859 n.7 (describing\\nCircuits that “channel comparator evidence into the pretext phase of the sequence” as “hewing\\nmore closely to McDonnell Douglas); Simpson v. Kay Jewelers, Div. of Sterling, Inc., 142 F.3d\\n639, 646 (3d Cir. 1998).\\n\\n 44\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 45 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe pretext juncture. For example, in Walker v. Mortham, 158 F.3d 1177, 1192\\n\\n(11th Cir. 1998), a failure-to-promote case, we warned that courts are “prohibit[ed]\\n\\nfrom requiring a plaintiff to prove” at the prima facie stage that she had the same\\n\\nqualifications as the applicant that the employer promoted. As Judge Tjoflat\\n\\ncogently explained, forcing the plaintiff to make such a rigorous showing at the\\n\\nprima facie stage “runs contrary to the policies underlying the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nprima facie case.” Id. Based on the language and purpose of McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nand its progeny, as I have explained, we were right to reach this conclusion.\\n\\n This dichotomous approach to the rigor applied to proposed comparators\\n\\naccords with the difference in what the prima facie and pretext stages are meant to\\n\\ndo. In contrast to the pretext stage, plaintiffs do not have the “ultimate burden of\\n\\ndemonstrating unlawful discrimination” at the prima facie phase. Burdine, 450 U.S.\\n\\nat 256. Instead, the plaintiff’s prima facie burden is “quite different,” Furnco Const.\\n\\nCorp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 575 (1978), and “not as burdensome as succeeding\\n\\non ‘an ultimate finding of fact as to’ a discriminatory employment action, Young v.\\n\\nUnited Parcel Serv., Inc., 135 S. Ct. 1338, 1354 (2015) (quoting Furnco, 438 U.S.\\n\\nat 576). So it is critical for a court to require a plaintiff to satisfy only her “not\\n\\nonerous,” “generalized” burden at the prima facie juncture, instead of applying the\\n\\n“more rigorous standard at the prima facie stage,” which “‘conflate[s] the prima\\n\\nfacie case with the ultimate issue of discrimination . . . .’” Rodgers v. U.S. Bank,\\n\\n\\n 45\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 46 of 100\\n\\n\\nN.A., 417 F.3d 845, 852 (8th Cir. 2005), abrogated on other grounds by Torgerson\\n\\nv. City of Rochester, 643 F.3d 1031 (8th Cir. 2011) (quoting Williams v. Ford Motor\\n\\nCo., 14 F.3d 1305, 1308 (8th Cir. 1994)). Yet the Majority Opinion, after\\n\\nintroducing its hyper-specific prima facie comparator analysis, provides no\\n\\nindication as to how it expects the inquiry to “proceed[] to a new level of specificity”\\n\\nat the pretext stage. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255. By maxing out the specificity at the\\n\\nprima facie stage, it simply ignores Supreme Court precedent.\\n\\n C.\\n\\n Courts’ practices of reserving the specificity of the comparator inquiry for the\\n\\npretext stage comport not only with the Supreme Court’s language in McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas and its progeny but also with those cases’ actual analyses. In McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas, the plaintiff, a mechanic who had previously been laid off by McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas, applied for reemployment and was turned down. 411 U.S. at 794–96. The\\n\\nplaintiff filed suit, alleging, as relevant here, race discrimination. Id. at 796–97. The\\n\\nSupreme Court concluded that the plaintiff had successfully met his prima facie\\n\\nburden by showing that McDonnell Douglas “sought mechanics, [the plaintiff’s]\\n\\ntrade, and continued to do so after [the plaintiff’s] rejection”; that McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas did not dispute the plaintiff’s qualifications; and that McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nacknowledged that the plaintiff’s prior work performance was satisfactory. Id. at\\n\\n802.\\n\\n\\n 46\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 47 of 100\\n\\n\\n At the second stage, McDonnell Douglas stated that it had declined to rehire\\n\\nthe plaintiff because he had previously participated in civil disobedience against\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas. Id. at 803.\\n\\n Turning to the pretext phase of the inquiry, the Supreme Court remanded the\\n\\ncase to allow the plaintiff “a fair opportunity to show that [McDonnell Douglas’s]\\n\\nstated reason for [the plaintiff’s] rejection was in fact pretext.” Id. at 804. And for\\n\\nthe first time in the three-step analysis, the Supreme Court became more specific\\n\\nabout comparator evidence. Whereas at the prima facie stage the Supreme Court\\n\\naccepted as comparators any white mechanic who had been rehired, at the pretext\\n\\njuncture, the Supreme Court explained, “Especially relevant to [a pretext showing]\\n\\nwould be evidence that white employees involved in acts against petitioner of\\n\\ncomparable seriousness to the [plaintiff’s civil disobedience] were nevertheless\\n\\nretained or rehired.” Id. (emphasis added). So only at the pretext stage did the\\n\\nSupreme Court determine that considering McDonnell Douglas’s treatment of white\\n\\nmechanics who engaged in acts of “comparable seriousness,” as opposed to simply\\n\\nwhite mechanics, was appropriate.\\n\\n Indeed, the Supreme Court has never rigorously scrutinized comparators at\\n\\nthe prima facie stage. 8 For instance, in Furnco, the Court determined that the\\n\\n\\n 8\\n The Majority Opinion characterizes this factually and legally accurate discussion of\\nMcDonnell Douglas’s treatment of the comparator inquiry as “suggest[ing] that McDonnell\\nDouglas itself somehow indicates that the analysis of comparators should be relegated to the\\n 47\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 48 of 100\\n\\n\\nplaintiffs satisfied their prima facie burden by showing only that they were qualified,\\n\\n“and the employer continued to seek persons of similar qualifications.” 438 U.S. at\\n\\n576. And in St. Mary’s, the Court found the prima facie burden satisfied when the\\n\\nplaintiff demonstrated only that he “was qualified for the position . . . , that he was\\n\\ndemoted from that position . . . , and . . . that the position remained open and was\\n\\nultimately filled by a white man.” 509 U.S. at 506.\\n\\n In short, the purpose of the McDonnell Douglas framework, the language of\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas and its progeny, and the analysis set forth in McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas itself all unmistakably demonstrate that the “similarly situated”\\n\\nrequirement must be applied in a “generalized,” “minimal” way at the prima facie\\n\\nstage and in a more “particulari[zed]” way at the pretext phase.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\ntertiary pretext stage.” Maj. Op. at 16 n.9. To be clear, that is not the point I make. The point is\\nthat beginning with McDonnell Douglas, the Supreme Court has always conducted the comparator\\nanalysis in a “generalized” and “not onerous” way at the prima facie stage and a more rigorous\\nway at the pretext stage. That is irrefutable. And tellingly, the Majority Opinion makes no effort\\nto refute it—even though it does not follow it. Nor, despite its general invocation of “subsequent\\nSupreme Court precedent,” id., does the Majority Opinion identify a single case where, at the\\nprima facie stage, the Supreme Court conducted the rigorous type of comparator inquiry at the\\nprima facie stage the Majority Opinion insists upon today. Instead of responding substantively by\\npointing to Supreme Court precedent supporting its position that the rigorous and complete\\ncomparator inquiry occurs at the prima facie stage, the Majority Opinion redirects, incorrectly\\nsuggesting that I disagree that it is “prop[er]” and “necess[ary]” to “conduct[] a comparative\\nanalysis as part of the prima facie stage.” Id. I don’t. I am certain that McDonnell Douglas and\\nits progeny require a comparator inquiry at the prima facie stage—a “not onerous” and\\n“generalized” comparator inquiry.\\n 48\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 49 of 100\\n\\n\\n D.\\n\\n The Majority Opinion’s insistence on creating a rigorous one-stop shop for\\n\\nanalyzing comparators at the prima facie stage throws the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework’s delicate balance out of whack. It effectively considers the employer’s\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reasons (the second-stage inquiry) at the first stage—the prima\\n\\nfacie case—without providing the protection of allowing the employee to present\\n\\nevidence and argument challenging those reasons as pretext for discrimination. As\\n\\na result, the Majority Opinion’s heightened application of the “similarly situated”\\n\\nstandard at the prima facie juncture significantly reduces the employee’s chances of\\n\\nsurviving summary judgment.\\n\\n Supreme Court precedent precludes what the Majority Opinion does. In\\n\\nparticular, the Supreme Court prohibits consideration, at the prima facie stage, of the\\n\\nemployer’s reason for its actions, since allowing the employer’s reason for its actions\\n\\nto seep into the prima facie inquiry unfairly weights McDonnell Douglas’s delicate\\n\\nbalance in favor of the employer.\\n\\n But before we can fully appreciate Supreme Court precedent on this point, we\\n\\nmust pause briefly to consider the interconnected relationship between the rigor\\n\\napplied to the “similarly situated” comparator inquiry and the employer’s stated\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reason for its actions. When we do, we find that the “similarly\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 49\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 50 of 100\\n\\n\\nsituated” comparator requirement and the employer’s nondiscriminatory reason for\\n\\nits actions can be two sides of a single coin.\\n\\n Employers often argue as their nondiscriminatory reason that the plaintiff and\\n\\nher comparator’s situations differed in some way that justified the different\\n\\ntreatment. In other words, employers tend to assert that the plaintiff and her\\n\\nproposed comparator were not “similarly situated.” So if we allow the employer’s\\n\\nview of who is “similarly situated” to the plaintiff to govern the “similarly situated”\\n\\ninquiry at the prima facie stage, we necessarily import into the prima facie phase the\\n\\nemployer’s reason for its actions—even though McDonnell Douglas prohibits such\\n\\nconsideration until the second and third junctures of the framework.\\n\\n In fact, we need not look any further than the Majority Opinion to see this\\n\\nprinciple at work. Though Lewis met her “generalized,” “not onerous,” and\\n\\n“minimal” prima facie burden to establish she was “similarly situated” to McClure\\n\\nand Heard when she showed that all three were patrol officers put on administrative\\n\\nleave by the Department because they were not physically fit for duty, the Majority\\n\\nOpinion nonetheless concludes that she failed to satisfy her burden. And it does so\\n\\nbecause it reasons that Lewis “was placed on leave pursuant to the Union City\\n\\nPersonnel Policy” on administrative leave, while “McClure and Heard were placed\\n\\non leave pursuant to the Police Department’s Physical Fitness/Medical\\n\\nExaminations policy,” and Lewis “suffered . . . a ‘chronic’ heart condition,” while\\n\\n\\n 50\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 51 of 100\\n\\n\\nMcClure and Heard had “balance” and “agility” problems, respectively. Maj. Op.\\n\\nat 29-31.\\n\\n But, of course, these are not only ways of purporting to show that Lewis was\\n\\nnot similarly situated to her proposed comparators; they also reflect the\\n\\nDepartment’s stated reasons for why it took the action of putting Lewis on\\n\\nadministrative leave.9 Now, to be clear, and as explained further at Section II.B.\\n\\n(pages 59-66), infra, that Lewis met her prima facie burden does not mean we do\\n\\nnot consider these offered nondiscriminatory reasons for the Department’s actions,\\n\\nwhich effectively propose a more particularized application of the “similarly\\n\\n\\n 9\\n The Majority Opinion confusedly suggests I somehow endorse the idea that, at the prima\\nfacie stage, Lewis was not “similarly situated” with McClure and Heard because Lewis “was\\nplaced on leave pursuant to the Union City Personnel Policy” on administrative leave, while\\n“McClure and Heard were placed on leave pursuant to the Police Department’s Physical\\nFitness/Medical Examinations policy,” and Lewis “suffered . . . a ‘chronic’ heart condition,’ while\\nMcClure and Heard had “balance” and “agility problems,” respectively. See Maj. Op. at 28 n.17.\\nI don’t. The Majority Opinion misses my point: the Department’s view of why McClure and Heard\\nshould not be appropriate comparators for Lewis is just another way the Department states its\\npurported nondiscriminatory reason for its actions against Lewis—something that should not be\\nconsidered under the McDonnell Douglas framework until the second and third stages, or else we\\nimport the second and third parts of the McDonnell Douglas analysis into the prima facie stage.\\nAs I have explained elsewhere in this opinion, at the prima facie stage, the comparator burden is\\n“not onerous,” “minimal,” and “generalized.” It becomes more particularized at the pretext\\njuncture. Here, Lewis asserted (and I explore further infra at 56-58), that she and her comparators\\nhad similar job responsibilities, had similar job titles, had similar seniority, and were supervised\\nby the same person. And most important, the Department put all three on involuntary\\nadministrative leave for being physically unfit for duty. Yet Lewis presented evidence that the\\nDepartment gave Lewis just 21 days of administrative leave while affording McClure and Heard\\n90 and 449 days of administrative leave, respectively. For purposes of satisfying her\\n“generalized,” “minimal,” and “not onerous” prima facie “similarly situated” burden, this suffices.\\nWhether the Department’s response to Lewis’s prima facie case suggests that, in fact, the\\nDepartment had a nonpretextual, nondiscriminatory reason for considering Lewis and her\\ncomparators not to be similarly situated is a consideration for the more particularized comparator\\ninquiry at the third stage of the McDonnell Douglas framework.\\n 51\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 52 of 100\\n\\n\\nsituated” standard. We must. But we do so at the pretext stage, after the employer\\n\\npresents them at McDonnell Douglas’s second stage.\\n\\n The Majority Opinion’s failure to follow this sequence is wrong for at least\\n\\ntwo reasons. First, the Supreme Court in U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors v.\\n\\nAikens, 460 U.S. 711 (1983), prohibits us from using the employer’s\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reason to find that the plaintiff failed to establish her prima facie\\n\\ncase. In Aikens, the district court reversed its initial findings that the plaintiff had\\n\\nsatisfied his prima facie burden, upon considering the defendant’s explanation for\\n\\nwhy the employee was not promoted. See id. at 716. The Supreme Court found this\\n\\nanalysis fundamentally flawed. Once the employer “responds to the plaintiff’s proof\\n\\nby offering evidence of the reason for the plaintiff’s rejection,” the Court explained,\\n\\nwhether or not the plaintiff made out a prima facie case “is no longer relevant.” Id.\\n\\nat 714.\\n\\n Rather, by providing its nondiscriminatory reason, the employer moves the\\n\\ninquiry to the pretext stage, where we must decide the “ultimate question” of whether\\n\\nits action against the plaintiff was discriminatory. Id. At this point, courts cannot\\n\\nresolve the case by returning to the prima facie stage. Id. at 717. So under Aikens,\\n\\ncourts may not consider the employer’s nondiscriminatory reasons offered at the\\n\\nsecond McDonnell Douglas stage to determine that a plaintiff has failed to establish\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 52\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 53 of 100\\n\\n\\na prima facie case.10 Yet disappointingly, the Majority Opinion never even attempts\\n\\nto explain how it can be squared with Aikens.\\n\\n Second, by collapsing the first two stages of the McDonnell Douglas inquiry\\n\\ninto the prima facie phase, the Majority Opinion not only strays from Aikens, it also\\n\\ninflicts significant consequences on McDonnell Douglas’s delicate balance—and\\n\\ntherefore on plaintiffs. If the rigorous application of the “similarly situated”\\n\\nrequirement occurs at the prima facie stage, it forecloses the plaintiff from\\n\\nchallenging the employer’s stated reasons for why it deems the plaintiff not similarly\\n\\nsituated to more favorably treated potential comparators. Instead, the court must\\n\\n\\n\\n 10\\n Our sister Circuits have fallen in line with what Aikens demands. For instance, then-\\nJudge Kavanaugh wrote for the District of Columbia Circuit that “as we read the Supreme Court\\nprecedents beginning with Aikens, the prima facie case is a largely unnecessary sideshow” because\\n“by the time the district court considers an employer’s motion for summary judgment . . . the\\nemployer ordinarily will have asserted a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the challenged\\ndecision . . . .” Brady v. Office of Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 494 (D.C. Cir. 2008); see also\\nid. (“[W]here an . . . employer has asserted a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason . . . in\\nconsidering an employer’s motion for summary judgment or judgment as a matter of law in those\\ncircumstances, the district court must resolve one central question: Has the employee [shown\\npretext]?”); Riser v. Target Corp., 458 F.3d 817, 820–21 (8th Cir. 2006) (reasoning that, in a Title\\nVII case, on review of a district court’s grant of summary judgment, an appellate court should\\nfocus on the ultimate question of retaliation or employment discrimination rather than on the prima\\nfacie burden so that the court may “see the forest through the trees”); Noble v. Brinker Int’l, Inc.,\\n391 F.3d 715, 720–21 (6th Cir. 2004) (finding that once the defendant produced purportedly non-\\ndiscriminatory justifications for its actions, “our duty, given Aikens, is simply to determine whether\\n[the plaintiff] produced sufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding of intentional\\ndiscrimination”). And before today, we likewise heeded Aikens’s command. Collado v. United\\nParcel Serv., Co., 419 F.3d 1143, 1151 (11th Cir. 2005) (“[O]nce the [inquiry] has proceeded to\\nthe second step of the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework, the first step, which is the\\nprima facie issue, should be left behind.”). Although Aikens came to the Supreme Court after the\\ncase had already gone to trial, “it makes no sense to apply Aikens post-trial but not at the summary-\\njudgment stage.” Wells v. Colo. Dep’t of Transp., 325 F.3d 1205, 1227 (Hartz, J., writing\\nseparately) (10th Cir. 2003).\\n 53\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 54 of 100\\n\\n\\nsimply accept the employer’s reason because it masquerades as the plaintiff’s failure\\n\\nto show that she was “similarly situated” to her proposed comparator and prevents\\n\\nthe plaintiff from establishing her prima facie case. And if the court concludes the\\n\\nplaintiff has not made out a prima facie case, the plaintiff cannot reach the third stage\\n\\nof the McDonnell Douglas framework, which is the first place a plaintiff can\\n\\nchallenge the employer’s stated reasons for its actions.\\n\\n If, on the other hand, the heightened inquiry into “similarly situated”\\n\\ncomparators occurs at the pretext stage, the plaintiff receives the chance to\\n\\ndemonstrate pretext. And to the extent that a plaintiff can raise a material issue of\\n\\nfact concerning the employer’s stated reason for its employment action—that is, cast\\n\\ndoubt on the truthfulness of the employer’s classification of the plaintiff as not\\n\\n“similarly situated” to more favorably treated employees—the plaintiff has the\\n\\nchance to do so and can survive summary judgment. See Burdine, 450 U.S. at 256\\n\\n(reasoning that at the pretext stage, the employee “now must have the opportunity to\\n\\ndemonstrate that the proffered reason was not the true reason for the employment\\n\\ndecision.”); cf. id. at 256 n.10 (“Indeed, there may be some cases where the\\n\\nplaintiff’s initial evidence [its prima facie case], combined with effective cross-\\n\\nexamination of the defendant, will suffice to discredit the defendant’s explanation”).\\n\\n So locating the more onerous “similarly situated” standard at the pretext\\n\\njuncture instead of frontloading it in the prima facie case effectuates McDonnell\\n\\n\\n 54\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 55 of 100\\n\\n\\nDouglas’s purpose to allow a plaintiff who lacks direct proof of discrimination—by\\n\\ndefinition, the only type of plaintiff who relies on the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework—a chance to show that the same employer who might not have been\\n\\nforthright about its reasons for taking action against her (thus causing her to have to\\n\\nuse the McDonnell Douglas analysis to prove her case) may not be entirely candid\\n\\nin litigation where it defends its actions.\\n\\n Before today, we recognized the problem and impermissibility of collapsing\\n\\nthe McDonnell Douglas framework. For instance, because an employee’s “job\\n\\nperformance is bound up” with the pretext inquiry, we deferred heavily scrutinizing\\n\\nthat issue until the pretext stage to avoid eliding the stages of the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework. Alvarez v. Royal Atl. Developers, Inc., 610 F.3d 1253, 1265 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2010). In the same vein, we warned against holding that nondiscriminatory reasons\\n\\nare “sufficient to defeat the prima facie case” because such a rule “cannot be squared\\n\\nwith the structure and purpose of the McDonnell Douglas framework.” Vessels, 408\\n\\nF.3d at 769.\\n\\n Other Circuits have identified this problem, too. For example, in Ortiz v.\\n\\nNorton, 254 F.3d 889, 895 (10th Cir. 2001), the Tenth Circuit explained, “Short-\\n\\ncircuiting the analysis at the prima facie stage frustrates a plaintiff’s ability to\\n\\nestablish that the defendant’s proffered reasons were pretextual and/or that [the\\n\\nprotected status] was the determining factor . . . .” (citation and internal quotation\\n\\n\\n 55\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 56 of 100\\n\\n\\nmarks omitted); see also Horizon/CMS Healthcare Corp., 220 F.3d at 1193–95 &\\n\\n1195 n.7 (explaining that applying a rigorous “similarly situated” standard in the\\n\\nprima facie case “compress[es] the three stages of the McDonnell Douglas analysis”\\n\\nand “denie[s] [the plaintiff] the opportunity to show that the reasons advanced by\\n\\nthe defendant were pretextual”).\\n\\n Simply put, in the context of summary judgment, requiring the plaintiff to\\n\\nmake a heightened showing of the “similarly situated” requirement at the prima facie\\n\\nstage heavily weights down the employer’s side of McDonnell Douglas’s delicate\\n\\nemployee-employer balance. So by applying a searching “similarly situated”\\n\\ninquiry that considers the employer’s nondiscriminatory reasons at the prima facie\\n\\nstage, the Majority Opinion severely errs. And its error ensures that at least some\\n\\nplaintiffs with potentially valid claims of discrimination will never get the\\n\\nopportunity to show that the employer’s offered reason is a cover for\\n\\ndiscrimination.11\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 11\\n The Majority Opinion suggests that today it lessens the plaintiff’s burden imposed by\\nour prior use of the “nearly identical” language “that has pervaded our case law for decades.” Maj.\\nOp. at 23 n.10. And, at first glance, the “similarly situated in all material respects” standard looks\\nlike a less strict standard than the “nearly identical” standard. To be sure, I fully agree with and\\napplaud the phrasing of the standard as “similarly situated in all material respects.” But looks can\\nbe deceiving. And here, as I have explained, the Majority Opinion’s decision to conduct the entire\\nand rigorous comparator analysis at the prima facie stage marks a plaintiff-adverse departure from\\nprior cases of ours like Walker, which conducted the comparator analysis as a general inquiry at\\nthe prima facie stage and as a more particularized one at the pretext stage. So in reality, the\\nMajority Opinion’s implementation of the standard makes the plaintiff’s burden significantly\\nheavier.\\n 56\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 57 of 100\\n\\n\\n E.\\n\\n Three errors the Majority Opinion makes lead it to mistakenly conclude that\\n\\nthe “similarly situated” requirement must be employed rigorously at the prima facie\\n\\nstage: (1) it emphasizes the employer’s interest over the employee’s interest, rather\\n\\nthan balancing them like McDonnell Douglas’s framework was intended to do; (2)\\n\\nit misses the point of McDonnell Douglas and its progeny; and (3) it imagines a non-\\n\\nexistent deluge of potentially undeserving victorious employment plaintiffs if the\\n\\n“similarly situated” standard is not rigorously applied at the prima facie stage. I\\n\\ndiscuss each error, in turn, below.\\n\\n First, the Majority Opinion contends that imposing a rigorous “similarly\\n\\nsituated” standard at the prima facie stage is warranted because it furthers “the twin\\n\\naims of the prima facie case—eliminating the most common nondiscriminatory\\n\\nreasons for an employer’s action and thereby giving rise to an inference of unlawful\\n\\ndiscrimination.” Maj. Op. at 26-27 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\nThe Majority Opinion also identifies a third aim of the prima facie standard:\\n\\n“winnowing out meritless claims” while “leav[ing] employers the necessary\\n\\nbreathing space to make appropriate business judgments.” Maj. Op. at 21, 27.\\n\\n No doubt all of these things are important. But as the Supreme Court has\\n\\nrecognized, so are the employee’s interests in being able to earn a livelihood without\\n\\nbeing discriminated against and in having a chance to prove her case, despite the\\n\\n\\n 57\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 58 of 100\\n\\n\\ndifference in her access (versus that of her employer) to information about the\\n\\nemployment action. Indeed, “Title VII[] balance[s] between employee rights and\\n\\nemployer prerogatives.” Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 243 (plurality opinion).\\n\\nAnd in turn, “[the McDonnell Douglas] balance of burdens is the direct result of\\n\\nTitle VII’s balance of rights.” Id. at 245.\\n\\n Yet critically, the Majority Opinion and its decision to locate the heightened\\n\\n“similarly situated” standard in the prima facie case fail to properly account for\\n\\nemployee interests and circumstances. So contrary to what McDonnell Douglas and\\n\\nits progeny anticipated, by focusing on the employer’s interests, the Majority\\n\\nOpinion naturally winds up with a system decidedly weighted towards the employer\\n\\ninstead of delicately balanced between the interests of both parties. See supra at\\n\\nSection I.D. That system is irreconcilable with the robust protection against\\n\\nworkplace discrimination Congress intended Title VII to secure. See, e.g.,\\n\\nTeamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 348 (1977) (“The primary purpose of Title\\n\\nVII was to assure equality of employment opportunities and to eliminate . . .\\n\\ndiscriminatory practices . . . .” (internal quotation marks omitted)).\\n\\n Second, the Majority Opinion clashes with McDonnell Douglas and its\\n\\nprogeny. Perhaps the most obvious illustration of this comes from the Majority\\n\\nOpinion’s exile of McDonnell Douglas’s “not onerous” prima facie standard—a\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 58\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 59 of 100\\n\\n\\ncenterpiece of its delicate balance of employers’ and employees’ rights—to a single\\n\\nfootnote in a misguided effort to render it meaningless. See Maj. Op. at 27 n.15.\\n\\n The Majority Opinion tries to hide the “not onerous” elephant in the\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas framework by wishing it away as a mere “descriptor that\\n\\ndoesn’t pertain to the substantive standard that governs the prima facie analysis.”\\n\\nId. In the Majority Opinion’s view, then, the plaintiff’s burden to establish a prima\\n\\nfacie case is “not onerous” with respect to something other than her burden to\\n\\nestablish a prima facie case under the substance of the standards governing the prima\\n\\nfacie case.\\n\\n Wait . . . what?\\n\\n Of course, whether standards are onerous or not governs whether the\\n\\nplaintiff’s burden on the prima facie case is onerous or not. It makes no sense to\\n\\nspeak of the plaintiff’s prima facie burden as “not onerous” if the plaintiff must, in\\n\\nfact, satisfy an onerous substantive standard to meet her prima facie burden.\\n\\n Nor does the Majority Opinion’s reliance on the quotation from Young, 135\\n\\nS. Ct. at 1354 (quoting Furnco, 438 U.S. at 576), respond to this problem. The\\n\\nMajority Opinion opines that McDonnell Douglas’s description of the plaintiff’s\\n\\nprima facie burden as “not onerous” is “simply an acknowledgement that, by its\\n\\nnature, a prima facie case is preliminary, and thus is ‘not as burdensome as\\n\\nsucceeding on ‘an ultimate finding of fact as to’ a discriminatory employment\\n\\n\\n 59\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 60 of 100\\n\\n\\naction.’” Maj. Op. at 27 n.15 (quoting Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1354 (quoting Furnco,\\n\\n438 U.S. at 576)).\\n\\n But the Young quotation comes from Young’s recognition that a plaintiff\\n\\npresents a prima facie case by “showing actions taken by the employer from which\\n\\none can infer, if such actions remain unexplained, that it is more likely than not that\\n\\nsuch actions were based on a discriminatory criterion illegal under Title VII,” and\\n\\nthat required showing “is not as burdensome as succeeding on an ultimate finding of\\n\\nfact as to a discriminatory employment action.” Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1354 (cleaned\\n\\nup). Neither that statement nor anything in Young’s (or any other Supreme Court\\n\\nprecedent’s) discussion somehow supports the notion that the “not onerous”\\n\\nlanguage does not apply to the substantive standards governing the prima facie stage\\n\\nor that the “not onerous” language applies to something other than the substantive\\n\\nstandards at the prima facie stage. They just don’t. 12\\n\\n And even overlooking these hiccups, dismissing the Supreme Court’s “not\\n\\nonerous” statement as some supposedly superfluous “descriptor” writes off and\\n\\nliterally relegates to footnote status a central tenet of the McDonnell Douglas\\n\\nframework. As I have noted, McDonnell Douglas and its progeny demonstrate in\\n\\ncase after case that, in fact, the plaintiff’s “minimal” burden at the prima facie stage\\n\\n\\n 12\\n In fact, to the contrary, Young’s analysis leaves no doubt that the “not onerous” language\\ndoes apply to the substantive standards at the prima facie stage. See infra at Section II.A (pages\\n66-77).\\n 60\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 61 of 100\\n\\n\\nrefers to the plaintiff’s “minimal” burden under the substantive standards that govern\\n\\nthe prima facie case. See supra at Section I.C. The Supreme Court has never once,\\n\\neither implicitly or explicitly, moved one iota away from this standard in the over\\n\\nforty years since it decided McDonnell Douglas.13 Yet the Majority Opinion treats\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas as an out-of-Circuit intermediate appellate decision, leaving its\\n\\nmain point unobserved and proceeding as if that case were, at most, potentially\\n\\npersuasive authority, yet of no actual persuasive value. So much for Justice Scalia’s\\n\\nreminder that “what is required to establish the McDonnell Douglas prima facie case\\n\\nis infinitely less than what a directed verdict demands.” St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 515.\\n\\nForget “infinitely less”; the holding the Majority Opinion announces today is nearly\\n\\nindistinguishable from what a directed verdict demands.\\n\\n I cannot agree with this. So long as we remain bound by the Supreme Court\\n\\nand the “descriptors” that Court gives us in instructing us how to conduct the\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas analysis, we have no authority to implement standards in a way\\n\\nthat expressly contradicts those “descriptors.”\\n\\n\\n\\n 13\\n The Majority Opinion suggests that “Supreme Court precedent” after McDonnell\\nDouglas supports close scrutiny of comparators at the prima facie stage. Maj. Op. at 16 n.9. What\\nthat subsequent precedent is the Majority Opinion does not say. And identifying such a case would\\nbe impossible because at the prima facie stage, the Court has only ever required that the plaintiff\\nmake a generalized showing that she had similar qualifications to the employee that the employer\\ntreated better. See supra at 15-16, 36-37, 40-41. So with apologies to Jerry Maguire, I respectfully\\nsay to the Majority Opinion, “Show us the precedent.” See Jerry Maguire (1996) (Quotes), “Show\\nme the money!” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116695/quotes/qt0389257 (last visited Mar. 19,\\n2019).\\n 61\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 62 of 100\\n\\n\\n Third, the Majority Opinion misconceives the consequences of the plaintiff’s\\n\\nestablishment of a prima facie case. The Majority Opinion states that “[a] successful\\n\\nprima facie showing . . . entitles the plaintiff to judgment—to victory—if the\\n\\nemployer . . . doesn’t provide a nondiscriminatory explanation for its actions,” Maj.\\n\\nOp. at 13, intimating that we will be overcome by a flood of undeserving victorious\\n\\nemployment plaintiffs if we do not rigorously apply the “similarly situated” standard\\n\\nat the prima facie stage. But establishing a prima facie case at summary judgment\\n\\nis not the golden ticket to automatic recovery that the Majority Opinion indicates.\\n\\n First, in the real world, if a plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, virtually\\n\\nno employer completely declines at the second stage of McDonnell Douglas to offer\\n\\na nondiscriminatory reason for its actions. Indeed, that is the point of why the\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas framework is necessary—no employer is likely to admit it took\\n\\nemployment action for discriminatory reasons or sit back and do nothing if so\\n\\naccused. So it is not surprising that we appear to have no opinion at all in our Circuit\\n\\nprecedent where an employer altogether failed to try to offer a nondiscriminatory\\n\\nreason for its action. 14\\n\\n\\n 14\\n The unpublished opinion Smith v. Thomasville Georgia, Case No. 16-16848, ___ F.\\nApp’x ___, 2018 WL 4771672 (11th Cir. 2018), appears to be the closest any case comes, but even\\nit does not fit the bill. There, one of numerous plaintiffs sued, alleging that he should have been\\nconsidered for a position as an assistant chief. Id. at *11. After the plaintiff established his prima\\nfacie case, the defendant offered as a nondiscriminatory reason for not hiring the plaintiff for that\\nposition that the plaintiff had not expressed any interest in it. Id. But, we explained, under\\nCarmichael v. Birmingham Saw Works, 738 F.2d 1126, 1133–34 (11th Cir. 1984), that does not\\ncount as a “legitimate” reason when a position is filled through informal procedures and the\\n 62\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 63 of 100\\n\\n\\n Second, even if that unicorn of an employer who offers no nondiscriminatory\\n\\nreason for its actions exists somewhere out there, establishing a prima facie case at\\n\\nsummary judgment still does not necessarily automatically end the case. Rather, as\\n\\nthe Supreme Court noted in St. Mary’s, even if the defendant does not meet its\\n\\nburden of production, “[i]f reasonable minds could differ as to whether a\\n\\npreponderance of the evidence establishes the facts of a prima facie case, then a\\n\\nquestion of fact does remain, which the trier of fact will be called upon to answer.”\\n\\nId. at 509–10.\\n\\n So the plaintiff’s establishment of an unrebutted prima facie case does not\\n\\nhand her a ticket to skip the trial and go directly to the Clerk’s Office to collect a\\n\\njudgment; that happens only when the employer offers no nondiscriminatory reason\\n\\nfor its actions and reasonable minds could not disagree about whether the employer\\n\\nintentionally discriminated against the plaintiff. See Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing\\n\\nProd., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 146 (2000) (“[I]n St. Mary’s . . . we held that the\\n\\nfactfinder’s rejection of the employer’s legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its\\n\\naction does not compel judgment for the plaintiff.”) (emphasis in original); see also\\n\\nWalker, 158 F.3d at 1184 (“The prima facie case, standing alone, puts the evidence\\n\\nin equipoise—although one could reasonably conclude that the plaintiff was not\\n\\n\\n\\nplaintiff had no notice or opportunity to apply for the position. Id. So even in Smith, it wasn’t that\\nthe employer did not attempt to offer an allegedly nondiscriminatory reason for its conduct; it was\\nthat the court did not accept it.\\n 63\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 64 of 100\\n\\n\\nhired because of her sex, one could just as reasonably conclude that the plaintiff was\\n\\nnot hired because the employer did not like the suit she was wearing . . . .”).\\n\\n Because the Majority Opinion makes these three critical errors in its analysis,\\n\\nit incorrectly concludes that the “similarly situated” standard must be rigorously\\n\\napplied during the prima facie stage of the McDonnell Douglas analysis. In doing\\n\\nso, it disrupts McDonnell Douglas’s delicate balance by playing favorites, elevating\\n\\nthe interests of employers while ignoring the interests of employees. As a result, the\\n\\nMajority Opinion’s location of the rigorous “similarly situated” application will\\n\\nleave victims of discrimination remediless at the first stage of the McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas framework, denying them the chance to show that the employer’s stated\\n\\nreason for its action may be nothing more than a smokescreen to cover\\n\\ndiscriminatory intent. Title VII requires more than that.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n The Majority Opinion compounds employee-adverse error in how it applies\\n\\nthe term “material” in the “similarly situated” standard. Section A below explains\\n\\nthe Majority Opinion’s mistake, and Section B shows how a correct application of\\n\\nthe term to all relevant facts in Lewis’s case requires the conclusion that, for\\n\\npurposes of surviving summary judgment, Lewis sufficiently demonstrated she was\\n\\nsimilarly situated to her two chosen comparators, McClure and Heard.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 64\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 65 of 100\\n\\n\\n A.\\n\\n “Material,” of course, means “[b]eing both relevant and consequential; crucial\\n\\n. . . .” Material, The American Heritage Dictionary (5th ed. 2011). So in the context\\n\\nof the McDonnell Douglas framework, a comparator who is “similarly situated in all\\n\\nmaterial respects” is a comparator who was similarly situated to the employee in all\\n\\nways necessarily crucial to—but only in those ways necessarily crucial to—the\\n\\nemployer’s decision to take action against the employee. And if any material issue\\n\\nof fact 15 exists concerning whether a nondiscriminatory factor (or reason) was\\n\\nnecessarily crucial to the employer’s employment action, it raises a material issue of\\n\\nfact concerning whether the employer’s proposed narrower comparator class is\\n\\nactually “similarly situated” to the plaintiff. As a result, the case must survive\\n\\nsummary judgment.\\n\\n To see what this means in practice, we must look to what the Supreme Court\\n\\nhas said about comparators and how it has applied the concept. Once again, we\\n\\nbegin with McDonnell Douglas. As I have noted, McDonnell Douglas, a failure-to-\\n\\nhire case, discussed the comparator inquiry in terms of “comparable seriousness.” It\\n\\ninstructed that, at the pretext stage, the district court should consider “evidence that\\n\\nwhite employees involved in acts against [the company] of comparable seriousness\\n\\n\\n 15\\n Of course, “material issue of fact” is a term of art used in analyzing whether summary\\njudgment should be granted. To avoid confusion, I use quotation marks whenever I am discussing\\n“material” from the “similarly situated” standard.\\n 65\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 66 of 100\\n\\n\\nto the ‘stall-in’ [the plaintiff participated in before being laid off by the company]\\n\\nwere nevertheless retained or rehired.” Id. at 804. In other words, a person need not\\n\\nhave engaged in a “stall-in” to be a proper comparator in McDonnell Douglas.\\n\\nRather, he must have been involved in only acts of “comparable seriousness”—that\\n\\nis, behavior that, when considered by the employer, would necessarily trigger the\\n\\nsame employment decision as an employee’s participation in a “stall-in” would.\\n\\n And more recently, in Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 1338\\n\\n(2015), which the Majority Opinion points out holds that “the plaintiff and her\\n\\ncomparators need not be similar in all but the protected ways,” Maj. Op. at 24\\n\\n(quoting Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1354) (internal quotation marks omitted), the Supreme\\n\\nCourt further illustrated how similar a proper comparator must be. 16 There, the\\n\\nplaintiffs sued under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, alleging that UPS had\\n\\ndiscriminated against her on the basis of her pregnancy. Id. at 1344.\\n\\n UPS required drivers like Young to be able to lift up to 70 pounds. Id. But\\n\\nwhen Young became pregnant, her doctor told her not to lift more than 20 pounds.\\n\\nId. So UPS told Young she could not work while she was under a lifting restriction.\\n\\n\\n\\n 16\\n Young involved the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (“PDA”), which makes it illegal to\\ntreat pregnant workers less favorably than nonpregnant workers “similar in their ability or inability\\nto work.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(k). In this way, the PDA contains different language than Title VII.\\nBut the Supreme Court nonetheless applies the McDonnell Douglas framework in PDA cases just\\nas it does in Title VII cases. See Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1353–54. And, as the Majority Opinion\\nagrees, see Maj. Op. at 24, the “similar in their ability or inability to work” language is the\\nequivalent of the “similarly situated” requirement in the Title VII context.\\n 66\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 67 of 100\\n\\n\\nId. Young brought suit, arguing that UPS more favorably treated non-pregnant\\n\\nworkers “who were similar in their inability to work.” Id. (internal quotation marks\\n\\nand alteration omitted). The Supreme Court concluded that, at the prima facie stage,\\n\\na genuine dispute existed “as to whether UPS provided more favorable treatment to\\n\\nat least some employees whose situation cannot reasonably be distinguished from\\n\\nYoung’s,” so it returned Young’s case to the district court for determination of the\\n\\npretext inquiry. Id. at 1355 (emphasis added). Among those employees Young held\\n\\nup as comparators were the following:\\n\\n 1. union members whose collective-bargaining agreement with UPS\\n promised to provide temporary alternative work assignments if the\\n employees were “unable to perform their normal work assignments\\n due to an on-the-job injury”;\\n\\n 2. union members whose collective-bargaining agreement with UPS\\n provided that UPS would “make a good faith effort to comply . . .\\n with requests for a reasonable accommodation because of a\\n permanent disability” under the Americans With Disabilities Act;\\n\\n 3. union members whose collective-bargaining agreement stated that\\n UPS would give “inside” jobs to drivers who had lost their\\n Department of Transportation (“DOT”) certifications because of a\\n failed medical exam, a lost driver’s license, or involvement in a\\n motor vehicle accident;\\n\\n 4. employees who received accommodations, such as a 10-pound\\n lifting limitation) after suffering varied disabilities, such as a foot\\n injury or an arm injury, on the job;\\n\\n 5. employees who received accommodations after injury, where the\\n record was unclear as whether the injury occurred on or off the job,\\n such as a recurring knee injury, an ankle injury, a stroke, or a leg\\n injury;\\n 67\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 68 of 100\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 6. employees who received “inside” jobs after losing their DOT\\n certifications; and\\n\\n 7. employees who received accommodations even though they\\n incurred their disabilities, such as an ankle injury or cancer, off the\\n job.\\n\\nId. at 1346–47.\\n\\n Young highlights the problems with the Majority Opinion’s analysis. First,\\n\\nYoung applied a generalized comparator standard at the prima facie stage of the\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas analysis. To be sure, the Court’s opinion did not reveal\\n\\nprecisely which, if not all, of the widely varied proposed comparators’ situations it\\n\\ndeemed “[]not reasonably . . . distinguish[able] from Young’s.” Id. at 1346–47. But\\n\\nit nonetheless allowed all of them to proceed to the pretext inquiry. And in doing\\n\\nso, the Court found genuine issues of material fact about whether all of these other\\n\\nemployees were proper comparators at the generalized prima facie stage. That\\n\\nmeans it could not conclude that the differences between the proposed comparators\\n\\nand Young were necessarily “material” for purposes of the prima facie “similarly\\n\\nsituated” inquiry.\\n\\n So to really understand what the Supreme Court has considered “material” for\\n\\npurposes of the prima facie comparator inquiry, we must look more closely at who\\n\\nthe Supreme Court concluded could not necessarily be ruled out as comparators.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 68\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 69 of 100\\n\\n\\nAnd when we do that, we find that the Court cast a pretty wide net in performing the\\n\\ncomparator inquiry at the prima facie stage.\\n\\n For example, at this prima facie phase of the inquiry, among others, the Court\\n\\nfound the following groups of people appropriate comparators for a pregnant woman\\n\\nwho temporarily could not lift more than 20 pounds: (1) non-pregnant employees\\n\\nwho could not drive because they literally lacked the qualifications (a license or a\\n\\nDOT certification); (2) non-pregnant employees who could not drive because they\\n\\nhad permanent disabilities that made them physically unable to drive; and (3) non-\\n\\npregnant employees who permanently could not lift 70 pounds. Young, 135 S. Ct.\\n\\nat 1346–47. That’s a broad variety of fish caught in the comparator net. And it\\n\\ncontrasts significantly with the Majority Opinion’s view of the scope of the\\n\\n“similarly situated” inquiry at the prima facie stage.\\n\\n Second, although at the prima facie stage the Supreme Court found a material\\n\\nissue of fact concerning whether all of the proposed comparators were sufficiently\\n\\nsimilarly situated, it nonetheless sent the case to the district court to determine at the\\n\\npretext phase whether a material question of fact existed regarding UPS’s reason for\\n\\ntreating pregnant women differently—that is, UPS’s reason why it did not view\\n\\nYoung’s proposed comparators as “similarly situated” to her. So based on this\\n\\nruling, Young received the opportunity to present evidence and argument showing\\n\\nthat UPS’s more narrowly proposed comparators class was pretextual. That means\\n\\n\\n 69\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 70 of 100\\n\\n\\nthat the Supreme Court recognized that employees as differently situated from\\n\\nYoung as non-pregnant drivers who lost their DOT certifications or licenses and\\n\\npermanently injured non-pregnant drivers could conceivably be appropriate\\n\\ncomparators for the temporarily pregnant Young—even at the pretext phase of the\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas framework.\\n\\n The Majority Opinion, though it mentions McDonnell Douglas and Young\\n\\nmore than once, dismisses these cases’ lessons about proper comparators. And it\\n\\ndoesn’t even try to explain how its interpretation of what the “similarly situated”\\n\\nrequirement demands is consistent with the comparators Young and McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas actually allowed. Perhaps that is because it is not. Instead, the Majority\\n\\nOpinion attempts to distinguish Young in two ways: (1) on the basis of the language\\n\\nof the “similarly situated” standard that appears in the Pregnancy Discrimination Act\\n\\n(“PDA”), which governed in Young, and (2) on the basis that the “sheer numbers”\\n\\nof non-pregnant employees UPS accommodated were “overwhelming,” Maj. Op. at\\n\\n26 n.14, while the Department treated only Heard and McClure differently than\\n\\nLewis. Id. Neither succeeds.\\n\\n First, contrary to the Majority Opinion’s wishful thinking, the language of the\\n\\nPDA’s “similarly situated” requirement does not render Young’s lessons concerning\\n\\nthe “similarly situated” requirement inapplicable in the gender- and race-\\n\\ndiscrimination context. True, the PDA phrases its “similarly situated” requirement\\n\\n\\n 70\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 71 of 100\\n\\n\\ndifferently than we state ours today, since under the PDA, employers must treat\\n\\n“women affected by pregnancy . . . the same for all employment-related purposes . .\\n\\n. as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work.” 42\\n\\nU.S.C. § 2000e(k). But the PDA’s focus on the plaintiff and her comparators’\\n\\ninability to work is precisely what makes Young applicable to Lewis’s case. Indeed,\\n\\nLewis’s claim is that she was “similar [to Heard and McClure] in [her] ability or\\n\\ninability to work” when the Department involuntarily put her, McClure, and Heard\\n\\non administrative leave for being physically unfit for duty. So Young is instructive\\n\\non this key point in Lewis’s case. And even the Majority Opinion concedes Young’s\\n\\nrelevance in the context of evaluating comparators for purposes of determining\\n\\nwhether they are “similar in their ability or inability to work.” See Maj. Op. at 26\\n\\nn.14, 24.\\n\\n As to the Majority Opinion’s second basis for attempting to distinguish\\n\\nYoung, it fares no better than the first. The Majority Opinion contends that Young is\\n\\nnot instructive because it involved “overwhelming” “numbers” of comparators,\\n\\nwhereas Lewis identifies only two comparators.17 So by the Majority Opinion’s\\n\\nreasoning, an employer can discriminate with impunity, as long as the employer is\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 17\\n The Majority Opinion also incorrectly seems to suggest that Young involved only comparators\\nwho could not do their jobs because they could not lift boxes. Maj. Op. at 26 n.14. In fact, though, as I\\nhave noted, the Supreme Court also accepted as potential comparators individuals could not work because\\nthey had been stripped of their DOT certifications.\\n 71\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 72 of 100\\n\\n\\ncareful to treat fewer than “overwhelming” “numbers” of similarly situated\\n\\ncomparators better than the plaintiff.\\n\\n Clearly, that is unacceptable under the law. And the Majority Opinion’s\\n\\nefforts to distinguish Young in a footnote, see Maj. Op. at 26 n.14, fail miserably.\\n\\n Because the Majority Opinion does not engage with McDonnell Douglas and\\n\\nYoung’s actual applications of the comparator requirement, we are left to discern for\\n\\nourselves the guiding principles concerning the meaning of “material” that we can\\n\\ntake from the analyses of McDonnell Douglas and Young.\\n\\n We know from McDonnell Douglas’s “comparable seriousness” requirement\\n\\nthat appropriate comparators include individuals with circumstances or who engaged\\n\\nin conduct that would necessarily trigger the same employment decision by the\\n\\nemployer—at least until and unless, at the pretext stage, the employer can\\n\\ndemonstrate a nondiscriminatory reason why such individuals are not appropriate\\n\\ncomparators, for which the plaintiff does not raise a material issue of fact.\\n\\n And Young goes even further. It suggests at the prima facie stage that in a\\n\\ncase where a plaintiff seeks a job accommodation, employees whose circumstances\\n\\ncause them to be unable to perform essential aspects of the same job that the plaintiff\\n\\nholds may be appropriate comparators for a plaintiff who cannot perform an essential\\n\\npart of her job—even if the essential function that the employee cannot do or the\\n\\nreason the plaintiff cannot perform an essential function is different than that of the\\n\\n\\n 72\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 73 of 100\\n\\n\\ncomparators. Of course, at the pretext stage, some or all of these proposed\\n\\ncomparators may prove not to be appropriate comparators. But that depends on\\n\\nwhether the plaintiff can point to a material issue of fact concerning whether the\\n\\nemployer’s reason for treating the proposed comparators differently than the\\n\\nplaintiff—raised at McDonnell Douglas’s second stage—is pretextual.\\n\\n Despite the guidance McDonnell Douglas and Young offer, they cannot\\n\\nprovide complete guidance to resolve every case. Indeed, “[t]he facts necessarily\\n\\nwill vary in Title VII cases,” McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802 n.13, so “case-\\n\\nby-case” analysis will be required, “in the context of individual circumstances,” Maj.\\n\\nOp. at 24. And unfortunately, neither I nor anyone else I’m aware of can articulate\\n\\na checklist that will necessarily apply in every single case. Even the Supreme Court\\n\\nitself has recognized this fact. See Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N. A., 534 U.S. 506, 506–\\n\\n07 (2002) (“The precise requirements of the prima facie case can vary with the\\n\\ncontext and were ‘never intended to be rigid, mechanized, or ritualistic.’”) (quoting\\n\\nFurnco, 438 U.S. at 577); see also Sprint/United Mgmt. Co. v. Mendelsohn, 552 U.S.\\n\\n379, 387–88 (2008) (“The question whether evidence of discrimination by other\\n\\nsupervisors is relevant in an individual ADEA case is fact based and depends on\\n\\nmany factors, including how closely related the evidence is to the plaintiff’s\\n\\ncircumstances and theory of the case.”).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 73\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 74 of 100\\n\\n\\n Nevertheless, besides the considerations we can draw from the McDonnell\\n\\nDouglas and Young analyses, factors such as whether the plaintiff and the proposed\\n\\ncomparators had the same supervisor or a similar employment or disciplinary\\n\\nhistory, and whether the proposed comparator and the plaintiff had fairly comparable\\n\\npositions may also be relevant, even at the prima facie stage. For example, an\\n\\nemployee whose job it is to drive and an employee whose job does not require any\\n\\ndriving may be subject to materially different consequences when it comes to the\\n\\nsignificance to their employment status of an off-duty car accident, and if that is the\\n\\ncase, the driver would obviously know that. Such employees are not “similarly\\n\\nsituated” at the prima facie stage.\\n\\n But the biggest principle we take from Supreme Court precedent on the level\\n\\nof specificity required in applying the “similarly situated” standard is that the\\n\\nstandard applies in a “generalized,” “not onerous,” and “minimal” way at the prima\\n\\nfacie stage and in a more rigorous way at the pretext stage. So at the second phase\\n\\nof the McDonnell Douglas framework, an employer’s stated reasons for its action\\n\\ncan fairly and severely narrow—and even completely eliminate—the field of\\n\\n“similarly situated” comparators. And if they do, that ends the action, unless the\\n\\nplaintiff can raise a material issue of fact concerning whether the employer’s stated\\n\\nreason was pretextual.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 74\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 75 of 100\\n\\n\\n Instead of following this principle, the Majority Opinion requires courts to\\n\\nperform the heightened “similarly situated” inquiry at the prima facie stage, and it\\n\\nengages in a hyper-detailed application of the standard at that juncture. 18 So\\n\\nlegitimate questions about how detailed similarities between a plaintiff and her\\n\\ncomparators must be before losing meaning get disposed of without the employer’s\\n\\nreasons ever being subjected to pretext testing.\\n\\n If the Majority Opinion’s analysis were correct, in Young, at the prima facie\\n\\nstage, the Supreme Court would have upheld summary judgment to UPS for all the\\n\\nreasons the Fourth Circuit noted: some of Young’s proposed comparators were\\n\\n“‘disabled under the ADA’” whereas Young was not; other comparators were\\n\\n“‘injured on the job,’” whereas she was not. Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1348 (quoting\\n\\nYoung v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 707 F.3d 437, 450 (4th Cir. 2013)). But, of\\n\\ncourse, that did not happen. Rather, the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Circuit\\n\\nerred and that Young should be allowed to proceed to the pretext stage to present the\\n\\n\\n\\n 18\\n The Majority Opinion complains that I “offer no real guidance” as to how the “similarly\\nsituated” standard is “operationalize[d].” Maj. Op. at 28 n.16. That is simply not accurate. See\\nsupra at 40-43. Nor is the Majority Opinion’s own explanation of how it “operationalize[s]” its\\nstandard is any more precise than mine. See, e.g., Maj. Op. at 24 (admitting that the standard “will\\nhave to be worked out on a case-by-case basis, in the context of individual circumstances”), 25\\n(stating that a “similarly situated” comparator will “[o]rdinarily” meet four qualities, including one\\nthat retreats further from creating a rule by stating a second time that a comparator “will ordinarily\\n(though not invariably) have been under the jurisdiction of the same supervisor as the plaintiff”).\\nAnd, as I have noted, unlike the “similarly situated” standard this opinion describes, the Majority\\nOpinion entirely fails to explain how its “similarly situated” standard accounts for comparators\\naccepted under McDonnell Douglas’s and Young’s analyses.\\n\\n 75\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 76 of 100\\n\\n\\nwhole menu of comparators enumerated above. Id. at 1355-56. It is simply\\n\\nimpossible to square the Majority Opinion with how the Supreme Court has\\n\\ninstructed lower courts to effectuate McDonnell Douglas.\\n\\n The Majority Opinion makes this error because it allows the matching of\\n\\ncharacteristics of comparators to become an exercise for its own sake. We must\\n\\nalways remember our purpose in identifying “similarly situated” comparators. At\\n\\nthe prima facie stage, we match characteristics to determine only whether the\\n\\nplaintiff and her comparators are similar enough that we can confidently rule out\\n\\ndiscrimination as a basis for the employer’s action—without hearing the employer’s\\n\\nreason for its action and without allowing the plaintiff an opportunity to cast doubt\\n\\nupon that articulated reason. And at the pretext stage, we evaluate characteristics to\\n\\nascertain only whether the plaintiff and her comparators are similar enough that we\\n\\ncannot confidently rule out discrimination as a basis for the employer’s action—\\n\\neven considering the plaintiff’s efforts to show pretext. If we are any more\\n\\ndemanding than that, we fail to restrict our comparison to “material” similarities and\\n\\nviolate the purpose of Title VII and the McDonnell Douglas framework.\\n\\n B.\\n\\n To demonstrate how the “similarly situated” standard should be applied under\\n\\nMcDonnell Douglas and its progeny, I apply it in this section to Lewis’s facts.\\n\\nBefore I can do that, though, I must take a moment to identify some important facts\\n\\n\\n 76\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 77 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe Majority Opinion leaves out and to correct some inferences the Majority Opinion\\n\\nmistakenly draws from the facts it does mention. For these reasons, Section 1 sets\\n\\nforth the relevant facts, and Section 2 applies the correct “similarly situated”\\n\\nstandard to them in conducting the McDonnell Douglas analysis.\\n\\n 1.\\n\\na. The Facts Leading to Lewis’s Termination\\n\\n Lewis began working at the Union City Police Department as a police officer\\n\\nin 2001. In 2008, the Department promoted her to the position of detective.\\n\\n The following year, on January 29, 2009, Lewis suffered a heart attack.\\n\\nLewis’s cardiologist described her heart attack as “relatively small because it hadn’t\\n\\naffected her heart function,” and she had no blockage. After taking the month of\\n\\nFebruary 2009 off, Lewis returned to full, active duty on March 2, 2009.\\n\\n When she started back, her lieutenant, Jerry Hester, told her that detectives\\n\\ndid not respond directly to calls but that they waited to be called out specifically.\\n\\nHester assigned “children and women crimes” to the “lady” detectives and gave “the\\n\\nmore aggressive stuff” to himself or Sergeant Cliff McClure.\\n\\n In June 2010, the Department implemented a policy requiring all officers in a\\n\\nposition to make an arrest or supervise an arrestee, which included detectives, to\\n\\ncarry a Taser. To become certified to carry a Taser, the Department required, among\\n\\nother things, for officers to receive a five-second Taser shock.\\n\\n\\n 77\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 78 of 100\\n\\n\\n Similarly, pepper-spray training, which was necessary for pepper-spray\\n\\ncertification, involved exposure to pepper spray. Though Lewis had been exposed\\n\\nto pepper spray when she was at the police academy, she was not certified in its use.\\n\\n To remedy this circumstance, on June 14, 2010, the Department scheduled\\n\\nLewis for pepper-spray training, including pepper-spray exposure, three days later,\\n\\non June 17, 2010.\\n\\n The very next day, June 15, 2010, Lewis’s doctor gave her a letter that\\n\\n“recommend[ed] that a Taser gun or [pepper] spray [not] be used on or near [Lewis]\\n\\nsecondary to her chronic conditions [including a heart condition].” The letter further\\n\\nrequested that the Department “[p]lease take [the doctor’s recommendation] into\\n\\nconsideration when making any decisions about occupational training.” Lewis\\n\\nprovided the Department with that letter the following day, June 16, 2010.\\n\\n And the day after that, Thursday, June 17, 2010, Assistant Chief of Police Lee\\n\\nBrown issued a letter to Lewis “plac[ing] [her] on administrative leave without\\n\\ncompensation until such time your physician releases you to return to full and active\\n\\nduty.” The letter further advised, “You need to contact Tracie McCord in Human\\n\\nResources to complete the necessary FMLA [Family Medical Leave Act] paperwork\\n\\nconcerning your absence. You presently have accrued leave that you may utilize\\n\\nuntil the time such leave is expended.”\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 78\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 79 of 100\\n\\n\\n Lewis contacted McCord’s office the next Monday, June 21, 2010. On June\\n\\n22, McCord’s assistant called Lewis back and scheduled an appointment for Lewis\\n\\nand McCord to meet on Wednesday, June 23, 2010.\\n\\n At the June 23 meeting, McCord gave Lewis FMLA paperwork and told\\n\\nLewis to ask her doctor to call Brown to see whether there was any way that Lewis\\n\\ncould be safely Tased.\\n\\n That same day, Lewis called her doctor and left a message seeking to have her\\n\\ndoctor schedule a time to call Brown and to fill out the FMLA forms. Lewis’s\\n\\ndoctor’s office returned the call and made a July 7 appointment for Lewis to bring\\n\\nthe FMLA paperwork.\\n\\n In the meantime, on July 1, 2010, Lewis sent Police Chief Charles Odom a\\n\\nletter asking that he permit her to “resume [her] duties as [she] had been doing\\n\\nwithout limitation until [she] was recently placed on administrative leave.” She\\n\\nclarified that she was “only asking for an accommodation on the [T]aser and [pepper-\\n\\nspray] training until everything [wa]s cleared up with [her] doctor.” Later that day,\\n\\nBrown responded on behalf of himself and Odom. He stated, “[U]ntil your doctor\\n\\nreleases you for duty, your request is denied.”\\n\\n The following day, Friday, July 2, 2010, Lewis emailed Brown to advise him\\n\\nthat her doctor was out on vacation until Wednesday, July 7, the date upon which\\n\\nshe had already scheduled an appointment with the doctor and would provide her\\n\\n\\n 79\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 80 of 100\\n\\n\\nwith the FMLA paperwork. Lewis also requested that Brown give her his cellphone\\n\\nnumber so she could put her doctor directly in touch with Brown.\\n\\n The next communication in the record occurred after the July 4 holiday, on\\n\\nTuesday, July 6, 2010. In that email from Lewis to Brown, Lewis sent a\\n\\n“reminder/follow up” to her Friday email to Brown, reminding Brown that her\\n\\ndoctor was on vacation until Wednesday and that she had an appointment at noon\\n\\non Wednesday, so she could give the doctor the FMLA paperwork. Lewis again\\n\\nrequested Brown’s cellphone number to provide to her physician so the doctor could\\n\\ncall him directly. Later that day, Brown instructed Lewis to have her doctor call the\\n\\noffice number to schedule a time to “have a conversation about the situation.”\\n\\n The following day, July 7, 2010, Lewis went to see her doctor and provided\\n\\nthe doctor with the FMLA paperwork to fill out. Although the doctor did not prepare\\n\\nthe paperwork before Lewis left, the doctor advised Lewis that she was going to\\n\\ncontact the Police Department. So Lewis called McCord and left her a message that\\n\\nthe doctor would be calling that day. But the doctor did not call, and no one told\\n\\nLewis.\\n\\n Instead, the next morning, at 11:15 a.m., Captain Mike Jones and Lieutenant\\n\\nKen Hester visited Lewis and served her with a letter from Brown immediately\\n\\nterminating her employment. The letter explained,\\n\\n As of Thursday, July 8, 2010, at 1000 hours, you\\n have not provided the City of Union City with any\\n 80\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 81 of 100\\n\\n\\n paperwork requesting Family and Medical Leave. You\\n have not contacted me or any other City official\\n concerning your status in relation to returning to active\\n duty. You are absent without leave.\\n\\n Union City Personnel Policy Chapter 6, Section 1,\\n c, (Leaves of Absence) states, “Any unapproved leave of\\n absence will be cause for dismissal.” Because you have\\n exhausted all of your accrued leave and have failed to\\n complete and turn in the necessary paperwork to be placed\\n on Family and Medical Leave, your absence is unapproved\\n and you are terminated effective immediately.\\n\\nNobody told Lewis before her termination that if she did not turn in her FMLA\\n\\npaperwork by July 7, any adverse action would befall her.\\n\\n After receiving the termination letter, Lewis called her doctor to ask whether\\n\\nthe doctor had called the Police Department, as the two had agreed the doctor would.\\n\\nThe doctor’s assistant said that the doctor intended to call the Department on her\\n\\nlunch hour that day. So Lewis emphasized the importance, explaining that she had\\n\\nbeen fired from her position.\\n\\n Lewis’s doctor then called Odom that same day. Odom told the doctor “he\\n\\nwas concerned about [Lewis’s] being released back to full duty and still being under\\n\\n[the doctor’s] care.” The doctor responded that she “release[s] people back to work\\n\\nduty and still care[s] [for] them in the office.” Odom “also wondered if . . . Lewis\\n\\ninfluenced [the doctor’s] decision to recommend that [Lewis] not use the Taser or\\n\\npepper spray.” The doctor replied that “pepper spray was not as much [of] a\\n\\n\\n\\n 81\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 82 of 100\\n\\n\\nconcern” as “be[ing]” Tased. As the doctor explained the problem, the doctor “did\\n\\nnot know how the ‘Taser’ would affect Lewis.”\\n\\n In the course of the litigation in this case, Odom later conceded in his\\n\\ndeposition testimony that if Lewis had brought in a document from her doctor stating\\n\\nthat she could be exposed to pepper spray, “she probably would have been put back\\n\\nto work . . . .” He further admitted that during the July 8 conversation between\\n\\nBrown and Lewis’s doctor, in light of the doctor’s expressed withdrawal of the\\n\\npepper-spray concerns, nothing precluded Brown from asking the doctor for a note\\n\\nstating that Lewis could proceed with pepper-spray training. Yet Brown did not do\\n\\nso. Odom explained this fact by noting that the conversation did not occur until after\\n\\nLewis’s termination earlier that same day.\\n\\n Also on July 8, 2010, Lewis notified Odom of her intent to appeal her\\n\\ntermination. The City Manager affirmed Lewis’s termination on July 23, 2010.\\n\\nb. The Proposed Comparators\\n\\n As comparators, Lewis proposed Walker Heard, a white male who served as\\n\\na master patrol officer, and Cliff McClure, a white male who worked as a sergeant\\n\\nin the Criminal Investigations Division.\\n\\n Heard was placed on administrative leave after failing a physical-agility test,\\n\\nsince he was not fit for duty. He was given 90 days of administrative leave within\\n\\nwhich to work with medical professionals and pass the fitness-for-duty test. But\\n\\n\\n 82\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 83 of 100\\n\\n\\ninstead of Heard passing the test, near the end of the 90-day period, Heard’s attorney\\n\\nsent a letter to the Department stating that Heard had a disability and requesting that\\n\\nthe fitness-for-duty test be waived.\\n\\n Although Odom did not waive the test, he also did not terminate Heard’s\\n\\nemployment at the end of the 90-day administrative-leave period. Rather, Odom\\n\\noffered Heard the chance to transfer to a dispatcher position, which did not require\\n\\nhim to pass the fitness-for-duty test that patrol officers had to take. Odom held the\\n\\ndispatcher position open for Heard for eleven months before demanding a decision\\n\\nand finally terminating him when he declined the transfer. In all, Heard was on\\n\\nadministrative leave for 449 days before he was finally fired.\\n\\n The Department placed McClure on administrative leave because he failed a\\n\\nbalance test, so he was rendered unfit for duty. McClure received up to a 90-day\\n\\nperiod of administrative leave within which to work with medical professionals to\\n\\nremedy his balance test and requalify as fit for duty. Before the 90-day period\\n\\nexpired, McClure successfully completed his physical-fitness test and was deemed\\n\\nfit to return to duty.\\n\\nc. The Policies the Department Invoked\\n\\n The Department relies on portions of two policies in this case. I summarize\\n\\neach in turn.\\n\\n i. Union City Employee Handbook: Personnel Policy Chapter 6 (Leaves\\n of Absence)\\n 83\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 84 of 100\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n Odom testified that the Department placed Lewis on leave under the Union\\n\\nCity Employee Handbook’s Personnel Policy on leaves of absence, which is found\\n\\nat Chapter 6.\\n\\n Section 1.A. of that policy provides, in relevant part, “A regular full-time\\n\\nemployee may be granted leave of absence without pay at the discretion of the\\n\\nDepartment Director and the City Manager. An employee may also be placed on\\n\\nleave of absence status without application.” As relevant here, § 1.A. imposes a 180-\\n\\nday limit on any such leave. Finally, if an employee is placed on administrative\\n\\nleave without pay, she may choose to take any portion of it as paid leave to the extent\\n\\nshe has paid leave available. But whether or not she chooses to take any of her\\n\\nunpaid administrative leave as available paid leave is “up to the individual\\n\\nemployee,” since the option to use paid leave during unpaid administrative leave is\\n\\nfor the benefit of the employee. As a result, according to the City Manager, who\\n\\nwas responsible for reviewing and revising the Union City Employee Handbook,\\n\\nwhether the employee opts to use paid leave for any portion of her unpaid\\n\\nadministrative leave is “irrelevant” to and does not affect the length of the\\n\\nadministrative-leave period.\\n\\n Turning to § 7 of the City’s leave-of-absence policy, that covers FMLA\\n\\nabsences. That section has a subsection called “Notification and Reporting\\n\\nRequirements,” § 7.F. But absent from that section is any deadline for the\\n 84\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 85 of 100\\n\\n\\nsubmission of FMLA paperwork where, as in this case, the employee is put on\\n\\nadministrative leave by the City and told to subsequently “complete the necessary\\n\\nFMLA paperwork concerning [the] absence” (as opposed to scheduling FMLA leave\\n\\nherself). Section 7.B. also authorizes “[a]n eligible employee [to] apply available\\n\\naccrued leave to all approved absences where all or a portion of their normal base\\n\\nsalary would otherwise be unpaid.”\\n\\n The last part of Chapter 6 that is pertinent is § 1.C., which the Department\\n\\nrelied on in the letter terminating Lewis’s employment. That provision states, “Any\\n\\nunapproved leave of absence will be cause for dismissal.”\\n\\n ii. The Union City Police Department’s Physical-Fitness Policy\\n\\n In January 2013, after Lewis left but before Heard and McClure were placed\\n\\non administrative leave, the Department created a policy requiring all sworn officers\\n\\nto pass an annual physical-fitness test. 19 Under the policy, any officer who did not\\n\\npass the annual fitness test was sent to physicians for a less strenuous fitness-for-\\n\\nduty test. If the officer failed that test, the officer was placed on administrative leave\\n\\nwithout pay for 90 days. The officer then had that 90-day period to improve his or\\n\\nher health to the point where the officer could pass the fitness-for-duty test. At the\\n\\nend of the 90-day period, physicians administered a second fitness-for-duty test. If\\n\\n\\n\\n 19\\n No copy of the policy appears in the record, so the description of it in this dissent is taken\\nfrom Odom’s articulation of the policy.\\n 85\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 86 of 100\\n\\n\\nthe officer passed, the officer was reinstated. But if the officer failed, the officer was\\n\\n“deemed unfit for duty and [was] subject to termination.”\\n\\n The “governing force” for the Department’s authority to involuntarily place\\n\\nofficers on administrative leave came from the Union City Personnel Policy\\n\\nHandbook, which governed all City employees. The Handbook “set the baseline”\\n\\nfor the Department. As a result, the Department generally could not exceed its\\n\\nproscriptions, since the Handbook and the Department’s policies are “[v]ery similar”\\n\\nto the relationship between “State laws” and “County laws.”\\n\\n The Department’s issuance of the physical-fitness policy’s 90-day\\n\\nadministrative-leave provision and the Department’s placing of Lewis on\\n\\nadministrative leave both involved the Department’s exercise of its authority to\\n\\ninvoluntarily put an officer on administrative leave for being physically unfit for\\n\\nduty. Viewed in the light most favorable to Lewis, the record yields the reasonable\\n\\ninference that the Department’s authority to involuntarily place Lewis on\\n\\nadministrative leave for being physically unfit for duty and the Department’s\\n\\ndecision to put physically unfit officers involuntarily on 90 days of administrative\\n\\nleave were exercises of the same power: the authority referenced in Chapter 6, §\\n\\n1.A., in the Union City Personnel Policy Handbook for the Department to put an\\n\\nemployee involuntarily on administrative leave for up to 180 days. In fact, both\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 86\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 87 of 100\\n\\n\\nexercises were “governed” by the Union City Personnel Policy Handbook since the\\n\\nHandbook put a 180-day restrictor cap on the Department’s discretion.\\n\\n This is unsurprising since both cases involve the same action—placing an\\n\\nofficer involuntarily on administrative leave—for the same reason—being\\n\\nphysically unfit for duty. Plus, both exercises fall within the policy’s boundaries\\n\\nrequiring fewer than 180 days’ leave. Nor did the Department put the physical-\\n\\nfitness policy or any other evidence suggesting that anything other than the\\n\\ndiscretion referenced in the Personnel Policy Handbook was the source of its power\\n\\nto put officers involuntarily on administrative leave for 90 days for being physically\\n\\nunfit for duty into the summary judgment record. Rather, the record contains only\\n\\none source of authority for the Department to put someone involuntarily on\\n\\nadministrative leave: Chapter 6 of the Personnel Policy Handbook.20\\n\\n Odom attested that both Heard and McClure were placed on administrative\\n\\nleave pursuant to the 90-day administrative-leave portion of the physical-fitness\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 20\\n The Majority Opinion says it “simply can’t indulge” this inference, Maj. Op. at 30 n.18,\\neven though it is based on the evidence of record and does nothing more than view the facts in the\\nlight most favorable to the non-moving party—here, Lewis. But elementary principles of summary\\njudgment say otherwise. On a motion for summary judgment, “courts are required to view the\\nfacts and draw reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the party opposing the summary\\njudgment motion.” Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 378 (2007) (citation, quotation marks, and\\nalterations omitted). And for the reasons I have identified, this is certainly a reasonable inference.\\nNor has the Majority Opinion offered any reason why this is not a reasonable inference from the\\nrecord.\\n 87\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 88 of 100\\n\\n\\npolicy. 21 While McClure was able to pass the second fitness-for-duty test and return\\n\\nto work, Heard was not. But as explained in Section II.B.1.b above, Heard’s\\n\\nemployment was not terminated at the end of the 90-day period. Instead, he\\n\\nremained on administrative leave for a total of 449 days before Odom ended his\\n\\nemployment.\\n\\n 2.\\n\\n Lewis satisfied her comparator burden at both the prima facie stage and the\\n\\npretext stage, allowing her to survive summary judgment. As I explain below,\\n\\nmaterial questions of fact exist about whether the Department’s stated\\n\\nnondiscriminatory reasons were necessarily crucial to the Department’s dissimilar\\n\\ntreatment of Lewis and her comparators.\\n\\n Significantly, Heard and McClure’s situations cannot “reasonably be\\n\\ndistinguished” from Lewis’s. Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1355; see also Caraballo-\\n\\nCaraballo, 892 F.3d at 60 (stating that in the “in all relevant respects” standard,\\n\\n“reasonableness is the touchstone” and “[t]he court must decide whether a prudent\\n\\nperson, looking objectively at the plaintiff and her comparator would think them\\n\\n\\n 21\\n The Majority Opinion suggests that Heard and McClure were not proper comparators\\nbecause the Department did not adopt the physical-fitness policy until two years after it terminated\\nLewis. Maj. Op. at 29. But again, in viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Lewis, we\\nmust accept for purposes of summary judgment that the Department’s decision to put Lewis on\\nadministrative leave for being physically unfit for duty and its issuance of the administrative-leave\\nportion of the physical-fitness policy were exercises of the same power. And the Majority Opinion\\ndoes not cite any authority that rules out comparators simply because the employer dealt with them\\nafter the plaintiff. Perhaps that’s because there is no such authority.\\n 88\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 89 of 100\\n\\n\\nroughly equivalent”) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). Lewis and\\n\\nher comparators had similar job responsibilities, had similar job titles, had similar\\n\\nseniority, and were supervised by the same person, Odom. And most important, the\\n\\nDepartment put all three on involuntary administrative leave for being physically\\n\\nunfit for duty. Yet Lewis presented evidence that the Department gave Lewis just\\n\\n21 days of administrative leave while affording McClure and Heard 90 and 449 days\\n\\nof administrative leave, respectively.\\n\\n This is plenty to meet Lewis’s “generalized” and “minimal” prima facie\\n\\nburden. To put it in McDonnell Douglas’s “comparable seriousness” terms, see 411\\n\\nU.S. 804, Lewis’s physical condition triggered the same employment decision by\\n\\nthe Department as did McClure’s and Heard’s—the Department placed all three\\n\\ninvoluntarily on administrative leave because they were not fit for duty and indicated\\n\\nthat they could not return to duty until they were fit to do so.\\n\\n And if we compare Lewis’s situation to that of Young in Young, Lewis bears\\n\\na closer resemblance to her proposed comparators than Young did to her accepted\\n\\ncomparators. As I have noted, in Lewis’s case, she and her comparators all could\\n\\nnot do what the Department deemed an essential aspect of their work for the same\\n\\nreason—they were all physically unfit for duty. But in Young, where the plaintiff\\n\\ncould not deliver packages because she temporarily had a physical restriction\\n\\nconcerning how much weight she could lift, some of her approved comparators\\n\\n\\n 89\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 90 of 100\\n\\n\\ncould not work as drivers for reasons unrelated to their health—they had been\\n\\nstripped of their licenses or DOT certifications.\\n\\n In light of Lewis’s similarities to her comparators, at the prima facie stage, we\\n\\ncannot confidently rule out discrimination as a basis for the employer’s action,\\n\\nwithout hearing the employer’s reason for its action and without allowing the\\n\\nplaintiff an opportunity to cast doubt upon that articulated reason.\\n\\n Since these facts establish a prima facie case for Lewis, we turn to the\\n\\nDepartment’s nondiscriminatory reasons for firing Lewis after giving her only 21\\n\\ndays of administrative leave. The Department has offered four reasons for its action,\\n\\nand Lewis asserts each is pretextual. Before I address each reason in turn, I note a\\n\\nfew ways in which a plaintiff may create a material issue of fact concerning pretext.\\n\\n Among others, a plaintiff can survive the pretext stage by casting sufficient\\n\\ndoubt on the defendant’s proffered nondiscriminatory reasons to permit a reasonable\\n\\nfactfinder to conclude that the employer’s proffered “reasons were not what actually\\n\\nmotivated its conduct.” Cooper-Houston v. Southern Ry. Co., 37 F.3d 603, 605 (11th\\n\\nCir. 1994) (citation omitted). The plaintiff can also demonstrate pretext if she shows\\n\\nthe employer’s articulated reason is false and that the false reason hid discrimination.\\n\\nSee St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 515; Hurlbert v. St. Mary’s Health Care Sys., Inc., 439\\n\\nF.3d 1286, 1298 (11th Cir. 2006) (citing as evidence of pretext “an employer’s\\n\\nfailure to articulate clearly and consistently the reason for an employee’s\\n\\n\\n 90\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 91 of 100\\n\\n\\ndischarge”). And the plaintiff can show pretext if she establishes that the employer\\n\\nhas failed to clearly articulate and follow its formal policies. See Hinson v. Clinch\\n\\nCty., Ga. Bd. of Educ., 231 F.3d 821, 831 (11th Cir. 2000) (finding issue of fact on\\n\\npretext reversing because employer failed to raise a concern directly with the\\n\\nemployee). All of these ways of demonstrating pretext come into play in this case.\\n\\n First, the Department asserts that it provided the comparators with more than\\n\\n21 days’ administrative leave under the Department’s physical-fitness policy, which\\n\\ndid not exist when Lewis worked there. And to be sure, the physical-fitness policy\\n\\nhad not yet been issued when Lewis was fired.\\n\\n But viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Lewis, as we must, the\\n\\nphysical-fitness policy is nothing more than a statement of how the Department\\n\\nexercises its authority as identified in Chapter 6, section 1.A. of the City Employee\\n\\nHandbook, to place an officer on administrative leave when that officer is not\\n\\nphysically fit to perform her duties. So the record shows that Odom had just two\\n\\nopportunities to use the discretion afforded to him by Chapter 6, section 1.A. of the\\n\\nCity Employee Handbook to promulgate administrative-leave policies for officers\\n\\nwho were physically incapable of policing. He couldn’t have behaved more\\n\\ndifferently.\\n\\n First, when Odom had Lewis, an African-American woman before him, he, at\\n\\nbest, gave her 21 days of administrative leave before firing her. But when he\\n\\n\\n 91\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 92 of 100\\n\\n\\nexercised his discretion to grant leave without an African-American woman in front\\n\\nof him, he provided officers with 90 days of administrative leave—more than four\\n\\ntimes as much as he gave Lewis.\\n\\n Second, when Odom had Lewis, an African-American woman to consider, he\\n\\ngave no warning before firing her after 21 days of administrative leave. But under\\n\\nthe policy Odom promulgated after Lewis’s departure to apply generally to all\\n\\nofficers who were physically unfit for duty, he provided an express warning that\\n\\ntheir leave would expire in 90 days if they did not remedy their fitness-for-duty\\n\\ndeficiency.\\n\\n And third, in Heard’s case, Odom skated right by Chapter 6, § 1.A’s 180-day\\n\\ncap and gave Heard 449 days of unpaid administrative leave—21 times the number\\n\\nof days he gave Lewis and 269 days more than the City’s administrative-leave policy\\n\\nallowed (and 359 days more than the Department’s physical-fitness policy\\n\\npermitted). A reasonable jury could find that the Department did not consistently\\n\\nexercise its authority in placing physically unfit officers on administrative leave and\\n\\nthat the Department did not comply with its own policies. A reasonable jury could\\n\\nfurther conclude that these inconsistencies reveal discriminatory motivation.\\n\\n The Department offers as a second nondiscriminatory reason for its actions\\n\\nthat Lewis’s condition was permanent, while Heard’s and McClure’s were not\\n\\nnecessarily so. But this reason also has three holes in it.\\n\\n\\n 92\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 93 of 100\\n\\n\\n First, as I have noted, in Young, the Supreme Court concluded that temporarily\\n\\ndisabled employees could be proper comparators for permanently disabled\\n\\nemployees. Young, 135 S. Ct. at 1346–47. We have no authority to demand more\\n\\nsimilarity than the Supreme Court. And the Majority Opinion does not say why the\\n\\npermanently disabled were acceptable comparators to the temporary disabled in\\n\\nYoung, yet they are not here.\\n\\n Second, even if we could set aside Young, in the light most favorable to Lewis,\\n\\nthe record shows the Department itself did not appear to believe that Lewis’s lack of\\n\\nphysical fitness for duty was permanent. For example, in the June 17, 2010, letter\\n\\nputting Lewis on administrative leave, Brown stated that Lewis was on such leave\\n\\n“until such time your physician releases you to return to full and active duty.” And\\n\\nLewis also advised the Department that she did not expect her lack of physical fitness\\n\\nto be permanent, asking the Department on July 1, 2010, for “an accommodation . .\\n\\n. until everything is cleared up with my doctor.” Even in the letter firing Lewis, the\\n\\nDepartment said it placed Lewis on administrative leave “until [her] physician\\n\\nreleased [her] to return to full and active duty.”\\n\\n Plus, the Department had a history of working with others with heart\\n\\nconditions to allow them to receive a milder version of a Tasing than officers without\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 93\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 94 of 100\\n\\n\\nheart conditions received.22 So the Department had firsthand knowledge and\\n\\nexperience that a heart condition did not necessarily mean that Lewis would never\\n\\nbe fit for duty. And Lewis was in daily contact with the Department about the\\n\\npossibility of having her doctor see if something could be worked out with Brown\\n\\nto resolve the Tasing and pepper spray issues. 23 In the light most favorable to Lewis,\\n\\nthese facts demonstrate that both parties viewed Lewis’s return to fitness for duty to\\n\\nbe a possibility. 24 So a reasonable jury could conclude that the alleged permanence\\n\\n\\n 22\\n Specifically, rather than shooting the Taser darts into their backs from ten to fourteen\\nfeet away, the Department laid the officers on the floor, clipped alligator clips to one of each\\nofficer’s legs, and administered the shock that way.\\n 23\\n The Majority Opinion argues that Lewis’s doctor “never cleared her for Taser training.”\\nMaj. Op. at 31 n.19. True. But that tells only part of the story. During Odom’s discussion with\\nLewis’s doctor, after Lewis had been terminated—the only time anyone from the Department ever\\nspoke with Lewis’s doctor, despite Lewis’s efforts to arrange for Brown to speak with her doctor\\nbefore she was fired—Odom never told Lewis’s doctor that an option existed to expose Lewis to\\nthe more moderate Tase it was willing to give other officers with heart conditions. So we have no\\nway of knowing whether, had Lewis’s doctor been offered this option, Lewis’s doctor would have\\nwithdrawn her objection. And even if Lewis’s doctor had not, that Lewis could not be Tased did\\nnot mean she could not work a non-patrol position, such as one like the dispatcher position offered\\nto and maintained open for Heard for eleven months.\\n 24\\n The Majority Opinion asserts that this also is not a reasonable inference from the record.\\nMaj. Op. at 31 n.19. In so claiming, the Majority Opinion not only ignores certain facts, it makes\\nthe mistake of construing other facts in the light most favorable to the moving party—the\\nDepartment—instead of the nonmoving party—Lewis. In particular, the Majority Opinion rests\\nits entire position that the Department viewed Lewis’s physical unfitness for duty as a permanent\\nstate of affairs when it put her on administrative leave on its argument that the word “until,” in the\\nDepartment’s written communications to Lewis was “agnostic as to the likelihood of Lewis’s\\nreturn.” Id. Sure, that interpretation may well be one way of reading the Department’s written\\nletters to Lewis. But another reasonable way of reading them is as reflecting the Department’s\\nknowledge that Lewis’s state of unfitness for duty was not necessarily permanent—particularly in\\nlight of its knowledge that it had found ways to render other officers with heart conditions fit for\\nduty. And that is the view we are required to take under the summary-judgment standard, since it\\nis the reasonable view that is most favorable to the nonmoving party. Indeed, the Majority Opinion\\nhas offered no reason for why that view is not a reasonable one on this record. Instead, the Majority\\nOpinion ignores the Supreme Court’s warning in Reeves that a court may not “impermissibly\\nsubstitute[] its judgment concerning the weight of the evidence for the jury’s.” 530 U.S. at 153.\\n 94\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 95 of 100\\n\\n\\nof Lewis’s condition was not the true reason for the Department’s actions and rather,\\n\\nthat excuse hid discriminatory motivation.\\n\\n And third, even assuming, arguendo, the Department considered Lewis’s\\n\\nphysical unfitness for duty to be permanent—a conclusion that is not supported by\\n\\nthe record, when Heard’s unfitness for duty was determined not to be temporary, the\\n\\nDepartment offered him the opportunity to take a job with the Department that did\\n\\nnot require him to go out on patrol. Odom offered no such alternative to Lewis\\n\\nbefore or after firing her, even though he admitted that the Department had enough\\n\\ninformation on the same day Lewis was fired to offer her a different position that\\n\\nwould not have required her to patrol the streets. So a reasonable jury could\\n\\nconclude that the Department did not consistently apply its policies and that it failed\\n\\nto do so for discriminatory reasons.\\n\\n The Department offered yet another (a third) reason for firing Lewis at the\\n\\ntime it terminated her employment—that she was “absent without leave” because\\n\\nher paid leave supposedly expired. But a reasonable jury could find that that reason\\n\\nhas no support in the record. Rather, on June 17, 2010, the Department placed Lewis\\n\\non “administrative leave without compensation until such time your physician\\n\\nreleases you.” Lewis remained on that leave until the moment the Department fired\\n\\nher. And according to the City Manager, whether she had or chose to take paid leave\\n\\nfor any portion of her otherwise-unpaid administrative-leave period was “irrelevant”\\n\\n\\n 95\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 96 of 100\\n\\n\\nto the administrative-leave status on which the Department placed her. So contrary\\n\\nto the Department’s stated reason, a reasonable jury could ascertain that Lewis was\\n\\nnot “absent without leave” when the Department fired her; she was on the very\\n\\nadministrative leave the Department forced her to take. And based on that, a\\n\\nreasonable jury could conclude that the Department’s third stated reason was pretext\\n\\nfor discrimination.\\n\\n Closely related to the Department’s contention that Lewis was absent without\\n\\nleave is its fourth stated reason for firing Lewis: that Lewis missed some unspoken\\n\\ndeadline by which to file her FMLA paperwork. But that’s just it: no deadline was\\n\\never stated—not in the daily communications between the parties, not in the City’s\\n\\nEmployee Handbook, and not anywhere else in the record. Plus, under the terms of\\n\\nthe June 17, 2010, letter, everyone knew Lewis would take FMLA leave after she\\n\\nexhausted her paid leave,25 and it’s not like Lewis disappeared from the\\n\\nDepartment’s radar screen without a trace. On the contrary, Lewis was in regular\\n\\ncommunication with the Department, informing it on a daily basis of her progress in\\n\\nobtaining the FMLA paperwork from her doctor. A reasonable jury could infer that\\n\\nthe Department’s sudden imposition of an apparently previously non-existent\\n\\ndeadline for submitting FMLA paperwork suggests a cover for discrimination.26\\n\\n\\n 25\\n In fact, on July 6, Brown told Lewis that she was “currently on FMLA Leave with our\\ndepartment.”\\n 26\\n Technically, another reason exists for why there a genuine issue of material fact about whether\\nLewis was “absent without leave.” The Department fired her at 10:00 a.m. and she appears to have had at\\n 96\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 97 of 100\\n\\n\\n Indeed, the Department’s failure to warn Lewis that once her accrued leave\\n\\nexpired she would be terminated rather than placed on unpaid-leave status is just the\\n\\nsort of arbitrary action that Justice Rehnquist noted could be probative of\\n\\ndiscriminatory intent. See Furnco, 438 U.S. at 577 (“[W]e know from our\\n\\nexperience that more often than not people do not act in a totally arbitrary manner,\\n\\nwithout any underlying reasons, especially in a business setting. Thus, when all\\n\\nlegitimate reasons for [the adverse employment action] have been eliminated as\\n\\npossible reasons for the employer’s actions, it is more likely than not [that] the\\n\\nemployer, who we generally assume acts only with some reason, based his decision\\n\\non an impermissible consideration such as race.”).\\n\\n So in sum, Lewis established both at the prima facie and pretext stages that,\\n\\nat the very least, material questions of fact exist concerning whether she was\\n\\n“similarly situated” to Heard and McClure in all “material” respects. But the\\n\\nMajority Opinion engages in a rigorous application of the “similarly situated”\\n\\nstandard at the prima facie case, and it construes the term “material” to include\\n\\nimmaterial comparisons. So Lewis’s case, which should survive summary judgment\\n\\nunder the McDonnell Douglas framework, dies at the prima facie stage. And Lewis\\n\\ndoes not even get the chance to contest the Department’s reasons for terminating her\\n\\n\\n\\nleast half-an-hour more of accrued leave remaining at that time. So a jury could conclude that the City’s\\nreason was pretextual since Lewis may not actually have been absent without leave at the time the City\\nfired her.\\n 97\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 98 of 100\\n\\n\\nemployment. That’s unfortunate since the City’s reasons for its action are, when\\n\\nviewed in the light most favorable to Lewis, suspect.\\n\\n III.\\n\\n In sum, I respectfully dissent from the Majority’s decisions to apply a rigorous\\n\\n“similarly situated” standard at the prima facie stage and to overbroadly construe the\\n\\nterm “material” within the “similarly situated” standard. These errors, which\\n\\ncontravene Title VII’s purpose, are particularly troubling in light of recent studies\\n\\non employment discrimination. Even though Title VII has been at work for close to\\n\\n45 years, we cannot, unfortunately, say that discrimination has been eradicated. To\\n\\nthe contrary, a recent study in the Harvard Business Review found that hiring\\n\\ndiscrimination against African-Americans and Latino-Americans has not declined at\\n\\nall in the last 25 years. See Lincoln Quillian, et. al, Hiring Discrimination Against\\n\\nBlack American Hasn’t Decline in 25 Years, Harvard Business Review, Oct. 11,\\n\\n2017, available at https://hbr.org/2017/10/hiring-discrimination-against-black-\\n\\namericans-hasnt-declined-in-25-years. Another study found that Asian-Americans\\n\\nand African-Americans were twice as likely to receive interviews if they scrubbed\\n\\nall racial cues from their résumés. Dina Gerdeman, Minorities Who ‘Whiten’ Job\\n\\nResumes Get More Interviews, Harvard Business School, May 17, 2017, available\\n\\nat https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-\\n\\ninterviews.\\n\\n\\n 98\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 99 of 100\\n\\n\\n And a recent study from Pew Research concluded that four in ten women have\\n\\nreported that their employers discriminated against them because of their gender.\\n\\nSee Kim Parker & Cary Funk, Gender Discrimination Comes In Many Forms for\\n\\nToday’s Working Women, Pew Research, Dec. 14, 2017, available at\\n\\nhttp://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/14/gender-discrimination-comes-\\n\\nin-many-forms-for-todays-working-women/.27 Plus, women are “still\\n\\nsystematically sideline[d]” once they become pregnant, seeing their hourly wages\\n\\nchopped by four percent. Natalie Kitroeff and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, “Pregnancy\\n\\nDiscrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies,” The New York\\n\\nTimes, Feb. 8, 2019, available at\\n\\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/15/business/pregnancy-\\n\\ndiscrimination.html.\\n\\n Of course, employers usually don’t post help-wanted signs reading “blacks\\n\\nneed not apply,” and they are generally astute enough not to ask women about plans\\n\\nto start a family. Instead, discrimination today often surreptitiously sits behind a veil\\n\\nof subtlety, with the boss handing out the plum assignments to male officers while\\n\\nrelegating the “lady” detectives to “less aggressive” “children crimes.” See supra at\\n\\n\\n 27\\n This discrimination is not limited to just race and gender, either. For example, in 2017,\\nthe Employment Opportunity Commission reported that it received 84,254 workplace-\\ndiscrimination charges and that it secured $398 million for victims of all types of protected classes.\\nEqual Employment Opportunity Commission, EEOC Releases Fiscal Year 2017 Enforcement and\\nLitigation Data, Jan. 25, 2018, available at https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/1-25-\\n18.cfm.\\n 99\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 100 of 100\\n\\n\\n45. Using codewords or subtlety does not make discrimination any less of a problem\\n\\nunder Title VII. And because Title VII tolerates none of it, we should be particularly\\n\\ncautious before ratcheting up plaintiffs’ “not onerous” prima facie burden, in\\n\\nviolation of McDonnell Douglas and its progeny.\\n\\n I respectfully dissent from the Majority Opinion’s errors.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 100\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4380109/\", \"author_raw\": \"Judges, concurring\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"ED CARNES"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"TJOFLAT"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"MARCUS"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":2,"string":"2"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":"WILSON; WILLIAM PRYOR; MARTIN; JORDAN; ROSENBAUM; JILL PRYOR; NEWSOM; BRANCH; GRANT"},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"ED CARNES\": \", Chief\", \"TJOFLAT\": \", Circuit\", \"MARCUS\": \", Circuit\", \"WILSON\": \", Circuit\", \"WILLIAM PRYOR\": \", Circuit\", \"MARTIN\": \", Circuit\", \"JORDAN\": \", Circuit\", \"ROSENBAUM\": \", Circuit\", \"JILL PRYOR\": \", Circuit\", \"NEWSOM\": \", Circuit\", \"BRANCH\": \", Circuit\", \"GRANT\": \", Circuit\"}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":2,"string":"2"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4602856/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Jacqueline Lewis v. City of Union City, Georgia\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-21\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 1 of 100\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n ________________________\n\n No. 15-11362\n ________________________\n\n D.C. Docket No. 1:12-cv-04038-RWS\n\nJACQUELINE LEWIS,\n\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\n\n versus\n\nCITY OF UNION CITY, GEORGIA,\nCHIEF OF POLICE CHARLES ODOM,\nin his official and individual capacities,\n\n Defendant -Appellees.\n\n ________________________\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the Northern District of Georgia\n ________________________\n\n (March 21, 2019)\n\n ON PETITION FOR REHEARING\n\nBefore ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM\nPRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM,\nBRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.\n\nNEWSOM, Circuit Judge, delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ED\nCARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR,\nJORDAN, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges, joined.\n\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 2 of 100\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Jacqueline Lewis v. City of Union City, Georgia\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-21\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 1 of 100\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 15-11362\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 1:12-cv-04038-RWS\\n\\nJACQUELINE LEWIS,\\n\\n Plaintiff-Appellant,\\n\\n versus\\n\\nCITY OF UNION CITY, GEORGIA,\\nCHIEF OF POLICE CHARLES ODOM,\\nin his official and individual capacities,\\n\\n Defendant -Appellees.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the Northern District of Georgia\\n ________________________\\n\\n (March 21, 2019)\\n\\n ON PETITION FOR REHEARING\\n\\nBefore ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM\\nPRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM,\\nBRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nNEWSOM, Circuit Judge, delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ED\\nCARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR,\\nJORDAN, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges, joined.\\n\\n Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 2 of 100\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1360,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4603070,"string":"4,603,070"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Willie Seth CRAIN, Jr., Petitioner - Appellant, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Attorney General, State of Florida, Respondents - Appellees."},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Willie Seth Crain, Jr. v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-22"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"15-14347; 18-11604"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Tjoflat, Marcus, Pryor\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"PER CURIAM\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 1 of 4\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n Nos. 15-14347 and 18-11604\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket Nos. 8:12-cv-00322-JDW-EAJ; 8:12-cv-00322-JDW-AAS\\n\\nWILLIE SETH CRAIN, JR.,\\n\\n Petitioner - Appellant,\\n\\nversus\\n\\nSECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,\\nATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF FLORIDA,\\n\\n Respondents - Appellees.\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeals from the United States District Court\\n for the Middle District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n (March 22, 2019)\\n\\nBefore TJOFLAT, MARCUS, and WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nPER CURIAM:\\n\\n Petitioner Willie Seth Crain, Jr., a prisoner represented by counsel in the\\n\\nDistrict Court for his proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, moved pro se for leave\\n\\nto file an amended motion for appointment of independent counsel and again\\n\\f Case: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 2 of 4\\n\\n\\nmoved pro se for appointment of independent supplemental or substitute counsel.\\n\\nThe Court denied the first motion on July 22, 2015 and struck the second on\\n\\nFebruary 8, 2018. Both appeals are currently pending before this Court. See Crain\\n\\nv. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., No. 15-14347-P (11th Cir. filed Sept. 28, 2015);\\n\\nCrain v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., No. 18-11604-P (11th Cir. filed April 12,\\n\\n2018). We dismiss both appeals for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because a\\n\\nmotion to substitute counsel is not an appealable order under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 or\\n\\nCohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 69 S. Ct. 1221 (1949).\\n\\n The motions are not appealable under § 1291 because Crain’s proceedings\\n\\nunder § 2254 are still pending.1\\n\\n To fall within the collateral-order doctrine, an order must “conclusively\\n\\ndetermine the disputed question, resolve an important issue completely separate\\n\\nfrom the merits of the action, and be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a\\n\\nfinal judgment.” Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U.S. 368, 375, 101\\n\\nS. Ct. 669, 674 (1981) (quoting Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 468,\\n\\n98 S. Ct. 2454, 2458 (1978)).\\n\\n\\n\\n 1\\n This case, then, is not like Harbison v. Bell, 556 U.S. 180, 129 S. Ct. 1481 (2009),\\nwhere the Supreme Court held that a § 2254 petitioner’s motion to authorize already-appointed\\ncounsel to represent him in state clemency proceedings was “clearly an appealable order under\\n28 U.S.C. § 1291.” Id. at 183, 129 S. Ct. at 1485. There, the district court had already denied\\nthe petitioner’s § 2254 petition, id. at 182, 129 S. Ct. at 1484, so nothing remained for the court\\nto do. See also Lambrix v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 756 F.3d 1246, 1258 (11th Cir. 2014)\\n(applying Harbison).\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 3 of 4\\n\\n\\n A motion to substitute counsel does not fall within the doctrine because the\\n\\ndecision would not otherwise be unreviewable. Were the District Court to deny\\n\\nCrain’s § 2254 petition on the merits, we could also review its decision to deny his\\n\\nmotions to substitute counsel. See Brown v. United States, 720 F.3d 1316, 1336\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2013) (reviewing simultaneously the denial of a § 2255 petition and the\\n\\ndenial of a motion to withdraw “conflict-encumbered counsel”). In the criminal\\n\\ncontext, the “unreviewability” element goes unmet when the relief one is entitled\\n\\nto “would be largely satisfied by an acquittal resulting from the prosecution’s\\n\\nfailure to carry its burden of proof.” Flanagan v. United States, 465 U.S. 259, 267,\\n\\n104 S. Ct. 1051, 1056 (1984) (quoting United States v. MacDonald, 435 U.S. 850,\\n\\n859, 98 S. Ct. 1547, 1552 (1978)). Though habeas proceedings are civil in nature,\\n\\nsee Debruce v. Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., 758 F.3d 1263, 1294 (11th Cir. 2014),\\n\\nthe same principle holds: if Crain could eventually obtain release from, what he\\n\\nalleges to be, unconstitutional confinement, nothing about the Court’s decision is\\n\\nunreviewable. This case, then, is unlike the denial of a pre-trial motion to reduce\\n\\nbail, where the order becomes moot if review must await conviction and sentence,\\n\\nor a motion to dismiss an indictment under the Double Jeopardy or Speech or\\n\\nDebate Clauses, which provide immunity from prosecution, because here, there is\\n\\nno risk of “irretrievabl[e] los[s].” Id. at 266, 104 S. Ct. at 1055.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 4 of 4\\n\\n\\n Of course, we do not write on a blank slate. In Chavez v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t\\n\\nof Corr., 742 F.3d 940, 944 (11th Cir. 2014), this Court collaterally reviewed a\\n\\ndistrict court’s denial of a § 2254 petitioner’s motion to substitute counsel.\\n\\nBecause the Court did not address subject-matter jurisdiction, however, we are not\\n\\nbound by that holding under our prior-panel rule. See Main Drug, Inc. v. Aetna\\n\\nU.S. Healthcare, Inc., 475 F.3d 1228, 1231 (11th Cir. 2007) (“[W]e are not bound\\n\\nby a prior decision’s sub silentio treatment of a jurisdictional question.” (quoting\\n\\nOkongwu v. Reno, 229 F.3d 1327, 1330 (11th Cir.2000))). And we are confident\\n\\nthat the denial of a motion to substitute counsel is not within the “narrow\\n\\nexception” to the final-judgment rule. Flanagan, 465 U.S. at 265, 104 S. Ct. at\\n\\n1055 (quoting Risjord, 449 U.S. at 374, 101 S. Ct. at 673).\\n\\n For these reasons, the above-mentioned appeals are DISMISSED for lack of\\n\\nsubject-matter jurisdiction.\\n\\n SO ORDERED.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4380323/\", \"author_raw\": \"PER CURIAM\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"TJOFLAT"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"MARCUS"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"PRYOR"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603070/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Willie Seth CRAIN, Jr., Petitioner - Appellant, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Attorney General, State of Florida, Respondents - Appellees.\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-22\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 1 of 4\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n ________________________\n\n Nos. 15-14347 and 18-11604\n ________________________\n\n D.C. Docket Nos. 8:12-cv-00322-JDW-EAJ; 8:12-cv-00322-JDW-AAS\n\nWILLIE SETH CRAIN, JR.,\n\n Petitioner - Appellant,\n\nversus\n\nSECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,\nATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF FLORIDA,\n\n Respondents - Appellees.\n ________________________\n\n Appeals from the United States District Court\n for the Middle District of Florida\n ________________________\n\n (March 22, 2019)\n\nBefore TJOFLAT, MARCUS, and WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judges.\n\nPER CURIAM:\n\n Petitioner Willie Seth Crain, Jr., a prisoner represented by counsel in the\n\nDistrict Court for his proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, moved pro se for leave\n\nto file an amended motion for appointment of independent counsel and again\n\f Case: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 2 of 4\n\n\nmoved pro se for appointment of independent supplemental or substitute counsel.\n\nThe Court denied the first motion on July 22, 2015 and struck the second on\n\nFebruary 8, 2018. Both appeals are currently pending before this Court. See Crain\n\nv. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., No. 15-14347-P (11th Cir. filed Sept. 28, 2015);\n\nCrain v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., No. 18-11604-P (11th Cir. filed April 12,\n\n2018). We dismiss both appeals for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because a\n\nmotion to substitute counsel is not an appealable order under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 or\n\nCohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 69 S. Ct. 1221 (1949).\n\n The motions are not appealable under § 1291 because Crain’s proceedings\n\nunder § 2254 are still pending.1\n\n To fall within the collateral-order doctrine, an order must “conclusively\n\ndetermine the disputed question, resolve an important issue completely separate\n\nfrom the merits of the action, and be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a\n\nfinal judgment.” Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U.S. 368, 375, 101\n\nS. Ct. 669, 674 (1981) (quoting Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 468,\n\n98 S. Ct. 2454, 2458 (1978)).\n\n\n\n 1\n This case, then, is not like Harbison v. Bell, 556 U.S. 180, 129 S. Ct. 1481 (2009),\nwhere the Supreme Court held that a § 2254 petitioner’s motion to authorize already-appointed\ncounsel to represent him in state clemency proceedings was “clearly an appealable order under\n28 U.S.C. § 1291.” Id. at 183, 129 S. Ct. at 1485. There, the district court had already denied\nthe petitioner’s § 2254 petition, id. at 182, 129 S. Ct. at 1484, so nothing remained for the court\nto do. See also Lambrix v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 756 F.3d 1246, 1258 (11th Cir. 2014)\n(applying Harbison).\n\n\n 2\n\f Case: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 3 of 4\n\n\n A motion to substitute counsel does not fall within the doctrine because the\n\ndecision would not otherwise be unreviewable. Were the District Court to deny\n\nCrain’s § 2254 petition on the merits, we could also review its decision to deny his\n\nmotions to substitute counsel. See Brown v. United States, 720 F.3d 1316, 1336\n\n(11th Cir. 2013) (reviewing simultaneously the denial of a § 2255 petition and the\n\ndenial of a motion to withdraw “conflict-encumbered counsel”). In the criminal\n\ncontext, the “unreviewability” element goes unmet when the relief one is entitled\n\nto “would be largely satisfied by an acquittal resulting from the prosecution’s\n\nfailure to carry its burden of proof.” Flanagan v. United States, 465 U.S. 259, 267,\n\n104 S. Ct. 1051, 1056 (1984) (quoting United States v. MacDonald, 435 U.S. 850,\n\n859, 98 S. Ct. 1547, 1552 (1978)). Though habeas proceedings are civil in nature,\n\nsee Debruce v. Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., 758 F.3d 1263, 1294 (11th Cir. 2014),\n\nthe same principle holds: if Crain could eventually obtain release from, what he\n\nalleges to be, unconstitutional confinement, nothing about the Court’s decision is\n\nunreviewable. This case, then, is unlike the denial of a pre-trial motion to reduce\n\nbail, where the order becomes moot if review must await conviction and sentence,\n\nor a motion to dismiss an indictment under the Double Jeopardy or Speech or\n\nDebate Clauses, which provide immunity from prosecution, because here, there is\n\nno risk of “irretrievabl[e] los[s].” Id. at 266, 104 S. Ct. at 1055.\n\n\n\n\n 3\n\f Case: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 4 of 4\n\n\n Of course, we do not write on a blank slate. In Chavez v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t\n\nof Corr., 742 F.3d 940, 944 (11th Cir. 2014), this Court collaterally reviewed a\n\ndistrict court’s denial of a § 2254 petitioner’s motion to substitute counsel.\n\nBecause the Court did not address subject-matter jurisdiction, however, we are not\n\nbound by that holding under our prior-panel rule. See Main Drug, Inc. v. Aetna\n\nU.S. Healthcare, Inc., 475 F.3d 1228, 1231 (11th Cir. 2007) (“[W]e are not bound\n\nby a prior decision’s sub silentio treatment of a jurisdictional question.” (quoting\n\nOkongwu v. Reno, 229 F.3d 1327, 1330 (11th Cir.2000))). And we are confident\n\nthat the denial of a motion to substitute counsel is not within the “narrow\n\nexception” to the final-judgment rule. Flanagan, 465 U.S. at 265, 104 S. Ct. at\n\n1055 (quoting Risjord, 449 U.S. at 374, 101 S. Ct. at 673).\n\n For these reasons, the above-mentioned appeals are DISMISSED for lack of\n\nsubject-matter jurisdiction.\n\n SO ORDERED.\n\n\n\n\n 4\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Willie Seth CRAIN, Jr., Petitioner - Appellant, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Attorney General, State of Florida, Respondents - Appellees.\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-22\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 1 of 4\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n Nos. 15-14347 and 18-11604\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket Nos. 8:12-cv-00322-JDW-EAJ; 8:12-cv-00322-JDW-AAS\\n\\nWILLIE SETH CRAIN, JR.,\\n\\n Petitioner - Appellant,\\n\\nversus\\n\\nSECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,\\nATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF FLORIDA,\\n\\n Respondents - Appellees.\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeals from the United States District Court\\n for the Middle District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n (March 22, 2019)\\n\\nBefore TJOFLAT, MARCUS, and WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nPER CURIAM:\\n\\n Petitioner Willie Seth Crain, Jr., a prisoner represented by counsel in the\\n\\nDistrict Court for his proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, moved pro se for leave\\n\\nto file an amended motion for appointment of independent counsel and again\\n\\f Case: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 2 of 4\\n\\n\\nmoved pro se for appointment of independent supplemental or substitute counsel.\\n\\nThe Court denied the first motion on July 22, 2015 and struck the second on\\n\\nFebruary 8, 2018. Both appeals are currently pending before this Court. See Crain\\n\\nv. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., No. 15-14347-P (11th Cir. filed Sept. 28, 2015);\\n\\nCrain v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., No. 18-11604-P (11th Cir. filed April 12,\\n\\n2018). We dismiss both appeals for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because a\\n\\nmotion to substitute counsel is not an appealable order under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 or\\n\\nCohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 69 S. Ct. 1221 (1949).\\n\\n The motions are not appealable under § 1291 because Crain’s proceedings\\n\\nunder § 2254 are still pending.1\\n\\n To fall within the collateral-order doctrine, an order must “conclusively\\n\\ndetermine the disputed question, resolve an important issue completely separate\\n\\nfrom the merits of the action, and be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a\\n\\nfinal judgment.” Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U.S. 368, 375, 101\\n\\nS. Ct. 669, 674 (1981) (quoting Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 468,\\n\\n98 S. Ct. 2454, 2458 (1978)).\\n\\n\\n\\n 1\\n This case, then, is not like Harbison v. Bell, 556 U.S. 180, 129 S. Ct. 1481 (2009),\\nwhere the Supreme Court held that a § 2254 petitioner’s motion to authorize already-appointed\\ncounsel to represent him in state clemency proceedings was “clearly an appealable order under\\n28 U.S.C. § 1291.” Id. at 183, 129 S. Ct. at 1485. There, the district court had already denied\\nthe petitioner’s § 2254 petition, id. at 182, 129 S. Ct. at 1484, so nothing remained for the court\\nto do. See also Lambrix v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 756 F.3d 1246, 1258 (11th Cir. 2014)\\n(applying Harbison).\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 3 of 4\\n\\n\\n A motion to substitute counsel does not fall within the doctrine because the\\n\\ndecision would not otherwise be unreviewable. Were the District Court to deny\\n\\nCrain’s § 2254 petition on the merits, we could also review its decision to deny his\\n\\nmotions to substitute counsel. See Brown v. United States, 720 F.3d 1316, 1336\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2013) (reviewing simultaneously the denial of a § 2255 petition and the\\n\\ndenial of a motion to withdraw “conflict-encumbered counsel”). In the criminal\\n\\ncontext, the “unreviewability” element goes unmet when the relief one is entitled\\n\\nto “would be largely satisfied by an acquittal resulting from the prosecution’s\\n\\nfailure to carry its burden of proof.” Flanagan v. United States, 465 U.S. 259, 267,\\n\\n104 S. Ct. 1051, 1056 (1984) (quoting United States v. MacDonald, 435 U.S. 850,\\n\\n859, 98 S. Ct. 1547, 1552 (1978)). Though habeas proceedings are civil in nature,\\n\\nsee Debruce v. Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., 758 F.3d 1263, 1294 (11th Cir. 2014),\\n\\nthe same principle holds: if Crain could eventually obtain release from, what he\\n\\nalleges to be, unconstitutional confinement, nothing about the Court’s decision is\\n\\nunreviewable. This case, then, is unlike the denial of a pre-trial motion to reduce\\n\\nbail, where the order becomes moot if review must await conviction and sentence,\\n\\nor a motion to dismiss an indictment under the Double Jeopardy or Speech or\\n\\nDebate Clauses, which provide immunity from prosecution, because here, there is\\n\\nno risk of “irretrievabl[e] los[s].” Id. at 266, 104 S. Ct. at 1055.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 4 of 4\\n\\n\\n Of course, we do not write on a blank slate. In Chavez v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t\\n\\nof Corr., 742 F.3d 940, 944 (11th Cir. 2014), this Court collaterally reviewed a\\n\\ndistrict court’s denial of a § 2254 petitioner’s motion to substitute counsel.\\n\\nBecause the Court did not address subject-matter jurisdiction, however, we are not\\n\\nbound by that holding under our prior-panel rule. See Main Drug, Inc. v. Aetna\\n\\nU.S. Healthcare, Inc., 475 F.3d 1228, 1231 (11th Cir. 2007) (“[W]e are not bound\\n\\nby a prior decision’s sub silentio treatment of a jurisdictional question.” (quoting\\n\\nOkongwu v. Reno, 229 F.3d 1327, 1330 (11th Cir.2000))). And we are confident\\n\\nthat the denial of a motion to substitute counsel is not within the “narrow\\n\\nexception” to the final-judgment rule. Flanagan, 465 U.S. at 265, 104 S. Ct. at\\n\\n1055 (quoting Risjord, 449 U.S. at 374, 101 S. Ct. at 673).\\n\\n For these reasons, the above-mentioned appeals are DISMISSED for lack of\\n\\nsubject-matter jurisdiction.\\n\\n SO ORDERED.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 4\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1361,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4603220,"string":"4,603,220"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Johnnie Teresa MARCHISIO, Adrian Marchisio, Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross Appellees, v. CARRINGTON MORTGAGE SERVICES, LLC, Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellant."},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Johnnie Teresa Marchisio v. Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-25"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"17-10584"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Rosenbaum, Hull, Carnes\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judge:\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 1 of 60\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 17-10584\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 2:14-cv-14011-FJL\\n\\n\\n\\nJOHNNIE TERESA MARCHISIO,\\nADRIAN MARCHISIO,\\n\\n Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross Appellees,\\n\\n\\n versus\\n\\n\\nCARRINGTON MORTGAGE SERVICES, LLC,\\n\\n Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellant.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeals from the United States District Court\\n for the Southern District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n (March 25, 2019)\\n\\nBefore ROSENBAUM, HULL and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nJULIE CARNES, Circuit Judge:\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 2 of 60\\n\\n\\n This is the second federal action filed by Plaintiffs Johnnie Teresa Marchisio\\n\\nand Adrian Marchisio against Defendant Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC.\\n\\nDefendant’s repeated failures to accurately report the status of Plaintiffs’ mortgage\\n\\nloans prompted both actions. Specifically, as part of the parties’ settlement in 2009\\n\\nof a foreclosure suit brought by Defendant, Plaintiffs turned over their property to\\n\\nDefendant, which action mooted the foreclosure action and extinguished Plaintiffs’\\n\\ndebt on the two pending loans. But Defendant failed to report correctly the status\\n\\nof the loans, and it continued trying to collect on the nonexistent debt, prompting\\n\\nPlaintiffs to file their first federal action alleging violations of the Fair Credit\\n\\nReporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681, et seq., among other things.\\n\\n The parties eventually settled this first federal lawsuit (“First Action”),\\n\\nentering into a settlement agreement that required Defendant to timely correct its\\n\\nreporting of the second loan and to pay Plaintiffs $125,000. Defendant paid the\\n\\nagreed-upon settlement amount, but failed to report the second loan as having a\\n\\nzero balance within the deadline specified in the settlement agreement, instead\\n\\nissuing three reports that continued to inaccurately report the existence of a\\n\\ndelinquent debt. Even with its eventual and tardy report of a zero balance,\\n\\nhowever, Defendant incorrectly reported that Plaintiffs still owed a $34,985\\n\\nballoon payment on this second loan due in March 2021.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 3 of 60\\n\\n\\n Plaintiffs disputed with credit reporting agencies Defendant’s reporting of a\\n\\nballoon payment due on the second loan. Advised of Plaintiffs’ disagreement with\\n\\nthe report, Defendant purportedly investigated the dispute. Yet, notwithstanding\\n\\ntheir extensive litigation history with Plaintiffs, including two previous settlement\\n\\nagreements acknowledging that Plaintiffs owed nothing on the second loan,\\n\\nDefendant incorrectly confirmed to the reporting agencies that Plaintiffs had a\\n\\nballoon payment pending. If that wasn’t bad enough, Defendant then began\\n\\ncharging Plaintiffs for lender-placed insurance on the property that Plaintiffs had\\n\\nturned over to Defendant years earlier and no longer owned.\\n\\n As a result, Plaintiffs filed this second federal action (“Second Action”)\\n\\nalleging three claims: violation of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act\\n\\n(“FCRA”), violation of the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act, Fla. Stat.\\n\\n§ 559.55, et seq. (the “Florida Collections Act”), and breach of contract.\\n\\nDefendant filed a motion for summary judgment as to all claims; Plaintiffs filed a\\n\\nmotion for partial summary judgment. The district court granted Plaintiffs’ motion\\n\\nfor summary judgment on the FCRA claim, concluding that Defendant had\\n\\nwillfully violated the FCRA and awarding statutory damages of $3,000, as well as\\n\\nattorney’s fees and costs, all totaling $115,860.12. The district court, however,\\n\\ndenied Plaintiffs’ request for emotional distress and punitive damages, finding as a\\n\\nmatter of law that Plaintiffs had shown no entitlement to those damages. The\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 4 of 60\\n\\n\\ndistrict court granted summary judgment to Defendant on Plaintiffs’ Florida\\n\\nCollections Act claim for various reasons. Finally, although it concluded that\\n\\nPlaintiffs had proved that Defendant breached its settlement agreement, the district\\n\\ncourt granted summary judgment to Defendant on Plaintiffs’ breach of contract\\n\\nclaim, holding that Plaintiffs had failed to prove any recoverable damages.\\n\\n The parties filed cross-appeals contesting the district court’s adverse rulings\\n\\non the above claims, as well as its award of fees, which Plaintiffs viewed as\\n\\ninadequate and Defendant viewed as excessive. After careful review and with the\\n\\nbenefit of oral argument, we: (1) affirm the district court’s finding of a willful\\n\\nFCRA violation, but reverse the court’s denial of emotional distress and punitive\\n\\ndamages; (2) reverse the grant of summary judgment for Defendant on the Florida\\n\\nCollections Act claim; (3) reverse the grant of summary judgment for Defendant\\n\\non the breach of contract claim; (4) vacate the award of attorney’s fees to Plaintiffs\\n\\nso that the district court can recalculate those fees at the conclusion of the\\n\\nlitigation; 1 and (5) remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n1\\n The district court calculated the amount of attorney’s fees due Plaintiffs based, in part, on the\\nfact that the latter had prevailed on only one claim. As this opinion has now reversed the grant\\nof summary judgment to Defendant on two additional claims, Plaintiffs may well prevail on\\nthose claims at trial, meaning that we presume the district court’s original grant of attorney’s fees\\nin the amount of $94,000 to represent a floor when the district court recalculates attorney’s fees\\nat the conclusion of this litigation.\\n 4\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 5 of 60\\n\\n\\nI. BACKGROUND\\n\\n A. The Foreclosure Action\\n Defendant serviced two mortgage loans extended to Plaintiffs for the\\n\\npurchase of a house. In August 2008, Plaintiffs defaulted on both loans. Through\\n\\nits trustee, Defendant filed a foreclosure action on Plaintiffs’ property in state\\n\\ncourt. The parties resolved the foreclosure through a settlement agreement on\\n\\nDecember 9, 2009. The settlement agreement obligated Plaintiffs to convey the\\n\\ndeed to the property to Defendant. In exchange, Defendant agreed to report to the\\n\\ncredit reporting agencies (Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian) that the mortgage\\n\\nwas discharged with a zero balance owed. Plaintiffs filed the deed in lieu of\\n\\nforeclosure on December 11, 2009, and vacated the property.\\n\\n In April 2011, Plaintiffs obtained a dismissal of the foreclosure suit with\\n\\nprejudice, the court confirming that Plaintiffs had transferred full ownership of the\\n\\nproperty to Defendant. For more than a year, however, Defendant failed to meet\\n\\nits obligations under the settlement agreement. Specifically, Defendant resumed\\n\\nits debt collection efforts and reported Plaintiffs’ debt as delinquent, even though\\n\\nPlaintiffs owed Defendant no money.\\n\\n B. The First Federal Action\\n 1. Partial Correction by Defendant\\n\\n In response, in July 2012, Plaintiffs filed an action in the United States\\n\\nDistrict Court for the Southern District of Florida, Case No. 12-cv-14264-DLG,\\n 5\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 6 of 60\\n\\n\\nalleging, among other things, that Defendant violated the FCRA and the Florida\\n\\nCollections Act. In this First Action, Plaintiffs complained that, despite the state\\n\\ncourt order, Defendant continued to seek payment on the discharged mortgage and\\n\\nfalsely reported to credit reporting agencies that the debt was delinquent.\\n\\n During this First Action, Defendant corrected its misreporting of the first\\n\\nloan by sending an automated universal dataform (“AUD”) to the credit reporting\\n\\nagencies, requesting that they update the first loan to reflect that it had a zero\\n\\nbalance effective December 31, 2009. But Defendant continued to misreport that\\n\\nPlaintiffs owed money under the second loan.\\n\\n 2. The Release and Settlement Agreement\\n The parties resolved the First Action, entering into a “Release and\\n\\nSettlement Agreement” on January 23, 2013. It is this settlement agreement that\\n\\nPlaintiffs now contend Defendant breached. In exchange for dismissal of the\\n\\ndistrict court action, Defendant agreed to (1) pay Plaintiffs $125,000 and (2)\\n\\n“report the Second Loan as having a zero balance as of December 9, 2009 to the\\n\\nsame agencies and in the same fashion as it reported the First Loan, which\\n\\nreporting shall be done as soon as reasonably possible, but in any case within 90\\n\\ndays.” The parties agreed that “[i]n the event of a material breach hereunder, the\\n\\nprevailing party in any action commenced to enforce [the] Agreement shall be\\n\\nawarded its reasonable attorneys fees, expenses, and costs.” The parties\\n\\n\\n 6\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 7 of 60\\n\\n\\nacknowledged that “time is of the essence in the performance of the obligations of\\n\\nthis Agreement.”\\n\\n 3. Post-Settlement Activity\\n\\n Despite a settlement agreement that should have resolved all outstanding\\n\\nissues, Plaintiffs continued to be plagued by Defendant’s failure to accurately\\n\\nreport extinguishment of the second loan. Given Defendant’s intransigence,\\n\\nPlaintiffs were forced to file a second lawsuit to prompt Defendant to cease falsely\\n\\nreporting Plaintiffs’ debt.\\n\\n a. Defendant’s Failure to Update Plaintiffs’ Credit Report\\n\\n Rather than correct its reporting of Plaintiffs’ second loan, Defendant\\n\\ncontinued to send automated monthly reports to the credit reporting agencies with\\n\\ninaccurate information about the second loan. Defendant sent inaccurate reports in\\n\\nFebruary, March, and April 2013. The negative reports caused Plaintiffs’ credit\\n\\nhistory to show the second loan as an open account with: (1) a balance of $61,356;\\n\\n(2) a past due amount totaling $14,264; and (3) being late over 120 days. None of\\n\\nthis information was correct.\\n\\n The settlement agreement required Defendant to report to the credit\\n\\nreporting agencies, as soon as reasonably possible, but no later than 90 days, that\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ second loan had a zero balance. Defendant missed this deadline. It was\\n\\nonly after Plaintiffs complained that Defendant, on April 25, 2013—two days after\\n\\n\\n 7\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 8 of 60\\n\\n\\nthe 90-day deadline—submitted an AUD to the credit reporting agencies\\n\\nrequesting that they update the second loan to show a zero balance, effective\\n\\nDecember 29, 2009.2 Yet, even though it corrected the balance-due entry,\\n\\nDefendant incorrectly reported the second loan as having a balloon payment of\\n\\n$34,985, due on March 1, 2021.\\n\\n b. Plaintiffs Finance Vehicle Purchases\\n\\n On February 23, 2013—a month after settling the First Action, and while\\n\\nDefendant was still falsely reporting that Plaintiffs owed it money on this second\\n\\nloan and were behind on their payments—Plaintiffs financed the purchase of two\\n\\nused vehicles. AutoNation Cadillac of West Palm Beach required Mr. Marchisio\\n\\nto pay $5,000.00 down and finance the $8,211.71 balance at 17.99% interest.\\n\\nGrieco Nissan required Mrs. Marchisio to pay $10,300.00 down and finance the\\n\\n$6,070.73 balance at 24.49% interest. Plaintiffs allege that, because Defendant had\\n\\naffirmatively misstated that Plaintiffs owed it money—and thereby had failed to\\n\\ncorrect its reporting of the second loan—Plaintiffs had to make larger down\\n\\npayments and pay higher interest rates on these automobile loans.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n2\\n The effective date should have been December 9, 2009, but this error is not at issue here.\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 9 of 60\\n\\n\\n c. Mrs. Marchisio Receives Automated Calls from\\n Defendant\\n\\n Mrs. Marchisio testified that several months later, in the fall of 2013,\\n\\nDefendant called her cell phone several times using an autodialing system. On one\\n\\ncall that she answered, Defendant informed her that Plaintiffs’ home would be\\n\\nforeclosed and that they owed a balloon balance. Call records that would have\\n\\nshown Defendant’s outgoing calls were no longer available when requested by\\n\\nPlaintiffs. However, Mr. Marchisio corroborated his wife’s testimony, testifying\\n\\nthat she contemporaneously reported Defendant’s calls to him.\\n\\n d. Defendant Erroneously Verifies Inaccurate Reporting of\\n Second Loan\\n Chagrined at Defendant’s continuing false reports that Plaintiffs owed them\\n\\nmoney, in August 2013, Plaintiffs filed a motion in the First Action to enforce the\\n\\nsettlement agreement. The district court, however, dismissed the action, declining\\n\\nto exercise jurisdiction over the settlement agreement.3\\n\\n Accordingly, on November 7, 2013, Plaintiffs informed the credit reporting\\n\\nagencies that they disputed the information reported regarding the second loan. In\\n\\ntheir dispute letters, Plaintiffs described the litigation history and the foreclosure\\n\\ncourt order relieving them of their debt obligation. Plaintiffs also explained that\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n3\\n Shortly thereafter, Defendant re-foreclosed on the property and obtained yet another judgment\\nin state court that they held title to the property through the deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.\\n 9\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 10 of 60\\n\\n\\nDefendant had agreed in the settlement of the First Action that Plaintiffs did not\\n\\nowe any money under the mortgages.\\n\\n Plaintiffs’ dispute letters triggered a process typically followed by credit\\n\\nreporting agencies and furnishers of credit information to investigate disputed\\n\\ncredit reports. The credit reporting agencies create an automated credit dispute\\n\\nverification form (“ACDV”) that summarizes what the credit reporting agencies\\n\\nare reporting and the information the consumer is disputing. The credit reporting\\n\\nagencies then forward the ACDV electronically to the credit furnisher, which in\\n\\nthis case was Defendant. The furnisher determines whether the disputed\\n\\ninformation should be verified, modified, or deleted. The furnisher then sends the\\n\\ncompleted ACDV to the credit reporting agencies providing the results of its\\n\\ninvestigation.\\n\\n Danh Nguyen, a member of Defendant’s research department, investigated\\n\\nand processed the ACDVs generated by Plaintiffs’ dispute letters the day he\\n\\nreceived them. Following standard procedure, Nguyen consulted Defendant’s\\n\\nFISERV database to check the accuracy of Plaintiffs’ credit reports. Defendant\\n\\ncharacterizes FISERV as “a universal database that houses all relevant information\\n\\nregarding its borrowers’ loans.” But, for disputed reasons, the FISERV database\\n\\ndid not have information regarding the January 2013 settlement agreement.\\n\\nUnaware of this latest settlement or the previous litigation history, Nguyen sent an\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 11 of 60\\n\\n\\nACDV to the credit reporting agencies verifying as accurate the report that\\n\\nPlaintiffs owed a balloon payment on the second loan. Consequently, Plaintiffs’\\n\\nNovember 21, 2013 credit report continued to erroneously reflect a $34,985\\n\\nballoon payment, due March 2021, for the second loan. As noted above, the\\n\\nJanuary 23, 2013 settlement agreement had required Defendant to report a zero\\n\\nbalance on this second loan as soon as reasonably possible, but no later than 90\\n\\ndays after the date of the agreement: that is, by April 23, 2013. Defendant’s\\n\\nissuance of this November credit report incorrectly indicating the existence of a\\n\\nballoon note meant that seven months after the deadline for issuing a report\\n\\nshowing a zero balance, Defendant had still failed to do so.\\n\\n e. Defendant’s Insurer Charges Plaintiffs for Insurance\\n Coverage on Property Owned by Defendant\\n Defendant’s failure to update its databases to reflect settlement of the second\\n\\nloan had other consequences. In addition to its other systems, Defendant stored\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ loan information in an insurance tracking software system called Co-\\n\\nTrak. Defendant’s insurance vendor, Southwest Business Corporation\\n\\n(“Southwest”), used Co-Trak to administer property insurance for Defendant’s\\n\\nloans.\\n\\n On November 30, 2013, Southwest deleted Plaintiffs’ first loan from Co-\\n\\nTrak. Although Defendant has a policy of not requiring insurance for second\\n\\nloans, deletion of the first loan triggered the loading of the second loan into the\\n\\n 11\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 12 of 60\\n\\n\\nsystem. The record for the second loan indicated a balance due and expired\\n\\ninsurance. That caused Southwest to send automated lender-placed insurance\\n\\ncoverage letters to Plaintiffs on November 30, 2013 and December 31, 2013.\\n\\nThose letters bore Defendant’s letterhead and were signed “Fire Insurance\\n\\nProcessing Center, Carrington Mortgage Services, L.L.C.” The letters informed\\n\\nPlaintiffs that their loan agreement required them to keep fire insurance on the\\n\\nproperty and that insurance would be purchased and charged to Plaintiffs if\\n\\nPlaintiffs did not provide proof of insurance.\\n\\n Shortly thereafter, on January 17, 2014, another lender-placed insurance\\n\\nletter entitled “Notice of Lender Placed Fire Coverage”—also on Defendant’s\\n\\nletterhead and bearing the same signature as the previous insurance letters—\\n\\ninformed Plaintiffs that insurance had been purchased for the property previously\\n\\nowned by Plaintiffs and that Plaintiffs’ escrow account would be charged $2,659 in\\n\\nmonthly installments. Plaintiffs also received a nearly identical “Notice of Lender\\n\\nPlaced Fire Coverage” dated January 22, 2014. All of the insurance letters\\n\\ninformed Plaintiffs that “this communication is from a debt collector and it is for\\n\\nthe purpose of collecting a debt.”\\n\\n C. The Second Federal Action\\n\\n As a result of Defendant’s continuing wrongful insistence that Plaintiffs still\\n\\nowed it money, Plaintiffs’ November 2013 effort to dispute the reporting of the\\n\\n\\n 12\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 13 of 60\\n\\n\\nballoon payment for the second loan failed. Left with little other option to obtain\\n\\nrelief, Plaintiffs filed this second federal action against Defendant on January 8,\\n\\n2014, alleging breach of the settlement agreement entered in the First Action and\\n\\nviolations of the FCRA and the Florida Collections Act.\\n\\n 1. Defendant Corrects Its Errors Shortly After Plaintiffs’ Filing of\\n this Action\\n\\n Although Plaintiffs’ previous efforts to end their ongoing nightmare had\\n\\nfailed, their filing of a second federal action apparently caught Defendant’s\\n\\nattention. On January 28, 2014, shortly after Plaintiffs filed this Second Action,\\n\\nDefendant finally saw fit to issue an AUD requesting that the credit reporting\\n\\nagencies delete from Plaintiffs’ credit reports any reference to a balloon-payment\\n\\nobligation. Defendant also cancelled the lender-placed insurance, effective\\n\\nJanuary 28, 2014, and issued Plaintiffs a refund. Thus, by the end of January 2014,\\n\\nmore than four years after settlement of the foreclosure action and prompted only\\n\\nby two subsequent lawsuits, Defendant finally managed to update its databases,\\n\\ncorrect its previous errors, and accurately report the status of Plaintiffs’ second\\n\\nloan.\\n\\n 2. Procedural History of this Action\\n On November 13, 2015, Plaintiffs filed an Amended Complaint, alleging:\\n\\nCount I, Violation of FCRA; Count II, Violation of Florida Collections Act; Count\\n\\nIII, Breach of Contract (i.e., Breach of the Second Settlement); Count IV,\\n\\n 13\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 14 of 60\\n\\n\\nPreliminary Injunctive Relief; and Count V, Permanent Injunctive Relief. The\\n\\nparties filed cross-motions for summary judgment in July 2016.\\n\\n Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment on all claims. Plaintiffs\\n\\nfiled a verified Declaration in opposition to Defendant’s motion for summary\\n\\njudgment. Plaintiffs also filed a motion for partial summary judgment on some\\n\\naspects of its claims and of Defendant’s defenses. As discussed below, the district\\n\\ncourt granted summary judgment for Defendant on some things and for Plaintiffs\\n\\non others.\\n\\nII. STANDARD OF REVIEW\\n\\n We review de novo the district court’s rulings on the parties’ cross motions\\n\\nfor summary judgment. Owen v. I.C. Sys., Inc., 629 F.3d 1263, 1270 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2011). Summary judgment is appropriate when “there is no genuine dispute as to\\n\\nany material fact” and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.\\n\\nFed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). A genuine issue of material fact exists when “the evidence is\\n\\nsuch that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.”\\n\\nAnderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). The Court reviews the\\n\\nevidence and draws all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the non-\\n\\nmoving party. Owen, 629 F.3d at 1270.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 14\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 15 of 60\\n\\n\\nIII. DISCUSSION\\n\\n A. Plaintiffs’ FCRA Claim (Count I)\\n 1. The District Court’s Ruling\\n Consistent with the settlement agreement of the First Action, in which\\n\\nDefendant agreed to correct its false reporting that a balance was due on the second\\n\\nloan, in April 2013 Defendant finally disseminated revised reports to indicate that\\n\\nPlaintiffs had a zero balance on this loan. Yet, in making this correction,\\n\\nDefendant introduced a new false entry into the report: the existence of a balloon\\n\\npayment of almost $35,000 due in 2021 on this (non-existent) second loan.\\n\\n Defendant was put on notice of this newest problem through an attempt by\\n\\nPlaintiffs in August 2013 to enforce the earlier settlement agreement: an attempt\\n\\nthat was rebuffed by the district court on jurisdictional grounds. Plaintiffs then\\n\\nfiled the dispute letter with credit reporting agencies that led to the filing of the\\n\\npresent FCRA claim. Plaintiffs disputed the existence of a balloon loan, which\\n\\ncommunication prompted the agencies to contact Defendant for the latter to\\n\\ninvestigate and inform the agencies whether the disputed information was accurate.\\n\\nAs set out more fully in the factual discussion, the databases available to\\n\\nDefendant’s investigative employee continued to show that a balloon payment was\\n\\ndue. None of them included information regarding the settlement agreement. Had\\n\\nthey included this information, the employee would have been aware that, in its\\n\\nsettlement of Plaintiffs’ earlier claims, Defendant had agreed that Plaintiffs owed\\n 15\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 16 of 60\\n\\n\\nnothing on this particular loan. But unaware of the settlement, the employee\\n\\nincorrectly confirmed to the credit reporting agencies that Plaintiffs did have a\\n\\nballoon payment due in the future.\\n\\n Plaintiffs’ present claim alleges that Defendant failed to conduct a\\n\\nreasonable investigation of the disputed entry, as required by the FCRA. The\\n\\ndistrict court agreed that Defendant had failed to conduct a reasonable\\n\\ninvestigation. It further concluded that, given all the litigation concerning the\\n\\nquestion whether Plaintiffs owed anything more on the second loan, Defendant’s\\n\\nconduct was willful, and it granted summary judgment on that element. Defendant\\n\\nappeals these decisions. As to damages, the court awarded statutory damages of\\n\\n$3,000, which Defendant does not oppose, assuming the existence of a violation.\\n\\nThe court, however, ruled that Plaintiffs were not entitled to any damages for\\n\\nemotional distress or as punitive damages. Plaintiffs appeal the district court’s\\n\\ngrant of summary judgment to Defendant as to these damages.\\n\\n 2. Reasonableness and Willfulness of Defendant’s Conduct\\n\\n It is obvious that Defendant failed to conduct a reasonable investigation of\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ challenge of Defendant’s report that Plaintiffs owed a balloon payment\\n\\non the second loan, and we therefore affirm the district court’s grant of summary\\n\\njudgment on this issue. The FCRA requires that credit reporting agencies and\\n\\nthose entities that furnish information to them (“furnishers”) investigate any\\n\\n\\n 16\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 17 of 60\\n\\n\\ndisputed information. Thus, when a consumer disputes information with a credit\\n\\nreporting agency, the agency must “conduct a reasonable reinvestigation to\\n\\ndetermine whether the disputed information is inaccurate.” 15 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 1681i(a)(1)(A). As part of this investigation, the agency is required to notify the\\n\\nfurnisher of the information that it has been disputed. Id. § 1681i(a)(2). Upon\\n\\nreceipt of this notice, the furnisher of information must: (1) “conduct an\\n\\ninvestigation with respect to the disputed information”; (2) “review all relevant\\n\\ninformation provided by the consumer reporting agency” in connection with the\\n\\ndispute; and (3) “report the results of the investigation to the credit reporting\\n\\nagency.” Id. § 1681s-2(b)(1)(A)–(C). Should the investigation determine that the\\n\\ndisputed information is “inaccurate or incomplete or cannot be verified,” the\\n\\nfurnisher must “as appropriate, based on the results of the reinvestigation promptly\\n\\n. . . modify[,] . . . delete [or] permanently block the reporting” of that information\\n\\nto consumer reporting agencies. Id. § 1681s-2(b)(1)(E). See generally Hinkle v.\\n\\nMidland Credit Mgmt., Inc., 827 F.3d 1295, 1301 (11th Cir. 2016).\\n\\n “The ‘appropriate touchstone’ for evaluating a furnisher’s investigation\\n\\nunder § 1681s-2(b) is ‘reasonableness.’” Felts v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 893\\n\\nF.3d 1305, 1312 (11th Cir. 2018) (quoting Hinkle, 827 F.3d at 1301–02). “[W]hat\\n\\nconstitutes a ‘reasonable investigation’ will vary depending on the circumstances\\n\\nof the case.” Id. “When a furnisher ends its investigation by reporting that the\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 18 of 60\\n\\n\\ndisputed information has been verified as accurate, the question of whether the\\n\\nfurnisher behaved reasonably will turn on whether the furnisher acquired sufficient\\n\\nevidence to support the conclusion that the information was true.” Id.\\n\\n We agree with the district court that, as a matter of law, Defendant’s\\n\\ninvestigative efforts were not reasonable. Defendant argues that the erroneous\\n\\nverification of a balloon payment by Nguyen, the investigative employee,\\n\\nconstituted a mere isolated human error that was promptly corrected. This\\n\\nargument is unpersuasive. First, Nguyen didn’t make an error: he accurately\\n\\nreported what he found in the databases provided by his employer. The error can\\n\\nbe laid at the feet of Defendant, which had failed to create a reliable system for\\n\\ninputting information regarding the settlement of litigation that might impact the\\n\\ndata found on the relevant databases. Aware that whatever system it had to\\n\\naccomplish this was unreliable and aware that incorrect information concerning\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ loan balance was still being reported, it was incumbent on Defendant to\\n\\ntake steps to ensure that news of the terms of the settlement agreement be\\n\\ncommunicated to those who generate reports to reporting agencies. Given\\n\\nDefendant’s decision not to take those steps, it was quite foreseeable that any\\n\\ninvestigation of the disputed information here would yield an incorrect conclusion\\n\\nby the employee-investigator.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 19 of 60\\n\\n\\n Defendant’s position is that, on an ad hoc basis, it would log into databases\\n\\npertinent information concerning relevant litigation. Yet, as the district court\\n\\nnoted, there was a large “disconnect” between Defendant’s system for debt\\n\\nverification and its ad hoc handling of settlement-related changes to debt\\n\\nobligations. That disconnect manifested itself on multiple occasions over several\\n\\nyears through Defendant’s: (1) failure to sufficiently log the settlement of the\\n\\nforeclosure suit and subsequent resumption of foreclosure litigation; (2) failure to\\n\\nsufficiently log the dismissal of the resumed foreclosure litigation with prejudice\\n\\nand subsequent debt collection efforts; (3) failure to sufficiently log settlement of\\n\\nthe first district court action and subsequent breach of the settlement agreement;\\n\\nand (4) failure to provide sufficient notification and access to settlement terms to\\n\\nits verifiers, causing the subsequent verification of erroneous credit reports despite\\n\\ndetailed dispute letters documenting the relevant litigation history.\\n\\n In short, Defendant failed to conduct a reasonable investigation. The above\\n\\negregious facts also support the district court’s conclusion that Defendant’s\\n\\nconduct was willful. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681n(a), any person who willfully fails\\n\\nto comply with any requirement imposed under this subchapter is liable to the\\n\\naffected consumer for actual, statutory, or punitive damages. Collins v. Experian\\n\\nInfo. Sols., Inc., 775 F.3d 1330, 1336 (11th Cir. 2015), on reh’g sub nom. Collins\\n\\nv. Equable Ascent Fin., LLC, 781 F.3d 1270 (11th Cir. 2015). The Supreme Court\\n\\n\\n 19\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 20 of 60\\n\\n\\nhas held that “reckless disregard of a requirement of FCRA would qualify as a\\n\\nwillful violation within the meaning of § 1681n(a).” Safeco Ins. Co. of Am. v.\\n\\nBurr, 551 U.S. 47, 71 (2007); see also Harris v. Mexican Specialty Foods, Inc.,\\n\\n564 F.3d 1301, 1310 (11th Cir. 2009) (“A violation is ‘willful’ for the purposes of\\n\\nthe FCRA if the defendant violates the terms of the Act with knowledge or reckless\\n\\ndisregard for the law.”). Recklessness means “conduct violating an objective\\n\\nstandard: action entailing an unjustifiably high risk of harm that is either known or\\n\\nso obvious that it should be known.” Safeco, 551 U.S. at 68 (quotations omitted).\\n\\n Assuming arguendo that Defendant’s continued reporting of false\\n\\ninformation regarding Plaintiffs’ debt was not intentionally done, the question then\\n\\nis whether Defendant acted in reckless disregard of its obligations under the\\n\\nFCRA, as the district court concluded. On the record before us, it clearly did so.\\n\\nDefendant’s actions—during an exceedingly long period of time in which\\n\\nPlaintiffs sought to have Defendant cease its false reporting of a debt that\\n\\nDefendant well knew Plaintiffs did not owe—entailed “an unjustifiably high risk of\\n\\nharm that is either known or so obvious that it should be known.” Id.\\n\\n No other conclusion can be drawn given the number of times that Defendant\\n\\nwas put on notice of the false information being reported, yet, each time failed to\\n\\ntake steps to insure that its records accurately reflected the absence of any debt by\\n\\nPlaintiffs. Defendant failed to take appropriate measures after entering into a\\n\\n\\n 20\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 21 of 60\\n\\n\\nsettlement agreement with Plaintiffs in 2009 during the foreclosure action, in\\n\\nwhich Defendant agreed that Plaintiffs’ prior two loans were extinguished and that\\n\\nPlaintiffs owed Defendant nothing, but after which Defendant continued to report\\n\\nthat Plaintiffs had a balance due. Following the 2013 settlement of Plaintiffs’\\n\\nresulting federal litigation, which demanded that Defendant correct its false report,\\n\\nDefendant belatedly corrected the false information found in earlier reports, but\\n\\nthen Defendant began falsely reporting that Plaintiffs had a balloon payment due\\n\\non the second loan. Yet, Defendant failed to take any corrective action when\\n\\nPlaintiffs sought to have the federal district court enforce the settlement agreement\\n\\nby requiring Defendant to live up to its agreement and stop reporting that a balloon\\n\\npayment was due. That event alone clearly disclosed to Defendant and its counsel\\n\\nthat Defendant was continuing to report false information concerning Plaintiffs’\\n\\nnon-existent debt. Yet again, Defendant made no correction nor any effort to\\n\\ninsure that the pertinent databases revealed the existence of the settlement and the\\n\\nfact that no debt was owed by Plaintiffs. Meaning that when Plaintiffs took the\\n\\npredictable next step of disputing this debt with the credit reporting agencies, the\\n\\noutcome of the investigation by Defendant’s employee was also quite predictable:\\n\\nthe employee would incorrectly verify the existence of a continuing debt.\\n\\n Also obvious is that this is not a case like Llewellyn v. Allstate Home Loans,\\n\\nInc., 711 F.3d 1173, 1185 (10th Cir. 2013), and the numerous other cases cited by\\n\\n\\n 21\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 22 of 60\\n\\n\\nDefendant, where courts found no willful violation based on a single human error\\n\\nthat was promptly corrected.4 None of those cases involved a pattern of conduct\\n\\nexposing a knowingly flawed system for documenting changes to debt obligations,\\n\\nmuch less a four-year litigation history concerning the debt at issue. That history\\n\\nhere included multiple orders and agreements acknowledging discharge of the debt\\n\\nthat went undocumented in the lender’s debt verification system and thus\\n\\nunchecked, despite being specifically identified in the dispute letters being\\n\\ninvestigated and in litigation filed a few months before the inquiry. In short, no\\n\\nreasonable jury could find that Defendant’s erroneous verification of the inaccurate\\n\\ncredit report in November 2013 was not reckless.\\n\\n 3. Emotional Distress Damages\\n Although it found, as a matter of law, that Defendant had acted unreasonably\\n\\nand even recklessly in its investigation of Plaintiffs’ dispute—and awarded\\n\\nstatutory damages of $3,000—the district court granted Defendant summary\\n\\njudgment as to Plaintiffs’ claim for emotional distress damages, finding that\\n\\nPlaintiffs had failed to show that Defendant’s violation of the FCRA had caused\\n\\nPlaintiffs any emotional distress. Specifically, the district court concluded that any\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n4\\n Defendant’s repeated assertion that willfulness requires “intent to consciously thwart\\nPlaintiffs’ right to remove inaccuracies from their credit report” relies on case law that predates\\nthe recklessness standard of Safeco.\\n\\n\\n 22\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 23 of 60\\n\\n\\nemotional distress suffered as a result of Defendant’s actions had begun before\\n\\nDefendant’s FCRA violation in November 2013.\\n\\n The district court was correct in stating there must be a causal connection\\n\\nbetween the violation and the emotional harm. “[F]ailure to produce evidence of\\n\\ndamage resulting from a FCRA violation mandates summary judgment.” Nagle v.\\n\\nExperian Info. Sols., Inc., 297 F.3d 1305, 1307 (11th Cir. 2002) (citing Cahlin v.\\n\\nGeneral Motors Acceptance Corp., 936 F.2d 1151, 1160 (11th Cir. 1991)).\\n\\n For sure, Plaintiffs had already experienced substantial stress as a result of\\n\\nDefendant’s actions taken prior to the erroneous re-verification of the non-existent\\n\\ndebt. Mr. Marchisio stated that, following Defendant’s breach of the settlement\\n\\nagreement in late April 2013, he “felt flushed and shaky, nervous, [and] tense.” He\\n\\nfurther described having arguments with his wife and experiencing anxiety and\\n\\nrapid heartbeats. He stated that “[t]he increasing stress from dealing with\\n\\n[Defendant] made my health worse. On May 9, 2013, I was hospitalized and\\n\\ntreated for congestive heart failure, anxiety and exacerbated hypertension caused\\n\\nby anxiety.”\\n\\n Yet, Plaintiffs correctly note that the district court did not evaluate whether\\n\\nDefendant’s subsequent FCRA violation “exacerbated again” their emotional\\n\\ndistress. Mr. Marchisio maintained that, after taking medication, exercising, and\\n\\nrefraining from discussing issues with Defendant, his health had improved by early\\n\\n\\n 23\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 24 of 60\\n\\n\\nAugust 2013. Yet, Defendant’s erroneous verification of the accuracy of\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ credit reports in November 2013, and its subsequent initiation of lender-\\n\\nplaced insurance on property no longer owned and for which no debt was owed,\\n\\ntriggered additional anxiety, rapid heartbeats, and marital distress. As to the latter,\\n\\nMr. Marchisio noted that because of the marital discord caused by Defendant, he\\n\\nand his wife no longer sleep in the same bed and their marriage is “not the same.”\\n\\nBoth Plaintiffs state that “[h]ad [Defendant] made the corrections, it would have\\n\\nreduced our stress and the problems with the Settlement that we were dealing\\n\\nwith.” In short, Plaintiffs indicate that the “added stress” of the erroneous\\n\\nverification of the balloon payment in November 2013 “made things much worse.”\\n\\n Plaintiffs’ testimony raises genuine issues of material fact concerning\\n\\nemotional distress. A fact finder might well conclude that Defendant’s FCRA\\n\\nviolation caused Plaintiffs’ additional emotional distress, given Plaintiffs’\\n\\ntestimony that this new violation “added stress” and “made things much worse”\\n\\nand Mr. Marchisio’s health improvements before Defendant’s November 2013\\n\\nviolation. We therefore reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to\\n\\nDefendant on the claim of emotional distress damages.\\n\\n 4. Punitive Damages\\n\\n The district court sua sponte denied an award of punitive damages, noting\\n\\nthat “[t]he finding of willfulness is not based on any intentional or purposeful\\n\\n\\n 24\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 25 of 60\\n\\n\\nmisdeed by the Defendant that would support the award of punitive damages.”\\n\\nPlaintiffs argue that the court is “not entitle[d] to take the question from the jury\\n\\nand decide it as a matter of law.”\\n\\n The court’s punitive damages decision presents two problems. First,\\n\\nPlaintiffs were not required to raise punitive damages on summary judgment and\\n\\nthe court summarily disposed of the issue without hearing from either party.\\n\\nSecond, 15 U.S.C. § 1681n(a)(2) provides for “such amount of punitive damages\\n\\nas the court may allow” for “willful” FCRA violations. And “willful” violations\\n\\ninclude reckless conduct. Safeco, 551 U.S. at 68. Thus, the “intentional or\\n\\npurposeful” standard used by the district court does not comport with the Supreme\\n\\nCourt’s definition of willfulness.\\n\\n Moreover, neither the court nor Defendant cited any controlling authority for\\n\\nthe proposition that punitive damages should only be awarded for intentional\\n\\nmisconduct. Defendant cites Cousin v. Trans Union Corporation, 246 F.3d 359,\\n\\n374 (5th Cir. 2001) for the proposition that punitive damages are inappropriate\\n\\nwhere defendant’s “system [was] not perfect” but defendant “never attempted to\\n\\nmislead [plaintiff] with respect to his consumer report or his rights.” But Cousin,\\n\\nissued before Safeco, employed a stricter standard for willfulness and overturned a\\n\\nwillfulness liability verdict. It had nothing to do with denying punitive damages\\n\\ndespite a willfulness finding.\\n\\n\\n 25\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 26 of 60\\n\\n\\n To be clear, we make no ruling here concerning whether there may be any\\n\\nlimits on a plaintiff’s ability to receive punitive damages under the FCRA where\\n\\nthe willful conduct at issue involves only reckless, not intentional conduct. We\\n\\nsimply reverse the sua sponte grant of summary judgment to Defendant to allow\\n\\nfactual development of this issue at trial.\\n\\n B. Florida Collections Act Claim (Count II)\\n The Florida Collections Act regulates the activities of consumer collection\\n\\nagencies within Florida. LeBlanc v. Unifund CCR Partners, 601 F.3d 1185, 1190\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2010). The Florida Collections Act also defines and protects an\\n\\nindividual’s right to privacy with regards to consumer collections practices in the\\n\\nstate. Id. In particular, Florida Statute Section 559.72 provides:\\n\\n In collecting consumer debts, no person shall:\\n ****\\n\\n (9) Claim, attempt, or threaten to enforce a debt when such person\\n knows that the debt is not legitimate, or assert the existence of some\\n other legal right when such person knows that the right does not exist.\\n\\n ****\\n\\n (18) Communicate with a debtor if the person knows that the debtor is\\n represented by an attorney with respect to such debt and has knowledge\\n of, or can readily ascertain, such attorney’s name and address . . . .\\n\\nFla. Stat. § 559.72.\\n\\n Plaintiffs allege that, in violation of § 559.72(9), Defendant attempted to\\n\\ncollect a debt that Defendant knew was not legitimate when Defendant (1) placed\\n\\n 26\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 27 of 60\\n\\n\\nauto-dialed calls to Plaintiffs in the fall of 2013, attempting to collect money from\\n\\nPlaintiffs on the non-existent debt and (2) sent letters between November 2013 and\\n\\nJanuary 2014 requiring Plaintiffs to provide proof of fire insurance on property\\n\\nthey had deeded to Defendant years before and charging Plaintiffs for lender-\\n\\nplaced insurance on that property. Two of these letters were sent after Defendant\\n\\nbecame aware that Plaintiffs had retained counsel. Accordingly, Plaintiffs argue\\n\\nthat in sending these two particular letters, Defendant also violated that part of the\\n\\nFlorida statute prohibiting communication with a debtor whom one knows to be\\n\\nrepresented by an attorney: § 559.72(11).\\n\\n The district court granted summary judgment for Defendant on each of these\\n\\nclaims. We address each in turn.\\n\\n 1. The Automated Calls\\n\\n The district court rejected Plaintiffs’ Florida Collections Act claim based on\\n\\nthe automated calls Mrs. Marchisio received in the fall of 2013 because Plaintiffs\\n\\noffered “no evidentiary confirmation” to corroborate their own testimony that such\\n\\ncalls had even occurred. The district court noted that telephone-call records for\\n\\nthis time period were no longer available when sought by Plaintiffs. The court\\n\\nquestioned the veracity of Plaintiffs’ statements because “[b]y that point both the\\n\\nState Foreclosure Case and the First District Court Case had been concluded” and\\n\\n“[t]he surrounding events and circumstances therefore leave unclear why the\\n\\n\\n 27\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 28 of 60\\n\\n\\nDefendant would have caused these calls to be placed---that is, if the calls in fact\\n\\nhad been made.” The court thus deemed the evidence insufficient to survive\\n\\nsummary judgment.\\n\\n Construing the evidence in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, we find\\n\\nMrs. Marchisio’s testimony that she had received debt collection calls from\\n\\nDefendant in the fall of 2013 sufficient to create a disputed issue of fact as to\\n\\nwhether the calls had occurred. See United States v. Stein, 881 F.3d 853, 858–59\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2018) (en banc) (“A non-conclusory affidavit which complies with Rule\\n\\n56 can create a genuine dispute concerning an issue of material fact, even if it is\\n\\nself-serving and/or uncorroborated.”). Mrs. Marchisio testified that in the fall of\\n\\n2013, Defendant called her several times informing her that Plaintiffs’ home would\\n\\nbe foreclosed and that they owed a balloon balance. Mr. Marchisio corroborated\\n\\nhis wife’s testimony, testifying that she contemporaneously reported the nature of\\n\\nDefendant’s calls to him. Because we do not make credibility determinations on\\n\\nappeal of a summary judgment ruling, we must assume Plaintiffs’ testimony to be\\n\\ntrue. Strickland v. Norfolk S. Ry. Co., 692 F.3d 1151, 1154 (11th Cir. 2012)\\n\\n(“Credibility determinations, the weighing of the evidence, and the drawing of\\n\\nlegitimate inferences from the facts are jury functions, not those of a judge . . . .”)\\n\\n(quotation omitted).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 28\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 29 of 60\\n\\n\\n As to the district court’s observation that it is “unclear why the Defendant\\n\\nwould have caused these calls to be placed,” the lack of clarity as to Defendant’s\\n\\nmotivation does not, on these facts, necessarily undermine Plaintiffs’ testimony.\\n\\nOver the years, Defendant engaged in repeated conduct to collect a debt no longer\\n\\nowed by Plaintiffs. It is not clear why Defendant persisted in these efforts despite\\n\\nprior settlements and court orders. Indeed, the alleged calls came at a time when\\n\\nDefendant had filed a re-foreclosure for no apparent reason. Ultimately, a jury will\\n\\nhave an opportunity to assess Plaintiffs’ credibility in order to determine whether\\n\\nDefendant made the automated calls at issue.\\n\\n 2. Lender-Placed Insurance Letters\\n a. District Court’s Ruling Applying Bona Fide Error\\n Defense\\n As to the claims relating to the insurance-billing letters sent to Plaintiffs, the\\n\\ndistrict court granted summary judgment to Defendant, concluding that Defendant\\n\\nwas protected by the bona fide error defense. As set out in the background section\\n\\nof this opinion, the failure of Defendant to update its databases and to make sure\\n\\nthe appropriate people within the company were informed of its settlement\\n\\nagreement with Plaintiffs had consequences beyond the misreporting of a non-\\n\\nexistent debt to credit reporting agencies. The erroneous retention, as a pending\\n\\ndebt, of Plaintiffs’ second loan in Defendant’s databases caused the insurance\\n\\ntracking software system used by Defendant’s insurance vendor, Southwest, to\\n\\n 29\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 30 of 60\\n\\n\\npurchase and bill Plaintiffs for fire insurance for property they no longer owned,\\n\\nbased on a debt they no longer owed.\\n\\n In analyzing Defendant’s potential liability under § 559.72(9), the district\\n\\ncourt assumed that “the ‘debt,’ whether it be the underlying Second Loan, the need\\n\\nfor hazard insurance, or the bill for the ‘forced place’ insurance, was not legitimate\\n\\nand that the Defendant knew or should have known that it was not legitimate.” 5\\n\\nThe court further assumed that Defendant could be held liable for Southwest’s\\n\\nactions as its agent. Ultimately, however, the court concluded that Defendant was\\n\\nentitled to the Florida Collections Act’s bona fide error defense, for two principal\\n\\nreasons: (1) the insurance letter error occurred “in the context of corrective action”\\n\\n(that is, Defendant’s attempt to correct its database in November 2013, which\\n\\ntriggered the sending of the letters by Southwest) and (2) Defendant responded\\n\\npromptly to the issue after it first learned of the problem when Plaintiffs filed suit\\n\\nin January 2014.\\n\\n Our review of the district court’s decision granting summary judgment to\\n\\nDefendant on this claim therefore focuses on whether Defendant established a bona\\n\\nfide error defense, as a matter of law, when the evidence is viewed in the light\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n5\\n Defendant does not challenge the district court’s assumption that each of these activities\\nsatisfies the threshold requirement that the act occurred in the collection of consumer debt. For\\npurposes of this opinion, we will adopt that assumption and confine our analysis to the issues\\nraised in the briefing.\\n 30\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 31 of 60\\n\\n\\nmost favorable to Plaintiffs or whether, as Plaintiffs argue, there is a disputed issue\\n\\nof fact on this point.\\n\\n b. Bona Fide Error Defense–Generally\\n\\n Florida law provides for a bona fide error defense to civil actions alleging\\n\\nviolations of the Florida Collections Act:\\n\\n A person may not be held liable in any action brought under this section\\n if the person shows by a preponderance of the evidence that the\\n violation was not intentional and resulted from a bona fide error,\\n notwithstanding the maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to\\n avoid such error.\\n\\nFla. Stat. § 559.77(3). “In applying and construing this section, due consideration\\n\\nand great weight shall be given to the interpretations of the Federal Trade\\n\\nCommission and the federal courts relating to the federal Fair Debt Collection\\n\\nPractices Act [“FDCPA”].” 6 Id. § 559.77(5); Gann v. BAC Home Loans Servicing\\n\\nLP, 145 So. 3d 906, 908 (Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App. 2014).\\n\\n As we held in a FDCPA case, “[a] debt collector asserting the bona fide\\n\\nerror defense must show by a preponderance of the evidence that its violation of\\n\\nthe Act: (1) was not intentional; (2) was a bona fide error; and (3) occurred despite\\n\\nthe maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such error.”\\n\\n\\n6\\n 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(c) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act includes a bona fide error\\ndefense nearly identical to the Florida Collections Act: “[a] debt collector may not be held liable\\nin any action brought under this subchapter if the debt collector shows by a preponderance of\\nevidence that the violation was not intentional and resulted from a bona fide error\\nnotwithstanding the maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such error.”\\n\\n 31\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 32 of 60\\n\\n\\nEdwards v. Niagara Credit Sols., Inc., 584 F.3d 1350, 1352–53 (11th Cir. 2009)\\n\\n(discussing 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(c)).\\n\\n Focusing their challenge on the second and third prongs of the above\\n\\nstandard, Plaintiffs emphasize the faulty procedures employed by Defendant for\\n\\ntracking loan settlement terms. Defendant counters that the true cause of\\n\\nSouthwest sending the erroneous letters was Southwest’s failure to follow\\n\\nDefendant’s stated policy of not tracking insurance for loans that are second liens.\\n\\n c. Whether Defendant’s Sending of the Lender-Placed\\n Insurance Letters Constituted a Bona Fide Error\\n “As used in the [FDCPA] ‘bona fide’ means that the error resulting in a\\n\\nviolation was made in good faith; a genuine mistake, as opposed to a contrived\\n\\nmistake.” Id. at 1352–53 (quotations omitted). “To be considered a bona fide\\n\\nerror, the debt collector’s mistake must be objectively reasonable.” Id.\\n\\n Given our conclusion below concerning Defendant’s policies and\\n\\nprocedures, we will assume that Defendant’s mistake in sending out the lender-\\n\\nplaces insurance letters was a bona fide error, as set out in the second prong of the\\n\\ntest. Defendant had a policy that insurance not be tracked for second loans.\\n\\nNevertheless, deletion of the first loan from the Co-Trak system caused the\\n\\ninsurance letters to automatically be mailed to Plaintiffs. This error occurred\\n\\ndespite Defendant’s policy that insurance not be tracked for second loans, which\\n\\nthe district court inferred to mean that the mailing of the insurance letters was a\\n\\n 32\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 33 of 60\\n\\n\\ngenuine, not a contrived mistake. Viewed objectively, we will assume that the\\n\\nautomatic issuance of lender-placed insurance letters following the deletion of the\\n\\nfirst loan from the Co-Trak database constitutes a genuine mistake, as opposed to a\\n\\ncontrived error.\\n\\n Plaintiffs focus on Defendant’s lack of procedures to disseminate loan\\n\\nsettlement terms, which failure Plaintiffs say caused the Co-Trak database to\\n\\ncontain faulty information regarding the status of Plaintiffs’ second loan. We\\n\\nunderstand Plaintiffs’ point, but this contention is best considered in connection\\n\\nwith the third prong of the test: the requirement that Defendant maintained\\n\\nprocedures reasonably adapted to avoid the error. See Johnson v. Riddle, 443 F.3d\\n\\n723, 729 (10th Cir. 2006) (“the bona fide prong and the procedures prong will\\n\\noften merge”). We turn to that question now.\\n\\n d. Genuine Issues of Fact Exist Regarding Whether\\n Defendant Maintained Procedures Reasonably Adapted\\n to Avoid the Violation\\n As we have stated, “the procedures component of the bona fide error defense\\n\\ninvolves a two-step inquiry.” Owen, 629 F.3d at 1273–74 (citing Johnson, 443\\n\\nF.3d at 729). “The first step is whether the debt collector ‘maintained’—i.e.,\\n\\nactually employed or implemented—procedures to avoid errors.” Id. (quotations\\n\\nomitted). The second step is “whether the procedures were ‘reasonably adapted’ to\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 33\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 34 of 60\\n\\n\\navoid the specific error at issue.” Id. This is a “fact-intensive inquiry” analyzed\\n\\n“on a case-by-case basis.” Id.\\n\\n Defendant defines the issue narrowly, urging us to consider only whether it\\n\\nhad policies and procedures that reasonably precluded issuance of the lender-\\n\\nplaced insurance letters to Plaintiffs based on their second loan. Defendant asserts\\n\\nthat the facts demonstrate that Southwest should not have mailed those letters\\n\\nbecause it was a second lien which Southwest should not have been tracking under\\n\\nthe policies and procedures in place.7 Thus, Defendant asserts that “the specific\\n\\nerror here had nothing to do with [Defendant’s] general practices concerning\\n\\nborrowers who have had loans discharged through settlement.”\\n\\n Plaintiffs, in turn, focus on Defendant’s practices concerning recording and\\n\\ndissemination of settlement terms. Plaintiffs highlight four deficiencies in\\n\\nDefendant’s system for tracking settlements as the cause for the Co-Trak database\\n\\nto contain erroneous information that triggered sending of the insurance letters.\\n\\nPlaintiffs maintain that: (1) Defendant does not store settlement agreements on the\\n\\nNautilus system, the system that contains images of loan applications, mortgages,\\n\\nand promissory notes; (2) Defendant does not notate settlement terms on the\\n\\n\\n7\\n Defendant’s “Insurance Policy” provides: “Outsourced Insurance Tracking . . .\\nResponsibilities . . . The Insurance Vendor is responsible for determining the acceptability of\\ninsurance policies and ensuring that approved insurance coverage remains in force on all\\nproperties for the life of all loans being serviced. The exceptions to this are condominiums and\\n2nd liens, which are not tracked.”\\n\\n 34\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 35 of 60\\n\\n\\nFISERVE database; (3) despite the probability that the status of a loan will be\\n\\naffected by litigation, Defendant has no policy to place flags on accounts subject to\\n\\nlitigation; (4) settlement terms are disclosed to Defendant’s business departments\\n\\nonly if Defendant’s legal department determines such disclosure is proper.\\n\\nMoreover, Plaintiffs assert that Defendant cannot show that it has any procedures\\n\\nin place to make sure that the terms of the settlement are conveyed to the proper\\n\\nparties that need to be involved.\\n\\n As framed by the parties, the issue turns on the second step of Owen; that is,\\n\\n“whether the procedures were ‘reasonably adapted’ to avoid the specific error at\\n\\nissue.” Owen, 629 F.3d at 1273–74. Owen obligates us to first determine “the\\n\\nspecific error at issue.” Id. Defendant frames the error as sending lender-placed\\n\\ninsurance letters in contravention of its policy not to require insurance for second\\n\\nloans. Plaintiffs frame the error as failing to input settlement terms in the Co-Trak\\n\\nsystem. As Owen makes clear, however, the specific error at issue is the statutory\\n\\nviolation alleged. In this case, the specific error is the sending of lender-placed\\n\\ninsurance letters erroneously asserting that Plaintiffs were obligated to insure\\n\\nproperty they no longer owned.\\n\\n Defendant identifies only its policy not to insure second loans as a policy\\n\\nthat is reasonably adapted to avoid issuance of illegitimate lender-placed insurance\\n\\nletters. The policy cited is an internal policy and Defendant fails to explain\\n\\n\\n 35\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 36 of 60\\n\\n\\nwhether and how this policy is communicated to Southwest or Defendant’s\\n\\nemployees. Yet, although Defendant characterizes this practice as a “policy and\\n\\nprocedure,” we are hard pressed to discern from this record what procedures\\n\\nDefendant or Southwest implemented to enforce its policy of not insuring second\\n\\nloans. The Supreme Court has interpreted the provision of the FDCPA requiring\\n\\nthe debt collector to maintain “procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such\\n\\nerror.” Jerman v. Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer & Ulrich LPA, 559 U.S. 573,\\n\\n587 (2010). The Court noted that “[t]he dictionary defines ‘procedure’ as ‘a series\\n\\nof steps followed in a regular orderly definite way.’” Id. (citing Webster’s Third\\n\\nNew International Dictionary 1807 (1976)). The Court concluded that “the\\n\\nstatutory phrase is more naturally read to apply to processes that have mechanical\\n\\nor other such ‘regular orderly’ steps to avoid mistakes—for instance, the kind of\\n\\ninternal controls a debt collector might adopt to ensure its employees do not\\n\\ncommunicate with consumers at the wrong time of day, § 1692c(a)(1), or make\\n\\nfalse representations as to the amount of a debt, § 1692e(2).” Id. Here, Defendant\\n\\nhas not documented a regular and orderly process for enforcing its stated policy not\\n\\nto insure second loans.\\n\\n Even the policy itself appears irregular. Rather than absolute, Defendant’s\\n\\npolicy of not insuring second loans appears to apply only so long as the first loan is\\n\\nin place. The automated tasks performed by the Co-Trak system define at least\\n\\n\\n 36\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 37 of 60\\n\\n\\npart of Defendant’s procedures regarding insurance on second loans. The record\\n\\nreflects that Defendant’s system requires insurance on second loans when the first\\n\\nloan is discharged and deleted from the system and the second loan is open and\\n\\nshowing a balance due. In effect, the second loan becomes a primary loan\\n\\nrequiring insurance. Given that apparent practice dictated by Defendant’s\\n\\nsoftware, the question becomes what procedures Defendant implemented to insure\\n\\nthat the Co-Trak systems acts on accurate information when evaluating the need\\n\\nfor insurance. And that depends on the procedures Defendant follows to input\\n\\naccount status and balance information in the Co-Trak system. Were those\\n\\nprocedures reasonable? Construing all facts in Plaintiffs’ favor, as we must on\\n\\nsummary judgment, we agree with Plaintiffs that one cannot state, as a matter of\\n\\nlaw, that Defendant’s procedures to guard against the dissemination of insurance-\\n\\nbilling letters for properties secured by second loans were reasonably adapted for\\n\\nthat purpose. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary\\n\\njudgment to Defendant on its bona fide error defense to allow the trier of fact to\\n\\nmake that determination.8\\n\\n\\n\\n8\\n For similar reasons, we conclude that Defendant is not entitled to summary judgment based on\\nthe bona fide error defense on the claim that two of its lender-placed insurance letters were sent\\nto Plaintiffs after Defendant became aware that Plaintiffs were represented by counsel.\\nDefendant again maintains that it has a policy against such a violation. This policy requires that\\n“once it is learned that an attorney represents the borrower, all contact may be made only with\\nthe attorney, unless the attorney either failed to respond within a reasonable amount of time, or\\nconsents to our direct contact with the borrower.” But, once again, Defendant does not explain\\n 37\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 38 of 60\\n\\n\\n e. Disputed Issues of Fact Exist Concerning Whether\\n Southwest Was Defendant’s Agent\\n\\n Because it granted Defendant summary judgment on its bona fide error\\n\\ndefense, the district court did not reach the question whether Southwest was\\n\\nDefendant’s agent for purpose of generating and disseminating to Plaintiffs the\\n\\nlender-placed insurance letters demanding payment of fire insurance on property\\n\\nthat Defendant well knew Plaintiffs owed no debt. Defendant argues, however,\\n\\nthat even if the bona fide error defense does not succeed, it should still prevail\\n\\nbecause Southwest was not its agent. Even though the district court did not reach\\n\\nthese issues, we are empowered to affirm summary judgment on the present claim,\\n\\nwere we to agree with Defendant, because we “may affirm the district court’s\\n\\nruling on any basis the record supports.” Fla. Wildlife Fed’n Inc. v. United States\\n\\nArmy Corps of Engineers, 859 F.3d 1306, 1316 (11th Cir. 2017). Once again, we\\n\\ndecline to grant Defendant summary judgment on this argument, finding factual\\n\\nquestions that must be resolved by a finder of fact.\\n\\n (1) Actual Agency\\n\\n Defendant contends that “although [it] retained [Southwest] as its vendor to\\n\\nensure that insurance policies were paid when due, no principal-agent relationship\\n\\nexisted concerning mailing the letters.” “Generally, the existence of an agency\\n\\n\\nhow that policy is communicated or implemented, leaving for the jury to decide whether\\nDefendant has procedures reasonably adapted to enforce that policy.\\n\\n\\n 38\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 39 of 60\\n\\n\\nrelationship is a question of fact; however, when the moving party fails to produce\\n\\nany supportive evidence or when the evidence presented is so unequivocal that\\n\\nreasonable persons could reach but one conclusion, that question of fact becomes a\\n\\nquestion of law to be determined by the court.” Hickman v. Barclay’s Int’l Realty,\\n\\nInc., 5 So. 3d 804, 806 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct. App. 2009). “[A]n agency relationship\\n\\nmay be express or implied from apparent authority, and the burden of proving the\\n\\nagency belongs to the party asserting it.” Regions Bank v. Maroone Chevrolet,\\n\\nL.L.C., 118 So. 3d 251, 255 (Fla. 3d Dist. Ct. App. 2013).\\n\\n “Essential to the existence of an actual agency relationship is (1)\\n\\nacknowledgment by the principal that the agent will act for him, (2) the agent’s\\n\\nacceptance of the undertaking, and (3) control by the principal over the actions of\\n\\nthe agent.” Goldschmidt v. Holman, 571 So. 2d 422, 424 n.5 (Fla. 1990). “The\\n\\nkey element in establishing actual agency is the control by the principal over the\\n\\nactions of the agent.” Hickman, 5 So. 3d at 806. “And it is the right of control, not\\n\\nactual control or descriptive labels employed by the parties, that determines an\\n\\nagency relationship.” Id.\\n\\n Given the nature of the Insurance Administration Agreement between\\n\\nDefendant and Southwest, we will assume that a jury could properly determine, as\\n\\nDefendant contends, that Southwest is a typical service provider contracted to\\n\\nperform a task and that no agency relationship existed here. But the evidence is\\n\\n\\n 39\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 40 of 60\\n\\n\\nnot so unequivocal that we can rule as a matter of law that no agency relationship\\n\\nexisted. Id. at 806–07.\\n\\n Construed in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs, the evidence shows that\\n\\nDefendant controlled issuance of Plaintiffs’ insurance letters. Defendant consented\\n\\nto have Southwest act on its behalf in sending lender-placed insurance collection\\n\\nletters to its borrowers. The Insurance Administration Agreement provided that\\n\\n“the form and content of [lender-placed insurance] notices shall have been\\n\\npreviously reviewed and approved by [Defendant].” As reviewed and approved by\\n\\nDefendant, the lender-placed insurance letters in this case were sent on\\n\\nDefendant’s letterhead and were signed “Fire Insurance Processing Center,\\n\\nCarrington Mortgage Services, L.L.C.” The Insurance Administration Agreement\\n\\nalso established Defendant’s authority to obtain and review periodic reports on\\n\\nSouthwest’s activities.\\n\\n Highlighting Defendant’s control as established in the Insurance\\n\\nAdministration Agreement, the evidence reflects, as the district court found,\\n\\n“[Southwest’s] dependence on the Defendant both for accurate data and for\\n\\ninstructions to take corrective action.” The court further noted that “[Southwest]\\n\\ndid not feel it could take corrective action until January 29, 2014 when the\\n\\nDefendant expressly and specifically instructed it to stop.” The facts presented on\\n\\nsummary judgment support the district court’s observations. Under these\\n\\n\\n 40\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 41 of 60\\n\\n\\ncircumstances, where Southwest depended on Defendant for accurate loan\\n\\ninformation and Defendant exercised power to intervene in Southwest’s\\n\\nadministration of Plaintiffs’ insurance, a jury could reasonably find that Southwest\\n\\nacted as Defendant’s agent in sending the lender-placed insurance letters to\\n\\nPlaintiffs.\\n\\n (2) Apparent Agency\\n\\n Construed in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs, sufficient evidence of\\n\\napparent agency also exists to preclude summary judgment for Defendant.\\n\\n“[A]pparent authority is a form of estoppel [which arises] from ‘the authority a\\n\\nprincipal knowingly tolerates or allows an agent to assume, or which the principal\\n\\nby his actions or words holds the agent out as possessing.’” Regions Bank, 118 So.\\n\\n3d at 255 (quoting Jackson Hewitt, Inc. v. Kaman, 100 So. 3d 19, 31 (Fla. 2d Dist.\\n\\nCt. App. 2011)). Apparent agency exists only where the principal creates the\\n\\nappearance of authority. Id. Plaintiffs must prove three elements to establish an\\n\\napparent agency: (1) a representation by the purported principal; (2) a reliance on\\n\\nthat representation by a third party; and (3) a change in position by the third party\\n\\nin reliance on the representation. Mobil Oil Corp. v. Bransford, 648 So. 2d 119,\\n\\n121 (Fla. 1995). “It is well settled under Florida law that, [t]he existence of an\\n\\nagency relationship, the nature and extent of the agent’s authority, and the\\n\\ninclusion within the scope of that authority of a particular act are ordinarily\\n\\n\\n 41\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 42 of 60\\n\\n\\nquestions to be determined by the jury or by the trier of facts in accordance with\\n\\nthe evidence adduced in the particular case.” Citibank, N.A. v. Data Lease Fin.\\n\\nCorp., 828 F.2d 686, 691 (11th Cir. 1987) (quotations omitted).\\n\\n Here, the Insurance Agreement granted Defendant control over the content\\n\\nof the lender-placed insurance letters. Defendant dictated, or at least allowed,\\n\\nSouthwest to issue those letters, not just under Defendant’s letterhead, but as\\n\\nsigned by “Fire Insurance Processing Center, Carrington Mortgage Services,\\n\\nL.L.C.” A jury could reasonably conclude that Southwest acted with apparent\\n\\nauthority on behalf of Defendant and that Plaintiffs relied on the representations\\n\\nDefendant authorized Southwest to make when they dealt with Defendant. See\\n\\nAlmerico v. RLI Ins. Co., 716 So. 2d 774, 783 (Fla. 1998) (holding under Fla. Stat.\\n\\n§ 626.342(2) that “civil liability may be imposed upon insurers who cloak\\n\\nunaffiliated insurance agents with sufficient indicia of agency to induce a\\n\\nreasonable person to conclude that there is an actual agency relationship”).\\n\\n In short, contrary to Defendant’s urging, we cannot conclude as a matter of\\n\\nlaw that no agency relationship existed between Defendant and Southwest. Again,\\n\\nthis will be a decision for the finder of fact.\\n\\n f. Defendant’s Alleged Lack of Actual Knowledge of a\\n Violation\\n\\n As a final alternative ground for affirmance, Defendant argues that it lacked\\n\\nactual knowledge of the lender-placed insurance letter violations. We have stated\\n\\n 42\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 43 of 60\\n\\n\\nthat “[i]n contrast to the FDCPA, Section 559.72(9) of the [Florida Collections\\n\\nAct] requires a plaintiff to demonstrate that the debt collector defendant possessed\\n\\nactual knowledge that the threatened means of enforcing the debt was\\n\\nunavailable.” LeBlanc, 601 F.3d at 1192 n.12. Defendant construes those cases as\\n\\nrequiring that Plaintiffs prove that Defendant had actual knowledge that Southwest\\n\\nsent the lender-placed insurance letters to Plaintiffs and maintains that no such\\n\\nevidence exists. We disagree.\\n\\n The statute provides that:\\n\\n In collecting consumer debts, no person shall:\\n\\n ****\\n (9) Claim, attempt, or threaten to enforce a debt when such person\\n knows that the debt is not legitimate, or assert the existence of some\\n other legal right when such person knows that the right does not exist.\\n\\nFla. Stat. § 559.72(9). The statute merely requires that Defendant know the debt is\\n\\nnot legitimate or the asserted legal right does not exist. The statute does not\\n\\npreclude a principal from being held liable for the debt-collection efforts of its\\n\\nagent when the principal knows that the debt is illegitimate. None of the cases\\n\\ncited by Defendant addresses a principal’s liability for the illegitimate collection\\n\\nefforts of its agent.\\n\\n Here, Defendant indisputably knew at the time its alleged agent, Southwest,\\n\\nsent the insurance letters that Plaintiffs no longer owned the property and had no\\n\\noutstanding debt. And Defendant as the “principal is bound by the acts of his\\n 43\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 44 of 60\\n\\n\\nagent.” Thomkin Corp. v. Miller, 24 So. 2d 48, 49 (Fla. 1945). “Even where an\\n\\nagent’s act is unauthorized, the principal is liable if the agent had the apparent\\n\\nauthority to do the act and that apparent authority was reasonably relied upon by\\n\\nthe third party dealing with the agent.” Benson v. Seestrom, 409 So. 2d 172, 173\\n\\n(Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App. 1982).\\n\\n Plaintiffs also submitted evidence that Defendant knew each time Southwest\\n\\nsent a letter to Plaintiffs on its behalf because the system notated it in Defendant’s\\n\\nFISERVE database.9 At any rate, Southwest’s knowledge that it sent the letters\\n\\nmay be imputed to Defendant if Plaintiffs establish a principal/agent relationship.\\n\\nRuotal Corp., N. W., Inc. v. Ottati, 391 So. 2d 308, 309 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct. App.\\n\\n1980) (“It is axiomatic that knowledge of the agent constitutes knowledge of the\\n\\nprincipal as long as the agent received such knowledge while acting within the\\n\\nscope of his authority.”).\\n\\n Again, the record evidence is insufficient to justify summary judgment for\\n\\nDefendant based on its alleged lack of actual knowledge of a Florida Collections\\n\\nAct violation.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n9\\n The system put in place by Defendant and Southwest generated the insurance letters\\nautomatically. We reach no conclusion whether such computerized records of automated\\nactivities provide “actual knowledge” of what transpired to a system administrator.\\n\\n 44\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 45 of 60\\n\\n\\n C. Plaintiffs’ Breach of Contract Claim (Count III)\\n\\n 1. Defendant’s Breach of the Reporting Provision (¶ 3(b))\\n a. Basis for District Court’s Grant of Summary Judgment to\\n Defendant\\n\\n “For a breach of contract claim, Florida law 10 requires the plaintiff to plead\\n\\nand establish: (1) the existence of a contract; (2) a material breach of that contract;\\n\\nand (3) damages resulting from the breach.” Vega v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 564 F.3d\\n\\n1256, 1272 (11th Cir. 2009) (emphasis added). “To constitute a vital or material\\n\\nbreach, a defendant’s non-performance must be such as to go to the essence of the\\n\\ncontract.” Sublime, Inc. v. Boardman’s Inc., 849 So. 2d 470, 471 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct.\\n\\nApp. 2003).\\n\\n To reprise the sequence of events necessary to understand Plaintiffs’ breach\\n\\nof contract claim, in 2009, Plaintiffs and Defendant settled the foreclosure action\\n\\nfiled by Defendant against Plaintiffs’ property. The terms of the settlement\\n\\nrequired Plaintiffs to vacate the premises and convey the deed for the property to\\n\\nDefendant. In return, Defendant agreed to report to credit reporting agencies that\\n\\nthe mortgage was discharged with a zero balance. Failing to live up to this\\n\\nagreement, however, Defendant instead reported to agencies that Plaintiffs were in\\n\\ndefault on their debt, and it continued to seek repayment on the non-existent debt.\\n\\n\\n10\\n The settlement agreement does not contain a choice of law provision, but both parties apply\\nFlorida law in briefing the contract dispute. See Fioretti v. Massachusetts Gen. Life Ins. Co., 53\\nF.3d 1228, 1235 (11th Cir. 1995) (explaining the doctrine of lex loci contractus).\\n 45\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 46 of 60\\n\\n\\n The breach of this first settlement agreement is not a part of Plaintiffs’\\n\\npresent claim. Instead that breach underlay Plaintiffs’ claims in the First Action,\\n\\nfiled in 2012. During the litigation of the First Action, Defendant actually\\n\\ncorrected its misreporting of Plaintiffs’ first loan by sending corrected automated\\n\\nreports to credit reporting agencies, indicating that the first loan had a zero balance.\\n\\nFor reasons unclear, however, Defendant failed to correct reports showing that\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ second loan likewise had a zero balance. Accordingly, in the second\\n\\nsettlement agreement between the parties, Defendant agreed to report to agencies\\n\\nthat likewise no money was owed on this second loan.\\n\\n Although Defendant eventually transmitted to credit reporting agencies the\\n\\nexistence of a zero balance on the second loan, Plaintiffs contend in the present\\n\\naction that Defendant’s compliance was tardy under the terms of the settlement\\n\\nagreement, and that therefore Defendant breached ¶ 3(b) of the contract.\\n\\nParagraph 3(b) required Defendant to:\\n\\n report the Second Loan as having a zero balance as of December 9,\\n 2009 to the same agencies and in the same fashion as it reported the\\n First Loan, which reporting shall be done as soon as reasonably\\n possible, but in any case within 90 days.\\n\\n(emphasis added).\\n\\n Defendant, however, neglected to send corrected reports to credit reporting\\n\\nagencies regarding this second loan until April 25, 2013, which was two days after\\n\\nexpiration of the maximum 90-day time period set out in ¶ 3(b). The district court\\n 46\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 47 of 60\\n\\n\\nconcluded that Defendant had breached its settlement agreement through its\\n\\ntardiness, but it did not reach the question whether the breach was material because\\n\\nit concluded that Plaintiffs had made “an insufficient argument for damages.”\\n\\nBecause damages are an essential element of a breach-of-contract claim, the\\n\\ndistrict court granted summary judgment to Defendant on this claim.\\n\\n In reaching this conclusion, however, the court addressed only Plaintiffs’\\n\\nclaim for damages arising from the emotional distress that their ordeal with\\n\\nDefendant had caused them and for damages arising from the issuance of a false\\n\\n1099 tax form11 as a result of the inaccurate information recorded by Defendant\\n\\nconcerning the second loan. The court failed to address the damages alleged by\\n\\nPlaintiffs to have resulted from the higher deposits and loan interest rates that\\n\\nPlaintiffs were required to pay in financing the purchase of two automobiles.\\n\\n b. Damages\\n We address first the question whether Plaintiffs have alleged viable damages\\n\\nas a result of any breach of the settlement agreement by Defendant because,\\n\\nwithout such damages, Plaintiffs’ breach-of-contract claim cannot succeed.\\n\\n (1) Emotional Distress Damages\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n11\\n Plaintiffs do not challenge on appeal the grant of summary judgment as to that part of the\\nclaim involving issuance of the 1099 form.\\n\\n\\n 47\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 48 of 60\\n\\n\\n Examining first Plaintiffs’ claim that they were entitled to pursue damages\\n\\nbased on emotional distress caused by Defendant’s breach of the settlement\\n\\nagreement, we agree with the district court that these damages are not available for\\n\\na breach of contract claim under Florida law. Defendant cites Florida caselaw in\\n\\nsupport of its argument that such damages are unavailable. Specifically, it notes\\n\\nthat the Florida Supreme Court “is committed to the rule . . . that there can be no\\n\\nrecovery for mental pain and anguish unconnected with physical injury in an action\\n\\narising out of the negligent breach of a contract whereby simple negligence is\\n\\ninvolved.” Kirksey v. Jernigan, 45 So. 2d 188, 189 (Fla. 1950). Further, as a\\n\\ngeneral rule, damages for mental distress caused by a breach of contract are not\\n\\nallowed under Florida law unless the breach amounts to an independent, willful\\n\\ntort. Gellert v. E. Air Lines, Inc., 370 So. 2d 802, 805 (Fla. 3d Dist. Ct. App.\\n\\n1979). Indeed, “where the gravamen of the proceeding is breach of contract, even\\n\\nif such breach be willful and flagrant, there can be no recovery for mental pain and\\n\\nanguish resulting from such breach.” Floyd v. Video Barn, Inc., 538 So. 2d 1322,\\n\\n1325 (Fla. 1st Dist. Ct. App. 1989) (quotations omitted) (affirming no damages for\\n\\nmental and emotional suffering available for breach of contract where videographer\\n\\nfailed to record a wedding).\\n\\n Plaintiffs have not alleged, much less established, a willful tort independent\\n\\nof the contract arising from Defendant’s breach of the settlement agreement.\\n\\n\\n 48\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 49 of 60\\n\\n\\nSignificantly, Plaintiffs cite no Florida authority in support of their argument that\\n\\nthey can properly seek emotional distress damages based on Defendant’s breach of\\n\\nthe settlement agreement. Instead, Plaintiffs rely on two non-Florida cases that are\\n\\ninapt for purposes of this issue. 12\\n\\n Plaintiffs also argue that “[s]ince emotional distress damages are recoverable\\n\\nfor FCRA, FDCPA, and [Florida Collections Act] violations, it cannot reasonably\\n\\nbe denied that emotional distress is a foreseeable consequence of the breach of a\\n\\ncontract specifically intended to resolve prior violations of those same statutes.”\\n\\n(emphasis in original). We find this argument unpersuasive. That Plaintiffs might\\n\\nhave another vehicle for pursuing emotional distress damages based on a particular\\n\\nact by Defendant does not mean that we are empowered to ignore controlling\\n\\nFlorida law that precludes those damages for this particular cause of action.\\n\\n Nevertheless, Plaintiffs contend that “it would be contrary to public policy to\\n\\nallow a violator of the FCRA, the Florida Collections Act, and the FDCPA—who\\n\\n\\n12\\n In arguing that emotional distress damages are permitted if they were the foreseeable result of\\na breach of the settlement agreement, Plaintiffs cite Sheely v. MRI Radiology Network, P.A., 505\\nF.3d 1173 (11th Cir. 2007). In Sheely, however, the plaintiff had sought emotional distress\\ndamages based on an intentional violation of the federal Rehabilitation Act provision prohibiting\\ndiscrimination against the disabled by recipients of federal funds. Neither the facts nor the legal\\nanalysis there apply to this case, which involves a contract dispute under Florida law.\\n\\nPlaintiffs also rely on language found in McGinnis v. American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc.,\\n901 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 2018), which addressed the question whether the amount of a jury’s\\npunitive damages award violated due process in a case where the defendant mortgage holder was\\nfound liable under Georgia law for conversion, wrongful foreclosure, interference with property\\nrights, and intentional inflection of emotional distress. Id. at 1287. Again, neither the legal\\nissues nor the facts of that case jibe with this case.\\n 49\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 50 of 60\\n\\n\\nwould otherwise be liable for emotional distress damages—to avoid those damages\\n\\nsimply by entering into a settlement agreement with which it fails to comply.”\\n\\nThis argument ignores the fact that, through the settlement agreement reached to\\n\\nresolve the First Action, Defendant compensated Plaintiffs $125,000 for its past\\n\\nviolations of the FCRA, FDCPA, and Florida Collections Act: a negotiated figure\\n\\nthat presumably included compensation for any emotional distress suffered. As to\\n\\nany additional emotional distress that Plaintiffs may have suffered as a result of\\n\\nDefendant’s post-settlement violations of the FCRA and the Florida Collections\\n\\nAct, Plaintiffs have sought damages for that distress in the present action and will\\n\\nbe able to pursue those damages at trial.\\n\\n (2) Damages Based on Increased Financing Costs in\\n Connection with Purchase of Automobiles\\n\\n While we agree with the district court that emotional distress damages are\\n\\nnot cognizable as to the breach of contract claim, there was another item of\\n\\ndamages for this claim that the district court overlooked. Specifically, Plaintiffs\\n\\nallege that Defendant’s failure to timely correct its erroneous reports indicating the\\n\\nexistence of a continuing debt on the second loan, as the settlement agreement\\n\\nrequired it to do, caused Plaintiffs to suffer from adverse financing terms when\\n\\npurchasing two vehicles subsequent to the agreement. Plaintiffs submitted\\n\\ndeclarations and financing documents showing that each obtained car loans on\\n\\nFebruary 23, 2013, with interest rates of 17.99% and 24.49% and a larger down\\n 50\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 51 of 60\\n\\n\\npayment than would otherwise be required absent the false information in the\\n\\ncredit reports issued by Defendant.\\n\\n This evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, raises a\\n\\ntriable issue of damages so long as Plaintiffs can establish a triable issue as to\\n\\nwhether the agreement required Defendant to issue its correction prior to the date\\n\\nthat Plaintiffs financed their newly-purchased cars: February 23, 2013. We turn to\\n\\nthat question next.\\n\\n c. Whether Defendant’s Failure to Correct Its Records Prior\\n to February 23, 2013 Constituted A Breach of ¶ 3(b) of\\n the Settlement Agreement\\n\\n As noted, ¶ 3(b) of the January 23, 2013 settlement agreement required\\n\\nDefendant to “report the Second Loan as having a zero balance . . . as soon as\\n\\nreasonably possible, but in any case within 90 days.” That Defendant did not\\n\\ncorrect its reporting of the second loan until April 25, 2013, two days after the\\n\\nmaximum time allotted by ¶ 3(b), is undisputed. Thus, Defendant breached the\\n\\nrequirement that it correct its reports to credit agencies concerning the absence of\\n\\nany debt by Plaintiffs to Defendant no later than 90 days following the settlement\\n\\nagreement.\\n\\n That breach, however, does not help Plaintiffs in their efforts to prove\\n\\ndamages related to the financing terms of their newly-purchased automobiles\\n\\nbecause this financing occurred on February 23, 2013, which was before the 90-\\n\\n\\n 51\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 52 of 60\\n\\n\\nday April 23 deadline. Defendant argues that the timing of Plaintiffs’ automobile\\n\\nfinancing purchase ends any contention that its breach harmed Plaintiffs because\\n\\nDefendant had carte blanche to wait until the 90th day to issue its corrections, and\\n\\nthe fact that it missed that deadline by two days caused Plaintiffs no harm in\\n\\nconnection with their earlier February financing of the automobiles.\\n\\n Defendant is dead wrong in its insistence that it had no obligation to correct\\n\\nthe erroneous reports before expiration of the 90-day period. Rather, the\\n\\nagreement clearly states that the corrected reporting shall be done “as soon as\\n\\nreasonably possible.” The 90-day provision means only that the correction had to\\n\\nbe issued by that deadline, no matter what arguments Defendant might later make\\n\\nas to how long it reasonably took to issue the corrected report. It did not exempt\\n\\nDefendant from a duty to report, “as soon as reasonably possible,” the correct\\n\\ninformation “to the same agencies and in the same fashion as it reported the First\\n\\nLoan.” Moreover, the agreement also reflected the parties’ acknowledgement that\\n\\n“time is of the essence in the performance of the obligations of this Agreement.”\\n\\n Indeed, it seems quite unlikely that Defendant reported “as soon as\\n\\nreasonably possible” the correct information inasmuch as it sent automated reports\\n\\non February 11, March 11, and April 10, 2013 that repeated the same incorrect\\n\\ninformation about Plaintiffs’ debt. How much time would it reasonably have taken\\n\\nto correct the entries on these automated monthly reports? One can reasonably\\n\\n\\n 52\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 53 of 60\\n\\n\\nassume that by the March and April reports, Defendant could surely have gotten its\\n\\nact together. But for our purposes here, the question is whether it was reasonably\\n\\npossible for Defendant to have issued a corrected report by the time that Plaintiffs\\n\\nfinanced their automobiles, on February 23. The financing occurred a month after\\n\\nthe settlement agreement. If it was reasonably possible to have issued a corrected\\n\\nreport by February 23, Defendant breached ¶ 3(b) by failing to do so, and Plaintiffs\\n\\nwill have stated a viable claim for damages as a result of that breach.\\n\\n The district court’s observations certainly suggest that a month was plenty of\\n\\ntime for Defendant to have issued a corrected report to credit reporting agencies.\\n\\nThe court noted that Defendant’s insistence on waiting until the end of the 90-day\\n\\nperiod to issue accurate reports was not “in the spirit of the deadline” and that\\n\\n“[t]he overall record shows than when prompted, the Defendant is able to issue\\n\\nAUD’s to the [credit reporting agencies] quickly and expeditiously.” The latter\\n\\nobservation appears accurate. Yet, focused as it was on the emotional distress\\n\\ndamages, and not on the potential automobile-financing-charge damages, the\\n\\ndistrict court did not draw any formal conclusion concerning whether Defendant\\n\\ncould have issued a corrected report by February 23. Accordingly, we conclude\\n\\nthat this question will require factual development at trial. We therefore reverse\\n\\nthe district court’s grant of summary judgment on the breach of contract claim\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 53\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 54 of 60\\n\\n\\nbased on Defendant’s alleged breach of ¶ 3(b)’s “as soon as reasonably possible”\\n\\nprovision, and remand for proceedings consistent with the above discussion.\\n\\n 2. Defendant’s Alleged Breach of the Non-Disparagement\\n Provision (¶ 7)\\n\\n As explained in the preceding section, ¶ 3(b) of the January 23, 2013\\n\\nsettlement agreement required Defendant to report as soon as reasonably possible\\n\\nto credit reporting agencies that the second loan had a zero balance. It took\\n\\nDefendant 92 days—until April 25—to do so (and even then Defendant added a\\n\\nfalse report that Plaintiffs had a balloon note due in 2021). During that 92-day\\n\\nperiod, Defendant continued to issue their regular, monthly automated reports—on\\n\\nFebruary 11, March 11, and April 10—which reports incorrectly showed the\\n\\nexistence of a second loan on which Plaintiffs were delinquent. Because Plaintiffs’\\n\\nonly viable damages arise from the financing of newly-purchased automobiles on\\n\\nFebruary 23, on remand the jury’s resolution of the breach of contract claim under\\n\\n¶ 3(b) will turn on its determination whether it was reasonably possible for\\n\\nDefendant to have issued a corrected report prior to February 23.\\n\\n Plaintiffs argue that even if it were not reasonably possible for Defendant to\\n\\nhave issued a corrected report by February 23, Defendant should still be found to\\n\\nhave breached the settlement agreement based on ¶ 7’s non-disparagement\\n\\nprovision, which states that “[t]he parties agree that they will not make any\\n\\nstatements disparaging, deprecating, or denigrating each other from the date of this\\n\\n 54\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 55 of 60\\n\\n\\nAgreement forward, with respect to any or all of the matters alleged in the\\n\\nLitigation.” Plaintiffs contend that because the automated monthly report issued\\n\\non February 11, 2013 erroneously indicated that Plaintiffs were delinquent on a\\n\\nloan with a past-due balance of almost $15,000, Defendant disparaged them.\\n\\nMoreover, because ¶ 7 contains no language requiring Defendant to communicate\\n\\nthe correct information to credit reporting agencies as soon as reasonably possible,\\n\\nPlaintiffs argue that it does not matter whether it was reasonably possible for\\n\\nDefendant to disseminate a corrected report by February 11.\\n\\n The disparagement clause is broadly-worded and includes any type of\\n\\nconduct or communications that might “deprecate” or “denigrate” Plaintiffs. We\\n\\nagree with Plaintiffs that the issuance of a report falsely indicating that Plaintiffs\\n\\nare behind in their payments on a loan is one type of communication that would\\n\\nconstitute disparagement. But we disagree that we can ignore the language in the\\n\\nspecific provision governing Defendant’s duty to issue a corrected report that gives\\n\\nDefendant a reasonable period of time to do so. “[I]t is a general principle of\\n\\ncontract interpretation that a specific provision dealing with a particular subject\\n\\nwill control over a different provision dealing only generally with that same\\n\\nsubject.” Kel Homes, LLC v. Burris, 933 So. 2d 699, 703 (Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App.\\n\\n2006). Here, there is a specific provision that spells out the time requirement for\\n\\nDefendant to correct its previous inaccurate reports to credit reporting agencies.\\n\\n\\n 55\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 56 of 60\\n\\n\\nOnce again, that provision requires Defendant to “report the Second Loan as\\n\\nhaving a zero balance as of December 9, 2009 to the same agencies and in the\\n\\nsame fashion as it reported the First Loan, which reporting shall be done as soon as\\n\\nreasonably possible.”\\n\\n Were we to deprive Defendant of the brief window of time that ¶ 3(b) allows\\n\\nfor it to issue a corrected report, we would be essentially expunging language from\\n\\nthe contract that the parties had agreed on. Nothing in the settlement agreement\\n\\nsuggests the parties intended the non-disparagement provision to entirely\\n\\neviscerate ¶ 3(b)’s provision concerning the time permitted Defendant to issue a\\n\\ncorrected report. If, for example, a scheduled, automated monthly report\\n\\ncontaining incorrect information about the second loan was due to be, and was\\n\\nactually, disseminated on January 24—the day after the parties had entered into the\\n\\nsettlement agreement and with no ability by Defendant to stop its issuance—surely\\n\\nPlaintiffs would not argue that ¶ 7’s anti-disparagement provision deprived\\n\\nDefendant of the reasonable period of time to correct that was allowed by ¶ 3(b),\\n\\nwhich was the key section of the settlement agreement and the provision that\\n\\nspecifically governed the time period within which Defendant was required to act.\\n\\n Again, given our own knowledge of this record, we are very doubtful that\\n\\nthe evidence at trial will show that Defendant could not have issued a correct\\n\\nreport prior to February 11, when the disparaging, incorrect report was issued. Or\\n\\n\\n 56\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 57 of 60\\n\\n\\nto put it another way, we are doubtful that it was not reasonably possible for\\n\\nDefendant to insure that the information included in its regular, monthly February\\n\\n11 report was accurate and in compliance with the directives of the settlement\\n\\nagreement. Nevertheless, it is up to the jury to decide this question and if the jury\\n\\nconcludes that it was reasonably possible for Defendant to have issued a correct\\n\\nreport by February 11, 13 the date on which it disparaged Plaintiffs, then Plaintiffs\\n\\nwill have presumably established a breach of contract based on both the\\n\\ndisparagement and the duty-to-correct-report provisions of the settlement\\n\\nagreement. If the jury concludes only that it was reasonably possible for\\n\\nDefendant to have issued a correct report prior to the securing of financing by\\n\\nPlaintiffs on February 23, then Plaintiffs will have established liability as to the\\n\\nduty-to-correct-report claim under ¶ 3(b).\\n\\n In short, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to\\n\\nDefendant on Plaintiffs’ breach of contract claim and remand for proceedings\\n\\nconsistent with the guidance set out above.\\n\\n D. Attorney’s Fees\\n Defendant has appealed the district court’s award of attorney’s fees to\\n\\nPlaintiffs as being too high; Plaintiffs appeal, asserting that the award was too low.\\n\\n\\n\\n13\\n Again, we focus on the February 11 report because Plaintiffs have not established a viable\\nclaim for breach-of-contract damages arising after the disparaging March 11 and April 10\\nreports.\\n 57\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 58 of 60\\n\\n\\nWe review an award of attorney’s fees “for abuse of discretion; nevertheless, that\\n\\nstandard of review still allows us to closely scrutinize questions of law decided by\\n\\nthe district court in reaching a fee award.” Perez v. Wells Fargo N.A., 774 F.3d\\n\\n1329, 1342 (11th Cir. 2014) (quotation omitted). An abuse of discretion review\\n\\nrequires us to “affirm unless we find that the district court has made a clear error of\\n\\njudgment, or has applied the wrong legal standard.” United States v. Frazier, 387\\n\\nF.3d 1244, 1259 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc).\\n\\n Because we have reversed in large part those portions of the district court’s\\n\\norder granting summary judgment to Defendant and because the district court\\n\\nbased its award of attorney’s fees, in part, on the number of claims on which\\n\\nPlaintiffs prevailed, we remand the attorney’s fees issue for further proceedings\\n\\nconsistent with this opinion. Perez, 774 F.3d at 1342.\\n\\n That said, based on the record it was reviewing, we see nothing in the\\n\\ndistrict court’s analysis and fee award that constitutes an abuse of discretion as to\\n\\neither party. Nevertheless, as the district court reduced Plaintiffs’ request, in part,\\n\\nbased on Plaintiffs’ failure to prevail on all claims—an approach suggested by\\n\\nDefendant—and should Plaintiffs prevail on any additional claims on remand, we\\n\\nassume that the present award of $94,000 will act as a floor when the district court\\n\\ndetermines the appropriate attorney’s fees for Plaintiffs.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 58\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 59 of 60\\n\\n\\nIV. CONCLUSION\\n\\n For the reasons explained above, we AFFIRM in part, REVERSE in part,\\n\\nand REMAND for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion, as follows.\\n\\n Count I–Fair Credit Reporting Act\\n\\n We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Plaintiffs on the\\n\\nquestion of whether Defendant willfully violated this Act. But we conclude that\\n\\ngenuine issues of material fact exist concerning Plaintiffs’ claimed emotional\\n\\ndistress damages and that punitive damages are not precluded as a matter of law,\\n\\nand thus we reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendant\\n\\non those claimed damages. We remand for a jury trial Plaintiffs’ claims for\\n\\nemotional distress damages and punitive damages under this statute.\\n\\n Count II–Florida Consumer Collections Practices Act\\n\\n We reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendant on\\n\\nthis claim. Specifically, we conclude that (1) genuine issues of material fact exist\\n\\nregarding whether Defendant made debt collection calls to Plaintiffs in the fall of\\n\\n2013; (2) genuine issues of material fact exist regarding whether Defendant\\n\\nmaintained procedures reasonably adapted to avoid violations of the Florida\\n\\nConsumer Collections Practices Act that would entitle Defendant to the bona fide\\n\\nerror defense; and (3) genuine issues of material fact exist regarding whether\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 59\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 60 of 60\\n\\n\\nDefendant’s vendor, Southwest, was acting as Defendant’s agent when it sent\\n\\nlender-placed insurance letters to Plaintiffs. We remand this claim for a jury trial.\\n\\n Count III–Breach of Contract\\n\\n We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendant on\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ claim for emotional distress damages based on Defendant’s breach of\\n\\nthe parties’ contract. We nevertheless reverse the district court’s grant of summary\\n\\njudgment to Defendant on the breach-of-contract claim, concluding that a genuine\\n\\nissue of material fact exists as to (1) whether Defendant breached ¶ 3(b) or ¶ 7 of\\n\\nthe settlement agreement and (2) whether Plaintiffs have proved damages caused\\n\\nby any such breach.\\n\\n Attorney’s Fees\\n\\n With respect to attorney’s fees, we vacate and remand the award of\\n\\nattorney’s fees to permit the district court to determine the appropriate fee award\\n\\nupon the conclusion of this litigation.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 60\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4380473/\", \"author_raw\": \"JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judge:\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"ROSENBAUM"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"HULL"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"CARNES"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603220/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Johnnie Teresa MARCHISIO, Adrian Marchisio, Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross Appellees, v. CARRINGTON MORTGAGE SERVICES, LLC, Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellant.\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-25\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nCase: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 1 of 60\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n ________________________\n\n No. 17-10584\n ________________________\n\n D.C. Docket No. 2:14-cv-14011-FJL\n\n\n\nJOHNNIE TERESA MARCHISIO,\nADRIAN MARCHISIO,\n\n Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross Appellees,\n\n\n versus\n\n\nCARRINGTON MORTGAGE SERVICES, LLC,\n\n Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellant.\n\n ________________________\n\n Appeals from the United States District Court\n for the Southern District of Florida\n ________________________\n\n (March 25, 2019)\n\nBefore ROSENBAUM, HULL and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges.\n\nJULIE CARNES, Circuit Judge:\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 2 of 60\n\n\n This is the second federal action filed by Plaintiffs Johnnie Teresa Marchisio\n\nand Adrian Marchisio against Defendant Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC.\n\nDefendant’s repeated failures to accurately report the status of Plaintiffs’ mortgage\n\nloans prompted both actions. Specifically, as part of the parties’ settlement in 2009\n\nof a foreclosure suit brought by Defendant, Plaintiffs turned over their property to\n\nDefendant, which action mooted the foreclosure action and extinguished Plaintiffs’\n\ndebt on the two pending loans. But Defendant failed to report correctly the status\n\nof the loans, and it continued trying to collect on the nonexistent debt, prompting\n\nPlaintiffs to file their first federal action alleging violations of the Fair Credit\n\nReporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681, et seq., among other things.\n\n The parties eventually settled this first federal lawsuit (“First Action”),\n\nentering into a settlement agreement that required Defendant to timely correct its\n\nreporting of the second loan and to pay Plaintiffs $125,000. Defendant paid the\n\nagreed-upon settlement amount, but failed to report the second loan as having a\n\nzero balance within the deadline specified in the settlement agreement, instead\n\nissuing three reports that continued to inaccurately report the existence of a\n\ndelinquent debt. Even with its eventual and tardy report of a zero balance,\n\nhowever, Defendant incorrectly reported that Plaintiffs still owed a $34,985\n\nballoon payment on this second loan due in March 2021.\n\n\n\n\n 2\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 3 of 60\n\n\n Plaintiffs disputed with credit reporting agencies Defendant’s reporting of a\n\nballoon payment due on the second loan. Advised of Plaintiffs’ disagreement with\n\nthe report, Defendant purportedly investigated the dispute. Yet, notwithstanding\n\ntheir extensive litigation history with Plaintiffs, including two previous settlement\n\nagreements acknowledging that Plaintiffs owed nothing on the second loan,\n\nDefendant incorrectly confirmed to the reporting agencies that Plaintiffs had a\n\nballoon payment pending. If that wasn’t bad enough, Defendant then began\n\ncharging Plaintiffs for lender-placed insurance on the property that Plaintiffs had\n\nturned over to Defendant years earlier and no longer owned.\n\n As a result, Plaintiffs filed this second federal action (“Second Action”)\n\nalleging three claims: violation of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act\n\n(“FCRA”), violation of the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act, Fla. Stat.\n\n§ 559.55, et seq. (the “Florida Collections Act”), and breach of contract.\n\nDefendant filed a motion for summary judgment as to all claims; Plaintiffs filed a\n\nmotion for partial summary judgment. The district court granted Plaintiffs’ motion\n\nfor summary judgment on the FCRA claim, concluding that Defendant had\n\nwillfully violated the FCRA and awarding statutory damages of $3,000, as well as\n\nattorney’s fees and costs, all totaling $115,860.12. The district court, however,\n\ndenied Plaintiffs’ request for emotional distress and punitive damages, finding as a\n\nmatter of law that Plaintiffs had shown no entitlement to those damages. The\n\n\n 3\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 4 of 60\n\n\ndistrict court granted summary judgment to Defendant on Plaintiffs’ Florida\n\nCollections Act claim for various reasons. Finally, although it concluded that\n\nPlaintiffs had proved that Defendant breached its settlement agreement, the district\n\ncourt granted summary judgment to Defendant on Plaintiffs’ breach of contract\n\nclaim, holding that Plaintiffs had failed to prove any recoverable damages.\n\n The parties filed cross-appeals contesting the district court’s adverse rulings\n\non the above claims, as well as its award of fees, which Plaintiffs viewed as\n\ninadequate and Defendant viewed as excessive. After careful review and with the\n\nbenefit of oral argument, we: (1) affirm the district court’s finding of a willful\n\nFCRA violation, but reverse the court’s denial of emotional distress and punitive\n\ndamages; (2) reverse the grant of summary judgment for Defendant on the Florida\n\nCollections Act claim; (3) reverse the grant of summary judgment for Defendant\n\non the breach of contract claim; (4) vacate the award of attorney’s fees to Plaintiffs\n\nso that the district court can recalculate those fees at the conclusion of the\n\nlitigation; 1 and (5) remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.\n\n\n\n\n1\n The district court calculated the amount of attorney’s fees due Plaintiffs based, in part, on the\nfact that the latter had prevailed on only one claim. As this opinion has now reversed the grant\nof summary judgment to Defendant on two additional claims, Plaintiffs may well prevail on\nthose claims at trial, meaning that we presume the district court’s original grant of attorney’s fees\nin the amount of $94,000 to represent a floor when the district court recalculates attorney’s fees\nat the conclusion of this litigation.\n 4\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 5 of 60\n\n\nI. BACKGROUND\n\n A. The Foreclosure Action\n Defendant serviced two mortgage loans extended to Plaintiffs for the\n\npurchase of a house. In August 2008, Plaintiffs defaulted on both loans. Through\n\nits trustee, Defendant filed a foreclosure action on Plaintiffs’ property in state\n\ncourt. The parties resolved the foreclosure through a settlement agreement on\n\nDecember 9, 2009. The settlement agreement obligated Plaintiffs to convey the\n\ndeed to the property to Defendant. In exchange, Defendant agreed to report to the\n\ncredit reporting agencies (Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian) that the mortgage\n\nwas discharged with a zero balance owed. Plaintiffs filed the deed in lieu of\n\nforeclosure on December 11, 2009, and vacated the property.\n\n In April 2011, Plaintiffs obtained a dismissal of the foreclosure suit with\n\nprejudice, the court confirming that Plaintiffs had transferred full ownership of the\n\nproperty to Defendant. For more than a year, however, Defendant failed to meet\n\nits obligations under the settlement agreement. Specifically, Defendant resumed\n\nits debt collection efforts and reported Plaintiffs’ debt as delinquent, even though\n\nPlaintiffs owed Defendant no money.\n\n B. The First Federal Action\n 1. Partial Correction by Defendant\n\n In response, in July 2012, Plaintiffs filed an action in the United States\n\nDistrict Court for the Southern District of Florida, Case No. 12-cv-14264-DLG,\n 5\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 6 of 60\n\n\nalleging, among other things, that Defendant violated the FCRA and the Florida\n\nCollections Act. In this First Action, Plaintiffs complained that, despite the state\n\ncourt order, Defendant continued to seek payment on the discharged mortgage and\n\nfalsely reported to credit reporting agencies that the debt was delinquent.\n\n During this First Action, Defendant corrected its misreporting of the first\n\nloan by sending an automated universal dataform (“AUD”) to the credit reporting\n\nagencies, requesting that they update the first loan to reflect that it had a zero\n\nbalance effective December 31, 2009. But Defendant continued to misreport that\n\nPlaintiffs owed money under the second loan.\n\n 2. The Release and Settlement Agreement\n The parties resolved the First Action, entering into a “Release and\n\nSettlement Agreement” on January 23, 2013. It is this settlement agreement that\n\nPlaintiffs now contend Defendant breached. In exchange for dismissal of the\n\ndistrict court action, Defendant agreed to (1) pay Plaintiffs $125,000 and (2)\n\n“report the Second Loan as having a zero balance as of December 9, 2009 to the\n\nsame agencies and in the same fashion as it reported the First Loan, which\n\nreporting shall be done as soon as reasonably possible, but in any case within 90\n\ndays.” The parties agreed that “[i]n the event of a material breach hereunder, the\n\nprevailing party in any action commenced to enforce [the] Agreement shall be\n\nawarded its reasonable attorneys fees, expenses, and costs.” The parties\n\n\n 6\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 7 of 60\n\n\nacknowledged that “time is of the essence in the performance of the obligations of\n\nthis Agreement.”\n\n 3. Post-Settlement Activity\n\n Despite a settlement agreement that should have resolved all outstanding\n\nissues, Plaintiffs continued to be plagued by Defendant’s failure to accurately\n\nreport extinguishment of the second loan. Given Defendant’s intransigence,\n\nPlaintiffs were forced to file a second lawsuit to prompt Defendant to cease falsely\n\nreporting Plaintiffs’ debt.\n\n a. Defendant’s Failure to Update Plaintiffs’ Credit Report\n\n Rather than correct its reporting of Plaintiffs’ second loan, Defendant\n\ncontinued to send automated monthly reports to the credit reporting agencies with\n\ninaccurate information about the second loan. Defendant sent inaccurate reports in\n\nFebruary, March, and April 2013. The negative reports caused Plaintiffs’ credit\n\nhistory to show the second loan as an open account with: (1) a balance of $61,356;\n\n(2) a past due amount totaling $14,264; and (3) being late over 120 days. None of\n\nthis information was correct.\n\n The settlement agreement required Defendant to report to the credit\n\nreporting agencies, as soon as reasonably possible, but no later than 90 days, that\n\nPlaintiffs’ second loan had a zero balance. Defendant missed this deadline. It was\n\nonly after Plaintiffs complained that Defendant, on April 25, 2013—two days after\n\n\n 7\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 8 of 60\n\n\nthe 90-day deadline—submitted an AUD to the credit reporting agencies\n\nrequesting that they update the second loan to show a zero balance, effective\n\nDecember 29, 2009.2 Yet, even though it corrected the balance-due entry,\n\nDefendant incorrectly reported the second loan as having a balloon payment of\n\n$34,985, due on March 1, 2021.\n\n b. Plaintiffs Finance Vehicle Purchases\n\n On February 23, 2013—a month after settling the First Action, and while\n\nDefendant was still falsely reporting that Plaintiffs owed it money on this second\n\nloan and were behind on their payments—Plaintiffs financed the purchase of two\n\nused vehicles. AutoNation Cadillac of West Palm Beach required Mr. Marchisio\n\nto pay $5,000.00 down and finance the $8,211.71 balance at 17.99% interest.\n\nGrieco Nissan required Mrs. Marchisio to pay $10,300.00 down and finance the\n\n$6,070.73 balance at 24.49% interest. Plaintiffs allege that, because Defendant had\n\naffirmatively misstated that Plaintiffs owed it money—and thereby had failed to\n\ncorrect its reporting of the second loan—Plaintiffs had to make larger down\n\npayments and pay higher interest rates on these automobile loans.\n\n\n\n\n2\n The effective date should have been December 9, 2009, but this error is not at issue here.\n\n\n 8\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 9 of 60\n\n\n c. Mrs. Marchisio Receives Automated Calls from\n Defendant\n\n Mrs. Marchisio testified that several months later, in the fall of 2013,\n\nDefendant called her cell phone several times using an autodialing system. On one\n\ncall that she answered, Defendant informed her that Plaintiffs’ home would be\n\nforeclosed and that they owed a balloon balance. Call records that would have\n\nshown Defendant’s outgoing calls were no longer available when requested by\n\nPlaintiffs. However, Mr. Marchisio corroborated his wife’s testimony, testifying\n\nthat she contemporaneously reported Defendant’s calls to him.\n\n d. Defendant Erroneously Verifies Inaccurate Reporting of\n Second Loan\n Chagrined at Defendant’s continuing false reports that Plaintiffs owed them\n\nmoney, in August 2013, Plaintiffs filed a motion in the First Action to enforce the\n\nsettlement agreement. The district court, however, dismissed the action, declining\n\nto exercise jurisdiction over the settlement agreement.3\n\n Accordingly, on November 7, 2013, Plaintiffs informed the credit reporting\n\nagencies that they disputed the information reported regarding the second loan. In\n\ntheir dispute letters, Plaintiffs described the litigation history and the foreclosure\n\ncourt order relieving them of their debt obligation. Plaintiffs also explained that\n\n\n\n\n3\n Shortly thereafter, Defendant re-foreclosed on the property and obtained yet another judgment\nin state court that they held title to the property through the deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.\n 9\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 10 of 60\n\n\nDefendant had agreed in the settlement of the First Action that Plaintiffs did not\n\nowe any money under the mortgages.\n\n Plaintiffs’ dispute letters triggered a process typically followed by credit\n\nreporting agencies and furnishers of credit information to investigate disputed\n\ncredit reports. The credit reporting agencies create an automated credit dispute\n\nverification form (“ACDV”) that summarizes what the credit reporting agencies\n\nare reporting and the information the consumer is disputing. The credit reporting\n\nagencies then forward the ACDV electronically to the credit furnisher, which in\n\nthis case was Defendant. The furnisher determines whether the disputed\n\ninformation should be verified, modified, or deleted. The furnisher then sends the\n\ncompleted ACDV to the credit reporting agencies providing the results of its\n\ninvestigation.\n\n Danh Nguyen, a member of Defendant’s research department, investigated\n\nand processed the ACDVs generated by Plaintiffs’ dispute letters the day he\n\nreceived them. Following standard procedure, Nguyen consulted Defendant’s\n\nFISERV database to check the accuracy of Plaintiffs’ credit reports. Defendant\n\ncharacterizes FISERV as “a universal database that houses all relevant information\n\nregarding its borrowers’ loans.” But, for disputed reasons, the FISERV database\n\ndid not have information regarding the January 2013 settlement agreement.\n\nUnaware of this latest settlement or the previous litigation history, Nguyen sent an\n\n\n 10\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 11 of 60\n\n\nACDV to the credit reporting agencies verifying as accurate the report that\n\nPlaintiffs owed a balloon payment on the second loan. Consequently, Plaintiffs’\n\nNovember 21, 2013 credit report continued to erroneously reflect a $34,985\n\nballoon payment, due March 2021, for the second loan. As noted above, the\n\nJanuary 23, 2013 settlement agreement had required Defendant to report a zero\n\nbalance on this second loan as soon as reasonably possible, but no later than 90\n\ndays after the date of the agreement: that is, by April 23, 2013. Defendant’s\n\nissuance of this November credit report incorrectly indicating the existence of a\n\nballoon note meant that seven months after the deadline for issuing a report\n\nshowing a zero balance, Defendant had still failed to do so.\n\n e. Defendant’s Insurer Charges Plaintiffs for Insurance\n Coverage on Property Owned by Defendant\n Defendant’s failure to update its databases to reflect settlement of the second\n\nloan had other consequences. In addition to its other systems, Defendant stored\n\nPlaintiffs’ loan information in an insurance tracking software system called Co-\n\nTrak. Defendant’s insurance vendor, Southwest Business Corporation\n\n(“Southwest”), used Co-Trak to administer property insurance for Defendant’s\n\nloans.\n\n On November 30, 2013, Southwest deleted Plaintiffs’ first loan from Co-\n\nTrak. Although Defendant has a policy of not requiring insurance for second\n\nloans, deletion of the first loan triggered the loading of the second loan into the\n\n 11\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 12 of 60\n\n\nsystem. The record for the second loan indicated a balance due and expired\n\ninsurance. That caused Southwest to send automated lender-placed insurance\n\ncoverage letters to Plaintiffs on November 30, 2013 and December 31, 2013.\n\nThose letters bore Defendant’s letterhead and were signed “Fire Insurance\n\nProcessing Center, Carrington Mortgage Services, L.L.C.” The letters informed\n\nPlaintiffs that their loan agreement required them to keep fire insurance on the\n\nproperty and that insurance would be purchased and charged to Plaintiffs if\n\nPlaintiffs did not provide proof of insurance.\n\n Shortly thereafter, on January 17, 2014, another lender-placed insurance\n\nletter entitled “Notice of Lender Placed Fire Coverage”—also on Defendant’s\n\nletterhead and bearing the same signature as the previous insurance letters—\n\ninformed Plaintiffs that insurance had been purchased for the property previously\n\nowned by Plaintiffs and that Plaintiffs’ escrow account would be charged $2,659 in\n\nmonthly installments. Plaintiffs also received a nearly identical “Notice of Lender\n\nPlaced Fire Coverage” dated January 22, 2014. All of the insurance letters\n\ninformed Plaintiffs that “this communication is from a debt collector and it is for\n\nthe purpose of collecting a debt.”\n\n C. The Second Federal Action\n\n As a result of Defendant’s continuing wrongful insistence that Plaintiffs still\n\nowed it money, Plaintiffs’ November 2013 effort to dispute the reporting of the\n\n\n 12\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 13 of 60\n\n\nballoon payment for the second loan failed. Left with little other option to obtain\n\nrelief, Plaintiffs filed this second federal action against Defendant on January 8,\n\n2014, alleging breach of the settlement agreement entered in the First Action and\n\nviolations of the FCRA and the Florida Collections Act.\n\n 1. Defendant Corrects Its Errors Shortly After Plaintiffs’ Filing of\n this Action\n\n Although Plaintiffs’ previous efforts to end their ongoing nightmare had\n\nfailed, their filing of a second federal action apparently caught Defendant’s\n\nattention. On January 28, 2014, shortly after Plaintiffs filed this Second Action,\n\nDefendant finally saw fit to issue an AUD requesting that the credit reporting\n\nagencies delete from Plaintiffs’ credit reports any reference to a balloon-payment\n\nobligation. Defendant also cancelled the lender-placed insurance, effective\n\nJanuary 28, 2014, and issued Plaintiffs a refund. Thus, by the end of January 2014,\n\nmore than four years after settlement of the foreclosure action and prompted only\n\nby two subsequent lawsuits, Defendant finally managed to update its databases,\n\ncorrect its previous errors, and accurately report the status of Plaintiffs’ second\n\nloan.\n\n 2. Procedural History of this Action\n On November 13, 2015, Plaintiffs filed an Amended Complaint, alleging:\n\nCount I, Violation of FCRA; Count II, Violation of Florida Collections Act; Count\n\nIII, Breach of Contract (i.e., Breach of the Second Settlement); Count IV,\n\n 13\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 14 of 60\n\n\nPreliminary Injunctive Relief; and Count V, Permanent Injunctive Relief. The\n\nparties filed cross-motions for summary judgment in July 2016.\n\n Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment on all claims. Plaintiffs\n\nfiled a verified Declaration in opposition to Defendant’s motion for summary\n\njudgment. Plaintiffs also filed a motion for partial summary judgment on some\n\naspects of its claims and of Defendant’s defenses. As discussed below, the district\n\ncourt granted summary judgment for Defendant on some things and for Plaintiffs\n\non others.\n\nII. STANDARD OF REVIEW\n\n We review de novo the district court’s rulings on the parties’ cross motions\n\nfor summary judgment. Owen v. I.C. Sys., Inc., 629 F.3d 1263, 1270 (11th Cir.\n\n2011). Summary judgment is appropriate when “there is no genuine dispute as to\n\nany material fact” and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.\n\nFed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). A genuine issue of material fact exists when “the evidence is\n\nsuch that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.”\n\nAnderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). The Court reviews the\n\nevidence and draws all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the non-\n\nmoving party. Owen, 629 F.3d at 1270.\n\n\n\n\n 14\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 15 of 60\n\n\nIII. DISCUSSION\n\n A. Plaintiffs’ FCRA Claim (Count I)\n 1. The District Court’s Ruling\n Consistent with the settlement agreement of the First Action, in which\n\nDefendant agreed to correct its false reporting that a balance was due on the second\n\nloan, in April 2013 Defendant finally disseminated revised reports to indicate that\n\nPlaintiffs had a zero balance on this loan. Yet, in making this correction,\n\nDefendant introduced a new false entry into the report: the existence of a balloon\n\npayment of almost $35,000 due in 2021 on this (non-existent) second loan.\n\n Defendant was put on notice of this newest problem through an attempt by\n\nPlaintiffs in August 2013 to enforce the earlier settlement agreement: an attempt\n\nthat was rebuffed by the district court on jurisdictional grounds. Plaintiffs then\n\nfiled the dispute letter with credit reporting agencies that led to the filing of the\n\npresent FCRA claim. Plaintiffs disputed the existence of a balloon loan, which\n\ncommunication prompted the agencies to contact Defendant for the latter to\n\ninvestigate and inform the agencies whether the disputed information was accurate.\n\nAs set out more fully in the factual discussion, the databases available to\n\nDefendant’s investigative employee continued to show that a balloon payment was\n\ndue. None of them included information regarding the settlement agreement. Had\n\nthey included this information, the employee would have been aware that, in its\n\nsettlement of Plaintiffs’ earlier claims, Defendant had agreed that Plaintiffs owed\n 15\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 16 of 60\n\n\nnothing on this particular loan. But unaware of the settlement, the employee\n\nincorrectly confirmed to the credit reporting agencies that Plaintiffs did have a\n\nballoon payment due in the future.\n\n Plaintiffs’ present claim alleges that Defendant failed to conduct a\n\nreasonable investigation of the disputed entry, as required by the FCRA. The\n\ndistrict court agreed that Defendant had failed to conduct a reasonable\n\ninvestigation. It further concluded that, given all the litigation concerning the\n\nquestion whether Plaintiffs owed anything more on the second loan, Defendant’s\n\nconduct was willful, and it granted summary judgment on that element. Defendant\n\nappeals these decisions. As to damages, the court awarded statutory damages of\n\n$3,000, which Defendant does not oppose, assuming the existence of a violation.\n\nThe court, however, ruled that Plaintiffs were not entitled to any damages for\n\nemotional distress or as punitive damages. Plaintiffs appeal the district court’s\n\ngrant of summary judgment to Defendant as to these damages.\n\n 2. Reasonableness and Willfulness of Defendant’s Conduct\n\n It is obvious that Defendant failed to conduct a reasonable investigation of\n\nPlaintiffs’ challenge of Defendant’s report that Plaintiffs owed a balloon payment\n\non the second loan, and we therefore affirm the district court’s grant of summary\n\njudgment on this issue. The FCRA requires that credit reporting agencies and\n\nthose entities that furnish information to them (“furnishers”) investigate any\n\n\n 16\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 17 of 60\n\n\ndisputed information. Thus, when a consumer disputes information with a credit\n\nreporting agency, the agency must “conduct a reasonable reinvestigation to\n\ndetermine whether the disputed information is inaccurate.” 15 U.S.C.\n\n§ 1681i(a)(1)(A). As part of this investigation, the agency is required to notify the\n\nfurnisher of the information that it has been disputed. Id. § 1681i(a)(2). Upon\n\nreceipt of this notice, the furnisher of information must: (1) “conduct an\n\ninvestigation with respect to the disputed information”; (2) “review all relevant\n\ninformation provided by the consumer reporting agency” in connection with the\n\ndispute; and (3) “report the results of the investigation to the credit reporting\n\nagency.” Id. § 1681s-2(b)(1)(A)–(C). Should the investigation determine that the\n\ndisputed information is “inaccurate or incomplete or cannot be verified,” the\n\nfurnisher must “as appropriate, based on the results of the reinvestigation promptly\n\n. . . modify[,] . . . delete [or] permanently block the reporting” of that information\n\nto consumer reporting agencies. Id. § 1681s-2(b)(1)(E). See generally Hinkle v.\n\nMidland Credit Mgmt., Inc., 827 F.3d 1295, 1301 (11th Cir. 2016).\n\n “The ‘appropriate touchstone’ for evaluating a furnisher’s investigation\n\nunder § 1681s-2(b) is ‘reasonableness.’” Felts v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 893\n\nF.3d 1305, 1312 (11th Cir. 2018) (quoting Hinkle, 827 F.3d at 1301–02). “[W]hat\n\nconstitutes a ‘reasonable investigation’ will vary depending on the circumstances\n\nof the case.” Id. “When a furnisher ends its investigation by reporting that the\n\n\n 17\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 18 of 60\n\n\ndisputed information has been verified as accurate, the question of whether the\n\nfurnisher behaved reasonably will turn on whether the furnisher acquired sufficient\n\nevidence to support the conclusion that the information was true.” Id.\n\n We agree with the district court that, as a matter of law, Defendant’s\n\ninvestigative efforts were not reasonable. Defendant argues that the erroneous\n\nverification of a balloon payment by Nguyen, the investigative employee,\n\nconstituted a mere isolated human error that was promptly corrected. This\n\nargument is unpersuasive. First, Nguyen didn’t make an error: he accurately\n\nreported what he found in the databases provided by his employer. The error can\n\nbe laid at the feet of Defendant, which had failed to create a reliable system for\n\ninputting information regarding the settlement of litigation that might impact the\n\ndata found on the relevant databases. Aware that whatever system it had to\n\naccomplish this was unreliable and aware that incorrect information concerning\n\nPlaintiffs’ loan balance was still being reported, it was incumbent on Defendant to\n\ntake steps to ensure that news of the terms of the settlement agreement be\n\ncommunicated to those who generate reports to reporting agencies. Given\n\nDefendant’s decision not to take those steps, it was quite foreseeable that any\n\ninvestigation of the disputed information here would yield an incorrect conclusion\n\nby the employee-investigator.\n\n\n\n\n 18\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 19 of 60\n\n\n Defendant’s position is that, on an ad hoc basis, it would log into databases\n\npertinent information concerning relevant litigation. Yet, as the district court\n\nnoted, there was a large “disconnect” between Defendant’s system for debt\n\nverification and its ad hoc handling of settlement-related changes to debt\n\nobligations. That disconnect manifested itself on multiple occasions over several\n\nyears through Defendant’s: (1) failure to sufficiently log the settlement of the\n\nforeclosure suit and subsequent resumption of foreclosure litigation; (2) failure to\n\nsufficiently log the dismissal of the resumed foreclosure litigation with prejudice\n\nand subsequent debt collection efforts; (3) failure to sufficiently log settlement of\n\nthe first district court action and subsequent breach of the settlement agreement;\n\nand (4) failure to provide sufficient notification and access to settlement terms to\n\nits verifiers, causing the subsequent verification of erroneous credit reports despite\n\ndetailed dispute letters documenting the relevant litigation history.\n\n In short, Defendant failed to conduct a reasonable investigation. The above\n\negregious facts also support the district court’s conclusion that Defendant’s\n\nconduct was willful. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681n(a), any person who willfully fails\n\nto comply with any requirement imposed under this subchapter is liable to the\n\naffected consumer for actual, statutory, or punitive damages. Collins v. Experian\n\nInfo. Sols., Inc., 775 F.3d 1330, 1336 (11th Cir. 2015), on reh’g sub nom. Collins\n\nv. Equable Ascent Fin., LLC, 781 F.3d 1270 (11th Cir. 2015). The Supreme Court\n\n\n 19\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 20 of 60\n\n\nhas held that “reckless disregard of a requirement of FCRA would qualify as a\n\nwillful violation within the meaning of § 1681n(a).” Safeco Ins. Co. of Am. v.\n\nBurr, 551 U.S. 47, 71 (2007); see also Harris v. Mexican Specialty Foods, Inc.,\n\n564 F.3d 1301, 1310 (11th Cir. 2009) (“A violation is ‘willful’ for the purposes of\n\nthe FCRA if the defendant violates the terms of the Act with knowledge or reckless\n\ndisregard for the law.”). Recklessness means “conduct violating an objective\n\nstandard: action entailing an unjustifiably high risk of harm that is either known or\n\nso obvious that it should be known.” Safeco, 551 U.S. at 68 (quotations omitted).\n\n Assuming arguendo that Defendant’s continued reporting of false\n\ninformation regarding Plaintiffs’ debt was not intentionally done, the question then\n\nis whether Defendant acted in reckless disregard of its obligations under the\n\nFCRA, as the district court concluded. On the record before us, it clearly did so.\n\nDefendant’s actions—during an exceedingly long period of time in which\n\nPlaintiffs sought to have Defendant cease its false reporting of a debt that\n\nDefendant well knew Plaintiffs did not owe—entailed “an unjustifiably high risk of\n\nharm that is either known or so obvious that it should be known.” Id.\n\n No other conclusion can be drawn given the number of times that Defendant\n\nwas put on notice of the false information being reported, yet, each time failed to\n\ntake steps to insure that its records accurately reflected the absence of any debt by\n\nPlaintiffs. Defendant failed to take appropriate measures after entering into a\n\n\n 20\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 21 of 60\n\n\nsettlement agreement with Plaintiffs in 2009 during the foreclosure action, in\n\nwhich Defendant agreed that Plaintiffs’ prior two loans were extinguished and that\n\nPlaintiffs owed Defendant nothing, but after which Defendant continued to report\n\nthat Plaintiffs had a balance due. Following the 2013 settlement of Plaintiffs’\n\nresulting federal litigation, which demanded that Defendant correct its false report,\n\nDefendant belatedly corrected the false information found in earlier reports, but\n\nthen Defendant began falsely reporting that Plaintiffs had a balloon payment due\n\non the second loan. Yet, Defendant failed to take any corrective action when\n\nPlaintiffs sought to have the federal district court enforce the settlement agreement\n\nby requiring Defendant to live up to its agreement and stop reporting that a balloon\n\npayment was due. That event alone clearly disclosed to Defendant and its counsel\n\nthat Defendant was continuing to report false information concerning Plaintiffs’\n\nnon-existent debt. Yet again, Defendant made no correction nor any effort to\n\ninsure that the pertinent databases revealed the existence of the settlement and the\n\nfact that no debt was owed by Plaintiffs. Meaning that when Plaintiffs took the\n\npredictable next step of disputing this debt with the credit reporting agencies, the\n\noutcome of the investigation by Defendant’s employee was also quite predictable:\n\nthe employee would incorrectly verify the existence of a continuing debt.\n\n Also obvious is that this is not a case like Llewellyn v. Allstate Home Loans,\n\nInc., 711 F.3d 1173, 1185 (10th Cir. 2013), and the numerous other cases cited by\n\n\n 21\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 22 of 60\n\n\nDefendant, where courts found no willful violation based on a single human error\n\nthat was promptly corrected.4 None of those cases involved a pattern of conduct\n\nexposing a knowingly flawed system for documenting changes to debt obligations,\n\nmuch less a four-year litigation history concerning the debt at issue. That history\n\nhere included multiple orders and agreements acknowledging discharge of the debt\n\nthat went undocumented in the lender’s debt verification system and thus\n\nunchecked, despite being specifically identified in the dispute letters being\n\ninvestigated and in litigation filed a few months before the inquiry. In short, no\n\nreasonable jury could find that Defendant’s erroneous verification of the inaccurate\n\ncredit report in November 2013 was not reckless.\n\n 3. Emotional Distress Damages\n Although it found, as a matter of law, that Defendant had acted unreasonably\n\nand even recklessly in its investigation of Plaintiffs’ dispute—and awarded\n\nstatutory damages of $3,000—the district court granted Defendant summary\n\njudgment as to Plaintiffs’ claim for emotional distress damages, finding that\n\nPlaintiffs had failed to show that Defendant’s violation of the FCRA had caused\n\nPlaintiffs any emotional distress. Specifically, the district court concluded that any\n\n\n\n\n4\n Defendant’s repeated assertion that willfulness requires “intent to consciously thwart\nPlaintiffs’ right to remove inaccuracies from their credit report” relies on case law that predates\nthe recklessness standard of Safeco.\n\n\n 22\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 23 of 60\n\n\nemotional distress suffered as a result of Defendant’s actions had begun before\n\nDefendant’s FCRA violation in November 2013.\n\n The district court was correct in stating there must be a causal connection\n\nbetween the violation and the emotional harm. “[F]ailure to produce evidence of\n\ndamage resulting from a FCRA violation mandates summary judgment.” Nagle v.\n\nExperian Info. Sols., Inc., 297 F.3d 1305, 1307 (11th Cir. 2002) (citing Cahlin v.\n\nGeneral Motors Acceptance Corp., 936 F.2d 1151, 1160 (11th Cir. 1991)).\n\n For sure, Plaintiffs had already experienced substantial stress as a result of\n\nDefendant’s actions taken prior to the erroneous re-verification of the non-existent\n\ndebt. Mr. Marchisio stated that, following Defendant’s breach of the settlement\n\nagreement in late April 2013, he “felt flushed and shaky, nervous, [and] tense.” He\n\nfurther described having arguments with his wife and experiencing anxiety and\n\nrapid heartbeats. He stated that “[t]he increasing stress from dealing with\n\n[Defendant] made my health worse. On May 9, 2013, I was hospitalized and\n\ntreated for congestive heart failure, anxiety and exacerbated hypertension caused\n\nby anxiety.”\n\n Yet, Plaintiffs correctly note that the district court did not evaluate whether\n\nDefendant’s subsequent FCRA violation “exacerbated again” their emotional\n\ndistress. Mr. Marchisio maintained that, after taking medication, exercising, and\n\nrefraining from discussing issues with Defendant, his health had improved by early\n\n\n 23\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 24 of 60\n\n\nAugust 2013. Yet, Defendant’s erroneous verification of the accuracy of\n\nPlaintiffs’ credit reports in November 2013, and its subsequent initiation of lender-\n\nplaced insurance on property no longer owned and for which no debt was owed,\n\ntriggered additional anxiety, rapid heartbeats, and marital distress. As to the latter,\n\nMr. Marchisio noted that because of the marital discord caused by Defendant, he\n\nand his wife no longer sleep in the same bed and their marriage is “not the same.”\n\nBoth Plaintiffs state that “[h]ad [Defendant] made the corrections, it would have\n\nreduced our stress and the problems with the Settlement that we were dealing\n\nwith.” In short, Plaintiffs indicate that the “added stress” of the erroneous\n\nverification of the balloon payment in November 2013 “made things much worse.”\n\n Plaintiffs’ testimony raises genuine issues of material fact concerning\n\nemotional distress. A fact finder might well conclude that Defendant’s FCRA\n\nviolation caused Plaintiffs’ additional emotional distress, given Plaintiffs’\n\ntestimony that this new violation “added stress” and “made things much worse”\n\nand Mr. Marchisio’s health improvements before Defendant’s November 2013\n\nviolation. We therefore reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to\n\nDefendant on the claim of emotional distress damages.\n\n 4. Punitive Damages\n\n The district court sua sponte denied an award of punitive damages, noting\n\nthat “[t]he finding of willfulness is not based on any intentional or purposeful\n\n\n 24\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 25 of 60\n\n\nmisdeed by the Defendant that would support the award of punitive damages.”\n\nPlaintiffs argue that the court is “not entitle[d] to take the question from the jury\n\nand decide it as a matter of law.”\n\n The court’s punitive damages decision presents two problems. First,\n\nPlaintiffs were not required to raise punitive damages on summary judgment and\n\nthe court summarily disposed of the issue without hearing from either party.\n\nSecond, 15 U.S.C. § 1681n(a)(2) provides for “such amount of punitive damages\n\nas the court may allow” for “willful” FCRA violations. And “willful” violations\n\ninclude reckless conduct. Safeco, 551 U.S. at 68. Thus, the “intentional or\n\npurposeful” standard used by the district court does not comport with the Supreme\n\nCourt’s definition of willfulness.\n\n Moreover, neither the court nor Defendant cited any controlling authority for\n\nthe proposition that punitive damages should only be awarded for intentional\n\nmisconduct. Defendant cites Cousin v. Trans Union Corporation, 246 F.3d 359,\n\n374 (5th Cir. 2001) for the proposition that punitive damages are inappropriate\n\nwhere defendant’s “system [was] not perfect” but defendant “never attempted to\n\nmislead [plaintiff] with respect to his consumer report or his rights.” But Cousin,\n\nissued before Safeco, employed a stricter standard for willfulness and overturned a\n\nwillfulness liability verdict. It had nothing to do with denying punitive damages\n\ndespite a willfulness finding.\n\n\n 25\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 26 of 60\n\n\n To be clear, we make no ruling here concerning whether there may be any\n\nlimits on a plaintiff’s ability to receive punitive damages under the FCRA where\n\nthe willful conduct at issue involves only reckless, not intentional conduct. We\n\nsimply reverse the sua sponte grant of summary judgment to Defendant to allow\n\nfactual development of this issue at trial.\n\n B. Florida Collections Act Claim (Count II)\n The Florida Collections Act regulates the activities of consumer collection\n\nagencies within Florida. LeBlanc v. Unifund CCR Partners, 601 F.3d 1185, 1190\n\n(11th Cir. 2010). The Florida Collections Act also defines and protects an\n\nindividual’s right to privacy with regards to consumer collections practices in the\n\nstate. Id. In particular, Florida Statute Section 559.72 provides:\n\n In collecting consumer debts, no person shall:\n ****\n\n (9) Claim, attempt, or threaten to enforce a debt when such person\n knows that the debt is not legitimate, or assert the existence of some\n other legal right when such person knows that the right does not exist.\n\n ****\n\n (18) Communicate with a debtor if the person knows that the debtor is\n represented by an attorney with respect to such debt and has knowledge\n of, or can readily ascertain, such attorney’s name and address . . . .\n\nFla. Stat. § 559.72.\n\n Plaintiffs allege that, in violation of § 559.72(9), Defendant attempted to\n\ncollect a debt that Defendant knew was not legitimate when Defendant (1) placed\n\n 26\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 27 of 60\n\n\nauto-dialed calls to Plaintiffs in the fall of 2013, attempting to collect money from\n\nPlaintiffs on the non-existent debt and (2) sent letters between November 2013 and\n\nJanuary 2014 requiring Plaintiffs to provide proof of fire insurance on property\n\nthey had deeded to Defendant years before and charging Plaintiffs for lender-\n\nplaced insurance on that property. Two of these letters were sent after Defendant\n\nbecame aware that Plaintiffs had retained counsel. Accordingly, Plaintiffs argue\n\nthat in sending these two particular letters, Defendant also violated that part of the\n\nFlorida statute prohibiting communication with a debtor whom one knows to be\n\nrepresented by an attorney: § 559.72(11).\n\n The district court granted summary judgment for Defendant on each of these\n\nclaims. We address each in turn.\n\n 1. The Automated Calls\n\n The district court rejected Plaintiffs’ Florida Collections Act claim based on\n\nthe automated calls Mrs. Marchisio received in the fall of 2013 because Plaintiffs\n\noffered “no evidentiary confirmation” to corroborate their own testimony that such\n\ncalls had even occurred. The district court noted that telephone-call records for\n\nthis time period were no longer available when sought by Plaintiffs. The court\n\nquestioned the veracity of Plaintiffs’ statements because “[b]y that point both the\n\nState Foreclosure Case and the First District Court Case had been concluded” and\n\n“[t]he surrounding events and circumstances therefore leave unclear why the\n\n\n 27\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 28 of 60\n\n\nDefendant would have caused these calls to be placed---that is, if the calls in fact\n\nhad been made.” The court thus deemed the evidence insufficient to survive\n\nsummary judgment.\n\n Construing the evidence in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, we find\n\nMrs. Marchisio’s testimony that she had received debt collection calls from\n\nDefendant in the fall of 2013 sufficient to create a disputed issue of fact as to\n\nwhether the calls had occurred. See United States v. Stein, 881 F.3d 853, 858–59\n\n(11th Cir. 2018) (en banc) (“A non-conclusory affidavit which complies with Rule\n\n56 can create a genuine dispute concerning an issue of material fact, even if it is\n\nself-serving and/or uncorroborated.”). Mrs. Marchisio testified that in the fall of\n\n2013, Defendant called her several times informing her that Plaintiffs’ home would\n\nbe foreclosed and that they owed a balloon balance. Mr. Marchisio corroborated\n\nhis wife’s testimony, testifying that she contemporaneously reported the nature of\n\nDefendant’s calls to him. Because we do not make credibility determinations on\n\nappeal of a summary judgment ruling, we must assume Plaintiffs’ testimony to be\n\ntrue. Strickland v. Norfolk S. Ry. Co., 692 F.3d 1151, 1154 (11th Cir. 2012)\n\n(“Credibility determinations, the weighing of the evidence, and the drawing of\n\nlegitimate inferences from the facts are jury functions, not those of a judge . . . .”)\n\n(quotation omitted).\n\n\n\n\n 28\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 29 of 60\n\n\n As to the district court’s observation that it is “unclear why the Defendant\n\nwould have caused these calls to be placed,” the lack of clarity as to Defendant’s\n\nmotivation does not, on these facts, necessarily undermine Plaintiffs’ testimony.\n\nOver the years, Defendant engaged in repeated conduct to collect a debt no longer\n\nowed by Plaintiffs. It is not clear why Defendant persisted in these efforts despite\n\nprior settlements and court orders. Indeed, the alleged calls came at a time when\n\nDefendant had filed a re-foreclosure for no apparent reason. Ultimately, a jury will\n\nhave an opportunity to assess Plaintiffs’ credibility in order to determine whether\n\nDefendant made the automated calls at issue.\n\n 2. Lender-Placed Insurance Letters\n a. District Court’s Ruling Applying Bona Fide Error\n Defense\n As to the claims relating to the insurance-billing letters sent to Plaintiffs, the\n\ndistrict court granted summary judgment to Defendant, concluding that Defendant\n\nwas protected by the bona fide error defense. As set out in the background section\n\nof this opinion, the failure of Defendant to update its databases and to make sure\n\nthe appropriate people within the company were informed of its settlement\n\nagreement with Plaintiffs had consequences beyond the misreporting of a non-\n\nexistent debt to credit reporting agencies. The erroneous retention, as a pending\n\ndebt, of Plaintiffs’ second loan in Defendant’s databases caused the insurance\n\ntracking software system used by Defendant’s insurance vendor, Southwest, to\n\n 29\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 30 of 60\n\n\npurchase and bill Plaintiffs for fire insurance for property they no longer owned,\n\nbased on a debt they no longer owed.\n\n In analyzing Defendant’s potential liability under § 559.72(9), the district\n\ncourt assumed that “the ‘debt,’ whether it be the underlying Second Loan, the need\n\nfor hazard insurance, or the bill for the ‘forced place’ insurance, was not legitimate\n\nand that the Defendant knew or should have known that it was not legitimate.” 5\n\nThe court further assumed that Defendant could be held liable for Southwest’s\n\nactions as its agent. Ultimately, however, the court concluded that Defendant was\n\nentitled to the Florida Collections Act’s bona fide error defense, for two principal\n\nreasons: (1) the insurance letter error occurred “in the context of corrective action”\n\n(that is, Defendant’s attempt to correct its database in November 2013, which\n\ntriggered the sending of the letters by Southwest) and (2) Defendant responded\n\npromptly to the issue after it first learned of the problem when Plaintiffs filed suit\n\nin January 2014.\n\n Our review of the district court’s decision granting summary judgment to\n\nDefendant on this claim therefore focuses on whether Defendant established a bona\n\nfide error defense, as a matter of law, when the evidence is viewed in the light\n\n\n\n\n5\n Defendant does not challenge the district court’s assumption that each of these activities\nsatisfies the threshold requirement that the act occurred in the collection of consumer debt. For\npurposes of this opinion, we will adopt that assumption and confine our analysis to the issues\nraised in the briefing.\n 30\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 31 of 60\n\n\nmost favorable to Plaintiffs or whether, as Plaintiffs argue, there is a disputed issue\n\nof fact on this point.\n\n b. Bona Fide Error Defense–Generally\n\n Florida law provides for a bona fide error defense to civil actions alleging\n\nviolations of the Florida Collections Act:\n\n A person may not be held liable in any action brought under this section\n if the person shows by a preponderance of the evidence that the\n violation was not intentional and resulted from a bona fide error,\n notwithstanding the maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to\n avoid such error.\n\nFla. Stat. § 559.77(3). “In applying and construing this section, due consideration\n\nand great weight shall be given to the interpretations of the Federal Trade\n\nCommission and the federal courts relating to the federal Fair Debt Collection\n\nPractices Act [“FDCPA”].” 6 Id. § 559.77(5); Gann v. BAC Home Loans Servicing\n\nLP, 145 So. 3d 906, 908 (Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App. 2014).\n\n As we held in a FDCPA case, “[a] debt collector asserting the bona fide\n\nerror defense must show by a preponderance of the evidence that its violation of\n\nthe Act: (1) was not intentional; (2) was a bona fide error; and (3) occurred despite\n\nthe maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such error.”\n\n\n6\n 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(c) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act includes a bona fide error\ndefense nearly identical to the Florida Collections Act: “[a] debt collector may not be held liable\nin any action brought under this subchapter if the debt collector shows by a preponderance of\nevidence that the violation was not intentional and resulted from a bona fide error\nnotwithstanding the maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such error.”\n\n 31\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 32 of 60\n\n\nEdwards v. Niagara Credit Sols., Inc., 584 F.3d 1350, 1352–53 (11th Cir. 2009)\n\n(discussing 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(c)).\n\n Focusing their challenge on the second and third prongs of the above\n\nstandard, Plaintiffs emphasize the faulty procedures employed by Defendant for\n\ntracking loan settlement terms. Defendant counters that the true cause of\n\nSouthwest sending the erroneous letters was Southwest’s failure to follow\n\nDefendant’s stated policy of not tracking insurance for loans that are second liens.\n\n c. Whether Defendant’s Sending of the Lender-Placed\n Insurance Letters Constituted a Bona Fide Error\n “As used in the [FDCPA] ‘bona fide’ means that the error resulting in a\n\nviolation was made in good faith; a genuine mistake, as opposed to a contrived\n\nmistake.” Id. at 1352–53 (quotations omitted). “To be considered a bona fide\n\nerror, the debt collector’s mistake must be objectively reasonable.” Id.\n\n Given our conclusion below concerning Defendant’s policies and\n\nprocedures, we will assume that Defendant’s mistake in sending out the lender-\n\nplaces insurance letters was a bona fide error, as set out in the second prong of the\n\ntest. Defendant had a policy that insurance not be tracked for second loans.\n\nNevertheless, deletion of the first loan from the Co-Trak system caused the\n\ninsurance letters to automatically be mailed to Plaintiffs. This error occurred\n\ndespite Defendant’s policy that insurance not be tracked for second loans, which\n\nthe district court inferred to mean that the mailing of the insurance letters was a\n\n 32\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 33 of 60\n\n\ngenuine, not a contrived mistake. Viewed objectively, we will assume that the\n\nautomatic issuance of lender-placed insurance letters following the deletion of the\n\nfirst loan from the Co-Trak database constitutes a genuine mistake, as opposed to a\n\ncontrived error.\n\n Plaintiffs focus on Defendant’s lack of procedures to disseminate loan\n\nsettlement terms, which failure Plaintiffs say caused the Co-Trak database to\n\ncontain faulty information regarding the status of Plaintiffs’ second loan. We\n\nunderstand Plaintiffs’ point, but this contention is best considered in connection\n\nwith the third prong of the test: the requirement that Defendant maintained\n\nprocedures reasonably adapted to avoid the error. See Johnson v. Riddle, 443 F.3d\n\n723, 729 (10th Cir. 2006) (“the bona fide prong and the procedures prong will\n\noften merge”). We turn to that question now.\n\n d. Genuine Issues of Fact Exist Regarding Whether\n Defendant Maintained Procedures Reasonably Adapted\n to Avoid the Violation\n As we have stated, “the procedures component of the bona fide error defense\n\ninvolves a two-step inquiry.” Owen, 629 F.3d at 1273–74 (citing Johnson, 443\n\nF.3d at 729). “The first step is whether the debt collector ‘maintained’—i.e.,\n\nactually employed or implemented—procedures to avoid errors.” Id. (quotations\n\nomitted). The second step is “whether the procedures were ‘reasonably adapted’ to\n\n\n\n\n 33\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 34 of 60\n\n\navoid the specific error at issue.” Id. This is a “fact-intensive inquiry” analyzed\n\n“on a case-by-case basis.” Id.\n\n Defendant defines the issue narrowly, urging us to consider only whether it\n\nhad policies and procedures that reasonably precluded issuance of the lender-\n\nplaced insurance letters to Plaintiffs based on their second loan. Defendant asserts\n\nthat the facts demonstrate that Southwest should not have mailed those letters\n\nbecause it was a second lien which Southwest should not have been tracking under\n\nthe policies and procedures in place.7 Thus, Defendant asserts that “the specific\n\nerror here had nothing to do with [Defendant’s] general practices concerning\n\nborrowers who have had loans discharged through settlement.”\n\n Plaintiffs, in turn, focus on Defendant’s practices concerning recording and\n\ndissemination of settlement terms. Plaintiffs highlight four deficiencies in\n\nDefendant’s system for tracking settlements as the cause for the Co-Trak database\n\nto contain erroneous information that triggered sending of the insurance letters.\n\nPlaintiffs maintain that: (1) Defendant does not store settlement agreements on the\n\nNautilus system, the system that contains images of loan applications, mortgages,\n\nand promissory notes; (2) Defendant does not notate settlement terms on the\n\n\n7\n Defendant’s “Insurance Policy” provides: “Outsourced Insurance Tracking . . .\nResponsibilities . . . The Insurance Vendor is responsible for determining the acceptability of\ninsurance policies and ensuring that approved insurance coverage remains in force on all\nproperties for the life of all loans being serviced. The exceptions to this are condominiums and\n2nd liens, which are not tracked.”\n\n 34\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 35 of 60\n\n\nFISERVE database; (3) despite the probability that the status of a loan will be\n\naffected by litigation, Defendant has no policy to place flags on accounts subject to\n\nlitigation; (4) settlement terms are disclosed to Defendant’s business departments\n\nonly if Defendant’s legal department determines such disclosure is proper.\n\nMoreover, Plaintiffs assert that Defendant cannot show that it has any procedures\n\nin place to make sure that the terms of the settlement are conveyed to the proper\n\nparties that need to be involved.\n\n As framed by the parties, the issue turns on the second step of Owen; that is,\n\n“whether the procedures were ‘reasonably adapted’ to avoid the specific error at\n\nissue.” Owen, 629 F.3d at 1273–74. Owen obligates us to first determine “the\n\nspecific error at issue.” Id. Defendant frames the error as sending lender-placed\n\ninsurance letters in contravention of its policy not to require insurance for second\n\nloans. Plaintiffs frame the error as failing to input settlement terms in the Co-Trak\n\nsystem. As Owen makes clear, however, the specific error at issue is the statutory\n\nviolation alleged. In this case, the specific error is the sending of lender-placed\n\ninsurance letters erroneously asserting that Plaintiffs were obligated to insure\n\nproperty they no longer owned.\n\n Defendant identifies only its policy not to insure second loans as a policy\n\nthat is reasonably adapted to avoid issuance of illegitimate lender-placed insurance\n\nletters. The policy cited is an internal policy and Defendant fails to explain\n\n\n 35\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 36 of 60\n\n\nwhether and how this policy is communicated to Southwest or Defendant’s\n\nemployees. Yet, although Defendant characterizes this practice as a “policy and\n\nprocedure,” we are hard pressed to discern from this record what procedures\n\nDefendant or Southwest implemented to enforce its policy of not insuring second\n\nloans. The Supreme Court has interpreted the provision of the FDCPA requiring\n\nthe debt collector to maintain “procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such\n\nerror.” Jerman v. Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer & Ulrich LPA, 559 U.S. 573,\n\n587 (2010). The Court noted that “[t]he dictionary defines ‘procedure’ as ‘a series\n\nof steps followed in a regular orderly definite way.’” Id. (citing Webster’s Third\n\nNew International Dictionary 1807 (1976)). The Court concluded that “the\n\nstatutory phrase is more naturally read to apply to processes that have mechanical\n\nor other such ‘regular orderly’ steps to avoid mistakes—for instance, the kind of\n\ninternal controls a debt collector might adopt to ensure its employees do not\n\ncommunicate with consumers at the wrong time of day, § 1692c(a)(1), or make\n\nfalse representations as to the amount of a debt, § 1692e(2).” Id. Here, Defendant\n\nhas not documented a regular and orderly process for enforcing its stated policy not\n\nto insure second loans.\n\n Even the policy itself appears irregular. Rather than absolute, Defendant’s\n\npolicy of not insuring second loans appears to apply only so long as the first loan is\n\nin place. The automated tasks performed by the Co-Trak system define at least\n\n\n 36\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 37 of 60\n\n\npart of Defendant’s procedures regarding insurance on second loans. The record\n\nreflects that Defendant’s system requires insurance on second loans when the first\n\nloan is discharged and deleted from the system and the second loan is open and\n\nshowing a balance due. In effect, the second loan becomes a primary loan\n\nrequiring insurance. Given that apparent practice dictated by Defendant’s\n\nsoftware, the question becomes what procedures Defendant implemented to insure\n\nthat the Co-Trak systems acts on accurate information when evaluating the need\n\nfor insurance. And that depends on the procedures Defendant follows to input\n\naccount status and balance information in the Co-Trak system. Were those\n\nprocedures reasonable? Construing all facts in Plaintiffs’ favor, as we must on\n\nsummary judgment, we agree with Plaintiffs that one cannot state, as a matter of\n\nlaw, that Defendant’s procedures to guard against the dissemination of insurance-\n\nbilling letters for properties secured by second loans were reasonably adapted for\n\nthat purpose. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary\n\njudgment to Defendant on its bona fide error defense to allow the trier of fact to\n\nmake that determination.8\n\n\n\n8\n For similar reasons, we conclude that Defendant is not entitled to summary judgment based on\nthe bona fide error defense on the claim that two of its lender-placed insurance letters were sent\nto Plaintiffs after Defendant became aware that Plaintiffs were represented by counsel.\nDefendant again maintains that it has a policy against such a violation. This policy requires that\n“once it is learned that an attorney represents the borrower, all contact may be made only with\nthe attorney, unless the attorney either failed to respond within a reasonable amount of time, or\nconsents to our direct contact with the borrower.” But, once again, Defendant does not explain\n 37\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 38 of 60\n\n\n e. Disputed Issues of Fact Exist Concerning Whether\n Southwest Was Defendant’s Agent\n\n Because it granted Defendant summary judgment on its bona fide error\n\ndefense, the district court did not reach the question whether Southwest was\n\nDefendant’s agent for purpose of generating and disseminating to Plaintiffs the\n\nlender-placed insurance letters demanding payment of fire insurance on property\n\nthat Defendant well knew Plaintiffs owed no debt. Defendant argues, however,\n\nthat even if the bona fide error defense does not succeed, it should still prevail\n\nbecause Southwest was not its agent. Even though the district court did not reach\n\nthese issues, we are empowered to affirm summary judgment on the present claim,\n\nwere we to agree with Defendant, because we “may affirm the district court’s\n\nruling on any basis the record supports.” Fla. Wildlife Fed’n Inc. v. United States\n\nArmy Corps of Engineers, 859 F.3d 1306, 1316 (11th Cir. 2017). Once again, we\n\ndecline to grant Defendant summary judgment on this argument, finding factual\n\nquestions that must be resolved by a finder of fact.\n\n (1) Actual Agency\n\n Defendant contends that “although [it] retained [Southwest] as its vendor to\n\nensure that insurance policies were paid when due, no principal-agent relationship\n\nexisted concerning mailing the letters.” “Generally, the existence of an agency\n\n\nhow that policy is communicated or implemented, leaving for the jury to decide whether\nDefendant has procedures reasonably adapted to enforce that policy.\n\n\n 38\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 39 of 60\n\n\nrelationship is a question of fact; however, when the moving party fails to produce\n\nany supportive evidence or when the evidence presented is so unequivocal that\n\nreasonable persons could reach but one conclusion, that question of fact becomes a\n\nquestion of law to be determined by the court.” Hickman v. Barclay’s Int’l Realty,\n\nInc., 5 So. 3d 804, 806 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct. App. 2009). “[A]n agency relationship\n\nmay be express or implied from apparent authority, and the burden of proving the\n\nagency belongs to the party asserting it.” Regions Bank v. Maroone Chevrolet,\n\nL.L.C., 118 So. 3d 251, 255 (Fla. 3d Dist. Ct. App. 2013).\n\n “Essential to the existence of an actual agency relationship is (1)\n\nacknowledgment by the principal that the agent will act for him, (2) the agent’s\n\nacceptance of the undertaking, and (3) control by the principal over the actions of\n\nthe agent.” Goldschmidt v. Holman, 571 So. 2d 422, 424 n.5 (Fla. 1990). “The\n\nkey element in establishing actual agency is the control by the principal over the\n\nactions of the agent.” Hickman, 5 So. 3d at 806. “And it is the right of control, not\n\nactual control or descriptive labels employed by the parties, that determines an\n\nagency relationship.” Id.\n\n Given the nature of the Insurance Administration Agreement between\n\nDefendant and Southwest, we will assume that a jury could properly determine, as\n\nDefendant contends, that Southwest is a typical service provider contracted to\n\nperform a task and that no agency relationship existed here. But the evidence is\n\n\n 39\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 40 of 60\n\n\nnot so unequivocal that we can rule as a matter of law that no agency relationship\n\nexisted. Id. at 806–07.\n\n Construed in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs, the evidence shows that\n\nDefendant controlled issuance of Plaintiffs’ insurance letters. Defendant consented\n\nto have Southwest act on its behalf in sending lender-placed insurance collection\n\nletters to its borrowers. The Insurance Administration Agreement provided that\n\n“the form and content of [lender-placed insurance] notices shall have been\n\npreviously reviewed and approved by [Defendant].” As reviewed and approved by\n\nDefendant, the lender-placed insurance letters in this case were sent on\n\nDefendant’s letterhead and were signed “Fire Insurance Processing Center,\n\nCarrington Mortgage Services, L.L.C.” The Insurance Administration Agreement\n\nalso established Defendant’s authority to obtain and review periodic reports on\n\nSouthwest’s activities.\n\n Highlighting Defendant’s control as established in the Insurance\n\nAdministration Agreement, the evidence reflects, as the district court found,\n\n“[Southwest’s] dependence on the Defendant both for accurate data and for\n\ninstructions to take corrective action.” The court further noted that “[Southwest]\n\ndid not feel it could take corrective action until January 29, 2014 when the\n\nDefendant expressly and specifically instructed it to stop.” The facts presented on\n\nsummary judgment support the district court’s observations. Under these\n\n\n 40\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 41 of 60\n\n\ncircumstances, where Southwest depended on Defendant for accurate loan\n\ninformation and Defendant exercised power to intervene in Southwest’s\n\nadministration of Plaintiffs’ insurance, a jury could reasonably find that Southwest\n\nacted as Defendant’s agent in sending the lender-placed insurance letters to\n\nPlaintiffs.\n\n (2) Apparent Agency\n\n Construed in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs, sufficient evidence of\n\napparent agency also exists to preclude summary judgment for Defendant.\n\n“[A]pparent authority is a form of estoppel [which arises] from ‘the authority a\n\nprincipal knowingly tolerates or allows an agent to assume, or which the principal\n\nby his actions or words holds the agent out as possessing.’” Regions Bank, 118 So.\n\n3d at 255 (quoting Jackson Hewitt, Inc. v. Kaman, 100 So. 3d 19, 31 (Fla. 2d Dist.\n\nCt. App. 2011)). Apparent agency exists only where the principal creates the\n\nappearance of authority. Id. Plaintiffs must prove three elements to establish an\n\napparent agency: (1) a representation by the purported principal; (2) a reliance on\n\nthat representation by a third party; and (3) a change in position by the third party\n\nin reliance on the representation. Mobil Oil Corp. v. Bransford, 648 So. 2d 119,\n\n121 (Fla. 1995). “It is well settled under Florida law that, [t]he existence of an\n\nagency relationship, the nature and extent of the agent’s authority, and the\n\ninclusion within the scope of that authority of a particular act are ordinarily\n\n\n 41\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 42 of 60\n\n\nquestions to be determined by the jury or by the trier of facts in accordance with\n\nthe evidence adduced in the particular case.” Citibank, N.A. v. Data Lease Fin.\n\nCorp., 828 F.2d 686, 691 (11th Cir. 1987) (quotations omitted).\n\n Here, the Insurance Agreement granted Defendant control over the content\n\nof the lender-placed insurance letters. Defendant dictated, or at least allowed,\n\nSouthwest to issue those letters, not just under Defendant’s letterhead, but as\n\nsigned by “Fire Insurance Processing Center, Carrington Mortgage Services,\n\nL.L.C.” A jury could reasonably conclude that Southwest acted with apparent\n\nauthority on behalf of Defendant and that Plaintiffs relied on the representations\n\nDefendant authorized Southwest to make when they dealt with Defendant. See\n\nAlmerico v. RLI Ins. Co., 716 So. 2d 774, 783 (Fla. 1998) (holding under Fla. Stat.\n\n§ 626.342(2) that “civil liability may be imposed upon insurers who cloak\n\nunaffiliated insurance agents with sufficient indicia of agency to induce a\n\nreasonable person to conclude that there is an actual agency relationship”).\n\n In short, contrary to Defendant’s urging, we cannot conclude as a matter of\n\nlaw that no agency relationship existed between Defendant and Southwest. Again,\n\nthis will be a decision for the finder of fact.\n\n f. Defendant’s Alleged Lack of Actual Knowledge of a\n Violation\n\n As a final alternative ground for affirmance, Defendant argues that it lacked\n\nactual knowledge of the lender-placed insurance letter violations. We have stated\n\n 42\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 43 of 60\n\n\nthat “[i]n contrast to the FDCPA, Section 559.72(9) of the [Florida Collections\n\nAct] requires a plaintiff to demonstrate that the debt collector defendant possessed\n\nactual knowledge that the threatened means of enforcing the debt was\n\nunavailable.” LeBlanc, 601 F.3d at 1192 n.12. Defendant construes those cases as\n\nrequiring that Plaintiffs prove that Defendant had actual knowledge that Southwest\n\nsent the lender-placed insurance letters to Plaintiffs and maintains that no such\n\nevidence exists. We disagree.\n\n The statute provides that:\n\n In collecting consumer debts, no person shall:\n\n ****\n (9) Claim, attempt, or threaten to enforce a debt when such person\n knows that the debt is not legitimate, or assert the existence of some\n other legal right when such person knows that the right does not exist.\n\nFla. Stat. § 559.72(9). The statute merely requires that Defendant know the debt is\n\nnot legitimate or the asserted legal right does not exist. The statute does not\n\npreclude a principal from being held liable for the debt-collection efforts of its\n\nagent when the principal knows that the debt is illegitimate. None of the cases\n\ncited by Defendant addresses a principal’s liability for the illegitimate collection\n\nefforts of its agent.\n\n Here, Defendant indisputably knew at the time its alleged agent, Southwest,\n\nsent the insurance letters that Plaintiffs no longer owned the property and had no\n\noutstanding debt. And Defendant as the “principal is bound by the acts of his\n 43\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 44 of 60\n\n\nagent.” Thomkin Corp. v. Miller, 24 So. 2d 48, 49 (Fla. 1945). “Even where an\n\nagent’s act is unauthorized, the principal is liable if the agent had the apparent\n\nauthority to do the act and that apparent authority was reasonably relied upon by\n\nthe third party dealing with the agent.” Benson v. Seestrom, 409 So. 2d 172, 173\n\n(Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App. 1982).\n\n Plaintiffs also submitted evidence that Defendant knew each time Southwest\n\nsent a letter to Plaintiffs on its behalf because the system notated it in Defendant’s\n\nFISERVE database.9 At any rate, Southwest’s knowledge that it sent the letters\n\nmay be imputed to Defendant if Plaintiffs establish a principal/agent relationship.\n\nRuotal Corp., N. W., Inc. v. Ottati, 391 So. 2d 308, 309 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct. App.\n\n1980) (“It is axiomatic that knowledge of the agent constitutes knowledge of the\n\nprincipal as long as the agent received such knowledge while acting within the\n\nscope of his authority.”).\n\n Again, the record evidence is insufficient to justify summary judgment for\n\nDefendant based on its alleged lack of actual knowledge of a Florida Collections\n\nAct violation.\n\n\n\n\n9\n The system put in place by Defendant and Southwest generated the insurance letters\nautomatically. We reach no conclusion whether such computerized records of automated\nactivities provide “actual knowledge” of what transpired to a system administrator.\n\n 44\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 45 of 60\n\n\n C. Plaintiffs’ Breach of Contract Claim (Count III)\n\n 1. Defendant’s Breach of the Reporting Provision (¶ 3(b))\n a. Basis for District Court’s Grant of Summary Judgment to\n Defendant\n\n “For a breach of contract claim, Florida law 10 requires the plaintiff to plead\n\nand establish: (1) the existence of a contract; (2) a material breach of that contract;\n\nand (3) damages resulting from the breach.” Vega v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 564 F.3d\n\n1256, 1272 (11th Cir. 2009) (emphasis added). “To constitute a vital or material\n\nbreach, a defendant’s non-performance must be such as to go to the essence of the\n\ncontract.” Sublime, Inc. v. Boardman’s Inc., 849 So. 2d 470, 471 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct.\n\nApp. 2003).\n\n To reprise the sequence of events necessary to understand Plaintiffs’ breach\n\nof contract claim, in 2009, Plaintiffs and Defendant settled the foreclosure action\n\nfiled by Defendant against Plaintiffs’ property. The terms of the settlement\n\nrequired Plaintiffs to vacate the premises and convey the deed for the property to\n\nDefendant. In return, Defendant agreed to report to credit reporting agencies that\n\nthe mortgage was discharged with a zero balance. Failing to live up to this\n\nagreement, however, Defendant instead reported to agencies that Plaintiffs were in\n\ndefault on their debt, and it continued to seek repayment on the non-existent debt.\n\n\n10\n The settlement agreement does not contain a choice of law provision, but both parties apply\nFlorida law in briefing the contract dispute. See Fioretti v. Massachusetts Gen. Life Ins. Co., 53\nF.3d 1228, 1235 (11th Cir. 1995) (explaining the doctrine of lex loci contractus).\n 45\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 46 of 60\n\n\n The breach of this first settlement agreement is not a part of Plaintiffs’\n\npresent claim. Instead that breach underlay Plaintiffs’ claims in the First Action,\n\nfiled in 2012. During the litigation of the First Action, Defendant actually\n\ncorrected its misreporting of Plaintiffs’ first loan by sending corrected automated\n\nreports to credit reporting agencies, indicating that the first loan had a zero balance.\n\nFor reasons unclear, however, Defendant failed to correct reports showing that\n\nPlaintiffs’ second loan likewise had a zero balance. Accordingly, in the second\n\nsettlement agreement between the parties, Defendant agreed to report to agencies\n\nthat likewise no money was owed on this second loan.\n\n Although Defendant eventually transmitted to credit reporting agencies the\n\nexistence of a zero balance on the second loan, Plaintiffs contend in the present\n\naction that Defendant’s compliance was tardy under the terms of the settlement\n\nagreement, and that therefore Defendant breached ¶ 3(b) of the contract.\n\nParagraph 3(b) required Defendant to:\n\n report the Second Loan as having a zero balance as of December 9,\n 2009 to the same agencies and in the same fashion as it reported the\n First Loan, which reporting shall be done as soon as reasonably\n possible, but in any case within 90 days.\n\n(emphasis added).\n\n Defendant, however, neglected to send corrected reports to credit reporting\n\nagencies regarding this second loan until April 25, 2013, which was two days after\n\nexpiration of the maximum 90-day time period set out in ¶ 3(b). The district court\n 46\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 47 of 60\n\n\nconcluded that Defendant had breached its settlement agreement through its\n\ntardiness, but it did not reach the question whether the breach was material because\n\nit concluded that Plaintiffs had made “an insufficient argument for damages.”\n\nBecause damages are an essential element of a breach-of-contract claim, the\n\ndistrict court granted summary judgment to Defendant on this claim.\n\n In reaching this conclusion, however, the court addressed only Plaintiffs’\n\nclaim for damages arising from the emotional distress that their ordeal with\n\nDefendant had caused them and for damages arising from the issuance of a false\n\n1099 tax form11 as a result of the inaccurate information recorded by Defendant\n\nconcerning the second loan. The court failed to address the damages alleged by\n\nPlaintiffs to have resulted from the higher deposits and loan interest rates that\n\nPlaintiffs were required to pay in financing the purchase of two automobiles.\n\n b. Damages\n We address first the question whether Plaintiffs have alleged viable damages\n\nas a result of any breach of the settlement agreement by Defendant because,\n\nwithout such damages, Plaintiffs’ breach-of-contract claim cannot succeed.\n\n (1) Emotional Distress Damages\n\n\n\n\n11\n Plaintiffs do not challenge on appeal the grant of summary judgment as to that part of the\nclaim involving issuance of the 1099 form.\n\n\n 47\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 48 of 60\n\n\n Examining first Plaintiffs’ claim that they were entitled to pursue damages\n\nbased on emotional distress caused by Defendant’s breach of the settlement\n\nagreement, we agree with the district court that these damages are not available for\n\na breach of contract claim under Florida law. Defendant cites Florida caselaw in\n\nsupport of its argument that such damages are unavailable. Specifically, it notes\n\nthat the Florida Supreme Court “is committed to the rule . . . that there can be no\n\nrecovery for mental pain and anguish unconnected with physical injury in an action\n\narising out of the negligent breach of a contract whereby simple negligence is\n\ninvolved.” Kirksey v. Jernigan, 45 So. 2d 188, 189 (Fla. 1950). Further, as a\n\ngeneral rule, damages for mental distress caused by a breach of contract are not\n\nallowed under Florida law unless the breach amounts to an independent, willful\n\ntort. Gellert v. E. Air Lines, Inc., 370 So. 2d 802, 805 (Fla. 3d Dist. Ct. App.\n\n1979). Indeed, “where the gravamen of the proceeding is breach of contract, even\n\nif such breach be willful and flagrant, there can be no recovery for mental pain and\n\nanguish resulting from such breach.” Floyd v. Video Barn, Inc., 538 So. 2d 1322,\n\n1325 (Fla. 1st Dist. Ct. App. 1989) (quotations omitted) (affirming no damages for\n\nmental and emotional suffering available for breach of contract where videographer\n\nfailed to record a wedding).\n\n Plaintiffs have not alleged, much less established, a willful tort independent\n\nof the contract arising from Defendant’s breach of the settlement agreement.\n\n\n 48\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 49 of 60\n\n\nSignificantly, Plaintiffs cite no Florida authority in support of their argument that\n\nthey can properly seek emotional distress damages based on Defendant’s breach of\n\nthe settlement agreement. Instead, Plaintiffs rely on two non-Florida cases that are\n\ninapt for purposes of this issue. 12\n\n Plaintiffs also argue that “[s]ince emotional distress damages are recoverable\n\nfor FCRA, FDCPA, and [Florida Collections Act] violations, it cannot reasonably\n\nbe denied that emotional distress is a foreseeable consequence of the breach of a\n\ncontract specifically intended to resolve prior violations of those same statutes.”\n\n(emphasis in original). We find this argument unpersuasive. That Plaintiffs might\n\nhave another vehicle for pursuing emotional distress damages based on a particular\n\nact by Defendant does not mean that we are empowered to ignore controlling\n\nFlorida law that precludes those damages for this particular cause of action.\n\n Nevertheless, Plaintiffs contend that “it would be contrary to public policy to\n\nallow a violator of the FCRA, the Florida Collections Act, and the FDCPA—who\n\n\n12\n In arguing that emotional distress damages are permitted if they were the foreseeable result of\na breach of the settlement agreement, Plaintiffs cite Sheely v. MRI Radiology Network, P.A., 505\nF.3d 1173 (11th Cir. 2007). In Sheely, however, the plaintiff had sought emotional distress\ndamages based on an intentional violation of the federal Rehabilitation Act provision prohibiting\ndiscrimination against the disabled by recipients of federal funds. Neither the facts nor the legal\nanalysis there apply to this case, which involves a contract dispute under Florida law.\n\nPlaintiffs also rely on language found in McGinnis v. American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc.,\n901 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 2018), which addressed the question whether the amount of a jury’s\npunitive damages award violated due process in a case where the defendant mortgage holder was\nfound liable under Georgia law for conversion, wrongful foreclosure, interference with property\nrights, and intentional inflection of emotional distress. Id. at 1287. Again, neither the legal\nissues nor the facts of that case jibe with this case.\n 49\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 50 of 60\n\n\nwould otherwise be liable for emotional distress damages—to avoid those damages\n\nsimply by entering into a settlement agreement with which it fails to comply.”\n\nThis argument ignores the fact that, through the settlement agreement reached to\n\nresolve the First Action, Defendant compensated Plaintiffs $125,000 for its past\n\nviolations of the FCRA, FDCPA, and Florida Collections Act: a negotiated figure\n\nthat presumably included compensation for any emotional distress suffered. As to\n\nany additional emotional distress that Plaintiffs may have suffered as a result of\n\nDefendant’s post-settlement violations of the FCRA and the Florida Collections\n\nAct, Plaintiffs have sought damages for that distress in the present action and will\n\nbe able to pursue those damages at trial.\n\n (2) Damages Based on Increased Financing Costs in\n Connection with Purchase of Automobiles\n\n While we agree with the district court that emotional distress damages are\n\nnot cognizable as to the breach of contract claim, there was another item of\n\ndamages for this claim that the district court overlooked. Specifically, Plaintiffs\n\nallege that Defendant’s failure to timely correct its erroneous reports indicating the\n\nexistence of a continuing debt on the second loan, as the settlement agreement\n\nrequired it to do, caused Plaintiffs to suffer from adverse financing terms when\n\npurchasing two vehicles subsequent to the agreement. Plaintiffs submitted\n\ndeclarations and financing documents showing that each obtained car loans on\n\nFebruary 23, 2013, with interest rates of 17.99% and 24.49% and a larger down\n 50\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 51 of 60\n\n\npayment than would otherwise be required absent the false information in the\n\ncredit reports issued by Defendant.\n\n This evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, raises a\n\ntriable issue of damages so long as Plaintiffs can establish a triable issue as to\n\nwhether the agreement required Defendant to issue its correction prior to the date\n\nthat Plaintiffs financed their newly-purchased cars: February 23, 2013. We turn to\n\nthat question next.\n\n c. Whether Defendant’s Failure to Correct Its Records Prior\n to February 23, 2013 Constituted A Breach of ¶ 3(b) of\n the Settlement Agreement\n\n As noted, ¶ 3(b) of the January 23, 2013 settlement agreement required\n\nDefendant to “report the Second Loan as having a zero balance . . . as soon as\n\nreasonably possible, but in any case within 90 days.” That Defendant did not\n\ncorrect its reporting of the second loan until April 25, 2013, two days after the\n\nmaximum time allotted by ¶ 3(b), is undisputed. Thus, Defendant breached the\n\nrequirement that it correct its reports to credit agencies concerning the absence of\n\nany debt by Plaintiffs to Defendant no later than 90 days following the settlement\n\nagreement.\n\n That breach, however, does not help Plaintiffs in their efforts to prove\n\ndamages related to the financing terms of their newly-purchased automobiles\n\nbecause this financing occurred on February 23, 2013, which was before the 90-\n\n\n 51\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 52 of 60\n\n\nday April 23 deadline. Defendant argues that the timing of Plaintiffs’ automobile\n\nfinancing purchase ends any contention that its breach harmed Plaintiffs because\n\nDefendant had carte blanche to wait until the 90th day to issue its corrections, and\n\nthe fact that it missed that deadline by two days caused Plaintiffs no harm in\n\nconnection with their earlier February financing of the automobiles.\n\n Defendant is dead wrong in its insistence that it had no obligation to correct\n\nthe erroneous reports before expiration of the 90-day period. Rather, the\n\nagreement clearly states that the corrected reporting shall be done “as soon as\n\nreasonably possible.” The 90-day provision means only that the correction had to\n\nbe issued by that deadline, no matter what arguments Defendant might later make\n\nas to how long it reasonably took to issue the corrected report. It did not exempt\n\nDefendant from a duty to report, “as soon as reasonably possible,” the correct\n\ninformation “to the same agencies and in the same fashion as it reported the First\n\nLoan.” Moreover, the agreement also reflected the parties’ acknowledgement that\n\n“time is of the essence in the performance of the obligations of this Agreement.”\n\n Indeed, it seems quite unlikely that Defendant reported “as soon as\n\nreasonably possible” the correct information inasmuch as it sent automated reports\n\non February 11, March 11, and April 10, 2013 that repeated the same incorrect\n\ninformation about Plaintiffs’ debt. How much time would it reasonably have taken\n\nto correct the entries on these automated monthly reports? One can reasonably\n\n\n 52\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 53 of 60\n\n\nassume that by the March and April reports, Defendant could surely have gotten its\n\nact together. But for our purposes here, the question is whether it was reasonably\n\npossible for Defendant to have issued a corrected report by the time that Plaintiffs\n\nfinanced their automobiles, on February 23. The financing occurred a month after\n\nthe settlement agreement. If it was reasonably possible to have issued a corrected\n\nreport by February 23, Defendant breached ¶ 3(b) by failing to do so, and Plaintiffs\n\nwill have stated a viable claim for damages as a result of that breach.\n\n The district court’s observations certainly suggest that a month was plenty of\n\ntime for Defendant to have issued a corrected report to credit reporting agencies.\n\nThe court noted that Defendant’s insistence on waiting until the end of the 90-day\n\nperiod to issue accurate reports was not “in the spirit of the deadline” and that\n\n“[t]he overall record shows than when prompted, the Defendant is able to issue\n\nAUD’s to the [credit reporting agencies] quickly and expeditiously.” The latter\n\nobservation appears accurate. Yet, focused as it was on the emotional distress\n\ndamages, and not on the potential automobile-financing-charge damages, the\n\ndistrict court did not draw any formal conclusion concerning whether Defendant\n\ncould have issued a corrected report by February 23. Accordingly, we conclude\n\nthat this question will require factual development at trial. We therefore reverse\n\nthe district court’s grant of summary judgment on the breach of contract claim\n\n\n\n\n 53\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 54 of 60\n\n\nbased on Defendant’s alleged breach of ¶ 3(b)’s “as soon as reasonably possible”\n\nprovision, and remand for proceedings consistent with the above discussion.\n\n 2. Defendant’s Alleged Breach of the Non-Disparagement\n Provision (¶ 7)\n\n As explained in the preceding section, ¶ 3(b) of the January 23, 2013\n\nsettlement agreement required Defendant to report as soon as reasonably possible\n\nto credit reporting agencies that the second loan had a zero balance. It took\n\nDefendant 92 days—until April 25—to do so (and even then Defendant added a\n\nfalse report that Plaintiffs had a balloon note due in 2021). During that 92-day\n\nperiod, Defendant continued to issue their regular, monthly automated reports—on\n\nFebruary 11, March 11, and April 10—which reports incorrectly showed the\n\nexistence of a second loan on which Plaintiffs were delinquent. Because Plaintiffs’\n\nonly viable damages arise from the financing of newly-purchased automobiles on\n\nFebruary 23, on remand the jury’s resolution of the breach of contract claim under\n\n¶ 3(b) will turn on its determination whether it was reasonably possible for\n\nDefendant to have issued a corrected report prior to February 23.\n\n Plaintiffs argue that even if it were not reasonably possible for Defendant to\n\nhave issued a corrected report by February 23, Defendant should still be found to\n\nhave breached the settlement agreement based on ¶ 7’s non-disparagement\n\nprovision, which states that “[t]he parties agree that they will not make any\n\nstatements disparaging, deprecating, or denigrating each other from the date of this\n\n 54\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 55 of 60\n\n\nAgreement forward, with respect to any or all of the matters alleged in the\n\nLitigation.” Plaintiffs contend that because the automated monthly report issued\n\non February 11, 2013 erroneously indicated that Plaintiffs were delinquent on a\n\nloan with a past-due balance of almost $15,000, Defendant disparaged them.\n\nMoreover, because ¶ 7 contains no language requiring Defendant to communicate\n\nthe correct information to credit reporting agencies as soon as reasonably possible,\n\nPlaintiffs argue that it does not matter whether it was reasonably possible for\n\nDefendant to disseminate a corrected report by February 11.\n\n The disparagement clause is broadly-worded and includes any type of\n\nconduct or communications that might “deprecate” or “denigrate” Plaintiffs. We\n\nagree with Plaintiffs that the issuance of a report falsely indicating that Plaintiffs\n\nare behind in their payments on a loan is one type of communication that would\n\nconstitute disparagement. But we disagree that we can ignore the language in the\n\nspecific provision governing Defendant’s duty to issue a corrected report that gives\n\nDefendant a reasonable period of time to do so. “[I]t is a general principle of\n\ncontract interpretation that a specific provision dealing with a particular subject\n\nwill control over a different provision dealing only generally with that same\n\nsubject.” Kel Homes, LLC v. Burris, 933 So. 2d 699, 703 (Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App.\n\n2006). Here, there is a specific provision that spells out the time requirement for\n\nDefendant to correct its previous inaccurate reports to credit reporting agencies.\n\n\n 55\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 56 of 60\n\n\nOnce again, that provision requires Defendant to “report the Second Loan as\n\nhaving a zero balance as of December 9, 2009 to the same agencies and in the\n\nsame fashion as it reported the First Loan, which reporting shall be done as soon as\n\nreasonably possible.”\n\n Were we to deprive Defendant of the brief window of time that ¶ 3(b) allows\n\nfor it to issue a corrected report, we would be essentially expunging language from\n\nthe contract that the parties had agreed on. Nothing in the settlement agreement\n\nsuggests the parties intended the non-disparagement provision to entirely\n\neviscerate ¶ 3(b)’s provision concerning the time permitted Defendant to issue a\n\ncorrected report. If, for example, a scheduled, automated monthly report\n\ncontaining incorrect information about the second loan was due to be, and was\n\nactually, disseminated on January 24—the day after the parties had entered into the\n\nsettlement agreement and with no ability by Defendant to stop its issuance—surely\n\nPlaintiffs would not argue that ¶ 7’s anti-disparagement provision deprived\n\nDefendant of the reasonable period of time to correct that was allowed by ¶ 3(b),\n\nwhich was the key section of the settlement agreement and the provision that\n\nspecifically governed the time period within which Defendant was required to act.\n\n Again, given our own knowledge of this record, we are very doubtful that\n\nthe evidence at trial will show that Defendant could not have issued a correct\n\nreport prior to February 11, when the disparaging, incorrect report was issued. Or\n\n\n 56\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 57 of 60\n\n\nto put it another way, we are doubtful that it was not reasonably possible for\n\nDefendant to insure that the information included in its regular, monthly February\n\n11 report was accurate and in compliance with the directives of the settlement\n\nagreement. Nevertheless, it is up to the jury to decide this question and if the jury\n\nconcludes that it was reasonably possible for Defendant to have issued a correct\n\nreport by February 11, 13 the date on which it disparaged Plaintiffs, then Plaintiffs\n\nwill have presumably established a breach of contract based on both the\n\ndisparagement and the duty-to-correct-report provisions of the settlement\n\nagreement. If the jury concludes only that it was reasonably possible for\n\nDefendant to have issued a correct report prior to the securing of financing by\n\nPlaintiffs on February 23, then Plaintiffs will have established liability as to the\n\nduty-to-correct-report claim under ¶ 3(b).\n\n In short, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to\n\nDefendant on Plaintiffs’ breach of contract claim and remand for proceedings\n\nconsistent with the guidance set out above.\n\n D. Attorney’s Fees\n Defendant has appealed the district court’s award of attorney’s fees to\n\nPlaintiffs as being too high; Plaintiffs appeal, asserting that the award was too low.\n\n\n\n13\n Again, we focus on the February 11 report because Plaintiffs have not established a viable\nclaim for breach-of-contract damages arising after the disparaging March 11 and April 10\nreports.\n 57\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 58 of 60\n\n\nWe review an award of attorney’s fees “for abuse of discretion; nevertheless, that\n\nstandard of review still allows us to closely scrutinize questions of law decided by\n\nthe district court in reaching a fee award.” Perez v. Wells Fargo N.A., 774 F.3d\n\n1329, 1342 (11th Cir. 2014) (quotation omitted). An abuse of discretion review\n\nrequires us to “affirm unless we find that the district court has made a clear error of\n\njudgment, or has applied the wrong legal standard.” United States v. Frazier, 387\n\nF.3d 1244, 1259 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc).\n\n Because we have reversed in large part those portions of the district court’s\n\norder granting summary judgment to Defendant and because the district court\n\nbased its award of attorney’s fees, in part, on the number of claims on which\n\nPlaintiffs prevailed, we remand the attorney’s fees issue for further proceedings\n\nconsistent with this opinion. Perez, 774 F.3d at 1342.\n\n That said, based on the record it was reviewing, we see nothing in the\n\ndistrict court’s analysis and fee award that constitutes an abuse of discretion as to\n\neither party. Nevertheless, as the district court reduced Plaintiffs’ request, in part,\n\nbased on Plaintiffs’ failure to prevail on all claims—an approach suggested by\n\nDefendant—and should Plaintiffs prevail on any additional claims on remand, we\n\nassume that the present award of $94,000 will act as a floor when the district court\n\ndetermines the appropriate attorney’s fees for Plaintiffs.\n\n\n\n\n 58\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 59 of 60\n\n\nIV. CONCLUSION\n\n For the reasons explained above, we AFFIRM in part, REVERSE in part,\n\nand REMAND for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion, as follows.\n\n Count I–Fair Credit Reporting Act\n\n We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Plaintiffs on the\n\nquestion of whether Defendant willfully violated this Act. But we conclude that\n\ngenuine issues of material fact exist concerning Plaintiffs’ claimed emotional\n\ndistress damages and that punitive damages are not precluded as a matter of law,\n\nand thus we reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendant\n\non those claimed damages. We remand for a jury trial Plaintiffs’ claims for\n\nemotional distress damages and punitive damages under this statute.\n\n Count II–Florida Consumer Collections Practices Act\n\n We reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendant on\n\nthis claim. Specifically, we conclude that (1) genuine issues of material fact exist\n\nregarding whether Defendant made debt collection calls to Plaintiffs in the fall of\n\n2013; (2) genuine issues of material fact exist regarding whether Defendant\n\nmaintained procedures reasonably adapted to avoid violations of the Florida\n\nConsumer Collections Practices Act that would entitle Defendant to the bona fide\n\nerror defense; and (3) genuine issues of material fact exist regarding whether\n\n\n\n\n 59\n\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 60 of 60\n\n\nDefendant’s vendor, Southwest, was acting as Defendant’s agent when it sent\n\nlender-placed insurance letters to Plaintiffs. We remand this claim for a jury trial.\n\n Count III–Breach of Contract\n\n We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendant on\n\nPlaintiffs’ claim for emotional distress damages based on Defendant’s breach of\n\nthe parties’ contract. We nevertheless reverse the district court’s grant of summary\n\njudgment to Defendant on the breach-of-contract claim, concluding that a genuine\n\nissue of material fact exists as to (1) whether Defendant breached ¶ 3(b) or ¶ 7 of\n\nthe settlement agreement and (2) whether Plaintiffs have proved damages caused\n\nby any such breach.\n\n Attorney’s Fees\n\n With respect to attorney’s fees, we vacate and remand the award of\n\nattorney’s fees to permit the district court to determine the appropriate fee award\n\nupon the conclusion of this litigation.\n\n\n\n\n 60\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Johnnie Teresa MARCHISIO, Adrian Marchisio, Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross Appellees, v. CARRINGTON MORTGAGE SERVICES, LLC, Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellant.\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-25\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nCase: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 1 of 60\\n\\n\\n [PUBLISH]\\n\\n\\n\\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\\n\\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\\n ________________________\\n\\n No. 17-10584\\n ________________________\\n\\n D.C. Docket No. 2:14-cv-14011-FJL\\n\\n\\n\\nJOHNNIE TERESA MARCHISIO,\\nADRIAN MARCHISIO,\\n\\n Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross Appellees,\\n\\n\\n versus\\n\\n\\nCARRINGTON MORTGAGE SERVICES, LLC,\\n\\n Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellant.\\n\\n ________________________\\n\\n Appeals from the United States District Court\\n for the Southern District of Florida\\n ________________________\\n\\n (March 25, 2019)\\n\\nBefore ROSENBAUM, HULL and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges.\\n\\nJULIE CARNES, Circuit Judge:\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 2 of 60\\n\\n\\n This is the second federal action filed by Plaintiffs Johnnie Teresa Marchisio\\n\\nand Adrian Marchisio against Defendant Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC.\\n\\nDefendant’s repeated failures to accurately report the status of Plaintiffs’ mortgage\\n\\nloans prompted both actions. Specifically, as part of the parties’ settlement in 2009\\n\\nof a foreclosure suit brought by Defendant, Plaintiffs turned over their property to\\n\\nDefendant, which action mooted the foreclosure action and extinguished Plaintiffs’\\n\\ndebt on the two pending loans. But Defendant failed to report correctly the status\\n\\nof the loans, and it continued trying to collect on the nonexistent debt, prompting\\n\\nPlaintiffs to file their first federal action alleging violations of the Fair Credit\\n\\nReporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681, et seq., among other things.\\n\\n The parties eventually settled this first federal lawsuit (“First Action”),\\n\\nentering into a settlement agreement that required Defendant to timely correct its\\n\\nreporting of the second loan and to pay Plaintiffs $125,000. Defendant paid the\\n\\nagreed-upon settlement amount, but failed to report the second loan as having a\\n\\nzero balance within the deadline specified in the settlement agreement, instead\\n\\nissuing three reports that continued to inaccurately report the existence of a\\n\\ndelinquent debt. Even with its eventual and tardy report of a zero balance,\\n\\nhowever, Defendant incorrectly reported that Plaintiffs still owed a $34,985\\n\\nballoon payment on this second loan due in March 2021.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 2\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 3 of 60\\n\\n\\n Plaintiffs disputed with credit reporting agencies Defendant’s reporting of a\\n\\nballoon payment due on the second loan. Advised of Plaintiffs’ disagreement with\\n\\nthe report, Defendant purportedly investigated the dispute. Yet, notwithstanding\\n\\ntheir extensive litigation history with Plaintiffs, including two previous settlement\\n\\nagreements acknowledging that Plaintiffs owed nothing on the second loan,\\n\\nDefendant incorrectly confirmed to the reporting agencies that Plaintiffs had a\\n\\nballoon payment pending. If that wasn’t bad enough, Defendant then began\\n\\ncharging Plaintiffs for lender-placed insurance on the property that Plaintiffs had\\n\\nturned over to Defendant years earlier and no longer owned.\\n\\n As a result, Plaintiffs filed this second federal action (“Second Action”)\\n\\nalleging three claims: violation of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act\\n\\n(“FCRA”), violation of the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act, Fla. Stat.\\n\\n§ 559.55, et seq. (the “Florida Collections Act”), and breach of contract.\\n\\nDefendant filed a motion for summary judgment as to all claims; Plaintiffs filed a\\n\\nmotion for partial summary judgment. The district court granted Plaintiffs’ motion\\n\\nfor summary judgment on the FCRA claim, concluding that Defendant had\\n\\nwillfully violated the FCRA and awarding statutory damages of $3,000, as well as\\n\\nattorney’s fees and costs, all totaling $115,860.12. The district court, however,\\n\\ndenied Plaintiffs’ request for emotional distress and punitive damages, finding as a\\n\\nmatter of law that Plaintiffs had shown no entitlement to those damages. The\\n\\n\\n 3\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 4 of 60\\n\\n\\ndistrict court granted summary judgment to Defendant on Plaintiffs’ Florida\\n\\nCollections Act claim for various reasons. Finally, although it concluded that\\n\\nPlaintiffs had proved that Defendant breached its settlement agreement, the district\\n\\ncourt granted summary judgment to Defendant on Plaintiffs’ breach of contract\\n\\nclaim, holding that Plaintiffs had failed to prove any recoverable damages.\\n\\n The parties filed cross-appeals contesting the district court’s adverse rulings\\n\\non the above claims, as well as its award of fees, which Plaintiffs viewed as\\n\\ninadequate and Defendant viewed as excessive. After careful review and with the\\n\\nbenefit of oral argument, we: (1) affirm the district court’s finding of a willful\\n\\nFCRA violation, but reverse the court’s denial of emotional distress and punitive\\n\\ndamages; (2) reverse the grant of summary judgment for Defendant on the Florida\\n\\nCollections Act claim; (3) reverse the grant of summary judgment for Defendant\\n\\non the breach of contract claim; (4) vacate the award of attorney’s fees to Plaintiffs\\n\\nso that the district court can recalculate those fees at the conclusion of the\\n\\nlitigation; 1 and (5) remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n1\\n The district court calculated the amount of attorney’s fees due Plaintiffs based, in part, on the\\nfact that the latter had prevailed on only one claim. As this opinion has now reversed the grant\\nof summary judgment to Defendant on two additional claims, Plaintiffs may well prevail on\\nthose claims at trial, meaning that we presume the district court’s original grant of attorney’s fees\\nin the amount of $94,000 to represent a floor when the district court recalculates attorney’s fees\\nat the conclusion of this litigation.\\n 4\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 5 of 60\\n\\n\\nI. BACKGROUND\\n\\n A. The Foreclosure Action\\n Defendant serviced two mortgage loans extended to Plaintiffs for the\\n\\npurchase of a house. In August 2008, Plaintiffs defaulted on both loans. Through\\n\\nits trustee, Defendant filed a foreclosure action on Plaintiffs’ property in state\\n\\ncourt. The parties resolved the foreclosure through a settlement agreement on\\n\\nDecember 9, 2009. The settlement agreement obligated Plaintiffs to convey the\\n\\ndeed to the property to Defendant. In exchange, Defendant agreed to report to the\\n\\ncredit reporting agencies (Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian) that the mortgage\\n\\nwas discharged with a zero balance owed. Plaintiffs filed the deed in lieu of\\n\\nforeclosure on December 11, 2009, and vacated the property.\\n\\n In April 2011, Plaintiffs obtained a dismissal of the foreclosure suit with\\n\\nprejudice, the court confirming that Plaintiffs had transferred full ownership of the\\n\\nproperty to Defendant. For more than a year, however, Defendant failed to meet\\n\\nits obligations under the settlement agreement. Specifically, Defendant resumed\\n\\nits debt collection efforts and reported Plaintiffs’ debt as delinquent, even though\\n\\nPlaintiffs owed Defendant no money.\\n\\n B. The First Federal Action\\n 1. Partial Correction by Defendant\\n\\n In response, in July 2012, Plaintiffs filed an action in the United States\\n\\nDistrict Court for the Southern District of Florida, Case No. 12-cv-14264-DLG,\\n 5\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 6 of 60\\n\\n\\nalleging, among other things, that Defendant violated the FCRA and the Florida\\n\\nCollections Act. In this First Action, Plaintiffs complained that, despite the state\\n\\ncourt order, Defendant continued to seek payment on the discharged mortgage and\\n\\nfalsely reported to credit reporting agencies that the debt was delinquent.\\n\\n During this First Action, Defendant corrected its misreporting of the first\\n\\nloan by sending an automated universal dataform (“AUD”) to the credit reporting\\n\\nagencies, requesting that they update the first loan to reflect that it had a zero\\n\\nbalance effective December 31, 2009. But Defendant continued to misreport that\\n\\nPlaintiffs owed money under the second loan.\\n\\n 2. The Release and Settlement Agreement\\n The parties resolved the First Action, entering into a “Release and\\n\\nSettlement Agreement” on January 23, 2013. It is this settlement agreement that\\n\\nPlaintiffs now contend Defendant breached. In exchange for dismissal of the\\n\\ndistrict court action, Defendant agreed to (1) pay Plaintiffs $125,000 and (2)\\n\\n“report the Second Loan as having a zero balance as of December 9, 2009 to the\\n\\nsame agencies and in the same fashion as it reported the First Loan, which\\n\\nreporting shall be done as soon as reasonably possible, but in any case within 90\\n\\ndays.” The parties agreed that “[i]n the event of a material breach hereunder, the\\n\\nprevailing party in any action commenced to enforce [the] Agreement shall be\\n\\nawarded its reasonable attorneys fees, expenses, and costs.” The parties\\n\\n\\n 6\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 7 of 60\\n\\n\\nacknowledged that “time is of the essence in the performance of the obligations of\\n\\nthis Agreement.”\\n\\n 3. Post-Settlement Activity\\n\\n Despite a settlement agreement that should have resolved all outstanding\\n\\nissues, Plaintiffs continued to be plagued by Defendant’s failure to accurately\\n\\nreport extinguishment of the second loan. Given Defendant’s intransigence,\\n\\nPlaintiffs were forced to file a second lawsuit to prompt Defendant to cease falsely\\n\\nreporting Plaintiffs’ debt.\\n\\n a. Defendant’s Failure to Update Plaintiffs’ Credit Report\\n\\n Rather than correct its reporting of Plaintiffs’ second loan, Defendant\\n\\ncontinued to send automated monthly reports to the credit reporting agencies with\\n\\ninaccurate information about the second loan. Defendant sent inaccurate reports in\\n\\nFebruary, March, and April 2013. The negative reports caused Plaintiffs’ credit\\n\\nhistory to show the second loan as an open account with: (1) a balance of $61,356;\\n\\n(2) a past due amount totaling $14,264; and (3) being late over 120 days. None of\\n\\nthis information was correct.\\n\\n The settlement agreement required Defendant to report to the credit\\n\\nreporting agencies, as soon as reasonably possible, but no later than 90 days, that\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ second loan had a zero balance. Defendant missed this deadline. It was\\n\\nonly after Plaintiffs complained that Defendant, on April 25, 2013—two days after\\n\\n\\n 7\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 8 of 60\\n\\n\\nthe 90-day deadline—submitted an AUD to the credit reporting agencies\\n\\nrequesting that they update the second loan to show a zero balance, effective\\n\\nDecember 29, 2009.2 Yet, even though it corrected the balance-due entry,\\n\\nDefendant incorrectly reported the second loan as having a balloon payment of\\n\\n$34,985, due on March 1, 2021.\\n\\n b. Plaintiffs Finance Vehicle Purchases\\n\\n On February 23, 2013—a month after settling the First Action, and while\\n\\nDefendant was still falsely reporting that Plaintiffs owed it money on this second\\n\\nloan and were behind on their payments—Plaintiffs financed the purchase of two\\n\\nused vehicles. AutoNation Cadillac of West Palm Beach required Mr. Marchisio\\n\\nto pay $5,000.00 down and finance the $8,211.71 balance at 17.99% interest.\\n\\nGrieco Nissan required Mrs. Marchisio to pay $10,300.00 down and finance the\\n\\n$6,070.73 balance at 24.49% interest. Plaintiffs allege that, because Defendant had\\n\\naffirmatively misstated that Plaintiffs owed it money—and thereby had failed to\\n\\ncorrect its reporting of the second loan—Plaintiffs had to make larger down\\n\\npayments and pay higher interest rates on these automobile loans.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n2\\n The effective date should have been December 9, 2009, but this error is not at issue here.\\n\\n\\n 8\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 9 of 60\\n\\n\\n c. Mrs. Marchisio Receives Automated Calls from\\n Defendant\\n\\n Mrs. Marchisio testified that several months later, in the fall of 2013,\\n\\nDefendant called her cell phone several times using an autodialing system. On one\\n\\ncall that she answered, Defendant informed her that Plaintiffs’ home would be\\n\\nforeclosed and that they owed a balloon balance. Call records that would have\\n\\nshown Defendant’s outgoing calls were no longer available when requested by\\n\\nPlaintiffs. However, Mr. Marchisio corroborated his wife’s testimony, testifying\\n\\nthat she contemporaneously reported Defendant’s calls to him.\\n\\n d. Defendant Erroneously Verifies Inaccurate Reporting of\\n Second Loan\\n Chagrined at Defendant’s continuing false reports that Plaintiffs owed them\\n\\nmoney, in August 2013, Plaintiffs filed a motion in the First Action to enforce the\\n\\nsettlement agreement. The district court, however, dismissed the action, declining\\n\\nto exercise jurisdiction over the settlement agreement.3\\n\\n Accordingly, on November 7, 2013, Plaintiffs informed the credit reporting\\n\\nagencies that they disputed the information reported regarding the second loan. In\\n\\ntheir dispute letters, Plaintiffs described the litigation history and the foreclosure\\n\\ncourt order relieving them of their debt obligation. Plaintiffs also explained that\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n3\\n Shortly thereafter, Defendant re-foreclosed on the property and obtained yet another judgment\\nin state court that they held title to the property through the deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.\\n 9\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 10 of 60\\n\\n\\nDefendant had agreed in the settlement of the First Action that Plaintiffs did not\\n\\nowe any money under the mortgages.\\n\\n Plaintiffs’ dispute letters triggered a process typically followed by credit\\n\\nreporting agencies and furnishers of credit information to investigate disputed\\n\\ncredit reports. The credit reporting agencies create an automated credit dispute\\n\\nverification form (“ACDV”) that summarizes what the credit reporting agencies\\n\\nare reporting and the information the consumer is disputing. The credit reporting\\n\\nagencies then forward the ACDV electronically to the credit furnisher, which in\\n\\nthis case was Defendant. The furnisher determines whether the disputed\\n\\ninformation should be verified, modified, or deleted. The furnisher then sends the\\n\\ncompleted ACDV to the credit reporting agencies providing the results of its\\n\\ninvestigation.\\n\\n Danh Nguyen, a member of Defendant’s research department, investigated\\n\\nand processed the ACDVs generated by Plaintiffs’ dispute letters the day he\\n\\nreceived them. Following standard procedure, Nguyen consulted Defendant’s\\n\\nFISERV database to check the accuracy of Plaintiffs’ credit reports. Defendant\\n\\ncharacterizes FISERV as “a universal database that houses all relevant information\\n\\nregarding its borrowers’ loans.” But, for disputed reasons, the FISERV database\\n\\ndid not have information regarding the January 2013 settlement agreement.\\n\\nUnaware of this latest settlement or the previous litigation history, Nguyen sent an\\n\\n\\n 10\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 11 of 60\\n\\n\\nACDV to the credit reporting agencies verifying as accurate the report that\\n\\nPlaintiffs owed a balloon payment on the second loan. Consequently, Plaintiffs’\\n\\nNovember 21, 2013 credit report continued to erroneously reflect a $34,985\\n\\nballoon payment, due March 2021, for the second loan. As noted above, the\\n\\nJanuary 23, 2013 settlement agreement had required Defendant to report a zero\\n\\nbalance on this second loan as soon as reasonably possible, but no later than 90\\n\\ndays after the date of the agreement: that is, by April 23, 2013. Defendant’s\\n\\nissuance of this November credit report incorrectly indicating the existence of a\\n\\nballoon note meant that seven months after the deadline for issuing a report\\n\\nshowing a zero balance, Defendant had still failed to do so.\\n\\n e. Defendant’s Insurer Charges Plaintiffs for Insurance\\n Coverage on Property Owned by Defendant\\n Defendant’s failure to update its databases to reflect settlement of the second\\n\\nloan had other consequences. In addition to its other systems, Defendant stored\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ loan information in an insurance tracking software system called Co-\\n\\nTrak. Defendant’s insurance vendor, Southwest Business Corporation\\n\\n(“Southwest”), used Co-Trak to administer property insurance for Defendant’s\\n\\nloans.\\n\\n On November 30, 2013, Southwest deleted Plaintiffs’ first loan from Co-\\n\\nTrak. Although Defendant has a policy of not requiring insurance for second\\n\\nloans, deletion of the first loan triggered the loading of the second loan into the\\n\\n 11\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 12 of 60\\n\\n\\nsystem. The record for the second loan indicated a balance due and expired\\n\\ninsurance. That caused Southwest to send automated lender-placed insurance\\n\\ncoverage letters to Plaintiffs on November 30, 2013 and December 31, 2013.\\n\\nThose letters bore Defendant’s letterhead and were signed “Fire Insurance\\n\\nProcessing Center, Carrington Mortgage Services, L.L.C.” The letters informed\\n\\nPlaintiffs that their loan agreement required them to keep fire insurance on the\\n\\nproperty and that insurance would be purchased and charged to Plaintiffs if\\n\\nPlaintiffs did not provide proof of insurance.\\n\\n Shortly thereafter, on January 17, 2014, another lender-placed insurance\\n\\nletter entitled “Notice of Lender Placed Fire Coverage”—also on Defendant’s\\n\\nletterhead and bearing the same signature as the previous insurance letters—\\n\\ninformed Plaintiffs that insurance had been purchased for the property previously\\n\\nowned by Plaintiffs and that Plaintiffs’ escrow account would be charged $2,659 in\\n\\nmonthly installments. Plaintiffs also received a nearly identical “Notice of Lender\\n\\nPlaced Fire Coverage” dated January 22, 2014. All of the insurance letters\\n\\ninformed Plaintiffs that “this communication is from a debt collector and it is for\\n\\nthe purpose of collecting a debt.”\\n\\n C. The Second Federal Action\\n\\n As a result of Defendant’s continuing wrongful insistence that Plaintiffs still\\n\\nowed it money, Plaintiffs’ November 2013 effort to dispute the reporting of the\\n\\n\\n 12\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 13 of 60\\n\\n\\nballoon payment for the second loan failed. Left with little other option to obtain\\n\\nrelief, Plaintiffs filed this second federal action against Defendant on January 8,\\n\\n2014, alleging breach of the settlement agreement entered in the First Action and\\n\\nviolations of the FCRA and the Florida Collections Act.\\n\\n 1. Defendant Corrects Its Errors Shortly After Plaintiffs’ Filing of\\n this Action\\n\\n Although Plaintiffs’ previous efforts to end their ongoing nightmare had\\n\\nfailed, their filing of a second federal action apparently caught Defendant’s\\n\\nattention. On January 28, 2014, shortly after Plaintiffs filed this Second Action,\\n\\nDefendant finally saw fit to issue an AUD requesting that the credit reporting\\n\\nagencies delete from Plaintiffs’ credit reports any reference to a balloon-payment\\n\\nobligation. Defendant also cancelled the lender-placed insurance, effective\\n\\nJanuary 28, 2014, and issued Plaintiffs a refund. Thus, by the end of January 2014,\\n\\nmore than four years after settlement of the foreclosure action and prompted only\\n\\nby two subsequent lawsuits, Defendant finally managed to update its databases,\\n\\ncorrect its previous errors, and accurately report the status of Plaintiffs’ second\\n\\nloan.\\n\\n 2. Procedural History of this Action\\n On November 13, 2015, Plaintiffs filed an Amended Complaint, alleging:\\n\\nCount I, Violation of FCRA; Count II, Violation of Florida Collections Act; Count\\n\\nIII, Breach of Contract (i.e., Breach of the Second Settlement); Count IV,\\n\\n 13\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 14 of 60\\n\\n\\nPreliminary Injunctive Relief; and Count V, Permanent Injunctive Relief. The\\n\\nparties filed cross-motions for summary judgment in July 2016.\\n\\n Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment on all claims. Plaintiffs\\n\\nfiled a verified Declaration in opposition to Defendant’s motion for summary\\n\\njudgment. Plaintiffs also filed a motion for partial summary judgment on some\\n\\naspects of its claims and of Defendant’s defenses. As discussed below, the district\\n\\ncourt granted summary judgment for Defendant on some things and for Plaintiffs\\n\\non others.\\n\\nII. STANDARD OF REVIEW\\n\\n We review de novo the district court’s rulings on the parties’ cross motions\\n\\nfor summary judgment. Owen v. I.C. Sys., Inc., 629 F.3d 1263, 1270 (11th Cir.\\n\\n2011). Summary judgment is appropriate when “there is no genuine dispute as to\\n\\nany material fact” and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.\\n\\nFed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). A genuine issue of material fact exists when “the evidence is\\n\\nsuch that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.”\\n\\nAnderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). The Court reviews the\\n\\nevidence and draws all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the non-\\n\\nmoving party. Owen, 629 F.3d at 1270.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 14\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 15 of 60\\n\\n\\nIII. DISCUSSION\\n\\n A. Plaintiffs’ FCRA Claim (Count I)\\n 1. The District Court’s Ruling\\n Consistent with the settlement agreement of the First Action, in which\\n\\nDefendant agreed to correct its false reporting that a balance was due on the second\\n\\nloan, in April 2013 Defendant finally disseminated revised reports to indicate that\\n\\nPlaintiffs had a zero balance on this loan. Yet, in making this correction,\\n\\nDefendant introduced a new false entry into the report: the existence of a balloon\\n\\npayment of almost $35,000 due in 2021 on this (non-existent) second loan.\\n\\n Defendant was put on notice of this newest problem through an attempt by\\n\\nPlaintiffs in August 2013 to enforce the earlier settlement agreement: an attempt\\n\\nthat was rebuffed by the district court on jurisdictional grounds. Plaintiffs then\\n\\nfiled the dispute letter with credit reporting agencies that led to the filing of the\\n\\npresent FCRA claim. Plaintiffs disputed the existence of a balloon loan, which\\n\\ncommunication prompted the agencies to contact Defendant for the latter to\\n\\ninvestigate and inform the agencies whether the disputed information was accurate.\\n\\nAs set out more fully in the factual discussion, the databases available to\\n\\nDefendant’s investigative employee continued to show that a balloon payment was\\n\\ndue. None of them included information regarding the settlement agreement. Had\\n\\nthey included this information, the employee would have been aware that, in its\\n\\nsettlement of Plaintiffs’ earlier claims, Defendant had agreed that Plaintiffs owed\\n 15\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 16 of 60\\n\\n\\nnothing on this particular loan. But unaware of the settlement, the employee\\n\\nincorrectly confirmed to the credit reporting agencies that Plaintiffs did have a\\n\\nballoon payment due in the future.\\n\\n Plaintiffs’ present claim alleges that Defendant failed to conduct a\\n\\nreasonable investigation of the disputed entry, as required by the FCRA. The\\n\\ndistrict court agreed that Defendant had failed to conduct a reasonable\\n\\ninvestigation. It further concluded that, given all the litigation concerning the\\n\\nquestion whether Plaintiffs owed anything more on the second loan, Defendant’s\\n\\nconduct was willful, and it granted summary judgment on that element. Defendant\\n\\nappeals these decisions. As to damages, the court awarded statutory damages of\\n\\n$3,000, which Defendant does not oppose, assuming the existence of a violation.\\n\\nThe court, however, ruled that Plaintiffs were not entitled to any damages for\\n\\nemotional distress or as punitive damages. Plaintiffs appeal the district court’s\\n\\ngrant of summary judgment to Defendant as to these damages.\\n\\n 2. Reasonableness and Willfulness of Defendant’s Conduct\\n\\n It is obvious that Defendant failed to conduct a reasonable investigation of\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ challenge of Defendant’s report that Plaintiffs owed a balloon payment\\n\\non the second loan, and we therefore affirm the district court’s grant of summary\\n\\njudgment on this issue. The FCRA requires that credit reporting agencies and\\n\\nthose entities that furnish information to them (“furnishers”) investigate any\\n\\n\\n 16\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 17 of 60\\n\\n\\ndisputed information. Thus, when a consumer disputes information with a credit\\n\\nreporting agency, the agency must “conduct a reasonable reinvestigation to\\n\\ndetermine whether the disputed information is inaccurate.” 15 U.S.C.\\n\\n§ 1681i(a)(1)(A). As part of this investigation, the agency is required to notify the\\n\\nfurnisher of the information that it has been disputed. Id. § 1681i(a)(2). Upon\\n\\nreceipt of this notice, the furnisher of information must: (1) “conduct an\\n\\ninvestigation with respect to the disputed information”; (2) “review all relevant\\n\\ninformation provided by the consumer reporting agency” in connection with the\\n\\ndispute; and (3) “report the results of the investigation to the credit reporting\\n\\nagency.” Id. § 1681s-2(b)(1)(A)–(C). Should the investigation determine that the\\n\\ndisputed information is “inaccurate or incomplete or cannot be verified,” the\\n\\nfurnisher must “as appropriate, based on the results of the reinvestigation promptly\\n\\n. . . modify[,] . . . delete [or] permanently block the reporting” of that information\\n\\nto consumer reporting agencies. Id. § 1681s-2(b)(1)(E). See generally Hinkle v.\\n\\nMidland Credit Mgmt., Inc., 827 F.3d 1295, 1301 (11th Cir. 2016).\\n\\n “The ‘appropriate touchstone’ for evaluating a furnisher’s investigation\\n\\nunder § 1681s-2(b) is ‘reasonableness.’” Felts v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 893\\n\\nF.3d 1305, 1312 (11th Cir. 2018) (quoting Hinkle, 827 F.3d at 1301–02). “[W]hat\\n\\nconstitutes a ‘reasonable investigation’ will vary depending on the circumstances\\n\\nof the case.” Id. “When a furnisher ends its investigation by reporting that the\\n\\n\\n 17\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 18 of 60\\n\\n\\ndisputed information has been verified as accurate, the question of whether the\\n\\nfurnisher behaved reasonably will turn on whether the furnisher acquired sufficient\\n\\nevidence to support the conclusion that the information was true.” Id.\\n\\n We agree with the district court that, as a matter of law, Defendant’s\\n\\ninvestigative efforts were not reasonable. Defendant argues that the erroneous\\n\\nverification of a balloon payment by Nguyen, the investigative employee,\\n\\nconstituted a mere isolated human error that was promptly corrected. This\\n\\nargument is unpersuasive. First, Nguyen didn’t make an error: he accurately\\n\\nreported what he found in the databases provided by his employer. The error can\\n\\nbe laid at the feet of Defendant, which had failed to create a reliable system for\\n\\ninputting information regarding the settlement of litigation that might impact the\\n\\ndata found on the relevant databases. Aware that whatever system it had to\\n\\naccomplish this was unreliable and aware that incorrect information concerning\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ loan balance was still being reported, it was incumbent on Defendant to\\n\\ntake steps to ensure that news of the terms of the settlement agreement be\\n\\ncommunicated to those who generate reports to reporting agencies. Given\\n\\nDefendant’s decision not to take those steps, it was quite foreseeable that any\\n\\ninvestigation of the disputed information here would yield an incorrect conclusion\\n\\nby the employee-investigator.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 18\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 19 of 60\\n\\n\\n Defendant’s position is that, on an ad hoc basis, it would log into databases\\n\\npertinent information concerning relevant litigation. Yet, as the district court\\n\\nnoted, there was a large “disconnect” between Defendant’s system for debt\\n\\nverification and its ad hoc handling of settlement-related changes to debt\\n\\nobligations. That disconnect manifested itself on multiple occasions over several\\n\\nyears through Defendant’s: (1) failure to sufficiently log the settlement of the\\n\\nforeclosure suit and subsequent resumption of foreclosure litigation; (2) failure to\\n\\nsufficiently log the dismissal of the resumed foreclosure litigation with prejudice\\n\\nand subsequent debt collection efforts; (3) failure to sufficiently log settlement of\\n\\nthe first district court action and subsequent breach of the settlement agreement;\\n\\nand (4) failure to provide sufficient notification and access to settlement terms to\\n\\nits verifiers, causing the subsequent verification of erroneous credit reports despite\\n\\ndetailed dispute letters documenting the relevant litigation history.\\n\\n In short, Defendant failed to conduct a reasonable investigation. The above\\n\\negregious facts also support the district court’s conclusion that Defendant’s\\n\\nconduct was willful. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681n(a), any person who willfully fails\\n\\nto comply with any requirement imposed under this subchapter is liable to the\\n\\naffected consumer for actual, statutory, or punitive damages. Collins v. Experian\\n\\nInfo. Sols., Inc., 775 F.3d 1330, 1336 (11th Cir. 2015), on reh’g sub nom. Collins\\n\\nv. Equable Ascent Fin., LLC, 781 F.3d 1270 (11th Cir. 2015). The Supreme Court\\n\\n\\n 19\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 20 of 60\\n\\n\\nhas held that “reckless disregard of a requirement of FCRA would qualify as a\\n\\nwillful violation within the meaning of § 1681n(a).” Safeco Ins. Co. of Am. v.\\n\\nBurr, 551 U.S. 47, 71 (2007); see also Harris v. Mexican Specialty Foods, Inc.,\\n\\n564 F.3d 1301, 1310 (11th Cir. 2009) (“A violation is ‘willful’ for the purposes of\\n\\nthe FCRA if the defendant violates the terms of the Act with knowledge or reckless\\n\\ndisregard for the law.”). Recklessness means “conduct violating an objective\\n\\nstandard: action entailing an unjustifiably high risk of harm that is either known or\\n\\nso obvious that it should be known.” Safeco, 551 U.S. at 68 (quotations omitted).\\n\\n Assuming arguendo that Defendant’s continued reporting of false\\n\\ninformation regarding Plaintiffs’ debt was not intentionally done, the question then\\n\\nis whether Defendant acted in reckless disregard of its obligations under the\\n\\nFCRA, as the district court concluded. On the record before us, it clearly did so.\\n\\nDefendant’s actions—during an exceedingly long period of time in which\\n\\nPlaintiffs sought to have Defendant cease its false reporting of a debt that\\n\\nDefendant well knew Plaintiffs did not owe—entailed “an unjustifiably high risk of\\n\\nharm that is either known or so obvious that it should be known.” Id.\\n\\n No other conclusion can be drawn given the number of times that Defendant\\n\\nwas put on notice of the false information being reported, yet, each time failed to\\n\\ntake steps to insure that its records accurately reflected the absence of any debt by\\n\\nPlaintiffs. Defendant failed to take appropriate measures after entering into a\\n\\n\\n 20\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 21 of 60\\n\\n\\nsettlement agreement with Plaintiffs in 2009 during the foreclosure action, in\\n\\nwhich Defendant agreed that Plaintiffs’ prior two loans were extinguished and that\\n\\nPlaintiffs owed Defendant nothing, but after which Defendant continued to report\\n\\nthat Plaintiffs had a balance due. Following the 2013 settlement of Plaintiffs’\\n\\nresulting federal litigation, which demanded that Defendant correct its false report,\\n\\nDefendant belatedly corrected the false information found in earlier reports, but\\n\\nthen Defendant began falsely reporting that Plaintiffs had a balloon payment due\\n\\non the second loan. Yet, Defendant failed to take any corrective action when\\n\\nPlaintiffs sought to have the federal district court enforce the settlement agreement\\n\\nby requiring Defendant to live up to its agreement and stop reporting that a balloon\\n\\npayment was due. That event alone clearly disclosed to Defendant and its counsel\\n\\nthat Defendant was continuing to report false information concerning Plaintiffs’\\n\\nnon-existent debt. Yet again, Defendant made no correction nor any effort to\\n\\ninsure that the pertinent databases revealed the existence of the settlement and the\\n\\nfact that no debt was owed by Plaintiffs. Meaning that when Plaintiffs took the\\n\\npredictable next step of disputing this debt with the credit reporting agencies, the\\n\\noutcome of the investigation by Defendant’s employee was also quite predictable:\\n\\nthe employee would incorrectly verify the existence of a continuing debt.\\n\\n Also obvious is that this is not a case like Llewellyn v. Allstate Home Loans,\\n\\nInc., 711 F.3d 1173, 1185 (10th Cir. 2013), and the numerous other cases cited by\\n\\n\\n 21\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 22 of 60\\n\\n\\nDefendant, where courts found no willful violation based on a single human error\\n\\nthat was promptly corrected.4 None of those cases involved a pattern of conduct\\n\\nexposing a knowingly flawed system for documenting changes to debt obligations,\\n\\nmuch less a four-year litigation history concerning the debt at issue. That history\\n\\nhere included multiple orders and agreements acknowledging discharge of the debt\\n\\nthat went undocumented in the lender’s debt verification system and thus\\n\\nunchecked, despite being specifically identified in the dispute letters being\\n\\ninvestigated and in litigation filed a few months before the inquiry. In short, no\\n\\nreasonable jury could find that Defendant’s erroneous verification of the inaccurate\\n\\ncredit report in November 2013 was not reckless.\\n\\n 3. Emotional Distress Damages\\n Although it found, as a matter of law, that Defendant had acted unreasonably\\n\\nand even recklessly in its investigation of Plaintiffs’ dispute—and awarded\\n\\nstatutory damages of $3,000—the district court granted Defendant summary\\n\\njudgment as to Plaintiffs’ claim for emotional distress damages, finding that\\n\\nPlaintiffs had failed to show that Defendant’s violation of the FCRA had caused\\n\\nPlaintiffs any emotional distress. Specifically, the district court concluded that any\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n4\\n Defendant’s repeated assertion that willfulness requires “intent to consciously thwart\\nPlaintiffs’ right to remove inaccuracies from their credit report” relies on case law that predates\\nthe recklessness standard of Safeco.\\n\\n\\n 22\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 23 of 60\\n\\n\\nemotional distress suffered as a result of Defendant’s actions had begun before\\n\\nDefendant’s FCRA violation in November 2013.\\n\\n The district court was correct in stating there must be a causal connection\\n\\nbetween the violation and the emotional harm. “[F]ailure to produce evidence of\\n\\ndamage resulting from a FCRA violation mandates summary judgment.” Nagle v.\\n\\nExperian Info. Sols., Inc., 297 F.3d 1305, 1307 (11th Cir. 2002) (citing Cahlin v.\\n\\nGeneral Motors Acceptance Corp., 936 F.2d 1151, 1160 (11th Cir. 1991)).\\n\\n For sure, Plaintiffs had already experienced substantial stress as a result of\\n\\nDefendant’s actions taken prior to the erroneous re-verification of the non-existent\\n\\ndebt. Mr. Marchisio stated that, following Defendant’s breach of the settlement\\n\\nagreement in late April 2013, he “felt flushed and shaky, nervous, [and] tense.” He\\n\\nfurther described having arguments with his wife and experiencing anxiety and\\n\\nrapid heartbeats. He stated that “[t]he increasing stress from dealing with\\n\\n[Defendant] made my health worse. On May 9, 2013, I was hospitalized and\\n\\ntreated for congestive heart failure, anxiety and exacerbated hypertension caused\\n\\nby anxiety.”\\n\\n Yet, Plaintiffs correctly note that the district court did not evaluate whether\\n\\nDefendant’s subsequent FCRA violation “exacerbated again” their emotional\\n\\ndistress. Mr. Marchisio maintained that, after taking medication, exercising, and\\n\\nrefraining from discussing issues with Defendant, his health had improved by early\\n\\n\\n 23\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 24 of 60\\n\\n\\nAugust 2013. Yet, Defendant’s erroneous verification of the accuracy of\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ credit reports in November 2013, and its subsequent initiation of lender-\\n\\nplaced insurance on property no longer owned and for which no debt was owed,\\n\\ntriggered additional anxiety, rapid heartbeats, and marital distress. As to the latter,\\n\\nMr. Marchisio noted that because of the marital discord caused by Defendant, he\\n\\nand his wife no longer sleep in the same bed and their marriage is “not the same.”\\n\\nBoth Plaintiffs state that “[h]ad [Defendant] made the corrections, it would have\\n\\nreduced our stress and the problems with the Settlement that we were dealing\\n\\nwith.” In short, Plaintiffs indicate that the “added stress” of the erroneous\\n\\nverification of the balloon payment in November 2013 “made things much worse.”\\n\\n Plaintiffs’ testimony raises genuine issues of material fact concerning\\n\\nemotional distress. A fact finder might well conclude that Defendant’s FCRA\\n\\nviolation caused Plaintiffs’ additional emotional distress, given Plaintiffs’\\n\\ntestimony that this new violation “added stress” and “made things much worse”\\n\\nand Mr. Marchisio’s health improvements before Defendant’s November 2013\\n\\nviolation. We therefore reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to\\n\\nDefendant on the claim of emotional distress damages.\\n\\n 4. Punitive Damages\\n\\n The district court sua sponte denied an award of punitive damages, noting\\n\\nthat “[t]he finding of willfulness is not based on any intentional or purposeful\\n\\n\\n 24\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 25 of 60\\n\\n\\nmisdeed by the Defendant that would support the award of punitive damages.”\\n\\nPlaintiffs argue that the court is “not entitle[d] to take the question from the jury\\n\\nand decide it as a matter of law.”\\n\\n The court’s punitive damages decision presents two problems. First,\\n\\nPlaintiffs were not required to raise punitive damages on summary judgment and\\n\\nthe court summarily disposed of the issue without hearing from either party.\\n\\nSecond, 15 U.S.C. § 1681n(a)(2) provides for “such amount of punitive damages\\n\\nas the court may allow” for “willful” FCRA violations. And “willful” violations\\n\\ninclude reckless conduct. Safeco, 551 U.S. at 68. Thus, the “intentional or\\n\\npurposeful” standard used by the district court does not comport with the Supreme\\n\\nCourt’s definition of willfulness.\\n\\n Moreover, neither the court nor Defendant cited any controlling authority for\\n\\nthe proposition that punitive damages should only be awarded for intentional\\n\\nmisconduct. Defendant cites Cousin v. Trans Union Corporation, 246 F.3d 359,\\n\\n374 (5th Cir. 2001) for the proposition that punitive damages are inappropriate\\n\\nwhere defendant’s “system [was] not perfect” but defendant “never attempted to\\n\\nmislead [plaintiff] with respect to his consumer report or his rights.” But Cousin,\\n\\nissued before Safeco, employed a stricter standard for willfulness and overturned a\\n\\nwillfulness liability verdict. It had nothing to do with denying punitive damages\\n\\ndespite a willfulness finding.\\n\\n\\n 25\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 26 of 60\\n\\n\\n To be clear, we make no ruling here concerning whether there may be any\\n\\nlimits on a plaintiff’s ability to receive punitive damages under the FCRA where\\n\\nthe willful conduct at issue involves only reckless, not intentional conduct. We\\n\\nsimply reverse the sua sponte grant of summary judgment to Defendant to allow\\n\\nfactual development of this issue at trial.\\n\\n B. Florida Collections Act Claim (Count II)\\n The Florida Collections Act regulates the activities of consumer collection\\n\\nagencies within Florida. LeBlanc v. Unifund CCR Partners, 601 F.3d 1185, 1190\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2010). The Florida Collections Act also defines and protects an\\n\\nindividual’s right to privacy with regards to consumer collections practices in the\\n\\nstate. Id. In particular, Florida Statute Section 559.72 provides:\\n\\n In collecting consumer debts, no person shall:\\n ****\\n\\n (9) Claim, attempt, or threaten to enforce a debt when such person\\n knows that the debt is not legitimate, or assert the existence of some\\n other legal right when such person knows that the right does not exist.\\n\\n ****\\n\\n (18) Communicate with a debtor if the person knows that the debtor is\\n represented by an attorney with respect to such debt and has knowledge\\n of, or can readily ascertain, such attorney’s name and address . . . .\\n\\nFla. Stat. § 559.72.\\n\\n Plaintiffs allege that, in violation of § 559.72(9), Defendant attempted to\\n\\ncollect a debt that Defendant knew was not legitimate when Defendant (1) placed\\n\\n 26\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 27 of 60\\n\\n\\nauto-dialed calls to Plaintiffs in the fall of 2013, attempting to collect money from\\n\\nPlaintiffs on the non-existent debt and (2) sent letters between November 2013 and\\n\\nJanuary 2014 requiring Plaintiffs to provide proof of fire insurance on property\\n\\nthey had deeded to Defendant years before and charging Plaintiffs for lender-\\n\\nplaced insurance on that property. Two of these letters were sent after Defendant\\n\\nbecame aware that Plaintiffs had retained counsel. Accordingly, Plaintiffs argue\\n\\nthat in sending these two particular letters, Defendant also violated that part of the\\n\\nFlorida statute prohibiting communication with a debtor whom one knows to be\\n\\nrepresented by an attorney: § 559.72(11).\\n\\n The district court granted summary judgment for Defendant on each of these\\n\\nclaims. We address each in turn.\\n\\n 1. The Automated Calls\\n\\n The district court rejected Plaintiffs’ Florida Collections Act claim based on\\n\\nthe automated calls Mrs. Marchisio received in the fall of 2013 because Plaintiffs\\n\\noffered “no evidentiary confirmation” to corroborate their own testimony that such\\n\\ncalls had even occurred. The district court noted that telephone-call records for\\n\\nthis time period were no longer available when sought by Plaintiffs. The court\\n\\nquestioned the veracity of Plaintiffs’ statements because “[b]y that point both the\\n\\nState Foreclosure Case and the First District Court Case had been concluded” and\\n\\n“[t]he surrounding events and circumstances therefore leave unclear why the\\n\\n\\n 27\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 28 of 60\\n\\n\\nDefendant would have caused these calls to be placed---that is, if the calls in fact\\n\\nhad been made.” The court thus deemed the evidence insufficient to survive\\n\\nsummary judgment.\\n\\n Construing the evidence in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, we find\\n\\nMrs. Marchisio’s testimony that she had received debt collection calls from\\n\\nDefendant in the fall of 2013 sufficient to create a disputed issue of fact as to\\n\\nwhether the calls had occurred. See United States v. Stein, 881 F.3d 853, 858–59\\n\\n(11th Cir. 2018) (en banc) (“A non-conclusory affidavit which complies with Rule\\n\\n56 can create a genuine dispute concerning an issue of material fact, even if it is\\n\\nself-serving and/or uncorroborated.”). Mrs. Marchisio testified that in the fall of\\n\\n2013, Defendant called her several times informing her that Plaintiffs’ home would\\n\\nbe foreclosed and that they owed a balloon balance. Mr. Marchisio corroborated\\n\\nhis wife’s testimony, testifying that she contemporaneously reported the nature of\\n\\nDefendant’s calls to him. Because we do not make credibility determinations on\\n\\nappeal of a summary judgment ruling, we must assume Plaintiffs’ testimony to be\\n\\ntrue. Strickland v. Norfolk S. Ry. Co., 692 F.3d 1151, 1154 (11th Cir. 2012)\\n\\n(“Credibility determinations, the weighing of the evidence, and the drawing of\\n\\nlegitimate inferences from the facts are jury functions, not those of a judge . . . .”)\\n\\n(quotation omitted).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 28\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 29 of 60\\n\\n\\n As to the district court’s observation that it is “unclear why the Defendant\\n\\nwould have caused these calls to be placed,” the lack of clarity as to Defendant’s\\n\\nmotivation does not, on these facts, necessarily undermine Plaintiffs’ testimony.\\n\\nOver the years, Defendant engaged in repeated conduct to collect a debt no longer\\n\\nowed by Plaintiffs. It is not clear why Defendant persisted in these efforts despite\\n\\nprior settlements and court orders. Indeed, the alleged calls came at a time when\\n\\nDefendant had filed a re-foreclosure for no apparent reason. Ultimately, a jury will\\n\\nhave an opportunity to assess Plaintiffs’ credibility in order to determine whether\\n\\nDefendant made the automated calls at issue.\\n\\n 2. Lender-Placed Insurance Letters\\n a. District Court’s Ruling Applying Bona Fide Error\\n Defense\\n As to the claims relating to the insurance-billing letters sent to Plaintiffs, the\\n\\ndistrict court granted summary judgment to Defendant, concluding that Defendant\\n\\nwas protected by the bona fide error defense. As set out in the background section\\n\\nof this opinion, the failure of Defendant to update its databases and to make sure\\n\\nthe appropriate people within the company were informed of its settlement\\n\\nagreement with Plaintiffs had consequences beyond the misreporting of a non-\\n\\nexistent debt to credit reporting agencies. The erroneous retention, as a pending\\n\\ndebt, of Plaintiffs’ second loan in Defendant’s databases caused the insurance\\n\\ntracking software system used by Defendant’s insurance vendor, Southwest, to\\n\\n 29\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 30 of 60\\n\\n\\npurchase and bill Plaintiffs for fire insurance for property they no longer owned,\\n\\nbased on a debt they no longer owed.\\n\\n In analyzing Defendant’s potential liability under § 559.72(9), the district\\n\\ncourt assumed that “the ‘debt,’ whether it be the underlying Second Loan, the need\\n\\nfor hazard insurance, or the bill for the ‘forced place’ insurance, was not legitimate\\n\\nand that the Defendant knew or should have known that it was not legitimate.” 5\\n\\nThe court further assumed that Defendant could be held liable for Southwest’s\\n\\nactions as its agent. Ultimately, however, the court concluded that Defendant was\\n\\nentitled to the Florida Collections Act’s bona fide error defense, for two principal\\n\\nreasons: (1) the insurance letter error occurred “in the context of corrective action”\\n\\n(that is, Defendant’s attempt to correct its database in November 2013, which\\n\\ntriggered the sending of the letters by Southwest) and (2) Defendant responded\\n\\npromptly to the issue after it first learned of the problem when Plaintiffs filed suit\\n\\nin January 2014.\\n\\n Our review of the district court’s decision granting summary judgment to\\n\\nDefendant on this claim therefore focuses on whether Defendant established a bona\\n\\nfide error defense, as a matter of law, when the evidence is viewed in the light\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n5\\n Defendant does not challenge the district court’s assumption that each of these activities\\nsatisfies the threshold requirement that the act occurred in the collection of consumer debt. For\\npurposes of this opinion, we will adopt that assumption and confine our analysis to the issues\\nraised in the briefing.\\n 30\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 31 of 60\\n\\n\\nmost favorable to Plaintiffs or whether, as Plaintiffs argue, there is a disputed issue\\n\\nof fact on this point.\\n\\n b. Bona Fide Error Defense–Generally\\n\\n Florida law provides for a bona fide error defense to civil actions alleging\\n\\nviolations of the Florida Collections Act:\\n\\n A person may not be held liable in any action brought under this section\\n if the person shows by a preponderance of the evidence that the\\n violation was not intentional and resulted from a bona fide error,\\n notwithstanding the maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to\\n avoid such error.\\n\\nFla. Stat. § 559.77(3). “In applying and construing this section, due consideration\\n\\nand great weight shall be given to the interpretations of the Federal Trade\\n\\nCommission and the federal courts relating to the federal Fair Debt Collection\\n\\nPractices Act [“FDCPA”].” 6 Id. § 559.77(5); Gann v. BAC Home Loans Servicing\\n\\nLP, 145 So. 3d 906, 908 (Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App. 2014).\\n\\n As we held in a FDCPA case, “[a] debt collector asserting the bona fide\\n\\nerror defense must show by a preponderance of the evidence that its violation of\\n\\nthe Act: (1) was not intentional; (2) was a bona fide error; and (3) occurred despite\\n\\nthe maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such error.”\\n\\n\\n6\\n 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(c) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act includes a bona fide error\\ndefense nearly identical to the Florida Collections Act: “[a] debt collector may not be held liable\\nin any action brought under this subchapter if the debt collector shows by a preponderance of\\nevidence that the violation was not intentional and resulted from a bona fide error\\nnotwithstanding the maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such error.”\\n\\n 31\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 32 of 60\\n\\n\\nEdwards v. Niagara Credit Sols., Inc., 584 F.3d 1350, 1352–53 (11th Cir. 2009)\\n\\n(discussing 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(c)).\\n\\n Focusing their challenge on the second and third prongs of the above\\n\\nstandard, Plaintiffs emphasize the faulty procedures employed by Defendant for\\n\\ntracking loan settlement terms. Defendant counters that the true cause of\\n\\nSouthwest sending the erroneous letters was Southwest’s failure to follow\\n\\nDefendant’s stated policy of not tracking insurance for loans that are second liens.\\n\\n c. Whether Defendant’s Sending of the Lender-Placed\\n Insurance Letters Constituted a Bona Fide Error\\n “As used in the [FDCPA] ‘bona fide’ means that the error resulting in a\\n\\nviolation was made in good faith; a genuine mistake, as opposed to a contrived\\n\\nmistake.” Id. at 1352–53 (quotations omitted). “To be considered a bona fide\\n\\nerror, the debt collector’s mistake must be objectively reasonable.” Id.\\n\\n Given our conclusion below concerning Defendant’s policies and\\n\\nprocedures, we will assume that Defendant’s mistake in sending out the lender-\\n\\nplaces insurance letters was a bona fide error, as set out in the second prong of the\\n\\ntest. Defendant had a policy that insurance not be tracked for second loans.\\n\\nNevertheless, deletion of the first loan from the Co-Trak system caused the\\n\\ninsurance letters to automatically be mailed to Plaintiffs. This error occurred\\n\\ndespite Defendant’s policy that insurance not be tracked for second loans, which\\n\\nthe district court inferred to mean that the mailing of the insurance letters was a\\n\\n 32\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 33 of 60\\n\\n\\ngenuine, not a contrived mistake. Viewed objectively, we will assume that the\\n\\nautomatic issuance of lender-placed insurance letters following the deletion of the\\n\\nfirst loan from the Co-Trak database constitutes a genuine mistake, as opposed to a\\n\\ncontrived error.\\n\\n Plaintiffs focus on Defendant’s lack of procedures to disseminate loan\\n\\nsettlement terms, which failure Plaintiffs say caused the Co-Trak database to\\n\\ncontain faulty information regarding the status of Plaintiffs’ second loan. We\\n\\nunderstand Plaintiffs’ point, but this contention is best considered in connection\\n\\nwith the third prong of the test: the requirement that Defendant maintained\\n\\nprocedures reasonably adapted to avoid the error. See Johnson v. Riddle, 443 F.3d\\n\\n723, 729 (10th Cir. 2006) (“the bona fide prong and the procedures prong will\\n\\noften merge”). We turn to that question now.\\n\\n d. Genuine Issues of Fact Exist Regarding Whether\\n Defendant Maintained Procedures Reasonably Adapted\\n to Avoid the Violation\\n As we have stated, “the procedures component of the bona fide error defense\\n\\ninvolves a two-step inquiry.” Owen, 629 F.3d at 1273–74 (citing Johnson, 443\\n\\nF.3d at 729). “The first step is whether the debt collector ‘maintained’—i.e.,\\n\\nactually employed or implemented—procedures to avoid errors.” Id. (quotations\\n\\nomitted). The second step is “whether the procedures were ‘reasonably adapted’ to\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 33\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 34 of 60\\n\\n\\navoid the specific error at issue.” Id. This is a “fact-intensive inquiry” analyzed\\n\\n“on a case-by-case basis.” Id.\\n\\n Defendant defines the issue narrowly, urging us to consider only whether it\\n\\nhad policies and procedures that reasonably precluded issuance of the lender-\\n\\nplaced insurance letters to Plaintiffs based on their second loan. Defendant asserts\\n\\nthat the facts demonstrate that Southwest should not have mailed those letters\\n\\nbecause it was a second lien which Southwest should not have been tracking under\\n\\nthe policies and procedures in place.7 Thus, Defendant asserts that “the specific\\n\\nerror here had nothing to do with [Defendant’s] general practices concerning\\n\\nborrowers who have had loans discharged through settlement.”\\n\\n Plaintiffs, in turn, focus on Defendant’s practices concerning recording and\\n\\ndissemination of settlement terms. Plaintiffs highlight four deficiencies in\\n\\nDefendant’s system for tracking settlements as the cause for the Co-Trak database\\n\\nto contain erroneous information that triggered sending of the insurance letters.\\n\\nPlaintiffs maintain that: (1) Defendant does not store settlement agreements on the\\n\\nNautilus system, the system that contains images of loan applications, mortgages,\\n\\nand promissory notes; (2) Defendant does not notate settlement terms on the\\n\\n\\n7\\n Defendant’s “Insurance Policy” provides: “Outsourced Insurance Tracking . . .\\nResponsibilities . . . The Insurance Vendor is responsible for determining the acceptability of\\ninsurance policies and ensuring that approved insurance coverage remains in force on all\\nproperties for the life of all loans being serviced. The exceptions to this are condominiums and\\n2nd liens, which are not tracked.”\\n\\n 34\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 35 of 60\\n\\n\\nFISERVE database; (3) despite the probability that the status of a loan will be\\n\\naffected by litigation, Defendant has no policy to place flags on accounts subject to\\n\\nlitigation; (4) settlement terms are disclosed to Defendant’s business departments\\n\\nonly if Defendant’s legal department determines such disclosure is proper.\\n\\nMoreover, Plaintiffs assert that Defendant cannot show that it has any procedures\\n\\nin place to make sure that the terms of the settlement are conveyed to the proper\\n\\nparties that need to be involved.\\n\\n As framed by the parties, the issue turns on the second step of Owen; that is,\\n\\n“whether the procedures were ‘reasonably adapted’ to avoid the specific error at\\n\\nissue.” Owen, 629 F.3d at 1273–74. Owen obligates us to first determine “the\\n\\nspecific error at issue.” Id. Defendant frames the error as sending lender-placed\\n\\ninsurance letters in contravention of its policy not to require insurance for second\\n\\nloans. Plaintiffs frame the error as failing to input settlement terms in the Co-Trak\\n\\nsystem. As Owen makes clear, however, the specific error at issue is the statutory\\n\\nviolation alleged. In this case, the specific error is the sending of lender-placed\\n\\ninsurance letters erroneously asserting that Plaintiffs were obligated to insure\\n\\nproperty they no longer owned.\\n\\n Defendant identifies only its policy not to insure second loans as a policy\\n\\nthat is reasonably adapted to avoid issuance of illegitimate lender-placed insurance\\n\\nletters. The policy cited is an internal policy and Defendant fails to explain\\n\\n\\n 35\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 36 of 60\\n\\n\\nwhether and how this policy is communicated to Southwest or Defendant’s\\n\\nemployees. Yet, although Defendant characterizes this practice as a “policy and\\n\\nprocedure,” we are hard pressed to discern from this record what procedures\\n\\nDefendant or Southwest implemented to enforce its policy of not insuring second\\n\\nloans. The Supreme Court has interpreted the provision of the FDCPA requiring\\n\\nthe debt collector to maintain “procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such\\n\\nerror.” Jerman v. Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer & Ulrich LPA, 559 U.S. 573,\\n\\n587 (2010). The Court noted that “[t]he dictionary defines ‘procedure’ as ‘a series\\n\\nof steps followed in a regular orderly definite way.’” Id. (citing Webster’s Third\\n\\nNew International Dictionary 1807 (1976)). The Court concluded that “the\\n\\nstatutory phrase is more naturally read to apply to processes that have mechanical\\n\\nor other such ‘regular orderly’ steps to avoid mistakes—for instance, the kind of\\n\\ninternal controls a debt collector might adopt to ensure its employees do not\\n\\ncommunicate with consumers at the wrong time of day, § 1692c(a)(1), or make\\n\\nfalse representations as to the amount of a debt, § 1692e(2).” Id. Here, Defendant\\n\\nhas not documented a regular and orderly process for enforcing its stated policy not\\n\\nto insure second loans.\\n\\n Even the policy itself appears irregular. Rather than absolute, Defendant’s\\n\\npolicy of not insuring second loans appears to apply only so long as the first loan is\\n\\nin place. The automated tasks performed by the Co-Trak system define at least\\n\\n\\n 36\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 37 of 60\\n\\n\\npart of Defendant’s procedures regarding insurance on second loans. The record\\n\\nreflects that Defendant’s system requires insurance on second loans when the first\\n\\nloan is discharged and deleted from the system and the second loan is open and\\n\\nshowing a balance due. In effect, the second loan becomes a primary loan\\n\\nrequiring insurance. Given that apparent practice dictated by Defendant’s\\n\\nsoftware, the question becomes what procedures Defendant implemented to insure\\n\\nthat the Co-Trak systems acts on accurate information when evaluating the need\\n\\nfor insurance. And that depends on the procedures Defendant follows to input\\n\\naccount status and balance information in the Co-Trak system. Were those\\n\\nprocedures reasonable? Construing all facts in Plaintiffs’ favor, as we must on\\n\\nsummary judgment, we agree with Plaintiffs that one cannot state, as a matter of\\n\\nlaw, that Defendant’s procedures to guard against the dissemination of insurance-\\n\\nbilling letters for properties secured by second loans were reasonably adapted for\\n\\nthat purpose. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary\\n\\njudgment to Defendant on its bona fide error defense to allow the trier of fact to\\n\\nmake that determination.8\\n\\n\\n\\n8\\n For similar reasons, we conclude that Defendant is not entitled to summary judgment based on\\nthe bona fide error defense on the claim that two of its lender-placed insurance letters were sent\\nto Plaintiffs after Defendant became aware that Plaintiffs were represented by counsel.\\nDefendant again maintains that it has a policy against such a violation. This policy requires that\\n“once it is learned that an attorney represents the borrower, all contact may be made only with\\nthe attorney, unless the attorney either failed to respond within a reasonable amount of time, or\\nconsents to our direct contact with the borrower.” But, once again, Defendant does not explain\\n 37\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 38 of 60\\n\\n\\n e. Disputed Issues of Fact Exist Concerning Whether\\n Southwest Was Defendant’s Agent\\n\\n Because it granted Defendant summary judgment on its bona fide error\\n\\ndefense, the district court did not reach the question whether Southwest was\\n\\nDefendant’s agent for purpose of generating and disseminating to Plaintiffs the\\n\\nlender-placed insurance letters demanding payment of fire insurance on property\\n\\nthat Defendant well knew Plaintiffs owed no debt. Defendant argues, however,\\n\\nthat even if the bona fide error defense does not succeed, it should still prevail\\n\\nbecause Southwest was not its agent. Even though the district court did not reach\\n\\nthese issues, we are empowered to affirm summary judgment on the present claim,\\n\\nwere we to agree with Defendant, because we “may affirm the district court’s\\n\\nruling on any basis the record supports.” Fla. Wildlife Fed’n Inc. v. United States\\n\\nArmy Corps of Engineers, 859 F.3d 1306, 1316 (11th Cir. 2017). Once again, we\\n\\ndecline to grant Defendant summary judgment on this argument, finding factual\\n\\nquestions that must be resolved by a finder of fact.\\n\\n (1) Actual Agency\\n\\n Defendant contends that “although [it] retained [Southwest] as its vendor to\\n\\nensure that insurance policies were paid when due, no principal-agent relationship\\n\\nexisted concerning mailing the letters.” “Generally, the existence of an agency\\n\\n\\nhow that policy is communicated or implemented, leaving for the jury to decide whether\\nDefendant has procedures reasonably adapted to enforce that policy.\\n\\n\\n 38\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 39 of 60\\n\\n\\nrelationship is a question of fact; however, when the moving party fails to produce\\n\\nany supportive evidence or when the evidence presented is so unequivocal that\\n\\nreasonable persons could reach but one conclusion, that question of fact becomes a\\n\\nquestion of law to be determined by the court.” Hickman v. Barclay’s Int’l Realty,\\n\\nInc., 5 So. 3d 804, 806 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct. App. 2009). “[A]n agency relationship\\n\\nmay be express or implied from apparent authority, and the burden of proving the\\n\\nagency belongs to the party asserting it.” Regions Bank v. Maroone Chevrolet,\\n\\nL.L.C., 118 So. 3d 251, 255 (Fla. 3d Dist. Ct. App. 2013).\\n\\n “Essential to the existence of an actual agency relationship is (1)\\n\\nacknowledgment by the principal that the agent will act for him, (2) the agent’s\\n\\nacceptance of the undertaking, and (3) control by the principal over the actions of\\n\\nthe agent.” Goldschmidt v. Holman, 571 So. 2d 422, 424 n.5 (Fla. 1990). “The\\n\\nkey element in establishing actual agency is the control by the principal over the\\n\\nactions of the agent.” Hickman, 5 So. 3d at 806. “And it is the right of control, not\\n\\nactual control or descriptive labels employed by the parties, that determines an\\n\\nagency relationship.” Id.\\n\\n Given the nature of the Insurance Administration Agreement between\\n\\nDefendant and Southwest, we will assume that a jury could properly determine, as\\n\\nDefendant contends, that Southwest is a typical service provider contracted to\\n\\nperform a task and that no agency relationship existed here. But the evidence is\\n\\n\\n 39\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 40 of 60\\n\\n\\nnot so unequivocal that we can rule as a matter of law that no agency relationship\\n\\nexisted. Id. at 806–07.\\n\\n Construed in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs, the evidence shows that\\n\\nDefendant controlled issuance of Plaintiffs’ insurance letters. Defendant consented\\n\\nto have Southwest act on its behalf in sending lender-placed insurance collection\\n\\nletters to its borrowers. The Insurance Administration Agreement provided that\\n\\n“the form and content of [lender-placed insurance] notices shall have been\\n\\npreviously reviewed and approved by [Defendant].” As reviewed and approved by\\n\\nDefendant, the lender-placed insurance letters in this case were sent on\\n\\nDefendant’s letterhead and were signed “Fire Insurance Processing Center,\\n\\nCarrington Mortgage Services, L.L.C.” The Insurance Administration Agreement\\n\\nalso established Defendant’s authority to obtain and review periodic reports on\\n\\nSouthwest’s activities.\\n\\n Highlighting Defendant’s control as established in the Insurance\\n\\nAdministration Agreement, the evidence reflects, as the district court found,\\n\\n“[Southwest’s] dependence on the Defendant both for accurate data and for\\n\\ninstructions to take corrective action.” The court further noted that “[Southwest]\\n\\ndid not feel it could take corrective action until January 29, 2014 when the\\n\\nDefendant expressly and specifically instructed it to stop.” The facts presented on\\n\\nsummary judgment support the district court’s observations. Under these\\n\\n\\n 40\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 41 of 60\\n\\n\\ncircumstances, where Southwest depended on Defendant for accurate loan\\n\\ninformation and Defendant exercised power to intervene in Southwest’s\\n\\nadministration of Plaintiffs’ insurance, a jury could reasonably find that Southwest\\n\\nacted as Defendant’s agent in sending the lender-placed insurance letters to\\n\\nPlaintiffs.\\n\\n (2) Apparent Agency\\n\\n Construed in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs, sufficient evidence of\\n\\napparent agency also exists to preclude summary judgment for Defendant.\\n\\n“[A]pparent authority is a form of estoppel [which arises] from ‘the authority a\\n\\nprincipal knowingly tolerates or allows an agent to assume, or which the principal\\n\\nby his actions or words holds the agent out as possessing.’” Regions Bank, 118 So.\\n\\n3d at 255 (quoting Jackson Hewitt, Inc. v. Kaman, 100 So. 3d 19, 31 (Fla. 2d Dist.\\n\\nCt. App. 2011)). Apparent agency exists only where the principal creates the\\n\\nappearance of authority. Id. Plaintiffs must prove three elements to establish an\\n\\napparent agency: (1) a representation by the purported principal; (2) a reliance on\\n\\nthat representation by a third party; and (3) a change in position by the third party\\n\\nin reliance on the representation. Mobil Oil Corp. v. Bransford, 648 So. 2d 119,\\n\\n121 (Fla. 1995). “It is well settled under Florida law that, [t]he existence of an\\n\\nagency relationship, the nature and extent of the agent’s authority, and the\\n\\ninclusion within the scope of that authority of a particular act are ordinarily\\n\\n\\n 41\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 42 of 60\\n\\n\\nquestions to be determined by the jury or by the trier of facts in accordance with\\n\\nthe evidence adduced in the particular case.” Citibank, N.A. v. Data Lease Fin.\\n\\nCorp., 828 F.2d 686, 691 (11th Cir. 1987) (quotations omitted).\\n\\n Here, the Insurance Agreement granted Defendant control over the content\\n\\nof the lender-placed insurance letters. Defendant dictated, or at least allowed,\\n\\nSouthwest to issue those letters, not just under Defendant’s letterhead, but as\\n\\nsigned by “Fire Insurance Processing Center, Carrington Mortgage Services,\\n\\nL.L.C.” A jury could reasonably conclude that Southwest acted with apparent\\n\\nauthority on behalf of Defendant and that Plaintiffs relied on the representations\\n\\nDefendant authorized Southwest to make when they dealt with Defendant. See\\n\\nAlmerico v. RLI Ins. Co., 716 So. 2d 774, 783 (Fla. 1998) (holding under Fla. Stat.\\n\\n§ 626.342(2) that “civil liability may be imposed upon insurers who cloak\\n\\nunaffiliated insurance agents with sufficient indicia of agency to induce a\\n\\nreasonable person to conclude that there is an actual agency relationship”).\\n\\n In short, contrary to Defendant’s urging, we cannot conclude as a matter of\\n\\nlaw that no agency relationship existed between Defendant and Southwest. Again,\\n\\nthis will be a decision for the finder of fact.\\n\\n f. Defendant’s Alleged Lack of Actual Knowledge of a\\n Violation\\n\\n As a final alternative ground for affirmance, Defendant argues that it lacked\\n\\nactual knowledge of the lender-placed insurance letter violations. We have stated\\n\\n 42\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 43 of 60\\n\\n\\nthat “[i]n contrast to the FDCPA, Section 559.72(9) of the [Florida Collections\\n\\nAct] requires a plaintiff to demonstrate that the debt collector defendant possessed\\n\\nactual knowledge that the threatened means of enforcing the debt was\\n\\nunavailable.” LeBlanc, 601 F.3d at 1192 n.12. Defendant construes those cases as\\n\\nrequiring that Plaintiffs prove that Defendant had actual knowledge that Southwest\\n\\nsent the lender-placed insurance letters to Plaintiffs and maintains that no such\\n\\nevidence exists. We disagree.\\n\\n The statute provides that:\\n\\n In collecting consumer debts, no person shall:\\n\\n ****\\n (9) Claim, attempt, or threaten to enforce a debt when such person\\n knows that the debt is not legitimate, or assert the existence of some\\n other legal right when such person knows that the right does not exist.\\n\\nFla. Stat. § 559.72(9). The statute merely requires that Defendant know the debt is\\n\\nnot legitimate or the asserted legal right does not exist. The statute does not\\n\\npreclude a principal from being held liable for the debt-collection efforts of its\\n\\nagent when the principal knows that the debt is illegitimate. None of the cases\\n\\ncited by Defendant addresses a principal’s liability for the illegitimate collection\\n\\nefforts of its agent.\\n\\n Here, Defendant indisputably knew at the time its alleged agent, Southwest,\\n\\nsent the insurance letters that Plaintiffs no longer owned the property and had no\\n\\noutstanding debt. And Defendant as the “principal is bound by the acts of his\\n 43\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 44 of 60\\n\\n\\nagent.” Thomkin Corp. v. Miller, 24 So. 2d 48, 49 (Fla. 1945). “Even where an\\n\\nagent’s act is unauthorized, the principal is liable if the agent had the apparent\\n\\nauthority to do the act and that apparent authority was reasonably relied upon by\\n\\nthe third party dealing with the agent.” Benson v. Seestrom, 409 So. 2d 172, 173\\n\\n(Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App. 1982).\\n\\n Plaintiffs also submitted evidence that Defendant knew each time Southwest\\n\\nsent a letter to Plaintiffs on its behalf because the system notated it in Defendant’s\\n\\nFISERVE database.9 At any rate, Southwest’s knowledge that it sent the letters\\n\\nmay be imputed to Defendant if Plaintiffs establish a principal/agent relationship.\\n\\nRuotal Corp., N. W., Inc. v. Ottati, 391 So. 2d 308, 309 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct. App.\\n\\n1980) (“It is axiomatic that knowledge of the agent constitutes knowledge of the\\n\\nprincipal as long as the agent received such knowledge while acting within the\\n\\nscope of his authority.”).\\n\\n Again, the record evidence is insufficient to justify summary judgment for\\n\\nDefendant based on its alleged lack of actual knowledge of a Florida Collections\\n\\nAct violation.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n9\\n The system put in place by Defendant and Southwest generated the insurance letters\\nautomatically. We reach no conclusion whether such computerized records of automated\\nactivities provide “actual knowledge” of what transpired to a system administrator.\\n\\n 44\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 45 of 60\\n\\n\\n C. Plaintiffs’ Breach of Contract Claim (Count III)\\n\\n 1. Defendant’s Breach of the Reporting Provision (¶ 3(b))\\n a. Basis for District Court’s Grant of Summary Judgment to\\n Defendant\\n\\n “For a breach of contract claim, Florida law 10 requires the plaintiff to plead\\n\\nand establish: (1) the existence of a contract; (2) a material breach of that contract;\\n\\nand (3) damages resulting from the breach.” Vega v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 564 F.3d\\n\\n1256, 1272 (11th Cir. 2009) (emphasis added). “To constitute a vital or material\\n\\nbreach, a defendant’s non-performance must be such as to go to the essence of the\\n\\ncontract.” Sublime, Inc. v. Boardman’s Inc., 849 So. 2d 470, 471 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct.\\n\\nApp. 2003).\\n\\n To reprise the sequence of events necessary to understand Plaintiffs’ breach\\n\\nof contract claim, in 2009, Plaintiffs and Defendant settled the foreclosure action\\n\\nfiled by Defendant against Plaintiffs’ property. The terms of the settlement\\n\\nrequired Plaintiffs to vacate the premises and convey the deed for the property to\\n\\nDefendant. In return, Defendant agreed to report to credit reporting agencies that\\n\\nthe mortgage was discharged with a zero balance. Failing to live up to this\\n\\nagreement, however, Defendant instead reported to agencies that Plaintiffs were in\\n\\ndefault on their debt, and it continued to seek repayment on the non-existent debt.\\n\\n\\n10\\n The settlement agreement does not contain a choice of law provision, but both parties apply\\nFlorida law in briefing the contract dispute. See Fioretti v. Massachusetts Gen. Life Ins. Co., 53\\nF.3d 1228, 1235 (11th Cir. 1995) (explaining the doctrine of lex loci contractus).\\n 45\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 46 of 60\\n\\n\\n The breach of this first settlement agreement is not a part of Plaintiffs’\\n\\npresent claim. Instead that breach underlay Plaintiffs’ claims in the First Action,\\n\\nfiled in 2012. During the litigation of the First Action, Defendant actually\\n\\ncorrected its misreporting of Plaintiffs’ first loan by sending corrected automated\\n\\nreports to credit reporting agencies, indicating that the first loan had a zero balance.\\n\\nFor reasons unclear, however, Defendant failed to correct reports showing that\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ second loan likewise had a zero balance. Accordingly, in the second\\n\\nsettlement agreement between the parties, Defendant agreed to report to agencies\\n\\nthat likewise no money was owed on this second loan.\\n\\n Although Defendant eventually transmitted to credit reporting agencies the\\n\\nexistence of a zero balance on the second loan, Plaintiffs contend in the present\\n\\naction that Defendant’s compliance was tardy under the terms of the settlement\\n\\nagreement, and that therefore Defendant breached ¶ 3(b) of the contract.\\n\\nParagraph 3(b) required Defendant to:\\n\\n report the Second Loan as having a zero balance as of December 9,\\n 2009 to the same agencies and in the same fashion as it reported the\\n First Loan, which reporting shall be done as soon as reasonably\\n possible, but in any case within 90 days.\\n\\n(emphasis added).\\n\\n Defendant, however, neglected to send corrected reports to credit reporting\\n\\nagencies regarding this second loan until April 25, 2013, which was two days after\\n\\nexpiration of the maximum 90-day time period set out in ¶ 3(b). The district court\\n 46\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 47 of 60\\n\\n\\nconcluded that Defendant had breached its settlement agreement through its\\n\\ntardiness, but it did not reach the question whether the breach was material because\\n\\nit concluded that Plaintiffs had made “an insufficient argument for damages.”\\n\\nBecause damages are an essential element of a breach-of-contract claim, the\\n\\ndistrict court granted summary judgment to Defendant on this claim.\\n\\n In reaching this conclusion, however, the court addressed only Plaintiffs’\\n\\nclaim for damages arising from the emotional distress that their ordeal with\\n\\nDefendant had caused them and for damages arising from the issuance of a false\\n\\n1099 tax form11 as a result of the inaccurate information recorded by Defendant\\n\\nconcerning the second loan. The court failed to address the damages alleged by\\n\\nPlaintiffs to have resulted from the higher deposits and loan interest rates that\\n\\nPlaintiffs were required to pay in financing the purchase of two automobiles.\\n\\n b. Damages\\n We address first the question whether Plaintiffs have alleged viable damages\\n\\nas a result of any breach of the settlement agreement by Defendant because,\\n\\nwithout such damages, Plaintiffs’ breach-of-contract claim cannot succeed.\\n\\n (1) Emotional Distress Damages\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n11\\n Plaintiffs do not challenge on appeal the grant of summary judgment as to that part of the\\nclaim involving issuance of the 1099 form.\\n\\n\\n 47\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 48 of 60\\n\\n\\n Examining first Plaintiffs’ claim that they were entitled to pursue damages\\n\\nbased on emotional distress caused by Defendant’s breach of the settlement\\n\\nagreement, we agree with the district court that these damages are not available for\\n\\na breach of contract claim under Florida law. Defendant cites Florida caselaw in\\n\\nsupport of its argument that such damages are unavailable. Specifically, it notes\\n\\nthat the Florida Supreme Court “is committed to the rule . . . that there can be no\\n\\nrecovery for mental pain and anguish unconnected with physical injury in an action\\n\\narising out of the negligent breach of a contract whereby simple negligence is\\n\\ninvolved.” Kirksey v. Jernigan, 45 So. 2d 188, 189 (Fla. 1950). Further, as a\\n\\ngeneral rule, damages for mental distress caused by a breach of contract are not\\n\\nallowed under Florida law unless the breach amounts to an independent, willful\\n\\ntort. Gellert v. E. Air Lines, Inc., 370 So. 2d 802, 805 (Fla. 3d Dist. Ct. App.\\n\\n1979). Indeed, “where the gravamen of the proceeding is breach of contract, even\\n\\nif such breach be willful and flagrant, there can be no recovery for mental pain and\\n\\nanguish resulting from such breach.” Floyd v. Video Barn, Inc., 538 So. 2d 1322,\\n\\n1325 (Fla. 1st Dist. Ct. App. 1989) (quotations omitted) (affirming no damages for\\n\\nmental and emotional suffering available for breach of contract where videographer\\n\\nfailed to record a wedding).\\n\\n Plaintiffs have not alleged, much less established, a willful tort independent\\n\\nof the contract arising from Defendant’s breach of the settlement agreement.\\n\\n\\n 48\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 49 of 60\\n\\n\\nSignificantly, Plaintiffs cite no Florida authority in support of their argument that\\n\\nthey can properly seek emotional distress damages based on Defendant’s breach of\\n\\nthe settlement agreement. Instead, Plaintiffs rely on two non-Florida cases that are\\n\\ninapt for purposes of this issue. 12\\n\\n Plaintiffs also argue that “[s]ince emotional distress damages are recoverable\\n\\nfor FCRA, FDCPA, and [Florida Collections Act] violations, it cannot reasonably\\n\\nbe denied that emotional distress is a foreseeable consequence of the breach of a\\n\\ncontract specifically intended to resolve prior violations of those same statutes.”\\n\\n(emphasis in original). We find this argument unpersuasive. That Plaintiffs might\\n\\nhave another vehicle for pursuing emotional distress damages based on a particular\\n\\nact by Defendant does not mean that we are empowered to ignore controlling\\n\\nFlorida law that precludes those damages for this particular cause of action.\\n\\n Nevertheless, Plaintiffs contend that “it would be contrary to public policy to\\n\\nallow a violator of the FCRA, the Florida Collections Act, and the FDCPA—who\\n\\n\\n12\\n In arguing that emotional distress damages are permitted if they were the foreseeable result of\\na breach of the settlement agreement, Plaintiffs cite Sheely v. MRI Radiology Network, P.A., 505\\nF.3d 1173 (11th Cir. 2007). In Sheely, however, the plaintiff had sought emotional distress\\ndamages based on an intentional violation of the federal Rehabilitation Act provision prohibiting\\ndiscrimination against the disabled by recipients of federal funds. Neither the facts nor the legal\\nanalysis there apply to this case, which involves a contract dispute under Florida law.\\n\\nPlaintiffs also rely on language found in McGinnis v. American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc.,\\n901 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 2018), which addressed the question whether the amount of a jury’s\\npunitive damages award violated due process in a case where the defendant mortgage holder was\\nfound liable under Georgia law for conversion, wrongful foreclosure, interference with property\\nrights, and intentional inflection of emotional distress. Id. at 1287. Again, neither the legal\\nissues nor the facts of that case jibe with this case.\\n 49\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 50 of 60\\n\\n\\nwould otherwise be liable for emotional distress damages—to avoid those damages\\n\\nsimply by entering into a settlement agreement with which it fails to comply.”\\n\\nThis argument ignores the fact that, through the settlement agreement reached to\\n\\nresolve the First Action, Defendant compensated Plaintiffs $125,000 for its past\\n\\nviolations of the FCRA, FDCPA, and Florida Collections Act: a negotiated figure\\n\\nthat presumably included compensation for any emotional distress suffered. As to\\n\\nany additional emotional distress that Plaintiffs may have suffered as a result of\\n\\nDefendant’s post-settlement violations of the FCRA and the Florida Collections\\n\\nAct, Plaintiffs have sought damages for that distress in the present action and will\\n\\nbe able to pursue those damages at trial.\\n\\n (2) Damages Based on Increased Financing Costs in\\n Connection with Purchase of Automobiles\\n\\n While we agree with the district court that emotional distress damages are\\n\\nnot cognizable as to the breach of contract claim, there was another item of\\n\\ndamages for this claim that the district court overlooked. Specifically, Plaintiffs\\n\\nallege that Defendant’s failure to timely correct its erroneous reports indicating the\\n\\nexistence of a continuing debt on the second loan, as the settlement agreement\\n\\nrequired it to do, caused Plaintiffs to suffer from adverse financing terms when\\n\\npurchasing two vehicles subsequent to the agreement. Plaintiffs submitted\\n\\ndeclarations and financing documents showing that each obtained car loans on\\n\\nFebruary 23, 2013, with interest rates of 17.99% and 24.49% and a larger down\\n 50\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 51 of 60\\n\\n\\npayment than would otherwise be required absent the false information in the\\n\\ncredit reports issued by Defendant.\\n\\n This evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, raises a\\n\\ntriable issue of damages so long as Plaintiffs can establish a triable issue as to\\n\\nwhether the agreement required Defendant to issue its correction prior to the date\\n\\nthat Plaintiffs financed their newly-purchased cars: February 23, 2013. We turn to\\n\\nthat question next.\\n\\n c. Whether Defendant’s Failure to Correct Its Records Prior\\n to February 23, 2013 Constituted A Breach of ¶ 3(b) of\\n the Settlement Agreement\\n\\n As noted, ¶ 3(b) of the January 23, 2013 settlement agreement required\\n\\nDefendant to “report the Second Loan as having a zero balance . . . as soon as\\n\\nreasonably possible, but in any case within 90 days.” That Defendant did not\\n\\ncorrect its reporting of the second loan until April 25, 2013, two days after the\\n\\nmaximum time allotted by ¶ 3(b), is undisputed. Thus, Defendant breached the\\n\\nrequirement that it correct its reports to credit agencies concerning the absence of\\n\\nany debt by Plaintiffs to Defendant no later than 90 days following the settlement\\n\\nagreement.\\n\\n That breach, however, does not help Plaintiffs in their efforts to prove\\n\\ndamages related to the financing terms of their newly-purchased automobiles\\n\\nbecause this financing occurred on February 23, 2013, which was before the 90-\\n\\n\\n 51\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 52 of 60\\n\\n\\nday April 23 deadline. Defendant argues that the timing of Plaintiffs’ automobile\\n\\nfinancing purchase ends any contention that its breach harmed Plaintiffs because\\n\\nDefendant had carte blanche to wait until the 90th day to issue its corrections, and\\n\\nthe fact that it missed that deadline by two days caused Plaintiffs no harm in\\n\\nconnection with their earlier February financing of the automobiles.\\n\\n Defendant is dead wrong in its insistence that it had no obligation to correct\\n\\nthe erroneous reports before expiration of the 90-day period. Rather, the\\n\\nagreement clearly states that the corrected reporting shall be done “as soon as\\n\\nreasonably possible.” The 90-day provision means only that the correction had to\\n\\nbe issued by that deadline, no matter what arguments Defendant might later make\\n\\nas to how long it reasonably took to issue the corrected report. It did not exempt\\n\\nDefendant from a duty to report, “as soon as reasonably possible,” the correct\\n\\ninformation “to the same agencies and in the same fashion as it reported the First\\n\\nLoan.” Moreover, the agreement also reflected the parties’ acknowledgement that\\n\\n“time is of the essence in the performance of the obligations of this Agreement.”\\n\\n Indeed, it seems quite unlikely that Defendant reported “as soon as\\n\\nreasonably possible” the correct information inasmuch as it sent automated reports\\n\\non February 11, March 11, and April 10, 2013 that repeated the same incorrect\\n\\ninformation about Plaintiffs’ debt. How much time would it reasonably have taken\\n\\nto correct the entries on these automated monthly reports? One can reasonably\\n\\n\\n 52\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 53 of 60\\n\\n\\nassume that by the March and April reports, Defendant could surely have gotten its\\n\\nact together. But for our purposes here, the question is whether it was reasonably\\n\\npossible for Defendant to have issued a corrected report by the time that Plaintiffs\\n\\nfinanced their automobiles, on February 23. The financing occurred a month after\\n\\nthe settlement agreement. If it was reasonably possible to have issued a corrected\\n\\nreport by February 23, Defendant breached ¶ 3(b) by failing to do so, and Plaintiffs\\n\\nwill have stated a viable claim for damages as a result of that breach.\\n\\n The district court’s observations certainly suggest that a month was plenty of\\n\\ntime for Defendant to have issued a corrected report to credit reporting agencies.\\n\\nThe court noted that Defendant’s insistence on waiting until the end of the 90-day\\n\\nperiod to issue accurate reports was not “in the spirit of the deadline” and that\\n\\n“[t]he overall record shows than when prompted, the Defendant is able to issue\\n\\nAUD’s to the [credit reporting agencies] quickly and expeditiously.” The latter\\n\\nobservation appears accurate. Yet, focused as it was on the emotional distress\\n\\ndamages, and not on the potential automobile-financing-charge damages, the\\n\\ndistrict court did not draw any formal conclusion concerning whether Defendant\\n\\ncould have issued a corrected report by February 23. Accordingly, we conclude\\n\\nthat this question will require factual development at trial. We therefore reverse\\n\\nthe district court’s grant of summary judgment on the breach of contract claim\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 53\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 54 of 60\\n\\n\\nbased on Defendant’s alleged breach of ¶ 3(b)’s “as soon as reasonably possible”\\n\\nprovision, and remand for proceedings consistent with the above discussion.\\n\\n 2. Defendant’s Alleged Breach of the Non-Disparagement\\n Provision (¶ 7)\\n\\n As explained in the preceding section, ¶ 3(b) of the January 23, 2013\\n\\nsettlement agreement required Defendant to report as soon as reasonably possible\\n\\nto credit reporting agencies that the second loan had a zero balance. It took\\n\\nDefendant 92 days—until April 25—to do so (and even then Defendant added a\\n\\nfalse report that Plaintiffs had a balloon note due in 2021). During that 92-day\\n\\nperiod, Defendant continued to issue their regular, monthly automated reports—on\\n\\nFebruary 11, March 11, and April 10—which reports incorrectly showed the\\n\\nexistence of a second loan on which Plaintiffs were delinquent. Because Plaintiffs’\\n\\nonly viable damages arise from the financing of newly-purchased automobiles on\\n\\nFebruary 23, on remand the jury’s resolution of the breach of contract claim under\\n\\n¶ 3(b) will turn on its determination whether it was reasonably possible for\\n\\nDefendant to have issued a corrected report prior to February 23.\\n\\n Plaintiffs argue that even if it were not reasonably possible for Defendant to\\n\\nhave issued a corrected report by February 23, Defendant should still be found to\\n\\nhave breached the settlement agreement based on ¶ 7’s non-disparagement\\n\\nprovision, which states that “[t]he parties agree that they will not make any\\n\\nstatements disparaging, deprecating, or denigrating each other from the date of this\\n\\n 54\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 55 of 60\\n\\n\\nAgreement forward, with respect to any or all of the matters alleged in the\\n\\nLitigation.” Plaintiffs contend that because the automated monthly report issued\\n\\non February 11, 2013 erroneously indicated that Plaintiffs were delinquent on a\\n\\nloan with a past-due balance of almost $15,000, Defendant disparaged them.\\n\\nMoreover, because ¶ 7 contains no language requiring Defendant to communicate\\n\\nthe correct information to credit reporting agencies as soon as reasonably possible,\\n\\nPlaintiffs argue that it does not matter whether it was reasonably possible for\\n\\nDefendant to disseminate a corrected report by February 11.\\n\\n The disparagement clause is broadly-worded and includes any type of\\n\\nconduct or communications that might “deprecate” or “denigrate” Plaintiffs. We\\n\\nagree with Plaintiffs that the issuance of a report falsely indicating that Plaintiffs\\n\\nare behind in their payments on a loan is one type of communication that would\\n\\nconstitute disparagement. But we disagree that we can ignore the language in the\\n\\nspecific provision governing Defendant’s duty to issue a corrected report that gives\\n\\nDefendant a reasonable period of time to do so. “[I]t is a general principle of\\n\\ncontract interpretation that a specific provision dealing with a particular subject\\n\\nwill control over a different provision dealing only generally with that same\\n\\nsubject.” Kel Homes, LLC v. Burris, 933 So. 2d 699, 703 (Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App.\\n\\n2006). Here, there is a specific provision that spells out the time requirement for\\n\\nDefendant to correct its previous inaccurate reports to credit reporting agencies.\\n\\n\\n 55\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 56 of 60\\n\\n\\nOnce again, that provision requires Defendant to “report the Second Loan as\\n\\nhaving a zero balance as of December 9, 2009 to the same agencies and in the\\n\\nsame fashion as it reported the First Loan, which reporting shall be done as soon as\\n\\nreasonably possible.”\\n\\n Were we to deprive Defendant of the brief window of time that ¶ 3(b) allows\\n\\nfor it to issue a corrected report, we would be essentially expunging language from\\n\\nthe contract that the parties had agreed on. Nothing in the settlement agreement\\n\\nsuggests the parties intended the non-disparagement provision to entirely\\n\\neviscerate ¶ 3(b)’s provision concerning the time permitted Defendant to issue a\\n\\ncorrected report. If, for example, a scheduled, automated monthly report\\n\\ncontaining incorrect information about the second loan was due to be, and was\\n\\nactually, disseminated on January 24—the day after the parties had entered into the\\n\\nsettlement agreement and with no ability by Defendant to stop its issuance—surely\\n\\nPlaintiffs would not argue that ¶ 7’s anti-disparagement provision deprived\\n\\nDefendant of the reasonable period of time to correct that was allowed by ¶ 3(b),\\n\\nwhich was the key section of the settlement agreement and the provision that\\n\\nspecifically governed the time period within which Defendant was required to act.\\n\\n Again, given our own knowledge of this record, we are very doubtful that\\n\\nthe evidence at trial will show that Defendant could not have issued a correct\\n\\nreport prior to February 11, when the disparaging, incorrect report was issued. Or\\n\\n\\n 56\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 57 of 60\\n\\n\\nto put it another way, we are doubtful that it was not reasonably possible for\\n\\nDefendant to insure that the information included in its regular, monthly February\\n\\n11 report was accurate and in compliance with the directives of the settlement\\n\\nagreement. Nevertheless, it is up to the jury to decide this question and if the jury\\n\\nconcludes that it was reasonably possible for Defendant to have issued a correct\\n\\nreport by February 11, 13 the date on which it disparaged Plaintiffs, then Plaintiffs\\n\\nwill have presumably established a breach of contract based on both the\\n\\ndisparagement and the duty-to-correct-report provisions of the settlement\\n\\nagreement. If the jury concludes only that it was reasonably possible for\\n\\nDefendant to have issued a correct report prior to the securing of financing by\\n\\nPlaintiffs on February 23, then Plaintiffs will have established liability as to the\\n\\nduty-to-correct-report claim under ¶ 3(b).\\n\\n In short, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to\\n\\nDefendant on Plaintiffs’ breach of contract claim and remand for proceedings\\n\\nconsistent with the guidance set out above.\\n\\n D. Attorney’s Fees\\n Defendant has appealed the district court’s award of attorney’s fees to\\n\\nPlaintiffs as being too high; Plaintiffs appeal, asserting that the award was too low.\\n\\n\\n\\n13\\n Again, we focus on the February 11 report because Plaintiffs have not established a viable\\nclaim for breach-of-contract damages arising after the disparaging March 11 and April 10\\nreports.\\n 57\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 58 of 60\\n\\n\\nWe review an award of attorney’s fees “for abuse of discretion; nevertheless, that\\n\\nstandard of review still allows us to closely scrutinize questions of law decided by\\n\\nthe district court in reaching a fee award.” Perez v. Wells Fargo N.A., 774 F.3d\\n\\n1329, 1342 (11th Cir. 2014) (quotation omitted). An abuse of discretion review\\n\\nrequires us to “affirm unless we find that the district court has made a clear error of\\n\\njudgment, or has applied the wrong legal standard.” United States v. Frazier, 387\\n\\nF.3d 1244, 1259 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc).\\n\\n Because we have reversed in large part those portions of the district court’s\\n\\norder granting summary judgment to Defendant and because the district court\\n\\nbased its award of attorney’s fees, in part, on the number of claims on which\\n\\nPlaintiffs prevailed, we remand the attorney’s fees issue for further proceedings\\n\\nconsistent with this opinion. Perez, 774 F.3d at 1342.\\n\\n That said, based on the record it was reviewing, we see nothing in the\\n\\ndistrict court’s analysis and fee award that constitutes an abuse of discretion as to\\n\\neither party. Nevertheless, as the district court reduced Plaintiffs’ request, in part,\\n\\nbased on Plaintiffs’ failure to prevail on all claims—an approach suggested by\\n\\nDefendant—and should Plaintiffs prevail on any additional claims on remand, we\\n\\nassume that the present award of $94,000 will act as a floor when the district court\\n\\ndetermines the appropriate attorney’s fees for Plaintiffs.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 58\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 59 of 60\\n\\n\\nIV. CONCLUSION\\n\\n For the reasons explained above, we AFFIRM in part, REVERSE in part,\\n\\nand REMAND for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion, as follows.\\n\\n Count I–Fair Credit Reporting Act\\n\\n We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Plaintiffs on the\\n\\nquestion of whether Defendant willfully violated this Act. But we conclude that\\n\\ngenuine issues of material fact exist concerning Plaintiffs’ claimed emotional\\n\\ndistress damages and that punitive damages are not precluded as a matter of law,\\n\\nand thus we reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendant\\n\\non those claimed damages. We remand for a jury trial Plaintiffs’ claims for\\n\\nemotional distress damages and punitive damages under this statute.\\n\\n Count II–Florida Consumer Collections Practices Act\\n\\n We reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendant on\\n\\nthis claim. Specifically, we conclude that (1) genuine issues of material fact exist\\n\\nregarding whether Defendant made debt collection calls to Plaintiffs in the fall of\\n\\n2013; (2) genuine issues of material fact exist regarding whether Defendant\\n\\nmaintained procedures reasonably adapted to avoid violations of the Florida\\n\\nConsumer Collections Practices Act that would entitle Defendant to the bona fide\\n\\nerror defense; and (3) genuine issues of material fact exist regarding whether\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 59\\n\\f Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 60 of 60\\n\\n\\nDefendant’s vendor, Southwest, was acting as Defendant’s agent when it sent\\n\\nlender-placed insurance letters to Plaintiffs. We remand this claim for a jury trial.\\n\\n Count III–Breach of Contract\\n\\n We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendant on\\n\\nPlaintiffs’ claim for emotional distress damages based on Defendant’s breach of\\n\\nthe parties’ contract. We nevertheless reverse the district court’s grant of summary\\n\\njudgment to Defendant on the breach-of-contract claim, concluding that a genuine\\n\\nissue of material fact exists as to (1) whether Defendant breached ¶ 3(b) or ¶ 7 of\\n\\nthe settlement agreement and (2) whether Plaintiffs have proved damages caused\\n\\nby any such breach.\\n\\n Attorney’s Fees\\n\\n With respect to attorney’s fees, we vacate and remand the award of\\n\\nattorney’s fees to permit the district court to determine the appropriate fee award\\n\\nupon the conclusion of this litigation.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 60\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1362,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4595449,"string":"4,595,449"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"UNITED STATES of America, Appellee v. John Milton AUSBY, Appellant"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"United States v. John Ausby"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-01"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"17-3077"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Henderson, Srinivasan, Millett\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"PER CURIAM\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued November 5, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\\n\\n No. 17-3077\\n\\n UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,\\n APPELLEE\\n\\n v.\\n\\n JOHN MILTON AUSBY,\\n APPELLANT\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:72-cr-00067-1)\\n\\n\\n Adam G. Thompson argued the cause for the appellant.\\nJenna M. Cobb and Jonathan W. Anderson were with him on\\nbrief.\\n\\n Jessie K. Liu, United States Attorney, argued the cause for\\nthe appellee. Elizabeth Trosman, John P. Mannarino and\\nPamela S. Satterfield, Assistant United States Attorneys, were\\nwith her on brief.\\n\\n Before: HENDERSON, SRINIVASAN and MILLETT, Circuit\\nJudges.\\n\\n PER CURIAM: In 1972, the government charged John\\nMilton Ausby with the murder and rape of Deborah Noel. The\\n\\f 2\\nprosecution introduced several pieces of evidence at trial\\nconnecting Ausby to the crime, including the testimony of a\\nforensic expert who claimed that hairs found at the crime scene\\nwere microscopically identical to Ausby’s hair. The jury\\nsubsequently convicted Ausby of the rape and murder and\\nAusby received a life sentence.\\n\\n The government now concedes that the testimony of the\\nforensic expert was false and misleading and that the\\ngovernment knew or should have known so at the time of\\nAusby’s trial. Ausby moved to vacate his conviction under 28\\nU.S.C. § 2255 and the holding in Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S.\\n264 (1959). The district court denied Ausby’s motion because\\nit determined that the forensic expert’s testimony was not\\nmaterial to the jury’s guilty verdict. United States v. Ausby,\\n275 F. Supp. 3d 7, 32 (D.D.C. 2017). We, however, conclude\\nthat Ausby has demonstrated a “reasonable likelihood” that the\\nforensic expert’s admittedly false testimony “could . . . have\\naffected the judgment of the jury.” Napue, 360 U.S. at 271.\\nWe therefore reverse.\\n\\n I. BACKGROUND\\n\\n Deborah Noel returned to her apartment on December 14\\nfor the first time in two weeks. Shortly after her arrival, she\\nwas raped and murdered in her bedroom. A grand jury\\nindicted Ausby on six counts related to Noel’s death: felony\\nmurder, premeditated murder, rape while armed, rape, burglary\\nwhile armed and burglary.\\n\\n At trial, the prosecution introduced substantial evidence\\nconnecting Ausby to Noel’s rape and murder. First, the\\nprosecution called to testify two individuals who encountered\\na black male in garb resembling Ausby’s in Noel’s apartment\\nbuilding in the days leading up to her murder. One of the two\\nidentified Ausby himself from a photo array and in the\\n\\f 3\\ncourtroom during trial. Second, the prosecution presented\\nevidence that Ausby had left a thumbprint inside Noel’s\\napartment sometime within ten days of the murder. Third, the\\nprosecution presented evidence that vials of scented oil left\\ninside Noel’s apartment and beneath her windows belonged to\\nAusby. Fourth, the prosecution presented evidence that the\\nbullet that killed Noel potentially, but not definitively, matched\\nthe handgun Ausby was carrying when he was arrested.\\n\\n At issue here, the government also elicited testimony from\\nFBI Special Agent Robert Neill, a microscopic hair analysis\\nspecialist, regarding hair found at the scene of the crime.\\nAccording to Agent Neill’s testimony, microscopic analysis of\\nhair involved categorizing hair on the basis of between fifteen\\nand twenty-five characteristics “which tend to be more or less\\nunique to a particular individual.” To compare two hairs,\\nAgent Neill placed them side-by-side under a special\\nmicroscope and then compared them using the hairs’\\nobservable characteristics.\\n\\n Agent Neill testified that hairs taken from inside Noel’s\\napartment and on her body were “microscopically identical” to\\nAusby’s hairs. Although Agent Neill acknowledged that\\n“microscopic hair comparisons do not constitute a basis of\\npositive personal identification,” he opined that “the\\nquestioned hairs . . . either originated from the head of Mr.\\nAusby or from some other person . . . whose head hairs or\\npubic hairs are microscopically identical.”\\n\\n During its closing statement, the prosecution reviewed the\\ntestimony from those who encountered Ausby in the apartment\\nbuilding and the evidence connecting him to the oils found in\\nNoel’s bedroom and under her windows. The prosecutor then\\nasked the jury: “Now, could I not have rested my case right\\nthere? Could you not have said, Why are you boring me with\\n\\f 4\\nanything further in this case? Is that not enough to convict this\\ndefendant?” But continuing on, the prosecutor revisited\\nAgent Neill’s hair-comparison testimony as well as the\\nevidence regarding Ausby’s thumbprint and the potential\\nmatch between Ausby’s handgun and the bullet that killed\\nNoel.\\n\\n In his closing, defense counsel admitted that Ausby had\\nentered Noel’s apartment but argued that he did so during\\nNoel’s two-week absence, not on the day of her rape and\\nmurder. He challenged the reliability of Agent Neill’s\\npurported identification of Ausby’s hairs on Noel’s body,\\nparticularly given that Agent Neill had conceded that\\nmicroscopic hair comparison analysis cannot produce a\\npositive identification. In response, the prosecutor asserted\\nduring his rebuttal that microscopic hair comparison analysis\\n“is not a positive means of identification but it amounts to a\\npositive means here.”\\n\\n The jury convicted Ausby of felony murder and rape while\\narmed. The court then sentenced Ausby to life imprisonment\\nfor Noel’s murder and ten to thirty years’ imprisonment for her\\nrape. This Court affirmed Ausby’s conviction and sentence.\\nUnited States v. Ausby, 489 F.2d 1273 (Table) (D.C. Cir. 1974)\\n(per curiam). Ausby has fully served his rape sentence,\\nleaving his life sentence for murder.\\n\\n In 2012, the FBI and the Department of Justice began\\nreviewing cases in which the government had introduced\\ntestimony regarding microscopic hair comparison analysis to\\nassess whether the government’s forensic expert gave false or\\nmisleading testimony that exceeded the limits of science.\\nAfter reviewing Ausby’s case, the FBI determined that Agent\\nNeill misled the jury by implying that he could positively\\nidentify the hairs taken from the crime scene as belonging to\\n\\f 5\\nAusby. In light of Agent Neill’s admittedly misleading\\ntestimony, the United States conceded error and waived any\\nstatute of limitations and procedural-default defenses in the\\nevent Ausby sought relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The\\ngovernment, however, took “no position regarding the\\nmateriality of the error” at that time.\\n\\n Following the government’s concession, Ausby moved to\\nvacate his conviction under 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a) “due to the\\ngovernment’s knowing presentation of false and misleading\\nexpert hair examination testimony, in violation of the Due\\nProcess Clause of the Fifth Amendment and Napue v. Illinois.”\\nThe district court denied Ausby’s § 2255 motion. Ausby, 275\\nF. Supp. 3d at 32. The court determined that Agent Neill’s\\ntestimony was not material to Ausby’s conviction “because\\ngiven the overwhelming evidence against him, even absent the\\nfalse hair matching testimony, there is no ‘reasonable\\nlikelihood’ that the hair evidence ‘could have altered the\\noutcome of the case.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Vega, 826\\nF.3d 514, 531 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (per curiam)). The district\\ncourt, however, granted Ausby a certificate of appealability and\\nAusby timely noticed an appeal.\\n\\n II. ANALYSIS\\n\\n A federal prisoner may move to have his sentence vacated\\nunder 28 U.S.C. § 2255 if “the sentence was imposed in\\nviolation of the Constitution or laws of the United States.” 28\\nU.S.C. § 2255(a). Under Napue v. Illinois and its progeny,\\n“the prosecution’s introduction of false testimony” deprives a\\ndefendant of a fair trial as required by the Fifth and Sixth\\nAmendments. United States v. Straker, 800 F.3d 570, 602\\n(D.C. Cir. 2015) (per curiam). The government commits a\\nNapue violation “when the government introduces false or\\nmisleading testimony or allows it to go uncorrected, even\\n\\f 6\\nthough the government knew or should have known that the\\ntestimony was false.” Id. at 603 (citations omitted). If the\\ngovernment introduces false or misleading testimony,\\nhowever, “the grant of a new trial is not automatic,” Vega, 826\\nF.3d at 529; the false evidence must also be material to justify\\na new trial, Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154 (1972).\\nWe review a Napue claim de novo. United States v. Sitzmann,\\n893 F.3d 811, 821 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (per curiam).\\n\\n The government has conceded that Agent Neill’s\\ntestimony regarding microscopic hair comparison analysis was\\nfalse and that the government knew or should have known it\\nwas false at the time of Ausby’s trial. The parties dispute only\\nwhether Agent Neill’s false statements were material to\\nAusby’s conviction.\\n\\n As first formulated in Napue and repeated in the decades\\nof cases that have since applied its holding, the government’s\\nintroduction of false testimony is material if the evidence\\n“could . . . in any reasonable likelihood have affected the\\njudgment of the jury.” Giglio, 405 U.S. at 154 (alteration in\\noriginal) (quoting Napue, 360 U.S. at 271); see also Sitzmann,\\n893 F.3d at 828; Straker, 800 F.3d at 603. The “reasonable\\nlikelihood” standard does not require the defendant to show\\n“that he ‘more likely than not’ would have been acquitted”\\nabsent the false statements. Wearry v. Cain, 136 S. Ct. 1002,\\n1006 (2016) (per curiam) (quoting Smith v. Cain, 565 U.S. 73,\\n75 (2012)). 1 Rather, the defendant need show only that the\\n\\n 1\\n Although Wearry explains the contours of Napue’s\\n“reasonable likelihood” standard, Wearry in fact addressed a claim\\nunder Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) (the prosecution\\nwithheld material evidence favorable to the defense). Wearry, 136\\nS. Ct. at 1002. A Brady claim invokes a materiality standard\\ndifferent from Napue’s “reasonable likelihood” standard. See Smith\\nv. Cain, 565 U.S. 73, 75 (2012) (observing that the withheld evidence\\n\\f 7\\nfalse testimony “‘undermine[s] confidence’ in the verdict.”\\nId. (quoting Smith, 565 U.S. at 76). Thus, even if the false\\ntestimony “may not have affected the jury’s verdict,” it is\\nmaterial if the evidence reasonably could have affected the\\nverdict. Id. at 1006 n.6 (emphasis added). As the Supreme\\nCourt’s explication makes clear, the “reasonable likelihood”\\nstandard is outcome-driven—that is, the relevant question is\\nwhether the false testimony “could have altered the outcome of\\nthe case.” Vega, 826 F.3d at 531. This standard “is quite\\neasily satisfied.” United States v. Williams, 233 F.3d 592, 594\\n(D.C. Cir. 2000). 2 This Court’s Napue decisions have also\\nheld that the burden of proving materiality lies with the\\ndefendant. See Sitzmann, 893 F.3d at 829; Straker, 800 F.3d\\nat 605; United States v. Burch, 156 F.3d 1315, 1328–29 (D.C.\\nCir. 1998). Ultimately, then, the Napue materiality standard\\nrequires Ausby to establish that Agent Neill’s false testimony\\nreasonably could have altered the outcome of his case, thereby\\nundermining confidence in the jury’s guilty verdict.\\n\\n Despite the consistency with which Napue decisions have\\narticulated the materiality standard, Ausby asks us to strike out\\n“reasonable likelihood” and insert the phrase “reasonable\\npossibility.” While Ausby posits that the two phrases are\\nsubstantively “synonymous,” he also maintains that the\\nsemantic difference “is meaningful” for clarifying the\\nmateriality standard. Even taking Ausby’s position as\\ninternally consistent, we reject it. The only support Ausby\\noffers in favor of his new semantic gloss are the opinions of\\n\\nis material under Brady if “there is a reasonable probability that, had\\nthe evidence been disclosed, the result of the proceeding would have\\nbeen different” (emphasis added) (quoting Cone v. Bell, 556 U.S.\\n449, 469–70 (2009))).\\n2\\n Williams involved a challenge under Federal Rule of Criminal\\nProcedure 33, not a Napue challenge. Williams, 233 F.3d at 593–\\n94.\\n\\f 8\\ntwo Supreme Court Justices, both of which failed to garner\\nmajority support. See United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667,\\n679–80, 679 n.9 (1985) (opinion of Blackmun, J.) (joined in\\nrelevant part by Justice O’Connor); Strickler v. Greene, 527\\nU.S. 263, 299 (1999) (Souter, J., concurring in part and\\ndissenting in part) (writing for himself in relevant part). These\\ntwo non-precedential opinions fail to outweigh the nigh sixty\\nyears of Supreme Court precedent consistently employing the\\nphrase “reasonable likelihood.” We therefore decline\\nAusby’s invitation to reformulate the Napue materiality\\nstandard.\\n\\n In addition to quibbling over wording, Ausby argues that\\nthe “reasonable likelihood” standard is substantively\\nequivalent to the harmless-error standard of Chapman v.\\nCalifornia, 386 U.S. 18 (1967). Under what he christens the\\n“Napue/Chapman standard,” Ausby argues that he is entitled\\nto a new trial unless the government can prove that Agent\\nNeill’s false testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable\\ndoubt. For support, Ausby first relies on the opinions of\\nJustice Blackmun in United States v. Bagley and Justice Souter\\nin Strickler v. Greene. But just as we decline to rely on these\\nnon-precedential opinions as definitive articulations of the\\n“reasonable likelihood” standard, we also decline to rely on\\nthem as reliable explanations of the standard’s substantive\\nmeaning.\\n\\n Next, Ausby relies on this Court’s decision in United\\nStates v. Vega. Vega stated in dicta that the Napue materiality\\nstandard is equivalent to the harmless-error standard of\\nChapman v. California. Vega, 826 F.3d at 529 n.4. In its\\nholding, however, Vega applied and rested its decision\\nexclusively on the “reasonable likelihood” standard laid out in\\nNapue without reference to Chapman. See id. at 531. That is\\nthis Circuit’s standard and the one we apply here as well. To\\n\\f 9\\nthe extent Ausby tries to wring out of Vega’s footnote a rule\\nimposing the burden of proving immateriality on the\\ngovernment or otherwise changing the “reasonable likelihood”\\nstandard, he is flatly incorrect. Consistent with longstanding\\nprecedent, Vega left on the defendant the burden of establishing\\nthat the false testimony “could in any reasonable likelihood\\nhave affected the judgment of the jury.” Vega, 826 F.3d at 529\\n(quoting Burch, 156 F.3d at 1329); see id. at 530–31; Straker,\\n800 F.3d at 605; Burch, 156 F.3d at 1328–29.\\n\\n The Supreme Court’s and this Court’s Napue decisions fall\\nat one end of the materiality spectrum or the other. In some\\ncases, the false testimony concealed facts that would have\\nundermined the credibility of the government’s key witness.\\nSee Giglio, 405 U.S. at 151, 154–55 (“key” cooperating\\nwitness falsely testified that he received no promise that he\\nwould not be prosecuted if he testified); Napue, 360 U.S. at\\n265, 269–71 (“principal” cooperating witness falsely testified\\nthat he was not promised a reduced sentence if he testified);\\nAlcorta v. Texas, 355 U.S. 28, 29, 31–32 (1957) (prosecution’s\\nonly eyewitness falsely testified that he was not having an\\naffair with the accused’s wife at the time of the crime); United\\nStates v. Iverson, 637 F.2d 799, 801–05 (D.C. Cir. 1980)\\n(“key” cooperating witness falsely testified that she had already\\nbeen sentenced, intimating that she had nothing to gain by\\ntestifying). Because this evidence plainly could have affected\\nthe jury’s verdict, the false statements were material. In other\\ncases, the false statements involved facts that were either\\nredundant or clearly irrelevant to the jury’s decision. See\\nSitzmann, 893 F.3d at 829 (single purportedly false statement\\nin a five week trial was not material given “abundant evidence”\\ndemonstrating defendant’s participation in the charged\\nconspiracy); Vega, 826 F.3d at 531 (witness’s false testimony\\nregarding photo-array identification was not material because\\nseveral other witnesses identified the defendant); Straker, 800\\n\\f 10\\nF.3d at 604–08 (false testimony either played almost no role in\\nthe trial or was significantly outweighed by the defendants’\\nconfessions); Burch, 156 F.3d at 1328–29 (“allegedly” false\\nstatements were not material because they could not have\\naffected the credibility of the government’s evidence and\\nwitnesses); United States v. Anderson, 509 F.2d 312, 327 &\\nn.110 (D.C. Cir. 1974) (one allegedly false statement regarding\\na witness’s identification did not bear “such significance to [the\\ndefendant’s] bribery trial as a whole that it ‘could . . . in any\\nreasonable likelihood have affected’” the jury’s judgment\\n(alteration in original) (quoting Giglio, 405 U.S. at 154)). The\\nfalse statements in these cases, therefore, were obviously not\\nmaterial to the jury’s verdict.\\n\\n We believe Agent Neill’s false hair-comparison testimony\\nduring Ausby’s trial falls somewhere between the two ends.\\nAgent Neill’s testimony was neither the sole piece of evidence\\non which the prosecution hung its case nor redundant or\\nirrelevant. We ultimately conclude, however, that Agent\\nNeill’s testimony falls on the material side of the spectrum.\\nAgent Neill’s testimony was the primary evidence that directly\\ncontradicted Ausby’s defense theory—that Ausby had been in\\nNoel’s apartment during her two-week absence but not on the\\nday of her rape and murder. Ausby’s defense theory plausibly\\nexplained the remaining evidence. First, the sightings of\\nAusby near Noel’s apartment occurred four or five days before\\nthe murder and thus were consistent with Ausby’s presence in\\nNoel’s apartment on an earlier date. Second, Ausby could\\nhave left the thumbprint and vials of oil in Noel’s apartment\\nwhile in her apartment sometime before the date of her rape\\nand murder. And third, the ballistic evidence could not yield\\na positive identification. That Agent Neill’s testimony played\\na key role in debunking Ausby’s defense is borne out by the\\nprosecution’s emphasis in its closing rebuttal that Agent Neill’s\\nmicroscopic hair-comparison analysis “is not a positive means\\n\\f 11\\nof identification but it amounts to a positive means here.”\\nThus, without Agent Neill’s hair-comparison testimony, there\\nis a reasonable likelihood that the jury could have accepted\\nAusby’s defense theory. Ausby has therefore carried his\\nburden of demonstrating that Agent Neill’s testimony\\n“could . . . in any reasonable likelihood have affected the\\njudgment of the jury.” Giglio, 405 U.S. at 154 (alteration in\\noriginal) (quoting Napue, 360 U.S. at 271). Because the\\ngovernment has conceded that Agent Neill’s testimony was\\nfalse and that the government knew or should have known so\\nat the time of Ausby’s trial, Ausby has presented a valid claim\\nunder Napue that he was convicted in violation of the Fifth and\\nSixth Amendments. Accordingly, the district court should\\nhave granted Ausby’s § 2255 motion to vacate his conviction.\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district\\ncourt is reversed and the case is remanded for proceedings\\nconsistent with this opinion.\\n\\n So ordered.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4372702/\", \"author_raw\": \"PER CURIAM\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"HENDERSON"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"SRINIVASAN"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"MILLETT"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4595449/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee v. John Milton AUSBY, Appellant\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-01\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued November 5, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\n\n No. 17-3077\n\n UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,\n APPELLEE\n\n v.\n\n JOHN MILTON AUSBY,\n APPELLANT\n\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the District of Columbia\n (No. 1:72-cr-00067-1)\n\n\n Adam G. Thompson argued the cause for the appellant.\nJenna M. Cobb and Jonathan W. Anderson were with him on\nbrief.\n\n Jessie K. Liu, United States Attorney, argued the cause for\nthe appellee. Elizabeth Trosman, John P. Mannarino and\nPamela S. Satterfield, Assistant United States Attorneys, were\nwith her on brief.\n\n Before: HENDERSON, SRINIVASAN and MILLETT, Circuit\nJudges.\n\n PER CURIAM: In 1972, the government charged John\nMilton Ausby with the murder and rape of Deborah Noel. The\n\f 2\nprosecution introduced several pieces of evidence at trial\nconnecting Ausby to the crime, including the testimony of a\nforensic expert who claimed that hairs found at the crime scene\nwere microscopically identical to Ausby’s hair. The jury\nsubsequently convicted Ausby of the rape and murder and\nAusby received a life sentence.\n\n The government now concedes that the testimony of the\nforensic expert was false and misleading and that the\ngovernment knew or should have known so at the time of\nAusby’s trial. Ausby moved to vacate his conviction under 28\nU.S.C. § 2255 and the holding in Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S.\n264 (1959). The district court denied Ausby’s motion because\nit determined that the forensic expert’s testimony was not\nmaterial to the jury’s guilty verdict. United States v. Ausby,\n275 F. Supp. 3d 7, 32 (D.D.C. 2017). We, however, conclude\nthat Ausby has demonstrated a “reasonable likelihood” that the\nforensic expert’s admittedly false testimony “could . . . have\naffected the judgment of the jury.” Napue, 360 U.S. at 271.\nWe therefore reverse.\n\n I. BACKGROUND\n\n Deborah Noel returned to her apartment on December 14\nfor the first time in two weeks. Shortly after her arrival, she\nwas raped and murdered in her bedroom. A grand jury\nindicted Ausby on six counts related to Noel’s death: felony\nmurder, premeditated murder, rape while armed, rape, burglary\nwhile armed and burglary.\n\n At trial, the prosecution introduced substantial evidence\nconnecting Ausby to Noel’s rape and murder. First, the\nprosecution called to testify two individuals who encountered\na black male in garb resembling Ausby’s in Noel’s apartment\nbuilding in the days leading up to her murder. One of the two\nidentified Ausby himself from a photo array and in the\n\f 3\ncourtroom during trial. Second, the prosecution presented\nevidence that Ausby had left a thumbprint inside Noel’s\napartment sometime within ten days of the murder. Third, the\nprosecution presented evidence that vials of scented oil left\ninside Noel’s apartment and beneath her windows belonged to\nAusby. Fourth, the prosecution presented evidence that the\nbullet that killed Noel potentially, but not definitively, matched\nthe handgun Ausby was carrying when he was arrested.\n\n At issue here, the government also elicited testimony from\nFBI Special Agent Robert Neill, a microscopic hair analysis\nspecialist, regarding hair found at the scene of the crime.\nAccording to Agent Neill’s testimony, microscopic analysis of\nhair involved categorizing hair on the basis of between fifteen\nand twenty-five characteristics “which tend to be more or less\nunique to a particular individual.” To compare two hairs,\nAgent Neill placed them side-by-side under a special\nmicroscope and then compared them using the hairs’\nobservable characteristics.\n\n Agent Neill testified that hairs taken from inside Noel’s\napartment and on her body were “microscopically identical” to\nAusby’s hairs. Although Agent Neill acknowledged that\n“microscopic hair comparisons do not constitute a basis of\npositive personal identification,” he opined that “the\nquestioned hairs . . . either originated from the head of Mr.\nAusby or from some other person . . . whose head hairs or\npubic hairs are microscopically identical.”\n\n During its closing statement, the prosecution reviewed the\ntestimony from those who encountered Ausby in the apartment\nbuilding and the evidence connecting him to the oils found in\nNoel’s bedroom and under her windows. The prosecutor then\nasked the jury: “Now, could I not have rested my case right\nthere? Could you not have said, Why are you boring me with\n\f 4\nanything further in this case? Is that not enough to convict this\ndefendant?” But continuing on, the prosecutor revisited\nAgent Neill’s hair-comparison testimony as well as the\nevidence regarding Ausby’s thumbprint and the potential\nmatch between Ausby’s handgun and the bullet that killed\nNoel.\n\n In his closing, defense counsel admitted that Ausby had\nentered Noel’s apartment but argued that he did so during\nNoel’s two-week absence, not on the day of her rape and\nmurder. He challenged the reliability of Agent Neill’s\npurported identification of Ausby’s hairs on Noel’s body,\nparticularly given that Agent Neill had conceded that\nmicroscopic hair comparison analysis cannot produce a\npositive identification. In response, the prosecutor asserted\nduring his rebuttal that microscopic hair comparison analysis\n“is not a positive means of identification but it amounts to a\npositive means here.”\n\n The jury convicted Ausby of felony murder and rape while\narmed. The court then sentenced Ausby to life imprisonment\nfor Noel’s murder and ten to thirty years’ imprisonment for her\nrape. This Court affirmed Ausby’s conviction and sentence.\nUnited States v. Ausby, 489 F.2d 1273 (Table) (D.C. Cir. 1974)\n(per curiam). Ausby has fully served his rape sentence,\nleaving his life sentence for murder.\n\n In 2012, the FBI and the Department of Justice began\nreviewing cases in which the government had introduced\ntestimony regarding microscopic hair comparison analysis to\nassess whether the government’s forensic expert gave false or\nmisleading testimony that exceeded the limits of science.\nAfter reviewing Ausby’s case, the FBI determined that Agent\nNeill misled the jury by implying that he could positively\nidentify the hairs taken from the crime scene as belonging to\n\f 5\nAusby. In light of Agent Neill’s admittedly misleading\ntestimony, the United States conceded error and waived any\nstatute of limitations and procedural-default defenses in the\nevent Ausby sought relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The\ngovernment, however, took “no position regarding the\nmateriality of the error” at that time.\n\n Following the government’s concession, Ausby moved to\nvacate his conviction under 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a) “due to the\ngovernment’s knowing presentation of false and misleading\nexpert hair examination testimony, in violation of the Due\nProcess Clause of the Fifth Amendment and Napue v. Illinois.”\nThe district court denied Ausby’s § 2255 motion. Ausby, 275\nF. Supp. 3d at 32. The court determined that Agent Neill’s\ntestimony was not material to Ausby’s conviction “because\ngiven the overwhelming evidence against him, even absent the\nfalse hair matching testimony, there is no ‘reasonable\nlikelihood’ that the hair evidence ‘could have altered the\noutcome of the case.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Vega, 826\nF.3d 514, 531 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (per curiam)). The district\ncourt, however, granted Ausby a certificate of appealability and\nAusby timely noticed an appeal.\n\n II. ANALYSIS\n\n A federal prisoner may move to have his sentence vacated\nunder 28 U.S.C. § 2255 if “the sentence was imposed in\nviolation of the Constitution or laws of the United States.” 28\nU.S.C. § 2255(a). Under Napue v. Illinois and its progeny,\n“the prosecution’s introduction of false testimony” deprives a\ndefendant of a fair trial as required by the Fifth and Sixth\nAmendments. United States v. Straker, 800 F.3d 570, 602\n(D.C. Cir. 2015) (per curiam). The government commits a\nNapue violation “when the government introduces false or\nmisleading testimony or allows it to go uncorrected, even\n\f 6\nthough the government knew or should have known that the\ntestimony was false.” Id. at 603 (citations omitted). If the\ngovernment introduces false or misleading testimony,\nhowever, “the grant of a new trial is not automatic,” Vega, 826\nF.3d at 529; the false evidence must also be material to justify\na new trial, Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154 (1972).\nWe review a Napue claim de novo. United States v. Sitzmann,\n893 F.3d 811, 821 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (per curiam).\n\n The government has conceded that Agent Neill’s\ntestimony regarding microscopic hair comparison analysis was\nfalse and that the government knew or should have known it\nwas false at the time of Ausby’s trial. The parties dispute only\nwhether Agent Neill’s false statements were material to\nAusby’s conviction.\n\n As first formulated in Napue and repeated in the decades\nof cases that have since applied its holding, the government’s\nintroduction of false testimony is material if the evidence\n“could . . . in any reasonable likelihood have affected the\njudgment of the jury.” Giglio, 405 U.S. at 154 (alteration in\noriginal) (quoting Napue, 360 U.S. at 271); see also Sitzmann,\n893 F.3d at 828; Straker, 800 F.3d at 603. The “reasonable\nlikelihood” standard does not require the defendant to show\n“that he ‘more likely than not’ would have been acquitted”\nabsent the false statements. Wearry v. Cain, 136 S. Ct. 1002,\n1006 (2016) (per curiam) (quoting Smith v. Cain, 565 U.S. 73,\n75 (2012)). 1 Rather, the defendant need show only that the\n\n 1\n Although Wearry explains the contours of Napue’s\n“reasonable likelihood” standard, Wearry in fact addressed a claim\nunder Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) (the prosecution\nwithheld material evidence favorable to the defense). Wearry, 136\nS. Ct. at 1002. A Brady claim invokes a materiality standard\ndifferent from Napue’s “reasonable likelihood” standard. See Smith\nv. Cain, 565 U.S. 73, 75 (2012) (observing that the withheld evidence\n\f 7\nfalse testimony “‘undermine[s] confidence’ in the verdict.”\nId. (quoting Smith, 565 U.S. at 76). Thus, even if the false\ntestimony “may not have affected the jury’s verdict,” it is\nmaterial if the evidence reasonably could have affected the\nverdict. Id. at 1006 n.6 (emphasis added). As the Supreme\nCourt’s explication makes clear, the “reasonable likelihood”\nstandard is outcome-driven—that is, the relevant question is\nwhether the false testimony “could have altered the outcome of\nthe case.” Vega, 826 F.3d at 531. This standard “is quite\neasily satisfied.” United States v. Williams, 233 F.3d 592, 594\n(D.C. Cir. 2000). 2 This Court’s Napue decisions have also\nheld that the burden of proving materiality lies with the\ndefendant. See Sitzmann, 893 F.3d at 829; Straker, 800 F.3d\nat 605; United States v. Burch, 156 F.3d 1315, 1328–29 (D.C.\nCir. 1998). Ultimately, then, the Napue materiality standard\nrequires Ausby to establish that Agent Neill’s false testimony\nreasonably could have altered the outcome of his case, thereby\nundermining confidence in the jury’s guilty verdict.\n\n Despite the consistency with which Napue decisions have\narticulated the materiality standard, Ausby asks us to strike out\n“reasonable likelihood” and insert the phrase “reasonable\npossibility.” While Ausby posits that the two phrases are\nsubstantively “synonymous,” he also maintains that the\nsemantic difference “is meaningful” for clarifying the\nmateriality standard. Even taking Ausby’s position as\ninternally consistent, we reject it. The only support Ausby\noffers in favor of his new semantic gloss are the opinions of\n\nis material under Brady if “there is a reasonable probability that, had\nthe evidence been disclosed, the result of the proceeding would have\nbeen different” (emphasis added) (quoting Cone v. Bell, 556 U.S.\n449, 469–70 (2009))).\n2\n Williams involved a challenge under Federal Rule of Criminal\nProcedure 33, not a Napue challenge. Williams, 233 F.3d at 593–\n94.\n\f 8\ntwo Supreme Court Justices, both of which failed to garner\nmajority support. See United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667,\n679–80, 679 n.9 (1985) (opinion of Blackmun, J.) (joined in\nrelevant part by Justice O’Connor); Strickler v. Greene, 527\nU.S. 263, 299 (1999) (Souter, J., concurring in part and\ndissenting in part) (writing for himself in relevant part). These\ntwo non-precedential opinions fail to outweigh the nigh sixty\nyears of Supreme Court precedent consistently employing the\nphrase “reasonable likelihood.” We therefore decline\nAusby’s invitation to reformulate the Napue materiality\nstandard.\n\n In addition to quibbling over wording, Ausby argues that\nthe “reasonable likelihood” standard is substantively\nequivalent to the harmless-error standard of Chapman v.\nCalifornia, 386 U.S. 18 (1967). Under what he christens the\n“Napue/Chapman standard,” Ausby argues that he is entitled\nto a new trial unless the government can prove that Agent\nNeill’s false testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable\ndoubt. For support, Ausby first relies on the opinions of\nJustice Blackmun in United States v. Bagley and Justice Souter\nin Strickler v. Greene. But just as we decline to rely on these\nnon-precedential opinions as definitive articulations of the\n“reasonable likelihood” standard, we also decline to rely on\nthem as reliable explanations of the standard’s substantive\nmeaning.\n\n Next, Ausby relies on this Court’s decision in United\nStates v. Vega. Vega stated in dicta that the Napue materiality\nstandard is equivalent to the harmless-error standard of\nChapman v. California. Vega, 826 F.3d at 529 n.4. In its\nholding, however, Vega applied and rested its decision\nexclusively on the “reasonable likelihood” standard laid out in\nNapue without reference to Chapman. See id. at 531. That is\nthis Circuit’s standard and the one we apply here as well. To\n\f 9\nthe extent Ausby tries to wring out of Vega’s footnote a rule\nimposing the burden of proving immateriality on the\ngovernment or otherwise changing the “reasonable likelihood”\nstandard, he is flatly incorrect. Consistent with longstanding\nprecedent, Vega left on the defendant the burden of establishing\nthat the false testimony “could in any reasonable likelihood\nhave affected the judgment of the jury.” Vega, 826 F.3d at 529\n(quoting Burch, 156 F.3d at 1329); see id. at 530–31; Straker,\n800 F.3d at 605; Burch, 156 F.3d at 1328–29.\n\n The Supreme Court’s and this Court’s Napue decisions fall\nat one end of the materiality spectrum or the other. In some\ncases, the false testimony concealed facts that would have\nundermined the credibility of the government’s key witness.\nSee Giglio, 405 U.S. at 151, 154–55 (“key” cooperating\nwitness falsely testified that he received no promise that he\nwould not be prosecuted if he testified); Napue, 360 U.S. at\n265, 269–71 (“principal” cooperating witness falsely testified\nthat he was not promised a reduced sentence if he testified);\nAlcorta v. Texas, 355 U.S. 28, 29, 31–32 (1957) (prosecution’s\nonly eyewitness falsely testified that he was not having an\naffair with the accused’s wife at the time of the crime); United\nStates v. Iverson, 637 F.2d 799, 801–05 (D.C. Cir. 1980)\n(“key” cooperating witness falsely testified that she had already\nbeen sentenced, intimating that she had nothing to gain by\ntestifying). Because this evidence plainly could have affected\nthe jury’s verdict, the false statements were material. In other\ncases, the false statements involved facts that were either\nredundant or clearly irrelevant to the jury’s decision. See\nSitzmann, 893 F.3d at 829 (single purportedly false statement\nin a five week trial was not material given “abundant evidence”\ndemonstrating defendant’s participation in the charged\nconspiracy); Vega, 826 F.3d at 531 (witness’s false testimony\nregarding photo-array identification was not material because\nseveral other witnesses identified the defendant); Straker, 800\n\f 10\nF.3d at 604–08 (false testimony either played almost no role in\nthe trial or was significantly outweighed by the defendants’\nconfessions); Burch, 156 F.3d at 1328–29 (“allegedly” false\nstatements were not material because they could not have\naffected the credibility of the government’s evidence and\nwitnesses); United States v. Anderson, 509 F.2d 312, 327 &\nn.110 (D.C. Cir. 1974) (one allegedly false statement regarding\na witness’s identification did not bear “such significance to [the\ndefendant’s] bribery trial as a whole that it ‘could . . . in any\nreasonable likelihood have affected’” the jury’s judgment\n(alteration in original) (quoting Giglio, 405 U.S. at 154)). The\nfalse statements in these cases, therefore, were obviously not\nmaterial to the jury’s verdict.\n\n We believe Agent Neill’s false hair-comparison testimony\nduring Ausby’s trial falls somewhere between the two ends.\nAgent Neill’s testimony was neither the sole piece of evidence\non which the prosecution hung its case nor redundant or\nirrelevant. We ultimately conclude, however, that Agent\nNeill’s testimony falls on the material side of the spectrum.\nAgent Neill’s testimony was the primary evidence that directly\ncontradicted Ausby’s defense theory—that Ausby had been in\nNoel’s apartment during her two-week absence but not on the\nday of her rape and murder. Ausby’s defense theory plausibly\nexplained the remaining evidence. First, the sightings of\nAusby near Noel’s apartment occurred four or five days before\nthe murder and thus were consistent with Ausby’s presence in\nNoel’s apartment on an earlier date. Second, Ausby could\nhave left the thumbprint and vials of oil in Noel’s apartment\nwhile in her apartment sometime before the date of her rape\nand murder. And third, the ballistic evidence could not yield\na positive identification. That Agent Neill’s testimony played\na key role in debunking Ausby’s defense is borne out by the\nprosecution’s emphasis in its closing rebuttal that Agent Neill’s\nmicroscopic hair-comparison analysis “is not a positive means\n\f 11\nof identification but it amounts to a positive means here.”\nThus, without Agent Neill’s hair-comparison testimony, there\nis a reasonable likelihood that the jury could have accepted\nAusby’s defense theory. Ausby has therefore carried his\nburden of demonstrating that Agent Neill’s testimony\n“could . . . in any reasonable likelihood have affected the\njudgment of the jury.” Giglio, 405 U.S. at 154 (alteration in\noriginal) (quoting Napue, 360 U.S. at 271). Because the\ngovernment has conceded that Agent Neill’s testimony was\nfalse and that the government knew or should have known so\nat the time of Ausby’s trial, Ausby has presented a valid claim\nunder Napue that he was convicted in violation of the Fifth and\nSixth Amendments. Accordingly, the district court should\nhave granted Ausby’s § 2255 motion to vacate his conviction.\n\n For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district\ncourt is reversed and the case is remanded for proceedings\nconsistent with this opinion.\n\n So ordered.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee v. John Milton AUSBY, Appellant\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-01\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued November 5, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\\n\\n No. 17-3077\\n\\n UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,\\n APPELLEE\\n\\n v.\\n\\n JOHN MILTON AUSBY,\\n APPELLANT\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:72-cr-00067-1)\\n\\n\\n Adam G. Thompson argued the cause for the appellant.\\nJenna M. Cobb and Jonathan W. Anderson were with him on\\nbrief.\\n\\n Jessie K. Liu, United States Attorney, argued the cause for\\nthe appellee. Elizabeth Trosman, John P. Mannarino and\\nPamela S. Satterfield, Assistant United States Attorneys, were\\nwith her on brief.\\n\\n Before: HENDERSON, SRINIVASAN and MILLETT, Circuit\\nJudges.\\n\\n PER CURIAM: In 1972, the government charged John\\nMilton Ausby with the murder and rape of Deborah Noel. The\\n\\f 2\\nprosecution introduced several pieces of evidence at trial\\nconnecting Ausby to the crime, including the testimony of a\\nforensic expert who claimed that hairs found at the crime scene\\nwere microscopically identical to Ausby’s hair. The jury\\nsubsequently convicted Ausby of the rape and murder and\\nAusby received a life sentence.\\n\\n The government now concedes that the testimony of the\\nforensic expert was false and misleading and that the\\ngovernment knew or should have known so at the time of\\nAusby’s trial. Ausby moved to vacate his conviction under 28\\nU.S.C. § 2255 and the holding in Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S.\\n264 (1959). The district court denied Ausby’s motion because\\nit determined that the forensic expert’s testimony was not\\nmaterial to the jury’s guilty verdict. United States v. Ausby,\\n275 F. Supp. 3d 7, 32 (D.D.C. 2017). We, however, conclude\\nthat Ausby has demonstrated a “reasonable likelihood” that the\\nforensic expert’s admittedly false testimony “could . . . have\\naffected the judgment of the jury.” Napue, 360 U.S. at 271.\\nWe therefore reverse.\\n\\n I. BACKGROUND\\n\\n Deborah Noel returned to her apartment on December 14\\nfor the first time in two weeks. Shortly after her arrival, she\\nwas raped and murdered in her bedroom. A grand jury\\nindicted Ausby on six counts related to Noel’s death: felony\\nmurder, premeditated murder, rape while armed, rape, burglary\\nwhile armed and burglary.\\n\\n At trial, the prosecution introduced substantial evidence\\nconnecting Ausby to Noel’s rape and murder. First, the\\nprosecution called to testify two individuals who encountered\\na black male in garb resembling Ausby’s in Noel’s apartment\\nbuilding in the days leading up to her murder. One of the two\\nidentified Ausby himself from a photo array and in the\\n\\f 3\\ncourtroom during trial. Second, the prosecution presented\\nevidence that Ausby had left a thumbprint inside Noel’s\\napartment sometime within ten days of the murder. Third, the\\nprosecution presented evidence that vials of scented oil left\\ninside Noel’s apartment and beneath her windows belonged to\\nAusby. Fourth, the prosecution presented evidence that the\\nbullet that killed Noel potentially, but not definitively, matched\\nthe handgun Ausby was carrying when he was arrested.\\n\\n At issue here, the government also elicited testimony from\\nFBI Special Agent Robert Neill, a microscopic hair analysis\\nspecialist, regarding hair found at the scene of the crime.\\nAccording to Agent Neill’s testimony, microscopic analysis of\\nhair involved categorizing hair on the basis of between fifteen\\nand twenty-five characteristics “which tend to be more or less\\nunique to a particular individual.” To compare two hairs,\\nAgent Neill placed them side-by-side under a special\\nmicroscope and then compared them using the hairs’\\nobservable characteristics.\\n\\n Agent Neill testified that hairs taken from inside Noel’s\\napartment and on her body were “microscopically identical” to\\nAusby’s hairs. Although Agent Neill acknowledged that\\n“microscopic hair comparisons do not constitute a basis of\\npositive personal identification,” he opined that “the\\nquestioned hairs . . . either originated from the head of Mr.\\nAusby or from some other person . . . whose head hairs or\\npubic hairs are microscopically identical.”\\n\\n During its closing statement, the prosecution reviewed the\\ntestimony from those who encountered Ausby in the apartment\\nbuilding and the evidence connecting him to the oils found in\\nNoel’s bedroom and under her windows. The prosecutor then\\nasked the jury: “Now, could I not have rested my case right\\nthere? Could you not have said, Why are you boring me with\\n\\f 4\\nanything further in this case? Is that not enough to convict this\\ndefendant?” But continuing on, the prosecutor revisited\\nAgent Neill’s hair-comparison testimony as well as the\\nevidence regarding Ausby’s thumbprint and the potential\\nmatch between Ausby’s handgun and the bullet that killed\\nNoel.\\n\\n In his closing, defense counsel admitted that Ausby had\\nentered Noel’s apartment but argued that he did so during\\nNoel’s two-week absence, not on the day of her rape and\\nmurder. He challenged the reliability of Agent Neill’s\\npurported identification of Ausby’s hairs on Noel’s body,\\nparticularly given that Agent Neill had conceded that\\nmicroscopic hair comparison analysis cannot produce a\\npositive identification. In response, the prosecutor asserted\\nduring his rebuttal that microscopic hair comparison analysis\\n“is not a positive means of identification but it amounts to a\\npositive means here.”\\n\\n The jury convicted Ausby of felony murder and rape while\\narmed. The court then sentenced Ausby to life imprisonment\\nfor Noel’s murder and ten to thirty years’ imprisonment for her\\nrape. This Court affirmed Ausby’s conviction and sentence.\\nUnited States v. Ausby, 489 F.2d 1273 (Table) (D.C. Cir. 1974)\\n(per curiam). Ausby has fully served his rape sentence,\\nleaving his life sentence for murder.\\n\\n In 2012, the FBI and the Department of Justice began\\nreviewing cases in which the government had introduced\\ntestimony regarding microscopic hair comparison analysis to\\nassess whether the government’s forensic expert gave false or\\nmisleading testimony that exceeded the limits of science.\\nAfter reviewing Ausby’s case, the FBI determined that Agent\\nNeill misled the jury by implying that he could positively\\nidentify the hairs taken from the crime scene as belonging to\\n\\f 5\\nAusby. In light of Agent Neill’s admittedly misleading\\ntestimony, the United States conceded error and waived any\\nstatute of limitations and procedural-default defenses in the\\nevent Ausby sought relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The\\ngovernment, however, took “no position regarding the\\nmateriality of the error” at that time.\\n\\n Following the government’s concession, Ausby moved to\\nvacate his conviction under 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a) “due to the\\ngovernment’s knowing presentation of false and misleading\\nexpert hair examination testimony, in violation of the Due\\nProcess Clause of the Fifth Amendment and Napue v. Illinois.”\\nThe district court denied Ausby’s § 2255 motion. Ausby, 275\\nF. Supp. 3d at 32. The court determined that Agent Neill’s\\ntestimony was not material to Ausby’s conviction “because\\ngiven the overwhelming evidence against him, even absent the\\nfalse hair matching testimony, there is no ‘reasonable\\nlikelihood’ that the hair evidence ‘could have altered the\\noutcome of the case.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Vega, 826\\nF.3d 514, 531 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (per curiam)). The district\\ncourt, however, granted Ausby a certificate of appealability and\\nAusby timely noticed an appeal.\\n\\n II. ANALYSIS\\n\\n A federal prisoner may move to have his sentence vacated\\nunder 28 U.S.C. § 2255 if “the sentence was imposed in\\nviolation of the Constitution or laws of the United States.” 28\\nU.S.C. § 2255(a). Under Napue v. Illinois and its progeny,\\n“the prosecution’s introduction of false testimony” deprives a\\ndefendant of a fair trial as required by the Fifth and Sixth\\nAmendments. United States v. Straker, 800 F.3d 570, 602\\n(D.C. Cir. 2015) (per curiam). The government commits a\\nNapue violation “when the government introduces false or\\nmisleading testimony or allows it to go uncorrected, even\\n\\f 6\\nthough the government knew or should have known that the\\ntestimony was false.” Id. at 603 (citations omitted). If the\\ngovernment introduces false or misleading testimony,\\nhowever, “the grant of a new trial is not automatic,” Vega, 826\\nF.3d at 529; the false evidence must also be material to justify\\na new trial, Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154 (1972).\\nWe review a Napue claim de novo. United States v. Sitzmann,\\n893 F.3d 811, 821 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (per curiam).\\n\\n The government has conceded that Agent Neill’s\\ntestimony regarding microscopic hair comparison analysis was\\nfalse and that the government knew or should have known it\\nwas false at the time of Ausby’s trial. The parties dispute only\\nwhether Agent Neill’s false statements were material to\\nAusby’s conviction.\\n\\n As first formulated in Napue and repeated in the decades\\nof cases that have since applied its holding, the government’s\\nintroduction of false testimony is material if the evidence\\n“could . . . in any reasonable likelihood have affected the\\njudgment of the jury.” Giglio, 405 U.S. at 154 (alteration in\\noriginal) (quoting Napue, 360 U.S. at 271); see also Sitzmann,\\n893 F.3d at 828; Straker, 800 F.3d at 603. The “reasonable\\nlikelihood” standard does not require the defendant to show\\n“that he ‘more likely than not’ would have been acquitted”\\nabsent the false statements. Wearry v. Cain, 136 S. Ct. 1002,\\n1006 (2016) (per curiam) (quoting Smith v. Cain, 565 U.S. 73,\\n75 (2012)). 1 Rather, the defendant need show only that the\\n\\n 1\\n Although Wearry explains the contours of Napue’s\\n“reasonable likelihood” standard, Wearry in fact addressed a claim\\nunder Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) (the prosecution\\nwithheld material evidence favorable to the defense). Wearry, 136\\nS. Ct. at 1002. A Brady claim invokes a materiality standard\\ndifferent from Napue’s “reasonable likelihood” standard. See Smith\\nv. Cain, 565 U.S. 73, 75 (2012) (observing that the withheld evidence\\n\\f 7\\nfalse testimony “‘undermine[s] confidence’ in the verdict.”\\nId. (quoting Smith, 565 U.S. at 76). Thus, even if the false\\ntestimony “may not have affected the jury’s verdict,” it is\\nmaterial if the evidence reasonably could have affected the\\nverdict. Id. at 1006 n.6 (emphasis added). As the Supreme\\nCourt’s explication makes clear, the “reasonable likelihood”\\nstandard is outcome-driven—that is, the relevant question is\\nwhether the false testimony “could have altered the outcome of\\nthe case.” Vega, 826 F.3d at 531. This standard “is quite\\neasily satisfied.” United States v. Williams, 233 F.3d 592, 594\\n(D.C. Cir. 2000). 2 This Court’s Napue decisions have also\\nheld that the burden of proving materiality lies with the\\ndefendant. See Sitzmann, 893 F.3d at 829; Straker, 800 F.3d\\nat 605; United States v. Burch, 156 F.3d 1315, 1328–29 (D.C.\\nCir. 1998). Ultimately, then, the Napue materiality standard\\nrequires Ausby to establish that Agent Neill’s false testimony\\nreasonably could have altered the outcome of his case, thereby\\nundermining confidence in the jury’s guilty verdict.\\n\\n Despite the consistency with which Napue decisions have\\narticulated the materiality standard, Ausby asks us to strike out\\n“reasonable likelihood” and insert the phrase “reasonable\\npossibility.” While Ausby posits that the two phrases are\\nsubstantively “synonymous,” he also maintains that the\\nsemantic difference “is meaningful” for clarifying the\\nmateriality standard. Even taking Ausby’s position as\\ninternally consistent, we reject it. The only support Ausby\\noffers in favor of his new semantic gloss are the opinions of\\n\\nis material under Brady if “there is a reasonable probability that, had\\nthe evidence been disclosed, the result of the proceeding would have\\nbeen different” (emphasis added) (quoting Cone v. Bell, 556 U.S.\\n449, 469–70 (2009))).\\n2\\n Williams involved a challenge under Federal Rule of Criminal\\nProcedure 33, not a Napue challenge. Williams, 233 F.3d at 593–\\n94.\\n\\f 8\\ntwo Supreme Court Justices, both of which failed to garner\\nmajority support. See United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667,\\n679–80, 679 n.9 (1985) (opinion of Blackmun, J.) (joined in\\nrelevant part by Justice O’Connor); Strickler v. Greene, 527\\nU.S. 263, 299 (1999) (Souter, J., concurring in part and\\ndissenting in part) (writing for himself in relevant part). These\\ntwo non-precedential opinions fail to outweigh the nigh sixty\\nyears of Supreme Court precedent consistently employing the\\nphrase “reasonable likelihood.” We therefore decline\\nAusby’s invitation to reformulate the Napue materiality\\nstandard.\\n\\n In addition to quibbling over wording, Ausby argues that\\nthe “reasonable likelihood” standard is substantively\\nequivalent to the harmless-error standard of Chapman v.\\nCalifornia, 386 U.S. 18 (1967). Under what he christens the\\n“Napue/Chapman standard,” Ausby argues that he is entitled\\nto a new trial unless the government can prove that Agent\\nNeill’s false testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable\\ndoubt. For support, Ausby first relies on the opinions of\\nJustice Blackmun in United States v. Bagley and Justice Souter\\nin Strickler v. Greene. But just as we decline to rely on these\\nnon-precedential opinions as definitive articulations of the\\n“reasonable likelihood” standard, we also decline to rely on\\nthem as reliable explanations of the standard’s substantive\\nmeaning.\\n\\n Next, Ausby relies on this Court’s decision in United\\nStates v. Vega. Vega stated in dicta that the Napue materiality\\nstandard is equivalent to the harmless-error standard of\\nChapman v. California. Vega, 826 F.3d at 529 n.4. In its\\nholding, however, Vega applied and rested its decision\\nexclusively on the “reasonable likelihood” standard laid out in\\nNapue without reference to Chapman. See id. at 531. That is\\nthis Circuit’s standard and the one we apply here as well. To\\n\\f 9\\nthe extent Ausby tries to wring out of Vega’s footnote a rule\\nimposing the burden of proving immateriality on the\\ngovernment or otherwise changing the “reasonable likelihood”\\nstandard, he is flatly incorrect. Consistent with longstanding\\nprecedent, Vega left on the defendant the burden of establishing\\nthat the false testimony “could in any reasonable likelihood\\nhave affected the judgment of the jury.” Vega, 826 F.3d at 529\\n(quoting Burch, 156 F.3d at 1329); see id. at 530–31; Straker,\\n800 F.3d at 605; Burch, 156 F.3d at 1328–29.\\n\\n The Supreme Court’s and this Court’s Napue decisions fall\\nat one end of the materiality spectrum or the other. In some\\ncases, the false testimony concealed facts that would have\\nundermined the credibility of the government’s key witness.\\nSee Giglio, 405 U.S. at 151, 154–55 (“key” cooperating\\nwitness falsely testified that he received no promise that he\\nwould not be prosecuted if he testified); Napue, 360 U.S. at\\n265, 269–71 (“principal” cooperating witness falsely testified\\nthat he was not promised a reduced sentence if he testified);\\nAlcorta v. Texas, 355 U.S. 28, 29, 31–32 (1957) (prosecution’s\\nonly eyewitness falsely testified that he was not having an\\naffair with the accused’s wife at the time of the crime); United\\nStates v. Iverson, 637 F.2d 799, 801–05 (D.C. Cir. 1980)\\n(“key” cooperating witness falsely testified that she had already\\nbeen sentenced, intimating that she had nothing to gain by\\ntestifying). Because this evidence plainly could have affected\\nthe jury’s verdict, the false statements were material. In other\\ncases, the false statements involved facts that were either\\nredundant or clearly irrelevant to the jury’s decision. See\\nSitzmann, 893 F.3d at 829 (single purportedly false statement\\nin a five week trial was not material given “abundant evidence”\\ndemonstrating defendant’s participation in the charged\\nconspiracy); Vega, 826 F.3d at 531 (witness’s false testimony\\nregarding photo-array identification was not material because\\nseveral other witnesses identified the defendant); Straker, 800\\n\\f 10\\nF.3d at 604–08 (false testimony either played almost no role in\\nthe trial or was significantly outweighed by the defendants’\\nconfessions); Burch, 156 F.3d at 1328–29 (“allegedly” false\\nstatements were not material because they could not have\\naffected the credibility of the government’s evidence and\\nwitnesses); United States v. Anderson, 509 F.2d 312, 327 &\\nn.110 (D.C. Cir. 1974) (one allegedly false statement regarding\\na witness’s identification did not bear “such significance to [the\\ndefendant’s] bribery trial as a whole that it ‘could . . . in any\\nreasonable likelihood have affected’” the jury’s judgment\\n(alteration in original) (quoting Giglio, 405 U.S. at 154)). The\\nfalse statements in these cases, therefore, were obviously not\\nmaterial to the jury’s verdict.\\n\\n We believe Agent Neill’s false hair-comparison testimony\\nduring Ausby’s trial falls somewhere between the two ends.\\nAgent Neill’s testimony was neither the sole piece of evidence\\non which the prosecution hung its case nor redundant or\\nirrelevant. We ultimately conclude, however, that Agent\\nNeill’s testimony falls on the material side of the spectrum.\\nAgent Neill’s testimony was the primary evidence that directly\\ncontradicted Ausby’s defense theory—that Ausby had been in\\nNoel’s apartment during her two-week absence but not on the\\nday of her rape and murder. Ausby’s defense theory plausibly\\nexplained the remaining evidence. First, the sightings of\\nAusby near Noel’s apartment occurred four or five days before\\nthe murder and thus were consistent with Ausby’s presence in\\nNoel’s apartment on an earlier date. Second, Ausby could\\nhave left the thumbprint and vials of oil in Noel’s apartment\\nwhile in her apartment sometime before the date of her rape\\nand murder. And third, the ballistic evidence could not yield\\na positive identification. That Agent Neill’s testimony played\\na key role in debunking Ausby’s defense is borne out by the\\nprosecution’s emphasis in its closing rebuttal that Agent Neill’s\\nmicroscopic hair-comparison analysis “is not a positive means\\n\\f 11\\nof identification but it amounts to a positive means here.”\\nThus, without Agent Neill’s hair-comparison testimony, there\\nis a reasonable likelihood that the jury could have accepted\\nAusby’s defense theory. Ausby has therefore carried his\\nburden of demonstrating that Agent Neill’s testimony\\n“could . . . in any reasonable likelihood have affected the\\njudgment of the jury.” Giglio, 405 U.S. at 154 (alteration in\\noriginal) (quoting Napue, 360 U.S. at 271). Because the\\ngovernment has conceded that Agent Neill’s testimony was\\nfalse and that the government knew or should have known so\\nat the time of Ausby’s trial, Ausby has presented a valid claim\\nunder Napue that he was convicted in violation of the Fifth and\\nSixth Amendments. Accordingly, the district court should\\nhave granted Ausby’s § 2255 motion to vacate his conviction.\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district\\ncourt is reversed and the case is remanded for proceedings\\nconsistent with this opinion.\\n\\n So ordered.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1363,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4595450,"string":"4,595,450"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION, Appellant v. Todd T. SEMONITE, Lieutenant General, Et Al., Appellees"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Nat'l Parks Conservation Ass'n v. Semonite"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-01"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"18-5179; C/w 18-5186"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Garland, Tatel, Millett\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued December 7, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\\n\\n No. 18-5179\\n\\n NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION,\\n APPELLANT\\n\\n v.\\n\\n TODD T. SEMONITE, LIEUTENANT GENERAL, ET AL.,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n\\n Consolidated with 18-5186\\n\\n\\n Appeals from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:17-cv-01361)\\n (No. 1:17-cv-01574)\\n\\n\\n Matthew G. Adams argued the cause and filed the briefs\\nfor appellants National Trust for Historic Preservation, et al.\\n\\n William S. Eubanks II argued the cause for appellant\\nNational Parks Conservation Association. With him on the\\nbriefs was Eric R. Glitzenstein.\\n\\n J. Blanding Holman was on the brief for amici curiae The\\nLawyer’s Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, et al.\\nin support of appellant.\\n\\f 2\\n\\n Tyler Joseph Sniff was on the brief for amici curiae 18th\\nDirector of the National Park Service Jonathan B. Jarvis, et al.\\nin support of appellant National Parks Conservation\\nAssociation.\\n\\n Dustin J. Maghamfar, Attorney, U.S. Department of\\nJustice, argued the cause for federal appellees. With him on the\\nbrief were Jeffrey H. Wood, Acting Assistant Attorney General,\\nEric A. Grant, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and\\nAndrew C. Mergen, Mark R. Haag, and Heather E. Gange,\\nAttorneys.\\n\\n Elbert Lin argued the cause for appellee Virginia Electric\\nand Power Company. With him on the brief were Eric J.\\nMurdock, Harry M. Johnson, III, and Timothy L. McHugh.\\n\\n Michael J. Thompson and Brett K. White were on the brief\\nfor amici curiae PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. in support of\\nappellees.\\n\\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, and TATEL and MILLETT,\\nCircuit Judges.\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.\\n\\n TATEL, Circuit Judge: In order to “create and maintain\\nconditions under which man and nature can exist in productive\\nharmony,” the National Environmental Protection Act\\n(NEPA), 42 U.S.C. § 4331(a), requires any federal agency\\nissuing a construction permit, opening new lands to drilling, or\\nundertaking any other “major” project to take a hard look at the\\nproject’s environmental consequences, id. § 4332(2)(C),\\nincluding the impacts it may have on “important historic . . .\\naspects of our national heritage,” id. § 4331(b). To this end, the\\n\\f 3\\nagency must develop an environmental impact statement (EIS)\\nthat identifies and rigorously appraises the project’s\\nenvironmental effects, unless it finds that the project will have\\n“no significant impact.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.9(a)(1). And that is\\nwhat happened here. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers\\n(“Corps”) granted a permit allowing a utility company to build\\na series of electrical transmission towers across the historic\\nJames River, from whose waters Captain John Smith explored\\nthe New World, and it did so without preparing an EIS because\\nit found that the project would have “no significant impact” on\\nthe historic treasures along the river. As explained below,\\nhowever, the Corps’s “no significant impact” finding was\\narbitrary and capricious: important questions about both the\\nCorps’s chosen methodology and the scope of the project’s\\nimpact remain unanswered, and federal and state agencies with\\nrelevant expertise harbor serious misgivings about locating a\\nproject of this magnitude in a region of such singular\\nimportance to the nation’s history. Accordingly, we reverse the\\ndistrict court’s decision to the contrary and remand with\\ninstructions to vacate the permit and direct the Corps to prepare\\nan environmental impact statement.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Over 400 years ago, Captain John Smith arrived on the\\nshores of what is now known as the Chesapeake Bay. Keen on\\nlearning more about the unfamiliar land, Captain Smith\\nvoyaged up the winding James River, passing through lush\\nforests and under open skies. During his voyages, Smith\\nproduced “maps and writings [that] influenced exploration and\\nsettlement in the New World for over a century.” 152 Cong.\\nRec. 22,282 (2006) (statement of Rep. Davis). These journeys\\ncame to symbolize our nation’s founding and to serve as an\\nequally important reminder of one of the darkest episodes in\\nour history—the settlers’ devastation of Native American\\n\\f 4\\npopulations, including the “eventual collapse of the Powhatan\\npolity.” John S. Salmon, Project Historian, National Park\\nService, Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic\\nWater Trail Statement of National Significance 2 (2006).\\n\\n Long after Smith’s voyages, the river “serv[ed] as a\\nstrategic transportation corridor that shaped the settlement and\\ncommerce of the region.” H.R. Res. 16, 110th Cong. preamble\\n(2007). Indeed, “the economic, political, religious, and social\\ninstitutions that developed during the first [nine] decades” of\\nthe corridor’s settlement “have profound effects on the United\\nStates” to this day. Jamestown 400th Commemoration\\nCommission Act of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106-565, § 2(a)(3), 114\\nStat. 2812, 2812. The same region commanded center stage\\nthrough the nation’s infancy, bearing witness to “the British\\nsurrender that marked the end of the American Revolution.”\\nColonial National Historical Park Amendments, S. Rep.\\nNo. 104-30, at 2 (1995).\\n\\n Honoring these ties to our nation’s past, Congress and\\nseveral federal agencies have established a series of “historic\\nresources” in and around the Chesapeake Bay, including\\nJamestown, Carter’s Grove National Historic Landmark, and\\nthe Captain John Smith National Historic Trail (“Historic\\nTrail”), the nation’s only congressionally-protected water trail.\\nDue to the James River’s “extraordinary historic, economic,\\nrecreational, and environmental importance,” Congress\\nrecognizes it as “‘America’s Founding River.’” H.R. Res. 16\\n§§ 1, 2. According to one representative, Congress\\n“[d]esignat[ed] this [H]istoric [T]rail . . . to spur efforts to\\nprotect and restore the region’s historic and environmental\\nassets.” 152 Cong. Rec. 22,283 (2006) (statement of Rep.\\nCastle). Other members of Congress observed that the region\\n“represents a lasting tribute to the American spirit of discovery\\nand exploration,” id. at 22,282 (statement of Rep. Davis),\\n\\f 5\\naffording visitors “the opportunity to marvel at some of the\\nsame sites that Captain Smith and his crew beheld 400 years\\nago,” id. at 22,283 (statement of Rep. Hoyer).\\n\\n The National Park Service, an agency of the Department\\nof the Interior, pursuant to its obligation “to conserve the\\nscenery [and] natural and historic objects” of our national\\nparks, 54 U.S.C. § 100101(a), acts as steward of these\\nresources, striving to “offer[] visitors an opportunity to\\nvicariously share the experience of Smith and his crew”\\nthrough views “evocative of the seventeenth century,” Park\\nService, A Conservation Strategy for the Captain John Smith\\nChesapeake National Historic Trail Introduction 3 (2013). To\\nthis end, and in accordance with its conservation “management\\nplan” for the Historic Trail, the Service seeks to “[m]aximize\\nthe visual and historical integrity of the visitor experience” by,\\namong other things, ensuring that all new utility lines are\\nunderground. Park Service, General Management Plan:\\nColonial National Historical Park 19, 34 (1993) (“Management\\nPlan”).\\n\\n Enter the demands of modernity. Although the\\napproximately fifty-mile leg of the James River involved in this\\ncase has retained its seventeenth-century charm, the rest of\\nVirginia has kept apace with modern development, which\\nmeans it depends on electricity. Following the 2012 issuance\\nof an Environmental Protection Agency rule requiring power\\ngeneration facilities to reduce certain air pollutant emissions,\\nsee 77 Fed. Reg. 9304 (Feb. 16, 2012), Virginia Electric and\\nPower Company (“Dominion”) determined that, in order to\\ncomply with the rule, it would have to retire two coal-fired\\npower generators. To compensate for the resulting electricity\\nshortfall, Dominion applied in 2013 to the Corps, which has\\njurisdiction over certain projects concerning “waters of the\\nUnited States,” see 33 C.F.R. § 328.1 (internal quotation marks\\n\\f 6\\nomitted), for a permit to construct a new electrical switching\\nstation and two transmission lines. Supported by seventeen\\n250-or-so-foot steel-lattice transmission towers, the line at\\nissue here would stretch for eight miles, four of which would\\ncross the James River and cut through the middle of the historic\\ndistrict encompassing Jamestown and other historic resources.\\nSee Figure 1.\\nFigure 1: Overview Map of Project and Historic Properties (created by\\nIndustrial Economics, Inc.), Joint Appendix (J.A.) 495\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n Before it could greenlight the undertaking, known as the\\nSurry-Skiffes Creek-Whealton project (“Project”), the Corps\\nhad to satisfy several statutory obligations. First, as relevant\\nhere, NEPA required the Corps to consider alternatives to the\\nProject and to prepare an “environmental impact statement” if\\nthe Project would “significantly affect[] the quality of the\\nhuman environment,” 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C)—an analysis\\nwhich must take into account effects on historic resources, 40\\nC.F.R. § 1508.8. But the Corps could bypass preparation of an\\n\\f 7\\nEIS if, based on a preliminary “environmental assessment,” it\\ndetermined that the Project would have “no significant impact”\\non the environment. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.9. Second, the Clean\\nWater Act required the Corps to determine that no “practicable\\nalternative” existed that “would have less adverse effect on the\\naquatic ecosystem.” Id. § 230.12(a)(3)(i). Third, the National\\nHistoric Preservation Act (“Preservation Act”) required the\\nCorps to “take into account the effect of the undertaking on any\\nhistoric property,” 54 U.S.C. § 306108, and, if the project\\nmight “directly and adversely affect any National Historic\\nLandmark,” to take steps “to minimize harm to the landmark,”\\nid. § 306107.\\n\\n Pursuant to these obligations, the Corps studied the\\nProject’s environmental impacts and considered nearly thirty\\nalternatives. In doing so, the Corps relied on a Cultural\\nResources Effects Assessment prepared by Dominion and its\\nconsultants, which included a series of photo simulations that\\nsuperimposed mockups of the proposed towers over the\\nexisting landscape. In its initial environmental assessment, the\\nCorps determined that the Project would adversely but non-\\nsignificantly affect historic resources, rendering an EIS\\nunnecessary.\\n\\n At various points throughout the process, the Corps, as\\nrequired by Preservation Act regulations, reached out to\\n“consulting parties,” which include local governments and\\nother “individuals and organizations with a demonstrated\\ninterest in the undertaking.” 36 C.F.R. § 800.2(c). It also\\ninvited other federal agencies and the public to comment on its\\nNEPA process. See 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C) (requiring an\\nagency to “consult with . . . any Federal agency which has\\njurisdiction by law or special expertise” and to provide any\\nresulting statements “to the public”).\\n\\f 8\\n And comment they did, to the tune of 50,000 submissions,\\nmany of which urged the Corps to prepare an EIS. Condensing\\nthe gist of thousands of comments into one simple but clear\\nproposition, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation\\n(“Advisory Council”)—the independent federal agency tasked\\nwith the “preservation of historic propert[ies],” 54 U.S.C.\\n§ 306101(a)(1)—warned that the Project “threaten[s] to\\nirreparably alter a relatively unspoiled and evocative landscape\\nthat provides context and substance for the historic properties\\nencompassed within.” Letter from Advisory Council\\nChairman 1 (May 2, 2017), J.A. 414.\\n\\n Quite a few commenters also pointed to perceived errors\\nin the Corps’s determination that the Project would not\\nsignificantly impact, in the Advisory Council’s words,\\n“historic properties of transcendent national significance.”\\nLetter from Advisory Council Director 1 (May 2, 2017),\\nJ.A. 411. Writing to the Corps fully twenty times, the Park\\nService warned that the Project “would forever degrade,\\ndamage, and destroy the historic setting of these iconic\\nresources.” Letter from Park Service Director 1 (Dec. 11,\\n2015), J.A. 1829. The Virginia Department of Historic\\nResources feared “irreparabl[e] alter[ation] [of] the character\\nof the area.” Letter from Virginia Department of Historic\\nResources Director 2 (Nov. 13, 2015), J.A. 1855. Others,\\nincluding then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, the Council on\\nEnvironmental Quality, and many non-governmental\\norganizations, sounded similar alarms.\\n\\n Other commenters identified what they viewed as serious\\nflaws in the Corps’s methodologies. To give a flavor of these\\nconcerns, a specialist at the Department of Energy’s Argonne\\nNational Laboratory (“Argonne”) found the Corps’s analyses\\n“scientifically unsound” and “completely contrary to accepted\\nprofessional practice.” Response from Robert Sullivan ¶ 1\\n\\f 9\\n(Jan. 10, 2017), J.A. 534. The Park Service, the Advisory\\nCouncil, and others critiqued the Corps’s socioeconomic,\\nvisual, and cumulative effects analyses.\\n\\n Still other commenters criticized the Corps’s evaluation of\\nalternatives. Summarizing several such concerns, the Advisory\\nCouncil wrote that the “alternatives analysis was extremely\\nproblematic,” that the National Parks Conservation\\nAssociation (“Conservation Association”) had funded a study\\n“that challenged the accuracy of the data and assumptions used\\nby Dominion,” and that the engineering firm retained by the\\nNational Trust for Historic Preservation (“National Trust”) had\\ndeveloped alternatives that “would cost less to construct, be\\nbuilt more quickly, and meet all relevant reliability standards.”\\nLetter from Advisory Council Chairman 3 (May 2, 2017),\\nJ.A. 416. According to one of the Corps’s own specialists,\\nDominion could yet “take a harder look at the alternatives” and\\nthe company’s cost estimates for the alternatives were “bloated\\nand excessive.” Sustainable Program Manager Review 3–4,\\nJ.A. 540–41.\\n\\n While this deluge poured in, the Corps consulted with\\nvarious agencies, conducted site visits, and twice directed\\nDominion to revise its photo simulations. Upon reviewing\\nthese amended analyses, the Corps and Dominion still believed\\nthat the Project, alone among all options, met the requisite\\nreliability, cost, and timing parameters.\\n\\n Commenters remained unsatisfied. Several agencies\\nwarned that the revised analyses, as the Park Service put it, still\\ncontained “fundamental flaws” that, though “repeatedly\\nidentified,” nonetheless “remain[ed] unresolved.” Letter from\\nPark Service Acting Regional Director 1 (Jan. 12, 2017),\\nJ.A. 475. Indeed, the “majority of the consulting parties” found\\nDominion’s amendments “superficial and inadequate.” Letter\\n\\f 10\\nfrom Advisory Council Chairman 3 (May 2, 2017), J.A. 416.\\nUnderscoring that such concerns endured past the final round\\nof revisions, the Park Service director during this process\\nsubmitted an amicus brief in his now-private capacity,\\nemphasizing that, since the Project will “forever . . . destroy the\\nhistoric setting of these iconic resources,” the Park Service,\\nwere it the agency with permitting authority, could not approve\\nthe Project “because its adverse impacts are so significant.”\\n18th Director of the National Park Service Jonathan B. Jarvis\\nBr. 7 (internal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\n The process reached a temporary denouement in 2017.\\nFollowing the change in administration, then-newly appointed\\n(now-former) Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke met with the\\nCorps, acknowledged its “thoughtful and thorough\\nconsideration of the issues,” and announced that he “st[ood]\\nready to sign a final agreement as a concurring party.” Letter\\nfrom Ryan Zinke 1 (Mar. 30, 2017), J.A. 420. Shortly\\nthereafter, the Corps issued a permit to Dominion. In the\\naccompanying Memorandum for the Record (“Memo”), the\\nCorps acknowledged that the Project would “intrude upon the\\nviewsheds of historic properties and on a unique and highly\\nscenic section of the James River.” Memo § 10.3.8, J.A. 257.\\nNonetheless, the Corps concluded, the effects on these\\n“national treasure[s]” were “moderate at most” and “inherently\\nsubjective.” Id. §§ 10.3.8, 12.3, J.A. 257, 266 (internal\\nquotation marks omitted). Where visible at all, it explained, the\\ntransmission towers would not “block[]” or “dominate” the\\nview and would join existing “modern visual intrusions,” such\\nas the Busch Gardens amusement park and recreational boat\\ntraffic. Id. § 10.3.8, J.A. 257–58.\\n\\n The Corps also executed a Memorandum of Agreement\\nwith Dominion, in which the company agreed to offset the\\nharm to historic resources by, among other things, periodically\\n\\f 11\\nreviewing the continued need for the Project and investing in\\nVirginia’s historic preservation efforts. Although a few other\\nparticipants, including Interior, signed this Memorandum, most\\ndeclined to do so because they remained concerned “that the\\nadverse effects resulting from this undertaking [could not] be\\nmitigated.” Letter from Advisory Council Chairman 2 (May 2,\\n2017), J.A. 415.\\n\\n The National Trust, the Association for the Preservation of\\nVirginia Antiquities, and the Conservation Association\\n(collectively, the “Conservation Groups”) sued in district court\\nalleging that the Corps failed to satisfy its NEPA, Clean Water\\nAct, and Preservation Act obligations. The district court found\\nthat the “Corps made a ‘fully informed and well-considered’\\ndecision” and granted summary judgment to the agency.\\nNational Parks Conservation Association v. Semonite, 311 F.\\nSupp. 3d 350, 361 (D.D.C. 2018) (quoting Vermont Yankee\\nNuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resource Defense Council,\\n435 U.S. 519, 558 (1978)).\\n\\n On appeal, the Conservation Groups present three\\narguments: that due to the significance of the Project’s impacts,\\nthe Corps was required to prepare an EIS; that the Corps’s\\nalternatives analyses fell short of the requirements imposed by\\nboth NEPA and the Clean Water Act; and that the Corps failed\\nto fulfill its obligations under section 110(f) of the Preservation\\nAct, 54 U.S.C. § 306107, which requires an agency to\\nminimize harm to any National Historic Landmark “directly\\nand adversely” affected by a project. “We review the district\\ncourt’s decision to grant summary judgment de novo.” Aera\\nEnergy LLC v. Salazar, 642 F.3d 212, 218 (D.C. Cir. 2011).\\n\\f 12\\n II.\\n\\n We begin with the Conservation Groups’ argument that\\nNEPA required the Corps to prepare an EIS because, as they\\nsee it, the Project will significantly impact historic resources.\\n“Our role in reviewing [the Corps’s] decision not to prepare an\\nEIS is a limited one, designed primarily to ensure that no\\narguably significant consequences have been ignored.”\\nMyersville Citizens for a Rural Community, Inc. v. FERC, 783\\nF.3d 1301, 1322 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks\\nomitted). Responsible for determining whether the Corps’s\\ndecision was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or\\notherwise not in accordance with law,” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A),\\nwe ask whether the Corps is “able to make a convincing case\\nfor its finding” of no significant impact. Sierra Club v. U.S.\\nDepartment of Transportation, 753 F.2d 120, 127 (D.C. Cir.\\n1985).\\n\\n “NEPA’s primary function is ‘information-forcing,’\\ncompelling federal agencies to take a hard and honest look at\\nthe environmental consequences of their decisions.” American\\nRivers v. FERC, 895 F.3d 32, 49 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (internal\\ncitations omitted). To satisfy this “hard look” requirement, the\\nCorps must prepare an EIS for any project “significantly\\naffecting the quality of the human environment.” 42 U.S.C.\\n§ 4332(2)(C). Under NEPA’s regulatory scheme, crafted by the\\nCouncil on Environmental Quality, such effects can be, among\\nothers, historic, aesthetic, or cultural. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.8.\\nCongress has declared that “preserv[ing] important historic,\\ncultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage”\\nconstitutes an important goal of the statute. 42 U.S.C.\\n§ 4331(b)(4). And we in turn have recognized that protecting\\nsuch resources is “an interest that NEPA’s procedural mandate\\nwas intended to vindicate.” Oglala Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Nuclear\\nRegulatory Commission, 896 F.3d 520, 529 (D.C. Cir. 2018).\\n\\f 13\\nAs mentioned earlier, if the Corps believes that a project may\\nnot require an EIS, it may first prepare an environmental\\nassessment to determine whether a “no significant impact”\\ndetermination might find support in the record. 40 C.F.R.\\n§ 1508.9(a).\\n\\n During the NEPA process, the Corps must consult\\nagencies with “special expertise with respect to any\\nenvironmental impact involved.” 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C); see\\nalso 40 C.F.R. § 1501.6(a)(2) (requiring agencies to use the\\nresulting analysis “to the maximum extent possible”). But, as\\nthe lead agency, the Corps, which “b[ears] the ultimate\\nstatutory responsibility” for the Project, “does not have to\\nfollow [other agencies’] comments slavishly—it just has to\\ntake them seriously.” Citizens Against Burlington, Inc. v.\\nBusey, 938 F.2d 190, 201 (D.C. Cir. 1991).\\n\\n Whether a project has significant environmental impacts,\\nthus triggering the need to produce an EIS, depends on its\\n“context” (region, locality) and “intensity” (“severity of\\nimpact”). 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27. Here, because all parties agree\\nthat the historically-saturated “context”—i.e., this 50-mile\\nstretch of the James River—qualifies as significant, our inquiry\\nfocuses on the “intensity” element, which enumerates ten\\nfactors that “should be considered.” Id. § 1508.27(b).\\nImplicating any one of the factors may be sufficient to require\\ndevelopment of an EIS. See Grand Canyon Trust v. FAA, 290\\nF.3d 339, 347 (D.C. Cir. 2002), as amended (Aug. 27, 2002)\\n(granting a petition for review after finding a project implicated\\none factor, without reaching additional factors). The district\\ncourt found that “none of the significance factors weigh in\\nfavor of [the] contention that an EIS is required.” National\\nParks Conservation Association, 311 F. Supp. 3d at 363. The\\nConservation Groups disagree, arguing that the Project\\nimplicates three such factors: “[t]he degree to which the effects\\n\\f 14\\non the quality of the human environment are likely to be highly\\ncontroversial,” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(4); “[u]nique\\ncharacteristics of the geographic area such as proximity to\\nhistoric or cultural resources,” id. § 1508.27(b)(3); and the\\n“degree to which the action may adversely affect districts [or]\\nsites . . . listed in or eligible for listing in the National Register\\nof Historic Places,” id. § 1508.27(b)(8). We consider each in\\nturn.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n The first factor considers “[t]he degree to which the effects\\non the quality of the human environment are likely to be highly\\ncontroversial.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(4). The word\\n“controversial,” we held in Town of Cave Creek v. FAA, refers\\nto situations where “‘substantial dispute exists as to the size,\\nnature, or effect of the major federal action.’” 325 F.3d 320,\\n331 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (quoting North American Wild Sheep v.\\nU.S. Department of Agriculture, 681 F.2d 1172, 1182 (9th Cir.\\n1982)) (emphasis in original). And as we explained in Fund for\\nAnimals v. Frizzell, “certainly something more is required” for\\na highly controversial finding “besides the fact that some\\npeople may be highly agitated and be willing to go to court over\\nthe matter.” 530 F.2d 982, 988 n.15 (D.C. Cir. 1975) (per\\ncuriam) (emphasis added).\\n\\n According to the Conservation Groups, “[w]here, as here,\\ntwo federal agencies have argued for years over the ‘size,’\\n‘nature,’ and ‘effect’ of the project on resources under [the Park\\nService’s] jurisdiction (as have other agencies with ‘special\\nexpertise’ under NEPA), the Court’s test for ‘controversy’ fits\\nlike a glove.” Conservation Association Br. 22 (emphasis\\nomitted). For its part, the Corps asserts that, under Cave Creek\\nand Frizzell, it “reasonably concluded that comments\\ndemanding an EIS ‘represent passion for the affected\\n\\f 15\\nresources’ . . . rather than substantive dispute.” Corps Br. 38\\n(quoting Memo § 12.3, J.A. 266). The Conservation Groups\\nacknowledge that a highly controversial finding must rest on\\nmore than passionate opposition, but they insist that the\\ncriticism of the Corps’s NEPA process rises to the requisite\\n“something more.”\\n\\n The Conservation Groups first point out that much of the\\ndisagreement centers on perceived defects in the Corps’s\\nmethodology and that, as the district court observed, “[m]any\\ncourts have found ‘something more’ to be scientific or other\\nevidence that reveals flaws in the methods or data relied upon\\nby the agency in reaching its conclusions.” National Parks\\nConservation Association, 311 F. Supp. 3d at 363 (citing\\nNational Parks & Conservation Association v. Babbitt, 241\\nF.3d 722, 736–37 (9th Cir. 2001)) (internal quotation marks\\nomitted); accord Biodiversity Conservation Alliance v. U.S.\\nForest Service, 765 F.3d 1264, 1275 (10th Cir. 2014) (“A\\nsubstantial dispute can be found, for example, when other\\ninformation in the record cast[s] substantial doubt on the\\nadequacy of the agency’s methodology and data.” (internal\\nquotation marks and citation omitted)); see, e.g., Cave Creek,\\n325 F.3d at 332 (no controversy where the petitioners “pointed\\nto nothing casting serious doubt on [the agency’s] preferred\\nmodel”). An expert at Argonne labeled the Corps’s analyses\\n“scientifically unsound, inappropriate, and completely contrary\\nto accepted professional practice,” accusing the agency of\\nconflating a cultural resource analysis with the very different\\nvisual resource analysis. Response from Robert Sullivan ¶ 1\\n(Jan. 10, 2017), J.A. 534. The Advisory Council voiced serious\\nconcerns about the photo simulations: “[T]here are flaws in the\\nvisual effects assessment. . . . [C]onsulting parties have\\nrepeatedly suggested that the Corps should require photographs\\nand simulations from an adequate range of viewpoints . . . to\\nillustrate the extent and magnitude of the effects.” Letter from\\n\\f 16\\nAdvisory Council Assistant Director 2 (Mar. 2, 2016),\\nJ.A. 1483. And the Park Service believed that the visual\\nanalyses “d[id] not meet [its] standards,” questioning whether\\nthe Corps and Dominion completed “an adequate visual\\nanalysis,” “evaluat[ed] . . . socioeconomic impacts,” and\\nundertook a “sufficient cumulative effects analysis.” Letter\\nfrom Park Service Associate Regional Director 1 (Mar. 25,\\n2016), J.A. 1357; Letter from Park Service Acting Regional\\nDirector 2 (Jan. 12, 2017), J.A. 476. If such comments,\\nrepresenting just a small sample of the many criticisms in the\\nrecord, do not “cast substantial doubt on the adequacy” of the\\nCorps’s methodologies, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance,\\n765 F.3d at 1275 (internal quotation marks omitted), then we\\nare unsure what would.\\n\\n According to the Conservation Groups, the controversy\\nsurrounding the Project is especially intense because many of\\nthose raising concerns—methodological and otherwise—are\\nthemselves government agencies with “special expertise” over\\nhistoric resources. 40 C.F.R. § 1501.6(a)(2). And as they also\\npoint out, courts regularly find that such concerns demonstrate\\nthat a project qualifies as highly controversial. See, e.g., North\\nAmerican Wild Sheep, 681 F.2d at 1182 (criticism from\\nconservationists, biologists, two state agencies, and “other\\nknowledgeable individuals” represented “precisely the type of\\n‘controversial’ action for which an EIS must be prepared”);\\nFriends of the Earth, Inc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 109\\nF. Supp. 2d 30, 43 (D.D.C. 2000) (project classified as\\n“genuinely and extremely controversial” where three federal\\nagencies, one state agency, and the public “all disputed the\\nCorps evaluation”).\\n\\n Again, the Conservation Groups are correct. The Advisory\\nCouncil questioned the Corps’s “treatment of effects on\\nhistoric properties of transcendent national significance.”\\n\\f 17\\nLetter from Advisory Council Director 1 (May 2, 2017),\\nJ.A. 411. Interior Secretary Jewell warned that the Project\\nwould “introduce a major intrusion into a landscape” like “no\\nother preserved locale in the Nation.” Letter from Sally\\nJewell 1 (Jan. 17, 2016), J.A. 473. The Park Service worried\\nthat the Project “would forever degrade, damage, and destroy\\nthe historic setting of these iconic resources,” admonishing that\\n“[t]his is not acceptable for resources designated by Congress\\nto ensure their permanent protection.” Letter from Park Service\\nDirector 1 (Dec. 11, 2015), J.A. 1829. As the Service observed,\\n“[s]ince the 1930s, the visitor experience and interpretation of\\nJamestown has been a collective effort . . . to shift [visitors’]\\nsense of place back in time,” and “[w]ithin the Historic District\\nthe James River is unblemished by any man-made physical\\ncrossing.” Letter from Park Service Associate Regional\\nDirector 6 (July 5, 2016), J.A. 878; Letter from Park Service\\nAssociate Regional Director 3 (Jan. 29, 2016), J.A. 1494. The\\nService repeatedly communicated its concerns to the Corps,\\nand its own management plan requires that the “visual and\\nhistorical integrity of the visitor experience” be “maximize[d]”\\nand that all new utility lines be installed underground.\\nManagement Plan at 19, 34.\\n\\n And the list goes on. Industrial Economics, Inc., a\\nconsultant retained by the Park Service, feared that the Project\\ncould “have implications for successful future designation [of\\nJamestown] as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.” Industrial\\nEconomics, Inc. Report 9 (Jan. 2017), J.A. 499. The Virginia\\nDepartment of Historic Resources warned of “irreparabl[e]\\nalter[ation] [of] the character of the area.” Letter from Virginia\\nDepartment of Historic Resources Director 2 (Nov. 13, 2015),\\nJ.A. 1855. Members of Congress, delegates to the Virginia\\nAssembly, the Keeper of the National Historic Register, and\\nthe Council on Environmental Quality all voiced similar\\nreservations. The non-profit Coalition to Protect America’s\\n\\f 18\\nNational Parks, comprising current and former Park Service\\nemployees, pleaded, as did a bevy of other organizations, that\\n“[t]he Corps owes . . . to this and future generations of\\nAmericans to protect the place where ‘America Began.’” Letter\\nfrom Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks 1 (Dec. 23,\\n2016), J.A. 464.\\n\\n These are hardly the hyperbolic cries of “highly agitated,”\\nnot-in-my-backyard neighbors “willing to go to court over the\\nmatter.” Frizzell, 530 F.2d at 988 n.15. Instead, they represent\\nthe considered responses—many solicited by the Corps itself—\\nof highly specialized governmental agencies and organizations.\\nThe Advisory Council, tasked as it is with preserving\\nAmerica’s historic resources, merits special attention when it\\nopines, as it did here, on “the treatment of effects on historic\\nproperties of transcendent national significance.” Letter from\\nAdvisory Council Director 1 (May 2, 2017), J.A. 411; see also\\nPreservation Coalition, Inc. v. Pierce, 667 F.2d 851, 858 (9th\\nCir. 1982) (“[J]udgments of historical significance made by the\\nAdvisory Council . . . deserve great weight.”). Of course, as\\nlead agency the Corps owes no obligation to bend to the will of\\nothers. See Citizens Against Burlington, 938 F.2d at 201 (a lead\\nagency must only “take [other agencies’ comments]\\nseriously”). But repeated criticism from many agencies who\\nserve as stewards of the exact resources at issue, not to mention\\nconsultants and organizations with on-point expertise, surely\\nrises to more than mere passion.\\n\\n The Corps argues that because the Park Service is a\\ncomponent of the Interior Department, Secretary Zinke’s letter\\napproving the Project, in the district court’s words, “effectively\\nwithdrew” the Service’s “previous stance that an EIS was\\nrequired.” National Parks Conservation Association, 311 F.\\nSupp. 3d at 366. We disagree. For one thing, even if the Zinke\\nletter did withdraw the Service’s opposition, numerous other\\n\\f 19\\ngroups remained adamantly opposed. We are unsure,\\nmoreover, whether the Zinke letter actually responds to the\\nPark Service’s concerns. As the Conservation Association\\npoints out, the letter “never even reference[s] [the Park\\nService’s] objections [or] longstanding methodological\\ncritiques.” Conservation Association Reply Br. 10. And most\\nimportant, the Zinke letter says little about the only question\\nbefore us: whether the Corps acted arbitrarily and capriciously\\nin declining to prepare an EIS. Regardless of Interior’s stance,\\nthe Corps retained its NEPA obligation to “consider\\nadequately” whether the Project is highly controversial. Cave\\nCreek, 325 F.3d at 327. Because the facts underlying the Park\\nService’s concerns changed not at all between the Jewell and\\nZinke letters, the Corps had to either confront those facts or\\nexplain why the Zinke letter rendered them irrelevant. See\\nEncino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 136 S. Ct. 2117, 2125\\n(2016) (“One of the basic procedural requirements of\\nadministrative rulemaking is that an agency must give adequate\\nreasons for its decisions.”). Indeed, in our view, that two\\nInterior Secretaries had diametrically different views about the\\nsame project on the same facts simply reinforces its\\ncontroversial nature.\\n\\n The Corps next contends that it did acknowledge and try\\nto address concerns raised during the NEPA process by, for\\nexample, instructing Dominion to revise its analyses to address\\nthe shortcomings identified by commenters. But that misses the\\npoint. The question is not whether the Corps attempted to\\nresolve the controversy, but whether it succeeded. Given that\\nmany critical comments, including those from the Advisory\\nCouncil and the Argonne specialist, post-dated Dominion’s\\nrevisions, the Corps obviously failed.\\n\\n In short, the Corps’s assessment of the scope of the\\nProject’s effects has drawn consistent and strenuous\\n\\f 20\\nopposition, often in the form of concrete objections to the\\nCorps’s analytical process and findings, from agencies\\nentrusted with preserving historic resources and organizations\\nwith subject-matter expertise. This demonstrates the\\n“something more” needed to show that “the effects on the\\nquality of the human environment are likely to be highly\\ncontroversial.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(4).\\n\\n B.\\n\\n The next intensity factor the Conservation Groups cite\\nexamines the “[u]nique characteristics of the geographic area\\nsuch as proximity to historic or cultural resources.” 40 C.F.R.\\n§ 1508.27(b)(3). According to the Conservation Association,\\n“[t]he Corps-approved project entails putting giant modern\\ntransmission towers not only in close ‘proximity to’ numerous\\nhighly unique historic and cultural sites that are ‘one-of-a-kind\\nresources of national importance,’ but putting them directly in\\nand across the nation’s only Congressionally-designated\\nhistoric water trail.” Conservation Association Br. 19\\n(emphasis in original) (citation omitted). The Corps responds\\nthat the Project “‘is not a blockage to viewing the river or the\\nsurroundings’ and ‘will not dominate the view.’” Corps Br. 27\\n(quoting Memo § 10.3.8, J.A. 258). Again, the Corps misses\\nthe point.\\n\\n Congress has consistently “recommit[ted] itself to\\nprotecting and restoring the James River for the enjoyment and\\nprosperity of current and future generations.” H.R. Res. 16 § 4.\\nAs one congressman put it, these efforts preserve “the\\nopportunity [for visitors] to marvel at some of the same sites\\nthat Captain Smith and his crew beheld.” 152 Cong.\\nRec. 22,283 (2006) (statement of Rep. Hoyer). Of course, when\\nCaptain Smith sailed up the James River in the seventeenth\\ncentury, he beheld nothing either licensed by the U.S. Army\\n\\f 21\\nCorps of Engineers or built by Dominion Energy. In other\\nwords, even without blocking the view or dominating the\\nlandscape from all angles, the Project undercuts the very\\npurpose for which Congress designated these resources: to\\npreserve their “unspoiled and evocative landscape[s].” Letter\\nfrom Advisory Council Chairman 1 (May 2, 2017), J.A. 414.\\n\\n Insisting that the Project is nothing new, the Corps points\\nto existing “modern visual intrusions” in the same region that\\nrepresent a “successful mix of progress and history.” Corps\\nBr. 28 (quoting Memo § 10.3.8, J.A. 257). This\\nmischaracterizes the record. Although there is some modern\\ndevelopment, including an amusement park, boat traffic, and\\nresorts, the Corps itself described these as largely “low density\\nintrusions that become relatively lost within the overall\\nlandscape.” National Register of Historic Places Eligibility 4\\n(May 7, 2015), J.A. 2205. As the Conservation Association\\nobserves, “the record does not support the assertion . . . that\\nexisting intrusions are remotely comparable in size, magnitude,\\nor impact to this massive project that will be the only overhead\\ncrossing of the James River in a fifty-one-mile stretch.”\\nConservation Association Br. 20 (emphasis in original).\\n\\n The Corps maintains that the mitigation steps contained in\\nits Memorandum of Agreement with Dominion “would reduce\\n[the Project’s] impacts to a minimum.” Corps Br. 42. But the\\nrelevance of the Memorandum is dubious given that the Corps\\ndeclined to rely on it when making its “no significance”\\nfindings. To the extent the Corps leans on it now, the document\\noffers little support. Except for requiring Dominion to\\n“examine” alternative “coating and finishing materials” for the\\ntransmission towers, the enumerated mitigation measures the\\nCorps cites relate not to reducing the significance of the\\nProject’s visual impacts on the historic resources along the\\nJames River, but rather to periodic evaluation of the continued\\n\\f 22\\nneed for the Project itself and to more general historic\\npreservation efforts throughout the Commonwealth.\\nMemorandum of Agreement § I.e.1, J.A. 293.\\n\\n Finally, the Corps emphasizes that the Project’s effects are\\nvisual and that the Seventh Circuit, citing our decision in\\nMaryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission v.\\nU.S. Postal Service, 487 F.2d 1029, 1038–39 (D.C. Cir. 1973),\\nstated that aesthetic “judgments are inherently subjective and\\nnormally can be made . . . reliably on the basis of an\\nenvironmental assessment.” River Road Alliance, Inc. v. Corps\\nof Engineers of U.S. Army, 764 F.2d 445, 451 (7th Cir. 1985).\\nBut “normally” is not the same as “always.” And in Maryland-\\nNational Capital Park, we distinguished aesthetic judgment\\ncalls that entail “defining what is beautiful” from situations like\\nthis one where Congress’s purpose in designating the resources\\nwas to preserve “an unencumbered view of an attractive scenic\\nexpanse.” 487 F.2d at 1038 & n.5.\\n\\n C.\\n\\n The foregoing largely demonstrates why the Project\\nimplicates the final intensity factor invoked by the\\nConservation Groups: the “degree to which the action may\\nadversely affect districts [or] sites . . . listed in or eligible for\\nlisting in the National Register of Historic Places.” 40 C.F.R.\\n§ 1508.27(b)(8). Indeed, the Corps itself gets us much of the\\nway there. It concedes that the Project’s “close proximity” to\\nCarter’s Grove, an eighteenth-century Georgian-style\\nplantation, “would detract from the resource’s characteristics\\nof setting and feeling which are integral to the resource’s\\nqualifications for listing on the [National Register of Historic\\nPlaces].” Cultural Resources Effects Assessment § 3.9.4\\n(Sept. 15, 2015), J.A. 2024. And it is hardly just Carter’s\\nGrove. By the Corps’s own count, the region boasts fifty-seven\\n\\f 23\\nsites on the National Register or eligible for inclusion on it—a\\nconcentration of historic resources found “[i]n no other place\\nin [the] United States.” Letter from Park Service Regional\\nDirector 1 (Oct. 22, 2015), J.A. 1911.\\n\\n The Corps’s findings, paired with the record’s “robust,\\nwell-supported analyses, from agencies with Congressionally-\\ndelegated authority and recognized expertise,” National Trust\\nBr. 16, satisfy this intensity factor. The out-of-circuit cases\\ncited by the Corps—concerning the construction of a golf\\nclubhouse near another, historic one, Presidio Golf Club v.\\nNational Park Service, 155 F.3d 1153, 1156 (9th Cir. 1998),\\nand the refurbishment of an existing railroad to provide\\ncommuter service, Advocates for Transportation Alternatives,\\nInc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 453 F. Supp. 2d 289,\\n294–95 (D. Mass. 2006)—are easily distinguishable, as they\\nimplicate neither comparably sized infrastructure nor equally\\naugust historic resources.\\n\\n D.\\n\\n The Corps has thus failed to make a “convincing case” that\\nan EIS is unnecessary. Myersville Citizens, 783 F.3d at 1322.\\nThree intensity factors demonstrate not only that the Project\\nwill significantly impact historic resources, but also that it\\nwould benefit from an EIS. Indeed, Congress created the EIS\\nprocess to provide robust information in situations precisely\\nlike this one, where, following an environmental assessment,\\nthe scope of a project’s impacts remains both uncertain and\\ncontroversial. See, e.g., Grand Canyon Trust, 290 F.3d\\nat 345–47 (remanding for further proceedings when an agency,\\nanalyzing noise impacts on a national park “identified [by the\\nPark Service] as among the nine national parks of ‘highest\\npriority,’” considered those impacts “in a vacuum” without\\nsensitivity to the park’s “natural quiet”); American Rivers, 895\\n\\f 24\\nF.3d at 50 (ordering an EIS based on concerns that the agency\\n“just shrugged off” potentially significant impacts based on\\n“estimates entirely unmoored from any empirical, scientific, or\\notherwise verifiable study or source”).\\n\\n III.\\n\\n In preparing its EIS, the Corps will have to revisit its\\ntheories about alternatives under NEPA, which in turn will\\nrequire it to reevaluate its Clean Water Act and Preservation\\nAct analyses. Accordingly, we see no reason to address most\\nof the remaining questions raised by the Conservation Groups.\\nSee American Iron & Steel Institute v. EPA, 115 F.3d 979, 1008\\n(D.C. Cir. 1997) (“see[ing] no profit” in addressing remaining\\nargument where an agency was “already committed to agency\\nrevision”). Though taking no position on the adequacy of the\\nCorps’s alternatives analyses, we urge it to give careful\\nconsideration to its sister agencies’ concerns that the prior\\niterations were “superficial,” “inadequate,” and “extremely\\nproblematic.” Letter from Advisory Council Chairman 3\\n(May 2, 2017), J.A. 416.\\n\\n There is, however, one issue whose resolution would\\nfacilitate further proceedings before the Corps. Specifically,\\nthe parties disagree about the meaning of section 110(f) of the\\nPreservation Act, which provides that for any project “directly\\nand adversely affect[ing] any National Historic Landmark,” the\\nagency must “to the maximum extent possible undertake such\\nplanning and actions as may be necessary to minimize harm to\\nthe landmark.” 54 U.S.C. § 306107. The debate centers on the\\nword “directly” as it relates to Carter’s Grove, the National\\nHistoric Landmark at issue. According to the Corps and the\\ndistrict court, because the Project does not “physically” intrude\\non the plantation’s grounds—several towers are instead visible\\nfrom them—section 110(f) does not apply. See National Parks\\n\\f 25\\nConservation Association, 311 F. Supp. 3d at 379 (“The Court\\nis persuaded that the meaning of ‘directly’ in Section 110(f)\\nrefers to physical impacts . . . .”). The National Trust disagrees,\\nequating “directly” with having “no intervening cause.”\\nNational Trust Br. 9 (internal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\n Because we “owe no deference to [the Corps’s]\\ninterpretation of a statute it does not administer,” Amax Land\\nCo. v. Quarterman, 181 F.3d 1356, 1368 (D.C. Cir. 1999),\\n“[w]e begin our analysis with the language of the statute,”\\nUnited States v. Wilson, 290 F.3d 347, 352 (D.C. Cir. 2002).\\nAlthough section 110(f) clearly encompasses physical effects,\\nnothing in the statute’s text so limits its reach. According to the\\ndictionary, both now and at the time section 110(f) was passed,\\n“direct” means “free from extraneous influence” or\\n“immediate.” Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014); see also\\nBlack’s Law Dictionary (5th ed. 1979) (“direct” defined as\\n“without any . . . intervening influence” or “[i]mmediate”).\\nAnd had Congress wished to restrict section 110(f)’s reach to\\nphysical impacts, “it could have easily done so by using the\\nword” physically. Marx v. General Revenue Corp., 568 U.S.\\n371, 384 (2013). Finally, although no agency has provided\\nbinding guidance, the two actually responsible for\\nadministering this statute—the Park Service, 54 U.S.C.\\n§ 306101(b), and the Advisory Council, id. § 304108(a)—both\\nunderstand “directly” to “refer[] to causation and not\\nphysicality.” Letter from Advisory Council Assistant\\nDirector 4 (Mar. 2, 2016), J.A. 1485; see also Lawyers’\\nCommittee for Cultural Heritage Preservation Br. 19, Ex. A,\\nLetter from Park Service Acting Associate Director 2 (Sept. 21,\\n2017) (“The [Park Service] does not agree with the Corps’\\nposition that Section 110(f) applies only when an undertaking\\nmay physically impact a National Historic Landmark.”). On\\nremand, therefore, the Corps must reconsider its Preservation\\nAct analysis using this proper definition.\\n\\f 26\\n IV.\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, we reverse and remand to the\\ndistrict court with instructions to vacate Dominion’s permit and\\ndirect the Corps to prepare an environmental impact statement.\\n\\n So ordered.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4372703/\", \"author_raw\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"GARLAND"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"TATEL"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"MILLETT"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4595450/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION, Appellant v. Todd T. SEMONITE, Lieutenant General, Et Al., Appellees\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-01\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued December 7, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\n\n No. 18-5179\n\n NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION,\n APPELLANT\n\n v.\n\n TODD T. SEMONITE, LIEUTENANT GENERAL, ET AL.,\n APPELLEES\n\n\n Consolidated with 18-5186\n\n\n Appeals from the United States District Court\n for the District of Columbia\n (No. 1:17-cv-01361)\n (No. 1:17-cv-01574)\n\n\n Matthew G. Adams argued the cause and filed the briefs\nfor appellants National Trust for Historic Preservation, et al.\n\n William S. Eubanks II argued the cause for appellant\nNational Parks Conservation Association. With him on the\nbriefs was Eric R. Glitzenstein.\n\n J. Blanding Holman was on the brief for amici curiae The\nLawyer’s Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, et al.\nin support of appellant.\n\f 2\n\n Tyler Joseph Sniff was on the brief for amici curiae 18th\nDirector of the National Park Service Jonathan B. Jarvis, et al.\nin support of appellant National Parks Conservation\nAssociation.\n\n Dustin J. Maghamfar, Attorney, U.S. Department of\nJustice, argued the cause for federal appellees. With him on the\nbrief were Jeffrey H. Wood, Acting Assistant Attorney General,\nEric A. Grant, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and\nAndrew C. Mergen, Mark R. Haag, and Heather E. Gange,\nAttorneys.\n\n Elbert Lin argued the cause for appellee Virginia Electric\nand Power Company. With him on the brief were Eric J.\nMurdock, Harry M. Johnson, III, and Timothy L. McHugh.\n\n Michael J. Thompson and Brett K. White were on the brief\nfor amici curiae PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. in support of\nappellees.\n\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, and TATEL and MILLETT,\nCircuit Judges.\n\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.\n\n TATEL, Circuit Judge: In order to “create and maintain\nconditions under which man and nature can exist in productive\nharmony,” the National Environmental Protection Act\n(NEPA), 42 U.S.C. § 4331(a), requires any federal agency\nissuing a construction permit, opening new lands to drilling, or\nundertaking any other “major” project to take a hard look at the\nproject’s environmental consequences, id. § 4332(2)(C),\nincluding the impacts it may have on “important historic . . .\naspects of our national heritage,” id. § 4331(b). To this end, the\n\f 3\nagency must develop an environmental impact statement (EIS)\nthat identifies and rigorously appraises the project’s\nenvironmental effects, unless it finds that the project will have\n“no significant impact.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.9(a)(1). And that is\nwhat happened here. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers\n(“Corps”) granted a permit allowing a utility company to build\na series of electrical transmission towers across the historic\nJames River, from whose waters Captain John Smith explored\nthe New World, and it did so without preparing an EIS because\nit found that the project would have “no significant impact” on\nthe historic treasures along the river. As explained below,\nhowever, the Corps’s “no significant impact” finding was\narbitrary and capricious: important questions about both the\nCorps’s chosen methodology and the scope of the project’s\nimpact remain unanswered, and federal and state agencies with\nrelevant expertise harbor serious misgivings about locating a\nproject of this magnitude in a region of such singular\nimportance to the nation’s history. Accordingly, we reverse the\ndistrict court’s decision to the contrary and remand with\ninstructions to vacate the permit and direct the Corps to prepare\nan environmental impact statement.\n\n I.\n\n Over 400 years ago, Captain John Smith arrived on the\nshores of what is now known as the Chesapeake Bay. Keen on\nlearning more about the unfamiliar land, Captain Smith\nvoyaged up the winding James River, passing through lush\nforests and under open skies. During his voyages, Smith\nproduced “maps and writings [that] influenced exploration and\nsettlement in the New World for over a century.” 152 Cong.\nRec. 22,282 (2006) (statement of Rep. Davis). These journeys\ncame to symbolize our nation’s founding and to serve as an\nequally important reminder of one of the darkest episodes in\nour history—the settlers’ devastation of Native American\n\f 4\npopulations, including the “eventual collapse of the Powhatan\npolity.” John S. Salmon, Project Historian, National Park\nService, Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic\nWater Trail Statement of National Significance 2 (2006).\n\n Long after Smith’s voyages, the river “serv[ed] as a\nstrategic transportation corridor that shaped the settlement and\ncommerce of the region.” H.R. Res. 16, 110th Cong. preamble\n(2007). Indeed, “the economic, political, religious, and social\ninstitutions that developed during the first [nine] decades” of\nthe corridor’s settlement “have profound effects on the United\nStates” to this day. Jamestown 400th Commemoration\nCommission Act of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106-565, § 2(a)(3), 114\nStat. 2812, 2812. The same region commanded center stage\nthrough the nation’s infancy, bearing witness to “the British\nsurrender that marked the end of the American Revolution.”\nColonial National Historical Park Amendments, S. Rep.\nNo. 104-30, at 2 (1995).\n\n Honoring these ties to our nation’s past, Congress and\nseveral federal agencies have established a series of “historic\nresources” in and around the Chesapeake Bay, including\nJamestown, Carter’s Grove National Historic Landmark, and\nthe Captain John Smith National Historic Trail (“Historic\nTrail”), the nation’s only congressionally-protected water trail.\nDue to the James River’s “extraordinary historic, economic,\nrecreational, and environmental importance,” Congress\nrecognizes it as “‘America’s Founding River.’” H.R. Res. 16\n§§ 1, 2. According to one representative, Congress\n“[d]esignat[ed] this [H]istoric [T]rail . . . to spur efforts to\nprotect and restore the region’s historic and environmental\nassets.” 152 Cong. Rec. 22,283 (2006) (statement of Rep.\nCastle). Other members of Congress observed that the region\n“represents a lasting tribute to the American spirit of discovery\nand exploration,” id. at 22,282 (statement of Rep. Davis),\n\f 5\naffording visitors “the opportunity to marvel at some of the\nsame sites that Captain Smith and his crew beheld 400 years\nago,” id. at 22,283 (statement of Rep. Hoyer).\n\n The National Park Service, an agency of the Department\nof the Interior, pursuant to its obligation “to conserve the\nscenery [and] natural and historic objects” of our national\nparks, 54 U.S.C. § 100101(a), acts as steward of these\nresources, striving to “offer[] visitors an opportunity to\nvicariously share the experience of Smith and his crew”\nthrough views “evocative of the seventeenth century,” Park\nService, A Conservation Strategy for the Captain John Smith\nChesapeake National Historic Trail Introduction 3 (2013). To\nthis end, and in accordance with its conservation “management\nplan” for the Historic Trail, the Service seeks to “[m]aximize\nthe visual and historical integrity of the visitor experience” by,\namong other things, ensuring that all new utility lines are\nunderground. Park Service, General Management Plan:\nColonial National Historical Park 19, 34 (1993) (“Management\nPlan”).\n\n Enter the demands of modernity. Although the\napproximately fifty-mile leg of the James River involved in this\ncase has retained its seventeenth-century charm, the rest of\nVirginia has kept apace with modern development, which\nmeans it depends on electricity. Following the 2012 issuance\nof an Environmental Protection Agency rule requiring power\ngeneration facilities to reduce certain air pollutant emissions,\nsee 77 Fed. Reg. 9304 (Feb. 16, 2012), Virginia Electric and\nPower Company (“Dominion”) determined that, in order to\ncomply with the rule, it would have to retire two coal-fired\npower generators. To compensate for the resulting electricity\nshortfall, Dominion applied in 2013 to the Corps, which has\njurisdiction over certain projects concerning “waters of the\nUnited States,” see 33 C.F.R. § 328.1 (internal quotation marks\n\f 6\nomitted), for a permit to construct a new electrical switching\nstation and two transmission lines. Supported by seventeen\n250-or-so-foot steel-lattice transmission towers, the line at\nissue here would stretch for eight miles, four of which would\ncross the James River and cut through the middle of the historic\ndistrict encompassing Jamestown and other historic resources.\nSee Figure 1.\nFigure 1: Overview Map of Project and Historic Properties (created by\nIndustrial Economics, Inc.), Joint Appendix (J.A.) 495\n\n\n\n\n Before it could greenlight the undertaking, known as the\nSurry-Skiffes Creek-Whealton project (“Project”), the Corps\nhad to satisfy several statutory obligations. First, as relevant\nhere, NEPA required the Corps to consider alternatives to the\nProject and to prepare an “environmental impact statement” if\nthe Project would “significantly affect[] the quality of the\nhuman environment,” 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C)—an analysis\nwhich must take into account effects on historic resources, 40\nC.F.R. § 1508.8. But the Corps could bypass preparation of an\n\f 7\nEIS if, based on a preliminary “environmental assessment,” it\ndetermined that the Project would have “no significant impact”\non the environment. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.9. Second, the Clean\nWater Act required the Corps to determine that no “practicable\nalternative” existed that “would have less adverse effect on the\naquatic ecosystem.” Id. § 230.12(a)(3)(i). Third, the National\nHistoric Preservation Act (“Preservation Act”) required the\nCorps to “take into account the effect of the undertaking on any\nhistoric property,” 54 U.S.C. § 306108, and, if the project\nmight “directly and adversely affect any National Historic\nLandmark,” to take steps “to minimize harm to the landmark,”\nid. § 306107.\n\n Pursuant to these obligations, the Corps studied the\nProject’s environmental impacts and considered nearly thirty\nalternatives. In doing so, the Corps relied on a Cultural\nResources Effects Assessment prepared by Dominion and its\nconsultants, which included a series of photo simulations that\nsuperimposed mockups of the proposed towers over the\nexisting landscape. In its initial environmental assessment, the\nCorps determined that the Project would adversely but non-\nsignificantly affect historic resources, rendering an EIS\nunnecessary.\n\n At various points throughout the process, the Corps, as\nrequired by Preservation Act regulations, reached out to\n“consulting parties,” which include local governments and\nother “individuals and organizations with a demonstrated\ninterest in the undertaking.” 36 C.F.R. § 800.2(c). It also\ninvited other federal agencies and the public to comment on its\nNEPA process. See 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C) (requiring an\nagency to “consult with . . . any Federal agency which has\njurisdiction by law or special expertise” and to provide any\nresulting statements “to the public”).\n\f 8\n And comment they did, to the tune of 50,000 submissions,\nmany of which urged the Corps to prepare an EIS. Condensing\nthe gist of thousands of comments into one simple but clear\nproposition, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation\n(“Advisory Council”)—the independent federal agency tasked\nwith the “preservation of historic propert[ies],” 54 U.S.C.\n§ 306101(a)(1)—warned that the Project “threaten[s] to\nirreparably alter a relatively unspoiled and evocative landscape\nthat provides context and substance for the historic properties\nencompassed within.” Letter from Advisory Council\nChairman 1 (May 2, 2017), J.A. 414.\n\n Quite a few commenters also pointed to perceived errors\nin the Corps’s determination that the Project would not\nsignificantly impact, in the Advisory Council’s words,\n“historic properties of transcendent national significance.”\nLetter from Advisory Council Director 1 (May 2, 2017),\nJ.A. 411. Writing to the Corps fully twenty times, the Park\nService warned that the Project “would forever degrade,\ndamage, and destroy the historic setting of these iconic\nresources.” Letter from Park Service Director 1 (Dec. 11,\n2015), J.A. 1829. The Virginia Department of Historic\nResources feared “irreparabl[e] alter[ation] [of] the character\nof the area.” Letter from Virginia Department of Historic\nResources Director 2 (Nov. 13, 2015), J.A. 1855. Others,\nincluding then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, the Council on\nEnvironmental Quality, and many non-governmental\norganizations, sounded similar alarms.\n\n Other commenters identified what they viewed as serious\nflaws in the Corps’s methodologies. To give a flavor of these\nconcerns, a specialist at the Department of Energy’s Argonne\nNational Laboratory (“Argonne”) found the Corps’s analyses\n“scientifically unsound” and “completely contrary to accepted\nprofessional practice.” Response from Robert Sullivan ¶ 1\n\f 9\n(Jan. 10, 2017), J.A. 534. The Park Service, the Advisory\nCouncil, and others critiqued the Corps’s socioeconomic,\nvisual, and cumulative effects analyses.\n\n Still other commenters criticized the Corps’s evaluation of\nalternatives. Summarizing several such concerns, the Advisory\nCouncil wrote that the “alternatives analysis was extremely\nproblematic,” that the National Parks Conservation\nAssociation (“Conservation Association”) had funded a study\n“that challenged the accuracy of the data and assumptions used\nby Dominion,” and that the engineering firm retained by the\nNational Trust for Historic Preservation (“National Trust”) had\ndeveloped alternatives that “would cost less to construct, be\nbuilt more quickly, and meet all relevant reliability standards.”\nLetter from Advisory Council Chairman 3 (May 2, 2017),\nJ.A. 416. According to one of the Corps’s own specialists,\nDominion could yet “take a harder look at the alternatives” and\nthe company’s cost estimates for the alternatives were “bloated\nand excessive.” Sustainable Program Manager Review 3–4,\nJ.A. 540–41.\n\n While this deluge poured in, the Corps consulted with\nvarious agencies, conducted site visits, and twice directed\nDominion to revise its photo simulations. Upon reviewing\nthese amended analyses, the Corps and Dominion still believed\nthat the Project, alone among all options, met the requisite\nreliability, cost, and timing parameters.\n\n Commenters remained unsatisfied. Several agencies\nwarned that the revised analyses, as the Park Service put it, still\ncontained “fundamental flaws” that, though “repeatedly\nidentified,” nonetheless “remain[ed] unresolved.” Letter from\nPark Service Acting Regional Director 1 (Jan. 12, 2017),\nJ.A. 475. Indeed, the “majority of the consulting parties” found\nDominion’s amendments “superficial and inadequate.” Letter\n\f 10\nfrom Advisory Council Chairman 3 (May 2, 2017), J.A. 416.\nUnderscoring that such concerns endured past the final round\nof revisions, the Park Service director during this process\nsubmitted an amicus brief in his now-private capacity,\nemphasizing that, since the Project will “forever . . . destroy the\nhistoric setting of these iconic resources,” the Park Service,\nwere it the agency with permitting authority, could not approve\nthe Project “because its adverse impacts are so significant.”\n18th Director of the National Park Service Jonathan B. Jarvis\nBr. 7 (internal quotation marks omitted).\n\n The process reached a temporary denouement in 2017.\nFollowing the change in administration, then-newly appointed\n(now-former) Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke met with the\nCorps, acknowledged its “thoughtful and thorough\nconsideration of the issues,” and announced that he “st[ood]\nready to sign a final agreement as a concurring party.” Letter\nfrom Ryan Zinke 1 (Mar. 30, 2017), J.A. 420. Shortly\nthereafter, the Corps issued a permit to Dominion. In the\naccompanying Memorandum for the Record (“Memo”), the\nCorps acknowledged that the Project would “intrude upon the\nviewsheds of historic properties and on a unique and highly\nscenic section of the James River.” Memo § 10.3.8, J.A. 257.\nNonetheless, the Corps concluded, the effects on these\n“national treasure[s]” were “moderate at most” and “inherently\nsubjective.” Id. §§ 10.3.8, 12.3, J.A. 257, 266 (internal\nquotation marks omitted). Where visible at all, it explained, the\ntransmission towers would not “block[]” or “dominate” the\nview and would join existing “modern visual intrusions,” such\nas the Busch Gardens amusement park and recreational boat\ntraffic. Id. § 10.3.8, J.A. 257–58.\n\n The Corps also executed a Memorandum of Agreement\nwith Dominion, in which the company agreed to offset the\nharm to historic resources by, among other things, periodically\n\f 11\nreviewing the continued need for the Project and investing in\nVirginia’s historic preservation efforts. Although a few other\nparticipants, including Interior, signed this Memorandum, most\ndeclined to do so because they remained concerned “that the\nadverse effects resulting from this undertaking [could not] be\nmitigated.” Letter from Advisory Council Chairman 2 (May 2,\n2017), J.A. 415.\n\n The National Trust, the Association for the Preservation of\nVirginia Antiquities, and the Conservation Association\n(collectively, the “Conservation Groups”) sued in district court\nalleging that the Corps failed to satisfy its NEPA, Clean Water\nAct, and Preservation Act obligations. The district court found\nthat the “Corps made a ‘fully informed and well-considered’\ndecision” and granted summary judgment to the agency.\nNational Parks Conservation Association v. Semonite, 311 F.\nSupp. 3d 350, 361 (D.D.C. 2018) (quoting Vermont Yankee\nNuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resource Defense Council,\n435 U.S. 519, 558 (1978)).\n\n On appeal, the Conservation Groups present three\narguments: that due to the significance of the Project’s impacts,\nthe Corps was required to prepare an EIS; that the Corps’s\nalternatives analyses fell short of the requirements imposed by\nboth NEPA and the Clean Water Act; and that the Corps failed\nto fulfill its obligations under section 110(f) of the Preservation\nAct, 54 U.S.C. § 306107, which requires an agency to\nminimize harm to any National Historic Landmark “directly\nand adversely” affected by a project. “We review the district\ncourt’s decision to grant summary judgment de novo.” Aera\nEnergy LLC v. Salazar, 642 F.3d 212, 218 (D.C. Cir. 2011).\n\f 12\n II.\n\n We begin with the Conservation Groups’ argument that\nNEPA required the Corps to prepare an EIS because, as they\nsee it, the Project will significantly impact historic resources.\n“Our role in reviewing [the Corps’s] decision not to prepare an\nEIS is a limited one, designed primarily to ensure that no\narguably significant consequences have been ignored.”\nMyersville Citizens for a Rural Community, Inc. v. FERC, 783\nF.3d 1301, 1322 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks\nomitted). Responsible for determining whether the Corps’s\ndecision was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or\notherwise not in accordance with law,” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A),\nwe ask whether the Corps is “able to make a convincing case\nfor its finding” of no significant impact. Sierra Club v. U.S.\nDepartment of Transportation, 753 F.2d 120, 127 (D.C. Cir.\n1985).\n\n “NEPA’s primary function is ‘information-forcing,’\ncompelling federal agencies to take a hard and honest look at\nthe environmental consequences of their decisions.” American\nRivers v. FERC, 895 F.3d 32, 49 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (internal\ncitations omitted). To satisfy this “hard look” requirement, the\nCorps must prepare an EIS for any project “significantly\naffecting the quality of the human environment.” 42 U.S.C.\n§ 4332(2)(C). Under NEPA’s regulatory scheme, crafted by the\nCouncil on Environmental Quality, such effects can be, among\nothers, historic, aesthetic, or cultural. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.8.\nCongress has declared that “preserv[ing] important historic,\ncultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage”\nconstitutes an important goal of the statute. 42 U.S.C.\n§ 4331(b)(4). And we in turn have recognized that protecting\nsuch resources is “an interest that NEPA’s procedural mandate\nwas intended to vindicate.” Oglala Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Nuclear\nRegulatory Commission, 896 F.3d 520, 529 (D.C. Cir. 2018).\n\f 13\nAs mentioned earlier, if the Corps believes that a project may\nnot require an EIS, it may first prepare an environmental\nassessment to determine whether a “no significant impact”\ndetermination might find support in the record. 40 C.F.R.\n§ 1508.9(a).\n\n During the NEPA process, the Corps must consult\nagencies with “special expertise with respect to any\nenvironmental impact involved.” 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C); see\nalso 40 C.F.R. § 1501.6(a)(2) (requiring agencies to use the\nresulting analysis “to the maximum extent possible”). But, as\nthe lead agency, the Corps, which “b[ears] the ultimate\nstatutory responsibility” for the Project, “does not have to\nfollow [other agencies’] comments slavishly—it just has to\ntake them seriously.” Citizens Against Burlington, Inc. v.\nBusey, 938 F.2d 190, 201 (D.C. Cir. 1991).\n\n Whether a project has significant environmental impacts,\nthus triggering the need to produce an EIS, depends on its\n“context” (region, locality) and “intensity” (“severity of\nimpact”). 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27. Here, because all parties agree\nthat the historically-saturated “context”—i.e., this 50-mile\nstretch of the James River—qualifies as significant, our inquiry\nfocuses on the “intensity” element, which enumerates ten\nfactors that “should be considered.” Id. § 1508.27(b).\nImplicating any one of the factors may be sufficient to require\ndevelopment of an EIS. See Grand Canyon Trust v. FAA, 290\nF.3d 339, 347 (D.C. Cir. 2002), as amended (Aug. 27, 2002)\n(granting a petition for review after finding a project implicated\none factor, without reaching additional factors). The district\ncourt found that “none of the significance factors weigh in\nfavor of [the] contention that an EIS is required.” National\nParks Conservation Association, 311 F. Supp. 3d at 363. The\nConservation Groups disagree, arguing that the Project\nimplicates three such factors: “[t]he degree to which the effects\n\f 14\non the quality of the human environment are likely to be highly\ncontroversial,” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(4); “[u]nique\ncharacteristics of the geographic area such as proximity to\nhistoric or cultural resources,” id. § 1508.27(b)(3); and the\n“degree to which the action may adversely affect districts [or]\nsites . . . listed in or eligible for listing in the National Register\nof Historic Places,” id. § 1508.27(b)(8). We consider each in\nturn.\n\n A.\n\n The first factor considers “[t]he degree to which the effects\non the quality of the human environment are likely to be highly\ncontroversial.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(4). The word\n“controversial,” we held in Town of Cave Creek v. FAA, refers\nto situations where “‘substantial dispute exists as to the size,\nnature, or effect of the major federal action.’” 325 F.3d 320,\n331 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (quoting North American Wild Sheep v.\nU.S. Department of Agriculture, 681 F.2d 1172, 1182 (9th Cir.\n1982)) (emphasis in original). And as we explained in Fund for\nAnimals v. Frizzell, “certainly something more is required” for\na highly controversial finding “besides the fact that some\npeople may be highly agitated and be willing to go to court over\nthe matter.” 530 F.2d 982, 988 n.15 (D.C. Cir. 1975) (per\ncuriam) (emphasis added).\n\n According to the Conservation Groups, “[w]here, as here,\ntwo federal agencies have argued for years over the ‘size,’\n‘nature,’ and ‘effect’ of the project on resources under [the Park\nService’s] jurisdiction (as have other agencies with ‘special\nexpertise’ under NEPA), the Court’s test for ‘controversy’ fits\nlike a glove.” Conservation Association Br. 22 (emphasis\nomitted). For its part, the Corps asserts that, under Cave Creek\nand Frizzell, it “reasonably concluded that comments\ndemanding an EIS ‘represent passion for the affected\n\f 15\nresources’ . . . rather than substantive dispute.” Corps Br. 38\n(quoting Memo § 12.3, J.A. 266). The Conservation Groups\nacknowledge that a highly controversial finding must rest on\nmore than passionate opposition, but they insist that the\ncriticism of the Corps’s NEPA process rises to the requisite\n“something more.”\n\n The Conservation Groups first point out that much of the\ndisagreement centers on perceived defects in the Corps’s\nmethodology and that, as the district court observed, “[m]any\ncourts have found ‘something more’ to be scientific or other\nevidence that reveals flaws in the methods or data relied upon\nby the agency in reaching its conclusions.” National Parks\nConservation Association, 311 F. Supp. 3d at 363 (citing\nNational Parks & Conservation Association v. Babbitt, 241\nF.3d 722, 736–37 (9th Cir. 2001)) (internal quotation marks\nomitted); accord Biodiversity Conservation Alliance v. U.S.\nForest Service, 765 F.3d 1264, 1275 (10th Cir. 2014) (“A\nsubstantial dispute can be found, for example, when other\ninformation in the record cast[s] substantial doubt on the\nadequacy of the agency’s methodology and data.” (internal\nquotation marks and citation omitted)); see, e.g., Cave Creek,\n325 F.3d at 332 (no controversy where the petitioners “pointed\nto nothing casting serious doubt on [the agency’s] preferred\nmodel”). An expert at Argonne labeled the Corps’s analyses\n“scientifically unsound, inappropriate, and completely contrary\nto accepted professional practice,” accusing the agency of\nconflating a cultural resource analysis with the very different\nvisual resource analysis. Response from Robert Sullivan ¶ 1\n(Jan. 10, 2017), J.A. 534. The Advisory Council voiced serious\nconcerns about the photo simulations: “[T]here are flaws in the\nvisual effects assessment. . . . [C]onsulting parties have\nrepeatedly suggested that the Corps should require photographs\nand simulations from an adequate range of viewpoints . . . to\nillustrate the extent and magnitude of the effects.” Letter from\n\f 16\nAdvisory Council Assistant Director 2 (Mar. 2, 2016),\nJ.A. 1483. And the Park Service believed that the visual\nanalyses “d[id] not meet [its] standards,” questioning whether\nthe Corps and Dominion completed “an adequate visual\nanalysis,” “evaluat[ed] . . . socioeconomic impacts,” and\nundertook a “sufficient cumulative effects analysis.” Letter\nfrom Park Service Associate Regional Director 1 (Mar. 25,\n2016), J.A. 1357; Letter from Park Service Acting Regional\nDirector 2 (Jan. 12, 2017), J.A. 476. If such comments,\nrepresenting just a small sample of the many criticisms in the\nrecord, do not “cast substantial doubt on the adequacy” of the\nCorps’s methodologies, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance,\n765 F.3d at 1275 (internal quotation marks omitted), then we\nare unsure what would.\n\n According to the Conservation Groups, the controversy\nsurrounding the Project is especially intense because many of\nthose raising concerns—methodological and otherwise—are\nthemselves government agencies with “special expertise” over\nhistoric resources. 40 C.F.R. § 1501.6(a)(2). And as they also\npoint out, courts regularly find that such concerns demonstrate\nthat a project qualifies as highly controversial. See, e.g., North\nAmerican Wild Sheep, 681 F.2d at 1182 (criticism from\nconservationists, biologists, two state agencies, and “other\nknowledgeable individuals” represented “precisely the type of\n‘controversial’ action for which an EIS must be prepared”);\nFriends of the Earth, Inc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 109\nF. Supp. 2d 30, 43 (D.D.C. 2000) (project classified as\n“genuinely and extremely controversial” where three federal\nagencies, one state agency, and the public “all disputed the\nCorps evaluation”).\n\n Again, the Conservation Groups are correct. The Advisory\nCouncil questioned the Corps’s “treatment of effects on\nhistoric properties of transcendent national significance.”\n\f 17\nLetter from Advisory Council Director 1 (May 2, 2017),\nJ.A. 411. Interior Secretary Jewell warned that the Project\nwould “introduce a major intrusion into a landscape” like “no\nother preserved locale in the Nation.” Letter from Sally\nJewell 1 (Jan. 17, 2016), J.A. 473. The Park Service worried\nthat the Project “would forever degrade, damage, and destroy\nthe historic setting of these iconic resources,” admonishing that\n“[t]his is not acceptable for resources designated by Congress\nto ensure their permanent protection.” Letter from Park Service\nDirector 1 (Dec. 11, 2015), J.A. 1829. As the Service observed,\n“[s]ince the 1930s, the visitor experience and interpretation of\nJamestown has been a collective effort . . . to shift [visitors’]\nsense of place back in time,” and “[w]ithin the Historic District\nthe James River is unblemished by any man-made physical\ncrossing.” Letter from Park Service Associate Regional\nDirector 6 (July 5, 2016), J.A. 878; Letter from Park Service\nAssociate Regional Director 3 (Jan. 29, 2016), J.A. 1494. The\nService repeatedly communicated its concerns to the Corps,\nand its own management plan requires that the “visual and\nhistorical integrity of the visitor experience” be “maximize[d]”\nand that all new utility lines be installed underground.\nManagement Plan at 19, 34.\n\n And the list goes on. Industrial Economics, Inc., a\nconsultant retained by the Park Service, feared that the Project\ncould “have implications for successful future designation [of\nJamestown] as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.” Industrial\nEconomics, Inc. Report 9 (Jan. 2017), J.A. 499. The Virginia\nDepartment of Historic Resources warned of “irreparabl[e]\nalter[ation] [of] the character of the area.” Letter from Virginia\nDepartment of Historic Resources Director 2 (Nov. 13, 2015),\nJ.A. 1855. Members of Congress, delegates to the Virginia\nAssembly, the Keeper of the National Historic Register, and\nthe Council on Environmental Quality all voiced similar\nreservations. The non-profit Coalition to Protect America’s\n\f 18\nNational Parks, comprising current and former Park Service\nemployees, pleaded, as did a bevy of other organizations, that\n“[t]he Corps owes . . . to this and future generations of\nAmericans to protect the place where ‘America Began.’” Letter\nfrom Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks 1 (Dec. 23,\n2016), J.A. 464.\n\n These are hardly the hyperbolic cries of “highly agitated,”\nnot-in-my-backyard neighbors “willing to go to court over the\nmatter.” Frizzell, 530 F.2d at 988 n.15. Instead, they represent\nthe considered responses—many solicited by the Corps itself—\nof highly specialized governmental agencies and organizations.\nThe Advisory Council, tasked as it is with preserving\nAmerica’s historic resources, merits special attention when it\nopines, as it did here, on “the treatment of effects on historic\nproperties of transcendent national significance.” Letter from\nAdvisory Council Director 1 (May 2, 2017), J.A. 411; see also\nPreservation Coalition, Inc. v. Pierce, 667 F.2d 851, 858 (9th\nCir. 1982) (“[J]udgments of historical significance made by the\nAdvisory Council . . . deserve great weight.”). Of course, as\nlead agency the Corps owes no obligation to bend to the will of\nothers. See Citizens Against Burlington, 938 F.2d at 201 (a lead\nagency must only “take [other agencies’ comments]\nseriously”). But repeated criticism from many agencies who\nserve as stewards of the exact resources at issue, not to mention\nconsultants and organizations with on-point expertise, surely\nrises to more than mere passion.\n\n The Corps argues that because the Park Service is a\ncomponent of the Interior Department, Secretary Zinke’s letter\napproving the Project, in the district court’s words, “effectively\nwithdrew” the Service’s “previous stance that an EIS was\nrequired.” National Parks Conservation Association, 311 F.\nSupp. 3d at 366. We disagree. For one thing, even if the Zinke\nletter did withdraw the Service’s opposition, numerous other\n\f 19\ngroups remained adamantly opposed. We are unsure,\nmoreover, whether the Zinke letter actually responds to the\nPark Service’s concerns. As the Conservation Association\npoints out, the letter “never even reference[s] [the Park\nService’s] objections [or] longstanding methodological\ncritiques.” Conservation Association Reply Br. 10. And most\nimportant, the Zinke letter says little about the only question\nbefore us: whether the Corps acted arbitrarily and capriciously\nin declining to prepare an EIS. Regardless of Interior’s stance,\nthe Corps retained its NEPA obligation to “consider\nadequately” whether the Project is highly controversial. Cave\nCreek, 325 F.3d at 327. Because the facts underlying the Park\nService’s concerns changed not at all between the Jewell and\nZinke letters, the Corps had to either confront those facts or\nexplain why the Zinke letter rendered them irrelevant. See\nEncino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 136 S. Ct. 2117, 2125\n(2016) (“One of the basic procedural requirements of\nadministrative rulemaking is that an agency must give adequate\nreasons for its decisions.”). Indeed, in our view, that two\nInterior Secretaries had diametrically different views about the\nsame project on the same facts simply reinforces its\ncontroversial nature.\n\n The Corps next contends that it did acknowledge and try\nto address concerns raised during the NEPA process by, for\nexample, instructing Dominion to revise its analyses to address\nthe shortcomings identified by commenters. But that misses the\npoint. The question is not whether the Corps attempted to\nresolve the controversy, but whether it succeeded. Given that\nmany critical comments, including those from the Advisory\nCouncil and the Argonne specialist, post-dated Dominion’s\nrevisions, the Corps obviously failed.\n\n In short, the Corps’s assessment of the scope of the\nProject’s effects has drawn consistent and strenuous\n\f 20\nopposition, often in the form of concrete objections to the\nCorps’s analytical process and findings, from agencies\nentrusted with preserving historic resources and organizations\nwith subject-matter expertise. This demonstrates the\n“something more” needed to show that “the effects on the\nquality of the human environment are likely to be highly\ncontroversial.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(4).\n\n B.\n\n The next intensity factor the Conservation Groups cite\nexamines the “[u]nique characteristics of the geographic area\nsuch as proximity to historic or cultural resources.” 40 C.F.R.\n§ 1508.27(b)(3). According to the Conservation Association,\n“[t]he Corps-approved project entails putting giant modern\ntransmission towers not only in close ‘proximity to’ numerous\nhighly unique historic and cultural sites that are ‘one-of-a-kind\nresources of national importance,’ but putting them directly in\nand across the nation’s only Congressionally-designated\nhistoric water trail.” Conservation Association Br. 19\n(emphasis in original) (citation omitted). The Corps responds\nthat the Project “‘is not a blockage to viewing the river or the\nsurroundings’ and ‘will not dominate the view.’” Corps Br. 27\n(quoting Memo § 10.3.8, J.A. 258). Again, the Corps misses\nthe point.\n\n Congress has consistently “recommit[ted] itself to\nprotecting and restoring the James River for the enjoyment and\nprosperity of current and future generations.” H.R. Res. 16 § 4.\nAs one congressman put it, these efforts preserve “the\nopportunity [for visitors] to marvel at some of the same sites\nthat Captain Smith and his crew beheld.” 152 Cong.\nRec. 22,283 (2006) (statement of Rep. Hoyer). Of course, when\nCaptain Smith sailed up the James River in the seventeenth\ncentury, he beheld nothing either licensed by the U.S. Army\n\f 21\nCorps of Engineers or built by Dominion Energy. In other\nwords, even without blocking the view or dominating the\nlandscape from all angles, the Project undercuts the very\npurpose for which Congress designated these resources: to\npreserve their “unspoiled and evocative landscape[s].” Letter\nfrom Advisory Council Chairman 1 (May 2, 2017), J.A. 414.\n\n Insisting that the Project is nothing new, the Corps points\nto existing “modern visual intrusions” in the same region that\nrepresent a “successful mix of progress and history.” Corps\nBr. 28 (quoting Memo § 10.3.8, J.A. 257). This\nmischaracterizes the record. Although there is some modern\ndevelopment, including an amusement park, boat traffic, and\nresorts, the Corps itself described these as largely “low density\nintrusions that become relatively lost within the overall\nlandscape.” National Register of Historic Places Eligibility 4\n(May 7, 2015), J.A. 2205. As the Conservation Association\nobserves, “the record does not support the assertion . . . that\nexisting intrusions are remotely comparable in size, magnitude,\nor impact to this massive project that will be the only overhead\ncrossing of the James River in a fifty-one-mile stretch.”\nConservation Association Br. 20 (emphasis in original).\n\n The Corps maintains that the mitigation steps contained in\nits Memorandum of Agreement with Dominion “would reduce\n[the Project’s] impacts to a minimum.” Corps Br. 42. But the\nrelevance of the Memorandum is dubious given that the Corps\ndeclined to rely on it when making its “no significance”\nfindings. To the extent the Corps leans on it now, the document\noffers little support. Except for requiring Dominion to\n“examine” alternative “coating and finishing materials” for the\ntransmission towers, the enumerated mitigation measures the\nCorps cites relate not to reducing the significance of the\nProject’s visual impacts on the historic resources along the\nJames River, but rather to periodic evaluation of the continued\n\f 22\nneed for the Project itself and to more general historic\npreservation efforts throughout the Commonwealth.\nMemorandum of Agreement § I.e.1, J.A. 293.\n\n Finally, the Corps emphasizes that the Project’s effects are\nvisual and that the Seventh Circuit, citing our decision in\nMaryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission v.\nU.S. Postal Service, 487 F.2d 1029, 1038–39 (D.C. Cir. 1973),\nstated that aesthetic “judgments are inherently subjective and\nnormally can be made . . . reliably on the basis of an\nenvironmental assessment.” River Road Alliance, Inc. v. Corps\nof Engineers of U.S. Army, 764 F.2d 445, 451 (7th Cir. 1985).\nBut “normally” is not the same as “always.” And in Maryland-\nNational Capital Park, we distinguished aesthetic judgment\ncalls that entail “defining what is beautiful” from situations like\nthis one where Congress’s purpose in designating the resources\nwas to preserve “an unencumbered view of an attractive scenic\nexpanse.” 487 F.2d at 1038 & n.5.\n\n C.\n\n The foregoing largely demonstrates why the Project\nimplicates the final intensity factor invoked by the\nConservation Groups: the “degree to which the action may\nadversely affect districts [or] sites . . . listed in or eligible for\nlisting in the National Register of Historic Places.” 40 C.F.R.\n§ 1508.27(b)(8). Indeed, the Corps itself gets us much of the\nway there. It concedes that the Project’s “close proximity” to\nCarter’s Grove, an eighteenth-century Georgian-style\nplantation, “would detract from the resource’s characteristics\nof setting and feeling which are integral to the resource’s\nqualifications for listing on the [National Register of Historic\nPlaces].” Cultural Resources Effects Assessment § 3.9.4\n(Sept. 15, 2015), J.A. 2024. And it is hardly just Carter’s\nGrove. By the Corps’s own count, the region boasts fifty-seven\n\f 23\nsites on the National Register or eligible for inclusion on it—a\nconcentration of historic resources found “[i]n no other place\nin [the] United States.” Letter from Park Service Regional\nDirector 1 (Oct. 22, 2015), J.A. 1911.\n\n The Corps’s findings, paired with the record’s “robust,\nwell-supported analyses, from agencies with Congressionally-\ndelegated authority and recognized expertise,” National Trust\nBr. 16, satisfy this intensity factor. The out-of-circuit cases\ncited by the Corps—concerning the construction of a golf\nclubhouse near another, historic one, Presidio Golf Club v.\nNational Park Service, 155 F.3d 1153, 1156 (9th Cir. 1998),\nand the refurbishment of an existing railroad to provide\ncommuter service, Advocates for Transportation Alternatives,\nInc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 453 F. Supp. 2d 289,\n294–95 (D. Mass. 2006)—are easily distinguishable, as they\nimplicate neither comparably sized infrastructure nor equally\naugust historic resources.\n\n D.\n\n The Corps has thus failed to make a “convincing case” that\nan EIS is unnecessary. Myersville Citizens, 783 F.3d at 1322.\nThree intensity factors demonstrate not only that the Project\nwill significantly impact historic resources, but also that it\nwould benefit from an EIS. Indeed, Congress created the EIS\nprocess to provide robust information in situations precisely\nlike this one, where, following an environmental assessment,\nthe scope of a project’s impacts remains both uncertain and\ncontroversial. See, e.g., Grand Canyon Trust, 290 F.3d\nat 345–47 (remanding for further proceedings when an agency,\nanalyzing noise impacts on a national park “identified [by the\nPark Service] as among the nine national parks of ‘highest\npriority,’” considered those impacts “in a vacuum” without\nsensitivity to the park’s “natural quiet”); American Rivers, 895\n\f 24\nF.3d at 50 (ordering an EIS based on concerns that the agency\n“just shrugged off” potentially significant impacts based on\n“estimates entirely unmoored from any empirical, scientific, or\notherwise verifiable study or source”).\n\n III.\n\n In preparing its EIS, the Corps will have to revisit its\ntheories about alternatives under NEPA, which in turn will\nrequire it to reevaluate its Clean Water Act and Preservation\nAct analyses. Accordingly, we see no reason to address most\nof the remaining questions raised by the Conservation Groups.\nSee American Iron & Steel Institute v. EPA, 115 F.3d 979, 1008\n(D.C. Cir. 1997) (“see[ing] no profit” in addressing remaining\nargument where an agency was “already committed to agency\nrevision”). Though taking no position on the adequacy of the\nCorps’s alternatives analyses, we urge it to give careful\nconsideration to its sister agencies’ concerns that the prior\niterations were “superficial,” “inadequate,” and “extremely\nproblematic.” Letter from Advisory Council Chairman 3\n(May 2, 2017), J.A. 416.\n\n There is, however, one issue whose resolution would\nfacilitate further proceedings before the Corps. Specifically,\nthe parties disagree about the meaning of section 110(f) of the\nPreservation Act, which provides that for any project “directly\nand adversely affect[ing] any National Historic Landmark,” the\nagency must “to the maximum extent possible undertake such\nplanning and actions as may be necessary to minimize harm to\nthe landmark.” 54 U.S.C. § 306107. The debate centers on the\nword “directly” as it relates to Carter’s Grove, the National\nHistoric Landmark at issue. According to the Corps and the\ndistrict court, because the Project does not “physically” intrude\non the plantation’s grounds—several towers are instead visible\nfrom them—section 110(f) does not apply. See National Parks\n\f 25\nConservation Association, 311 F. Supp. 3d at 379 (“The Court\nis persuaded that the meaning of ‘directly’ in Section 110(f)\nrefers to physical impacts . . . .”). The National Trust disagrees,\nequating “directly” with having “no intervening cause.”\nNational Trust Br. 9 (internal quotation marks omitted).\n\n Because we “owe no deference to [the Corps’s]\ninterpretation of a statute it does not administer,” Amax Land\nCo. v. Quarterman, 181 F.3d 1356, 1368 (D.C. Cir. 1999),\n“[w]e begin our analysis with the language of the statute,”\nUnited States v. Wilson, 290 F.3d 347, 352 (D.C. Cir. 2002).\nAlthough section 110(f) clearly encompasses physical effects,\nnothing in the statute’s text so limits its reach. According to the\ndictionary, both now and at the time section 110(f) was passed,\n“direct” means “free from extraneous influence” or\n“immediate.” Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014); see also\nBlack’s Law Dictionary (5th ed. 1979) (“direct” defined as\n“without any . . . intervening influence” or “[i]mmediate”).\nAnd had Congress wished to restrict section 110(f)’s reach to\nphysical impacts, “it could have easily done so by using the\nword” physically. Marx v. General Revenue Corp., 568 U.S.\n371, 384 (2013). Finally, although no agency has provided\nbinding guidance, the two actually responsible for\nadministering this statute—the Park Service, 54 U.S.C.\n§ 306101(b), and the Advisory Council, id. § 304108(a)—both\nunderstand “directly” to “refer[] to causation and not\nphysicality.” Letter from Advisory Council Assistant\nDirector 4 (Mar. 2, 2016), J.A. 1485; see also Lawyers’\nCommittee for Cultural Heritage Preservation Br. 19, Ex. A,\nLetter from Park Service Acting Associate Director 2 (Sept. 21,\n2017) (“The [Park Service] does not agree with the Corps’\nposition that Section 110(f) applies only when an undertaking\nmay physically impact a National Historic Landmark.”). On\nremand, therefore, the Corps must reconsider its Preservation\nAct analysis using this proper definition.\n\f 26\n IV.\n\n For the foregoing reasons, we reverse and remand to the\ndistrict court with instructions to vacate Dominion’s permit and\ndirect the Corps to prepare an environmental impact statement.\n\n So ordered.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION, Appellant v. Todd T. SEMONITE, Lieutenant General, Et Al., Appellees\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-01\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued December 7, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\\n\\n No. 18-5179\\n\\n NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION,\\n APPELLANT\\n\\n v.\\n\\n TODD T. SEMONITE, LIEUTENANT GENERAL, ET AL.,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n\\n Consolidated with 18-5186\\n\\n\\n Appeals from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:17-cv-01361)\\n (No. 1:17-cv-01574)\\n\\n\\n Matthew G. Adams argued the cause and filed the briefs\\nfor appellants National Trust for Historic Preservation, et al.\\n\\n William S. Eubanks II argued the cause for appellant\\nNational Parks Conservation Association. With him on the\\nbriefs was Eric R. Glitzenstein.\\n\\n J. Blanding Holman was on the brief for amici curiae The\\nLawyer’s Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, et al.\\nin support of appellant.\\n\\f 2\\n\\n Tyler Joseph Sniff was on the brief for amici curiae 18th\\nDirector of the National Park Service Jonathan B. Jarvis, et al.\\nin support of appellant National Parks Conservation\\nAssociation.\\n\\n Dustin J. Maghamfar, Attorney, U.S. Department of\\nJustice, argued the cause for federal appellees. With him on the\\nbrief were Jeffrey H. Wood, Acting Assistant Attorney General,\\nEric A. Grant, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and\\nAndrew C. Mergen, Mark R. Haag, and Heather E. Gange,\\nAttorneys.\\n\\n Elbert Lin argued the cause for appellee Virginia Electric\\nand Power Company. With him on the brief were Eric J.\\nMurdock, Harry M. Johnson, III, and Timothy L. McHugh.\\n\\n Michael J. Thompson and Brett K. White were on the brief\\nfor amici curiae PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. in support of\\nappellees.\\n\\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, and TATEL and MILLETT,\\nCircuit Judges.\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.\\n\\n TATEL, Circuit Judge: In order to “create and maintain\\nconditions under which man and nature can exist in productive\\nharmony,” the National Environmental Protection Act\\n(NEPA), 42 U.S.C. § 4331(a), requires any federal agency\\nissuing a construction permit, opening new lands to drilling, or\\nundertaking any other “major” project to take a hard look at the\\nproject’s environmental consequences, id. § 4332(2)(C),\\nincluding the impacts it may have on “important historic . . .\\naspects of our national heritage,” id. § 4331(b). To this end, the\\n\\f 3\\nagency must develop an environmental impact statement (EIS)\\nthat identifies and rigorously appraises the project’s\\nenvironmental effects, unless it finds that the project will have\\n“no significant impact.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.9(a)(1). And that is\\nwhat happened here. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers\\n(“Corps”) granted a permit allowing a utility company to build\\na series of electrical transmission towers across the historic\\nJames River, from whose waters Captain John Smith explored\\nthe New World, and it did so without preparing an EIS because\\nit found that the project would have “no significant impact” on\\nthe historic treasures along the river. As explained below,\\nhowever, the Corps’s “no significant impact” finding was\\narbitrary and capricious: important questions about both the\\nCorps’s chosen methodology and the scope of the project’s\\nimpact remain unanswered, and federal and state agencies with\\nrelevant expertise harbor serious misgivings about locating a\\nproject of this magnitude in a region of such singular\\nimportance to the nation’s history. Accordingly, we reverse the\\ndistrict court’s decision to the contrary and remand with\\ninstructions to vacate the permit and direct the Corps to prepare\\nan environmental impact statement.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Over 400 years ago, Captain John Smith arrived on the\\nshores of what is now known as the Chesapeake Bay. Keen on\\nlearning more about the unfamiliar land, Captain Smith\\nvoyaged up the winding James River, passing through lush\\nforests and under open skies. During his voyages, Smith\\nproduced “maps and writings [that] influenced exploration and\\nsettlement in the New World for over a century.” 152 Cong.\\nRec. 22,282 (2006) (statement of Rep. Davis). These journeys\\ncame to symbolize our nation’s founding and to serve as an\\nequally important reminder of one of the darkest episodes in\\nour history—the settlers’ devastation of Native American\\n\\f 4\\npopulations, including the “eventual collapse of the Powhatan\\npolity.” John S. Salmon, Project Historian, National Park\\nService, Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic\\nWater Trail Statement of National Significance 2 (2006).\\n\\n Long after Smith’s voyages, the river “serv[ed] as a\\nstrategic transportation corridor that shaped the settlement and\\ncommerce of the region.” H.R. Res. 16, 110th Cong. preamble\\n(2007). Indeed, “the economic, political, religious, and social\\ninstitutions that developed during the first [nine] decades” of\\nthe corridor’s settlement “have profound effects on the United\\nStates” to this day. Jamestown 400th Commemoration\\nCommission Act of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106-565, § 2(a)(3), 114\\nStat. 2812, 2812. The same region commanded center stage\\nthrough the nation’s infancy, bearing witness to “the British\\nsurrender that marked the end of the American Revolution.”\\nColonial National Historical Park Amendments, S. Rep.\\nNo. 104-30, at 2 (1995).\\n\\n Honoring these ties to our nation’s past, Congress and\\nseveral federal agencies have established a series of “historic\\nresources” in and around the Chesapeake Bay, including\\nJamestown, Carter’s Grove National Historic Landmark, and\\nthe Captain John Smith National Historic Trail (“Historic\\nTrail”), the nation’s only congressionally-protected water trail.\\nDue to the James River’s “extraordinary historic, economic,\\nrecreational, and environmental importance,” Congress\\nrecognizes it as “‘America’s Founding River.’” H.R. Res. 16\\n§§ 1, 2. According to one representative, Congress\\n“[d]esignat[ed] this [H]istoric [T]rail . . . to spur efforts to\\nprotect and restore the region’s historic and environmental\\nassets.” 152 Cong. Rec. 22,283 (2006) (statement of Rep.\\nCastle). Other members of Congress observed that the region\\n“represents a lasting tribute to the American spirit of discovery\\nand exploration,” id. at 22,282 (statement of Rep. Davis),\\n\\f 5\\naffording visitors “the opportunity to marvel at some of the\\nsame sites that Captain Smith and his crew beheld 400 years\\nago,” id. at 22,283 (statement of Rep. Hoyer).\\n\\n The National Park Service, an agency of the Department\\nof the Interior, pursuant to its obligation “to conserve the\\nscenery [and] natural and historic objects” of our national\\nparks, 54 U.S.C. § 100101(a), acts as steward of these\\nresources, striving to “offer[] visitors an opportunity to\\nvicariously share the experience of Smith and his crew”\\nthrough views “evocative of the seventeenth century,” Park\\nService, A Conservation Strategy for the Captain John Smith\\nChesapeake National Historic Trail Introduction 3 (2013). To\\nthis end, and in accordance with its conservation “management\\nplan” for the Historic Trail, the Service seeks to “[m]aximize\\nthe visual and historical integrity of the visitor experience” by,\\namong other things, ensuring that all new utility lines are\\nunderground. Park Service, General Management Plan:\\nColonial National Historical Park 19, 34 (1993) (“Management\\nPlan”).\\n\\n Enter the demands of modernity. Although the\\napproximately fifty-mile leg of the James River involved in this\\ncase has retained its seventeenth-century charm, the rest of\\nVirginia has kept apace with modern development, which\\nmeans it depends on electricity. Following the 2012 issuance\\nof an Environmental Protection Agency rule requiring power\\ngeneration facilities to reduce certain air pollutant emissions,\\nsee 77 Fed. Reg. 9304 (Feb. 16, 2012), Virginia Electric and\\nPower Company (“Dominion”) determined that, in order to\\ncomply with the rule, it would have to retire two coal-fired\\npower generators. To compensate for the resulting electricity\\nshortfall, Dominion applied in 2013 to the Corps, which has\\njurisdiction over certain projects concerning “waters of the\\nUnited States,” see 33 C.F.R. § 328.1 (internal quotation marks\\n\\f 6\\nomitted), for a permit to construct a new electrical switching\\nstation and two transmission lines. Supported by seventeen\\n250-or-so-foot steel-lattice transmission towers, the line at\\nissue here would stretch for eight miles, four of which would\\ncross the James River and cut through the middle of the historic\\ndistrict encompassing Jamestown and other historic resources.\\nSee Figure 1.\\nFigure 1: Overview Map of Project and Historic Properties (created by\\nIndustrial Economics, Inc.), Joint Appendix (J.A.) 495\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n Before it could greenlight the undertaking, known as the\\nSurry-Skiffes Creek-Whealton project (“Project”), the Corps\\nhad to satisfy several statutory obligations. First, as relevant\\nhere, NEPA required the Corps to consider alternatives to the\\nProject and to prepare an “environmental impact statement” if\\nthe Project would “significantly affect[] the quality of the\\nhuman environment,” 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C)—an analysis\\nwhich must take into account effects on historic resources, 40\\nC.F.R. § 1508.8. But the Corps could bypass preparation of an\\n\\f 7\\nEIS if, based on a preliminary “environmental assessment,” it\\ndetermined that the Project would have “no significant impact”\\non the environment. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.9. Second, the Clean\\nWater Act required the Corps to determine that no “practicable\\nalternative” existed that “would have less adverse effect on the\\naquatic ecosystem.” Id. § 230.12(a)(3)(i). Third, the National\\nHistoric Preservation Act (“Preservation Act”) required the\\nCorps to “take into account the effect of the undertaking on any\\nhistoric property,” 54 U.S.C. § 306108, and, if the project\\nmight “directly and adversely affect any National Historic\\nLandmark,” to take steps “to minimize harm to the landmark,”\\nid. § 306107.\\n\\n Pursuant to these obligations, the Corps studied the\\nProject’s environmental impacts and considered nearly thirty\\nalternatives. In doing so, the Corps relied on a Cultural\\nResources Effects Assessment prepared by Dominion and its\\nconsultants, which included a series of photo simulations that\\nsuperimposed mockups of the proposed towers over the\\nexisting landscape. In its initial environmental assessment, the\\nCorps determined that the Project would adversely but non-\\nsignificantly affect historic resources, rendering an EIS\\nunnecessary.\\n\\n At various points throughout the process, the Corps, as\\nrequired by Preservation Act regulations, reached out to\\n“consulting parties,” which include local governments and\\nother “individuals and organizations with a demonstrated\\ninterest in the undertaking.” 36 C.F.R. § 800.2(c). It also\\ninvited other federal agencies and the public to comment on its\\nNEPA process. See 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C) (requiring an\\nagency to “consult with . . . any Federal agency which has\\njurisdiction by law or special expertise” and to provide any\\nresulting statements “to the public”).\\n\\f 8\\n And comment they did, to the tune of 50,000 submissions,\\nmany of which urged the Corps to prepare an EIS. Condensing\\nthe gist of thousands of comments into one simple but clear\\nproposition, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation\\n(“Advisory Council”)—the independent federal agency tasked\\nwith the “preservation of historic propert[ies],” 54 U.S.C.\\n§ 306101(a)(1)—warned that the Project “threaten[s] to\\nirreparably alter a relatively unspoiled and evocative landscape\\nthat provides context and substance for the historic properties\\nencompassed within.” Letter from Advisory Council\\nChairman 1 (May 2, 2017), J.A. 414.\\n\\n Quite a few commenters also pointed to perceived errors\\nin the Corps’s determination that the Project would not\\nsignificantly impact, in the Advisory Council’s words,\\n“historic properties of transcendent national significance.”\\nLetter from Advisory Council Director 1 (May 2, 2017),\\nJ.A. 411. Writing to the Corps fully twenty times, the Park\\nService warned that the Project “would forever degrade,\\ndamage, and destroy the historic setting of these iconic\\nresources.” Letter from Park Service Director 1 (Dec. 11,\\n2015), J.A. 1829. The Virginia Department of Historic\\nResources feared “irreparabl[e] alter[ation] [of] the character\\nof the area.” Letter from Virginia Department of Historic\\nResources Director 2 (Nov. 13, 2015), J.A. 1855. Others,\\nincluding then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, the Council on\\nEnvironmental Quality, and many non-governmental\\norganizations, sounded similar alarms.\\n\\n Other commenters identified what they viewed as serious\\nflaws in the Corps’s methodologies. To give a flavor of these\\nconcerns, a specialist at the Department of Energy’s Argonne\\nNational Laboratory (“Argonne”) found the Corps’s analyses\\n“scientifically unsound” and “completely contrary to accepted\\nprofessional practice.” Response from Robert Sullivan ¶ 1\\n\\f 9\\n(Jan. 10, 2017), J.A. 534. The Park Service, the Advisory\\nCouncil, and others critiqued the Corps’s socioeconomic,\\nvisual, and cumulative effects analyses.\\n\\n Still other commenters criticized the Corps’s evaluation of\\nalternatives. Summarizing several such concerns, the Advisory\\nCouncil wrote that the “alternatives analysis was extremely\\nproblematic,” that the National Parks Conservation\\nAssociation (“Conservation Association”) had funded a study\\n“that challenged the accuracy of the data and assumptions used\\nby Dominion,” and that the engineering firm retained by the\\nNational Trust for Historic Preservation (“National Trust”) had\\ndeveloped alternatives that “would cost less to construct, be\\nbuilt more quickly, and meet all relevant reliability standards.”\\nLetter from Advisory Council Chairman 3 (May 2, 2017),\\nJ.A. 416. According to one of the Corps’s own specialists,\\nDominion could yet “take a harder look at the alternatives” and\\nthe company’s cost estimates for the alternatives were “bloated\\nand excessive.” Sustainable Program Manager Review 3–4,\\nJ.A. 540–41.\\n\\n While this deluge poured in, the Corps consulted with\\nvarious agencies, conducted site visits, and twice directed\\nDominion to revise its photo simulations. Upon reviewing\\nthese amended analyses, the Corps and Dominion still believed\\nthat the Project, alone among all options, met the requisite\\nreliability, cost, and timing parameters.\\n\\n Commenters remained unsatisfied. Several agencies\\nwarned that the revised analyses, as the Park Service put it, still\\ncontained “fundamental flaws” that, though “repeatedly\\nidentified,” nonetheless “remain[ed] unresolved.” Letter from\\nPark Service Acting Regional Director 1 (Jan. 12, 2017),\\nJ.A. 475. Indeed, the “majority of the consulting parties” found\\nDominion’s amendments “superficial and inadequate.” Letter\\n\\f 10\\nfrom Advisory Council Chairman 3 (May 2, 2017), J.A. 416.\\nUnderscoring that such concerns endured past the final round\\nof revisions, the Park Service director during this process\\nsubmitted an amicus brief in his now-private capacity,\\nemphasizing that, since the Project will “forever . . . destroy the\\nhistoric setting of these iconic resources,” the Park Service,\\nwere it the agency with permitting authority, could not approve\\nthe Project “because its adverse impacts are so significant.”\\n18th Director of the National Park Service Jonathan B. Jarvis\\nBr. 7 (internal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\n The process reached a temporary denouement in 2017.\\nFollowing the change in administration, then-newly appointed\\n(now-former) Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke met with the\\nCorps, acknowledged its “thoughtful and thorough\\nconsideration of the issues,” and announced that he “st[ood]\\nready to sign a final agreement as a concurring party.” Letter\\nfrom Ryan Zinke 1 (Mar. 30, 2017), J.A. 420. Shortly\\nthereafter, the Corps issued a permit to Dominion. In the\\naccompanying Memorandum for the Record (“Memo”), the\\nCorps acknowledged that the Project would “intrude upon the\\nviewsheds of historic properties and on a unique and highly\\nscenic section of the James River.” Memo § 10.3.8, J.A. 257.\\nNonetheless, the Corps concluded, the effects on these\\n“national treasure[s]” were “moderate at most” and “inherently\\nsubjective.” Id. §§ 10.3.8, 12.3, J.A. 257, 266 (internal\\nquotation marks omitted). Where visible at all, it explained, the\\ntransmission towers would not “block[]” or “dominate” the\\nview and would join existing “modern visual intrusions,” such\\nas the Busch Gardens amusement park and recreational boat\\ntraffic. Id. § 10.3.8, J.A. 257–58.\\n\\n The Corps also executed a Memorandum of Agreement\\nwith Dominion, in which the company agreed to offset the\\nharm to historic resources by, among other things, periodically\\n\\f 11\\nreviewing the continued need for the Project and investing in\\nVirginia’s historic preservation efforts. Although a few other\\nparticipants, including Interior, signed this Memorandum, most\\ndeclined to do so because they remained concerned “that the\\nadverse effects resulting from this undertaking [could not] be\\nmitigated.” Letter from Advisory Council Chairman 2 (May 2,\\n2017), J.A. 415.\\n\\n The National Trust, the Association for the Preservation of\\nVirginia Antiquities, and the Conservation Association\\n(collectively, the “Conservation Groups”) sued in district court\\nalleging that the Corps failed to satisfy its NEPA, Clean Water\\nAct, and Preservation Act obligations. The district court found\\nthat the “Corps made a ‘fully informed and well-considered’\\ndecision” and granted summary judgment to the agency.\\nNational Parks Conservation Association v. Semonite, 311 F.\\nSupp. 3d 350, 361 (D.D.C. 2018) (quoting Vermont Yankee\\nNuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resource Defense Council,\\n435 U.S. 519, 558 (1978)).\\n\\n On appeal, the Conservation Groups present three\\narguments: that due to the significance of the Project’s impacts,\\nthe Corps was required to prepare an EIS; that the Corps’s\\nalternatives analyses fell short of the requirements imposed by\\nboth NEPA and the Clean Water Act; and that the Corps failed\\nto fulfill its obligations under section 110(f) of the Preservation\\nAct, 54 U.S.C. § 306107, which requires an agency to\\nminimize harm to any National Historic Landmark “directly\\nand adversely” affected by a project. “We review the district\\ncourt’s decision to grant summary judgment de novo.” Aera\\nEnergy LLC v. Salazar, 642 F.3d 212, 218 (D.C. Cir. 2011).\\n\\f 12\\n II.\\n\\n We begin with the Conservation Groups’ argument that\\nNEPA required the Corps to prepare an EIS because, as they\\nsee it, the Project will significantly impact historic resources.\\n“Our role in reviewing [the Corps’s] decision not to prepare an\\nEIS is a limited one, designed primarily to ensure that no\\narguably significant consequences have been ignored.”\\nMyersville Citizens for a Rural Community, Inc. v. FERC, 783\\nF.3d 1301, 1322 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks\\nomitted). Responsible for determining whether the Corps’s\\ndecision was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or\\notherwise not in accordance with law,” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A),\\nwe ask whether the Corps is “able to make a convincing case\\nfor its finding” of no significant impact. Sierra Club v. U.S.\\nDepartment of Transportation, 753 F.2d 120, 127 (D.C. Cir.\\n1985).\\n\\n “NEPA’s primary function is ‘information-forcing,’\\ncompelling federal agencies to take a hard and honest look at\\nthe environmental consequences of their decisions.” American\\nRivers v. FERC, 895 F.3d 32, 49 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (internal\\ncitations omitted). To satisfy this “hard look” requirement, the\\nCorps must prepare an EIS for any project “significantly\\naffecting the quality of the human environment.” 42 U.S.C.\\n§ 4332(2)(C). Under NEPA’s regulatory scheme, crafted by the\\nCouncil on Environmental Quality, such effects can be, among\\nothers, historic, aesthetic, or cultural. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.8.\\nCongress has declared that “preserv[ing] important historic,\\ncultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage”\\nconstitutes an important goal of the statute. 42 U.S.C.\\n§ 4331(b)(4). And we in turn have recognized that protecting\\nsuch resources is “an interest that NEPA’s procedural mandate\\nwas intended to vindicate.” Oglala Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Nuclear\\nRegulatory Commission, 896 F.3d 520, 529 (D.C. Cir. 2018).\\n\\f 13\\nAs mentioned earlier, if the Corps believes that a project may\\nnot require an EIS, it may first prepare an environmental\\nassessment to determine whether a “no significant impact”\\ndetermination might find support in the record. 40 C.F.R.\\n§ 1508.9(a).\\n\\n During the NEPA process, the Corps must consult\\nagencies with “special expertise with respect to any\\nenvironmental impact involved.” 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C); see\\nalso 40 C.F.R. § 1501.6(a)(2) (requiring agencies to use the\\nresulting analysis “to the maximum extent possible”). But, as\\nthe lead agency, the Corps, which “b[ears] the ultimate\\nstatutory responsibility” for the Project, “does not have to\\nfollow [other agencies’] comments slavishly—it just has to\\ntake them seriously.” Citizens Against Burlington, Inc. v.\\nBusey, 938 F.2d 190, 201 (D.C. Cir. 1991).\\n\\n Whether a project has significant environmental impacts,\\nthus triggering the need to produce an EIS, depends on its\\n“context” (region, locality) and “intensity” (“severity of\\nimpact”). 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27. Here, because all parties agree\\nthat the historically-saturated “context”—i.e., this 50-mile\\nstretch of the James River—qualifies as significant, our inquiry\\nfocuses on the “intensity” element, which enumerates ten\\nfactors that “should be considered.” Id. § 1508.27(b).\\nImplicating any one of the factors may be sufficient to require\\ndevelopment of an EIS. See Grand Canyon Trust v. FAA, 290\\nF.3d 339, 347 (D.C. Cir. 2002), as amended (Aug. 27, 2002)\\n(granting a petition for review after finding a project implicated\\none factor, without reaching additional factors). The district\\ncourt found that “none of the significance factors weigh in\\nfavor of [the] contention that an EIS is required.” National\\nParks Conservation Association, 311 F. Supp. 3d at 363. The\\nConservation Groups disagree, arguing that the Project\\nimplicates three such factors: “[t]he degree to which the effects\\n\\f 14\\non the quality of the human environment are likely to be highly\\ncontroversial,” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(4); “[u]nique\\ncharacteristics of the geographic area such as proximity to\\nhistoric or cultural resources,” id. § 1508.27(b)(3); and the\\n“degree to which the action may adversely affect districts [or]\\nsites . . . listed in or eligible for listing in the National Register\\nof Historic Places,” id. § 1508.27(b)(8). We consider each in\\nturn.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n The first factor considers “[t]he degree to which the effects\\non the quality of the human environment are likely to be highly\\ncontroversial.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(4). The word\\n“controversial,” we held in Town of Cave Creek v. FAA, refers\\nto situations where “‘substantial dispute exists as to the size,\\nnature, or effect of the major federal action.’” 325 F.3d 320,\\n331 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (quoting North American Wild Sheep v.\\nU.S. Department of Agriculture, 681 F.2d 1172, 1182 (9th Cir.\\n1982)) (emphasis in original). And as we explained in Fund for\\nAnimals v. Frizzell, “certainly something more is required” for\\na highly controversial finding “besides the fact that some\\npeople may be highly agitated and be willing to go to court over\\nthe matter.” 530 F.2d 982, 988 n.15 (D.C. Cir. 1975) (per\\ncuriam) (emphasis added).\\n\\n According to the Conservation Groups, “[w]here, as here,\\ntwo federal agencies have argued for years over the ‘size,’\\n‘nature,’ and ‘effect’ of the project on resources under [the Park\\nService’s] jurisdiction (as have other agencies with ‘special\\nexpertise’ under NEPA), the Court’s test for ‘controversy’ fits\\nlike a glove.” Conservation Association Br. 22 (emphasis\\nomitted). For its part, the Corps asserts that, under Cave Creek\\nand Frizzell, it “reasonably concluded that comments\\ndemanding an EIS ‘represent passion for the affected\\n\\f 15\\nresources’ . . . rather than substantive dispute.” Corps Br. 38\\n(quoting Memo § 12.3, J.A. 266). The Conservation Groups\\nacknowledge that a highly controversial finding must rest on\\nmore than passionate opposition, but they insist that the\\ncriticism of the Corps’s NEPA process rises to the requisite\\n“something more.”\\n\\n The Conservation Groups first point out that much of the\\ndisagreement centers on perceived defects in the Corps’s\\nmethodology and that, as the district court observed, “[m]any\\ncourts have found ‘something more’ to be scientific or other\\nevidence that reveals flaws in the methods or data relied upon\\nby the agency in reaching its conclusions.” National Parks\\nConservation Association, 311 F. Supp. 3d at 363 (citing\\nNational Parks & Conservation Association v. Babbitt, 241\\nF.3d 722, 736–37 (9th Cir. 2001)) (internal quotation marks\\nomitted); accord Biodiversity Conservation Alliance v. U.S.\\nForest Service, 765 F.3d 1264, 1275 (10th Cir. 2014) (“A\\nsubstantial dispute can be found, for example, when other\\ninformation in the record cast[s] substantial doubt on the\\nadequacy of the agency’s methodology and data.” (internal\\nquotation marks and citation omitted)); see, e.g., Cave Creek,\\n325 F.3d at 332 (no controversy where the petitioners “pointed\\nto nothing casting serious doubt on [the agency’s] preferred\\nmodel”). An expert at Argonne labeled the Corps’s analyses\\n“scientifically unsound, inappropriate, and completely contrary\\nto accepted professional practice,” accusing the agency of\\nconflating a cultural resource analysis with the very different\\nvisual resource analysis. Response from Robert Sullivan ¶ 1\\n(Jan. 10, 2017), J.A. 534. The Advisory Council voiced serious\\nconcerns about the photo simulations: “[T]here are flaws in the\\nvisual effects assessment. . . . [C]onsulting parties have\\nrepeatedly suggested that the Corps should require photographs\\nand simulations from an adequate range of viewpoints . . . to\\nillustrate the extent and magnitude of the effects.” Letter from\\n\\f 16\\nAdvisory Council Assistant Director 2 (Mar. 2, 2016),\\nJ.A. 1483. And the Park Service believed that the visual\\nanalyses “d[id] not meet [its] standards,” questioning whether\\nthe Corps and Dominion completed “an adequate visual\\nanalysis,” “evaluat[ed] . . . socioeconomic impacts,” and\\nundertook a “sufficient cumulative effects analysis.” Letter\\nfrom Park Service Associate Regional Director 1 (Mar. 25,\\n2016), J.A. 1357; Letter from Park Service Acting Regional\\nDirector 2 (Jan. 12, 2017), J.A. 476. If such comments,\\nrepresenting just a small sample of the many criticisms in the\\nrecord, do not “cast substantial doubt on the adequacy” of the\\nCorps’s methodologies, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance,\\n765 F.3d at 1275 (internal quotation marks omitted), then we\\nare unsure what would.\\n\\n According to the Conservation Groups, the controversy\\nsurrounding the Project is especially intense because many of\\nthose raising concerns—methodological and otherwise—are\\nthemselves government agencies with “special expertise” over\\nhistoric resources. 40 C.F.R. § 1501.6(a)(2). And as they also\\npoint out, courts regularly find that such concerns demonstrate\\nthat a project qualifies as highly controversial. See, e.g., North\\nAmerican Wild Sheep, 681 F.2d at 1182 (criticism from\\nconservationists, biologists, two state agencies, and “other\\nknowledgeable individuals” represented “precisely the type of\\n‘controversial’ action for which an EIS must be prepared”);\\nFriends of the Earth, Inc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 109\\nF. Supp. 2d 30, 43 (D.D.C. 2000) (project classified as\\n“genuinely and extremely controversial” where three federal\\nagencies, one state agency, and the public “all disputed the\\nCorps evaluation”).\\n\\n Again, the Conservation Groups are correct. The Advisory\\nCouncil questioned the Corps’s “treatment of effects on\\nhistoric properties of transcendent national significance.”\\n\\f 17\\nLetter from Advisory Council Director 1 (May 2, 2017),\\nJ.A. 411. Interior Secretary Jewell warned that the Project\\nwould “introduce a major intrusion into a landscape” like “no\\nother preserved locale in the Nation.” Letter from Sally\\nJewell 1 (Jan. 17, 2016), J.A. 473. The Park Service worried\\nthat the Project “would forever degrade, damage, and destroy\\nthe historic setting of these iconic resources,” admonishing that\\n“[t]his is not acceptable for resources designated by Congress\\nto ensure their permanent protection.” Letter from Park Service\\nDirector 1 (Dec. 11, 2015), J.A. 1829. As the Service observed,\\n“[s]ince the 1930s, the visitor experience and interpretation of\\nJamestown has been a collective effort . . . to shift [visitors’]\\nsense of place back in time,” and “[w]ithin the Historic District\\nthe James River is unblemished by any man-made physical\\ncrossing.” Letter from Park Service Associate Regional\\nDirector 6 (July 5, 2016), J.A. 878; Letter from Park Service\\nAssociate Regional Director 3 (Jan. 29, 2016), J.A. 1494. The\\nService repeatedly communicated its concerns to the Corps,\\nand its own management plan requires that the “visual and\\nhistorical integrity of the visitor experience” be “maximize[d]”\\nand that all new utility lines be installed underground.\\nManagement Plan at 19, 34.\\n\\n And the list goes on. Industrial Economics, Inc., a\\nconsultant retained by the Park Service, feared that the Project\\ncould “have implications for successful future designation [of\\nJamestown] as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.” Industrial\\nEconomics, Inc. Report 9 (Jan. 2017), J.A. 499. The Virginia\\nDepartment of Historic Resources warned of “irreparabl[e]\\nalter[ation] [of] the character of the area.” Letter from Virginia\\nDepartment of Historic Resources Director 2 (Nov. 13, 2015),\\nJ.A. 1855. Members of Congress, delegates to the Virginia\\nAssembly, the Keeper of the National Historic Register, and\\nthe Council on Environmental Quality all voiced similar\\nreservations. The non-profit Coalition to Protect America’s\\n\\f 18\\nNational Parks, comprising current and former Park Service\\nemployees, pleaded, as did a bevy of other organizations, that\\n“[t]he Corps owes . . . to this and future generations of\\nAmericans to protect the place where ‘America Began.’” Letter\\nfrom Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks 1 (Dec. 23,\\n2016), J.A. 464.\\n\\n These are hardly the hyperbolic cries of “highly agitated,”\\nnot-in-my-backyard neighbors “willing to go to court over the\\nmatter.” Frizzell, 530 F.2d at 988 n.15. Instead, they represent\\nthe considered responses—many solicited by the Corps itself—\\nof highly specialized governmental agencies and organizations.\\nThe Advisory Council, tasked as it is with preserving\\nAmerica’s historic resources, merits special attention when it\\nopines, as it did here, on “the treatment of effects on historic\\nproperties of transcendent national significance.” Letter from\\nAdvisory Council Director 1 (May 2, 2017), J.A. 411; see also\\nPreservation Coalition, Inc. v. Pierce, 667 F.2d 851, 858 (9th\\nCir. 1982) (“[J]udgments of historical significance made by the\\nAdvisory Council . . . deserve great weight.”). Of course, as\\nlead agency the Corps owes no obligation to bend to the will of\\nothers. See Citizens Against Burlington, 938 F.2d at 201 (a lead\\nagency must only “take [other agencies’ comments]\\nseriously”). But repeated criticism from many agencies who\\nserve as stewards of the exact resources at issue, not to mention\\nconsultants and organizations with on-point expertise, surely\\nrises to more than mere passion.\\n\\n The Corps argues that because the Park Service is a\\ncomponent of the Interior Department, Secretary Zinke’s letter\\napproving the Project, in the district court’s words, “effectively\\nwithdrew” the Service’s “previous stance that an EIS was\\nrequired.” National Parks Conservation Association, 311 F.\\nSupp. 3d at 366. We disagree. For one thing, even if the Zinke\\nletter did withdraw the Service’s opposition, numerous other\\n\\f 19\\ngroups remained adamantly opposed. We are unsure,\\nmoreover, whether the Zinke letter actually responds to the\\nPark Service’s concerns. As the Conservation Association\\npoints out, the letter “never even reference[s] [the Park\\nService’s] objections [or] longstanding methodological\\ncritiques.” Conservation Association Reply Br. 10. And most\\nimportant, the Zinke letter says little about the only question\\nbefore us: whether the Corps acted arbitrarily and capriciously\\nin declining to prepare an EIS. Regardless of Interior’s stance,\\nthe Corps retained its NEPA obligation to “consider\\nadequately” whether the Project is highly controversial. Cave\\nCreek, 325 F.3d at 327. Because the facts underlying the Park\\nService’s concerns changed not at all between the Jewell and\\nZinke letters, the Corps had to either confront those facts or\\nexplain why the Zinke letter rendered them irrelevant. See\\nEncino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 136 S. Ct. 2117, 2125\\n(2016) (“One of the basic procedural requirements of\\nadministrative rulemaking is that an agency must give adequate\\nreasons for its decisions.”). Indeed, in our view, that two\\nInterior Secretaries had diametrically different views about the\\nsame project on the same facts simply reinforces its\\ncontroversial nature.\\n\\n The Corps next contends that it did acknowledge and try\\nto address concerns raised during the NEPA process by, for\\nexample, instructing Dominion to revise its analyses to address\\nthe shortcomings identified by commenters. But that misses the\\npoint. The question is not whether the Corps attempted to\\nresolve the controversy, but whether it succeeded. Given that\\nmany critical comments, including those from the Advisory\\nCouncil and the Argonne specialist, post-dated Dominion’s\\nrevisions, the Corps obviously failed.\\n\\n In short, the Corps’s assessment of the scope of the\\nProject’s effects has drawn consistent and strenuous\\n\\f 20\\nopposition, often in the form of concrete objections to the\\nCorps’s analytical process and findings, from agencies\\nentrusted with preserving historic resources and organizations\\nwith subject-matter expertise. This demonstrates the\\n“something more” needed to show that “the effects on the\\nquality of the human environment are likely to be highly\\ncontroversial.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(4).\\n\\n B.\\n\\n The next intensity factor the Conservation Groups cite\\nexamines the “[u]nique characteristics of the geographic area\\nsuch as proximity to historic or cultural resources.” 40 C.F.R.\\n§ 1508.27(b)(3). According to the Conservation Association,\\n“[t]he Corps-approved project entails putting giant modern\\ntransmission towers not only in close ‘proximity to’ numerous\\nhighly unique historic and cultural sites that are ‘one-of-a-kind\\nresources of national importance,’ but putting them directly in\\nand across the nation’s only Congressionally-designated\\nhistoric water trail.” Conservation Association Br. 19\\n(emphasis in original) (citation omitted). The Corps responds\\nthat the Project “‘is not a blockage to viewing the river or the\\nsurroundings’ and ‘will not dominate the view.’” Corps Br. 27\\n(quoting Memo § 10.3.8, J.A. 258). Again, the Corps misses\\nthe point.\\n\\n Congress has consistently “recommit[ted] itself to\\nprotecting and restoring the James River for the enjoyment and\\nprosperity of current and future generations.” H.R. Res. 16 § 4.\\nAs one congressman put it, these efforts preserve “the\\nopportunity [for visitors] to marvel at some of the same sites\\nthat Captain Smith and his crew beheld.” 152 Cong.\\nRec. 22,283 (2006) (statement of Rep. Hoyer). Of course, when\\nCaptain Smith sailed up the James River in the seventeenth\\ncentury, he beheld nothing either licensed by the U.S. Army\\n\\f 21\\nCorps of Engineers or built by Dominion Energy. In other\\nwords, even without blocking the view or dominating the\\nlandscape from all angles, the Project undercuts the very\\npurpose for which Congress designated these resources: to\\npreserve their “unspoiled and evocative landscape[s].” Letter\\nfrom Advisory Council Chairman 1 (May 2, 2017), J.A. 414.\\n\\n Insisting that the Project is nothing new, the Corps points\\nto existing “modern visual intrusions” in the same region that\\nrepresent a “successful mix of progress and history.” Corps\\nBr. 28 (quoting Memo § 10.3.8, J.A. 257). This\\nmischaracterizes the record. Although there is some modern\\ndevelopment, including an amusement park, boat traffic, and\\nresorts, the Corps itself described these as largely “low density\\nintrusions that become relatively lost within the overall\\nlandscape.” National Register of Historic Places Eligibility 4\\n(May 7, 2015), J.A. 2205. As the Conservation Association\\nobserves, “the record does not support the assertion . . . that\\nexisting intrusions are remotely comparable in size, magnitude,\\nor impact to this massive project that will be the only overhead\\ncrossing of the James River in a fifty-one-mile stretch.”\\nConservation Association Br. 20 (emphasis in original).\\n\\n The Corps maintains that the mitigation steps contained in\\nits Memorandum of Agreement with Dominion “would reduce\\n[the Project’s] impacts to a minimum.” Corps Br. 42. But the\\nrelevance of the Memorandum is dubious given that the Corps\\ndeclined to rely on it when making its “no significance”\\nfindings. To the extent the Corps leans on it now, the document\\noffers little support. Except for requiring Dominion to\\n“examine” alternative “coating and finishing materials” for the\\ntransmission towers, the enumerated mitigation measures the\\nCorps cites relate not to reducing the significance of the\\nProject’s visual impacts on the historic resources along the\\nJames River, but rather to periodic evaluation of the continued\\n\\f 22\\nneed for the Project itself and to more general historic\\npreservation efforts throughout the Commonwealth.\\nMemorandum of Agreement § I.e.1, J.A. 293.\\n\\n Finally, the Corps emphasizes that the Project’s effects are\\nvisual and that the Seventh Circuit, citing our decision in\\nMaryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission v.\\nU.S. Postal Service, 487 F.2d 1029, 1038–39 (D.C. Cir. 1973),\\nstated that aesthetic “judgments are inherently subjective and\\nnormally can be made . . . reliably on the basis of an\\nenvironmental assessment.” River Road Alliance, Inc. v. Corps\\nof Engineers of U.S. Army, 764 F.2d 445, 451 (7th Cir. 1985).\\nBut “normally” is not the same as “always.” And in Maryland-\\nNational Capital Park, we distinguished aesthetic judgment\\ncalls that entail “defining what is beautiful” from situations like\\nthis one where Congress’s purpose in designating the resources\\nwas to preserve “an unencumbered view of an attractive scenic\\nexpanse.” 487 F.2d at 1038 & n.5.\\n\\n C.\\n\\n The foregoing largely demonstrates why the Project\\nimplicates the final intensity factor invoked by the\\nConservation Groups: the “degree to which the action may\\nadversely affect districts [or] sites . . . listed in or eligible for\\nlisting in the National Register of Historic Places.” 40 C.F.R.\\n§ 1508.27(b)(8). Indeed, the Corps itself gets us much of the\\nway there. It concedes that the Project’s “close proximity” to\\nCarter’s Grove, an eighteenth-century Georgian-style\\nplantation, “would detract from the resource’s characteristics\\nof setting and feeling which are integral to the resource’s\\nqualifications for listing on the [National Register of Historic\\nPlaces].” Cultural Resources Effects Assessment § 3.9.4\\n(Sept. 15, 2015), J.A. 2024. And it is hardly just Carter’s\\nGrove. By the Corps’s own count, the region boasts fifty-seven\\n\\f 23\\nsites on the National Register or eligible for inclusion on it—a\\nconcentration of historic resources found “[i]n no other place\\nin [the] United States.” Letter from Park Service Regional\\nDirector 1 (Oct. 22, 2015), J.A. 1911.\\n\\n The Corps’s findings, paired with the record’s “robust,\\nwell-supported analyses, from agencies with Congressionally-\\ndelegated authority and recognized expertise,” National Trust\\nBr. 16, satisfy this intensity factor. The out-of-circuit cases\\ncited by the Corps—concerning the construction of a golf\\nclubhouse near another, historic one, Presidio Golf Club v.\\nNational Park Service, 155 F.3d 1153, 1156 (9th Cir. 1998),\\nand the refurbishment of an existing railroad to provide\\ncommuter service, Advocates for Transportation Alternatives,\\nInc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 453 F. Supp. 2d 289,\\n294–95 (D. Mass. 2006)—are easily distinguishable, as they\\nimplicate neither comparably sized infrastructure nor equally\\naugust historic resources.\\n\\n D.\\n\\n The Corps has thus failed to make a “convincing case” that\\nan EIS is unnecessary. Myersville Citizens, 783 F.3d at 1322.\\nThree intensity factors demonstrate not only that the Project\\nwill significantly impact historic resources, but also that it\\nwould benefit from an EIS. Indeed, Congress created the EIS\\nprocess to provide robust information in situations precisely\\nlike this one, where, following an environmental assessment,\\nthe scope of a project’s impacts remains both uncertain and\\ncontroversial. See, e.g., Grand Canyon Trust, 290 F.3d\\nat 345–47 (remanding for further proceedings when an agency,\\nanalyzing noise impacts on a national park “identified [by the\\nPark Service] as among the nine national parks of ‘highest\\npriority,’” considered those impacts “in a vacuum” without\\nsensitivity to the park’s “natural quiet”); American Rivers, 895\\n\\f 24\\nF.3d at 50 (ordering an EIS based on concerns that the agency\\n“just shrugged off” potentially significant impacts based on\\n“estimates entirely unmoored from any empirical, scientific, or\\notherwise verifiable study or source”).\\n\\n III.\\n\\n In preparing its EIS, the Corps will have to revisit its\\ntheories about alternatives under NEPA, which in turn will\\nrequire it to reevaluate its Clean Water Act and Preservation\\nAct analyses. Accordingly, we see no reason to address most\\nof the remaining questions raised by the Conservation Groups.\\nSee American Iron & Steel Institute v. EPA, 115 F.3d 979, 1008\\n(D.C. Cir. 1997) (“see[ing] no profit” in addressing remaining\\nargument where an agency was “already committed to agency\\nrevision”). Though taking no position on the adequacy of the\\nCorps’s alternatives analyses, we urge it to give careful\\nconsideration to its sister agencies’ concerns that the prior\\niterations were “superficial,” “inadequate,” and “extremely\\nproblematic.” Letter from Advisory Council Chairman 3\\n(May 2, 2017), J.A. 416.\\n\\n There is, however, one issue whose resolution would\\nfacilitate further proceedings before the Corps. Specifically,\\nthe parties disagree about the meaning of section 110(f) of the\\nPreservation Act, which provides that for any project “directly\\nand adversely affect[ing] any National Historic Landmark,” the\\nagency must “to the maximum extent possible undertake such\\nplanning and actions as may be necessary to minimize harm to\\nthe landmark.” 54 U.S.C. § 306107. The debate centers on the\\nword “directly” as it relates to Carter’s Grove, the National\\nHistoric Landmark at issue. According to the Corps and the\\ndistrict court, because the Project does not “physically” intrude\\non the plantation’s grounds—several towers are instead visible\\nfrom them—section 110(f) does not apply. See National Parks\\n\\f 25\\nConservation Association, 311 F. Supp. 3d at 379 (“The Court\\nis persuaded that the meaning of ‘directly’ in Section 110(f)\\nrefers to physical impacts . . . .”). The National Trust disagrees,\\nequating “directly” with having “no intervening cause.”\\nNational Trust Br. 9 (internal quotation marks omitted).\\n\\n Because we “owe no deference to [the Corps’s]\\ninterpretation of a statute it does not administer,” Amax Land\\nCo. v. Quarterman, 181 F.3d 1356, 1368 (D.C. Cir. 1999),\\n“[w]e begin our analysis with the language of the statute,”\\nUnited States v. Wilson, 290 F.3d 347, 352 (D.C. Cir. 2002).\\nAlthough section 110(f) clearly encompasses physical effects,\\nnothing in the statute’s text so limits its reach. According to the\\ndictionary, both now and at the time section 110(f) was passed,\\n“direct” means “free from extraneous influence” or\\n“immediate.” Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014); see also\\nBlack’s Law Dictionary (5th ed. 1979) (“direct” defined as\\n“without any . . . intervening influence” or “[i]mmediate”).\\nAnd had Congress wished to restrict section 110(f)’s reach to\\nphysical impacts, “it could have easily done so by using the\\nword” physically. Marx v. General Revenue Corp., 568 U.S.\\n371, 384 (2013). Finally, although no agency has provided\\nbinding guidance, the two actually responsible for\\nadministering this statute—the Park Service, 54 U.S.C.\\n§ 306101(b), and the Advisory Council, id. § 304108(a)—both\\nunderstand “directly” to “refer[] to causation and not\\nphysicality.” Letter from Advisory Council Assistant\\nDirector 4 (Mar. 2, 2016), J.A. 1485; see also Lawyers’\\nCommittee for Cultural Heritage Preservation Br. 19, Ex. A,\\nLetter from Park Service Acting Associate Director 2 (Sept. 21,\\n2017) (“The [Park Service] does not agree with the Corps’\\nposition that Section 110(f) applies only when an undertaking\\nmay physically impact a National Historic Landmark.”). On\\nremand, therefore, the Corps must reconsider its Preservation\\nAct analysis using this proper definition.\\n\\f 26\\n IV.\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, we reverse and remand to the\\ndistrict court with instructions to vacate Dominion’s permit and\\ndirect the Corps to prepare an environmental impact statement.\\n\\n So ordered.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1364,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4595451,"string":"4,595,451"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Daniel BARBOSA, Et Al., Appellants v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY and Federal Emergency Management Agency, Appellees"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Barbosa v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland SEC."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-01"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"17-5206"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Katsas, Silberman, Williams\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge SILBERMAN.\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued November 19, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\\n\\n No. 17-5206\\n\\n DANIEL BARBOSA, ET AL.,\\n APPELLANTS\\n\\n v.\\n\\nUNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND\\n FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:16-cv-01843)\\n\\n\\n Amanda Flug Davidoff argued the cause for appellants.\\nWith her on the briefs were Adam R. Brebner, Jerome Wesevich,\\nand Edward Tuddenham.\\n\\n Julie A. Murray and Scott L. Nelson were on the brief for\\namicus curiae Public Citizen, Inc. in support of plaintiffs-\\nappellants.\\n\\n Michael L. Foreman was on the brief for amici curiae\\nNational Low Income Housing Coalition, et al. in support of\\nplaintiffs-appellants.\\n\\n Mark B. Stern, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued\\n\\f 2\\n\\nthe cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Alisa B.\\nKlein and Carleen M. Zubrzycki, Attorneys.\\n\\n Before: KATSAS, Circuit Judge, and SILBERMAN and\\nWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judges.\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge\\nSILBERMAN.\\n\\n SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge: A number of applicants\\nsought Stafford Act economic relief from FEMA because of\\nstorm damage. They, accompanied by La Union del Pueblo\\nEntero, appeal the district court’s dismissal. We, however, agree\\nwith the district court. We lack jurisdiction over their claims\\nbecause of a statutory preclusion of judicial review.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n The Stafford Act authorizes the President to provide relief\\nin response to “major disasters.” The President has delegated\\nauthority under the Stafford Act to the Federal Emergency\\nManagement Agency (“FEMA”), a subdivision of the\\nDepartment of Homeland Security. In 2000, Congress\\nestablished the Federal Assistance to Individuals and\\nHouseholds Program. Unlike the traditional approach of Stafford\\nAct programs, which disburse federal funds to the states, which\\nin turn disburse those funds to individuals, under this program,\\nthe federal government may provide forms of direct relief to\\nindividuals and households after a major disaster has been\\ndeclared by the President.1\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 1\\n See 42 U.S.C. §§ 5121 et seq.\\n\\f 3\\n\\n The statute creating the program contains three specific\\nstatutory provisions designed to guide its implementation. They\\ncall for the issuance of regulations as follows:\\n\\n(1) “The President shall issue, and may alter and amend, such\\nregulations as may be necessary for the guidance of personnel\\ncarrying out Federal assistance functions at the site of a major\\ndisaster or emergency. Such regulations shall include provisions\\nfor insuring that the distribution of supplies, the processing of\\napplications, and other relief and assistance activities shall be\\naccomplished in an equitable and impartial manner, without\\ndiscrimination on the grounds of race, color, religion,\\nnationality, sex, age, disability, English proficiency, or\\neconomic status.” 42 U.S.C. § 5151(a) (emphasis added);\\n\\n(2) “The President shall prescribe rules and regulations to carry\\nout this section, including criteria, standards, and procedures\\nfor determining eligibility for assistance.” 42 U.S.C. § 5174(j)\\n(emphasis added);\\n\\n(3) “The President shall issue rules which provide for the fair\\nand impartial consideration of appeals under this section.” 42\\nU.S.C. § 5189a(c) (emphasis added).\\n\\n But there is a fourth statutory provision of the Stafford Act\\napplying to this case, a preclusion of judicial review, which\\ngoverns our jurisdiction:\\n\\n“The Federal Government shall not be liable for any claim upon\\nthe exercise or performance of or the failure to exercise or\\nperform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a Federal\\nagency or an employee of the Federal Government in carrying\\nout the provisions of this chapter.” 42 U.S.C. § 5148 (emphasis\\nadded).\\n\\f 4\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n The government has promulgated regulations pursuant to\\nthe statutory mandates.2\\n\\n Starting with 42 U.S.C. § 5151(a), the nondiscrimination\\nmandate, FEMA issued a regulation that provides for\\nnondiscrimination in disaster assistance.3 Although, in part, it\\nechoes the statutory language, it does more. It also states\\n“government bodies and other organizations [participating in\\nStafford Act programs] shall provide a written assurance of their\\nintent to comply with regulations relating to nondiscrimination,”\\nand provides that the agency “shall make available” to\\n“interested parties . . . information regarding” its\\nnondiscrimination regulation. Perhaps most significant, as the\\ndistrict court noted, the regulation states “Federal financial\\nassistance to the States or their political subdivisions is\\nconditioned on full compliance with” regulations entitled\\n“Nondiscrimination in Federally-Assisted Programs.”4 That\\nprovision states explicitly: “No person in the United States shall,\\non the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded\\nfrom participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be otherwise\\nsubjected to discrimination under any program to which this\\nregulation applies.” Inter alia, the nondiscrimination regulations\\nidentify specific discriminatory actions prohibited, require that\\n\\n 2\\n We note that the regulations at times track the statutory\\nlanguage. Presumably, the statutory command to regulate anticipates\\nmore than merely restating the statutory language. However,\\nincorporating the statutory language into a broader regulatory\\nframework is understandable, especially when the statute arguably sets\\nout only the minimum standards of regulation.\\n 3\\n 44 C.F.R. § 206.11.\\n 4\\n 44 C.F.R. §§ 7.1 et seq.\\n\\f 5\\n\\nassurances of nondiscrimination accompany applications, and\\ncontain extensive provisions regarding conducting compliance\\ninvestigations.\\n\\n FEMA has also promulgated regulations, purportedly, “to\\ncarry out” the program, “including criteria, standards, and\\nprocedures for determining eligibility for assistance,” as\\nmandated by 42 U.S.C. § 5174(j).5 The regulations include\\nprovisions calling for the payment of “necessary expenses” or\\n“serious needs” for those “unable to meet such expenses” caused\\nby disasters “through other means.” This provision states the\\nmaximum amount of assistance ($25,000, adjusted “annually to\\nreflect changes in the Consumer Price Index”), the multiple\\ntypes of assistance, the date of eligibility, the duration of\\nassistance (not longer than 18 months unless exceptional\\ncircumstances exist), and details about how assistance will be\\ncharacterized and treated (not counted as income, exemption\\nfrom garnishment, and duplication of benefits). A regulation\\nalso defines certain terms used in the regulations, including\\n“[h]ousing costs,” “[s]afe,” and “[u]ninhabitable.” The\\nregulations state the registration period (60 days after\\ndeclaration of major disaster or emergency) and provide for\\nextensions and late registrations.\\n\\n Another provision, of obvious significance, describes when\\nfunds for repairs will be granted (“[if:] [t]he component [of a\\nstructure] was functional immediately before the declared event;\\n[t]he component [of a structure] was damaged, and the damage\\nwas caused by the disaster; [t]he damage to the component [of\\na structure] is not covered by insurance; and [r]epair of the\\ncomponent [of a structure] is necessary to ensure the safety or\\nhealth of the occupant or to make the residence functional”). It\\nfurther lists the components that are eligible for repair through\\n\\n 5\\n 44 C.F.R. §§ 206.110 et seq.\\n\\f 6\\n\\nhousing assistance (including “[s]tructural components of the\\nresidence,” “[w]indows and doors,” and “[t]he Heating,\\nVentilation and Air Conditioning system”).\\n\\n Even more detail is provided by a provision that establishes\\nnine “[c]onditions of eligibility” and ten “[c]onditions of\\nineligibility.” “FEMA may only provide assistance” when the\\neligibility conditions have been met. Assistance may be\\nprovided “[w]hen the individual or household has incurred a\\ndisaster-related necessary expense or serious need in the state in\\nwhich the disaster has been declared, without regard to their\\nresidency in that state.” These conditions also provide for\\nassistance even in some situations where individuals have\\ninsurance. Other conditions also describe the necessary state of\\nthe renter’s or owner’s residence in order to qualify for housing\\nassistance: “primary residence has been destroyed, is\\nuninhabitable, or is inaccessible.” The ten conditions of\\nineligibility speak to circumstances in which the individuals or\\nhouseholds still have access to their homes or to\\naccommodations, have adequate insurance, or meet other\\ncriteria.\\n\\n Of particular concern to Appellants, FEMA’s provisions\\ngoverning appeals as mandated by 42 U.S.C. § 5189a(c) list the\\ndeterminations applicants may appeal, state that “[a]ppeals must\\nbe in writing and explain the reason(s) for the appeal,” provide\\nfor requesting files related to the applicant, and describe the\\nperiod of appeal and to whom appeals must be directed. These\\nprovisions explain that an appellant will receive “a written\\nnotice of the disposition of the appeal within 90 days of the\\nreceiving of the appeal,” and that “the decision of the appellate\\nauthority is final.” The regulations also state that an appeal of a\\ndetermination regarding repair assistance “must provide proof\\n. . . that the component was functional before the declared event\\nand proof that the declared event caused the component to stop\\n\\f 7\\n\\nfunctioning” and, if disputing the amount of assistance granted,\\n“must also provide justification for the amount sought.”\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n Appellants are twenty-six individuals who resided in Texas\\nand whose homes suffered damage during one of three storms\\nin 2015 and 2016 declared major disasters, accompanied by La\\nUnion del Pueblo Entero, a non-profit organization. The\\nindividual Appellants all sought relief through the program.\\nAfter having applied, some of them received a letter granting\\nbenefits, others a form letter denying benefits. All appealed.\\nSome were granted an increase in benefits, others were denied\\nany additional relief.\\n\\n Appellants’ suit was dismissed by the district judge on\\njurisdictional grounds, although the judge alternatively\\nconcluded the regulations satisfied the statute.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n It should be noted at the outset that Appellants make no\\nclaim that they are entitled statutorily to any specific amount of\\npayments in response to their Stafford Act claims. Nor is it\\nasserted that constitutional due process is governing because it\\nis not claimed that Appellants have a property interest. Their\\nprimary contention is rather that FEMA inadequately complied\\nwith its statutory obligation to publish regulations that would,\\ninter alia, describe the criteria the agency has used to determine\\nwhether and for how much their claims were paid. Without such\\ncriteria, according to Appellants, it is difficult to present a claim\\nor for that matter appeal from a denial. Indeed, Appellants argue\\nthat the actual process by which claims are evaluated—we are\\ntold by contractors—is governed by “secret law.”\\n\\f 8\\n\\n The government insists the regulations satisfy the statutory\\nmandates, denies that there is any “secret law” governing\\nclaims, and, in any event, contends that the preclusion of judicial\\nreview ousts us of jurisdiction to entertain Appellants’ claims.6\\n(Interestingly, the government does not rely on Chevron\\ndeference.)\\n\\n Although we would normally turn our attention first to our\\njurisdiction, as the district court noted, Barbosa v. U.S. Dep’t of\\nHomeland Sec. (Barbosa I), 263 F. Supp. 3d 207, 215-16\\n(D.D.C. 2017), to decide whether the preclusion of judicial\\nreview applies, it is necessary to determine whether the agency’s\\nactions are discretionary—which obliges us to compare those\\nactions with the statute. Indeed, the Fifth Circuit faced with a\\nsimilar case, La Union del Pueblo Entero v. Fed. Emergency\\nMgmt. Agency (LUPE), 608 F.3d 217 (5th Cir. 2010), held that\\nFEMA’s regulations satisfied one of the statutory provisions, 42\\nU.S.C. § 5174(j), without even considering the judicial review\\npreclusion. The court concluded that the regulations\\n“significantly narrow[] the universe of potentially eligible\\ndisaster victims.” LUPE, 608 F.3d at 223.\\n\\n Appellants direct their argument that the regulations are\\ninadequate primarily to FEMA’s alleged failure to sufficiently\\n\\n\\n 6\\n The preclusion language could be thought to sound more like a\\nlimitation on a cause of action, but because it implicates sovereign\\nimmunity, the district court and we see it as jurisdictional. See\\nDalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 24, 31-32 (1953); see also\\nMorris v. Washington Metro. Area Transit Auth., 781 F.2d 218, 221\\n(D.C. Cir. 1986). To be sure, the Supreme Court has recently tightened\\nthe concept of jurisdiction, see, e.g., Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick,\\n559 U.S. 154, 160-63 (2010), but even if the preclusion provision\\nwere regarded as a limitation on a cause of action, our analysis would\\nbe the same.\\n\\f 9\\n\\nspecify the criteria for eligibility and for amounts of\\nreimbursement. They rely on two of our cases, American\\nAirlines, Inc. v. Transportation Security Administration, 665\\nF.3d 170 (D.C. Cir. 2011) and Oceana, Inc. v. Locke, 670 F.3d\\n1238 (D.C. Cir. 2011). We think those cases are instructive but\\nnot persuasive precedent because the statutory mandates were\\nmore specific. In American Airlines, Congress had directed in\\nhoc verba that the Transportation Security Administration\\ndevelop a priority list for reimbursement of airport security\\nprojects. The TSA, however, added an escape clause allowing it\\nto deviate on “a case-by-case” basis that essentially\\nmodified—almost nullified—the congressional command. Am.\\nAirlines, 665 F.3d at 177. And similarly in Oceana, the\\nDepartment of Commerce frustrated a statutory command that\\nit adopt a standardized reporting methodology by adding “an\\nexception so vague as to make the rule meaningless.” Oceana,\\n670 F.3d at 1241.\\n\\n As for Appellants’ argument in this case, that FEMA’s\\nregulations lack adequate criteria, we agree with the Fifth\\nCircuit that the extensive list of eligible and ineligible claims\\ncertainly narrows the type of claims that the agency will grant.\\nWe admit that we are more troubled by the regulations’\\ntreatment of appeals—which, it will be recalled, are required to\\nbe “fair.” It is certainly difficult to muster an effective appeal if\\none is ignorant of the grounds upon which a claim is denied.7\\nIndeed, we have said if a constitutionally protected property\\ninterest is involved—which is not this case—a statement of\\nreasons explaining a denial may well be required if an appeal\\n\\n\\n 7\\n Moreover, since the appeals regulations impose no time limit on\\nFEMA to turn over information in an individual’s “file” following a\\nrequest, see 44 C.F.R. § 206.115(d), there is no guarantee that this\\ninformation (whose contents are nowhere specified) will be received\\nwithin the 60-day window to lodge an appeal, id. § 206.115(a).\\n\\f 10\\n\\nright is effective. Lightfoot v. District of Columbia, 448 F.3d\\n392, 398 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (per curiam).\\n\\n It is unnecessary, however, for us to decide whether the\\nappeals regulations are “fair” because we conclude the\\npreclusion of review limits our authority to challenge FEMA’s\\nregulations. The parties do not dispute that the appropriate test,\\nas the district court recognized, is the test the Supreme Court\\nused to interpret similar language in the Federal Tort Claims\\nAct. See Barbosa I, 263 F. Supp. 3d at 216. If the challenged\\nagency act involves “an element of judgment or choice” and the\\nagency’s “judgment is of the kind that the discretionary function\\nwas designed to shield,” our review is precluded. United States\\nv. Gaubert, 499 U.S. 315, 322-23 (1991) (citations omitted). We\\nhave little doubt that the statutory requirements for regulations\\nrely on the discretionary judgment of FEMA; the range of\\nchoice that FEMA can employ is quite wide.\\n\\n The Supreme Court has concluded the discretionary\\nfunction exception to judicial review is inapplicable under the\\nfirst prong of the test only if “a federal statute . . . specifically\\nprescribes a course of action” to be followed, Berkovitz v.\\nUnited States, 486 U.S. 531, 536 (1988), and that is not this\\ncase. We need not decide whether if FEMA failed to issue\\nregulations at all would the preclusion of review still apply; the\\nagency has issued a great deal in the form of regulations\\nsupplemented by interpretive guidance—some were issued after\\nthe Fifth Circuit case, LUPE.8\\n\\n\\n 8\\n We have held a failure to promulgate regulations at all in light\\nof a statutory mandate to be illegal. See, e.g., Ethyl Corp. v. EPA, 306\\nF.3d 1144, 1146 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (citations omitted) (EPA ignored\\nstatutory mandate to “by regulation establish methods and procedures”\\nby creating “a framework for automobile manufacturers to develop\\ntheir own tests.”). But Appellants are misguided in relying on those\\n\\f 11\\n\\n III.\\n\\n Appellants, perhaps recognizing that their direct attack on\\nthe regulations would run into a jurisdictional barrier, presented\\na creative alternative argument. They turn away from the\\nStafford Act to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) to\\nexpose the “secret law” that they suspect is used to deny claims\\nand appeals. They rely on 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1), which obliges\\nagencies to publish, inter alia, “substantive rules of general\\napplicability adopted as authorized by law, and statements of\\ngeneral policy or interpretations of general applicability\\nformulated and adopted by the agency.” 5 U.S.C. §\\n552(a)(1)(D).\\n\\n We have held, however, that that section cannot be enforced\\nby a judicial mandate to publish materials in the Federal\\nRegister, see Kennecott Utah Copper Corp. v. U.S. Dep’t of\\nInterior, 88 F.3d 1191, 1202-03 (D.C. Cir. 1996); it is only if a\\nperson dealing with an agency is “adversely affected” by a\\nmatter that should have been published can he or she get relief.\\n5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1). Appellants claim that the “secret law”\\nemployed by FEMA with regard to claims and appeals adversely\\naffects them so therefore they are entitled to have their Stafford\\nAct cases reopened.\\n\\n It is probable that the sanction in that section is designed for\\na case like Satellite Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. FCC, 824 F.2d 1\\n(D.C. Cir. 1987), where an application for a license was\\nimproperly rejected because it was filed at the wrong location,\\ndespite the fact that the FCC had never published the right\\nlocation. But even assuming one could stretch “adverse affect”\\nto refer to denied Stafford Act claims, we think § 552(a)(1)\\ncannot be used to allow us to review Stafford Act regulations,\\n\\n\\ncases here.\\n\\f 12\\n\\nstill less to reopen FEMA decisions. The preclusion of judicial\\nreview remains a barrier.\\n\\n To be sure, modifications of the APA’s applicability, as\\nAppellants point out, must be specifically stated, 5 U.S.C. § 559,\\nbut the preclusion of judicial review is a jurisdictional limitation\\non judicial power. A FOIA claim cannot be used to create\\njudicial authority to review Stafford Act claims, regardless of\\nwhether § 552(a)(1), itself, is discretionary.9\\n\\n After all, Congress specifically limited our jurisdiction to\\nreview discretionary decisions under the Stafford Act. As such,\\nit would be an improbable stretch to use another unrelated\\nstatute to frustrate congressional intent.\\n\\n That is not to say that we were unmoved by the contentions\\nthat “secret law” was being used. So we were encouraged to\\nhear government counsel assure us that additional policies for\\ndealing with claims and appeals were easily available to\\nAppellants on the internet. Moreover, a normal FOIA request\\nwould reach any governing policies. At oral argument, counsel\\nfor FEMA stated repeatedly that the agency would have no\\nobjection to complying with specific requests for documents so\\nthat the allegedly “secret law” can be brought to light. So, to the\\nextent Appellants wish to seek additional materials beyond those\\nalready now available to them, they may do so by making FOIA\\nrequests under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3). And, of course, if such\\nrequests are denied, they may seek further judicial review\\n\\n\\n\\n 9\\n The district court, assuming § 552(a)(1) applied to Stafford Act\\nchallenges, reasoned that the preclusion of judicial review would still\\ngovern because it would be discretionary as to what was published.\\nBarbosa v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (Barbosa II), 278 F. Supp. 3d\\n325, 328 (D.D.C. 2017).\\n\\f 13\\n\\nthrough FOIA under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B), a provision that\\nthey did not invoke in this case.\\n\\n We do not mean to suggest that the Stafford Act cases can\\nbe reopened regardless of the result of any subsequent FOIA\\nlitigation; the preclusion of judicial review still governs. But if\\nit should turn out that there is something troubling in the files,\\nthere is always the possibility of further legislation.\\n\\n IV.\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s\\ndismissal.\\n\\n So ordered.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4372704/\", \"author_raw\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge SILBERMAN.\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"KATSAS"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"SILBERMAN"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"WILLIAMS"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4595451/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Daniel BARBOSA, Et Al., Appellants v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY and Federal Emergency Management Agency, Appellees\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-01\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued November 19, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\n\n No. 17-5206\n\n DANIEL BARBOSA, ET AL.,\n APPELLANTS\n\n v.\n\nUNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND\n FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY,\n APPELLEES\n\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the District of Columbia\n (No. 1:16-cv-01843)\n\n\n Amanda Flug Davidoff argued the cause for appellants.\nWith her on the briefs were Adam R. Brebner, Jerome Wesevich,\nand Edward Tuddenham.\n\n Julie A. Murray and Scott L. Nelson were on the brief for\namicus curiae Public Citizen, Inc. in support of plaintiffs-\nappellants.\n\n Michael L. Foreman was on the brief for amici curiae\nNational Low Income Housing Coalition, et al. in support of\nplaintiffs-appellants.\n\n Mark B. Stern, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued\n\f 2\n\nthe cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Alisa B.\nKlein and Carleen M. Zubrzycki, Attorneys.\n\n Before: KATSAS, Circuit Judge, and SILBERMAN and\nWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judges.\n\n Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge\nSILBERMAN.\n\n SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge: A number of applicants\nsought Stafford Act economic relief from FEMA because of\nstorm damage. They, accompanied by La Union del Pueblo\nEntero, appeal the district court’s dismissal. We, however, agree\nwith the district court. We lack jurisdiction over their claims\nbecause of a statutory preclusion of judicial review.\n\n I.\n\n The Stafford Act authorizes the President to provide relief\nin response to “major disasters.” The President has delegated\nauthority under the Stafford Act to the Federal Emergency\nManagement Agency (“FEMA”), a subdivision of the\nDepartment of Homeland Security. In 2000, Congress\nestablished the Federal Assistance to Individuals and\nHouseholds Program. Unlike the traditional approach of Stafford\nAct programs, which disburse federal funds to the states, which\nin turn disburse those funds to individuals, under this program,\nthe federal government may provide forms of direct relief to\nindividuals and households after a major disaster has been\ndeclared by the President.1\n\n\n\n\n 1\n See 42 U.S.C. §§ 5121 et seq.\n\f 3\n\n The statute creating the program contains three specific\nstatutory provisions designed to guide its implementation. They\ncall for the issuance of regulations as follows:\n\n(1) “The President shall issue, and may alter and amend, such\nregulations as may be necessary for the guidance of personnel\ncarrying out Federal assistance functions at the site of a major\ndisaster or emergency. Such regulations shall include provisions\nfor insuring that the distribution of supplies, the processing of\napplications, and other relief and assistance activities shall be\naccomplished in an equitable and impartial manner, without\ndiscrimination on the grounds of race, color, religion,\nnationality, sex, age, disability, English proficiency, or\neconomic status.” 42 U.S.C. § 5151(a) (emphasis added);\n\n(2) “The President shall prescribe rules and regulations to carry\nout this section, including criteria, standards, and procedures\nfor determining eligibility for assistance.” 42 U.S.C. § 5174(j)\n(emphasis added);\n\n(3) “The President shall issue rules which provide for the fair\nand impartial consideration of appeals under this section.” 42\nU.S.C. § 5189a(c) (emphasis added).\n\n But there is a fourth statutory provision of the Stafford Act\napplying to this case, a preclusion of judicial review, which\ngoverns our jurisdiction:\n\n“The Federal Government shall not be liable for any claim upon\nthe exercise or performance of or the failure to exercise or\nperform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a Federal\nagency or an employee of the Federal Government in carrying\nout the provisions of this chapter.” 42 U.S.C. § 5148 (emphasis\nadded).\n\f 4\n\n * * *\n\n The government has promulgated regulations pursuant to\nthe statutory mandates.2\n\n Starting with 42 U.S.C. § 5151(a), the nondiscrimination\nmandate, FEMA issued a regulation that provides for\nnondiscrimination in disaster assistance.3 Although, in part, it\nechoes the statutory language, it does more. It also states\n“government bodies and other organizations [participating in\nStafford Act programs] shall provide a written assurance of their\nintent to comply with regulations relating to nondiscrimination,”\nand provides that the agency “shall make available” to\n“interested parties . . . information regarding” its\nnondiscrimination regulation. Perhaps most significant, as the\ndistrict court noted, the regulation states “Federal financial\nassistance to the States or their political subdivisions is\nconditioned on full compliance with” regulations entitled\n“Nondiscrimination in Federally-Assisted Programs.”4 That\nprovision states explicitly: “No person in the United States shall,\non the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded\nfrom participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be otherwise\nsubjected to discrimination under any program to which this\nregulation applies.” Inter alia, the nondiscrimination regulations\nidentify specific discriminatory actions prohibited, require that\n\n 2\n We note that the regulations at times track the statutory\nlanguage. Presumably, the statutory command to regulate anticipates\nmore than merely restating the statutory language. However,\nincorporating the statutory language into a broader regulatory\nframework is understandable, especially when the statute arguably sets\nout only the minimum standards of regulation.\n 3\n 44 C.F.R. § 206.11.\n 4\n 44 C.F.R. §§ 7.1 et seq.\n\f 5\n\nassurances of nondiscrimination accompany applications, and\ncontain extensive provisions regarding conducting compliance\ninvestigations.\n\n FEMA has also promulgated regulations, purportedly, “to\ncarry out” the program, “including criteria, standards, and\nprocedures for determining eligibility for assistance,” as\nmandated by 42 U.S.C. § 5174(j).5 The regulations include\nprovisions calling for the payment of “necessary expenses” or\n“serious needs” for those “unable to meet such expenses” caused\nby disasters “through other means.” This provision states the\nmaximum amount of assistance ($25,000, adjusted “annually to\nreflect changes in the Consumer Price Index”), the multiple\ntypes of assistance, the date of eligibility, the duration of\nassistance (not longer than 18 months unless exceptional\ncircumstances exist), and details about how assistance will be\ncharacterized and treated (not counted as income, exemption\nfrom garnishment, and duplication of benefits). A regulation\nalso defines certain terms used in the regulations, including\n“[h]ousing costs,” “[s]afe,” and “[u]ninhabitable.” The\nregulations state the registration period (60 days after\ndeclaration of major disaster or emergency) and provide for\nextensions and late registrations.\n\n Another provision, of obvious significance, describes when\nfunds for repairs will be granted (“[if:] [t]he component [of a\nstructure] was functional immediately before the declared event;\n[t]he component [of a structure] was damaged, and the damage\nwas caused by the disaster; [t]he damage to the component [of\na structure] is not covered by insurance; and [r]epair of the\ncomponent [of a structure] is necessary to ensure the safety or\nhealth of the occupant or to make the residence functional”). It\nfurther lists the components that are eligible for repair through\n\n 5\n 44 C.F.R. §§ 206.110 et seq.\n\f 6\n\nhousing assistance (including “[s]tructural components of the\nresidence,” “[w]indows and doors,” and “[t]he Heating,\nVentilation and Air Conditioning system”).\n\n Even more detail is provided by a provision that establishes\nnine “[c]onditions of eligibility” and ten “[c]onditions of\nineligibility.” “FEMA may only provide assistance” when the\neligibility conditions have been met. Assistance may be\nprovided “[w]hen the individual or household has incurred a\ndisaster-related necessary expense or serious need in the state in\nwhich the disaster has been declared, without regard to their\nresidency in that state.” These conditions also provide for\nassistance even in some situations where individuals have\ninsurance. Other conditions also describe the necessary state of\nthe renter’s or owner’s residence in order to qualify for housing\nassistance: “primary residence has been destroyed, is\nuninhabitable, or is inaccessible.” The ten conditions of\nineligibility speak to circumstances in which the individuals or\nhouseholds still have access to their homes or to\naccommodations, have adequate insurance, or meet other\ncriteria.\n\n Of particular concern to Appellants, FEMA’s provisions\ngoverning appeals as mandated by 42 U.S.C. § 5189a(c) list the\ndeterminations applicants may appeal, state that “[a]ppeals must\nbe in writing and explain the reason(s) for the appeal,” provide\nfor requesting files related to the applicant, and describe the\nperiod of appeal and to whom appeals must be directed. These\nprovisions explain that an appellant will receive “a written\nnotice of the disposition of the appeal within 90 days of the\nreceiving of the appeal,” and that “the decision of the appellate\nauthority is final.” The regulations also state that an appeal of a\ndetermination regarding repair assistance “must provide proof\n. . . that the component was functional before the declared event\nand proof that the declared event caused the component to stop\n\f 7\n\nfunctioning” and, if disputing the amount of assistance granted,\n“must also provide justification for the amount sought.”\n\n * * *\n\n Appellants are twenty-six individuals who resided in Texas\nand whose homes suffered damage during one of three storms\nin 2015 and 2016 declared major disasters, accompanied by La\nUnion del Pueblo Entero, a non-profit organization. The\nindividual Appellants all sought relief through the program.\nAfter having applied, some of them received a letter granting\nbenefits, others a form letter denying benefits. All appealed.\nSome were granted an increase in benefits, others were denied\nany additional relief.\n\n Appellants’ suit was dismissed by the district judge on\njurisdictional grounds, although the judge alternatively\nconcluded the regulations satisfied the statute.\n\n II.\n\n It should be noted at the outset that Appellants make no\nclaim that they are entitled statutorily to any specific amount of\npayments in response to their Stafford Act claims. Nor is it\nasserted that constitutional due process is governing because it\nis not claimed that Appellants have a property interest. Their\nprimary contention is rather that FEMA inadequately complied\nwith its statutory obligation to publish regulations that would,\ninter alia, describe the criteria the agency has used to determine\nwhether and for how much their claims were paid. Without such\ncriteria, according to Appellants, it is difficult to present a claim\nor for that matter appeal from a denial. Indeed, Appellants argue\nthat the actual process by which claims are evaluated—we are\ntold by contractors—is governed by “secret law.”\n\f 8\n\n The government insists the regulations satisfy the statutory\nmandates, denies that there is any “secret law” governing\nclaims, and, in any event, contends that the preclusion of judicial\nreview ousts us of jurisdiction to entertain Appellants’ claims.6\n(Interestingly, the government does not rely on Chevron\ndeference.)\n\n Although we would normally turn our attention first to our\njurisdiction, as the district court noted, Barbosa v. U.S. Dep’t of\nHomeland Sec. (Barbosa I), 263 F. Supp. 3d 207, 215-16\n(D.D.C. 2017), to decide whether the preclusion of judicial\nreview applies, it is necessary to determine whether the agency’s\nactions are discretionary—which obliges us to compare those\nactions with the statute. Indeed, the Fifth Circuit faced with a\nsimilar case, La Union del Pueblo Entero v. Fed. Emergency\nMgmt. Agency (LUPE), 608 F.3d 217 (5th Cir. 2010), held that\nFEMA’s regulations satisfied one of the statutory provisions, 42\nU.S.C. § 5174(j), without even considering the judicial review\npreclusion. The court concluded that the regulations\n“significantly narrow[] the universe of potentially eligible\ndisaster victims.” LUPE, 608 F.3d at 223.\n\n Appellants direct their argument that the regulations are\ninadequate primarily to FEMA’s alleged failure to sufficiently\n\n\n 6\n The preclusion language could be thought to sound more like a\nlimitation on a cause of action, but because it implicates sovereign\nimmunity, the district court and we see it as jurisdictional. See\nDalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 24, 31-32 (1953); see also\nMorris v. Washington Metro. Area Transit Auth., 781 F.2d 218, 221\n(D.C. Cir. 1986). To be sure, the Supreme Court has recently tightened\nthe concept of jurisdiction, see, e.g., Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick,\n559 U.S. 154, 160-63 (2010), but even if the preclusion provision\nwere regarded as a limitation on a cause of action, our analysis would\nbe the same.\n\f 9\n\nspecify the criteria for eligibility and for amounts of\nreimbursement. They rely on two of our cases, American\nAirlines, Inc. v. Transportation Security Administration, 665\nF.3d 170 (D.C. Cir. 2011) and Oceana, Inc. v. Locke, 670 F.3d\n1238 (D.C. Cir. 2011). We think those cases are instructive but\nnot persuasive precedent because the statutory mandates were\nmore specific. In American Airlines, Congress had directed in\nhoc verba that the Transportation Security Administration\ndevelop a priority list for reimbursement of airport security\nprojects. The TSA, however, added an escape clause allowing it\nto deviate on “a case-by-case” basis that essentially\nmodified—almost nullified—the congressional command. Am.\nAirlines, 665 F.3d at 177. And similarly in Oceana, the\nDepartment of Commerce frustrated a statutory command that\nit adopt a standardized reporting methodology by adding “an\nexception so vague as to make the rule meaningless.” Oceana,\n670 F.3d at 1241.\n\n As for Appellants’ argument in this case, that FEMA’s\nregulations lack adequate criteria, we agree with the Fifth\nCircuit that the extensive list of eligible and ineligible claims\ncertainly narrows the type of claims that the agency will grant.\nWe admit that we are more troubled by the regulations’\ntreatment of appeals—which, it will be recalled, are required to\nbe “fair.” It is certainly difficult to muster an effective appeal if\none is ignorant of the grounds upon which a claim is denied.7\nIndeed, we have said if a constitutionally protected property\ninterest is involved—which is not this case—a statement of\nreasons explaining a denial may well be required if an appeal\n\n\n 7\n Moreover, since the appeals regulations impose no time limit on\nFEMA to turn over information in an individual’s “file” following a\nrequest, see 44 C.F.R. § 206.115(d), there is no guarantee that this\ninformation (whose contents are nowhere specified) will be received\nwithin the 60-day window to lodge an appeal, id. § 206.115(a).\n\f 10\n\nright is effective. Lightfoot v. District of Columbia, 448 F.3d\n392, 398 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (per curiam).\n\n It is unnecessary, however, for us to decide whether the\nappeals regulations are “fair” because we conclude the\npreclusion of review limits our authority to challenge FEMA’s\nregulations. The parties do not dispute that the appropriate test,\nas the district court recognized, is the test the Supreme Court\nused to interpret similar language in the Federal Tort Claims\nAct. See Barbosa I, 263 F. Supp. 3d at 216. If the challenged\nagency act involves “an element of judgment or choice” and the\nagency’s “judgment is of the kind that the discretionary function\nwas designed to shield,” our review is precluded. United States\nv. Gaubert, 499 U.S. 315, 322-23 (1991) (citations omitted). We\nhave little doubt that the statutory requirements for regulations\nrely on the discretionary judgment of FEMA; the range of\nchoice that FEMA can employ is quite wide.\n\n The Supreme Court has concluded the discretionary\nfunction exception to judicial review is inapplicable under the\nfirst prong of the test only if “a federal statute . . . specifically\nprescribes a course of action” to be followed, Berkovitz v.\nUnited States, 486 U.S. 531, 536 (1988), and that is not this\ncase. We need not decide whether if FEMA failed to issue\nregulations at all would the preclusion of review still apply; the\nagency has issued a great deal in the form of regulations\nsupplemented by interpretive guidance—some were issued after\nthe Fifth Circuit case, LUPE.8\n\n\n 8\n We have held a failure to promulgate regulations at all in light\nof a statutory mandate to be illegal. See, e.g., Ethyl Corp. v. EPA, 306\nF.3d 1144, 1146 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (citations omitted) (EPA ignored\nstatutory mandate to “by regulation establish methods and procedures”\nby creating “a framework for automobile manufacturers to develop\ntheir own tests.”). But Appellants are misguided in relying on those\n\f 11\n\n III.\n\n Appellants, perhaps recognizing that their direct attack on\nthe regulations would run into a jurisdictional barrier, presented\na creative alternative argument. They turn away from the\nStafford Act to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) to\nexpose the “secret law” that they suspect is used to deny claims\nand appeals. They rely on 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1), which obliges\nagencies to publish, inter alia, “substantive rules of general\napplicability adopted as authorized by law, and statements of\ngeneral policy or interpretations of general applicability\nformulated and adopted by the agency.” 5 U.S.C. §\n552(a)(1)(D).\n\n We have held, however, that that section cannot be enforced\nby a judicial mandate to publish materials in the Federal\nRegister, see Kennecott Utah Copper Corp. v. U.S. Dep’t of\nInterior, 88 F.3d 1191, 1202-03 (D.C. Cir. 1996); it is only if a\nperson dealing with an agency is “adversely affected” by a\nmatter that should have been published can he or she get relief.\n5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1). Appellants claim that the “secret law”\nemployed by FEMA with regard to claims and appeals adversely\naffects them so therefore they are entitled to have their Stafford\nAct cases reopened.\n\n It is probable that the sanction in that section is designed for\na case like Satellite Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. FCC, 824 F.2d 1\n(D.C. Cir. 1987), where an application for a license was\nimproperly rejected because it was filed at the wrong location,\ndespite the fact that the FCC had never published the right\nlocation. But even assuming one could stretch “adverse affect”\nto refer to denied Stafford Act claims, we think § 552(a)(1)\ncannot be used to allow us to review Stafford Act regulations,\n\n\ncases here.\n\f 12\n\nstill less to reopen FEMA decisions. The preclusion of judicial\nreview remains a barrier.\n\n To be sure, modifications of the APA’s applicability, as\nAppellants point out, must be specifically stated, 5 U.S.C. § 559,\nbut the preclusion of judicial review is a jurisdictional limitation\non judicial power. A FOIA claim cannot be used to create\njudicial authority to review Stafford Act claims, regardless of\nwhether § 552(a)(1), itself, is discretionary.9\n\n After all, Congress specifically limited our jurisdiction to\nreview discretionary decisions under the Stafford Act. As such,\nit would be an improbable stretch to use another unrelated\nstatute to frustrate congressional intent.\n\n That is not to say that we were unmoved by the contentions\nthat “secret law” was being used. So we were encouraged to\nhear government counsel assure us that additional policies for\ndealing with claims and appeals were easily available to\nAppellants on the internet. Moreover, a normal FOIA request\nwould reach any governing policies. At oral argument, counsel\nfor FEMA stated repeatedly that the agency would have no\nobjection to complying with specific requests for documents so\nthat the allegedly “secret law” can be brought to light. So, to the\nextent Appellants wish to seek additional materials beyond those\nalready now available to them, they may do so by making FOIA\nrequests under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3). And, of course, if such\nrequests are denied, they may seek further judicial review\n\n\n\n 9\n The district court, assuming § 552(a)(1) applied to Stafford Act\nchallenges, reasoned that the preclusion of judicial review would still\ngovern because it would be discretionary as to what was published.\nBarbosa v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (Barbosa II), 278 F. Supp. 3d\n325, 328 (D.D.C. 2017).\n\f 13\n\nthrough FOIA under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B), a provision that\nthey did not invoke in this case.\n\n We do not mean to suggest that the Stafford Act cases can\nbe reopened regardless of the result of any subsequent FOIA\nlitigation; the preclusion of judicial review still governs. But if\nit should turn out that there is something troubling in the files,\nthere is always the possibility of further legislation.\n\n IV.\n\n For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s\ndismissal.\n\n So ordered.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Daniel BARBOSA, Et Al., Appellants v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY and Federal Emergency Management Agency, Appellees\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-01\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued November 19, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\\n\\n No. 17-5206\\n\\n DANIEL BARBOSA, ET AL.,\\n APPELLANTS\\n\\n v.\\n\\nUNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND\\n FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:16-cv-01843)\\n\\n\\n Amanda Flug Davidoff argued the cause for appellants.\\nWith her on the briefs were Adam R. Brebner, Jerome Wesevich,\\nand Edward Tuddenham.\\n\\n Julie A. Murray and Scott L. Nelson were on the brief for\\namicus curiae Public Citizen, Inc. in support of plaintiffs-\\nappellants.\\n\\n Michael L. Foreman was on the brief for amici curiae\\nNational Low Income Housing Coalition, et al. in support of\\nplaintiffs-appellants.\\n\\n Mark B. Stern, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued\\n\\f 2\\n\\nthe cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Alisa B.\\nKlein and Carleen M. Zubrzycki, Attorneys.\\n\\n Before: KATSAS, Circuit Judge, and SILBERMAN and\\nWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judges.\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge\\nSILBERMAN.\\n\\n SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge: A number of applicants\\nsought Stafford Act economic relief from FEMA because of\\nstorm damage. They, accompanied by La Union del Pueblo\\nEntero, appeal the district court’s dismissal. We, however, agree\\nwith the district court. We lack jurisdiction over their claims\\nbecause of a statutory preclusion of judicial review.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n The Stafford Act authorizes the President to provide relief\\nin response to “major disasters.” The President has delegated\\nauthority under the Stafford Act to the Federal Emergency\\nManagement Agency (“FEMA”), a subdivision of the\\nDepartment of Homeland Security. In 2000, Congress\\nestablished the Federal Assistance to Individuals and\\nHouseholds Program. Unlike the traditional approach of Stafford\\nAct programs, which disburse federal funds to the states, which\\nin turn disburse those funds to individuals, under this program,\\nthe federal government may provide forms of direct relief to\\nindividuals and households after a major disaster has been\\ndeclared by the President.1\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 1\\n See 42 U.S.C. §§ 5121 et seq.\\n\\f 3\\n\\n The statute creating the program contains three specific\\nstatutory provisions designed to guide its implementation. They\\ncall for the issuance of regulations as follows:\\n\\n(1) “The President shall issue, and may alter and amend, such\\nregulations as may be necessary for the guidance of personnel\\ncarrying out Federal assistance functions at the site of a major\\ndisaster or emergency. Such regulations shall include provisions\\nfor insuring that the distribution of supplies, the processing of\\napplications, and other relief and assistance activities shall be\\naccomplished in an equitable and impartial manner, without\\ndiscrimination on the grounds of race, color, religion,\\nnationality, sex, age, disability, English proficiency, or\\neconomic status.” 42 U.S.C. § 5151(a) (emphasis added);\\n\\n(2) “The President shall prescribe rules and regulations to carry\\nout this section, including criteria, standards, and procedures\\nfor determining eligibility for assistance.” 42 U.S.C. § 5174(j)\\n(emphasis added);\\n\\n(3) “The President shall issue rules which provide for the fair\\nand impartial consideration of appeals under this section.” 42\\nU.S.C. § 5189a(c) (emphasis added).\\n\\n But there is a fourth statutory provision of the Stafford Act\\napplying to this case, a preclusion of judicial review, which\\ngoverns our jurisdiction:\\n\\n“The Federal Government shall not be liable for any claim upon\\nthe exercise or performance of or the failure to exercise or\\nperform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a Federal\\nagency or an employee of the Federal Government in carrying\\nout the provisions of this chapter.” 42 U.S.C. § 5148 (emphasis\\nadded).\\n\\f 4\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n The government has promulgated regulations pursuant to\\nthe statutory mandates.2\\n\\n Starting with 42 U.S.C. § 5151(a), the nondiscrimination\\nmandate, FEMA issued a regulation that provides for\\nnondiscrimination in disaster assistance.3 Although, in part, it\\nechoes the statutory language, it does more. It also states\\n“government bodies and other organizations [participating in\\nStafford Act programs] shall provide a written assurance of their\\nintent to comply with regulations relating to nondiscrimination,”\\nand provides that the agency “shall make available” to\\n“interested parties . . . information regarding” its\\nnondiscrimination regulation. Perhaps most significant, as the\\ndistrict court noted, the regulation states “Federal financial\\nassistance to the States or their political subdivisions is\\nconditioned on full compliance with” regulations entitled\\n“Nondiscrimination in Federally-Assisted Programs.”4 That\\nprovision states explicitly: “No person in the United States shall,\\non the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded\\nfrom participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be otherwise\\nsubjected to discrimination under any program to which this\\nregulation applies.” Inter alia, the nondiscrimination regulations\\nidentify specific discriminatory actions prohibited, require that\\n\\n 2\\n We note that the regulations at times track the statutory\\nlanguage. Presumably, the statutory command to regulate anticipates\\nmore than merely restating the statutory language. However,\\nincorporating the statutory language into a broader regulatory\\nframework is understandable, especially when the statute arguably sets\\nout only the minimum standards of regulation.\\n 3\\n 44 C.F.R. § 206.11.\\n 4\\n 44 C.F.R. §§ 7.1 et seq.\\n\\f 5\\n\\nassurances of nondiscrimination accompany applications, and\\ncontain extensive provisions regarding conducting compliance\\ninvestigations.\\n\\n FEMA has also promulgated regulations, purportedly, “to\\ncarry out” the program, “including criteria, standards, and\\nprocedures for determining eligibility for assistance,” as\\nmandated by 42 U.S.C. § 5174(j).5 The regulations include\\nprovisions calling for the payment of “necessary expenses” or\\n“serious needs” for those “unable to meet such expenses” caused\\nby disasters “through other means.” This provision states the\\nmaximum amount of assistance ($25,000, adjusted “annually to\\nreflect changes in the Consumer Price Index”), the multiple\\ntypes of assistance, the date of eligibility, the duration of\\nassistance (not longer than 18 months unless exceptional\\ncircumstances exist), and details about how assistance will be\\ncharacterized and treated (not counted as income, exemption\\nfrom garnishment, and duplication of benefits). A regulation\\nalso defines certain terms used in the regulations, including\\n“[h]ousing costs,” “[s]afe,” and “[u]ninhabitable.” The\\nregulations state the registration period (60 days after\\ndeclaration of major disaster or emergency) and provide for\\nextensions and late registrations.\\n\\n Another provision, of obvious significance, describes when\\nfunds for repairs will be granted (“[if:] [t]he component [of a\\nstructure] was functional immediately before the declared event;\\n[t]he component [of a structure] was damaged, and the damage\\nwas caused by the disaster; [t]he damage to the component [of\\na structure] is not covered by insurance; and [r]epair of the\\ncomponent [of a structure] is necessary to ensure the safety or\\nhealth of the occupant or to make the residence functional”). It\\nfurther lists the components that are eligible for repair through\\n\\n 5\\n 44 C.F.R. §§ 206.110 et seq.\\n\\f 6\\n\\nhousing assistance (including “[s]tructural components of the\\nresidence,” “[w]indows and doors,” and “[t]he Heating,\\nVentilation and Air Conditioning system”).\\n\\n Even more detail is provided by a provision that establishes\\nnine “[c]onditions of eligibility” and ten “[c]onditions of\\nineligibility.” “FEMA may only provide assistance” when the\\neligibility conditions have been met. Assistance may be\\nprovided “[w]hen the individual or household has incurred a\\ndisaster-related necessary expense or serious need in the state in\\nwhich the disaster has been declared, without regard to their\\nresidency in that state.” These conditions also provide for\\nassistance even in some situations where individuals have\\ninsurance. Other conditions also describe the necessary state of\\nthe renter’s or owner’s residence in order to qualify for housing\\nassistance: “primary residence has been destroyed, is\\nuninhabitable, or is inaccessible.” The ten conditions of\\nineligibility speak to circumstances in which the individuals or\\nhouseholds still have access to their homes or to\\naccommodations, have adequate insurance, or meet other\\ncriteria.\\n\\n Of particular concern to Appellants, FEMA’s provisions\\ngoverning appeals as mandated by 42 U.S.C. § 5189a(c) list the\\ndeterminations applicants may appeal, state that “[a]ppeals must\\nbe in writing and explain the reason(s) for the appeal,” provide\\nfor requesting files related to the applicant, and describe the\\nperiod of appeal and to whom appeals must be directed. These\\nprovisions explain that an appellant will receive “a written\\nnotice of the disposition of the appeal within 90 days of the\\nreceiving of the appeal,” and that “the decision of the appellate\\nauthority is final.” The regulations also state that an appeal of a\\ndetermination regarding repair assistance “must provide proof\\n. . . that the component was functional before the declared event\\nand proof that the declared event caused the component to stop\\n\\f 7\\n\\nfunctioning” and, if disputing the amount of assistance granted,\\n“must also provide justification for the amount sought.”\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n Appellants are twenty-six individuals who resided in Texas\\nand whose homes suffered damage during one of three storms\\nin 2015 and 2016 declared major disasters, accompanied by La\\nUnion del Pueblo Entero, a non-profit organization. The\\nindividual Appellants all sought relief through the program.\\nAfter having applied, some of them received a letter granting\\nbenefits, others a form letter denying benefits. All appealed.\\nSome were granted an increase in benefits, others were denied\\nany additional relief.\\n\\n Appellants’ suit was dismissed by the district judge on\\njurisdictional grounds, although the judge alternatively\\nconcluded the regulations satisfied the statute.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n It should be noted at the outset that Appellants make no\\nclaim that they are entitled statutorily to any specific amount of\\npayments in response to their Stafford Act claims. Nor is it\\nasserted that constitutional due process is governing because it\\nis not claimed that Appellants have a property interest. Their\\nprimary contention is rather that FEMA inadequately complied\\nwith its statutory obligation to publish regulations that would,\\ninter alia, describe the criteria the agency has used to determine\\nwhether and for how much their claims were paid. Without such\\ncriteria, according to Appellants, it is difficult to present a claim\\nor for that matter appeal from a denial. Indeed, Appellants argue\\nthat the actual process by which claims are evaluated—we are\\ntold by contractors—is governed by “secret law.”\\n\\f 8\\n\\n The government insists the regulations satisfy the statutory\\nmandates, denies that there is any “secret law” governing\\nclaims, and, in any event, contends that the preclusion of judicial\\nreview ousts us of jurisdiction to entertain Appellants’ claims.6\\n(Interestingly, the government does not rely on Chevron\\ndeference.)\\n\\n Although we would normally turn our attention first to our\\njurisdiction, as the district court noted, Barbosa v. U.S. Dep’t of\\nHomeland Sec. (Barbosa I), 263 F. Supp. 3d 207, 215-16\\n(D.D.C. 2017), to decide whether the preclusion of judicial\\nreview applies, it is necessary to determine whether the agency’s\\nactions are discretionary—which obliges us to compare those\\nactions with the statute. Indeed, the Fifth Circuit faced with a\\nsimilar case, La Union del Pueblo Entero v. Fed. Emergency\\nMgmt. Agency (LUPE), 608 F.3d 217 (5th Cir. 2010), held that\\nFEMA’s regulations satisfied one of the statutory provisions, 42\\nU.S.C. § 5174(j), without even considering the judicial review\\npreclusion. The court concluded that the regulations\\n“significantly narrow[] the universe of potentially eligible\\ndisaster victims.” LUPE, 608 F.3d at 223.\\n\\n Appellants direct their argument that the regulations are\\ninadequate primarily to FEMA’s alleged failure to sufficiently\\n\\n\\n 6\\n The preclusion language could be thought to sound more like a\\nlimitation on a cause of action, but because it implicates sovereign\\nimmunity, the district court and we see it as jurisdictional. See\\nDalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 24, 31-32 (1953); see also\\nMorris v. Washington Metro. Area Transit Auth., 781 F.2d 218, 221\\n(D.C. Cir. 1986). To be sure, the Supreme Court has recently tightened\\nthe concept of jurisdiction, see, e.g., Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick,\\n559 U.S. 154, 160-63 (2010), but even if the preclusion provision\\nwere regarded as a limitation on a cause of action, our analysis would\\nbe the same.\\n\\f 9\\n\\nspecify the criteria for eligibility and for amounts of\\nreimbursement. They rely on two of our cases, American\\nAirlines, Inc. v. Transportation Security Administration, 665\\nF.3d 170 (D.C. Cir. 2011) and Oceana, Inc. v. Locke, 670 F.3d\\n1238 (D.C. Cir. 2011). We think those cases are instructive but\\nnot persuasive precedent because the statutory mandates were\\nmore specific. In American Airlines, Congress had directed in\\nhoc verba that the Transportation Security Administration\\ndevelop a priority list for reimbursement of airport security\\nprojects. The TSA, however, added an escape clause allowing it\\nto deviate on “a case-by-case” basis that essentially\\nmodified—almost nullified—the congressional command. Am.\\nAirlines, 665 F.3d at 177. And similarly in Oceana, the\\nDepartment of Commerce frustrated a statutory command that\\nit adopt a standardized reporting methodology by adding “an\\nexception so vague as to make the rule meaningless.” Oceana,\\n670 F.3d at 1241.\\n\\n As for Appellants’ argument in this case, that FEMA’s\\nregulations lack adequate criteria, we agree with the Fifth\\nCircuit that the extensive list of eligible and ineligible claims\\ncertainly narrows the type of claims that the agency will grant.\\nWe admit that we are more troubled by the regulations’\\ntreatment of appeals—which, it will be recalled, are required to\\nbe “fair.” It is certainly difficult to muster an effective appeal if\\none is ignorant of the grounds upon which a claim is denied.7\\nIndeed, we have said if a constitutionally protected property\\ninterest is involved—which is not this case—a statement of\\nreasons explaining a denial may well be required if an appeal\\n\\n\\n 7\\n Moreover, since the appeals regulations impose no time limit on\\nFEMA to turn over information in an individual’s “file” following a\\nrequest, see 44 C.F.R. § 206.115(d), there is no guarantee that this\\ninformation (whose contents are nowhere specified) will be received\\nwithin the 60-day window to lodge an appeal, id. § 206.115(a).\\n\\f 10\\n\\nright is effective. Lightfoot v. District of Columbia, 448 F.3d\\n392, 398 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (per curiam).\\n\\n It is unnecessary, however, for us to decide whether the\\nappeals regulations are “fair” because we conclude the\\npreclusion of review limits our authority to challenge FEMA’s\\nregulations. The parties do not dispute that the appropriate test,\\nas the district court recognized, is the test the Supreme Court\\nused to interpret similar language in the Federal Tort Claims\\nAct. See Barbosa I, 263 F. Supp. 3d at 216. If the challenged\\nagency act involves “an element of judgment or choice” and the\\nagency’s “judgment is of the kind that the discretionary function\\nwas designed to shield,” our review is precluded. United States\\nv. Gaubert, 499 U.S. 315, 322-23 (1991) (citations omitted). We\\nhave little doubt that the statutory requirements for regulations\\nrely on the discretionary judgment of FEMA; the range of\\nchoice that FEMA can employ is quite wide.\\n\\n The Supreme Court has concluded the discretionary\\nfunction exception to judicial review is inapplicable under the\\nfirst prong of the test only if “a federal statute . . . specifically\\nprescribes a course of action” to be followed, Berkovitz v.\\nUnited States, 486 U.S. 531, 536 (1988), and that is not this\\ncase. We need not decide whether if FEMA failed to issue\\nregulations at all would the preclusion of review still apply; the\\nagency has issued a great deal in the form of regulations\\nsupplemented by interpretive guidance—some were issued after\\nthe Fifth Circuit case, LUPE.8\\n\\n\\n 8\\n We have held a failure to promulgate regulations at all in light\\nof a statutory mandate to be illegal. See, e.g., Ethyl Corp. v. EPA, 306\\nF.3d 1144, 1146 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (citations omitted) (EPA ignored\\nstatutory mandate to “by regulation establish methods and procedures”\\nby creating “a framework for automobile manufacturers to develop\\ntheir own tests.”). But Appellants are misguided in relying on those\\n\\f 11\\n\\n III.\\n\\n Appellants, perhaps recognizing that their direct attack on\\nthe regulations would run into a jurisdictional barrier, presented\\na creative alternative argument. They turn away from the\\nStafford Act to the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) to\\nexpose the “secret law” that they suspect is used to deny claims\\nand appeals. They rely on 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1), which obliges\\nagencies to publish, inter alia, “substantive rules of general\\napplicability adopted as authorized by law, and statements of\\ngeneral policy or interpretations of general applicability\\nformulated and adopted by the agency.” 5 U.S.C. §\\n552(a)(1)(D).\\n\\n We have held, however, that that section cannot be enforced\\nby a judicial mandate to publish materials in the Federal\\nRegister, see Kennecott Utah Copper Corp. v. U.S. Dep’t of\\nInterior, 88 F.3d 1191, 1202-03 (D.C. Cir. 1996); it is only if a\\nperson dealing with an agency is “adversely affected” by a\\nmatter that should have been published can he or she get relief.\\n5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(1). Appellants claim that the “secret law”\\nemployed by FEMA with regard to claims and appeals adversely\\naffects them so therefore they are entitled to have their Stafford\\nAct cases reopened.\\n\\n It is probable that the sanction in that section is designed for\\na case like Satellite Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. FCC, 824 F.2d 1\\n(D.C. Cir. 1987), where an application for a license was\\nimproperly rejected because it was filed at the wrong location,\\ndespite the fact that the FCC had never published the right\\nlocation. But even assuming one could stretch “adverse affect”\\nto refer to denied Stafford Act claims, we think § 552(a)(1)\\ncannot be used to allow us to review Stafford Act regulations,\\n\\n\\ncases here.\\n\\f 12\\n\\nstill less to reopen FEMA decisions. The preclusion of judicial\\nreview remains a barrier.\\n\\n To be sure, modifications of the APA’s applicability, as\\nAppellants point out, must be specifically stated, 5 U.S.C. § 559,\\nbut the preclusion of judicial review is a jurisdictional limitation\\non judicial power. A FOIA claim cannot be used to create\\njudicial authority to review Stafford Act claims, regardless of\\nwhether § 552(a)(1), itself, is discretionary.9\\n\\n After all, Congress specifically limited our jurisdiction to\\nreview discretionary decisions under the Stafford Act. As such,\\nit would be an improbable stretch to use another unrelated\\nstatute to frustrate congressional intent.\\n\\n That is not to say that we were unmoved by the contentions\\nthat “secret law” was being used. So we were encouraged to\\nhear government counsel assure us that additional policies for\\ndealing with claims and appeals were easily available to\\nAppellants on the internet. Moreover, a normal FOIA request\\nwould reach any governing policies. At oral argument, counsel\\nfor FEMA stated repeatedly that the agency would have no\\nobjection to complying with specific requests for documents so\\nthat the allegedly “secret law” can be brought to light. So, to the\\nextent Appellants wish to seek additional materials beyond those\\nalready now available to them, they may do so by making FOIA\\nrequests under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3). And, of course, if such\\nrequests are denied, they may seek further judicial review\\n\\n\\n\\n 9\\n The district court, assuming § 552(a)(1) applied to Stafford Act\\nchallenges, reasoned that the preclusion of judicial review would still\\ngovern because it would be discretionary as to what was published.\\nBarbosa v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec. (Barbosa II), 278 F. Supp. 3d\\n325, 328 (D.D.C. 2017).\\n\\f 13\\n\\nthrough FOIA under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B), a provision that\\nthey did not invoke in this case.\\n\\n We do not mean to suggest that the Stafford Act cases can\\nbe reopened regardless of the result of any subsequent FOIA\\nlitigation; the preclusion of judicial review still governs. But if\\nit should turn out that there is something troubling in the files,\\nthere is always the possibility of further legislation.\\n\\n IV.\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s\\ndismissal.\\n\\n So ordered.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1365,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4595452,"string":"4,595,452"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Brittany MONTROIS, Class of More Than 700,000 Similarly Situated Individuals and Businesses, Et Al., Appellees v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellant"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Brittany Montrois v. United States"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-01"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"17-5204"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Garland, Srinivasan, Millett\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued May 11, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\\n\\n No. 17-5204\\n\\n BRITTANY MONTROIS, CLASS OF MORE THAN 700,000\\n SIMILARLY SITUATED INDIVIDUALS AND BUSINESSES, ET AL.,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n v.\\n\\n UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,\\n APPELLANT\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:14-cv-01523)\\n\\n\\n Gilbert S. Rothenberg, Attorney, U.S. Department of\\nJustice, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs\\nwere Jessie K. Liu, U.S. Attorney, and Richard Farber and\\nNorah E. Bringer, Attorneys.\\n\\n Jonathan E. Taylor argued the cause for appellees. With\\nhim on the brief were Deepak Gupta, William H. Narwold,\\nAllen Buckley, Louis Bograd, and Christopher S. Rizek.\\nElizabeth S. Smith entered an appearance.\\n\\n Allen Buckley was on the supplemental brief for plaintiffs-\\nappellees.\\n\\f 1\\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, and SRINIVASAN and\\nMILLETT, Circuit Judges.\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.\\n\\n SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge: Tax-return preparers are\\npersons who prepare clients’ tax returns for compensation.\\nInternal Revenue Service regulations require preparers to\\nobtain from the agency (and renew annually) a unique\\nidentifying number known as a Preparer Tax Identification\\nNumber, or PTIN. Preparers must list that PTIN on any return\\nthey prepare.\\n\\n In 2010, the IRS began charging tax-return preparers a fee\\nto obtain and renew PTINs. The fee is designed to recoup the\\ncosts to the agency of issuing and maintaining a database of\\nPTINs. As authority to exact the PTIN fee, the IRS relies on\\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act, which allows\\nfederal agencies to charge fees for services in certain\\nconditions. 31 U.S.C. § 9701.\\n\\n A group of tax-return preparers filed a class action lawsuit\\nchallenging the PTIN fee. They argued that the IRS lacks\\nauthority under the Independent Offices Appropriations Act to\\ncharge them for obtaining (and renewing) PTINs and that the\\nIRS’s decision to charge the fee was arbitrary and capricious.\\nThe district court ruled in favor of the preparers, concluding\\nthat the IRS lacks statutory authority to charge the fee. The\\ncourt issued an injunction barring the IRS from charging the\\nPTIN fee and ordered the agency to refund previously collected\\nfees.\\n\\n We conclude that the IRS acted within its authority under\\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act in charging tax-\\nreturn preparers a fee to obtain and renew PTINs. We further\\n\\f 2\\nconclude that the IRS’s decision to charge the fee was not\\narbitrary and capricious. We thus vacate the judgment of the\\ndistrict court and remand for further proceedings, including an\\nassessment of whether the amount of the PTIN fee\\nunreasonably exceeds the costs to the IRS to issue and maintain\\nPTINs.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n The Internal Revenue Code defines a tax-return preparer\\nas “any person who prepares for compensation” a federal\\nincome tax return or claim for refund. I.R.C. § 7701(36)(A).\\nThe Code establishes no professional constraints on who may\\nact as a tax-return preparer, with the result that preparers range\\nfrom uncredentialed persons to attorneys and certified public\\naccountants. See Internal Revenue Service, Return Preparer\\nReview 8–9 (December 2009), https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-\\nutl/54419l09.pdf. As of 2009, “a majority of U.S.\\ntaxpayers . . . rel[ied] on tax return preparers to assist them in\\nmeeting their federal tax filing obligations.” Id. at 7.\\n\\n In 1976, Congress enabled the IRS to require a preparer to\\nlist an identifying number on any return she prepared, and\\nCongress specified that the identifying number would be the\\npreparer’s social security number. See Tax Reform Act of\\n1976, Pub. L. No. 94-455, § 1203(d), 90 Stat. 1520, 1691.\\nCongress also imposed monetary penalties on preparers in\\ncertain circumstances for understating a taxpayer’s liability or\\nfailing to list certain information on a return. I.R.C. §§ 6694,\\n6695. In addition, Congress gave the Department of Justice\\nauthority (in consultation with the IRS) to seek an injunction\\npreventing tax-return preparers from engaging in unlawful\\nconduct. I.R.C. § 7407.\\n\\f 3\\n In 1998, Congress, acting out of concern that\\n“inappropriate use might be made of a preparer’s social\\nsecurity number,” S. Rep. No. 105-174, at 106 (1998), allowed\\nthe IRS to permit or require preparers to list a different\\nidentifying number on returns they prepared. I.R.C. § 6109(a),\\n(d); see Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform\\nAct of 1998, Pub. L. No. 105-206, § 3710, 112 Stat. 685, 779.\\nThe IRS subsequently issued regulations allowing—but not\\nrequiring—preparers to obtain from the agency a unique\\nPreparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) and to list that\\nPTIN, instead of a social security number, on any return they\\nprepared. Furnishing Identifying Number of Income Tax\\nReturn Preparer, 64 Fed. Reg. 43,910 (Aug. 12, 1999) (codified\\nat 26 C.F.R. pt. 1).\\n\\n By 2009, the IRS had become concerned that many\\ntaxpayers were being “poorly served by some tax return\\npreparers” due to preparers’ inadequate education and training\\nas well as deficiencies in the agency’s compliance regime.\\nReturn Preparer Review 6; see id. at 33–37. Seeking to\\nimprove matters, the IRS issued three sets of regulations in\\n2010 and 2011.\\n\\n First, the IRS sought to establish a credentialing and\\nregistration regime for tax-return preparers. It did so by\\nrequiring otherwise uncredentialed preparers—that is,\\npreparers who are neither attorneys nor certified public\\naccountants—to become “registered tax return preparers.”\\nRegulations Governing Practice Before the Internal Revenue\\nService, 76 Fed. Reg. 32,286, 32,286–87 (June 3, 2011). To\\nbecome a registered tax-return preparer, a person would need\\nto undergo a background check, pass a competency exam, and\\nsatisfy continuing education requirements. Id. at 32,287.\\n\\f 4\\n Second, the IRS required preparers to obtain a PTIN and\\nrenew it annually. Furnishing Identifying Number of Tax\\nReturn Preparer, 75 Fed. Reg. 60,309, 60,309–10 (Sept. 30,\\n2010). According to the agency, the “requirement to use a\\nPTIN will allow the IRS to better identify tax return preparers,\\ncentralize information, and effectively administer the rules\\nrelating to tax return preparers.” Id. at 60,309. The IRS further\\nnoted that the PTIN requirement would benefit “tax return\\npreparers and help maintain the confidentiality of [their]\\nSSNs.” Id.\\n\\n Third, the IRS decided it would charge tax-return\\npreparers a fee of roughly $50 (plus a vendor fee) to obtain and\\nrenew a PTIN. The agency explained the fee would cover the\\ncosts of “the development and maintenance of the IRS\\ninformation technology system” associated with the PTINs, as\\nwell as the costs of “the personnel, administrative, and\\nmanagement support needed to evaluate and address tax\\ncompliance issues, investigate and address conduct and\\nsuitability issues, and otherwise support and enforce the\\nprograms that require individuals to apply for or renew a\\nPTIN.” User Fees Relating to Enrollment and Preparer Tax\\nIdentification Numbers, 75 Fed. Reg. 60,316, 60,316, 60,319\\n(Sept. 30, 2010).\\n\\n B.\\n\\n A group of tax-return preparers challenged the first set of\\nregulations described above: the registered-tax return preparer\\nsystem establishing a registration and credentialing system for\\npreparers. The plaintiffs argued that the IRS lacks authority\\nunder the Internal Revenue Code to establish a licensing\\nsystem for tax-return preparers.\\n\\f 5\\n Our court agreed and invalidated the registered tax-return\\npreparer regulations. Loving v. IRS, 742 F.3d 1013 (D.C. Cir.\\n2014). Because our invalidation of the registered-tax return\\nprogram meant that there was no longer an\\nagency-administered credentialing scheme in effect, our\\ndecision in Loving had the effect of reinstating a regime in\\nwhich anyone who wishes to prepare tax returns for others can\\ndo so as long as she obtains a PTIN (and pays the associated\\nfee), without needing to satisfy any credential requirements.\\nId. at 1021–22.\\n\\n In 2014, after we issued our decision in Loving, several\\ntax-return preparers initiated the action now before us in this\\nappeal. The preparers challenge the lawfulness of the IRS’s\\nassessment of a fee for providing them a PTIN. They argue\\nthat the PTIN fee is contrary to the Independent Offices\\nAppropriations Act and is arbitrary and capricious.\\n\\n While the case was pending before the district court, the\\nIRS reduced the amount of the PTIN fee from $50 to $33 (not\\nincluding a vendor fee). Preparer Tax Identification Number\\n(PTIN) User Fee Update, 81 Fed. Reg. 52,766, 52,766 (Aug.\\n10, 2016). The IRS adjusted the PTIN fee in the wake of our\\ndecision in Loving. A portion of the original PTIN fee was to\\nhave been used to pay the costs of the registered tax-return\\npreparer program invalidated in Loving, and the IRS reduced\\nthe amount of the PTIN fee to cover the costs of those portions\\nof the PTIN program that remained in effect after Loving. Id.\\n\\n The district court, after certifying a plaintiffs’ class of tax-\\nreturn preparers, granted summary judgment in the preparers’\\nfavor in relevant part. The court upheld the IRS’s requirement\\nthat preparers obtain a PTIN. But the court invalidated the\\nPTIN fee charged by the IRS on the ground that the fee violates\\n\\f 6\\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act. Steele v. United\\nStates, 260 F. Supp. 3d 52 (D.D.C. 2017).\\n\\n The court reasoned in part that, for an assessment to\\nqualify as a fee under that Act as opposed to an unauthorized\\ngeneral tax, the assessment must relate to a specific benefit\\nconferred to an identifiable set of users. But here, the court\\nemphasized, essentially any person can obtain a PTIN after\\nLoving invalidated the PTIN eligibility criteria, such that the\\nPTIN program, in the court’s view, could no longer be said to\\nbenefit a particular set of individuals rather than the public in\\ngeneral. Id. at 67. The court also rejected the IRS’s argument\\nthat the PTIN fee could be sustained based on an interest in\\nprotecting tax-return preparers’ social security numbers. The\\ncourt believed that the agency had not adequately raised or\\nexplained that rationale when it issued the rule establishing the\\nfee. Id.\\n\\n The IRS now appeals.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n Before addressing the merits of the IRS’s arguments, we\\nfirst assess whether the district court had jurisdiction over this\\ncase. We must assure ourselves of the existence of jurisdiction\\neven though no party argues it is lacking. See Steel Co. v.\\nCitizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94–95 (1998).\\n\\n The specific question we confront is whether the\\njurisdictional exhaustion requirement applicable to suits for\\nrefunds under the Internal Revenue Code obligated the tax-\\nreturn preparers to pursue their claims with the IRS before\\nfiling suit in federal court. See I.R.C. § 7422. We conclude\\nthat the exhaustion requirement is inapplicable in the\\ncircumstances of this case.\\n\\f 7\\n The exhaustion provision states that “[n]o suit or\\nproceeding shall be maintained in any court for the recovery of\\nany internal revenue tax alleged to have been erroneously or\\nillegally assessed or collected, or of any penalty claimed to\\nhave been collected without authority, or of any sum alleged to\\nhave been excessive or in any manner wrongfully collected,\\nuntil a claim for refund or credit has been duly filed with the\\nSecretary” of the Treasury. I.R.C. § 7422(a). Neither party\\nbelieves that provision pertains to this case, and their belief is\\ncorrect.\\n\\n We understand § 7422(a)’s exhaustion requirement to\\npertain to actions seeking a refund of any “tax,” “penalty,” or\\n“sum” collected under the Internal Revenue Code. The PTIN\\nfee, by contrast, was established under the Independent Offices\\nAppropriations Act, a statute that lies outside the Internal\\nRevenue Code and that generally applies to all federal\\nagencies. The tax-return preparers correspondingly bring their\\nclaims in this case under the general provisions of the\\nAdministrative Procedure Act, not under any refund provision\\nin the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n Our understanding of the scope of § 7422(a)’s exhaustion\\nrequirement is grounded in the provision’s terms. In cases\\nseeking “recovery of any . . . tax alleged to have been\\nerroneously or illegally assessed or collected,” the language of\\nthe provision limits its application to refund requests involving\\n“internal revenue” taxes, id.—that is, those taxes collected\\nunder the Internal Revenue Code. Cf. Horizon Coal Corp. v.\\nUnited States, 43 F.3d 234, 240 (6th Cir. 1994) (per curiam)\\n(“[T]he dictates of § 7422(a) apply only to taxes imposed\\npursuant to Title 26.”) And while the provision applies not\\njust to “internal revenue taxes,” but also to “any penalty” or\\n“any sum” alleged to have been unlawfully or wrongfully\\ncollected, I.R.C. § 7422(a), we believe that, just as the\\n\\f 8\\nprovision applies only to “internal revenue” taxes, it also\\npertains only to a “penalty” or “sum” that is collected under the\\nInternal Revenue Code. That would encompass, for instance,\\npenalties levied on a tax-return preparer for understating a\\nclient’s liability on a tax return. See id. § 6694.\\n\\n The conclusion that § 7422(a)’s exhaustion requirement\\napplies only to penalties and sums assessed under the Internal\\nRevenue Code follows from the recognition that the\\ngovernment imposes various taxes pursuant to authority\\noutside the Code. See Horizon Coal Corp., 43 F.3d at 236–37\\n(describing the reclamation fee imposed on coal mine operators\\nunder the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of\\n1977, 30 U.S.C. § 1232, as a tax). In that light, a reading of the\\nexhaustion provision that would apply only to “internal\\nrevenue taxes” but would extend to any “penalty” or “sum” at\\nall (beyond the context of the Internal Revenue Code) would\\nlead to anomalous results: it would mean that a taxpayer who\\nwishes to challenge both a non–Title 26 tax and an associated\\npenalty would be required to exhaust her penalty refund\\nrequest, but not her related tax refund request, before filing suit.\\nWe do not understand Congress to have intended to require that\\nsort of splitting of claims.\\n\\n Relatedly, § 7422(a)’s exhaustion requirement calls for\\nclaims to be presented initially to the “Secretary,” i.e., the\\nSecretary of the Treasury. And it would make little sense to\\nunderstand Congress to have required payers of penalties and\\nsums unrelated to the Internal Revenue Code (and, in many\\ncases, imposed by entities other than the IRS) to nonetheless\\nseek a refund from the Secretary of the Treasury. See Horizon\\nCoal Corp., 43 F.3d at 240. We thus conclude that § 7422(a)\\nis not meant to reach the claims in this case.\\n\\f 9\\n That result coheres with the context and purpose of the\\nprovision. With claims challenging the collection of taxes or\\npenalties assessed under the Internal Revenue Code, the IRS\\ncan correct any errors through its own administrative\\nprocesses. But the IRS reports that it has no such\\nadministrative process to examine the lawfulness of its PTIN\\nfee and to correct any errors associated with collecting that fee.\\nRequiring the tax-return preparers to present their claims first\\nto the IRS thus would neither promote efficient resolution of\\ntheir claims nor serve § 7422(a)’s goal of “prevent[ing]\\nsurprise” and “giv[ing] adequate notice to the Service of the\\nnature of the claim and the specific facts upon which it is\\npredicated, thereby permitting an administrative investigation\\nand determination,” Computervision Corp. v. United States,\\n445 F.3d 1355, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks\\nomitted).\\n\\n For those reasons, we conclude that § 7422(a) did not\\nrequire the tax-return preparers to submit their claims to the\\nIRS before bringing this action in federal court.\\n\\n III.\\n\\n On the merits, the tax-return preparers contend that the\\nPTIN fee is unlawful for two distinct reasons. First, they argue\\n(and the district court agreed) that the Independent Offices\\nAppropriations Act does not provide statutory authority for the\\nfee. Second, they contend that the IRS’s decision to impose the\\nfee was arbitrary and capricious. We disagree on both counts.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n We first consider whether the IRS had authority under the\\nIndependent Offices Appropriations Act to charge tax-return\\npreparers a fee to obtain and renew a PTIN. The Independent\\n\\f 10\\nOffices Appropriations Act helps federal agencies recover the\\ncosts of services provided to beneficiaries. See Nat’l Cable Tel.\\nAss’n, Inc. v. United States, 415 U.S. 336, 337 n.1 (1974).\\nUnder the Act, the “head of each agency . . . may prescribe\\nregulations establishing the charge for a service or thing of\\nvalue provided by the agency.” 31 U.S.C. § 9701(b).\\n\\n The Supreme Court considered the Act in companion\\ndecisions issued on the same day in 1974. Fed. Power Comm’n\\nv. New England Power Co., 415 U.S. 345 (1974); Nat’l Cable,\\n415 U.S. 336. The Court “construe[d] the Act to cover only\\n‘fees’ and not ‘taxes.’” New England Power, 415 U.S. at 349.\\nThat is because “[t]axation is a legislative function, and\\nCongress . . . is the sole organ for levying taxes.” Nat’l Cable,\\n415 U.S. at 340. The Court explained that fees, as opposed to\\ntaxes, are imposed on identifiable recipients of particular\\ngovernment services. Id. at 340–41; New England Power, 415\\nU.S. at 349. The Court thus understood the Act to give\\nagencies authority to impose a “reasonable charge” on an\\n“identifiable recipient for a measurable unit or amount of\\nGovernment service or property from which [the recipient]\\nderives a special benefit.” New England Power, 415 U.S. at\\n349 (quoting OMB Circular No. A-25 (Sept. 23, 1959)).\\n\\n The Act, that is, enables an agency to impose a fee only\\nfor “a service that confers a specific benefit upon an\\nidentifiable beneficiary.” Engine Mfrs. Ass’n v. EPA, 20 F.3d\\n1177, 1180 (D.C. Cir. 1994). To justify a fee under the Act,\\nthen, an agency must show (i) that it provides some kind of\\nservice in exchange for the fee, (ii) that the service yields a\\nspecific benefit, and (iii) that the benefit is conferred upon\\nidentifiable individuals. Id.; see Seafarers Int’l Union of N.\\nAm. v. U.S. Coast Guard, 81 F.3d 179, 184–85 (D.C. Cir.\\n1996). Here, the PTIN fee satisfies those conditions.\\n\\f 11\\n 1.\\n\\n We first assess whether the IRS provides a service in\\nexchange for the PTIN fee. We conclude it does: the service\\nof providing tax-return preparers a PTIN. In particular, the IRS\\ngenerates a unique identifying number for each tax-return\\npreparer and maintains a database of those PTINs, enabling\\npreparers to use those numbers in place of their social security\\nnumbers on tax returns. The IRS devotes personnel and\\nresources to managing the PTIN application and renewal\\nprocess and developing and maintaining the database of PTINs.\\nThe provision of a PTIN, and the associated functions,\\nconstitute the provision of a service.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers question how robust a service the\\nIRS undertakes when it provides them a PTIN. As they point\\nout, before our decision in Loving invalidated the registered\\ntax-return preparer regulations, the activities the IRS undertook\\nin connection with PTINs were more substantial. That now-\\ninvalidated regime called for the agency to administer\\ncompetency tests and continuing-education requirements for\\npreparers. 76 Fed. Reg. at 32,287. After Loving, the IRS no\\nlonger performs those functions. Instead, the agency’s PTIN-\\nrelated services are now confined to generating and\\nmaintaining a database of PTINs. Preparer Tax Identification\\nNumber (PTIN) User Fee Update, 80 Fed. Reg. 66,792, 66,794\\n(Oct. 30, 2015).\\n\\n Those functions, although a slimmed-down version of the\\nPTIN-related services afforded by the agency before Loving,\\nstill constitute the provision of a service. To the extent the tax-\\nreturn preparers believe that the amount of the PTIN fee is out\\nof step with the narrowed scope of remaining PTIN-related\\nfunctions, those concerns pertain to the reasonableness of the\\nfee, not to whether a fee can be assessed in the first place. See\\n\\f 12\\nSeafarers, 81 F.3d at 185–86. There may be force to the tax-\\nreturn preparers’ claim that the fee amount is excessive, but no\\ncourt has yet considered that claim, and the preparers can press\\nthe matter in the proceedings on remand.\\n\\n 2.\\n\\n Having determined that the IRS provides a service—the\\nprovision of a PTIN—in exchange for the challenged fee, we\\nnext consider whether that service affords a specific benefit.\\nWe conclude it does: the PTIN helps protect tax-return\\npreparers’ identities by allowing them to list a number on\\nreturns other than their social security number.\\n\\n The service provided in exchange for a fee assessed under\\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act must confer a\\n“specific benefit” on the charged party, Engine Mfrs. Ass’n, 20\\nF.3d at 1180—i.e., a “special benefit . . . above and beyond that\\nwhich accrues to the public at large,” Ayuda, Inc. v. Attorney\\nGen., 848 F.2d 1297, 1301 (D.C. Cir. 1988). That\\nunderstanding comes from the Supreme Court’s construction\\nof the Act as authorizing fees rather than taxes, with the former\\nassessed against those specifically benefitting from a particular\\nservice and the latter imposed for the benefit of the general\\npublic. See Nat’l Cable, 415 U.S. at 340–41.\\n\\n In contending that the “specific benefit” requirement is\\nmet here, the IRS reasons in part that agency regulations\\nrequire tax-return preparers to obtain a PTIN in order to prepare\\ntax returns for compensation, and “[t]he ability to prepare tax\\nreturns . . . for compensation is a special benefit.” 80 Fed. Reg.\\nat 66,794. The tax-return preparers respond that, in light of\\nLoving’s conclusion that the IRS lacks statutory authority to\\nestablish a licensing scheme for preparers, the PTIN fee cannot\\nbe justified as offsetting the costs of administering a licensing\\n\\f 13\\nregime. Nor, the tax-return preparers argue, can the agency\\nsimply create an obligation to obtain a PTIN that is untethered\\nto any underlying licensing system, and then treat satisfaction\\nof that agency-invented requirement as a specific benefit for\\nwhich a fee may be assessed. See Seafarers, 81 F.3d at 186\\n(“[A]n agency is not free to add extra licensing procedures and\\nthen charge a user fee merely because the agency has general\\nauthority to regulate in a particular area.”); Cent. & S. Motor\\nFreight Tariff Ass’n v. United States, 777 F.2d 722, 729 (D.C.\\nCir. 1985) (“To be legally cognizable, the private benefit must\\nbe predicated upon something other than the mere fact of\\nregulation . . . .”).\\n\\n We need not resolve whether satisfying the\\nagency-imposed requirement to obtain a PTIN, standing alone,\\ncould qualify as a specific benefit for which the agency may\\nlevy a fee. That is because the PTIN requirement is supported\\nby an additional justification advanced by the IRS, one that we\\nfind adequate to support the assessment of a PTIN fee: the\\nprotection of the confidentiality of tax-return preparers’ social\\nsecurity numbers. See 75 Fed. Reg. at 60,309; 80 Fed. Reg. at\\n66,793. And not only does that confidentiality-protection\\njustification independently support assessment of a PTIN fee,\\nbut the permissible amount of the fee would remain the same\\nregardless of whether it is justified based on that rationale or\\ninstead based on the need to satisfy the agency-imposed\\nrequirement to obtain a PTIN. In either case, the IRS would\\nneed to construct and maintain a PTIN database and provide a\\nPTIN to each tax-return preparer, and it could permissibly\\nrecover the costs associated with those functions through the\\nPTIN fee, see Nat’l Cable Television Ass’n v. FCC, 554 F.2d\\n1094, 1107 (D.C. Cir. 1976).\\n\\n We thus can rest on the confidentiality-protection rationale\\nalone as conferring a specific benefit for which a PTIN fee may\\n\\f 14\\nbe assessed. The confidentiality advantages associated with\\nthe PTIN requirement readily qualify as a specific benefit:\\nwithout protection of their social security numbers, preparers\\nwould face greater risks of identity theft.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers argue that the IRS cannot rely on\\nthe protection of confidential information as a benefit justifying\\nthe PTIN fee. They reason that the agency did not specifically\\ninvoke the confidentiality concern when it issued the PTIN\\nregulation and thus may not lean on that justification now. See\\nSEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 196 (1947). We\\nconclude, however, that the IRS adequately relied on the\\nconfidentiality protections afforded by PTINs when issuing the\\nPTIN regulations.\\n\\n The IRS’s concern with maintaining the confidentiality of\\npreparers’ social security numbers runs throughout the\\nregulatory history of the PTIN requirement and fee. When\\nproposing the PTIN regulations in 2010, the IRS decided to\\nrequire all tax-return preparers to use a single identifying\\nnumber so that it could “better collect and track data on . . .\\npreparers.” User Fees Relating to Enrollment and Preparer Tax\\nIdentification Numbers, 75 Fed. Reg. 43,110, 43,110 (July 23,\\n2010). The IRS at that point faced a choice: it could use the\\npreparers’ social security numbers, or it could instead use\\nPTINs (which many preparers by then had obtained). The\\nagency chose to mandate the use of PTINs.\\n\\n In opting to require the use of PTINs in 2010, the IRS\\nexplained that they provide “an alternative to using the tax\\nreturn preparers’ social security numbers.” Id. When issuing\\nits final PTIN regulations later that year, the IRS specifically\\nnoted the “identity protection currently provided by PTINs,”\\n75 Fed. Reg. at 60,318, and explained that the regulations\\nwould benefit “tax return preparers and help maintain the\\n\\f 15\\nconfidentiality of SSNs,” 75 Fed. Reg. at 60,309. The IRS’s\\nview is consistent with the concern animating Congress’s grant\\nof authority to the IRS to mandate the use of PTINs: “that\\ninappropriate use might be made of a preparer’s social security\\nnumber” under the pre-PTIN scheme. S. Rep. No. 105-174, at\\n106. And when the IRS reissued the PTIN fee regulations in\\n2015 after our decision in Loving invalidated the registered tax-\\nreturn preparer program, the agency again explained that\\n“[r]equiring the use of PTINs . . . benefits tax return preparers\\nby allowing them to provide an identifying number on the\\nreturn that is not an SSN.” 80 Fed. Reg. at 66,793.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers submit that those various\\nstatements by the IRS should not count because they appear in\\nthe regulatory commentary addressed to the agency’s\\nunderlying requirement that preparers obtain a PTIN, not in the\\nagency’s explanation of the fee for providing a PTIN. But the\\nIRS noted “the identity protection currently provided by\\nPTINs” in the portion of the 2010 regulatory commentary\\naddressed to the PTIN fee, not the portion generally discussing\\nthe PTIN requirement. See 75 Fed. Reg. at 60,318. And in any\\nevent, the IRS’s explanation of the PTIN requirement bears\\ndirectly on the specific benefit conferred in exchange for the\\nPTIN fee. After all, the specific-benefit question concerns\\nwhat benefit, if any, the PTIN affords to preparers. And when\\nthe IRS observed that a “benefit[]” of the PTIN is that it allows\\npreparers to “provide an identifying number on the return that\\nis not an SSN,” 80 Fed. Reg. at 66,793, the agency necessarily\\nconveyed that a benefit preparers receive in exchange for the\\nPTIN fee is the ability to provide a number “that is not an\\nSSN,” id.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers question the extent to which the\\nPTIN requirement in fact helps protect preparers’ confidential\\ninformation. In their view, because the IRS already allowed\\n\\f 16\\npreparers to omit their social security numbers on the copy of\\nreturns provided to the taxpayer, the replacement of social\\nsecurity numbers with PTINs affords no additional protection\\nof preparers’ confidential information.\\n\\n Congress, however, believed otherwise. When Congress\\nin 1998 amended the Internal Revenue Code to allow the IRS\\nto mandate the use of PTINs, the IRS had been allowing\\npreparers to omit their social security numbers from the\\ntaxpayers’ returns for over twenty years. See Rev. Rul. 78-317,\\n1978-2 C.B. 335. Notwithstanding the longtime availability of\\nthat option, Congress authorized the IRS to require PTINs\\nbased on concerns “that inappropriate use might be made of a\\npreparer’s social security number.” S. Rep. No. 105-174, at\\n106.\\n\\n Nor did the option to omit social security numbers on the\\ntaxpayer’s copy of a return mitigate preparers’ concerns about\\nthe exposure of their confidential information. After the IRS\\nin 2010 proposed mandating the use of PTINs, Furnishing\\nIdentifying Number of Tax Return Preparer, 75 Fed. Reg.\\n14,539 (Mar. 26, 2010), several groups of tax-return preparers\\nsubmitted comments supporting the change due to concerns\\nabout protecting the confidentiality of preparers’ social\\nsecurity numbers. H&R Block, which in 2010 was the “largest\\nemployer of tax return preparers (approximately 120,000),”\\nsupported the IRS’s proposal to mandate PTINs because PTINs\\n“protect the confidentiality of SSNs.” H&R Block, Comment\\nLetter on Proposed Rule Furnishing Identifying Number of Tax\\nReturn Preparer, at 1, 6 (Apr. 21, 2010),\\nhttps://www.regulations.gov/document?D=IRS-2010-0009-\\n0127. The Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants,\\nrepresenting 23,000 members, likewise approved of the IRS’s\\nproposal because “the use of the PTIN as a preparer identifier\\nwill minimize confidentiality concerns related to what could\\n\\f 17\\nhave been an alternative: the use of preparer social security\\nnumbers.” Ohio Society of CPAs, Comment Letter on\\nProposed Rule Furnishing Identifying Number of Tax Return\\nPreparer, at 1 (Apr. 26, 2010),\\nhttps://www.regulations.gov/document?D=IRS-2010-0009-\\n0193. The IRS reasonably agreed with those preparers—and\\nwith Congress—that PTINs would help to protect preparers’\\nconfidential information.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers next argue that, even if\\nconfidentiality concerns could justify assessing a fee for\\ninitially providing a PTIN, those concerns cannot justify the\\nIRS’s fee to renew that number annually. We are unpersuaded.\\nThe IRS not only provides a PTIN upon an initial application\\nbut also maintains a database that allows preparers to continue\\nusing their PTINs in subsequent years. The renewal fee, then,\\npertains to the agency’s continuing efforts in that regard.\\n\\n To be sure, the tax-return preparers might question\\nwhether the amount of the renewal fee bears an adequate\\nrelationship to the continuing costs incurred by the IRS to\\nmaintain the PTIN database. But those concerns pertain to the\\namount of the fee, not the antecedent question of whether the\\nfee generally lies within the IRS’s statutory authority under the\\nIndependent Offices Appropriations Act. On remand, the\\ndistrict court is free to consider arguments concerning the\\nalleged excessiveness of the fee, including whether the renewal\\nfee is “reasonably related” to the “costs which the agency\\nactually incurs” in providing the service, Nat’l Cable\\nTelevision Ass’n, 554 F.2d at 1107, and “the value of the\\nservice to the recipient,” Cent. & S. Motor, 777 F.2d at 729.\\nFor purposes of the issue we consider at this stage of the\\nproceedings, though, it is enough for us to conclude that the\\nPTIN requirement specifically benefits tax-return preparers by\\n\\f 18\\nhelping to protect the confidentiality of their personal\\ninformation.\\n\\n 3.\\n\\n Finally, we address whether the IRS provides the service\\nand associated benefit—i.e., the provision of PTINs and the\\nresulting protection of confidential personal information—to\\n“identifiable recipients” rather than to the public at large.\\nSeafarers, 81 F.3d at 184. We think it does. Tax-return\\npreparers as a group qualify as identifiable recipients for\\npurposes of justifying a fee assessed under the Independent\\nOffices Appropriations Act.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers submit that, because essentially\\nanyone can obtain a PTIN after our decision in Loving, the\\nservice and benefit associated with the PTIN extend to the\\npublic at large rather than only to specific, identifiable\\nrecipients. It does not matter, though, that the service and\\nbenefit are theoretically available to the general public. What\\nmatters is that the service is provided to, and the corresponding\\nbenefit is received by, the specific group of persons who in fact\\npay the fee.\\n\\n That understanding draws support from the Supreme\\nCourt’s identification of passports as an example of a service\\nfor which an agency can appropriately charge a fee under the\\nAct. See New England Power, 415 U.S. at 349 n.3. Although\\npassports are generally available to the entire citizenry, the Act,\\nas understood by the Supreme Court, enables the State\\nDepartment to charge a fee to the particular persons who apply\\nfor a passport because the service undertaken to process\\npassport applications benefits those persons. See id. The same\\nis true of those persons who, in exchange for paying a fee,\\nobtain and renew a PTIN. And because the IRS charges only\\n\\f 19\\nthose who receive the benefit of a PTIN, the specific benefit\\nsupporting the fee extends only to identifiable individuals\\nrather than the public writ large. See id. at 349.\\n\\n In sum, the IRS acted within its statutory authority under\\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act in charging tax-\\nreturn preparers a fee to obtain and renew PTINs.\\n\\n B.\\n\\n We next address whether the IRS’s decision to assess a\\nPTIN fee was arbitrary and capricious. See 5 U.S.C.\\n§ 706(2)(A). An agency generally must “give adequate reasons\\nfor its decisions,” and the requirement to give a “satisfactory\\nexplanation for its actions” is “satisfied when the agency’s\\nexplanation is clear enough that its path may reasonably be\\ndiscerned.” Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 136 S. Ct.\\n2117, 2125 (2016).\\n\\n The tax-return preparers principally contend that the IRS’s\\naccount of its reasons for imposing a PTIN fee does not survive\\nour decision in Loving. In the preparers’ view, the IRS\\nprovided no reasoned justification for the fee separate from\\njustifications that can no longer support the fee after Loving.\\nThe preparers emphasize that the 2010 regulations originally\\nestablishing the PTIN fee stated that the fee would pay for the\\nregistered tax-return preparer program, which Loving later\\ninvalidated. See 75 Fed. Reg. at 43,111.\\n\\n We conclude that the IRS sufficiently rooted its decision\\nto assess a PTIN fee in justifications independent of those\\nrejected in Loving. When the IRS reissued the PTIN fee\\nregulations after Loving, it explained that PTINs would benefit\\npreparers by protecting their confidential information and\\nwould improve tax compliance and administration. 80 Fed.\\n\\f 20\\nReg. at 66,793. Loving did not cast doubt on those\\njustifications, which are independent of the registered tax-\\nreturn preparer program we considered and invalidated there.\\n\\n With specific regard to assessing a fee for providing a\\nPTIN, the IRS explained that generating PTINs and\\nmaintaining a database of PTINs cost substantial sums, and\\nthat, in its view, those costs were more appropriately recouped\\nfrom preparers who obtain a PTIN than from the general\\npublic. See id. at 66,793–94. Those costs, as explained, can be\\nrecovered through the PTIN fee. See supra at 13. And the IRS\\nnoted that it incurred costs associated with providing PTINs\\nbeyond the costs of the services invalidated in Loving, and that\\nit was reducing the fee to account for the elimination of those\\nfunctions deemed beyond its authority in Loving. See 80 Fed.\\nReg. at 66,794.\\n\\n It is true that the IRS’s accounting in the regulatory\\nmaterials of the services paid for by the PTIN fee generally\\ndescribes certain functions that, depending on their precise\\nscope, could be seen to raise questions about whether they\\nrange beyond the IRS’s authority after Loving—e.g.,\\n“background checks,” “professional designation checks,” and\\n“compliance and IRS complaint activities.” 80 Fed. Reg. at\\n66,794. But the IRS also explained that the fee is “based on\\ndirect costs of the PTIN program, which include staffing and\\ncontract-related costs for activities, processes, and procedures\\nrelated to the electronic and paper registration and renewal\\nsubmissions.” Id. That explanation survives Loving because,\\nas the district court held, the IRS’s requirement that preparers\\nobtain and renew a PTIN survives Loving. See Steele, 260 F.\\nSupp. 3d at 62–63.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers’ concerns that the justifications\\nfor the PTIN fee might encompass functions deemed in Loving\\n\\f 21\\nto fall outside the IRS’s regulatory authority can be addressed\\non remand, when the district court examines whether the\\namount of the fee is reasonable and consistent with the\\nIndependent Offices Appropriations Act. But aside from\\nquestions to be considered on remand about whether the\\namount of the PTIN fee impermissibly encompasses functions\\nfalling outside the IRS’s statutory authority, the IRS’s decision\\nto charge a fee at all was adequately grounded in services lying\\nwithin its authority, and thus was not arbitrary and capricious.\\n\\n * * * * *\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the judgment of the\\ndistrict court and remand the case for further proceedings.\\n\\n It is so ordered.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4372705/\", \"author_raw\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"GARLAND"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"SRINIVASAN"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"MILLETT"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4595452/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Brittany MONTROIS, Class of More Than 700,000 Similarly Situated Individuals and Businesses, Et Al., Appellees v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellant\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-01\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued May 11, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\n\n No. 17-5204\n\n BRITTANY MONTROIS, CLASS OF MORE THAN 700,000\n SIMILARLY SITUATED INDIVIDUALS AND BUSINESSES, ET AL.,\n APPELLEES\n\n v.\n\n UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,\n APPELLANT\n\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the District of Columbia\n (No. 1:14-cv-01523)\n\n\n Gilbert S. Rothenberg, Attorney, U.S. Department of\nJustice, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs\nwere Jessie K. Liu, U.S. Attorney, and Richard Farber and\nNorah E. Bringer, Attorneys.\n\n Jonathan E. Taylor argued the cause for appellees. With\nhim on the brief were Deepak Gupta, William H. Narwold,\nAllen Buckley, Louis Bograd, and Christopher S. Rizek.\nElizabeth S. Smith entered an appearance.\n\n Allen Buckley was on the supplemental brief for plaintiffs-\nappellees.\n\f 1\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, and SRINIVASAN and\nMILLETT, Circuit Judges.\n\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.\n\n SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge: Tax-return preparers are\npersons who prepare clients’ tax returns for compensation.\nInternal Revenue Service regulations require preparers to\nobtain from the agency (and renew annually) a unique\nidentifying number known as a Preparer Tax Identification\nNumber, or PTIN. Preparers must list that PTIN on any return\nthey prepare.\n\n In 2010, the IRS began charging tax-return preparers a fee\nto obtain and renew PTINs. The fee is designed to recoup the\ncosts to the agency of issuing and maintaining a database of\nPTINs. As authority to exact the PTIN fee, the IRS relies on\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act, which allows\nfederal agencies to charge fees for services in certain\nconditions. 31 U.S.C. § 9701.\n\n A group of tax-return preparers filed a class action lawsuit\nchallenging the PTIN fee. They argued that the IRS lacks\nauthority under the Independent Offices Appropriations Act to\ncharge them for obtaining (and renewing) PTINs and that the\nIRS’s decision to charge the fee was arbitrary and capricious.\nThe district court ruled in favor of the preparers, concluding\nthat the IRS lacks statutory authority to charge the fee. The\ncourt issued an injunction barring the IRS from charging the\nPTIN fee and ordered the agency to refund previously collected\nfees.\n\n We conclude that the IRS acted within its authority under\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act in charging tax-\nreturn preparers a fee to obtain and renew PTINs. We further\n\f 2\nconclude that the IRS’s decision to charge the fee was not\narbitrary and capricious. We thus vacate the judgment of the\ndistrict court and remand for further proceedings, including an\nassessment of whether the amount of the PTIN fee\nunreasonably exceeds the costs to the IRS to issue and maintain\nPTINs.\n\n I.\n\n A.\n\n The Internal Revenue Code defines a tax-return preparer\nas “any person who prepares for compensation” a federal\nincome tax return or claim for refund. I.R.C. § 7701(36)(A).\nThe Code establishes no professional constraints on who may\nact as a tax-return preparer, with the result that preparers range\nfrom uncredentialed persons to attorneys and certified public\naccountants. See Internal Revenue Service, Return Preparer\nReview 8–9 (December 2009), https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-\nutl/54419l09.pdf. As of 2009, “a majority of U.S.\ntaxpayers . . . rel[ied] on tax return preparers to assist them in\nmeeting their federal tax filing obligations.” Id. at 7.\n\n In 1976, Congress enabled the IRS to require a preparer to\nlist an identifying number on any return she prepared, and\nCongress specified that the identifying number would be the\npreparer’s social security number. See Tax Reform Act of\n1976, Pub. L. No. 94-455, § 1203(d), 90 Stat. 1520, 1691.\nCongress also imposed monetary penalties on preparers in\ncertain circumstances for understating a taxpayer’s liability or\nfailing to list certain information on a return. I.R.C. §§ 6694,\n6695. In addition, Congress gave the Department of Justice\nauthority (in consultation with the IRS) to seek an injunction\npreventing tax-return preparers from engaging in unlawful\nconduct. I.R.C. § 7407.\n\f 3\n In 1998, Congress, acting out of concern that\n“inappropriate use might be made of a preparer’s social\nsecurity number,” S. Rep. No. 105-174, at 106 (1998), allowed\nthe IRS to permit or require preparers to list a different\nidentifying number on returns they prepared. I.R.C. § 6109(a),\n(d); see Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform\nAct of 1998, Pub. L. No. 105-206, § 3710, 112 Stat. 685, 779.\nThe IRS subsequently issued regulations allowing—but not\nrequiring—preparers to obtain from the agency a unique\nPreparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) and to list that\nPTIN, instead of a social security number, on any return they\nprepared. Furnishing Identifying Number of Income Tax\nReturn Preparer, 64 Fed. Reg. 43,910 (Aug. 12, 1999) (codified\nat 26 C.F.R. pt. 1).\n\n By 2009, the IRS had become concerned that many\ntaxpayers were being “poorly served by some tax return\npreparers” due to preparers’ inadequate education and training\nas well as deficiencies in the agency’s compliance regime.\nReturn Preparer Review 6; see id. at 33–37. Seeking to\nimprove matters, the IRS issued three sets of regulations in\n2010 and 2011.\n\n First, the IRS sought to establish a credentialing and\nregistration regime for tax-return preparers. It did so by\nrequiring otherwise uncredentialed preparers—that is,\npreparers who are neither attorneys nor certified public\naccountants—to become “registered tax return preparers.”\nRegulations Governing Practice Before the Internal Revenue\nService, 76 Fed. Reg. 32,286, 32,286–87 (June 3, 2011). To\nbecome a registered tax-return preparer, a person would need\nto undergo a background check, pass a competency exam, and\nsatisfy continuing education requirements. Id. at 32,287.\n\f 4\n Second, the IRS required preparers to obtain a PTIN and\nrenew it annually. Furnishing Identifying Number of Tax\nReturn Preparer, 75 Fed. Reg. 60,309, 60,309–10 (Sept. 30,\n2010). According to the agency, the “requirement to use a\nPTIN will allow the IRS to better identify tax return preparers,\ncentralize information, and effectively administer the rules\nrelating to tax return preparers.” Id. at 60,309. The IRS further\nnoted that the PTIN requirement would benefit “tax return\npreparers and help maintain the confidentiality of [their]\nSSNs.” Id.\n\n Third, the IRS decided it would charge tax-return\npreparers a fee of roughly $50 (plus a vendor fee) to obtain and\nrenew a PTIN. The agency explained the fee would cover the\ncosts of “the development and maintenance of the IRS\ninformation technology system” associated with the PTINs, as\nwell as the costs of “the personnel, administrative, and\nmanagement support needed to evaluate and address tax\ncompliance issues, investigate and address conduct and\nsuitability issues, and otherwise support and enforce the\nprograms that require individuals to apply for or renew a\nPTIN.” User Fees Relating to Enrollment and Preparer Tax\nIdentification Numbers, 75 Fed. Reg. 60,316, 60,316, 60,319\n(Sept. 30, 2010).\n\n B.\n\n A group of tax-return preparers challenged the first set of\nregulations described above: the registered-tax return preparer\nsystem establishing a registration and credentialing system for\npreparers. The plaintiffs argued that the IRS lacks authority\nunder the Internal Revenue Code to establish a licensing\nsystem for tax-return preparers.\n\f 5\n Our court agreed and invalidated the registered tax-return\npreparer regulations. Loving v. IRS, 742 F.3d 1013 (D.C. Cir.\n2014). Because our invalidation of the registered-tax return\nprogram meant that there was no longer an\nagency-administered credentialing scheme in effect, our\ndecision in Loving had the effect of reinstating a regime in\nwhich anyone who wishes to prepare tax returns for others can\ndo so as long as she obtains a PTIN (and pays the associated\nfee), without needing to satisfy any credential requirements.\nId. at 1021–22.\n\n In 2014, after we issued our decision in Loving, several\ntax-return preparers initiated the action now before us in this\nappeal. The preparers challenge the lawfulness of the IRS’s\nassessment of a fee for providing them a PTIN. They argue\nthat the PTIN fee is contrary to the Independent Offices\nAppropriations Act and is arbitrary and capricious.\n\n While the case was pending before the district court, the\nIRS reduced the amount of the PTIN fee from $50 to $33 (not\nincluding a vendor fee). Preparer Tax Identification Number\n(PTIN) User Fee Update, 81 Fed. Reg. 52,766, 52,766 (Aug.\n10, 2016). The IRS adjusted the PTIN fee in the wake of our\ndecision in Loving. A portion of the original PTIN fee was to\nhave been used to pay the costs of the registered tax-return\npreparer program invalidated in Loving, and the IRS reduced\nthe amount of the PTIN fee to cover the costs of those portions\nof the PTIN program that remained in effect after Loving. Id.\n\n The district court, after certifying a plaintiffs’ class of tax-\nreturn preparers, granted summary judgment in the preparers’\nfavor in relevant part. The court upheld the IRS’s requirement\nthat preparers obtain a PTIN. But the court invalidated the\nPTIN fee charged by the IRS on the ground that the fee violates\n\f 6\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act. Steele v. United\nStates, 260 F. Supp. 3d 52 (D.D.C. 2017).\n\n The court reasoned in part that, for an assessment to\nqualify as a fee under that Act as opposed to an unauthorized\ngeneral tax, the assessment must relate to a specific benefit\nconferred to an identifiable set of users. But here, the court\nemphasized, essentially any person can obtain a PTIN after\nLoving invalidated the PTIN eligibility criteria, such that the\nPTIN program, in the court’s view, could no longer be said to\nbenefit a particular set of individuals rather than the public in\ngeneral. Id. at 67. The court also rejected the IRS’s argument\nthat the PTIN fee could be sustained based on an interest in\nprotecting tax-return preparers’ social security numbers. The\ncourt believed that the agency had not adequately raised or\nexplained that rationale when it issued the rule establishing the\nfee. Id.\n\n The IRS now appeals.\n\n II.\n\n Before addressing the merits of the IRS’s arguments, we\nfirst assess whether the district court had jurisdiction over this\ncase. We must assure ourselves of the existence of jurisdiction\neven though no party argues it is lacking. See Steel Co. v.\nCitizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94–95 (1998).\n\n The specific question we confront is whether the\njurisdictional exhaustion requirement applicable to suits for\nrefunds under the Internal Revenue Code obligated the tax-\nreturn preparers to pursue their claims with the IRS before\nfiling suit in federal court. See I.R.C. § 7422. We conclude\nthat the exhaustion requirement is inapplicable in the\ncircumstances of this case.\n\f 7\n The exhaustion provision states that “[n]o suit or\nproceeding shall be maintained in any court for the recovery of\nany internal revenue tax alleged to have been erroneously or\nillegally assessed or collected, or of any penalty claimed to\nhave been collected without authority, or of any sum alleged to\nhave been excessive or in any manner wrongfully collected,\nuntil a claim for refund or credit has been duly filed with the\nSecretary” of the Treasury. I.R.C. § 7422(a). Neither party\nbelieves that provision pertains to this case, and their belief is\ncorrect.\n\n We understand § 7422(a)’s exhaustion requirement to\npertain to actions seeking a refund of any “tax,” “penalty,” or\n“sum” collected under the Internal Revenue Code. The PTIN\nfee, by contrast, was established under the Independent Offices\nAppropriations Act, a statute that lies outside the Internal\nRevenue Code and that generally applies to all federal\nagencies. The tax-return preparers correspondingly bring their\nclaims in this case under the general provisions of the\nAdministrative Procedure Act, not under any refund provision\nin the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n Our understanding of the scope of § 7422(a)’s exhaustion\nrequirement is grounded in the provision’s terms. In cases\nseeking “recovery of any . . . tax alleged to have been\nerroneously or illegally assessed or collected,” the language of\nthe provision limits its application to refund requests involving\n“internal revenue” taxes, id.—that is, those taxes collected\nunder the Internal Revenue Code. Cf. Horizon Coal Corp. v.\nUnited States, 43 F.3d 234, 240 (6th Cir. 1994) (per curiam)\n(“[T]he dictates of § 7422(a) apply only to taxes imposed\npursuant to Title 26.”) And while the provision applies not\njust to “internal revenue taxes,” but also to “any penalty” or\n“any sum” alleged to have been unlawfully or wrongfully\ncollected, I.R.C. § 7422(a), we believe that, just as the\n\f 8\nprovision applies only to “internal revenue” taxes, it also\npertains only to a “penalty” or “sum” that is collected under the\nInternal Revenue Code. That would encompass, for instance,\npenalties levied on a tax-return preparer for understating a\nclient’s liability on a tax return. See id. § 6694.\n\n The conclusion that § 7422(a)’s exhaustion requirement\napplies only to penalties and sums assessed under the Internal\nRevenue Code follows from the recognition that the\ngovernment imposes various taxes pursuant to authority\noutside the Code. See Horizon Coal Corp., 43 F.3d at 236–37\n(describing the reclamation fee imposed on coal mine operators\nunder the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of\n1977, 30 U.S.C. § 1232, as a tax). In that light, a reading of the\nexhaustion provision that would apply only to “internal\nrevenue taxes” but would extend to any “penalty” or “sum” at\nall (beyond the context of the Internal Revenue Code) would\nlead to anomalous results: it would mean that a taxpayer who\nwishes to challenge both a non–Title 26 tax and an associated\npenalty would be required to exhaust her penalty refund\nrequest, but not her related tax refund request, before filing suit.\nWe do not understand Congress to have intended to require that\nsort of splitting of claims.\n\n Relatedly, § 7422(a)’s exhaustion requirement calls for\nclaims to be presented initially to the “Secretary,” i.e., the\nSecretary of the Treasury. And it would make little sense to\nunderstand Congress to have required payers of penalties and\nsums unrelated to the Internal Revenue Code (and, in many\ncases, imposed by entities other than the IRS) to nonetheless\nseek a refund from the Secretary of the Treasury. See Horizon\nCoal Corp., 43 F.3d at 240. We thus conclude that § 7422(a)\nis not meant to reach the claims in this case.\n\f 9\n That result coheres with the context and purpose of the\nprovision. With claims challenging the collection of taxes or\npenalties assessed under the Internal Revenue Code, the IRS\ncan correct any errors through its own administrative\nprocesses. But the IRS reports that it has no such\nadministrative process to examine the lawfulness of its PTIN\nfee and to correct any errors associated with collecting that fee.\nRequiring the tax-return preparers to present their claims first\nto the IRS thus would neither promote efficient resolution of\ntheir claims nor serve § 7422(a)’s goal of “prevent[ing]\nsurprise” and “giv[ing] adequate notice to the Service of the\nnature of the claim and the specific facts upon which it is\npredicated, thereby permitting an administrative investigation\nand determination,” Computervision Corp. v. United States,\n445 F.3d 1355, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks\nomitted).\n\n For those reasons, we conclude that § 7422(a) did not\nrequire the tax-return preparers to submit their claims to the\nIRS before bringing this action in federal court.\n\n III.\n\n On the merits, the tax-return preparers contend that the\nPTIN fee is unlawful for two distinct reasons. First, they argue\n(and the district court agreed) that the Independent Offices\nAppropriations Act does not provide statutory authority for the\nfee. Second, they contend that the IRS’s decision to impose the\nfee was arbitrary and capricious. We disagree on both counts.\n\n A.\n\n We first consider whether the IRS had authority under the\nIndependent Offices Appropriations Act to charge tax-return\npreparers a fee to obtain and renew a PTIN. The Independent\n\f 10\nOffices Appropriations Act helps federal agencies recover the\ncosts of services provided to beneficiaries. See Nat’l Cable Tel.\nAss’n, Inc. v. United States, 415 U.S. 336, 337 n.1 (1974).\nUnder the Act, the “head of each agency . . . may prescribe\nregulations establishing the charge for a service or thing of\nvalue provided by the agency.” 31 U.S.C. § 9701(b).\n\n The Supreme Court considered the Act in companion\ndecisions issued on the same day in 1974. Fed. Power Comm’n\nv. New England Power Co., 415 U.S. 345 (1974); Nat’l Cable,\n415 U.S. 336. The Court “construe[d] the Act to cover only\n‘fees’ and not ‘taxes.’” New England Power, 415 U.S. at 349.\nThat is because “[t]axation is a legislative function, and\nCongress . . . is the sole organ for levying taxes.” Nat’l Cable,\n415 U.S. at 340. The Court explained that fees, as opposed to\ntaxes, are imposed on identifiable recipients of particular\ngovernment services. Id. at 340–41; New England Power, 415\nU.S. at 349. The Court thus understood the Act to give\nagencies authority to impose a “reasonable charge” on an\n“identifiable recipient for a measurable unit or amount of\nGovernment service or property from which [the recipient]\nderives a special benefit.” New England Power, 415 U.S. at\n349 (quoting OMB Circular No. A-25 (Sept. 23, 1959)).\n\n The Act, that is, enables an agency to impose a fee only\nfor “a service that confers a specific benefit upon an\nidentifiable beneficiary.” Engine Mfrs. Ass’n v. EPA, 20 F.3d\n1177, 1180 (D.C. Cir. 1994). To justify a fee under the Act,\nthen, an agency must show (i) that it provides some kind of\nservice in exchange for the fee, (ii) that the service yields a\nspecific benefit, and (iii) that the benefit is conferred upon\nidentifiable individuals. Id.; see Seafarers Int’l Union of N.\nAm. v. U.S. Coast Guard, 81 F.3d 179, 184–85 (D.C. Cir.\n1996). Here, the PTIN fee satisfies those conditions.\n\f 11\n 1.\n\n We first assess whether the IRS provides a service in\nexchange for the PTIN fee. We conclude it does: the service\nof providing tax-return preparers a PTIN. In particular, the IRS\ngenerates a unique identifying number for each tax-return\npreparer and maintains a database of those PTINs, enabling\npreparers to use those numbers in place of their social security\nnumbers on tax returns. The IRS devotes personnel and\nresources to managing the PTIN application and renewal\nprocess and developing and maintaining the database of PTINs.\nThe provision of a PTIN, and the associated functions,\nconstitute the provision of a service.\n\n The tax-return preparers question how robust a service the\nIRS undertakes when it provides them a PTIN. As they point\nout, before our decision in Loving invalidated the registered\ntax-return preparer regulations, the activities the IRS undertook\nin connection with PTINs were more substantial. That now-\ninvalidated regime called for the agency to administer\ncompetency tests and continuing-education requirements for\npreparers. 76 Fed. Reg. at 32,287. After Loving, the IRS no\nlonger performs those functions. Instead, the agency’s PTIN-\nrelated services are now confined to generating and\nmaintaining a database of PTINs. Preparer Tax Identification\nNumber (PTIN) User Fee Update, 80 Fed. Reg. 66,792, 66,794\n(Oct. 30, 2015).\n\n Those functions, although a slimmed-down version of the\nPTIN-related services afforded by the agency before Loving,\nstill constitute the provision of a service. To the extent the tax-\nreturn preparers believe that the amount of the PTIN fee is out\nof step with the narrowed scope of remaining PTIN-related\nfunctions, those concerns pertain to the reasonableness of the\nfee, not to whether a fee can be assessed in the first place. See\n\f 12\nSeafarers, 81 F.3d at 185–86. There may be force to the tax-\nreturn preparers’ claim that the fee amount is excessive, but no\ncourt has yet considered that claim, and the preparers can press\nthe matter in the proceedings on remand.\n\n 2.\n\n Having determined that the IRS provides a service—the\nprovision of a PTIN—in exchange for the challenged fee, we\nnext consider whether that service affords a specific benefit.\nWe conclude it does: the PTIN helps protect tax-return\npreparers’ identities by allowing them to list a number on\nreturns other than their social security number.\n\n The service provided in exchange for a fee assessed under\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act must confer a\n“specific benefit” on the charged party, Engine Mfrs. Ass’n, 20\nF.3d at 1180—i.e., a “special benefit . . . above and beyond that\nwhich accrues to the public at large,” Ayuda, Inc. v. Attorney\nGen., 848 F.2d 1297, 1301 (D.C. Cir. 1988). That\nunderstanding comes from the Supreme Court’s construction\nof the Act as authorizing fees rather than taxes, with the former\nassessed against those specifically benefitting from a particular\nservice and the latter imposed for the benefit of the general\npublic. See Nat’l Cable, 415 U.S. at 340–41.\n\n In contending that the “specific benefit” requirement is\nmet here, the IRS reasons in part that agency regulations\nrequire tax-return preparers to obtain a PTIN in order to prepare\ntax returns for compensation, and “[t]he ability to prepare tax\nreturns . . . for compensation is a special benefit.” 80 Fed. Reg.\nat 66,794. The tax-return preparers respond that, in light of\nLoving’s conclusion that the IRS lacks statutory authority to\nestablish a licensing scheme for preparers, the PTIN fee cannot\nbe justified as offsetting the costs of administering a licensing\n\f 13\nregime. Nor, the tax-return preparers argue, can the agency\nsimply create an obligation to obtain a PTIN that is untethered\nto any underlying licensing system, and then treat satisfaction\nof that agency-invented requirement as a specific benefit for\nwhich a fee may be assessed. See Seafarers, 81 F.3d at 186\n(“[A]n agency is not free to add extra licensing procedures and\nthen charge a user fee merely because the agency has general\nauthority to regulate in a particular area.”); Cent. & S. Motor\nFreight Tariff Ass’n v. United States, 777 F.2d 722, 729 (D.C.\nCir. 1985) (“To be legally cognizable, the private benefit must\nbe predicated upon something other than the mere fact of\nregulation . . . .”).\n\n We need not resolve whether satisfying the\nagency-imposed requirement to obtain a PTIN, standing alone,\ncould qualify as a specific benefit for which the agency may\nlevy a fee. That is because the PTIN requirement is supported\nby an additional justification advanced by the IRS, one that we\nfind adequate to support the assessment of a PTIN fee: the\nprotection of the confidentiality of tax-return preparers’ social\nsecurity numbers. See 75 Fed. Reg. at 60,309; 80 Fed. Reg. at\n66,793. And not only does that confidentiality-protection\njustification independently support assessment of a PTIN fee,\nbut the permissible amount of the fee would remain the same\nregardless of whether it is justified based on that rationale or\ninstead based on the need to satisfy the agency-imposed\nrequirement to obtain a PTIN. In either case, the IRS would\nneed to construct and maintain a PTIN database and provide a\nPTIN to each tax-return preparer, and it could permissibly\nrecover the costs associated with those functions through the\nPTIN fee, see Nat’l Cable Television Ass’n v. FCC, 554 F.2d\n1094, 1107 (D.C. Cir. 1976).\n\n We thus can rest on the confidentiality-protection rationale\nalone as conferring a specific benefit for which a PTIN fee may\n\f 14\nbe assessed. The confidentiality advantages associated with\nthe PTIN requirement readily qualify as a specific benefit:\nwithout protection of their social security numbers, preparers\nwould face greater risks of identity theft.\n\n The tax-return preparers argue that the IRS cannot rely on\nthe protection of confidential information as a benefit justifying\nthe PTIN fee. They reason that the agency did not specifically\ninvoke the confidentiality concern when it issued the PTIN\nregulation and thus may not lean on that justification now. See\nSEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 196 (1947). We\nconclude, however, that the IRS adequately relied on the\nconfidentiality protections afforded by PTINs when issuing the\nPTIN regulations.\n\n The IRS’s concern with maintaining the confidentiality of\npreparers’ social security numbers runs throughout the\nregulatory history of the PTIN requirement and fee. When\nproposing the PTIN regulations in 2010, the IRS decided to\nrequire all tax-return preparers to use a single identifying\nnumber so that it could “better collect and track data on . . .\npreparers.” User Fees Relating to Enrollment and Preparer Tax\nIdentification Numbers, 75 Fed. Reg. 43,110, 43,110 (July 23,\n2010). The IRS at that point faced a choice: it could use the\npreparers’ social security numbers, or it could instead use\nPTINs (which many preparers by then had obtained). The\nagency chose to mandate the use of PTINs.\n\n In opting to require the use of PTINs in 2010, the IRS\nexplained that they provide “an alternative to using the tax\nreturn preparers’ social security numbers.” Id. When issuing\nits final PTIN regulations later that year, the IRS specifically\nnoted the “identity protection currently provided by PTINs,”\n75 Fed. Reg. at 60,318, and explained that the regulations\nwould benefit “tax return preparers and help maintain the\n\f 15\nconfidentiality of SSNs,” 75 Fed. Reg. at 60,309. The IRS’s\nview is consistent with the concern animating Congress’s grant\nof authority to the IRS to mandate the use of PTINs: “that\ninappropriate use might be made of a preparer’s social security\nnumber” under the pre-PTIN scheme. S. Rep. No. 105-174, at\n106. And when the IRS reissued the PTIN fee regulations in\n2015 after our decision in Loving invalidated the registered tax-\nreturn preparer program, the agency again explained that\n“[r]equiring the use of PTINs . . . benefits tax return preparers\nby allowing them to provide an identifying number on the\nreturn that is not an SSN.” 80 Fed. Reg. at 66,793.\n\n The tax-return preparers submit that those various\nstatements by the IRS should not count because they appear in\nthe regulatory commentary addressed to the agency’s\nunderlying requirement that preparers obtain a PTIN, not in the\nagency’s explanation of the fee for providing a PTIN. But the\nIRS noted “the identity protection currently provided by\nPTINs” in the portion of the 2010 regulatory commentary\naddressed to the PTIN fee, not the portion generally discussing\nthe PTIN requirement. See 75 Fed. Reg. at 60,318. And in any\nevent, the IRS’s explanation of the PTIN requirement bears\ndirectly on the specific benefit conferred in exchange for the\nPTIN fee. After all, the specific-benefit question concerns\nwhat benefit, if any, the PTIN affords to preparers. And when\nthe IRS observed that a “benefit[]” of the PTIN is that it allows\npreparers to “provide an identifying number on the return that\nis not an SSN,” 80 Fed. Reg. at 66,793, the agency necessarily\nconveyed that a benefit preparers receive in exchange for the\nPTIN fee is the ability to provide a number “that is not an\nSSN,” id.\n\n The tax-return preparers question the extent to which the\nPTIN requirement in fact helps protect preparers’ confidential\ninformation. In their view, because the IRS already allowed\n\f 16\npreparers to omit their social security numbers on the copy of\nreturns provided to the taxpayer, the replacement of social\nsecurity numbers with PTINs affords no additional protection\nof preparers’ confidential information.\n\n Congress, however, believed otherwise. When Congress\nin 1998 amended the Internal Revenue Code to allow the IRS\nto mandate the use of PTINs, the IRS had been allowing\npreparers to omit their social security numbers from the\ntaxpayers’ returns for over twenty years. See Rev. Rul. 78-317,\n1978-2 C.B. 335. Notwithstanding the longtime availability of\nthat option, Congress authorized the IRS to require PTINs\nbased on concerns “that inappropriate use might be made of a\npreparer’s social security number.” S. Rep. No. 105-174, at\n106.\n\n Nor did the option to omit social security numbers on the\ntaxpayer’s copy of a return mitigate preparers’ concerns about\nthe exposure of their confidential information. After the IRS\nin 2010 proposed mandating the use of PTINs, Furnishing\nIdentifying Number of Tax Return Preparer, 75 Fed. Reg.\n14,539 (Mar. 26, 2010), several groups of tax-return preparers\nsubmitted comments supporting the change due to concerns\nabout protecting the confidentiality of preparers’ social\nsecurity numbers. H&R Block, which in 2010 was the “largest\nemployer of tax return preparers (approximately 120,000),”\nsupported the IRS’s proposal to mandate PTINs because PTINs\n“protect the confidentiality of SSNs.” H&R Block, Comment\nLetter on Proposed Rule Furnishing Identifying Number of Tax\nReturn Preparer, at 1, 6 (Apr. 21, 2010),\nhttps://www.regulations.gov/document?D=IRS-2010-0009-\n0127. The Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants,\nrepresenting 23,000 members, likewise approved of the IRS’s\nproposal because “the use of the PTIN as a preparer identifier\nwill minimize confidentiality concerns related to what could\n\f 17\nhave been an alternative: the use of preparer social security\nnumbers.” Ohio Society of CPAs, Comment Letter on\nProposed Rule Furnishing Identifying Number of Tax Return\nPreparer, at 1 (Apr. 26, 2010),\nhttps://www.regulations.gov/document?D=IRS-2010-0009-\n0193. The IRS reasonably agreed with those preparers—and\nwith Congress—that PTINs would help to protect preparers’\nconfidential information.\n\n The tax-return preparers next argue that, even if\nconfidentiality concerns could justify assessing a fee for\ninitially providing a PTIN, those concerns cannot justify the\nIRS’s fee to renew that number annually. We are unpersuaded.\nThe IRS not only provides a PTIN upon an initial application\nbut also maintains a database that allows preparers to continue\nusing their PTINs in subsequent years. The renewal fee, then,\npertains to the agency’s continuing efforts in that regard.\n\n To be sure, the tax-return preparers might question\nwhether the amount of the renewal fee bears an adequate\nrelationship to the continuing costs incurred by the IRS to\nmaintain the PTIN database. But those concerns pertain to the\namount of the fee, not the antecedent question of whether the\nfee generally lies within the IRS’s statutory authority under the\nIndependent Offices Appropriations Act. On remand, the\ndistrict court is free to consider arguments concerning the\nalleged excessiveness of the fee, including whether the renewal\nfee is “reasonably related” to the “costs which the agency\nactually incurs” in providing the service, Nat’l Cable\nTelevision Ass’n, 554 F.2d at 1107, and “the value of the\nservice to the recipient,” Cent. & S. Motor, 777 F.2d at 729.\nFor purposes of the issue we consider at this stage of the\nproceedings, though, it is enough for us to conclude that the\nPTIN requirement specifically benefits tax-return preparers by\n\f 18\nhelping to protect the confidentiality of their personal\ninformation.\n\n 3.\n\n Finally, we address whether the IRS provides the service\nand associated benefit—i.e., the provision of PTINs and the\nresulting protection of confidential personal information—to\n“identifiable recipients” rather than to the public at large.\nSeafarers, 81 F.3d at 184. We think it does. Tax-return\npreparers as a group qualify as identifiable recipients for\npurposes of justifying a fee assessed under the Independent\nOffices Appropriations Act.\n\n The tax-return preparers submit that, because essentially\nanyone can obtain a PTIN after our decision in Loving, the\nservice and benefit associated with the PTIN extend to the\npublic at large rather than only to specific, identifiable\nrecipients. It does not matter, though, that the service and\nbenefit are theoretically available to the general public. What\nmatters is that the service is provided to, and the corresponding\nbenefit is received by, the specific group of persons who in fact\npay the fee.\n\n That understanding draws support from the Supreme\nCourt’s identification of passports as an example of a service\nfor which an agency can appropriately charge a fee under the\nAct. See New England Power, 415 U.S. at 349 n.3. Although\npassports are generally available to the entire citizenry, the Act,\nas understood by the Supreme Court, enables the State\nDepartment to charge a fee to the particular persons who apply\nfor a passport because the service undertaken to process\npassport applications benefits those persons. See id. The same\nis true of those persons who, in exchange for paying a fee,\nobtain and renew a PTIN. And because the IRS charges only\n\f 19\nthose who receive the benefit of a PTIN, the specific benefit\nsupporting the fee extends only to identifiable individuals\nrather than the public writ large. See id. at 349.\n\n In sum, the IRS acted within its statutory authority under\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act in charging tax-\nreturn preparers a fee to obtain and renew PTINs.\n\n B.\n\n We next address whether the IRS’s decision to assess a\nPTIN fee was arbitrary and capricious. See 5 U.S.C.\n§ 706(2)(A). An agency generally must “give adequate reasons\nfor its decisions,” and the requirement to give a “satisfactory\nexplanation for its actions” is “satisfied when the agency’s\nexplanation is clear enough that its path may reasonably be\ndiscerned.” Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 136 S. Ct.\n2117, 2125 (2016).\n\n The tax-return preparers principally contend that the IRS’s\naccount of its reasons for imposing a PTIN fee does not survive\nour decision in Loving. In the preparers’ view, the IRS\nprovided no reasoned justification for the fee separate from\njustifications that can no longer support the fee after Loving.\nThe preparers emphasize that the 2010 regulations originally\nestablishing the PTIN fee stated that the fee would pay for the\nregistered tax-return preparer program, which Loving later\ninvalidated. See 75 Fed. Reg. at 43,111.\n\n We conclude that the IRS sufficiently rooted its decision\nto assess a PTIN fee in justifications independent of those\nrejected in Loving. When the IRS reissued the PTIN fee\nregulations after Loving, it explained that PTINs would benefit\npreparers by protecting their confidential information and\nwould improve tax compliance and administration. 80 Fed.\n\f 20\nReg. at 66,793. Loving did not cast doubt on those\njustifications, which are independent of the registered tax-\nreturn preparer program we considered and invalidated there.\n\n With specific regard to assessing a fee for providing a\nPTIN, the IRS explained that generating PTINs and\nmaintaining a database of PTINs cost substantial sums, and\nthat, in its view, those costs were more appropriately recouped\nfrom preparers who obtain a PTIN than from the general\npublic. See id. at 66,793–94. Those costs, as explained, can be\nrecovered through the PTIN fee. See supra at 13. And the IRS\nnoted that it incurred costs associated with providing PTINs\nbeyond the costs of the services invalidated in Loving, and that\nit was reducing the fee to account for the elimination of those\nfunctions deemed beyond its authority in Loving. See 80 Fed.\nReg. at 66,794.\n\n It is true that the IRS’s accounting in the regulatory\nmaterials of the services paid for by the PTIN fee generally\ndescribes certain functions that, depending on their precise\nscope, could be seen to raise questions about whether they\nrange beyond the IRS’s authority after Loving—e.g.,\n“background checks,” “professional designation checks,” and\n“compliance and IRS complaint activities.” 80 Fed. Reg. at\n66,794. But the IRS also explained that the fee is “based on\ndirect costs of the PTIN program, which include staffing and\ncontract-related costs for activities, processes, and procedures\nrelated to the electronic and paper registration and renewal\nsubmissions.” Id. That explanation survives Loving because,\nas the district court held, the IRS’s requirement that preparers\nobtain and renew a PTIN survives Loving. See Steele, 260 F.\nSupp. 3d at 62–63.\n\n The tax-return preparers’ concerns that the justifications\nfor the PTIN fee might encompass functions deemed in Loving\n\f 21\nto fall outside the IRS’s regulatory authority can be addressed\non remand, when the district court examines whether the\namount of the fee is reasonable and consistent with the\nIndependent Offices Appropriations Act. But aside from\nquestions to be considered on remand about whether the\namount of the PTIN fee impermissibly encompasses functions\nfalling outside the IRS’s statutory authority, the IRS’s decision\nto charge a fee at all was adequately grounded in services lying\nwithin its authority, and thus was not arbitrary and capricious.\n\n * * * * *\n\n For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the judgment of the\ndistrict court and remand the case for further proceedings.\n\n It is so ordered.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Brittany MONTROIS, Class of More Than 700,000 Similarly Situated Individuals and Businesses, Et Al., Appellees v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellant\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-01\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued May 11, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\\n\\n No. 17-5204\\n\\n BRITTANY MONTROIS, CLASS OF MORE THAN 700,000\\n SIMILARLY SITUATED INDIVIDUALS AND BUSINESSES, ET AL.,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n v.\\n\\n UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,\\n APPELLANT\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:14-cv-01523)\\n\\n\\n Gilbert S. Rothenberg, Attorney, U.S. Department of\\nJustice, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs\\nwere Jessie K. Liu, U.S. Attorney, and Richard Farber and\\nNorah E. Bringer, Attorneys.\\n\\n Jonathan E. Taylor argued the cause for appellees. With\\nhim on the brief were Deepak Gupta, William H. Narwold,\\nAllen Buckley, Louis Bograd, and Christopher S. Rizek.\\nElizabeth S. Smith entered an appearance.\\n\\n Allen Buckley was on the supplemental brief for plaintiffs-\\nappellees.\\n\\f 1\\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, and SRINIVASAN and\\nMILLETT, Circuit Judges.\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.\\n\\n SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge: Tax-return preparers are\\npersons who prepare clients’ tax returns for compensation.\\nInternal Revenue Service regulations require preparers to\\nobtain from the agency (and renew annually) a unique\\nidentifying number known as a Preparer Tax Identification\\nNumber, or PTIN. Preparers must list that PTIN on any return\\nthey prepare.\\n\\n In 2010, the IRS began charging tax-return preparers a fee\\nto obtain and renew PTINs. The fee is designed to recoup the\\ncosts to the agency of issuing and maintaining a database of\\nPTINs. As authority to exact the PTIN fee, the IRS relies on\\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act, which allows\\nfederal agencies to charge fees for services in certain\\nconditions. 31 U.S.C. § 9701.\\n\\n A group of tax-return preparers filed a class action lawsuit\\nchallenging the PTIN fee. They argued that the IRS lacks\\nauthority under the Independent Offices Appropriations Act to\\ncharge them for obtaining (and renewing) PTINs and that the\\nIRS’s decision to charge the fee was arbitrary and capricious.\\nThe district court ruled in favor of the preparers, concluding\\nthat the IRS lacks statutory authority to charge the fee. The\\ncourt issued an injunction barring the IRS from charging the\\nPTIN fee and ordered the agency to refund previously collected\\nfees.\\n\\n We conclude that the IRS acted within its authority under\\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act in charging tax-\\nreturn preparers a fee to obtain and renew PTINs. We further\\n\\f 2\\nconclude that the IRS’s decision to charge the fee was not\\narbitrary and capricious. We thus vacate the judgment of the\\ndistrict court and remand for further proceedings, including an\\nassessment of whether the amount of the PTIN fee\\nunreasonably exceeds the costs to the IRS to issue and maintain\\nPTINs.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n The Internal Revenue Code defines a tax-return preparer\\nas “any person who prepares for compensation” a federal\\nincome tax return or claim for refund. I.R.C. § 7701(36)(A).\\nThe Code establishes no professional constraints on who may\\nact as a tax-return preparer, with the result that preparers range\\nfrom uncredentialed persons to attorneys and certified public\\naccountants. See Internal Revenue Service, Return Preparer\\nReview 8–9 (December 2009), https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-\\nutl/54419l09.pdf. As of 2009, “a majority of U.S.\\ntaxpayers . . . rel[ied] on tax return preparers to assist them in\\nmeeting their federal tax filing obligations.” Id. at 7.\\n\\n In 1976, Congress enabled the IRS to require a preparer to\\nlist an identifying number on any return she prepared, and\\nCongress specified that the identifying number would be the\\npreparer’s social security number. See Tax Reform Act of\\n1976, Pub. L. No. 94-455, § 1203(d), 90 Stat. 1520, 1691.\\nCongress also imposed monetary penalties on preparers in\\ncertain circumstances for understating a taxpayer’s liability or\\nfailing to list certain information on a return. I.R.C. §§ 6694,\\n6695. In addition, Congress gave the Department of Justice\\nauthority (in consultation with the IRS) to seek an injunction\\npreventing tax-return preparers from engaging in unlawful\\nconduct. I.R.C. § 7407.\\n\\f 3\\n In 1998, Congress, acting out of concern that\\n“inappropriate use might be made of a preparer’s social\\nsecurity number,” S. Rep. No. 105-174, at 106 (1998), allowed\\nthe IRS to permit or require preparers to list a different\\nidentifying number on returns they prepared. I.R.C. § 6109(a),\\n(d); see Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform\\nAct of 1998, Pub. L. No. 105-206, § 3710, 112 Stat. 685, 779.\\nThe IRS subsequently issued regulations allowing—but not\\nrequiring—preparers to obtain from the agency a unique\\nPreparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) and to list that\\nPTIN, instead of a social security number, on any return they\\nprepared. Furnishing Identifying Number of Income Tax\\nReturn Preparer, 64 Fed. Reg. 43,910 (Aug. 12, 1999) (codified\\nat 26 C.F.R. pt. 1).\\n\\n By 2009, the IRS had become concerned that many\\ntaxpayers were being “poorly served by some tax return\\npreparers” due to preparers’ inadequate education and training\\nas well as deficiencies in the agency’s compliance regime.\\nReturn Preparer Review 6; see id. at 33–37. Seeking to\\nimprove matters, the IRS issued three sets of regulations in\\n2010 and 2011.\\n\\n First, the IRS sought to establish a credentialing and\\nregistration regime for tax-return preparers. It did so by\\nrequiring otherwise uncredentialed preparers—that is,\\npreparers who are neither attorneys nor certified public\\naccountants—to become “registered tax return preparers.”\\nRegulations Governing Practice Before the Internal Revenue\\nService, 76 Fed. Reg. 32,286, 32,286–87 (June 3, 2011). To\\nbecome a registered tax-return preparer, a person would need\\nto undergo a background check, pass a competency exam, and\\nsatisfy continuing education requirements. Id. at 32,287.\\n\\f 4\\n Second, the IRS required preparers to obtain a PTIN and\\nrenew it annually. Furnishing Identifying Number of Tax\\nReturn Preparer, 75 Fed. Reg. 60,309, 60,309–10 (Sept. 30,\\n2010). According to the agency, the “requirement to use a\\nPTIN will allow the IRS to better identify tax return preparers,\\ncentralize information, and effectively administer the rules\\nrelating to tax return preparers.” Id. at 60,309. The IRS further\\nnoted that the PTIN requirement would benefit “tax return\\npreparers and help maintain the confidentiality of [their]\\nSSNs.” Id.\\n\\n Third, the IRS decided it would charge tax-return\\npreparers a fee of roughly $50 (plus a vendor fee) to obtain and\\nrenew a PTIN. The agency explained the fee would cover the\\ncosts of “the development and maintenance of the IRS\\ninformation technology system” associated with the PTINs, as\\nwell as the costs of “the personnel, administrative, and\\nmanagement support needed to evaluate and address tax\\ncompliance issues, investigate and address conduct and\\nsuitability issues, and otherwise support and enforce the\\nprograms that require individuals to apply for or renew a\\nPTIN.” User Fees Relating to Enrollment and Preparer Tax\\nIdentification Numbers, 75 Fed. Reg. 60,316, 60,316, 60,319\\n(Sept. 30, 2010).\\n\\n B.\\n\\n A group of tax-return preparers challenged the first set of\\nregulations described above: the registered-tax return preparer\\nsystem establishing a registration and credentialing system for\\npreparers. The plaintiffs argued that the IRS lacks authority\\nunder the Internal Revenue Code to establish a licensing\\nsystem for tax-return preparers.\\n\\f 5\\n Our court agreed and invalidated the registered tax-return\\npreparer regulations. Loving v. IRS, 742 F.3d 1013 (D.C. Cir.\\n2014). Because our invalidation of the registered-tax return\\nprogram meant that there was no longer an\\nagency-administered credentialing scheme in effect, our\\ndecision in Loving had the effect of reinstating a regime in\\nwhich anyone who wishes to prepare tax returns for others can\\ndo so as long as she obtains a PTIN (and pays the associated\\nfee), without needing to satisfy any credential requirements.\\nId. at 1021–22.\\n\\n In 2014, after we issued our decision in Loving, several\\ntax-return preparers initiated the action now before us in this\\nappeal. The preparers challenge the lawfulness of the IRS’s\\nassessment of a fee for providing them a PTIN. They argue\\nthat the PTIN fee is contrary to the Independent Offices\\nAppropriations Act and is arbitrary and capricious.\\n\\n While the case was pending before the district court, the\\nIRS reduced the amount of the PTIN fee from $50 to $33 (not\\nincluding a vendor fee). Preparer Tax Identification Number\\n(PTIN) User Fee Update, 81 Fed. Reg. 52,766, 52,766 (Aug.\\n10, 2016). The IRS adjusted the PTIN fee in the wake of our\\ndecision in Loving. A portion of the original PTIN fee was to\\nhave been used to pay the costs of the registered tax-return\\npreparer program invalidated in Loving, and the IRS reduced\\nthe amount of the PTIN fee to cover the costs of those portions\\nof the PTIN program that remained in effect after Loving. Id.\\n\\n The district court, after certifying a plaintiffs’ class of tax-\\nreturn preparers, granted summary judgment in the preparers’\\nfavor in relevant part. The court upheld the IRS’s requirement\\nthat preparers obtain a PTIN. But the court invalidated the\\nPTIN fee charged by the IRS on the ground that the fee violates\\n\\f 6\\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act. Steele v. United\\nStates, 260 F. Supp. 3d 52 (D.D.C. 2017).\\n\\n The court reasoned in part that, for an assessment to\\nqualify as a fee under that Act as opposed to an unauthorized\\ngeneral tax, the assessment must relate to a specific benefit\\nconferred to an identifiable set of users. But here, the court\\nemphasized, essentially any person can obtain a PTIN after\\nLoving invalidated the PTIN eligibility criteria, such that the\\nPTIN program, in the court’s view, could no longer be said to\\nbenefit a particular set of individuals rather than the public in\\ngeneral. Id. at 67. The court also rejected the IRS’s argument\\nthat the PTIN fee could be sustained based on an interest in\\nprotecting tax-return preparers’ social security numbers. The\\ncourt believed that the agency had not adequately raised or\\nexplained that rationale when it issued the rule establishing the\\nfee. Id.\\n\\n The IRS now appeals.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n Before addressing the merits of the IRS’s arguments, we\\nfirst assess whether the district court had jurisdiction over this\\ncase. We must assure ourselves of the existence of jurisdiction\\neven though no party argues it is lacking. See Steel Co. v.\\nCitizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94–95 (1998).\\n\\n The specific question we confront is whether the\\njurisdictional exhaustion requirement applicable to suits for\\nrefunds under the Internal Revenue Code obligated the tax-\\nreturn preparers to pursue their claims with the IRS before\\nfiling suit in federal court. See I.R.C. § 7422. We conclude\\nthat the exhaustion requirement is inapplicable in the\\ncircumstances of this case.\\n\\f 7\\n The exhaustion provision states that “[n]o suit or\\nproceeding shall be maintained in any court for the recovery of\\nany internal revenue tax alleged to have been erroneously or\\nillegally assessed or collected, or of any penalty claimed to\\nhave been collected without authority, or of any sum alleged to\\nhave been excessive or in any manner wrongfully collected,\\nuntil a claim for refund or credit has been duly filed with the\\nSecretary” of the Treasury. I.R.C. § 7422(a). Neither party\\nbelieves that provision pertains to this case, and their belief is\\ncorrect.\\n\\n We understand § 7422(a)’s exhaustion requirement to\\npertain to actions seeking a refund of any “tax,” “penalty,” or\\n“sum” collected under the Internal Revenue Code. The PTIN\\nfee, by contrast, was established under the Independent Offices\\nAppropriations Act, a statute that lies outside the Internal\\nRevenue Code and that generally applies to all federal\\nagencies. The tax-return preparers correspondingly bring their\\nclaims in this case under the general provisions of the\\nAdministrative Procedure Act, not under any refund provision\\nin the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n Our understanding of the scope of § 7422(a)’s exhaustion\\nrequirement is grounded in the provision’s terms. In cases\\nseeking “recovery of any . . . tax alleged to have been\\nerroneously or illegally assessed or collected,” the language of\\nthe provision limits its application to refund requests involving\\n“internal revenue” taxes, id.—that is, those taxes collected\\nunder the Internal Revenue Code. Cf. Horizon Coal Corp. v.\\nUnited States, 43 F.3d 234, 240 (6th Cir. 1994) (per curiam)\\n(“[T]he dictates of § 7422(a) apply only to taxes imposed\\npursuant to Title 26.”) And while the provision applies not\\njust to “internal revenue taxes,” but also to “any penalty” or\\n“any sum” alleged to have been unlawfully or wrongfully\\ncollected, I.R.C. § 7422(a), we believe that, just as the\\n\\f 8\\nprovision applies only to “internal revenue” taxes, it also\\npertains only to a “penalty” or “sum” that is collected under the\\nInternal Revenue Code. That would encompass, for instance,\\npenalties levied on a tax-return preparer for understating a\\nclient’s liability on a tax return. See id. § 6694.\\n\\n The conclusion that § 7422(a)’s exhaustion requirement\\napplies only to penalties and sums assessed under the Internal\\nRevenue Code follows from the recognition that the\\ngovernment imposes various taxes pursuant to authority\\noutside the Code. See Horizon Coal Corp., 43 F.3d at 236–37\\n(describing the reclamation fee imposed on coal mine operators\\nunder the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of\\n1977, 30 U.S.C. § 1232, as a tax). In that light, a reading of the\\nexhaustion provision that would apply only to “internal\\nrevenue taxes” but would extend to any “penalty” or “sum” at\\nall (beyond the context of the Internal Revenue Code) would\\nlead to anomalous results: it would mean that a taxpayer who\\nwishes to challenge both a non–Title 26 tax and an associated\\npenalty would be required to exhaust her penalty refund\\nrequest, but not her related tax refund request, before filing suit.\\nWe do not understand Congress to have intended to require that\\nsort of splitting of claims.\\n\\n Relatedly, § 7422(a)’s exhaustion requirement calls for\\nclaims to be presented initially to the “Secretary,” i.e., the\\nSecretary of the Treasury. And it would make little sense to\\nunderstand Congress to have required payers of penalties and\\nsums unrelated to the Internal Revenue Code (and, in many\\ncases, imposed by entities other than the IRS) to nonetheless\\nseek a refund from the Secretary of the Treasury. See Horizon\\nCoal Corp., 43 F.3d at 240. We thus conclude that § 7422(a)\\nis not meant to reach the claims in this case.\\n\\f 9\\n That result coheres with the context and purpose of the\\nprovision. With claims challenging the collection of taxes or\\npenalties assessed under the Internal Revenue Code, the IRS\\ncan correct any errors through its own administrative\\nprocesses. But the IRS reports that it has no such\\nadministrative process to examine the lawfulness of its PTIN\\nfee and to correct any errors associated with collecting that fee.\\nRequiring the tax-return preparers to present their claims first\\nto the IRS thus would neither promote efficient resolution of\\ntheir claims nor serve § 7422(a)’s goal of “prevent[ing]\\nsurprise” and “giv[ing] adequate notice to the Service of the\\nnature of the claim and the specific facts upon which it is\\npredicated, thereby permitting an administrative investigation\\nand determination,” Computervision Corp. v. United States,\\n445 F.3d 1355, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks\\nomitted).\\n\\n For those reasons, we conclude that § 7422(a) did not\\nrequire the tax-return preparers to submit their claims to the\\nIRS before bringing this action in federal court.\\n\\n III.\\n\\n On the merits, the tax-return preparers contend that the\\nPTIN fee is unlawful for two distinct reasons. First, they argue\\n(and the district court agreed) that the Independent Offices\\nAppropriations Act does not provide statutory authority for the\\nfee. Second, they contend that the IRS’s decision to impose the\\nfee was arbitrary and capricious. We disagree on both counts.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n We first consider whether the IRS had authority under the\\nIndependent Offices Appropriations Act to charge tax-return\\npreparers a fee to obtain and renew a PTIN. The Independent\\n\\f 10\\nOffices Appropriations Act helps federal agencies recover the\\ncosts of services provided to beneficiaries. See Nat’l Cable Tel.\\nAss’n, Inc. v. United States, 415 U.S. 336, 337 n.1 (1974).\\nUnder the Act, the “head of each agency . . . may prescribe\\nregulations establishing the charge for a service or thing of\\nvalue provided by the agency.” 31 U.S.C. § 9701(b).\\n\\n The Supreme Court considered the Act in companion\\ndecisions issued on the same day in 1974. Fed. Power Comm’n\\nv. New England Power Co., 415 U.S. 345 (1974); Nat’l Cable,\\n415 U.S. 336. The Court “construe[d] the Act to cover only\\n‘fees’ and not ‘taxes.’” New England Power, 415 U.S. at 349.\\nThat is because “[t]axation is a legislative function, and\\nCongress . . . is the sole organ for levying taxes.” Nat’l Cable,\\n415 U.S. at 340. The Court explained that fees, as opposed to\\ntaxes, are imposed on identifiable recipients of particular\\ngovernment services. Id. at 340–41; New England Power, 415\\nU.S. at 349. The Court thus understood the Act to give\\nagencies authority to impose a “reasonable charge” on an\\n“identifiable recipient for a measurable unit or amount of\\nGovernment service or property from which [the recipient]\\nderives a special benefit.” New England Power, 415 U.S. at\\n349 (quoting OMB Circular No. A-25 (Sept. 23, 1959)).\\n\\n The Act, that is, enables an agency to impose a fee only\\nfor “a service that confers a specific benefit upon an\\nidentifiable beneficiary.” Engine Mfrs. Ass’n v. EPA, 20 F.3d\\n1177, 1180 (D.C. Cir. 1994). To justify a fee under the Act,\\nthen, an agency must show (i) that it provides some kind of\\nservice in exchange for the fee, (ii) that the service yields a\\nspecific benefit, and (iii) that the benefit is conferred upon\\nidentifiable individuals. Id.; see Seafarers Int’l Union of N.\\nAm. v. U.S. Coast Guard, 81 F.3d 179, 184–85 (D.C. Cir.\\n1996). Here, the PTIN fee satisfies those conditions.\\n\\f 11\\n 1.\\n\\n We first assess whether the IRS provides a service in\\nexchange for the PTIN fee. We conclude it does: the service\\nof providing tax-return preparers a PTIN. In particular, the IRS\\ngenerates a unique identifying number for each tax-return\\npreparer and maintains a database of those PTINs, enabling\\npreparers to use those numbers in place of their social security\\nnumbers on tax returns. The IRS devotes personnel and\\nresources to managing the PTIN application and renewal\\nprocess and developing and maintaining the database of PTINs.\\nThe provision of a PTIN, and the associated functions,\\nconstitute the provision of a service.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers question how robust a service the\\nIRS undertakes when it provides them a PTIN. As they point\\nout, before our decision in Loving invalidated the registered\\ntax-return preparer regulations, the activities the IRS undertook\\nin connection with PTINs were more substantial. That now-\\ninvalidated regime called for the agency to administer\\ncompetency tests and continuing-education requirements for\\npreparers. 76 Fed. Reg. at 32,287. After Loving, the IRS no\\nlonger performs those functions. Instead, the agency’s PTIN-\\nrelated services are now confined to generating and\\nmaintaining a database of PTINs. Preparer Tax Identification\\nNumber (PTIN) User Fee Update, 80 Fed. Reg. 66,792, 66,794\\n(Oct. 30, 2015).\\n\\n Those functions, although a slimmed-down version of the\\nPTIN-related services afforded by the agency before Loving,\\nstill constitute the provision of a service. To the extent the tax-\\nreturn preparers believe that the amount of the PTIN fee is out\\nof step with the narrowed scope of remaining PTIN-related\\nfunctions, those concerns pertain to the reasonableness of the\\nfee, not to whether a fee can be assessed in the first place. See\\n\\f 12\\nSeafarers, 81 F.3d at 185–86. There may be force to the tax-\\nreturn preparers’ claim that the fee amount is excessive, but no\\ncourt has yet considered that claim, and the preparers can press\\nthe matter in the proceedings on remand.\\n\\n 2.\\n\\n Having determined that the IRS provides a service—the\\nprovision of a PTIN—in exchange for the challenged fee, we\\nnext consider whether that service affords a specific benefit.\\nWe conclude it does: the PTIN helps protect tax-return\\npreparers’ identities by allowing them to list a number on\\nreturns other than their social security number.\\n\\n The service provided in exchange for a fee assessed under\\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act must confer a\\n“specific benefit” on the charged party, Engine Mfrs. Ass’n, 20\\nF.3d at 1180—i.e., a “special benefit . . . above and beyond that\\nwhich accrues to the public at large,” Ayuda, Inc. v. Attorney\\nGen., 848 F.2d 1297, 1301 (D.C. Cir. 1988). That\\nunderstanding comes from the Supreme Court’s construction\\nof the Act as authorizing fees rather than taxes, with the former\\nassessed against those specifically benefitting from a particular\\nservice and the latter imposed for the benefit of the general\\npublic. See Nat’l Cable, 415 U.S. at 340–41.\\n\\n In contending that the “specific benefit” requirement is\\nmet here, the IRS reasons in part that agency regulations\\nrequire tax-return preparers to obtain a PTIN in order to prepare\\ntax returns for compensation, and “[t]he ability to prepare tax\\nreturns . . . for compensation is a special benefit.” 80 Fed. Reg.\\nat 66,794. The tax-return preparers respond that, in light of\\nLoving’s conclusion that the IRS lacks statutory authority to\\nestablish a licensing scheme for preparers, the PTIN fee cannot\\nbe justified as offsetting the costs of administering a licensing\\n\\f 13\\nregime. Nor, the tax-return preparers argue, can the agency\\nsimply create an obligation to obtain a PTIN that is untethered\\nto any underlying licensing system, and then treat satisfaction\\nof that agency-invented requirement as a specific benefit for\\nwhich a fee may be assessed. See Seafarers, 81 F.3d at 186\\n(“[A]n agency is not free to add extra licensing procedures and\\nthen charge a user fee merely because the agency has general\\nauthority to regulate in a particular area.”); Cent. & S. Motor\\nFreight Tariff Ass’n v. United States, 777 F.2d 722, 729 (D.C.\\nCir. 1985) (“To be legally cognizable, the private benefit must\\nbe predicated upon something other than the mere fact of\\nregulation . . . .”).\\n\\n We need not resolve whether satisfying the\\nagency-imposed requirement to obtain a PTIN, standing alone,\\ncould qualify as a specific benefit for which the agency may\\nlevy a fee. That is because the PTIN requirement is supported\\nby an additional justification advanced by the IRS, one that we\\nfind adequate to support the assessment of a PTIN fee: the\\nprotection of the confidentiality of tax-return preparers’ social\\nsecurity numbers. See 75 Fed. Reg. at 60,309; 80 Fed. Reg. at\\n66,793. And not only does that confidentiality-protection\\njustification independently support assessment of a PTIN fee,\\nbut the permissible amount of the fee would remain the same\\nregardless of whether it is justified based on that rationale or\\ninstead based on the need to satisfy the agency-imposed\\nrequirement to obtain a PTIN. In either case, the IRS would\\nneed to construct and maintain a PTIN database and provide a\\nPTIN to each tax-return preparer, and it could permissibly\\nrecover the costs associated with those functions through the\\nPTIN fee, see Nat’l Cable Television Ass’n v. FCC, 554 F.2d\\n1094, 1107 (D.C. Cir. 1976).\\n\\n We thus can rest on the confidentiality-protection rationale\\nalone as conferring a specific benefit for which a PTIN fee may\\n\\f 14\\nbe assessed. The confidentiality advantages associated with\\nthe PTIN requirement readily qualify as a specific benefit:\\nwithout protection of their social security numbers, preparers\\nwould face greater risks of identity theft.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers argue that the IRS cannot rely on\\nthe protection of confidential information as a benefit justifying\\nthe PTIN fee. They reason that the agency did not specifically\\ninvoke the confidentiality concern when it issued the PTIN\\nregulation and thus may not lean on that justification now. See\\nSEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 196 (1947). We\\nconclude, however, that the IRS adequately relied on the\\nconfidentiality protections afforded by PTINs when issuing the\\nPTIN regulations.\\n\\n The IRS’s concern with maintaining the confidentiality of\\npreparers’ social security numbers runs throughout the\\nregulatory history of the PTIN requirement and fee. When\\nproposing the PTIN regulations in 2010, the IRS decided to\\nrequire all tax-return preparers to use a single identifying\\nnumber so that it could “better collect and track data on . . .\\npreparers.” User Fees Relating to Enrollment and Preparer Tax\\nIdentification Numbers, 75 Fed. Reg. 43,110, 43,110 (July 23,\\n2010). The IRS at that point faced a choice: it could use the\\npreparers’ social security numbers, or it could instead use\\nPTINs (which many preparers by then had obtained). The\\nagency chose to mandate the use of PTINs.\\n\\n In opting to require the use of PTINs in 2010, the IRS\\nexplained that they provide “an alternative to using the tax\\nreturn preparers’ social security numbers.” Id. When issuing\\nits final PTIN regulations later that year, the IRS specifically\\nnoted the “identity protection currently provided by PTINs,”\\n75 Fed. Reg. at 60,318, and explained that the regulations\\nwould benefit “tax return preparers and help maintain the\\n\\f 15\\nconfidentiality of SSNs,” 75 Fed. Reg. at 60,309. The IRS’s\\nview is consistent with the concern animating Congress’s grant\\nof authority to the IRS to mandate the use of PTINs: “that\\ninappropriate use might be made of a preparer’s social security\\nnumber” under the pre-PTIN scheme. S. Rep. No. 105-174, at\\n106. And when the IRS reissued the PTIN fee regulations in\\n2015 after our decision in Loving invalidated the registered tax-\\nreturn preparer program, the agency again explained that\\n“[r]equiring the use of PTINs . . . benefits tax return preparers\\nby allowing them to provide an identifying number on the\\nreturn that is not an SSN.” 80 Fed. Reg. at 66,793.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers submit that those various\\nstatements by the IRS should not count because they appear in\\nthe regulatory commentary addressed to the agency’s\\nunderlying requirement that preparers obtain a PTIN, not in the\\nagency’s explanation of the fee for providing a PTIN. But the\\nIRS noted “the identity protection currently provided by\\nPTINs” in the portion of the 2010 regulatory commentary\\naddressed to the PTIN fee, not the portion generally discussing\\nthe PTIN requirement. See 75 Fed. Reg. at 60,318. And in any\\nevent, the IRS’s explanation of the PTIN requirement bears\\ndirectly on the specific benefit conferred in exchange for the\\nPTIN fee. After all, the specific-benefit question concerns\\nwhat benefit, if any, the PTIN affords to preparers. And when\\nthe IRS observed that a “benefit[]” of the PTIN is that it allows\\npreparers to “provide an identifying number on the return that\\nis not an SSN,” 80 Fed. Reg. at 66,793, the agency necessarily\\nconveyed that a benefit preparers receive in exchange for the\\nPTIN fee is the ability to provide a number “that is not an\\nSSN,” id.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers question the extent to which the\\nPTIN requirement in fact helps protect preparers’ confidential\\ninformation. In their view, because the IRS already allowed\\n\\f 16\\npreparers to omit their social security numbers on the copy of\\nreturns provided to the taxpayer, the replacement of social\\nsecurity numbers with PTINs affords no additional protection\\nof preparers’ confidential information.\\n\\n Congress, however, believed otherwise. When Congress\\nin 1998 amended the Internal Revenue Code to allow the IRS\\nto mandate the use of PTINs, the IRS had been allowing\\npreparers to omit their social security numbers from the\\ntaxpayers’ returns for over twenty years. See Rev. Rul. 78-317,\\n1978-2 C.B. 335. Notwithstanding the longtime availability of\\nthat option, Congress authorized the IRS to require PTINs\\nbased on concerns “that inappropriate use might be made of a\\npreparer’s social security number.” S. Rep. No. 105-174, at\\n106.\\n\\n Nor did the option to omit social security numbers on the\\ntaxpayer’s copy of a return mitigate preparers’ concerns about\\nthe exposure of their confidential information. After the IRS\\nin 2010 proposed mandating the use of PTINs, Furnishing\\nIdentifying Number of Tax Return Preparer, 75 Fed. Reg.\\n14,539 (Mar. 26, 2010), several groups of tax-return preparers\\nsubmitted comments supporting the change due to concerns\\nabout protecting the confidentiality of preparers’ social\\nsecurity numbers. H&R Block, which in 2010 was the “largest\\nemployer of tax return preparers (approximately 120,000),”\\nsupported the IRS’s proposal to mandate PTINs because PTINs\\n“protect the confidentiality of SSNs.” H&R Block, Comment\\nLetter on Proposed Rule Furnishing Identifying Number of Tax\\nReturn Preparer, at 1, 6 (Apr. 21, 2010),\\nhttps://www.regulations.gov/document?D=IRS-2010-0009-\\n0127. The Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants,\\nrepresenting 23,000 members, likewise approved of the IRS’s\\nproposal because “the use of the PTIN as a preparer identifier\\nwill minimize confidentiality concerns related to what could\\n\\f 17\\nhave been an alternative: the use of preparer social security\\nnumbers.” Ohio Society of CPAs, Comment Letter on\\nProposed Rule Furnishing Identifying Number of Tax Return\\nPreparer, at 1 (Apr. 26, 2010),\\nhttps://www.regulations.gov/document?D=IRS-2010-0009-\\n0193. The IRS reasonably agreed with those preparers—and\\nwith Congress—that PTINs would help to protect preparers’\\nconfidential information.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers next argue that, even if\\nconfidentiality concerns could justify assessing a fee for\\ninitially providing a PTIN, those concerns cannot justify the\\nIRS’s fee to renew that number annually. We are unpersuaded.\\nThe IRS not only provides a PTIN upon an initial application\\nbut also maintains a database that allows preparers to continue\\nusing their PTINs in subsequent years. The renewal fee, then,\\npertains to the agency’s continuing efforts in that regard.\\n\\n To be sure, the tax-return preparers might question\\nwhether the amount of the renewal fee bears an adequate\\nrelationship to the continuing costs incurred by the IRS to\\nmaintain the PTIN database. But those concerns pertain to the\\namount of the fee, not the antecedent question of whether the\\nfee generally lies within the IRS’s statutory authority under the\\nIndependent Offices Appropriations Act. On remand, the\\ndistrict court is free to consider arguments concerning the\\nalleged excessiveness of the fee, including whether the renewal\\nfee is “reasonably related” to the “costs which the agency\\nactually incurs” in providing the service, Nat’l Cable\\nTelevision Ass’n, 554 F.2d at 1107, and “the value of the\\nservice to the recipient,” Cent. & S. Motor, 777 F.2d at 729.\\nFor purposes of the issue we consider at this stage of the\\nproceedings, though, it is enough for us to conclude that the\\nPTIN requirement specifically benefits tax-return preparers by\\n\\f 18\\nhelping to protect the confidentiality of their personal\\ninformation.\\n\\n 3.\\n\\n Finally, we address whether the IRS provides the service\\nand associated benefit—i.e., the provision of PTINs and the\\nresulting protection of confidential personal information—to\\n“identifiable recipients” rather than to the public at large.\\nSeafarers, 81 F.3d at 184. We think it does. Tax-return\\npreparers as a group qualify as identifiable recipients for\\npurposes of justifying a fee assessed under the Independent\\nOffices Appropriations Act.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers submit that, because essentially\\nanyone can obtain a PTIN after our decision in Loving, the\\nservice and benefit associated with the PTIN extend to the\\npublic at large rather than only to specific, identifiable\\nrecipients. It does not matter, though, that the service and\\nbenefit are theoretically available to the general public. What\\nmatters is that the service is provided to, and the corresponding\\nbenefit is received by, the specific group of persons who in fact\\npay the fee.\\n\\n That understanding draws support from the Supreme\\nCourt’s identification of passports as an example of a service\\nfor which an agency can appropriately charge a fee under the\\nAct. See New England Power, 415 U.S. at 349 n.3. Although\\npassports are generally available to the entire citizenry, the Act,\\nas understood by the Supreme Court, enables the State\\nDepartment to charge a fee to the particular persons who apply\\nfor a passport because the service undertaken to process\\npassport applications benefits those persons. See id. The same\\nis true of those persons who, in exchange for paying a fee,\\nobtain and renew a PTIN. And because the IRS charges only\\n\\f 19\\nthose who receive the benefit of a PTIN, the specific benefit\\nsupporting the fee extends only to identifiable individuals\\nrather than the public writ large. See id. at 349.\\n\\n In sum, the IRS acted within its statutory authority under\\nthe Independent Offices Appropriations Act in charging tax-\\nreturn preparers a fee to obtain and renew PTINs.\\n\\n B.\\n\\n We next address whether the IRS’s decision to assess a\\nPTIN fee was arbitrary and capricious. See 5 U.S.C.\\n§ 706(2)(A). An agency generally must “give adequate reasons\\nfor its decisions,” and the requirement to give a “satisfactory\\nexplanation for its actions” is “satisfied when the agency’s\\nexplanation is clear enough that its path may reasonably be\\ndiscerned.” Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 136 S. Ct.\\n2117, 2125 (2016).\\n\\n The tax-return preparers principally contend that the IRS’s\\naccount of its reasons for imposing a PTIN fee does not survive\\nour decision in Loving. In the preparers’ view, the IRS\\nprovided no reasoned justification for the fee separate from\\njustifications that can no longer support the fee after Loving.\\nThe preparers emphasize that the 2010 regulations originally\\nestablishing the PTIN fee stated that the fee would pay for the\\nregistered tax-return preparer program, which Loving later\\ninvalidated. See 75 Fed. Reg. at 43,111.\\n\\n We conclude that the IRS sufficiently rooted its decision\\nto assess a PTIN fee in justifications independent of those\\nrejected in Loving. When the IRS reissued the PTIN fee\\nregulations after Loving, it explained that PTINs would benefit\\npreparers by protecting their confidential information and\\nwould improve tax compliance and administration. 80 Fed.\\n\\f 20\\nReg. at 66,793. Loving did not cast doubt on those\\njustifications, which are independent of the registered tax-\\nreturn preparer program we considered and invalidated there.\\n\\n With specific regard to assessing a fee for providing a\\nPTIN, the IRS explained that generating PTINs and\\nmaintaining a database of PTINs cost substantial sums, and\\nthat, in its view, those costs were more appropriately recouped\\nfrom preparers who obtain a PTIN than from the general\\npublic. See id. at 66,793–94. Those costs, as explained, can be\\nrecovered through the PTIN fee. See supra at 13. And the IRS\\nnoted that it incurred costs associated with providing PTINs\\nbeyond the costs of the services invalidated in Loving, and that\\nit was reducing the fee to account for the elimination of those\\nfunctions deemed beyond its authority in Loving. See 80 Fed.\\nReg. at 66,794.\\n\\n It is true that the IRS’s accounting in the regulatory\\nmaterials of the services paid for by the PTIN fee generally\\ndescribes certain functions that, depending on their precise\\nscope, could be seen to raise questions about whether they\\nrange beyond the IRS’s authority after Loving—e.g.,\\n“background checks,” “professional designation checks,” and\\n“compliance and IRS complaint activities.” 80 Fed. Reg. at\\n66,794. But the IRS also explained that the fee is “based on\\ndirect costs of the PTIN program, which include staffing and\\ncontract-related costs for activities, processes, and procedures\\nrelated to the electronic and paper registration and renewal\\nsubmissions.” Id. That explanation survives Loving because,\\nas the district court held, the IRS’s requirement that preparers\\nobtain and renew a PTIN survives Loving. See Steele, 260 F.\\nSupp. 3d at 62–63.\\n\\n The tax-return preparers’ concerns that the justifications\\nfor the PTIN fee might encompass functions deemed in Loving\\n\\f 21\\nto fall outside the IRS’s regulatory authority can be addressed\\non remand, when the district court examines whether the\\namount of the fee is reasonable and consistent with the\\nIndependent Offices Appropriations Act. But aside from\\nquestions to be considered on remand about whether the\\namount of the PTIN fee impermissibly encompasses functions\\nfalling outside the IRS’s statutory authority, the IRS’s decision\\nto charge a fee at all was adequately grounded in services lying\\nwithin its authority, and thus was not arbitrary and capricious.\\n\\n * * * * *\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the judgment of the\\ndistrict court and remand the case for further proceedings.\\n\\n It is so ordered.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1366,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7334993,"string":"7,334,993"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"REPORTERS COMMITTEE FOR FREEDOM OF the PRESS v. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Reporters Comm. for Freedom Press v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-01"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Civil Action No.: 17-1701 (RC)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Contreras\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7252913/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"CONTRERAS"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"CONTRERAS"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334993/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: REPORTERS COMMITTEE FOR FREEDOM OF the PRESS v. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-01\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: REPORTERS COMMITTEE FOR FREEDOM OF the PRESS v. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-01\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1367,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7334065,"string":"7,334,065"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER v. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Nat'l Women's Law Ctr. v. Office of Mgmt. & Budget"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-04"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Civil Action No. 17-cv-2458 (TSC)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Chutkan\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7251985/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"CHUTKAN"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"CHUTKAN"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334065/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER v. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-04\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER v. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-04\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1368,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7334388,"string":"7,334,388"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Fielding MCGEHEE v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"McGehee v. U.S. Dep't of Justice"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-04"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Case No. 1:01-cv-01872 (TNM)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"McFadden\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7252308/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"MCFADDEN"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"MCFADDEN"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334388/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Fielding MCGEHEE v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-04\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Fielding MCGEHEE v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-04\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1369,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335318,"string":"7,335,318"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"NEW ORLEANS WORKERS' CENTER FOR RACIAL JUSTICE v. UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION & CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"New Orleans Workers' Ctr. for Racial Justice v. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-04"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Civil Action No. 15-431 (RBW)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Walton\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253238/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"WALTON"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"WALTON"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335318/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: NEW ORLEANS WORKERS' CENTER FOR RACIAL JUSTICE v. UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION & CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-04\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: NEW ORLEANS WORKERS' CENTER FOR RACIAL JUSTICE v. UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION & CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-04\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1370,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4596448,"string":"4,596,448"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"NOVATO HEALTHCARE CENTER, Petitioner v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Novato Healthcare Ctr. v. Nat'l Labor Relations Bd."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-05"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"17-1221; C/w 17-1232"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Garland, Griffith, Edwards\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GARLAND\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued September 17, 2018 Decided March 5, 2019\\n\\n No. 17-1221\\n\\n NOVATO HEALTHCARE CENTER,\\n PETITIONER\\n\\n v.\\n\\n NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,\\n RESPONDENT\\n\\n\\n Consolidated with 17-1232\\n\\n\\n On Petition for Review and Cross-Application\\n for Enforcement of an Order of\\n the National Labor Relations Board\\n\\n\\n Ryan N. Parsons argued the cause for petitioner. With him\\non the briefs was Kamran Mirrafati.\\n\\n Rebecca J. Johnston, Attorney, National Labor Relations\\nBoard, argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief\\nwere Peter B. Robb, General Counsel, John W. Kyle, Deputy\\nGeneral Counsel, Linda Dreeben, Deputy Associate General\\nCounsel, and Jill A. Griffin, Supervisory Attorney.\\n\\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge,\\nand EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\f 2\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GARLAND.\\n\\n GARLAND, Chief Judge: In 1992, Vincent Gambini taught\\na master class in cross-examination.1 Trial counsel for the\\nNational Labor Relations Board and the National Union of\\nHealthcare Workers apparently paid attention. In this petition\\nfor review, Novato Healthcare Center challenges the Board’s\\nfinding that it committed an unfair labor practice by firing four\\nunion organizers two days before a union election. As Novato\\nacknowledges, its “entire case turns on whether the testimony”\\nof one of its supervisors “should be credited.” Reply Br. 5. But\\nthe Board determined that the testimony should not be credited,\\nand trial counsel’s cross-examination of the supervisor provides\\nsubstantial evidence to support that determination. For this\\nreason, and because the other findings that Novato challenges\\nare also supported by substantial evidence, we deny Novato’s\\npetition for review and grant the Board’s cross-application for\\nenforcement.\\n\\n I\\n\\n Novato operates a skilled-nursing facility in California that\\ncares for about 170 patients. On September 16, 2015, the\\nNational Union of Healthcare Workers filed a petition with the\\nNational Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to represent a unit of\\nNovato employees. Among the employees leading the union-\\norganizing effort were Narvius Metellus, Rolando Bernales,\\nArlene Waters Brown, and Angel Sabelino. All four attended\\nunion meetings, collected show-of-interest signatures, wore\\npro-union buttons and lanyards, distributed union regalia, and\\npassed out flyers promoting the union.\\n\\n\\n\\n 1\\n See MY COUSIN VINNY (Twentieth Century Fox 1992) (cross-\\nexamination of Mr. Tipton); infra note 5.\\n\\f 3\\n\\n Novato’s management undertook its own union-opposition\\ncampaign. Although Novato supervisors did not generally work\\nnight shifts, facility administrator Darron Treude asked\\nsupervisors to volunteer for those shifts so they could provide\\nunion-opposition materials to employees and answer their\\nquestions. CPEhr, an outside consulting group that provides\\nemployment law advice, spearheaded the union-opposition\\ncampaign on behalf of Novato.\\n\\n On October 4, 2015, ten days before the October 14-15\\nrepresentation election, Novato supervisor Gay Rocha\\napproached employee Metellus at approximately 6:30 a.m.\\nRocha asked Metellus, who was a relatively new employee, how\\nhe planned to vote in the upcoming election. When Metellus\\nresponded that he planned to vote in favor of the union, Rocha\\ntold him that doing so would have implications for his pay and\\nthat the union could potentially take a portion of his paycheck.\\nMetellus responded that this would not be a problem for him.\\n\\n On October 6-7, Metellus, Bernales, Brown, and Sabelino\\nworked the night shift together at Station 4, one of four nursing\\nstations at the Novato facility. During that shift, another\\nemployee, Gonzala Rodriguez, whose union views were and\\nremain unknown, worked at Station 1. At Novato, night-shift\\nemployees work from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 or 7:30 a.m.,\\ndepending on their positions. During a shift, employees are\\nallowed two 10-minute rest breaks. In addition, they are\\nallowed one 30-minute meal break. Employees routinely sleep\\nduring these breaks, which they are permitted to take at any\\ntime, so long as at least one station member is available. See\\nNovato Healthcare Ctr., 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 7 (Sept. 29,\\n2017) (ALJ Op.).\\n\\n Novato supervisor Teresa Gilman also worked the night\\nshift on October 6-7, as part of Novato’s union-opposition\\n\\f 4\\n\\ncampaign. According to Gilman’s testimony at the subsequent\\nunfair labor practices hearing, she arrived at the Novato facility\\nsome time after 3:50 a.m. on October 7. After completing a\\nnumber of tasks, Gilman began making the rounds of the\\nnursing stations, starting with Station 4.\\n\\n Gilman testified that, when she arrived at Station 4, she saw\\nall four employees sleeping. She said she stood in front of the\\nemployees for “several seconds to up to a minute” to see if they\\nwould wake up. Id. at 11. According to Gilman, they did not.\\n\\n Gilman then proceeded to Stations 3 and 1.2 She testified\\nthat, at Station 1, she saw another employee, Rodriguez,\\nsleeping. According to Gilman, Rodriguez was sitting in a chair\\noutside a patient’s room with her head down on a table.\\n\\n On Gilman’s second and third rounds through Stations 4, 3,\\nand 1, she said she saw all five employees still asleep in the\\nsame positions in which she had last seen them. On her third\\nvisit to Station 4, Gilman used her cell phone to take a\\nphotograph of two of the four employees, Brown and Sabelino.\\nThe photo shows the two with their eyes closed. Although the\\nphotograph initially did not have a timestamp, Gilman later\\nproduced a version with a timestamp of 4:21 a.m.\\n\\n Timing, in this case, is (almost) everything. Gilman\\ntestified that at least 15 to 20 minutes passed from the time she\\nfirst arrived at Station 4 and saw the employees sleeping, to the\\ntime she took the photograph of the two sleeping employees. If\\ntrue, this meant that at least two of the Station 4 employees had\\nbeen sleeping considerably longer than their permitted 10-\\nminute breaks.\\n\\n\\n 2\\n She did not stop at Station 2 because it was “an alarmed unit\\nand alarms would go off.” J.A. 443 (Gilman Test.).\\n\\f 5\\n\\n Gilman then went on to revisit Station 1. She noticed that\\nRodriguez was still sleeping and informed the charge nurse, who\\nwoke her up. Gilman estimated that Rodriguez had been asleep\\nfor at least 15 to 20 minutes as well. By the time Gilman\\nreturned to Station 4 for a fourth time, all four employees there\\nwere awake.\\n\\n On the morning of October 7, Gilman sent administrator\\nTreude the photograph and soon thereafter informed him that the\\nfive employees had been asleep for 15 to 20 minutes. Treude\\nsuspended all five and initiated an investigation. Novato’s\\noutside counsel, Richard Albert, as well as its outside consulting\\ngroup, CPEhr, provided input regarding disciplinary options.\\nSpecifically, in an email to Treude and CPEhr, Albert\\nrecommended that Treude terminate all five employees.\\nAlthough Albert recognized that Rodriguez was “a bit of a\\ndifferent story” because her “Charge Nurse appears to have\\ntolerated her sleeping,” he still recommended her termination:\\n“[G]iving her lesser discipline, in this situation, sends the wrong\\nmessage to the NLRB or a judge looking at this. It is possible\\nthat [the] NLRB or judge could view her situation as being less\\nserious than the others, but I would rather have you take that\\nrisk, than the risk that letting her remain employed somehow\\ndilutes our arguments with the other 4.” Email from Albert to\\nTreude, et al. (Oct. 10, 2015) (J.A. 529).\\n\\n On October 12, two days before the scheduled election,\\nTreude fired all five employees for sleeping on duty. On\\nOctober 14 and 15, the NLRB conducted the election, which the\\nunion won.\\n\\n Thereafter, the union charged Novato with committing\\nunfair labor practices, and the NLRB’s General Counsel issued\\na complaint. Gilman testified as recounted above. The two\\nStation 4 employees captured in the photograph, Brown and\\n\\f 6\\n\\nSabelino, acknowledged that they had slept, but said they did so\\nonly during their permitted 10-minute breaks. Bernales testified\\nthat, although he had rested during his allowed meal break, he\\ndid not sleep after returning to Station 4 at 4:00 a.m. Metellus\\ntestified that he did not sleep at all during that shift. Rodriguez,\\nthe Station 1 employee, did not testify.\\n\\n Following a multi-day hearing, the ALJ found that Novato\\nviolated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by\\nsuspending and firing the five employees, and also violated the\\nAct when Rocha questioned Metellus about how he planned to\\nvote. 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 18. The Board affirmed the\\nALJ’s rulings, findings, credibility determinations, and\\nconclusions, with minor modifications. Id. at 1.\\n\\n Novato has now filed a petition for review in this court, and\\nthe NLRB has filed a cross-application for enforcement of its\\norder. Under the applicable standard of review, we must uphold\\nthe judgment of the Board unless its findings are unsupported by\\nsubstantial evidence, or it acted arbitrarily or otherwise erred in\\napplying established law to the facts of the case. Spurlino\\nMaterials, LLC v. NLRB, 805 F.3d 1131, 1136 (D.C. Cir. 2015);\\nBally’s Park Place, Inc. v. NLRB, 646 F.3d 929, 935 (D.C. Cir.\\n2011); see 29 U.S.C. § 160(f) (providing that the Board’s\\nfindings of fact are “conclusive” if “supported by substantial\\nevidence on the record considered as a whole”).\\n\\n II\\n\\n We begin with Novato’s challenge to the Board’s finding\\nthat Novato violated Section 8(a)(1) and (3) of the NLRA, 29\\nU.S.C. § 158(a)(1), (3), by suspending and then firing the four\\nemployees at Station 4. It is on this issue that the information\\nelicited by cross-examination is important.\\n\\f 7\\n\\n An employer violates Section 8(a)(1) and (3) by suspending\\nor discharging an employee for engaging in protected union\\nactivity. NLRB v. Transp. Mgmt. Corp., 462 U.S. 393, 397-98\\n(1983); Metro. Edison Co. v. NLRB, 460 U.S. 693, 698 n.4\\n(1983); Tasty Baking Co. v. NLRB, 254 F.3d 114, 125 (D.C. Cir.\\n2001).3 The Board employs the judicially approved Wright Line\\ntest when reviewing a claim that an employer discharged (or\\ntook other disciplinary action against) an employee for protected\\nconduct. See Wright Line, 251 N.L.R.B. 1083, 1089 (1980); see\\nalso Transp. Mgmt. Corp., 462 U.S. at 401-03 (approving the\\nWright Line test); Bally’s Park Place, 646 F.3d at 935. “Under\\nthat test, the General Counsel must first ‘make a prima facie\\nshowing sufficient to support the inference that protected . . .\\nconduct was a motivating factor in the [discharge].’” Tasty\\nBaking, 254 F.3d at 125 (quoting TIC-The Indus. Co. Se. v.\\nNLRB, 126 F.3d 334, 337 (D.C. Cir. 1997)). “Once a prima facie\\ncase has been established, the burden [of persuasion] shifts to\\nthe company to show that it would have taken the same action\\nin the absence of the unlawful motive.” Id. at 126; see Bally’s\\nPark Place, 646 F.3d at 935.\\n\\n In the proceedings below, Novato disputed the unfair labor\\npractice charges at both steps of the Wright Line test. With\\nrespect to the first step, the ALJ, affirmed by the Board, readily\\n\\n\\n 3\\n Section 7 of the NLRA guarantees employees the “right to\\nself-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, . . . and\\nto engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective\\nbargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” 29 U.S.C. § 157.\\nSection 8(a)(1) provides that “[i]t shall be an unfair labor practice for\\nan employer . . . to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the\\nexercise of the rights guaranteed” in Section 7. Id. § 158(a)(1). And\\nSection 8(a)(3) prohibits “discrimination in regard to . . . tenure of\\nemployment . . . to . . . discourage membership in any labor\\norganization.” Id. § 158(a)(3).\\n\\f 8\\n\\nfound sufficient evidence to support the inference that anti-union\\nanimus was a motivating factor in the suspension and discharge\\nof the Station 4 employees. The “record show[ed],” the ALJ\\nrecounted, that the four employees “visibly supported the union\\norganizing campaign by [inter alia] wearing lanyards and\\nbuttons, passing out flyers, and getting employees to sign [up]\\nfor a showing of interest,” and that “their actions were visible\\nfrom Treude’s office.” 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 16. In light of\\nthose facts, the ALJ rejected, as “disingenuous,” Novato’s\\n“claims that its supervisors were unaware of the employees’\\nunion activity.” Id. She specifically declined to “credit\\nGilman’s testimony that she did not know whether the allegedly\\nsleeping employees were union supporters since she did not\\nnotice any union lanyards or pins,” because Gilman “also\\ntestified in incredible detail as to how the employees were\\npositioned and claimed to have stood in front of them for some\\ntime.” Id. In addition, the ALJ noted that the “suspensions and\\ndischarges occurred only a couple weeks after the filing of the\\nrepresentation petition and only 1 week prior to the\\nrepresentation election.” Id. And she also noted that Novato’s\\nanimus was “demonstrated by its contemporaneous 8(a)(1)\\nviolation[]”: Rocha’s unlawful interrogation of Metellus about\\nhis preference in the representation election. Id.\\n\\n The ALJ found additional support for the inference of\\nanimus and discriminatory motivation in the fact that Novato\\n“acted disparately”: “No other employees had been suspended\\nand discharged for the same or similar allegations.” Id. at 17.\\nShe observed that, “[i]n a similar situation in 2009 where an\\nemployee allegedly slept on duty, [Novato] did not discipline\\nthis employee even though there too was a picture of the\\nsleeping employee.” Id. The ALJ further noted that, although\\njust one week “prior to the events at issue in [t]his matter, one\\nof [Novato’s] supervisors also reported employees sleeping\\nduring the night shift[,] . . . Treude failed to investigate or follow\\n\\f 9\\n\\nup on this allegation.” Id. Instead, “Treude singularly focused\\non Metellus, Bernales, Brown, and Sabelino and one can only\\nconclude it was due to their union activity.” Id.\\n\\n In this court, Novato does “not contest the Board’s finding\\nof an unlawful motivation in discharging the employees at\\nissue.” Reply Br. 2; Oral Arg. at 1:50-2:33. Rather, Novato’s\\nsole contention is that it met its burden of proof under the\\nsecond step of the Wright Line test by proving “that it would\\nhave taken the same action absent the improper motive.” Reply\\nBr. 4. As it argued below, Novato maintains here that it would\\nhave terminated the four regardless of their union support\\nbecause of the “brazen” nature of their conduct in sleeping on\\nduty. 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 17 (ALJ Op.).\\n\\n The ALJ, affirmed by the Board, rejected Novato’s Wright\\nLine defense. Id.; see id. at 1 nn. 1, 2 (Board Op.). She rejected\\nTreude’s testimony in its entirety for multiple reasons, including\\nhis demeanor, id. at 5 (ALJ Op.) (“evasive[], . . . vague and\\ncontradictory”), and his disparate treatment of earlier sleeping-\\non-the-job claims, id. at 17. As discussed below, she\\nspecifically discredited Gilman’s testimony that she saw the four\\nemployees sleeping on duty. Id. at 5. Instead, she credited in its\\nentirety the testimony of Brown, and in relevant part the\\ntestimony of Sabelino, both of whom acknowledged that they\\nhad slept but said they did so only during their permitted\\n10-minute breaks. Id.4 In addition, the ALJ credited the\\ntestimony of Bernales, who testified that the only rest he took\\nwas during his permitted 30-minute meal break prior to 4:00\\na.m., and of Metellus, who testified that he did not sleep at all\\nduring the shift. Id. at 5-6.\\n\\n\\n 4\\n The ALJ further credited Brown’s testimony that she ensured\\nthat Metellus and Bernales were both awake and working when she\\nwent to sleep on her break. 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 5.\\n\\f 10\\n\\n Novato acknowledges that its Step 2 Wright Line argument\\n-- that it would have discharged the four employees regardless\\nof any anti-union motive because they were sleeping on duty\\nwell past their permitted rest periods -- turns entirely on\\n“whether the testimony of Gilman should be credited.” Reply\\nBr. 5; Oral Arg. at 2:40-3:00. Novato’s success therefore\\ndepends on persuading us that the ALJ’s conclusions about\\nGilman’s credibility were unsupported. And that presents\\nNovato with a difficult task because “we do not reverse the\\nBoard’s adoption of an ALJ’s credibility determinations unless\\n. . . those determinations are ‘hopelessly incredible,’\\n‘self-contradictory,’ or ‘patently unsupportable.’” Shamrock\\nFoods Co. v. NLRB, 346 F.3d 1130, 1134 (D.C. Cir. 2003)\\n(quoting Cadbury Beverages, Inc. v. NLRB, 160 F.3d 24, 28\\n(D.C. Cir. 1998)).\\n\\n Novato insists that it is up to this difficult task because\\nphotographic evidence “fully corroborated” Gilman’s testimony\\n“that the Unit 4 employees were sleeping for 20 minutes.”\\nReply Br. 6, 5. That itself is an overstatement of Gilman’s\\nactual testimony, which was that the employees were sleeping\\n“at least 15 to 20 minutes.” J.A. 456 (Gilman Test.). Be that as\\nit may, Novato’s argument here is in line with the position it\\ntook before the ALJ:\\n\\n Immediately after the October 7 incident, Gilman\\n reported that she began her rounding at approximately\\n 4:00 am on October 7, and took the photo of Brown\\n and Sabelino somewhere around 15-20 minutes later.\\n At the time she made these representations, the photo\\n Gilman had taken had no time stamp on it. . . . Once\\n she [downloaded a software update on her smart\\n phone], a time stamp appeared indicating that the\\n picture was taken at 4:21 am . . . . This indisputable\\n time stamp evidence is totally consistent with Gilman’s\\n\\f 11\\n\\n testimony as well as her prior statements about the\\n events of October 7 -- she arrived on Unit 4 at or\\n slightly after 4:00 am, and took the photo at least\\n 15-20 minutes later.\\n\\nNovato Post-Hearing Br. 15 (emphasis added). Like the ALJ,\\nwe will assume that the 4:21 a.m. timestamp was accurate,\\nnotwithstanding some doubts in that regard. See 365 N.L.R.B.\\nNo. 137, at 5, 12 n.27.\\n\\n And here is where the lesson Vinny Gambini taught comes\\ninto play. A key issue in the murder trial of Vinny’s cousin,\\nBill, was how many minutes had passed between the time\\nwitness Sam Tipton saw Bill enter the Sac-O-Suds convenience\\nstore and the time he heard a gunshot. On direct examination,\\nTipton testified that he was sure only five minutes had passed\\nbecause he saw Bill go into the store as he (Tipton) started\\nmaking breakfast, and the shot rang out just as his breakfast was\\nready to eat. On cross-examination, Vinny elicited Tipton’s\\nbreakfast-making process. By the end of the cross, it was clear\\nthat Tipton could not have cooked his breakfast of eggs and grits\\nin just five minutes.5\\n\\n\\n 5\\n The cross-examination proceeded as follows:\\n Q. Well, how much time was they in the store?\\n A. Five minutes.\\n Q. Five minutes? Are you sure, did you look at your watch?\\n A. No.\\n Q. Oh, oh, I’m sorry, you testified earlier that the boys went\\n into the store, and you had just begun to make breakfast, you\\n were just ready to eat, and you heard a gunshot. . . . So\\n obviously it takes you five minutes to make breakfast.\\n A. That’s right. . . .\\n Q. Do you remember what you had?\\n A. Eggs and grits.\\n\\f 12\\n\\n So, too, here. Gilman testified that the only time she saw a\\nclock on the morning of October 7 was when she stopped at a\\nstop sign, three blocks from work, and noticed that her car’s\\nclock showed it was 3:50 a.m. On cross-examination, she\\ninitially claimed that it took her only 5 to 10 minutes to get from\\nthat stop sign to Station 4, where she said she first encountered\\nthe four sleeping employees. J.A. 490 (Gilman Test.). If\\nGilman really had reached Station 4 in just 5 to 10 minutes, that\\nwould indeed have put her in a position to observe the sleeping\\nemployees at Station 4 at (or before) 4:00 a.m. -- just as\\nNovato’s brief claimed. And if we further assume the accuracy\\nof the 4:21 a.m. timestamp on the photograph Gilman took the\\nlast time she saw them sleeping, that would establish that at least\\n\\n\\n\\n Q. Eggs and grits. I like grits too. How do you cook your\\n grits? You like ‘em regular, creamy, or al dente?\\n A. Just regular, I guess.\\n Q. Regular. Instant grits?\\n A. No self-respecting Southerner uses instant grits. I take\\n pride in my grits.\\n Q. So, Mr. Tipton, how could it take you five minutes to cook\\n your grits, when it takes the entire grit-eating world twenty\\n minutes?\\n A. I don’t know. I’m a fast cook I guess.\\n Q. I’m sorry . . . . Are we to believe that boiling water soaks\\n into a grit faster in your kitchen than on any place on the face\\n of the earth?\\n A. I don’t know.\\n Q. Well, perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your\\n stove? Were these magic grits? . . .\\n Q. Are you sure about that five minutes? . . .\\n A. I may have been mistaken.\\nAmerican Rhetoric: Movie Speech, “My Cousin Vinny (1992),”\\nhttps://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechmy\\ncousinvinny3.html (video clip).\\n\\f 13\\n\\nthe two employees in the photo had been sleeping for at least 20\\nminutes -- again, just as Novato claimed.\\n\\n The problem with this timeline is the sheer number of tasks\\nGilman claimed to have completed between stopping at the stop\\nsign at 3:50 a.m. and arriving at Station 4 just 5 to 10 minutes\\nlater. During NLRB counsel’s cross-examination of Gilman,\\ncounsel drew out the following list of activities Gilman said she\\nhad completed during that period:\\n\\n - driven three more blocks to the Novato facility,\\n stopping at another stop sign along the way;\\n - parked her car and went into the facility;\\n - walked to her office, where she logged on to her\\n computer and checked her emails;\\n - walked to the facility’s kitchen, where she checked\\n the temperature logs for a refrigerator, for a walk-in\\n refrigerator, and for a walk-in freezer; and checked the\\n labels and dates of the items in the refrigerators;6\\n - walked to and through the break room, where she\\n used the restroom and then collected Novato union-\\n opposition campaign flyers, on which someone had\\n written “derogatory stuff”;\\n - gone back to her office and read the flyers;\\n - walked down the hallway toward Station 4, peeking\\n in rooms along the way; and\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 6\\n During her direct examination, Gilman testified that she had\\nalso opened the oven doors, inspected the stove, and tidied up. See\\nJ.A. 427 (Gilman Test.).\\n\\f 14\\n\\n - arrived at Station 4 for the first time, where she saw\\n the sleeping employees.\\nSee Gilman Test. Tr. 804-15 (cross-examination by Marta\\nNovoa, NLRB attorney).\\n\\n When the union’s attorney took up the tag-team match\\nduring her own shot at cross-examination, she hammered the\\npoint home:\\n\\n Q. So it’s your testimony that it only took [10] minutes\\n to drive from the 7-Eleven [near the first stop sign],\\n park, to go into your office, to log onto your computer,\\n to check your email, go to the bathroom, use the\\n restroom, cleanup the break room a little bit of these\\n flyers, and go through all the procedures that [you]\\n went through . . . in your kitchen.\\n A. . . . [S]o roughly I would still say about five -- it\\n wasn’t that long, you know. It wasn’t that long. . . .\\n Q. So I’m trying to figure out from that time, driving,\\n going through another stop sign, parking, getting in,\\n unlocking your door, putting everything down,\\n everything you did between there and when you first\\n saw people sleeping, are you sure it was only ten\\n minutes or less? Or could it have been 15 or 20\\n minutes?\\n A. No, it could not have been 15 or 20 minutes . . . .\\n Q. Isn’t it true you’re just not sure how long it took you\\n to get from the stop sign to [] Station 4 . . . ?\\n A. Well, to me it seemed like everything that I was\\n doing, it seemed like about 10 minutes had passed.\\n Q. But you never looked at a clock to make sure that’s\\n correct?\\n\\f 15\\n\\n A. Correct.\\nJ.A. 490-92 (cross-examination by Heather Conger, union\\nattorney).\\n\\n In light of the sheer “number of functions” Gilman “claimed\\nto perform[,] . . . all within a very short time period,” the ALJ\\nregarded her testimony as “simply . . . implausible.” 365\\nN.L.R.B. No. 137, at 5. Moreover, Gilman’s testimony about\\nhow long the tasks had taken in the aggregate was rendered even\\nmore implausible by counsel’s further cross-examination about\\nhow long some of them had taken individually. In response to\\ncounsel’s questions, Gilman testified that: “from the stop sign to\\n[the facility] that’s three or four minutes”; “[i]t takes three to\\nfour minutes to log onto my computer”; “[w]hat I did in my\\nkitchen took a few minutes”; “I went over to the break room,\\n[which] took three or four minutes”; and then “I left and went\\nback to my office [put down the flyers, and looked at them\\nagain] just briefly.” J.A. 490-91 (Gilman Test.); Gilman Test.\\nTr. 814-15. By Gilman’s own account, then, those activities\\nalone took about 15 minutes. Given the additional,\\nunaccounted-for activities that Gilman also had to complete, the\\nALJ reasonably concluded that Gilman’s aggregate time\\nestimate was “unlikely and unbelievable due to the length of\\ntime she allocated to each task she completed” before first\\nencountering the sleeping employees. 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at\\n11 n.25.\\n\\n Nor was Gilman’s implausible timeline testimony the only\\nproblem the ALJ had with her credibility. So, too, was Gilman’s\\nfailure to photograph the other two employees who, she claimed,\\nwere also asleep at the same time at the same nursing station.\\nSo, too, was her failure to attempt to wake any of the four\\nemployees, or to seek immediate assistance from other\\nsupervisors, despite Novato’s contention that the employees had\\nto be fired because they had put patients dangerously at risk by\\n\\f 16\\n\\nsleeping on the job. See id. at 5. So, too, was her assertion that\\nshe did not know the four were union adherents because she did\\nnot notice that they all wore pro-union lanyards and buttons --\\ndespite her claim that she could “recall significant details on\\nhow the employees slept” because she got within “arm’s reach”\\nof them. Id. at 5, 11. And so, too, was Gilman’s denial that she\\nherself wore an anti-union lanyard that morning, a denial she\\nlater had to withdraw. Id. at 5, 8 (admitting that she, along with\\nother supervisors, wore lanyards urging employees, in capital\\nletters, to “KEEP YOUR VOICE VOTE NO”).\\n\\n In the end, the ALJ simply could “not find [Gilman’s]\\ntestimony credible and reject[ed] her version of events\\ncompletely.” Id. at 5. The Board saw “no basis for reversing”\\nthat finding, see id. at 1 n.1, and neither do we. Novato proffers\\nno other evidence that Brown and Sabelino were sleeping longer\\nthan their permitted break times and no other evidence that\\nMetellus and Bernales were sleeping at all. Given the absence\\nof such evidence, combined with the contrary testimony that the\\nALJ reasonably credited, we find nothing unreasonable in the\\nBoard’s conclusion that Novato failed to meet its burden of\\nshowing it would have fired the four employees notwithstanding\\nits anti-union animus.\\n\\n III\\n\\n Novato also disputes the Board’s determination that it fired\\nRodriguez, the Station 1 employee, in violation of Section\\n8(a)(1) and (3) of the NLRA. Novato emphasizes the “total lack\\nof evidence” that Rodriguez did not sleep or that she was a\\nunion supporter. Novato Br. 21. This argument fails because\\nthe Board did not rely on such evidence to conclude that Novato\\ncommitted an unfair labor practice by firing Rodriguez. Rather,\\nthe ALJ found, and the Board affirmed, that Novato violated the\\nAct by using Rodriguez as a “pawn in an unlawful design.” 365\\n\\f 17\\n\\nN.L.R.B. No. 137, at 18 (quoting Corliss Res., Inc., 362\\nN.L.R.B. No. 21, at 4 (2015)).\\n\\n Although Rodriguez’s union views were unknown, the ALJ\\nconcluded that Novato fired her along with the Station 4\\nemployees “for fear of diluting its argument against the other\\ndiscriminatees” and to “‘cover’ its unlawful suspension and\\ntermination of the other 4 employees.” Id. As the Board has\\nlong held, “an employer’s discharge of uncommitted, neutral, or\\ninactive employees in order to ‘cover’ or to facilitate\\ndiscriminatory conduct against a targeted union-supporting\\nemployee or to discourage employee support for the union is\\nviolative of Section 8(a)(3) of the Act.” Dawson Carbide\\nIndus., Inc., 273 N.L.R.B. 382, 389 (1984); see Metro-West\\nAmbulance Servs., Inc., 360 N.L.R.B. 1029, 1056 (2014); Bay\\nCorrugated Container, Inc., 310 N.L.R.B. 450, 451 (1993); see\\nalso Alpo Petfoods, Inc. v. NLRB, 126 F.3d 246, 255-56 (4th Cir.\\n1997).\\n\\n Here, substantial evidence supports the Board’s conclusion\\nthat Rodriguez was discharged alongside the Station 4\\nemployees in order to provide cover for Novato’s discriminatory\\nconduct toward those union supporters. The email from\\nNovato’s outside counsel to administrator Treude all but\\nadmitted as much. Counsel acknowledged that Rodriguez was\\n“a bit of a different story” from the other four because her\\n“Charge Nurse appears to have tolerated her sleeping.” Email\\nfrom Albert to Treude, et al. (Oct. 10, 2015) (J.A. 529).\\nNonetheless, he suggested that Treude fire her to avoid\\n“dilut[ing] [Novato’s] arguments with the other 4.” Id. And as\\nthe ALJ noted, “[d]espite claiming that he did not read [the]\\nemail recommendations, Treude exactly followed [the] advice.”\\n365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 18; see id. at 13 n.39.\\n\\f 18\\n\\n IV\\n\\n Finally, Novato challenges the Board’s finding that\\nsupervisor Gay Rocha unlawfully interrogated employee\\nNarvius Metellus in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA.\\n\\n On Sunday, October 4, 2015, ten days before the election,\\nRocha “came into the facility early as part of [Novato’s]\\nopposition campaign.” 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 9 (ALJ Op.).\\nMetellus testified that Rocha came up to him while he was\\nstanding near a vending machine and asked “how he planned to\\nvote in the upcoming union election.” Id. When Metellus said\\nhe planned to vote in favor of the union, Rocha told him that\\ndoing so would have implications for his pay and that the union\\ncould possibly take part of his paycheck. Id.7\\n\\n “The questioning of an employee about union activities or\\nsympathies constitutes unlawful interrogation ‘if, under all the\\ncircumstances, it reasonably tends to restrain, coerce, or\\ninterfere with rights guaranteed by the Act.’” Shamrock Foods,\\n346 F.3d at 1137 (quoting Perdue Farms, Inc. v. NLRB, 144\\nF.3d 830, 835 (D.C. Cir. 1998)). In examining the totality of the\\ncircumstances, the Board considers such factors as: the nature\\nof the information sought; the seniority of the questioner in the\\nemployer’s hierarchy; the place and manner of the conversation,\\nincluding whether it took place during a disputed union\\ncampaign and whether the employee was alone; the truthfulness\\nof the employee’s reply; and whether the questioner offered any\\nlegitimate purpose for his question or assurance against reprisal.\\n\\n\\n 7\\n In Rocha’s testimony before the ALJ, she denied speaking to\\nMetellus about his position regarding the union. The ALJ found that\\n“Rocha cannot be believed” and credited Metellus’s version of events.\\n365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 9. Before this court, Novato does not\\ndispute Metellus’s recounting of his interaction with Rocha.\\n\\f 19\\n\\nSee, e.g., Shamrock Foods, 346 F.3d at 1137; Perdue Farms,\\n144 F.3d at 835-36; Rossmore House, 269 N.L.R.B. 1176, 1178\\nn.20 (1984) (citing Bourne v. NLRB, 332 F.2d 47 (2d Cir.\\n1964)). The test is an objective one; proof of actual coercion is\\nnot required. See United Servs. Auto. Ass’n v. NLRB, 387 F.3d\\n908, 913 (D.C. Cir. 2004).\\n\\n In this case, the ALJ found that Rocha’s questioning about\\nMetellus’s union views “would have a reasonable tendency to\\ninterfere with an employee’s Section 7 rights.” 365 N.L.R.B.\\nNo. 137, at 15; see supra note 3 (quoting Section 7, 29 U.S.C.\\n§ 157). Among the factors the judge cited for this conclusion\\nwere: Rocha questioned Metellus ten days before the\\nrepresentation election; “Metellus recognized Rocha as a\\nsupervisor at the facility”; Novato “ran an obvious union\\nopposition campaign around this time period”; and “Rocha\\noffered no explanation for her question nor did she provide\\nassurances against reprisal to Metellus.” 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137,\\nat 15. In affirming the ALJ’s finding, the Board added that\\n“questions like Rocha’s -- going specifically to how an\\nemployee himself intends to vote -- have a uniquely coercive\\ntendency,” and that “Rocha’s position as a high-level\\nmanagement official with no regular working relationship with\\nMetellus compounded the coercive tendency of her question.”\\nId. at 2. Moreover, “Rocha’s subsequent comments that voting\\nfor the Union would have implications on Metellus’s pay and\\nthat the Union could possibly take part of his paycheck clearly\\ncommunicated [Novato’s] preference that Metellus should vote\\nagainst representation.” Id.\\n\\n “Recognizing the Board’s ‘competence in the first instance\\nto judge the impact of utterances made in the context of the\\nemployer-employee relationship,’” Shamrock Foods, 346 F.3d\\nat 1137 (citations omitted), we uphold as reasonable its\\nconclusion that Rocha’s questioning was sufficiently coercive to\\n\\f 20\\n\\nviolate the Act. As noted above, the factors cited by the Board\\nare among those upon which it has traditionally relied and\\nsupport the conclusion here that the interrogation “reasonably\\ntend[ed] to restrain, coerce, or interfere with rights guaranteed\\nby the Act.” Id. (citation omitted).\\n\\n Novato further maintains that the Board’s finding of an\\nunlawful interrogation violates Novato’s free-speech rights\\nunder the First Amendment and Section 8(c) of the NLRA. See\\n29 U.S.C. § 158(c) (“The expressing of any views . . . shall not\\nconstitute or be evidence of an unfair labor practice . . . if such\\nexpression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of\\nbenefit.”). Rocha, it insists, simply exercised Novato’s First\\nAmendment rights in asking how Metellus planned to vote and\\nmerely spoke the truth when she informed him that the union\\ncould deduct dues from his paychecks. Novato Br. 25-26.\\n\\n Novato concedes that it did not raise this objection before\\nthe Board and that Section 10(e) of the NLRA deprives this\\ncourt of jurisdiction to hear any “objection that has not been\\nurged before the Board,” barring “extraordinary circumstances.”\\n29 U.S.C. § 160(e). Novato proffers no circumstances,\\n“extraordinary” or otherwise, to excuse its forfeiture. Instead,\\nit insists that free-speech arguments cannot be forfeited and that\\nSection 10(e) simply does not apply to First Amendment\\narguments. Oral Arg. 7:50; Reply Br. 12-13.\\n\\n The text of Section 10(e) makes no exception for\\nfree-speech objections, whether grounded in the First\\nAmendment or Section 8(c). Nor do this circuit’s decisions.\\nSee Ampersand Publ’g, LLC v. NLRB, No. 15-1074, 2017 WL\\n1314946, at *2 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 3, 2017) (holding that the “court\\nlacks jurisdiction to consider Ampersand’s broad First\\nAmendment argument” because of Section 10(e)’s jurisdictional\\nbar); Progressive Elec., Inc. v. NLRB, 453 F.3d 538, 545 (D.C.\\n\\f 21\\n\\nCir. 2006) (declining to hear an employer’s Section 8(c)\\nargument because it had “not been raised before the Board”).\\nNor has Novato cited a single case to support its position.\\nAccordingly, we do not consider this objection.\\n\\n V\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, we deny Novato’s petition for\\nreview and grant the Board’s cross-application for enforcement.\\n\\n So ordered.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4373701/\", \"author_raw\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GARLAND\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"GARLAND"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"GRIFFITH"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"EDWARDS"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4596448/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: NOVATO HEALTHCARE CENTER, Petitioner v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-05\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued September 17, 2018 Decided March 5, 2019\n\n No. 17-1221\n\n NOVATO HEALTHCARE CENTER,\n PETITIONER\n\n v.\n\n NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,\n RESPONDENT\n\n\n Consolidated with 17-1232\n\n\n On Petition for Review and Cross-Application\n for Enforcement of an Order of\n the National Labor Relations Board\n\n\n Ryan N. Parsons argued the cause for petitioner. With him\non the briefs was Kamran Mirrafati.\n\n Rebecca J. Johnston, Attorney, National Labor Relations\nBoard, argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief\nwere Peter B. Robb, General Counsel, John W. Kyle, Deputy\nGeneral Counsel, Linda Dreeben, Deputy Associate General\nCounsel, and Jill A. Griffin, Supervisory Attorney.\n\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge,\nand EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.\n\f 2\n\n Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GARLAND.\n\n GARLAND, Chief Judge: In 1992, Vincent Gambini taught\na master class in cross-examination.1 Trial counsel for the\nNational Labor Relations Board and the National Union of\nHealthcare Workers apparently paid attention. In this petition\nfor review, Novato Healthcare Center challenges the Board’s\nfinding that it committed an unfair labor practice by firing four\nunion organizers two days before a union election. As Novato\nacknowledges, its “entire case turns on whether the testimony”\nof one of its supervisors “should be credited.” Reply Br. 5. But\nthe Board determined that the testimony should not be credited,\nand trial counsel’s cross-examination of the supervisor provides\nsubstantial evidence to support that determination. For this\nreason, and because the other findings that Novato challenges\nare also supported by substantial evidence, we deny Novato’s\npetition for review and grant the Board’s cross-application for\nenforcement.\n\n I\n\n Novato operates a skilled-nursing facility in California that\ncares for about 170 patients. On September 16, 2015, the\nNational Union of Healthcare Workers filed a petition with the\nNational Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to represent a unit of\nNovato employees. Among the employees leading the union-\norganizing effort were Narvius Metellus, Rolando Bernales,\nArlene Waters Brown, and Angel Sabelino. All four attended\nunion meetings, collected show-of-interest signatures, wore\npro-union buttons and lanyards, distributed union regalia, and\npassed out flyers promoting the union.\n\n\n\n 1\n See MY COUSIN VINNY (Twentieth Century Fox 1992) (cross-\nexamination of Mr. Tipton); infra note 5.\n\f 3\n\n Novato’s management undertook its own union-opposition\ncampaign. Although Novato supervisors did not generally work\nnight shifts, facility administrator Darron Treude asked\nsupervisors to volunteer for those shifts so they could provide\nunion-opposition materials to employees and answer their\nquestions. CPEhr, an outside consulting group that provides\nemployment law advice, spearheaded the union-opposition\ncampaign on behalf of Novato.\n\n On October 4, 2015, ten days before the October 14-15\nrepresentation election, Novato supervisor Gay Rocha\napproached employee Metellus at approximately 6:30 a.m.\nRocha asked Metellus, who was a relatively new employee, how\nhe planned to vote in the upcoming election. When Metellus\nresponded that he planned to vote in favor of the union, Rocha\ntold him that doing so would have implications for his pay and\nthat the union could potentially take a portion of his paycheck.\nMetellus responded that this would not be a problem for him.\n\n On October 6-7, Metellus, Bernales, Brown, and Sabelino\nworked the night shift together at Station 4, one of four nursing\nstations at the Novato facility. During that shift, another\nemployee, Gonzala Rodriguez, whose union views were and\nremain unknown, worked at Station 1. At Novato, night-shift\nemployees work from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 or 7:30 a.m.,\ndepending on their positions. During a shift, employees are\nallowed two 10-minute rest breaks. In addition, they are\nallowed one 30-minute meal break. Employees routinely sleep\nduring these breaks, which they are permitted to take at any\ntime, so long as at least one station member is available. See\nNovato Healthcare Ctr., 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 7 (Sept. 29,\n2017) (ALJ Op.).\n\n Novato supervisor Teresa Gilman also worked the night\nshift on October 6-7, as part of Novato’s union-opposition\n\f 4\n\ncampaign. According to Gilman’s testimony at the subsequent\nunfair labor practices hearing, she arrived at the Novato facility\nsome time after 3:50 a.m. on October 7. After completing a\nnumber of tasks, Gilman began making the rounds of the\nnursing stations, starting with Station 4.\n\n Gilman testified that, when she arrived at Station 4, she saw\nall four employees sleeping. She said she stood in front of the\nemployees for “several seconds to up to a minute” to see if they\nwould wake up. Id. at 11. According to Gilman, they did not.\n\n Gilman then proceeded to Stations 3 and 1.2 She testified\nthat, at Station 1, she saw another employee, Rodriguez,\nsleeping. According to Gilman, Rodriguez was sitting in a chair\noutside a patient’s room with her head down on a table.\n\n On Gilman’s second and third rounds through Stations 4, 3,\nand 1, she said she saw all five employees still asleep in the\nsame positions in which she had last seen them. On her third\nvisit to Station 4, Gilman used her cell phone to take a\nphotograph of two of the four employees, Brown and Sabelino.\nThe photo shows the two with their eyes closed. Although the\nphotograph initially did not have a timestamp, Gilman later\nproduced a version with a timestamp of 4:21 a.m.\n\n Timing, in this case, is (almost) everything. Gilman\ntestified that at least 15 to 20 minutes passed from the time she\nfirst arrived at Station 4 and saw the employees sleeping, to the\ntime she took the photograph of the two sleeping employees. If\ntrue, this meant that at least two of the Station 4 employees had\nbeen sleeping considerably longer than their permitted 10-\nminute breaks.\n\n\n 2\n She did not stop at Station 2 because it was “an alarmed unit\nand alarms would go off.” J.A. 443 (Gilman Test.).\n\f 5\n\n Gilman then went on to revisit Station 1. She noticed that\nRodriguez was still sleeping and informed the charge nurse, who\nwoke her up. Gilman estimated that Rodriguez had been asleep\nfor at least 15 to 20 minutes as well. By the time Gilman\nreturned to Station 4 for a fourth time, all four employees there\nwere awake.\n\n On the morning of October 7, Gilman sent administrator\nTreude the photograph and soon thereafter informed him that the\nfive employees had been asleep for 15 to 20 minutes. Treude\nsuspended all five and initiated an investigation. Novato’s\noutside counsel, Richard Albert, as well as its outside consulting\ngroup, CPEhr, provided input regarding disciplinary options.\nSpecifically, in an email to Treude and CPEhr, Albert\nrecommended that Treude terminate all five employees.\nAlthough Albert recognized that Rodriguez was “a bit of a\ndifferent story” because her “Charge Nurse appears to have\ntolerated her sleeping,” he still recommended her termination:\n“[G]iving her lesser discipline, in this situation, sends the wrong\nmessage to the NLRB or a judge looking at this. It is possible\nthat [the] NLRB or judge could view her situation as being less\nserious than the others, but I would rather have you take that\nrisk, than the risk that letting her remain employed somehow\ndilutes our arguments with the other 4.” Email from Albert to\nTreude, et al. (Oct. 10, 2015) (J.A. 529).\n\n On October 12, two days before the scheduled election,\nTreude fired all five employees for sleeping on duty. On\nOctober 14 and 15, the NLRB conducted the election, which the\nunion won.\n\n Thereafter, the union charged Novato with committing\nunfair labor practices, and the NLRB’s General Counsel issued\na complaint. Gilman testified as recounted above. The two\nStation 4 employees captured in the photograph, Brown and\n\f 6\n\nSabelino, acknowledged that they had slept, but said they did so\nonly during their permitted 10-minute breaks. Bernales testified\nthat, although he had rested during his allowed meal break, he\ndid not sleep after returning to Station 4 at 4:00 a.m. Metellus\ntestified that he did not sleep at all during that shift. Rodriguez,\nthe Station 1 employee, did not testify.\n\n Following a multi-day hearing, the ALJ found that Novato\nviolated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by\nsuspending and firing the five employees, and also violated the\nAct when Rocha questioned Metellus about how he planned to\nvote. 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 18. The Board affirmed the\nALJ’s rulings, findings, credibility determinations, and\nconclusions, with minor modifications. Id. at 1.\n\n Novato has now filed a petition for review in this court, and\nthe NLRB has filed a cross-application for enforcement of its\norder. Under the applicable standard of review, we must uphold\nthe judgment of the Board unless its findings are unsupported by\nsubstantial evidence, or it acted arbitrarily or otherwise erred in\napplying established law to the facts of the case. Spurlino\nMaterials, LLC v. NLRB, 805 F.3d 1131, 1136 (D.C. Cir. 2015);\nBally’s Park Place, Inc. v. NLRB, 646 F.3d 929, 935 (D.C. Cir.\n2011); see 29 U.S.C. § 160(f) (providing that the Board’s\nfindings of fact are “conclusive” if “supported by substantial\nevidence on the record considered as a whole”).\n\n II\n\n We begin with Novato’s challenge to the Board’s finding\nthat Novato violated Section 8(a)(1) and (3) of the NLRA, 29\nU.S.C. § 158(a)(1), (3), by suspending and then firing the four\nemployees at Station 4. It is on this issue that the information\nelicited by cross-examination is important.\n\f 7\n\n An employer violates Section 8(a)(1) and (3) by suspending\nor discharging an employee for engaging in protected union\nactivity. NLRB v. Transp. Mgmt. Corp., 462 U.S. 393, 397-98\n(1983); Metro. Edison Co. v. NLRB, 460 U.S. 693, 698 n.4\n(1983); Tasty Baking Co. v. NLRB, 254 F.3d 114, 125 (D.C. Cir.\n2001).3 The Board employs the judicially approved Wright Line\ntest when reviewing a claim that an employer discharged (or\ntook other disciplinary action against) an employee for protected\nconduct. See Wright Line, 251 N.L.R.B. 1083, 1089 (1980); see\nalso Transp. Mgmt. Corp., 462 U.S. at 401-03 (approving the\nWright Line test); Bally’s Park Place, 646 F.3d at 935. “Under\nthat test, the General Counsel must first ‘make a prima facie\nshowing sufficient to support the inference that protected . . .\nconduct was a motivating factor in the [discharge].’” Tasty\nBaking, 254 F.3d at 125 (quoting TIC-The Indus. Co. Se. v.\nNLRB, 126 F.3d 334, 337 (D.C. Cir. 1997)). “Once a prima facie\ncase has been established, the burden [of persuasion] shifts to\nthe company to show that it would have taken the same action\nin the absence of the unlawful motive.” Id. at 126; see Bally’s\nPark Place, 646 F.3d at 935.\n\n In the proceedings below, Novato disputed the unfair labor\npractice charges at both steps of the Wright Line test. With\nrespect to the first step, the ALJ, affirmed by the Board, readily\n\n\n 3\n Section 7 of the NLRA guarantees employees the “right to\nself-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, . . . and\nto engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective\nbargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” 29 U.S.C. § 157.\nSection 8(a)(1) provides that “[i]t shall be an unfair labor practice for\nan employer . . . to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the\nexercise of the rights guaranteed” in Section 7. Id. § 158(a)(1). And\nSection 8(a)(3) prohibits “discrimination in regard to . . . tenure of\nemployment . . . to . . . discourage membership in any labor\norganization.” Id. § 158(a)(3).\n\f 8\n\nfound sufficient evidence to support the inference that anti-union\nanimus was a motivating factor in the suspension and discharge\nof the Station 4 employees. The “record show[ed],” the ALJ\nrecounted, that the four employees “visibly supported the union\norganizing campaign by [inter alia] wearing lanyards and\nbuttons, passing out flyers, and getting employees to sign [up]\nfor a showing of interest,” and that “their actions were visible\nfrom Treude’s office.” 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 16. In light of\nthose facts, the ALJ rejected, as “disingenuous,” Novato’s\n“claims that its supervisors were unaware of the employees’\nunion activity.” Id. She specifically declined to “credit\nGilman’s testimony that she did not know whether the allegedly\nsleeping employees were union supporters since she did not\nnotice any union lanyards or pins,” because Gilman “also\ntestified in incredible detail as to how the employees were\npositioned and claimed to have stood in front of them for some\ntime.” Id. In addition, the ALJ noted that the “suspensions and\ndischarges occurred only a couple weeks after the filing of the\nrepresentation petition and only 1 week prior to the\nrepresentation election.” Id. And she also noted that Novato’s\nanimus was “demonstrated by its contemporaneous 8(a)(1)\nviolation[]”: Rocha’s unlawful interrogation of Metellus about\nhis preference in the representation election. Id.\n\n The ALJ found additional support for the inference of\nanimus and discriminatory motivation in the fact that Novato\n“acted disparately”: “No other employees had been suspended\nand discharged for the same or similar allegations.” Id. at 17.\nShe observed that, “[i]n a similar situation in 2009 where an\nemployee allegedly slept on duty, [Novato] did not discipline\nthis employee even though there too was a picture of the\nsleeping employee.” Id. The ALJ further noted that, although\njust one week “prior to the events at issue in [t]his matter, one\nof [Novato’s] supervisors also reported employees sleeping\nduring the night shift[,] . . . Treude failed to investigate or follow\n\f 9\n\nup on this allegation.” Id. Instead, “Treude singularly focused\non Metellus, Bernales, Brown, and Sabelino and one can only\nconclude it was due to their union activity.” Id.\n\n In this court, Novato does “not contest the Board’s finding\nof an unlawful motivation in discharging the employees at\nissue.” Reply Br. 2; Oral Arg. at 1:50-2:33. Rather, Novato’s\nsole contention is that it met its burden of proof under the\nsecond step of the Wright Line test by proving “that it would\nhave taken the same action absent the improper motive.” Reply\nBr. 4. As it argued below, Novato maintains here that it would\nhave terminated the four regardless of their union support\nbecause of the “brazen” nature of their conduct in sleeping on\nduty. 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 17 (ALJ Op.).\n\n The ALJ, affirmed by the Board, rejected Novato’s Wright\nLine defense. Id.; see id. at 1 nn. 1, 2 (Board Op.). She rejected\nTreude’s testimony in its entirety for multiple reasons, including\nhis demeanor, id. at 5 (ALJ Op.) (“evasive[], . . . vague and\ncontradictory”), and his disparate treatment of earlier sleeping-\non-the-job claims, id. at 17. As discussed below, she\nspecifically discredited Gilman’s testimony that she saw the four\nemployees sleeping on duty. Id. at 5. Instead, she credited in its\nentirety the testimony of Brown, and in relevant part the\ntestimony of Sabelino, both of whom acknowledged that they\nhad slept but said they did so only during their permitted\n10-minute breaks. Id.4 In addition, the ALJ credited the\ntestimony of Bernales, who testified that the only rest he took\nwas during his permitted 30-minute meal break prior to 4:00\na.m., and of Metellus, who testified that he did not sleep at all\nduring the shift. Id. at 5-6.\n\n\n 4\n The ALJ further credited Brown’s testimony that she ensured\nthat Metellus and Bernales were both awake and working when she\nwent to sleep on her break. 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 5.\n\f 10\n\n Novato acknowledges that its Step 2 Wright Line argument\n-- that it would have discharged the four employees regardless\nof any anti-union motive because they were sleeping on duty\nwell past their permitted rest periods -- turns entirely on\n“whether the testimony of Gilman should be credited.” Reply\nBr. 5; Oral Arg. at 2:40-3:00. Novato’s success therefore\ndepends on persuading us that the ALJ’s conclusions about\nGilman’s credibility were unsupported. And that presents\nNovato with a difficult task because “we do not reverse the\nBoard’s adoption of an ALJ’s credibility determinations unless\n. . . those determinations are ‘hopelessly incredible,’\n‘self-contradictory,’ or ‘patently unsupportable.’” Shamrock\nFoods Co. v. NLRB, 346 F.3d 1130, 1134 (D.C. Cir. 2003)\n(quoting Cadbury Beverages, Inc. v. NLRB, 160 F.3d 24, 28\n(D.C. Cir. 1998)).\n\n Novato insists that it is up to this difficult task because\nphotographic evidence “fully corroborated” Gilman’s testimony\n“that the Unit 4 employees were sleeping for 20 minutes.”\nReply Br. 6, 5. That itself is an overstatement of Gilman’s\nactual testimony, which was that the employees were sleeping\n“at least 15 to 20 minutes.” J.A. 456 (Gilman Test.). Be that as\nit may, Novato’s argument here is in line with the position it\ntook before the ALJ:\n\n Immediately after the October 7 incident, Gilman\n reported that she began her rounding at approximately\n 4:00 am on October 7, and took the photo of Brown\n and Sabelino somewhere around 15-20 minutes later.\n At the time she made these representations, the photo\n Gilman had taken had no time stamp on it. . . . Once\n she [downloaded a software update on her smart\n phone], a time stamp appeared indicating that the\n picture was taken at 4:21 am . . . . This indisputable\n time stamp evidence is totally consistent with Gilman’s\n\f 11\n\n testimony as well as her prior statements about the\n events of October 7 -- she arrived on Unit 4 at or\n slightly after 4:00 am, and took the photo at least\n 15-20 minutes later.\n\nNovato Post-Hearing Br. 15 (emphasis added). Like the ALJ,\nwe will assume that the 4:21 a.m. timestamp was accurate,\nnotwithstanding some doubts in that regard. See 365 N.L.R.B.\nNo. 137, at 5, 12 n.27.\n\n And here is where the lesson Vinny Gambini taught comes\ninto play. A key issue in the murder trial of Vinny’s cousin,\nBill, was how many minutes had passed between the time\nwitness Sam Tipton saw Bill enter the Sac-O-Suds convenience\nstore and the time he heard a gunshot. On direct examination,\nTipton testified that he was sure only five minutes had passed\nbecause he saw Bill go into the store as he (Tipton) started\nmaking breakfast, and the shot rang out just as his breakfast was\nready to eat. On cross-examination, Vinny elicited Tipton’s\nbreakfast-making process. By the end of the cross, it was clear\nthat Tipton could not have cooked his breakfast of eggs and grits\nin just five minutes.5\n\n\n 5\n The cross-examination proceeded as follows:\n Q. Well, how much time was they in the store?\n A. Five minutes.\n Q. Five minutes? Are you sure, did you look at your watch?\n A. No.\n Q. Oh, oh, I’m sorry, you testified earlier that the boys went\n into the store, and you had just begun to make breakfast, you\n were just ready to eat, and you heard a gunshot. . . . So\n obviously it takes you five minutes to make breakfast.\n A. That’s right. . . .\n Q. Do you remember what you had?\n A. Eggs and grits.\n\f 12\n\n So, too, here. Gilman testified that the only time she saw a\nclock on the morning of October 7 was when she stopped at a\nstop sign, three blocks from work, and noticed that her car’s\nclock showed it was 3:50 a.m. On cross-examination, she\ninitially claimed that it took her only 5 to 10 minutes to get from\nthat stop sign to Station 4, where she said she first encountered\nthe four sleeping employees. J.A. 490 (Gilman Test.). If\nGilman really had reached Station 4 in just 5 to 10 minutes, that\nwould indeed have put her in a position to observe the sleeping\nemployees at Station 4 at (or before) 4:00 a.m. -- just as\nNovato’s brief claimed. And if we further assume the accuracy\nof the 4:21 a.m. timestamp on the photograph Gilman took the\nlast time she saw them sleeping, that would establish that at least\n\n\n\n Q. Eggs and grits. I like grits too. How do you cook your\n grits? You like ‘em regular, creamy, or al dente?\n A. Just regular, I guess.\n Q. Regular. Instant grits?\n A. No self-respecting Southerner uses instant grits. I take\n pride in my grits.\n Q. So, Mr. Tipton, how could it take you five minutes to cook\n your grits, when it takes the entire grit-eating world twenty\n minutes?\n A. I don’t know. I’m a fast cook I guess.\n Q. I’m sorry . . . . Are we to believe that boiling water soaks\n into a grit faster in your kitchen than on any place on the face\n of the earth?\n A. I don’t know.\n Q. Well, perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your\n stove? Were these magic grits? . . .\n Q. Are you sure about that five minutes? . . .\n A. I may have been mistaken.\nAmerican Rhetoric: Movie Speech, “My Cousin Vinny (1992),”\nhttps://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechmy\ncousinvinny3.html (video clip).\n\f 13\n\nthe two employees in the photo had been sleeping for at least 20\nminutes -- again, just as Novato claimed.\n\n The problem with this timeline is the sheer number of tasks\nGilman claimed to have completed between stopping at the stop\nsign at 3:50 a.m. and arriving at Station 4 just 5 to 10 minutes\nlater. During NLRB counsel’s cross-examination of Gilman,\ncounsel drew out the following list of activities Gilman said she\nhad completed during that period:\n\n - driven three more blocks to the Novato facility,\n stopping at another stop sign along the way;\n - parked her car and went into the facility;\n - walked to her office, where she logged on to her\n computer and checked her emails;\n - walked to the facility’s kitchen, where she checked\n the temperature logs for a refrigerator, for a walk-in\n refrigerator, and for a walk-in freezer; and checked the\n labels and dates of the items in the refrigerators;6\n - walked to and through the break room, where she\n used the restroom and then collected Novato union-\n opposition campaign flyers, on which someone had\n written “derogatory stuff”;\n - gone back to her office and read the flyers;\n - walked down the hallway toward Station 4, peeking\n in rooms along the way; and\n\n\n\n\n 6\n During her direct examination, Gilman testified that she had\nalso opened the oven doors, inspected the stove, and tidied up. See\nJ.A. 427 (Gilman Test.).\n\f 14\n\n - arrived at Station 4 for the first time, where she saw\n the sleeping employees.\nSee Gilman Test. Tr. 804-15 (cross-examination by Marta\nNovoa, NLRB attorney).\n\n When the union’s attorney took up the tag-team match\nduring her own shot at cross-examination, she hammered the\npoint home:\n\n Q. So it’s your testimony that it only took [10] minutes\n to drive from the 7-Eleven [near the first stop sign],\n park, to go into your office, to log onto your computer,\n to check your email, go to the bathroom, use the\n restroom, cleanup the break room a little bit of these\n flyers, and go through all the procedures that [you]\n went through . . . in your kitchen.\n A. . . . [S]o roughly I would still say about five -- it\n wasn’t that long, you know. It wasn’t that long. . . .\n Q. So I’m trying to figure out from that time, driving,\n going through another stop sign, parking, getting in,\n unlocking your door, putting everything down,\n everything you did between there and when you first\n saw people sleeping, are you sure it was only ten\n minutes or less? Or could it have been 15 or 20\n minutes?\n A. No, it could not have been 15 or 20 minutes . . . .\n Q. Isn’t it true you’re just not sure how long it took you\n to get from the stop sign to [] Station 4 . . . ?\n A. Well, to me it seemed like everything that I was\n doing, it seemed like about 10 minutes had passed.\n Q. But you never looked at a clock to make sure that’s\n correct?\n\f 15\n\n A. Correct.\nJ.A. 490-92 (cross-examination by Heather Conger, union\nattorney).\n\n In light of the sheer “number of functions” Gilman “claimed\nto perform[,] . . . all within a very short time period,” the ALJ\nregarded her testimony as “simply . . . implausible.” 365\nN.L.R.B. No. 137, at 5. Moreover, Gilman’s testimony about\nhow long the tasks had taken in the aggregate was rendered even\nmore implausible by counsel’s further cross-examination about\nhow long some of them had taken individually. In response to\ncounsel’s questions, Gilman testified that: “from the stop sign to\n[the facility] that’s three or four minutes”; “[i]t takes three to\nfour minutes to log onto my computer”; “[w]hat I did in my\nkitchen took a few minutes”; “I went over to the break room,\n[which] took three or four minutes”; and then “I left and went\nback to my office [put down the flyers, and looked at them\nagain] just briefly.” J.A. 490-91 (Gilman Test.); Gilman Test.\nTr. 814-15. By Gilman’s own account, then, those activities\nalone took about 15 minutes. Given the additional,\nunaccounted-for activities that Gilman also had to complete, the\nALJ reasonably concluded that Gilman’s aggregate time\nestimate was “unlikely and unbelievable due to the length of\ntime she allocated to each task she completed” before first\nencountering the sleeping employees. 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at\n11 n.25.\n\n Nor was Gilman’s implausible timeline testimony the only\nproblem the ALJ had with her credibility. So, too, was Gilman’s\nfailure to photograph the other two employees who, she claimed,\nwere also asleep at the same time at the same nursing station.\nSo, too, was her failure to attempt to wake any of the four\nemployees, or to seek immediate assistance from other\nsupervisors, despite Novato’s contention that the employees had\nto be fired because they had put patients dangerously at risk by\n\f 16\n\nsleeping on the job. See id. at 5. So, too, was her assertion that\nshe did not know the four were union adherents because she did\nnot notice that they all wore pro-union lanyards and buttons --\ndespite her claim that she could “recall significant details on\nhow the employees slept” because she got within “arm’s reach”\nof them. Id. at 5, 11. And so, too, was Gilman’s denial that she\nherself wore an anti-union lanyard that morning, a denial she\nlater had to withdraw. Id. at 5, 8 (admitting that she, along with\nother supervisors, wore lanyards urging employees, in capital\nletters, to “KEEP YOUR VOICE VOTE NO”).\n\n In the end, the ALJ simply could “not find [Gilman’s]\ntestimony credible and reject[ed] her version of events\ncompletely.” Id. at 5. The Board saw “no basis for reversing”\nthat finding, see id. at 1 n.1, and neither do we. Novato proffers\nno other evidence that Brown and Sabelino were sleeping longer\nthan their permitted break times and no other evidence that\nMetellus and Bernales were sleeping at all. Given the absence\nof such evidence, combined with the contrary testimony that the\nALJ reasonably credited, we find nothing unreasonable in the\nBoard’s conclusion that Novato failed to meet its burden of\nshowing it would have fired the four employees notwithstanding\nits anti-union animus.\n\n III\n\n Novato also disputes the Board’s determination that it fired\nRodriguez, the Station 1 employee, in violation of Section\n8(a)(1) and (3) of the NLRA. Novato emphasizes the “total lack\nof evidence” that Rodriguez did not sleep or that she was a\nunion supporter. Novato Br. 21. This argument fails because\nthe Board did not rely on such evidence to conclude that Novato\ncommitted an unfair labor practice by firing Rodriguez. Rather,\nthe ALJ found, and the Board affirmed, that Novato violated the\nAct by using Rodriguez as a “pawn in an unlawful design.” 365\n\f 17\n\nN.L.R.B. No. 137, at 18 (quoting Corliss Res., Inc., 362\nN.L.R.B. No. 21, at 4 (2015)).\n\n Although Rodriguez’s union views were unknown, the ALJ\nconcluded that Novato fired her along with the Station 4\nemployees “for fear of diluting its argument against the other\ndiscriminatees” and to “‘cover’ its unlawful suspension and\ntermination of the other 4 employees.” Id. As the Board has\nlong held, “an employer’s discharge of uncommitted, neutral, or\ninactive employees in order to ‘cover’ or to facilitate\ndiscriminatory conduct against a targeted union-supporting\nemployee or to discourage employee support for the union is\nviolative of Section 8(a)(3) of the Act.” Dawson Carbide\nIndus., Inc., 273 N.L.R.B. 382, 389 (1984); see Metro-West\nAmbulance Servs., Inc., 360 N.L.R.B. 1029, 1056 (2014); Bay\nCorrugated Container, Inc., 310 N.L.R.B. 450, 451 (1993); see\nalso Alpo Petfoods, Inc. v. NLRB, 126 F.3d 246, 255-56 (4th Cir.\n1997).\n\n Here, substantial evidence supports the Board’s conclusion\nthat Rodriguez was discharged alongside the Station 4\nemployees in order to provide cover for Novato’s discriminatory\nconduct toward those union supporters. The email from\nNovato’s outside counsel to administrator Treude all but\nadmitted as much. Counsel acknowledged that Rodriguez was\n“a bit of a different story” from the other four because her\n“Charge Nurse appears to have tolerated her sleeping.” Email\nfrom Albert to Treude, et al. (Oct. 10, 2015) (J.A. 529).\nNonetheless, he suggested that Treude fire her to avoid\n“dilut[ing] [Novato’s] arguments with the other 4.” Id. And as\nthe ALJ noted, “[d]espite claiming that he did not read [the]\nemail recommendations, Treude exactly followed [the] advice.”\n365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 18; see id. at 13 n.39.\n\f 18\n\n IV\n\n Finally, Novato challenges the Board’s finding that\nsupervisor Gay Rocha unlawfully interrogated employee\nNarvius Metellus in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA.\n\n On Sunday, October 4, 2015, ten days before the election,\nRocha “came into the facility early as part of [Novato’s]\nopposition campaign.” 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 9 (ALJ Op.).\nMetellus testified that Rocha came up to him while he was\nstanding near a vending machine and asked “how he planned to\nvote in the upcoming union election.” Id. When Metellus said\nhe planned to vote in favor of the union, Rocha told him that\ndoing so would have implications for his pay and that the union\ncould possibly take part of his paycheck. Id.7\n\n “The questioning of an employee about union activities or\nsympathies constitutes unlawful interrogation ‘if, under all the\ncircumstances, it reasonably tends to restrain, coerce, or\ninterfere with rights guaranteed by the Act.’” Shamrock Foods,\n346 F.3d at 1137 (quoting Perdue Farms, Inc. v. NLRB, 144\nF.3d 830, 835 (D.C. Cir. 1998)). In examining the totality of the\ncircumstances, the Board considers such factors as: the nature\nof the information sought; the seniority of the questioner in the\nemployer’s hierarchy; the place and manner of the conversation,\nincluding whether it took place during a disputed union\ncampaign and whether the employee was alone; the truthfulness\nof the employee’s reply; and whether the questioner offered any\nlegitimate purpose for his question or assurance against reprisal.\n\n\n 7\n In Rocha’s testimony before the ALJ, she denied speaking to\nMetellus about his position regarding the union. The ALJ found that\n“Rocha cannot be believed” and credited Metellus’s version of events.\n365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 9. Before this court, Novato does not\ndispute Metellus’s recounting of his interaction with Rocha.\n\f 19\n\nSee, e.g., Shamrock Foods, 346 F.3d at 1137; Perdue Farms,\n144 F.3d at 835-36; Rossmore House, 269 N.L.R.B. 1176, 1178\nn.20 (1984) (citing Bourne v. NLRB, 332 F.2d 47 (2d Cir.\n1964)). The test is an objective one; proof of actual coercion is\nnot required. See United Servs. Auto. Ass’n v. NLRB, 387 F.3d\n908, 913 (D.C. Cir. 2004).\n\n In this case, the ALJ found that Rocha’s questioning about\nMetellus’s union views “would have a reasonable tendency to\ninterfere with an employee’s Section 7 rights.” 365 N.L.R.B.\nNo. 137, at 15; see supra note 3 (quoting Section 7, 29 U.S.C.\n§ 157). Among the factors the judge cited for this conclusion\nwere: Rocha questioned Metellus ten days before the\nrepresentation election; “Metellus recognized Rocha as a\nsupervisor at the facility”; Novato “ran an obvious union\nopposition campaign around this time period”; and “Rocha\noffered no explanation for her question nor did she provide\nassurances against reprisal to Metellus.” 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137,\nat 15. In affirming the ALJ’s finding, the Board added that\n“questions like Rocha’s -- going specifically to how an\nemployee himself intends to vote -- have a uniquely coercive\ntendency,” and that “Rocha’s position as a high-level\nmanagement official with no regular working relationship with\nMetellus compounded the coercive tendency of her question.”\nId. at 2. Moreover, “Rocha’s subsequent comments that voting\nfor the Union would have implications on Metellus’s pay and\nthat the Union could possibly take part of his paycheck clearly\ncommunicated [Novato’s] preference that Metellus should vote\nagainst representation.” Id.\n\n “Recognizing the Board’s ‘competence in the first instance\nto judge the impact of utterances made in the context of the\nemployer-employee relationship,’” Shamrock Foods, 346 F.3d\nat 1137 (citations omitted), we uphold as reasonable its\nconclusion that Rocha’s questioning was sufficiently coercive to\n\f 20\n\nviolate the Act. As noted above, the factors cited by the Board\nare among those upon which it has traditionally relied and\nsupport the conclusion here that the interrogation “reasonably\ntend[ed] to restrain, coerce, or interfere with rights guaranteed\nby the Act.” Id. (citation omitted).\n\n Novato further maintains that the Board’s finding of an\nunlawful interrogation violates Novato’s free-speech rights\nunder the First Amendment and Section 8(c) of the NLRA. See\n29 U.S.C. § 158(c) (“The expressing of any views . . . shall not\nconstitute or be evidence of an unfair labor practice . . . if such\nexpression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of\nbenefit.”). Rocha, it insists, simply exercised Novato’s First\nAmendment rights in asking how Metellus planned to vote and\nmerely spoke the truth when she informed him that the union\ncould deduct dues from his paychecks. Novato Br. 25-26.\n\n Novato concedes that it did not raise this objection before\nthe Board and that Section 10(e) of the NLRA deprives this\ncourt of jurisdiction to hear any “objection that has not been\nurged before the Board,” barring “extraordinary circumstances.”\n29 U.S.C. § 160(e). Novato proffers no circumstances,\n“extraordinary” or otherwise, to excuse its forfeiture. Instead,\nit insists that free-speech arguments cannot be forfeited and that\nSection 10(e) simply does not apply to First Amendment\narguments. Oral Arg. 7:50; Reply Br. 12-13.\n\n The text of Section 10(e) makes no exception for\nfree-speech objections, whether grounded in the First\nAmendment or Section 8(c). Nor do this circuit’s decisions.\nSee Ampersand Publ’g, LLC v. NLRB, No. 15-1074, 2017 WL\n1314946, at *2 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 3, 2017) (holding that the “court\nlacks jurisdiction to consider Ampersand’s broad First\nAmendment argument” because of Section 10(e)’s jurisdictional\nbar); Progressive Elec., Inc. v. NLRB, 453 F.3d 538, 545 (D.C.\n\f 21\n\nCir. 2006) (declining to hear an employer’s Section 8(c)\nargument because it had “not been raised before the Board”).\nNor has Novato cited a single case to support its position.\nAccordingly, we do not consider this objection.\n\n V\n\n For the foregoing reasons, we deny Novato’s petition for\nreview and grant the Board’s cross-application for enforcement.\n\n So ordered.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: NOVATO HEALTHCARE CENTER, Petitioner v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-05\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued September 17, 2018 Decided March 5, 2019\\n\\n No. 17-1221\\n\\n NOVATO HEALTHCARE CENTER,\\n PETITIONER\\n\\n v.\\n\\n NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,\\n RESPONDENT\\n\\n\\n Consolidated with 17-1232\\n\\n\\n On Petition for Review and Cross-Application\\n for Enforcement of an Order of\\n the National Labor Relations Board\\n\\n\\n Ryan N. Parsons argued the cause for petitioner. With him\\non the briefs was Kamran Mirrafati.\\n\\n Rebecca J. Johnston, Attorney, National Labor Relations\\nBoard, argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief\\nwere Peter B. Robb, General Counsel, John W. Kyle, Deputy\\nGeneral Counsel, Linda Dreeben, Deputy Associate General\\nCounsel, and Jill A. Griffin, Supervisory Attorney.\\n\\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge,\\nand EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\f 2\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GARLAND.\\n\\n GARLAND, Chief Judge: In 1992, Vincent Gambini taught\\na master class in cross-examination.1 Trial counsel for the\\nNational Labor Relations Board and the National Union of\\nHealthcare Workers apparently paid attention. In this petition\\nfor review, Novato Healthcare Center challenges the Board’s\\nfinding that it committed an unfair labor practice by firing four\\nunion organizers two days before a union election. As Novato\\nacknowledges, its “entire case turns on whether the testimony”\\nof one of its supervisors “should be credited.” Reply Br. 5. But\\nthe Board determined that the testimony should not be credited,\\nand trial counsel’s cross-examination of the supervisor provides\\nsubstantial evidence to support that determination. For this\\nreason, and because the other findings that Novato challenges\\nare also supported by substantial evidence, we deny Novato’s\\npetition for review and grant the Board’s cross-application for\\nenforcement.\\n\\n I\\n\\n Novato operates a skilled-nursing facility in California that\\ncares for about 170 patients. On September 16, 2015, the\\nNational Union of Healthcare Workers filed a petition with the\\nNational Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to represent a unit of\\nNovato employees. Among the employees leading the union-\\norganizing effort were Narvius Metellus, Rolando Bernales,\\nArlene Waters Brown, and Angel Sabelino. All four attended\\nunion meetings, collected show-of-interest signatures, wore\\npro-union buttons and lanyards, distributed union regalia, and\\npassed out flyers promoting the union.\\n\\n\\n\\n 1\\n See MY COUSIN VINNY (Twentieth Century Fox 1992) (cross-\\nexamination of Mr. Tipton); infra note 5.\\n\\f 3\\n\\n Novato’s management undertook its own union-opposition\\ncampaign. Although Novato supervisors did not generally work\\nnight shifts, facility administrator Darron Treude asked\\nsupervisors to volunteer for those shifts so they could provide\\nunion-opposition materials to employees and answer their\\nquestions. CPEhr, an outside consulting group that provides\\nemployment law advice, spearheaded the union-opposition\\ncampaign on behalf of Novato.\\n\\n On October 4, 2015, ten days before the October 14-15\\nrepresentation election, Novato supervisor Gay Rocha\\napproached employee Metellus at approximately 6:30 a.m.\\nRocha asked Metellus, who was a relatively new employee, how\\nhe planned to vote in the upcoming election. When Metellus\\nresponded that he planned to vote in favor of the union, Rocha\\ntold him that doing so would have implications for his pay and\\nthat the union could potentially take a portion of his paycheck.\\nMetellus responded that this would not be a problem for him.\\n\\n On October 6-7, Metellus, Bernales, Brown, and Sabelino\\nworked the night shift together at Station 4, one of four nursing\\nstations at the Novato facility. During that shift, another\\nemployee, Gonzala Rodriguez, whose union views were and\\nremain unknown, worked at Station 1. At Novato, night-shift\\nemployees work from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 or 7:30 a.m.,\\ndepending on their positions. During a shift, employees are\\nallowed two 10-minute rest breaks. In addition, they are\\nallowed one 30-minute meal break. Employees routinely sleep\\nduring these breaks, which they are permitted to take at any\\ntime, so long as at least one station member is available. See\\nNovato Healthcare Ctr., 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 7 (Sept. 29,\\n2017) (ALJ Op.).\\n\\n Novato supervisor Teresa Gilman also worked the night\\nshift on October 6-7, as part of Novato’s union-opposition\\n\\f 4\\n\\ncampaign. According to Gilman’s testimony at the subsequent\\nunfair labor practices hearing, she arrived at the Novato facility\\nsome time after 3:50 a.m. on October 7. After completing a\\nnumber of tasks, Gilman began making the rounds of the\\nnursing stations, starting with Station 4.\\n\\n Gilman testified that, when she arrived at Station 4, she saw\\nall four employees sleeping. She said she stood in front of the\\nemployees for “several seconds to up to a minute” to see if they\\nwould wake up. Id. at 11. According to Gilman, they did not.\\n\\n Gilman then proceeded to Stations 3 and 1.2 She testified\\nthat, at Station 1, she saw another employee, Rodriguez,\\nsleeping. According to Gilman, Rodriguez was sitting in a chair\\noutside a patient’s room with her head down on a table.\\n\\n On Gilman’s second and third rounds through Stations 4, 3,\\nand 1, she said she saw all five employees still asleep in the\\nsame positions in which she had last seen them. On her third\\nvisit to Station 4, Gilman used her cell phone to take a\\nphotograph of two of the four employees, Brown and Sabelino.\\nThe photo shows the two with their eyes closed. Although the\\nphotograph initially did not have a timestamp, Gilman later\\nproduced a version with a timestamp of 4:21 a.m.\\n\\n Timing, in this case, is (almost) everything. Gilman\\ntestified that at least 15 to 20 minutes passed from the time she\\nfirst arrived at Station 4 and saw the employees sleeping, to the\\ntime she took the photograph of the two sleeping employees. If\\ntrue, this meant that at least two of the Station 4 employees had\\nbeen sleeping considerably longer than their permitted 10-\\nminute breaks.\\n\\n\\n 2\\n She did not stop at Station 2 because it was “an alarmed unit\\nand alarms would go off.” J.A. 443 (Gilman Test.).\\n\\f 5\\n\\n Gilman then went on to revisit Station 1. She noticed that\\nRodriguez was still sleeping and informed the charge nurse, who\\nwoke her up. Gilman estimated that Rodriguez had been asleep\\nfor at least 15 to 20 minutes as well. By the time Gilman\\nreturned to Station 4 for a fourth time, all four employees there\\nwere awake.\\n\\n On the morning of October 7, Gilman sent administrator\\nTreude the photograph and soon thereafter informed him that the\\nfive employees had been asleep for 15 to 20 minutes. Treude\\nsuspended all five and initiated an investigation. Novato’s\\noutside counsel, Richard Albert, as well as its outside consulting\\ngroup, CPEhr, provided input regarding disciplinary options.\\nSpecifically, in an email to Treude and CPEhr, Albert\\nrecommended that Treude terminate all five employees.\\nAlthough Albert recognized that Rodriguez was “a bit of a\\ndifferent story” because her “Charge Nurse appears to have\\ntolerated her sleeping,” he still recommended her termination:\\n“[G]iving her lesser discipline, in this situation, sends the wrong\\nmessage to the NLRB or a judge looking at this. It is possible\\nthat [the] NLRB or judge could view her situation as being less\\nserious than the others, but I would rather have you take that\\nrisk, than the risk that letting her remain employed somehow\\ndilutes our arguments with the other 4.” Email from Albert to\\nTreude, et al. (Oct. 10, 2015) (J.A. 529).\\n\\n On October 12, two days before the scheduled election,\\nTreude fired all five employees for sleeping on duty. On\\nOctober 14 and 15, the NLRB conducted the election, which the\\nunion won.\\n\\n Thereafter, the union charged Novato with committing\\nunfair labor practices, and the NLRB’s General Counsel issued\\na complaint. Gilman testified as recounted above. The two\\nStation 4 employees captured in the photograph, Brown and\\n\\f 6\\n\\nSabelino, acknowledged that they had slept, but said they did so\\nonly during their permitted 10-minute breaks. Bernales testified\\nthat, although he had rested during his allowed meal break, he\\ndid not sleep after returning to Station 4 at 4:00 a.m. Metellus\\ntestified that he did not sleep at all during that shift. Rodriguez,\\nthe Station 1 employee, did not testify.\\n\\n Following a multi-day hearing, the ALJ found that Novato\\nviolated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by\\nsuspending and firing the five employees, and also violated the\\nAct when Rocha questioned Metellus about how he planned to\\nvote. 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 18. The Board affirmed the\\nALJ’s rulings, findings, credibility determinations, and\\nconclusions, with minor modifications. Id. at 1.\\n\\n Novato has now filed a petition for review in this court, and\\nthe NLRB has filed a cross-application for enforcement of its\\norder. Under the applicable standard of review, we must uphold\\nthe judgment of the Board unless its findings are unsupported by\\nsubstantial evidence, or it acted arbitrarily or otherwise erred in\\napplying established law to the facts of the case. Spurlino\\nMaterials, LLC v. NLRB, 805 F.3d 1131, 1136 (D.C. Cir. 2015);\\nBally’s Park Place, Inc. v. NLRB, 646 F.3d 929, 935 (D.C. Cir.\\n2011); see 29 U.S.C. § 160(f) (providing that the Board’s\\nfindings of fact are “conclusive” if “supported by substantial\\nevidence on the record considered as a whole”).\\n\\n II\\n\\n We begin with Novato’s challenge to the Board’s finding\\nthat Novato violated Section 8(a)(1) and (3) of the NLRA, 29\\nU.S.C. § 158(a)(1), (3), by suspending and then firing the four\\nemployees at Station 4. It is on this issue that the information\\nelicited by cross-examination is important.\\n\\f 7\\n\\n An employer violates Section 8(a)(1) and (3) by suspending\\nor discharging an employee for engaging in protected union\\nactivity. NLRB v. Transp. Mgmt. Corp., 462 U.S. 393, 397-98\\n(1983); Metro. Edison Co. v. NLRB, 460 U.S. 693, 698 n.4\\n(1983); Tasty Baking Co. v. NLRB, 254 F.3d 114, 125 (D.C. Cir.\\n2001).3 The Board employs the judicially approved Wright Line\\ntest when reviewing a claim that an employer discharged (or\\ntook other disciplinary action against) an employee for protected\\nconduct. See Wright Line, 251 N.L.R.B. 1083, 1089 (1980); see\\nalso Transp. Mgmt. Corp., 462 U.S. at 401-03 (approving the\\nWright Line test); Bally’s Park Place, 646 F.3d at 935. “Under\\nthat test, the General Counsel must first ‘make a prima facie\\nshowing sufficient to support the inference that protected . . .\\nconduct was a motivating factor in the [discharge].’” Tasty\\nBaking, 254 F.3d at 125 (quoting TIC-The Indus. Co. Se. v.\\nNLRB, 126 F.3d 334, 337 (D.C. Cir. 1997)). “Once a prima facie\\ncase has been established, the burden [of persuasion] shifts to\\nthe company to show that it would have taken the same action\\nin the absence of the unlawful motive.” Id. at 126; see Bally’s\\nPark Place, 646 F.3d at 935.\\n\\n In the proceedings below, Novato disputed the unfair labor\\npractice charges at both steps of the Wright Line test. With\\nrespect to the first step, the ALJ, affirmed by the Board, readily\\n\\n\\n 3\\n Section 7 of the NLRA guarantees employees the “right to\\nself-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, . . . and\\nto engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective\\nbargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” 29 U.S.C. § 157.\\nSection 8(a)(1) provides that “[i]t shall be an unfair labor practice for\\nan employer . . . to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the\\nexercise of the rights guaranteed” in Section 7. Id. § 158(a)(1). And\\nSection 8(a)(3) prohibits “discrimination in regard to . . . tenure of\\nemployment . . . to . . . discourage membership in any labor\\norganization.” Id. § 158(a)(3).\\n\\f 8\\n\\nfound sufficient evidence to support the inference that anti-union\\nanimus was a motivating factor in the suspension and discharge\\nof the Station 4 employees. The “record show[ed],” the ALJ\\nrecounted, that the four employees “visibly supported the union\\norganizing campaign by [inter alia] wearing lanyards and\\nbuttons, passing out flyers, and getting employees to sign [up]\\nfor a showing of interest,” and that “their actions were visible\\nfrom Treude’s office.” 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 16. In light of\\nthose facts, the ALJ rejected, as “disingenuous,” Novato’s\\n“claims that its supervisors were unaware of the employees’\\nunion activity.” Id. She specifically declined to “credit\\nGilman’s testimony that she did not know whether the allegedly\\nsleeping employees were union supporters since she did not\\nnotice any union lanyards or pins,” because Gilman “also\\ntestified in incredible detail as to how the employees were\\npositioned and claimed to have stood in front of them for some\\ntime.” Id. In addition, the ALJ noted that the “suspensions and\\ndischarges occurred only a couple weeks after the filing of the\\nrepresentation petition and only 1 week prior to the\\nrepresentation election.” Id. And she also noted that Novato’s\\nanimus was “demonstrated by its contemporaneous 8(a)(1)\\nviolation[]”: Rocha’s unlawful interrogation of Metellus about\\nhis preference in the representation election. Id.\\n\\n The ALJ found additional support for the inference of\\nanimus and discriminatory motivation in the fact that Novato\\n“acted disparately”: “No other employees had been suspended\\nand discharged for the same or similar allegations.” Id. at 17.\\nShe observed that, “[i]n a similar situation in 2009 where an\\nemployee allegedly slept on duty, [Novato] did not discipline\\nthis employee even though there too was a picture of the\\nsleeping employee.” Id. The ALJ further noted that, although\\njust one week “prior to the events at issue in [t]his matter, one\\nof [Novato’s] supervisors also reported employees sleeping\\nduring the night shift[,] . . . Treude failed to investigate or follow\\n\\f 9\\n\\nup on this allegation.” Id. Instead, “Treude singularly focused\\non Metellus, Bernales, Brown, and Sabelino and one can only\\nconclude it was due to their union activity.” Id.\\n\\n In this court, Novato does “not contest the Board’s finding\\nof an unlawful motivation in discharging the employees at\\nissue.” Reply Br. 2; Oral Arg. at 1:50-2:33. Rather, Novato’s\\nsole contention is that it met its burden of proof under the\\nsecond step of the Wright Line test by proving “that it would\\nhave taken the same action absent the improper motive.” Reply\\nBr. 4. As it argued below, Novato maintains here that it would\\nhave terminated the four regardless of their union support\\nbecause of the “brazen” nature of their conduct in sleeping on\\nduty. 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 17 (ALJ Op.).\\n\\n The ALJ, affirmed by the Board, rejected Novato’s Wright\\nLine defense. Id.; see id. at 1 nn. 1, 2 (Board Op.). She rejected\\nTreude’s testimony in its entirety for multiple reasons, including\\nhis demeanor, id. at 5 (ALJ Op.) (“evasive[], . . . vague and\\ncontradictory”), and his disparate treatment of earlier sleeping-\\non-the-job claims, id. at 17. As discussed below, she\\nspecifically discredited Gilman’s testimony that she saw the four\\nemployees sleeping on duty. Id. at 5. Instead, she credited in its\\nentirety the testimony of Brown, and in relevant part the\\ntestimony of Sabelino, both of whom acknowledged that they\\nhad slept but said they did so only during their permitted\\n10-minute breaks. Id.4 In addition, the ALJ credited the\\ntestimony of Bernales, who testified that the only rest he took\\nwas during his permitted 30-minute meal break prior to 4:00\\na.m., and of Metellus, who testified that he did not sleep at all\\nduring the shift. Id. at 5-6.\\n\\n\\n 4\\n The ALJ further credited Brown’s testimony that she ensured\\nthat Metellus and Bernales were both awake and working when she\\nwent to sleep on her break. 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 5.\\n\\f 10\\n\\n Novato acknowledges that its Step 2 Wright Line argument\\n-- that it would have discharged the four employees regardless\\nof any anti-union motive because they were sleeping on duty\\nwell past their permitted rest periods -- turns entirely on\\n“whether the testimony of Gilman should be credited.” Reply\\nBr. 5; Oral Arg. at 2:40-3:00. Novato’s success therefore\\ndepends on persuading us that the ALJ’s conclusions about\\nGilman’s credibility were unsupported. And that presents\\nNovato with a difficult task because “we do not reverse the\\nBoard’s adoption of an ALJ’s credibility determinations unless\\n. . . those determinations are ‘hopelessly incredible,’\\n‘self-contradictory,’ or ‘patently unsupportable.’” Shamrock\\nFoods Co. v. NLRB, 346 F.3d 1130, 1134 (D.C. Cir. 2003)\\n(quoting Cadbury Beverages, Inc. v. NLRB, 160 F.3d 24, 28\\n(D.C. Cir. 1998)).\\n\\n Novato insists that it is up to this difficult task because\\nphotographic evidence “fully corroborated” Gilman’s testimony\\n“that the Unit 4 employees were sleeping for 20 minutes.”\\nReply Br. 6, 5. That itself is an overstatement of Gilman’s\\nactual testimony, which was that the employees were sleeping\\n“at least 15 to 20 minutes.” J.A. 456 (Gilman Test.). Be that as\\nit may, Novato’s argument here is in line with the position it\\ntook before the ALJ:\\n\\n Immediately after the October 7 incident, Gilman\\n reported that she began her rounding at approximately\\n 4:00 am on October 7, and took the photo of Brown\\n and Sabelino somewhere around 15-20 minutes later.\\n At the time she made these representations, the photo\\n Gilman had taken had no time stamp on it. . . . Once\\n she [downloaded a software update on her smart\\n phone], a time stamp appeared indicating that the\\n picture was taken at 4:21 am . . . . This indisputable\\n time stamp evidence is totally consistent with Gilman’s\\n\\f 11\\n\\n testimony as well as her prior statements about the\\n events of October 7 -- she arrived on Unit 4 at or\\n slightly after 4:00 am, and took the photo at least\\n 15-20 minutes later.\\n\\nNovato Post-Hearing Br. 15 (emphasis added). Like the ALJ,\\nwe will assume that the 4:21 a.m. timestamp was accurate,\\nnotwithstanding some doubts in that regard. See 365 N.L.R.B.\\nNo. 137, at 5, 12 n.27.\\n\\n And here is where the lesson Vinny Gambini taught comes\\ninto play. A key issue in the murder trial of Vinny’s cousin,\\nBill, was how many minutes had passed between the time\\nwitness Sam Tipton saw Bill enter the Sac-O-Suds convenience\\nstore and the time he heard a gunshot. On direct examination,\\nTipton testified that he was sure only five minutes had passed\\nbecause he saw Bill go into the store as he (Tipton) started\\nmaking breakfast, and the shot rang out just as his breakfast was\\nready to eat. On cross-examination, Vinny elicited Tipton’s\\nbreakfast-making process. By the end of the cross, it was clear\\nthat Tipton could not have cooked his breakfast of eggs and grits\\nin just five minutes.5\\n\\n\\n 5\\n The cross-examination proceeded as follows:\\n Q. Well, how much time was they in the store?\\n A. Five minutes.\\n Q. Five minutes? Are you sure, did you look at your watch?\\n A. No.\\n Q. Oh, oh, I’m sorry, you testified earlier that the boys went\\n into the store, and you had just begun to make breakfast, you\\n were just ready to eat, and you heard a gunshot. . . . So\\n obviously it takes you five minutes to make breakfast.\\n A. That’s right. . . .\\n Q. Do you remember what you had?\\n A. Eggs and grits.\\n\\f 12\\n\\n So, too, here. Gilman testified that the only time she saw a\\nclock on the morning of October 7 was when she stopped at a\\nstop sign, three blocks from work, and noticed that her car’s\\nclock showed it was 3:50 a.m. On cross-examination, she\\ninitially claimed that it took her only 5 to 10 minutes to get from\\nthat stop sign to Station 4, where she said she first encountered\\nthe four sleeping employees. J.A. 490 (Gilman Test.). If\\nGilman really had reached Station 4 in just 5 to 10 minutes, that\\nwould indeed have put her in a position to observe the sleeping\\nemployees at Station 4 at (or before) 4:00 a.m. -- just as\\nNovato’s brief claimed. And if we further assume the accuracy\\nof the 4:21 a.m. timestamp on the photograph Gilman took the\\nlast time she saw them sleeping, that would establish that at least\\n\\n\\n\\n Q. Eggs and grits. I like grits too. How do you cook your\\n grits? You like ‘em regular, creamy, or al dente?\\n A. Just regular, I guess.\\n Q. Regular. Instant grits?\\n A. No self-respecting Southerner uses instant grits. I take\\n pride in my grits.\\n Q. So, Mr. Tipton, how could it take you five minutes to cook\\n your grits, when it takes the entire grit-eating world twenty\\n minutes?\\n A. I don’t know. I’m a fast cook I guess.\\n Q. I’m sorry . . . . Are we to believe that boiling water soaks\\n into a grit faster in your kitchen than on any place on the face\\n of the earth?\\n A. I don’t know.\\n Q. Well, perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your\\n stove? Were these magic grits? . . .\\n Q. Are you sure about that five minutes? . . .\\n A. I may have been mistaken.\\nAmerican Rhetoric: Movie Speech, “My Cousin Vinny (1992),”\\nhttps://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechmy\\ncousinvinny3.html (video clip).\\n\\f 13\\n\\nthe two employees in the photo had been sleeping for at least 20\\nminutes -- again, just as Novato claimed.\\n\\n The problem with this timeline is the sheer number of tasks\\nGilman claimed to have completed between stopping at the stop\\nsign at 3:50 a.m. and arriving at Station 4 just 5 to 10 minutes\\nlater. During NLRB counsel’s cross-examination of Gilman,\\ncounsel drew out the following list of activities Gilman said she\\nhad completed during that period:\\n\\n - driven three more blocks to the Novato facility,\\n stopping at another stop sign along the way;\\n - parked her car and went into the facility;\\n - walked to her office, where she logged on to her\\n computer and checked her emails;\\n - walked to the facility’s kitchen, where she checked\\n the temperature logs for a refrigerator, for a walk-in\\n refrigerator, and for a walk-in freezer; and checked the\\n labels and dates of the items in the refrigerators;6\\n - walked to and through the break room, where she\\n used the restroom and then collected Novato union-\\n opposition campaign flyers, on which someone had\\n written “derogatory stuff”;\\n - gone back to her office and read the flyers;\\n - walked down the hallway toward Station 4, peeking\\n in rooms along the way; and\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 6\\n During her direct examination, Gilman testified that she had\\nalso opened the oven doors, inspected the stove, and tidied up. See\\nJ.A. 427 (Gilman Test.).\\n\\f 14\\n\\n - arrived at Station 4 for the first time, where she saw\\n the sleeping employees.\\nSee Gilman Test. Tr. 804-15 (cross-examination by Marta\\nNovoa, NLRB attorney).\\n\\n When the union’s attorney took up the tag-team match\\nduring her own shot at cross-examination, she hammered the\\npoint home:\\n\\n Q. So it’s your testimony that it only took [10] minutes\\n to drive from the 7-Eleven [near the first stop sign],\\n park, to go into your office, to log onto your computer,\\n to check your email, go to the bathroom, use the\\n restroom, cleanup the break room a little bit of these\\n flyers, and go through all the procedures that [you]\\n went through . . . in your kitchen.\\n A. . . . [S]o roughly I would still say about five -- it\\n wasn’t that long, you know. It wasn’t that long. . . .\\n Q. So I’m trying to figure out from that time, driving,\\n going through another stop sign, parking, getting in,\\n unlocking your door, putting everything down,\\n everything you did between there and when you first\\n saw people sleeping, are you sure it was only ten\\n minutes or less? Or could it have been 15 or 20\\n minutes?\\n A. No, it could not have been 15 or 20 minutes . . . .\\n Q. Isn’t it true you’re just not sure how long it took you\\n to get from the stop sign to [] Station 4 . . . ?\\n A. Well, to me it seemed like everything that I was\\n doing, it seemed like about 10 minutes had passed.\\n Q. But you never looked at a clock to make sure that’s\\n correct?\\n\\f 15\\n\\n A. Correct.\\nJ.A. 490-92 (cross-examination by Heather Conger, union\\nattorney).\\n\\n In light of the sheer “number of functions” Gilman “claimed\\nto perform[,] . . . all within a very short time period,” the ALJ\\nregarded her testimony as “simply . . . implausible.” 365\\nN.L.R.B. No. 137, at 5. Moreover, Gilman’s testimony about\\nhow long the tasks had taken in the aggregate was rendered even\\nmore implausible by counsel’s further cross-examination about\\nhow long some of them had taken individually. In response to\\ncounsel’s questions, Gilman testified that: “from the stop sign to\\n[the facility] that’s three or four minutes”; “[i]t takes three to\\nfour minutes to log onto my computer”; “[w]hat I did in my\\nkitchen took a few minutes”; “I went over to the break room,\\n[which] took three or four minutes”; and then “I left and went\\nback to my office [put down the flyers, and looked at them\\nagain] just briefly.” J.A. 490-91 (Gilman Test.); Gilman Test.\\nTr. 814-15. By Gilman’s own account, then, those activities\\nalone took about 15 minutes. Given the additional,\\nunaccounted-for activities that Gilman also had to complete, the\\nALJ reasonably concluded that Gilman’s aggregate time\\nestimate was “unlikely and unbelievable due to the length of\\ntime she allocated to each task she completed” before first\\nencountering the sleeping employees. 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at\\n11 n.25.\\n\\n Nor was Gilman’s implausible timeline testimony the only\\nproblem the ALJ had with her credibility. So, too, was Gilman’s\\nfailure to photograph the other two employees who, she claimed,\\nwere also asleep at the same time at the same nursing station.\\nSo, too, was her failure to attempt to wake any of the four\\nemployees, or to seek immediate assistance from other\\nsupervisors, despite Novato’s contention that the employees had\\nto be fired because they had put patients dangerously at risk by\\n\\f 16\\n\\nsleeping on the job. See id. at 5. So, too, was her assertion that\\nshe did not know the four were union adherents because she did\\nnot notice that they all wore pro-union lanyards and buttons --\\ndespite her claim that she could “recall significant details on\\nhow the employees slept” because she got within “arm’s reach”\\nof them. Id. at 5, 11. And so, too, was Gilman’s denial that she\\nherself wore an anti-union lanyard that morning, a denial she\\nlater had to withdraw. Id. at 5, 8 (admitting that she, along with\\nother supervisors, wore lanyards urging employees, in capital\\nletters, to “KEEP YOUR VOICE VOTE NO”).\\n\\n In the end, the ALJ simply could “not find [Gilman’s]\\ntestimony credible and reject[ed] her version of events\\ncompletely.” Id. at 5. The Board saw “no basis for reversing”\\nthat finding, see id. at 1 n.1, and neither do we. Novato proffers\\nno other evidence that Brown and Sabelino were sleeping longer\\nthan their permitted break times and no other evidence that\\nMetellus and Bernales were sleeping at all. Given the absence\\nof such evidence, combined with the contrary testimony that the\\nALJ reasonably credited, we find nothing unreasonable in the\\nBoard’s conclusion that Novato failed to meet its burden of\\nshowing it would have fired the four employees notwithstanding\\nits anti-union animus.\\n\\n III\\n\\n Novato also disputes the Board’s determination that it fired\\nRodriguez, the Station 1 employee, in violation of Section\\n8(a)(1) and (3) of the NLRA. Novato emphasizes the “total lack\\nof evidence” that Rodriguez did not sleep or that she was a\\nunion supporter. Novato Br. 21. This argument fails because\\nthe Board did not rely on such evidence to conclude that Novato\\ncommitted an unfair labor practice by firing Rodriguez. Rather,\\nthe ALJ found, and the Board affirmed, that Novato violated the\\nAct by using Rodriguez as a “pawn in an unlawful design.” 365\\n\\f 17\\n\\nN.L.R.B. No. 137, at 18 (quoting Corliss Res., Inc., 362\\nN.L.R.B. No. 21, at 4 (2015)).\\n\\n Although Rodriguez’s union views were unknown, the ALJ\\nconcluded that Novato fired her along with the Station 4\\nemployees “for fear of diluting its argument against the other\\ndiscriminatees” and to “‘cover’ its unlawful suspension and\\ntermination of the other 4 employees.” Id. As the Board has\\nlong held, “an employer’s discharge of uncommitted, neutral, or\\ninactive employees in order to ‘cover’ or to facilitate\\ndiscriminatory conduct against a targeted union-supporting\\nemployee or to discourage employee support for the union is\\nviolative of Section 8(a)(3) of the Act.” Dawson Carbide\\nIndus., Inc., 273 N.L.R.B. 382, 389 (1984); see Metro-West\\nAmbulance Servs., Inc., 360 N.L.R.B. 1029, 1056 (2014); Bay\\nCorrugated Container, Inc., 310 N.L.R.B. 450, 451 (1993); see\\nalso Alpo Petfoods, Inc. v. NLRB, 126 F.3d 246, 255-56 (4th Cir.\\n1997).\\n\\n Here, substantial evidence supports the Board’s conclusion\\nthat Rodriguez was discharged alongside the Station 4\\nemployees in order to provide cover for Novato’s discriminatory\\nconduct toward those union supporters. The email from\\nNovato’s outside counsel to administrator Treude all but\\nadmitted as much. Counsel acknowledged that Rodriguez was\\n“a bit of a different story” from the other four because her\\n“Charge Nurse appears to have tolerated her sleeping.” Email\\nfrom Albert to Treude, et al. (Oct. 10, 2015) (J.A. 529).\\nNonetheless, he suggested that Treude fire her to avoid\\n“dilut[ing] [Novato’s] arguments with the other 4.” Id. And as\\nthe ALJ noted, “[d]espite claiming that he did not read [the]\\nemail recommendations, Treude exactly followed [the] advice.”\\n365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 18; see id. at 13 n.39.\\n\\f 18\\n\\n IV\\n\\n Finally, Novato challenges the Board’s finding that\\nsupervisor Gay Rocha unlawfully interrogated employee\\nNarvius Metellus in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA.\\n\\n On Sunday, October 4, 2015, ten days before the election,\\nRocha “came into the facility early as part of [Novato’s]\\nopposition campaign.” 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 9 (ALJ Op.).\\nMetellus testified that Rocha came up to him while he was\\nstanding near a vending machine and asked “how he planned to\\nvote in the upcoming union election.” Id. When Metellus said\\nhe planned to vote in favor of the union, Rocha told him that\\ndoing so would have implications for his pay and that the union\\ncould possibly take part of his paycheck. Id.7\\n\\n “The questioning of an employee about union activities or\\nsympathies constitutes unlawful interrogation ‘if, under all the\\ncircumstances, it reasonably tends to restrain, coerce, or\\ninterfere with rights guaranteed by the Act.’” Shamrock Foods,\\n346 F.3d at 1137 (quoting Perdue Farms, Inc. v. NLRB, 144\\nF.3d 830, 835 (D.C. Cir. 1998)). In examining the totality of the\\ncircumstances, the Board considers such factors as: the nature\\nof the information sought; the seniority of the questioner in the\\nemployer’s hierarchy; the place and manner of the conversation,\\nincluding whether it took place during a disputed union\\ncampaign and whether the employee was alone; the truthfulness\\nof the employee’s reply; and whether the questioner offered any\\nlegitimate purpose for his question or assurance against reprisal.\\n\\n\\n 7\\n In Rocha’s testimony before the ALJ, she denied speaking to\\nMetellus about his position regarding the union. The ALJ found that\\n“Rocha cannot be believed” and credited Metellus’s version of events.\\n365 N.L.R.B. No. 137, at 9. Before this court, Novato does not\\ndispute Metellus’s recounting of his interaction with Rocha.\\n\\f 19\\n\\nSee, e.g., Shamrock Foods, 346 F.3d at 1137; Perdue Farms,\\n144 F.3d at 835-36; Rossmore House, 269 N.L.R.B. 1176, 1178\\nn.20 (1984) (citing Bourne v. NLRB, 332 F.2d 47 (2d Cir.\\n1964)). The test is an objective one; proof of actual coercion is\\nnot required. See United Servs. Auto. Ass’n v. NLRB, 387 F.3d\\n908, 913 (D.C. Cir. 2004).\\n\\n In this case, the ALJ found that Rocha’s questioning about\\nMetellus’s union views “would have a reasonable tendency to\\ninterfere with an employee’s Section 7 rights.” 365 N.L.R.B.\\nNo. 137, at 15; see supra note 3 (quoting Section 7, 29 U.S.C.\\n§ 157). Among the factors the judge cited for this conclusion\\nwere: Rocha questioned Metellus ten days before the\\nrepresentation election; “Metellus recognized Rocha as a\\nsupervisor at the facility”; Novato “ran an obvious union\\nopposition campaign around this time period”; and “Rocha\\noffered no explanation for her question nor did she provide\\nassurances against reprisal to Metellus.” 365 N.L.R.B. No. 137,\\nat 15. In affirming the ALJ’s finding, the Board added that\\n“questions like Rocha’s -- going specifically to how an\\nemployee himself intends to vote -- have a uniquely coercive\\ntendency,” and that “Rocha’s position as a high-level\\nmanagement official with no regular working relationship with\\nMetellus compounded the coercive tendency of her question.”\\nId. at 2. Moreover, “Rocha’s subsequent comments that voting\\nfor the Union would have implications on Metellus’s pay and\\nthat the Union could possibly take part of his paycheck clearly\\ncommunicated [Novato’s] preference that Metellus should vote\\nagainst representation.” Id.\\n\\n “Recognizing the Board’s ‘competence in the first instance\\nto judge the impact of utterances made in the context of the\\nemployer-employee relationship,’” Shamrock Foods, 346 F.3d\\nat 1137 (citations omitted), we uphold as reasonable its\\nconclusion that Rocha’s questioning was sufficiently coercive to\\n\\f 20\\n\\nviolate the Act. As noted above, the factors cited by the Board\\nare among those upon which it has traditionally relied and\\nsupport the conclusion here that the interrogation “reasonably\\ntend[ed] to restrain, coerce, or interfere with rights guaranteed\\nby the Act.” Id. (citation omitted).\\n\\n Novato further maintains that the Board’s finding of an\\nunlawful interrogation violates Novato’s free-speech rights\\nunder the First Amendment and Section 8(c) of the NLRA. See\\n29 U.S.C. § 158(c) (“The expressing of any views . . . shall not\\nconstitute or be evidence of an unfair labor practice . . . if such\\nexpression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of\\nbenefit.”). Rocha, it insists, simply exercised Novato’s First\\nAmendment rights in asking how Metellus planned to vote and\\nmerely spoke the truth when she informed him that the union\\ncould deduct dues from his paychecks. Novato Br. 25-26.\\n\\n Novato concedes that it did not raise this objection before\\nthe Board and that Section 10(e) of the NLRA deprives this\\ncourt of jurisdiction to hear any “objection that has not been\\nurged before the Board,” barring “extraordinary circumstances.”\\n29 U.S.C. § 160(e). Novato proffers no circumstances,\\n“extraordinary” or otherwise, to excuse its forfeiture. Instead,\\nit insists that free-speech arguments cannot be forfeited and that\\nSection 10(e) simply does not apply to First Amendment\\narguments. Oral Arg. 7:50; Reply Br. 12-13.\\n\\n The text of Section 10(e) makes no exception for\\nfree-speech objections, whether grounded in the First\\nAmendment or Section 8(c). Nor do this circuit’s decisions.\\nSee Ampersand Publ’g, LLC v. NLRB, No. 15-1074, 2017 WL\\n1314946, at *2 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 3, 2017) (holding that the “court\\nlacks jurisdiction to consider Ampersand’s broad First\\nAmendment argument” because of Section 10(e)’s jurisdictional\\nbar); Progressive Elec., Inc. v. NLRB, 453 F.3d 538, 545 (D.C.\\n\\f 21\\n\\nCir. 2006) (declining to hear an employer’s Section 8(c)\\nargument because it had “not been raised before the Board”).\\nNor has Novato cited a single case to support its position.\\nAccordingly, we do not consider this objection.\\n\\n V\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, we deny Novato’s petition for\\nreview and grant the Board’s cross-application for enforcement.\\n\\n So ordered.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1371,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4596449,"string":"4,596,449"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Jeffrey O. SIEGEL, Petitioner v. ADMINISTRATOR OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION AND NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD, Respondents"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Siegel v. Adm'r of the Fed. Aviation Admin. & Nat'l Transp. Safety Bd."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-05"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"18-1102"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Srinivasan, Katsas, Sentelle\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge SENTELLE.\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued December 12, 2018 Decided March 5, 2019\\n\\n No. 18-1102\\n\\n JEFFREY O. SIEGEL,\\n PETITIONER\\n\\n v.\\n\\nADMINISTRATOR OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION\\n AND NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD,\\n RESPONDENTS\\n\\n\\n\\n On Petition for Review of an Order of\\n the National Transportation Safety Board\\n\\n\\n\\n Gregory S. Winton argued the cause and filed the briefs\\nfor petitioner.\\n\\n Sarah Carroll, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,\\nargued the cause for respondents. With her on the brief were\\nMark B. Stern, Attorney, and Christopher Stevenson, Senior\\nAttorney, Federal Aviation Administration.\\n\\n Before: SRINIVASAN and KATSAS, Circuit Judges, and\\nSENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\f 2\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge\\nSENTELLE.\\n\\n SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge: Law enforcement\\nofficers responding to an airplane crash discovered THC-\\ninfused chocolate bars onboard. The pilot, Jeffrey Siegel,\\nadmitted that they were his. In this petition, Siegel claims that\\nthe Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to revoke his\\npilot’s certificate for knowingly operating an aircraft with\\nnarcotics onboard was arbitrary and capricious. We disagree\\nand deny the petition.\\n\\n I. Legal Background\\n\\n The Administrator of the Federal Aviation\\nAdministration (FAA), by statute, has the authority to\\nprescribe regulations for “practices, methods, and\\nprocedure[s] the Administrator finds necessary for safety in\\nair commerce and national security.” 49 U.S.C. § 44701(a)(5).\\nThe Administrator also has the authority to issue pilot\\ncertificates to those he finds “qualified” to operate aircraft. 49\\nU.S.C. § 44703(a). The Administrator may suspend or revoke\\na certificate if he “decides . . . that safety in air commerce or\\nair transportation and the public interest require that action.”\\n49 U.S.C. § 44709(b)(1)(A).\\n\\n Under the authority granted by these provisions, the FAA\\npromulgated a regulation prohibiting any person from\\noperating a civil aircraft within the United States with\\nknowledge that a controlled substance, including marijuana, is\\non board. 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. Under published FAA\\nenforcement guidance, violation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19\\ngenerally warrants revocation of a pilot’s certificate. FAA\\nOrder 2150.3B at 7-22. Pilots subject to a revocation may\\n\\f 3\\nreapply for a new certificate one year after the revocation\\ndate. 14 C.F.R. § 61.13(d)(2).\\n\\n II. Factual Background\\n\\n On October 1, 2016, Jeffrey Siegel crash-landed his\\nairplane on a road in Kansas due to an engine malfunction.\\nKansas State Troopers responded. While Siegel and his\\npassenger were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, the\\ntroopers conducted a routine inventory of the aircraft’s\\ncontents. During the inventory, Trooper Lucas Wagner found\\nthree chocolate bars infused with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC,\\nthe psychoactive agent in marijuana) in Siegel’s briefcase.\\nThe packaging on the bars identified them as containing THC.\\nTrooper Wagner asked Siegel about the bars at the hospital\\nand testified that Siegel claimed ownership. Testing by the\\nKansas Bureau of Investigation confirmed the presence of\\nTHC. Siegel was charged with misdemeanor simple\\npossession of marijuana under K.S.A. § 21-5706(b)(3), but\\nthe charge was later dismissed.\\n\\n III. Procedural Background\\n\\n On February 7, 2018, following an investigation into the\\nOctober 2016 incident, the Acting Administrator of the FAA\\nissued an emergency order revoking Siegel’s private pilot\\ncertificate. In the order, the FAA found that Siegel operated\\nan aircraft with knowledge that marijuana was on board, in\\nviolation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. The order invoked the Acting\\nAdministrator’s authority under 49 U.S.C. § 44709 to\\ndetermine that “safety in air . . . transportation” required\\nrevocation of the certificate.\\n\\n Siegel sought review of the FAA’s order by the National\\nTransportation Safety Board (NTSB). On March 13, 2018, a\\n\\f 4\\nhearing on the merits of his case was held before an\\nadministrative law judge (ALJ) of the NTSB. At the hearing,\\nthe FAA presented several witnesses. Trooper Wagner\\ntestified that he responded to the accident, located the\\nchocolate bars, and asked Siegel about them at the hospital.\\nHe testified that Siegel told him that the bars were “all his”\\nand that he “was hoping that [the police] wouldn’t have found\\nit.” Kelly Daniel, a forensic scientist with the Kansas Bureau\\nof Investigation, testified that she tested the bars and that they\\ncontained THC. Finally, Manny Martinez, a special agent for\\nthe FAA, testified that based on his review of the police report\\nand Siegel’s admission to Trooper Wagner in the hospital, he\\nconcluded that Siegel had knowingly transported controlled\\nsubstances on his aircraft in violation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. In\\ndefense, Siegel testified and presented one witness, Bethany\\nBrandstetter, Siegel’s passenger at the time of the accident\\nand now wife. She testified that she placed the bars in Siegel’s\\nbriefcase without his knowledge a month or two prior to the\\nflight. In contradiction to his statement at the hospital, Siegel\\ntestified that he did not know the bars were on the aircraft.\\n\\n At the close of evidence, the ALJ issued an oral ruling.\\nHe found that the testimony of Siegel and his passenger was\\nnot credible and that Siegel “was aware that the marijuana\\nwas on board the aircraft.” Accordingly, the ALJ concluded\\nthat Siegel violated 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. Notwithstanding the\\nviolation, the ALJ reduced the sanction from revocation to a\\nninety-day suspension. To support this decision, the ALJ\\nrelied on the fact that the marijuana was purchased legally in\\nColorado, was of a small quantity, and was not being\\ntransported for commercial purposes.\\n\\n Siegel and the FAA cross-appealed the ruling of the ALJ\\nto the full NTSB. Administrator v. Siegel, NTSB Order No.\\nEA-5838 (April 11, 2018). Siegel challenged the finding that\\n\\f 5\\nhe violated 14 C.F.R. § 91.19, while the FAA challenged the\\nreduced sanction. The Board affirmed the ALJ’s finding that\\nSiegel knowingly transported a controlled substance in\\nviolation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. However, it vacated the ALJ’s\\nreduced sanction and reinstated the revocation. The Board\\nconsidered the ALJ’s findings that the small amount of\\nmarijuana was purchased legally in Colorado and was not\\ntransported for a commercial purpose. It concluded that these\\nfacts did not mitigate against the FAA’s choice of sanction,\\nbecause marijuana is illegal under Federal law and because a\\nviolation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19 is predicated on the knowledge\\nof the drugs aboard, not the quantity. Furthermore, it noted\\nthat a commercial purpose is not required to show a violation.\\n\\n Siegel timely petitioned this Court for review. We have\\njurisdiction to review final orders of the NTSB pursuant to 49\\nU.S.C. § 1153.\\n\\n IV. Analysis\\n\\n In this petition, Siegel raises a single issue: whether the\\nsanction of revocation was improper. He does not dispute the\\nNTSB’s finding that he violated 14 C.F.R. § 91.19.\\n\\n We review final actions of the NTSB under the\\nAdministrative Procedure Act. 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq. “Our\\nreview of the NTSB order is limited to determining whether\\nthe Board’s decision is ‘arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of\\ndiscretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.’” Taylor\\nv. Huerta, 723 F.3d 210, 213 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (citations and\\ninternal quotation marks omitted). “Findings of fact by the\\nBoard, if supported by substantial evidence, are conclusive.”\\n49 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(3).\\n\\f 6\\n Siegel asserts two main arguments that the revocation of\\nhis certificate was imposed arbitrarily, capriciously, and not in\\naccordance with the law. Neither succeeds.\\n\\n First, Siegel argues that the NTSB imposed the sanction\\nwithout adequately articulating its reasoning. Primarily, he\\nfaults the NTSB for failing to consider “mitigating factors,”\\nsuch as: the small quantity of drugs on his aircraft; that they\\nwere purchased legally in Colorado; that they were not\\ntransported for a commercial purpose; and that they were\\nbrought on board “inadvertent[ly].”\\n\\n This argument is factually incorrect. The Board explicitly\\nconsidered these purported “mitigating factors,” but simply\\ndid not agree that they warranted a lighter sanction. NTSB\\nOrder No. EA-5838 at *9. The Board concluded that\\nknowingly transporting illegal narcotics on an aircraft,\\nregardless of quantity or purpose, falls within the scope of 14\\nC.F.R. § 91.19 and is grounds for a certificate revocation. Id.\\nThe regulation does not distinguish between drugs transported\\nfor personal use and those intended for resale. Likewise, that\\nthe marijuana was purchased in Colorado does not change the\\nfact that marijuana is illegal under federal law and in federal\\nairspace. See 21 U.S.C. § 844. Although Siegel characterizes\\nthe Board’s decision as a failure to consider these factors, it is\\nmore accurate to say that he is simply unhappy with the result\\nof the NTSB’s consideration. We cannot remedy his\\ndiscontent. Even if we agreed with Siegel’s preferred analysis,\\nwe may not substitute our judgment for that of the agency\\nwhen reviewing under the arbitrary and capricious standard.\\nMotor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n v. State Farm, 463 U.S. 29, 43\\n(1983).\\n\\n Turning to Siegel’s broader point, we disagree that the\\nBoard failed to adequately explain its reasoning when\\n\\f 7\\nrevoking his certificate. We review agency decisions for a\\n“satisfactory explanation for its action including a rational\\nconnection between the facts found and the choice made.” Id.\\n(internal quotation marks omitted). The Acting Administrator\\nstated in the Emergency Order of Revocation that\\n“[c]ertificate holders who knowingly engage in the possession\\nand transportation of a controlled substance by air have\\nshown that the Agency cannot rely upon them to minimally\\ncomply with the regulatory requirements designed to ensure\\naviation safety with the highest degree of integrity.” This is\\nconsistent with the FAA’s published policy of revoking\\ncertifications for certain types of misconduct that reflect a\\nlack of “care, judgment, and responsibility.” See FAA Order\\n2150.3B at 7-21, 7-22. The NTSB explicitly relied on this\\nFAA Order when reimposing the revocation. NTSB Order\\nNo. EA-5838 at *9. Under this published order, certain\\nspecific conduct warrants revocation: intentionally fraudulent\\nstatements, refusal to submit to an alcohol or drug test, and\\nthe use of an aircraft to knowingly transport controlled\\nsubstances. See FAA Order 2150.3B at 7-22, 7-23.\\n\\n While the FAA guidance and the NTSB could have been\\nmore explicit in articulating their precise rationale for\\nrevoking Siegel’s certificate, the explanation provided is\\nsufficient. Operating an aircraft is an inherently dangerous\\nactivity that implicates public safety. For this reason,\\nCongress tightly regulates federal airspace and has created an\\nagency with the primary purpose of ensuring safety in civil\\naviation. Given the potentially devastating results of unsafe\\nair traffic, it was not unreasonable for the Acting\\nAdministrator to make a categorical determination that pilots\\nwho cannot be trusted to follow federal drug laws when\\noperating aircraft do not demonstrate the “care, judgment, and\\nresponsibility” necessary to hold a certificate. We therefore\\n\\f 8\\nreject Siegel’s argument that the FAA and the NTSB acted\\narbitrarily.\\n\\n Siegel’s second main argument is that the law does not\\nsupport the sanction of revocation for simple possession of a\\ncontrolled substance. The FAA revoked Siegel’s license under\\nits authority granted by 49 U.S.C. § 44709. Nevertheless,\\nSiegel claims that the existence of a separate statutory\\nprovision, 49 U.S.C. § 44710, removes the FAA’s discretion\\nto impose a revocation for “simple possession.” In relevant\\npart, 49 U.S.C. § 44710 provides:\\n\\n (b)(1) The Administrator of the Federal\\n Aviation Administration shall issue an order\\n revoking an airman certificate issued an\\n individual under section 44703 of this title\\n after the individual is convicted, under a law of\\n the United States or a State related to a\\n controlled substance (except a law related to\\n simple possession of a controlled substance),\\n of an offense punishable by death or\\n imprisonment for more than one year if the\\n Administrator finds that—\\n\\n (A) an aircraft was used to commit, or\\n facilitate the commission of, the\\n offense; and\\n\\n (B) the individual served as an airman,\\n or was on the aircraft, in\\n connection with committing, or\\n facilitating the commission of, the\\n offense.\\n\\f 9\\n(emphasis added). Siegel claims that the language of § 44710,\\ncoupled with its legislative history, reflects that Congress\\nintended simple possession of a controlled substance to be\\ninsufficient to warrant revocation of a pilot certificate.\\n\\n Siegel’s argument entirely misses the mark. As the NTSB\\nexplained in several of its previous decisions, the passage of\\n§ 44710 did not limit the FAA’s authority to revoke\\ncertificates under § 44709. See, e.g., Administrator v.\\nSchlieve, NTSB Order No. EA-5250, 2006 WL 2632087\\n(Sept. 11, 2006), at *1. A revocation under § 44710, which\\napplies to felony drug crimes that involve the use of aircraft,\\nis not discretionary. The word “shall” requires the FAA\\nAdministrator to revoke certificates under the circumstances\\ndescribed. § 44710(b)(1). Furthermore, a revocation under\\n§ 44710 is particularly severe; it applies for life. 49 U.S.C.\\n§ 44703(f). In contrast, pilots subject to a revocation under\\n§ 44709 may reapply for a new certificate after one year. 14\\nC.F.R. § 61.13(d)(2). It does not follow that Congress, by\\npassing a law mandating lifetime certificate revocation for\\nserious drug offenders, intended to remove the discretion of\\nthe FAA Administrator to regulate less serious drug offenses\\ninvolving aircraft under § 44709. We therefore conclude the\\nFAA retains authority to revoke a certificate for “simple\\npossession” of a controlled substance on an aircraft under\\n§ 44709. Further, because the Government did not apply\\n§ 44710 in this case, Siegel’s arguments concerning that\\nprovision—and his citation to other NTSB cases involving\\nrevocations under it—are inapposite.\\n\\n V. Conclusion\\n\\n The NTSB’s order was not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse\\nof discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law. We\\ntherefore deny Siegel’s petition for review.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4373702/\", \"author_raw\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge SENTELLE.\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"SRINIVASAN"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"KATSAS"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"SENTELLE"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4596449/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Jeffrey O. SIEGEL, Petitioner v. ADMINISTRATOR OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION AND NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD, Respondents\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-05\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\n\nArgued December 12, 2018 Decided March 5, 2019\n\n No. 18-1102\n\n JEFFREY O. SIEGEL,\n PETITIONER\n\n v.\n\nADMINISTRATOR OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION\n AND NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD,\n RESPONDENTS\n\n\n\n On Petition for Review of an Order of\n the National Transportation Safety Board\n\n\n\n Gregory S. Winton argued the cause and filed the briefs\nfor petitioner.\n\n Sarah Carroll, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,\nargued the cause for respondents. With her on the brief were\nMark B. Stern, Attorney, and Christopher Stevenson, Senior\nAttorney, Federal Aviation Administration.\n\n Before: SRINIVASAN and KATSAS, Circuit Judges, and\nSENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.\n\f 2\n Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge\nSENTELLE.\n\n SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge: Law enforcement\nofficers responding to an airplane crash discovered THC-\ninfused chocolate bars onboard. The pilot, Jeffrey Siegel,\nadmitted that they were his. In this petition, Siegel claims that\nthe Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to revoke his\npilot’s certificate for knowingly operating an aircraft with\nnarcotics onboard was arbitrary and capricious. We disagree\nand deny the petition.\n\n I. Legal Background\n\n The Administrator of the Federal Aviation\nAdministration (FAA), by statute, has the authority to\nprescribe regulations for “practices, methods, and\nprocedure[s] the Administrator finds necessary for safety in\nair commerce and national security.” 49 U.S.C. § 44701(a)(5).\nThe Administrator also has the authority to issue pilot\ncertificates to those he finds “qualified” to operate aircraft. 49\nU.S.C. § 44703(a). The Administrator may suspend or revoke\na certificate if he “decides . . . that safety in air commerce or\nair transportation and the public interest require that action.”\n49 U.S.C. § 44709(b)(1)(A).\n\n Under the authority granted by these provisions, the FAA\npromulgated a regulation prohibiting any person from\noperating a civil aircraft within the United States with\nknowledge that a controlled substance, including marijuana, is\non board. 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. Under published FAA\nenforcement guidance, violation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19\ngenerally warrants revocation of a pilot’s certificate. FAA\nOrder 2150.3B at 7-22. Pilots subject to a revocation may\n\f 3\nreapply for a new certificate one year after the revocation\ndate. 14 C.F.R. § 61.13(d)(2).\n\n II. Factual Background\n\n On October 1, 2016, Jeffrey Siegel crash-landed his\nairplane on a road in Kansas due to an engine malfunction.\nKansas State Troopers responded. While Siegel and his\npassenger were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, the\ntroopers conducted a routine inventory of the aircraft’s\ncontents. During the inventory, Trooper Lucas Wagner found\nthree chocolate bars infused with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC,\nthe psychoactive agent in marijuana) in Siegel’s briefcase.\nThe packaging on the bars identified them as containing THC.\nTrooper Wagner asked Siegel about the bars at the hospital\nand testified that Siegel claimed ownership. Testing by the\nKansas Bureau of Investigation confirmed the presence of\nTHC. Siegel was charged with misdemeanor simple\npossession of marijuana under K.S.A. § 21-5706(b)(3), but\nthe charge was later dismissed.\n\n III. Procedural Background\n\n On February 7, 2018, following an investigation into the\nOctober 2016 incident, the Acting Administrator of the FAA\nissued an emergency order revoking Siegel’s private pilot\ncertificate. In the order, the FAA found that Siegel operated\nan aircraft with knowledge that marijuana was on board, in\nviolation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. The order invoked the Acting\nAdministrator’s authority under 49 U.S.C. § 44709 to\ndetermine that “safety in air . . . transportation” required\nrevocation of the certificate.\n\n Siegel sought review of the FAA’s order by the National\nTransportation Safety Board (NTSB). On March 13, 2018, a\n\f 4\nhearing on the merits of his case was held before an\nadministrative law judge (ALJ) of the NTSB. At the hearing,\nthe FAA presented several witnesses. Trooper Wagner\ntestified that he responded to the accident, located the\nchocolate bars, and asked Siegel about them at the hospital.\nHe testified that Siegel told him that the bars were “all his”\nand that he “was hoping that [the police] wouldn’t have found\nit.” Kelly Daniel, a forensic scientist with the Kansas Bureau\nof Investigation, testified that she tested the bars and that they\ncontained THC. Finally, Manny Martinez, a special agent for\nthe FAA, testified that based on his review of the police report\nand Siegel’s admission to Trooper Wagner in the hospital, he\nconcluded that Siegel had knowingly transported controlled\nsubstances on his aircraft in violation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. In\ndefense, Siegel testified and presented one witness, Bethany\nBrandstetter, Siegel’s passenger at the time of the accident\nand now wife. She testified that she placed the bars in Siegel’s\nbriefcase without his knowledge a month or two prior to the\nflight. In contradiction to his statement at the hospital, Siegel\ntestified that he did not know the bars were on the aircraft.\n\n At the close of evidence, the ALJ issued an oral ruling.\nHe found that the testimony of Siegel and his passenger was\nnot credible and that Siegel “was aware that the marijuana\nwas on board the aircraft.” Accordingly, the ALJ concluded\nthat Siegel violated 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. Notwithstanding the\nviolation, the ALJ reduced the sanction from revocation to a\nninety-day suspension. To support this decision, the ALJ\nrelied on the fact that the marijuana was purchased legally in\nColorado, was of a small quantity, and was not being\ntransported for commercial purposes.\n\n Siegel and the FAA cross-appealed the ruling of the ALJ\nto the full NTSB. Administrator v. Siegel, NTSB Order No.\nEA-5838 (April 11, 2018). Siegel challenged the finding that\n\f 5\nhe violated 14 C.F.R. § 91.19, while the FAA challenged the\nreduced sanction. The Board affirmed the ALJ’s finding that\nSiegel knowingly transported a controlled substance in\nviolation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. However, it vacated the ALJ’s\nreduced sanction and reinstated the revocation. The Board\nconsidered the ALJ’s findings that the small amount of\nmarijuana was purchased legally in Colorado and was not\ntransported for a commercial purpose. It concluded that these\nfacts did not mitigate against the FAA’s choice of sanction,\nbecause marijuana is illegal under Federal law and because a\nviolation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19 is predicated on the knowledge\nof the drugs aboard, not the quantity. Furthermore, it noted\nthat a commercial purpose is not required to show a violation.\n\n Siegel timely petitioned this Court for review. We have\njurisdiction to review final orders of the NTSB pursuant to 49\nU.S.C. § 1153.\n\n IV. Analysis\n\n In this petition, Siegel raises a single issue: whether the\nsanction of revocation was improper. He does not dispute the\nNTSB’s finding that he violated 14 C.F.R. § 91.19.\n\n We review final actions of the NTSB under the\nAdministrative Procedure Act. 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq. “Our\nreview of the NTSB order is limited to determining whether\nthe Board’s decision is ‘arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of\ndiscretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.’” Taylor\nv. Huerta, 723 F.3d 210, 213 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (citations and\ninternal quotation marks omitted). “Findings of fact by the\nBoard, if supported by substantial evidence, are conclusive.”\n49 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(3).\n\f 6\n Siegel asserts two main arguments that the revocation of\nhis certificate was imposed arbitrarily, capriciously, and not in\naccordance with the law. Neither succeeds.\n\n First, Siegel argues that the NTSB imposed the sanction\nwithout adequately articulating its reasoning. Primarily, he\nfaults the NTSB for failing to consider “mitigating factors,”\nsuch as: the small quantity of drugs on his aircraft; that they\nwere purchased legally in Colorado; that they were not\ntransported for a commercial purpose; and that they were\nbrought on board “inadvertent[ly].”\n\n This argument is factually incorrect. The Board explicitly\nconsidered these purported “mitigating factors,” but simply\ndid not agree that they warranted a lighter sanction. NTSB\nOrder No. EA-5838 at *9. The Board concluded that\nknowingly transporting illegal narcotics on an aircraft,\nregardless of quantity or purpose, falls within the scope of 14\nC.F.R. § 91.19 and is grounds for a certificate revocation. Id.\nThe regulation does not distinguish between drugs transported\nfor personal use and those intended for resale. Likewise, that\nthe marijuana was purchased in Colorado does not change the\nfact that marijuana is illegal under federal law and in federal\nairspace. See 21 U.S.C. § 844. Although Siegel characterizes\nthe Board’s decision as a failure to consider these factors, it is\nmore accurate to say that he is simply unhappy with the result\nof the NTSB’s consideration. We cannot remedy his\ndiscontent. Even if we agreed with Siegel’s preferred analysis,\nwe may not substitute our judgment for that of the agency\nwhen reviewing under the arbitrary and capricious standard.\nMotor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n v. State Farm, 463 U.S. 29, 43\n(1983).\n\n Turning to Siegel’s broader point, we disagree that the\nBoard failed to adequately explain its reasoning when\n\f 7\nrevoking his certificate. We review agency decisions for a\n“satisfactory explanation for its action including a rational\nconnection between the facts found and the choice made.” Id.\n(internal quotation marks omitted). The Acting Administrator\nstated in the Emergency Order of Revocation that\n“[c]ertificate holders who knowingly engage in the possession\nand transportation of a controlled substance by air have\nshown that the Agency cannot rely upon them to minimally\ncomply with the regulatory requirements designed to ensure\naviation safety with the highest degree of integrity.” This is\nconsistent with the FAA’s published policy of revoking\ncertifications for certain types of misconduct that reflect a\nlack of “care, judgment, and responsibility.” See FAA Order\n2150.3B at 7-21, 7-22. The NTSB explicitly relied on this\nFAA Order when reimposing the revocation. NTSB Order\nNo. EA-5838 at *9. Under this published order, certain\nspecific conduct warrants revocation: intentionally fraudulent\nstatements, refusal to submit to an alcohol or drug test, and\nthe use of an aircraft to knowingly transport controlled\nsubstances. See FAA Order 2150.3B at 7-22, 7-23.\n\n While the FAA guidance and the NTSB could have been\nmore explicit in articulating their precise rationale for\nrevoking Siegel’s certificate, the explanation provided is\nsufficient. Operating an aircraft is an inherently dangerous\nactivity that implicates public safety. For this reason,\nCongress tightly regulates federal airspace and has created an\nagency with the primary purpose of ensuring safety in civil\naviation. Given the potentially devastating results of unsafe\nair traffic, it was not unreasonable for the Acting\nAdministrator to make a categorical determination that pilots\nwho cannot be trusted to follow federal drug laws when\noperating aircraft do not demonstrate the “care, judgment, and\nresponsibility” necessary to hold a certificate. We therefore\n\f 8\nreject Siegel’s argument that the FAA and the NTSB acted\narbitrarily.\n\n Siegel’s second main argument is that the law does not\nsupport the sanction of revocation for simple possession of a\ncontrolled substance. The FAA revoked Siegel’s license under\nits authority granted by 49 U.S.C. § 44709. Nevertheless,\nSiegel claims that the existence of a separate statutory\nprovision, 49 U.S.C. § 44710, removes the FAA’s discretion\nto impose a revocation for “simple possession.” In relevant\npart, 49 U.S.C. § 44710 provides:\n\n (b)(1) The Administrator of the Federal\n Aviation Administration shall issue an order\n revoking an airman certificate issued an\n individual under section 44703 of this title\n after the individual is convicted, under a law of\n the United States or a State related to a\n controlled substance (except a law related to\n simple possession of a controlled substance),\n of an offense punishable by death or\n imprisonment for more than one year if the\n Administrator finds that—\n\n (A) an aircraft was used to commit, or\n facilitate the commission of, the\n offense; and\n\n (B) the individual served as an airman,\n or was on the aircraft, in\n connection with committing, or\n facilitating the commission of, the\n offense.\n\f 9\n(emphasis added). Siegel claims that the language of § 44710,\ncoupled with its legislative history, reflects that Congress\nintended simple possession of a controlled substance to be\ninsufficient to warrant revocation of a pilot certificate.\n\n Siegel’s argument entirely misses the mark. As the NTSB\nexplained in several of its previous decisions, the passage of\n§ 44710 did not limit the FAA’s authority to revoke\ncertificates under § 44709. See, e.g., Administrator v.\nSchlieve, NTSB Order No. EA-5250, 2006 WL 2632087\n(Sept. 11, 2006), at *1. A revocation under § 44710, which\napplies to felony drug crimes that involve the use of aircraft,\nis not discretionary. The word “shall” requires the FAA\nAdministrator to revoke certificates under the circumstances\ndescribed. § 44710(b)(1). Furthermore, a revocation under\n§ 44710 is particularly severe; it applies for life. 49 U.S.C.\n§ 44703(f). In contrast, pilots subject to a revocation under\n§ 44709 may reapply for a new certificate after one year. 14\nC.F.R. § 61.13(d)(2). It does not follow that Congress, by\npassing a law mandating lifetime certificate revocation for\nserious drug offenders, intended to remove the discretion of\nthe FAA Administrator to regulate less serious drug offenses\ninvolving aircraft under § 44709. We therefore conclude the\nFAA retains authority to revoke a certificate for “simple\npossession” of a controlled substance on an aircraft under\n§ 44709. Further, because the Government did not apply\n§ 44710 in this case, Siegel’s arguments concerning that\nprovision—and his citation to other NTSB cases involving\nrevocations under it—are inapposite.\n\n V. Conclusion\n\n The NTSB’s order was not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse\nof discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law. We\ntherefore deny Siegel’s petition for review.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Jeffrey O. SIEGEL, Petitioner v. ADMINISTRATOR OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION AND NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD, Respondents\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-05\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued December 12, 2018 Decided March 5, 2019\\n\\n No. 18-1102\\n\\n JEFFREY O. SIEGEL,\\n PETITIONER\\n\\n v.\\n\\nADMINISTRATOR OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION\\n AND NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD,\\n RESPONDENTS\\n\\n\\n\\n On Petition for Review of an Order of\\n the National Transportation Safety Board\\n\\n\\n\\n Gregory S. Winton argued the cause and filed the briefs\\nfor petitioner.\\n\\n Sarah Carroll, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,\\nargued the cause for respondents. With her on the brief were\\nMark B. Stern, Attorney, and Christopher Stevenson, Senior\\nAttorney, Federal Aviation Administration.\\n\\n Before: SRINIVASAN and KATSAS, Circuit Judges, and\\nSENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\f 2\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge\\nSENTELLE.\\n\\n SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge: Law enforcement\\nofficers responding to an airplane crash discovered THC-\\ninfused chocolate bars onboard. The pilot, Jeffrey Siegel,\\nadmitted that they were his. In this petition, Siegel claims that\\nthe Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to revoke his\\npilot’s certificate for knowingly operating an aircraft with\\nnarcotics onboard was arbitrary and capricious. We disagree\\nand deny the petition.\\n\\n I. Legal Background\\n\\n The Administrator of the Federal Aviation\\nAdministration (FAA), by statute, has the authority to\\nprescribe regulations for “practices, methods, and\\nprocedure[s] the Administrator finds necessary for safety in\\nair commerce and national security.” 49 U.S.C. § 44701(a)(5).\\nThe Administrator also has the authority to issue pilot\\ncertificates to those he finds “qualified” to operate aircraft. 49\\nU.S.C. § 44703(a). The Administrator may suspend or revoke\\na certificate if he “decides . . . that safety in air commerce or\\nair transportation and the public interest require that action.”\\n49 U.S.C. § 44709(b)(1)(A).\\n\\n Under the authority granted by these provisions, the FAA\\npromulgated a regulation prohibiting any person from\\noperating a civil aircraft within the United States with\\nknowledge that a controlled substance, including marijuana, is\\non board. 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. Under published FAA\\nenforcement guidance, violation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19\\ngenerally warrants revocation of a pilot’s certificate. FAA\\nOrder 2150.3B at 7-22. Pilots subject to a revocation may\\n\\f 3\\nreapply for a new certificate one year after the revocation\\ndate. 14 C.F.R. § 61.13(d)(2).\\n\\n II. Factual Background\\n\\n On October 1, 2016, Jeffrey Siegel crash-landed his\\nairplane on a road in Kansas due to an engine malfunction.\\nKansas State Troopers responded. While Siegel and his\\npassenger were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, the\\ntroopers conducted a routine inventory of the aircraft’s\\ncontents. During the inventory, Trooper Lucas Wagner found\\nthree chocolate bars infused with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC,\\nthe psychoactive agent in marijuana) in Siegel’s briefcase.\\nThe packaging on the bars identified them as containing THC.\\nTrooper Wagner asked Siegel about the bars at the hospital\\nand testified that Siegel claimed ownership. Testing by the\\nKansas Bureau of Investigation confirmed the presence of\\nTHC. Siegel was charged with misdemeanor simple\\npossession of marijuana under K.S.A. § 21-5706(b)(3), but\\nthe charge was later dismissed.\\n\\n III. Procedural Background\\n\\n On February 7, 2018, following an investigation into the\\nOctober 2016 incident, the Acting Administrator of the FAA\\nissued an emergency order revoking Siegel’s private pilot\\ncertificate. In the order, the FAA found that Siegel operated\\nan aircraft with knowledge that marijuana was on board, in\\nviolation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. The order invoked the Acting\\nAdministrator’s authority under 49 U.S.C. § 44709 to\\ndetermine that “safety in air . . . transportation” required\\nrevocation of the certificate.\\n\\n Siegel sought review of the FAA’s order by the National\\nTransportation Safety Board (NTSB). On March 13, 2018, a\\n\\f 4\\nhearing on the merits of his case was held before an\\nadministrative law judge (ALJ) of the NTSB. At the hearing,\\nthe FAA presented several witnesses. Trooper Wagner\\ntestified that he responded to the accident, located the\\nchocolate bars, and asked Siegel about them at the hospital.\\nHe testified that Siegel told him that the bars were “all his”\\nand that he “was hoping that [the police] wouldn’t have found\\nit.” Kelly Daniel, a forensic scientist with the Kansas Bureau\\nof Investigation, testified that she tested the bars and that they\\ncontained THC. Finally, Manny Martinez, a special agent for\\nthe FAA, testified that based on his review of the police report\\nand Siegel’s admission to Trooper Wagner in the hospital, he\\nconcluded that Siegel had knowingly transported controlled\\nsubstances on his aircraft in violation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. In\\ndefense, Siegel testified and presented one witness, Bethany\\nBrandstetter, Siegel’s passenger at the time of the accident\\nand now wife. She testified that she placed the bars in Siegel’s\\nbriefcase without his knowledge a month or two prior to the\\nflight. In contradiction to his statement at the hospital, Siegel\\ntestified that he did not know the bars were on the aircraft.\\n\\n At the close of evidence, the ALJ issued an oral ruling.\\nHe found that the testimony of Siegel and his passenger was\\nnot credible and that Siegel “was aware that the marijuana\\nwas on board the aircraft.” Accordingly, the ALJ concluded\\nthat Siegel violated 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. Notwithstanding the\\nviolation, the ALJ reduced the sanction from revocation to a\\nninety-day suspension. To support this decision, the ALJ\\nrelied on the fact that the marijuana was purchased legally in\\nColorado, was of a small quantity, and was not being\\ntransported for commercial purposes.\\n\\n Siegel and the FAA cross-appealed the ruling of the ALJ\\nto the full NTSB. Administrator v. Siegel, NTSB Order No.\\nEA-5838 (April 11, 2018). Siegel challenged the finding that\\n\\f 5\\nhe violated 14 C.F.R. § 91.19, while the FAA challenged the\\nreduced sanction. The Board affirmed the ALJ’s finding that\\nSiegel knowingly transported a controlled substance in\\nviolation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19. However, it vacated the ALJ’s\\nreduced sanction and reinstated the revocation. The Board\\nconsidered the ALJ’s findings that the small amount of\\nmarijuana was purchased legally in Colorado and was not\\ntransported for a commercial purpose. It concluded that these\\nfacts did not mitigate against the FAA’s choice of sanction,\\nbecause marijuana is illegal under Federal law and because a\\nviolation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.19 is predicated on the knowledge\\nof the drugs aboard, not the quantity. Furthermore, it noted\\nthat a commercial purpose is not required to show a violation.\\n\\n Siegel timely petitioned this Court for review. We have\\njurisdiction to review final orders of the NTSB pursuant to 49\\nU.S.C. § 1153.\\n\\n IV. Analysis\\n\\n In this petition, Siegel raises a single issue: whether the\\nsanction of revocation was improper. He does not dispute the\\nNTSB’s finding that he violated 14 C.F.R. § 91.19.\\n\\n We review final actions of the NTSB under the\\nAdministrative Procedure Act. 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq. “Our\\nreview of the NTSB order is limited to determining whether\\nthe Board’s decision is ‘arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of\\ndiscretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.’” Taylor\\nv. Huerta, 723 F.3d 210, 213 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (citations and\\ninternal quotation marks omitted). “Findings of fact by the\\nBoard, if supported by substantial evidence, are conclusive.”\\n49 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(3).\\n\\f 6\\n Siegel asserts two main arguments that the revocation of\\nhis certificate was imposed arbitrarily, capriciously, and not in\\naccordance with the law. Neither succeeds.\\n\\n First, Siegel argues that the NTSB imposed the sanction\\nwithout adequately articulating its reasoning. Primarily, he\\nfaults the NTSB for failing to consider “mitigating factors,”\\nsuch as: the small quantity of drugs on his aircraft; that they\\nwere purchased legally in Colorado; that they were not\\ntransported for a commercial purpose; and that they were\\nbrought on board “inadvertent[ly].”\\n\\n This argument is factually incorrect. The Board explicitly\\nconsidered these purported “mitigating factors,” but simply\\ndid not agree that they warranted a lighter sanction. NTSB\\nOrder No. EA-5838 at *9. The Board concluded that\\nknowingly transporting illegal narcotics on an aircraft,\\nregardless of quantity or purpose, falls within the scope of 14\\nC.F.R. § 91.19 and is grounds for a certificate revocation. Id.\\nThe regulation does not distinguish between drugs transported\\nfor personal use and those intended for resale. Likewise, that\\nthe marijuana was purchased in Colorado does not change the\\nfact that marijuana is illegal under federal law and in federal\\nairspace. See 21 U.S.C. § 844. Although Siegel characterizes\\nthe Board’s decision as a failure to consider these factors, it is\\nmore accurate to say that he is simply unhappy with the result\\nof the NTSB’s consideration. We cannot remedy his\\ndiscontent. Even if we agreed with Siegel’s preferred analysis,\\nwe may not substitute our judgment for that of the agency\\nwhen reviewing under the arbitrary and capricious standard.\\nMotor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n v. State Farm, 463 U.S. 29, 43\\n(1983).\\n\\n Turning to Siegel’s broader point, we disagree that the\\nBoard failed to adequately explain its reasoning when\\n\\f 7\\nrevoking his certificate. We review agency decisions for a\\n“satisfactory explanation for its action including a rational\\nconnection between the facts found and the choice made.” Id.\\n(internal quotation marks omitted). The Acting Administrator\\nstated in the Emergency Order of Revocation that\\n“[c]ertificate holders who knowingly engage in the possession\\nand transportation of a controlled substance by air have\\nshown that the Agency cannot rely upon them to minimally\\ncomply with the regulatory requirements designed to ensure\\naviation safety with the highest degree of integrity.” This is\\nconsistent with the FAA’s published policy of revoking\\ncertifications for certain types of misconduct that reflect a\\nlack of “care, judgment, and responsibility.” See FAA Order\\n2150.3B at 7-21, 7-22. The NTSB explicitly relied on this\\nFAA Order when reimposing the revocation. NTSB Order\\nNo. EA-5838 at *9. Under this published order, certain\\nspecific conduct warrants revocation: intentionally fraudulent\\nstatements, refusal to submit to an alcohol or drug test, and\\nthe use of an aircraft to knowingly transport controlled\\nsubstances. See FAA Order 2150.3B at 7-22, 7-23.\\n\\n While the FAA guidance and the NTSB could have been\\nmore explicit in articulating their precise rationale for\\nrevoking Siegel’s certificate, the explanation provided is\\nsufficient. Operating an aircraft is an inherently dangerous\\nactivity that implicates public safety. For this reason,\\nCongress tightly regulates federal airspace and has created an\\nagency with the primary purpose of ensuring safety in civil\\naviation. Given the potentially devastating results of unsafe\\nair traffic, it was not unreasonable for the Acting\\nAdministrator to make a categorical determination that pilots\\nwho cannot be trusted to follow federal drug laws when\\noperating aircraft do not demonstrate the “care, judgment, and\\nresponsibility” necessary to hold a certificate. We therefore\\n\\f 8\\nreject Siegel’s argument that the FAA and the NTSB acted\\narbitrarily.\\n\\n Siegel’s second main argument is that the law does not\\nsupport the sanction of revocation for simple possession of a\\ncontrolled substance. The FAA revoked Siegel’s license under\\nits authority granted by 49 U.S.C. § 44709. Nevertheless,\\nSiegel claims that the existence of a separate statutory\\nprovision, 49 U.S.C. § 44710, removes the FAA’s discretion\\nto impose a revocation for “simple possession.” In relevant\\npart, 49 U.S.C. § 44710 provides:\\n\\n (b)(1) The Administrator of the Federal\\n Aviation Administration shall issue an order\\n revoking an airman certificate issued an\\n individual under section 44703 of this title\\n after the individual is convicted, under a law of\\n the United States or a State related to a\\n controlled substance (except a law related to\\n simple possession of a controlled substance),\\n of an offense punishable by death or\\n imprisonment for more than one year if the\\n Administrator finds that—\\n\\n (A) an aircraft was used to commit, or\\n facilitate the commission of, the\\n offense; and\\n\\n (B) the individual served as an airman,\\n or was on the aircraft, in\\n connection with committing, or\\n facilitating the commission of, the\\n offense.\\n\\f 9\\n(emphasis added). Siegel claims that the language of § 44710,\\ncoupled with its legislative history, reflects that Congress\\nintended simple possession of a controlled substance to be\\ninsufficient to warrant revocation of a pilot certificate.\\n\\n Siegel’s argument entirely misses the mark. As the NTSB\\nexplained in several of its previous decisions, the passage of\\n§ 44710 did not limit the FAA’s authority to revoke\\ncertificates under § 44709. See, e.g., Administrator v.\\nSchlieve, NTSB Order No. EA-5250, 2006 WL 2632087\\n(Sept. 11, 2006), at *1. A revocation under § 44710, which\\napplies to felony drug crimes that involve the use of aircraft,\\nis not discretionary. The word “shall” requires the FAA\\nAdministrator to revoke certificates under the circumstances\\ndescribed. § 44710(b)(1). Furthermore, a revocation under\\n§ 44710 is particularly severe; it applies for life. 49 U.S.C.\\n§ 44703(f). In contrast, pilots subject to a revocation under\\n§ 44709 may reapply for a new certificate after one year. 14\\nC.F.R. § 61.13(d)(2). It does not follow that Congress, by\\npassing a law mandating lifetime certificate revocation for\\nserious drug offenders, intended to remove the discretion of\\nthe FAA Administrator to regulate less serious drug offenses\\ninvolving aircraft under § 44709. We therefore conclude the\\nFAA retains authority to revoke a certificate for “simple\\npossession” of a controlled substance on an aircraft under\\n§ 44709. Further, because the Government did not apply\\n§ 44710 in this case, Siegel’s arguments concerning that\\nprovision—and his citation to other NTSB cases involving\\nrevocations under it—are inapposite.\\n\\n V. Conclusion\\n\\n The NTSB’s order was not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse\\nof discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law. We\\ntherefore deny Siegel’s petition for review.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1372,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7334063,"string":"7,334,063"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON v. UNITED STATES GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. Gen. Servs. Admin."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-05"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Case No. 18-cv-377 (CRC)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Cooper\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7251983/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"COOPER"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"COOPER"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334063/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON v. UNITED STATES GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-05\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON v. UNITED STATES GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-05\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1373,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7334474,"string":"7,334,474"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"United States v. Jameka BURNETTE"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"United States v. Burnette"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-05"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Case No. 1:18-cr-00282 (TNM)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"McFadden\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7252394/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"MCFADDEN"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"MCFADDEN"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334474/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: United States v. Jameka BURNETTE\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-05\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: United States v. Jameka BURNETTE\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-05\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1374,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7334643,"string":"7,334,643"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"COUNCIL OF PARENT ATTORNEYS AND ADVOCATES, INC. v. Elizabeth (Betsy) DEVOS, Secretary of Education Johnny W. Collet, Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services U.S. Department of Education"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Council of Parent Attorneys v. Devos"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-07"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Civil Action No. 18-cv-1636 (TSC)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Chutkan\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7252563/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"CHUTKAN"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"CHUTKAN"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334643/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: COUNCIL OF PARENT ATTORNEYS AND ADVOCATES, INC. v. Elizabeth (Betsy) DEVOS, Secretary of Education Johnny W. Collet, Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services U.S. Department of Education\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-07\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: COUNCIL OF PARENT ATTORNEYS AND ADVOCATES, INC. v. Elizabeth (Betsy) DEVOS, Secretary of Education Johnny W. Collet, Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services U.S. Department of Education\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-07\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1375,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335320,"string":"7,335,320"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"John LOTT v. NOT-FOR-PROFIT HOSPITAL CORPORATION d/b/a/ United Medical Center & the District of Columbia"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Lott v. Not-For-Profit Hosp. Corp."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-07"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Case No. 16-cv-01546 (APM)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Introduction, Mehta\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253240/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"MEHTA"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"MEHTA"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335320/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: John LOTT v. NOT-FOR-PROFIT HOSPITAL CORPORATION d/b/a/ United Medical Center & the District of Columbia\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-07\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: John LOTT v. NOT-FOR-PROFIT HOSPITAL CORPORATION d/b/a/ United Medical Center & the District of Columbia\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-07\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1376,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335390,"string":"7,335,390"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Rhonda MADDOX v. WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A."},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Maddox v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-07"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Case No. 17-cv-2634 (CRC)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Cooper\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253310/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"COOPER"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"COOPER"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335390/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Rhonda MADDOX v. WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A.\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-07\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Rhonda MADDOX v. WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A.\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-07\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1377,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4598026,"string":"4,598,026"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"UNITED STATES of America, Appellee v. Robert KELSEY, Also Known as Taiwan Kellsi, Appellant"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"United States v. Robert Kelsey"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-08"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"16-3125"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Henderson, Pillard, Ginsburg\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued December 4, 2018 Decided March 8, 2019\\n\\n No. 16-3125\\n\\n UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,\\n APPELLEE\\n\\n v.\\n\\n ROBERT KELSEY, ALSO KNOWN AS TAIWAN KELLSI,\\n APPELLANT\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:16-cr-00055-1)\\n\\n\\n Mary E. Davis, appointed by the court, argued the cause\\nand filed the briefs for appellant.\\n\\n Christopher M. Davis, appointed by the court, entered an\\nappearance.\\n\\n Lauren R. Bates, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause\\nfor appellee. With her on the brief were Jessie K. Liu, U.S.\\nAttorney, and Elizabeth Trosman and Michael T. Ambrosino,\\nAssistant U.S. Attorneys.\\n\\n Before: HENDERSON and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and\\nGINSBURG, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\f 2\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD.\\n\\n PILLARD, Circuit Judge: A jury convicted Robert Kelsey\\nof transporting a minor, eleven-year-old S.H., with intent to\\nengage in criminal sexual activity, aggravated sexual abuse of\\na child, and first-degree child sexual abuse with aggravating\\ncircumstances. Kelsey challenges his conviction on three\\ngrounds: First, he argues that the district court allowed a fact\\nwitness to give expert testimony on DNA evidence without\\nhaving been qualified as an expert, which Kelsey contends\\nprejudicially prevented him from cross-examining the witness\\nabout a history of testing errors at the District of Columbia\\nDepartment of Forensic Sciences. Second, he argues that the\\nphoto array from which S.H. identified him was prejudicially\\nsuggestive. And, third, Kelsey contends that the district court\\nerred in admitting statements Kelsey made to the police, which\\nhe says were involuntary. For the following reasons, we\\nconclude that there was no improper expert testimony, that the\\nphoto array was not impermissibly suggestive, and that\\nKelsey’s statements were voluntary.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Kelsey’s defense at trial, based primarily on cross-\\nexamination of the government’s witnesses, was that he was\\nnot the person who committed the sexual offenses against S.H.\\nThe facts below are largely drawn from the unrebutted\\ntestimony of prosecution witnesses. S.H. and Kelsey met via\\nInstagram. Kelsey told S.H. that his name was “Kevin” and\\nthat he was nineteen years old. (He was actually twenty-six.)\\nS.H. told him her real name and age, and that she wanted to\\nhave sex and get pregnant. Kelsey replied that he could get\\nher pregnant. Soon after, they made a plan to meet in person.\\nThe morning after they made their plan, on July 25, 2014,\\nKelsey drove to S.H.’s summer camp in Maryland and told a\\n\\f 3\\n\\ncounselor that he was S.H.’s cousin. When S.H. said she\\nrecognized Kelsey as her cousin, the camp counselor let her\\nleave the camp with Kelsey, who drove S.H. in a black Jeep to\\nhis father’s house in the District of Columbia. At the house,\\nKelsey and S.H. went upstairs to a bedroom where Kelsey had\\nsexual intercourse with S.H. Kelsey then dropped S.H. back\\nat camp.\\n\\n S.H.’s custodial father was at the camp when she returned,\\nand he told the camp to call the police. S.H. then explained to\\nInvestigator Nicholas Collins of the Prince George’s County\\nPolice Department what had happened. She said the man’s\\nname was Kevin, described him, and handed Collins her\\ncellphone. S.H. was then taken to the Prince George’s\\nhospital, where medical personnel used a sexual assault kit to\\ncollect and preserve physical evidence from S.H.’s body.\\n\\n Collins called “Kevin’s” number from S.H.’s phone and\\nKelsey answered. At that point, Kelsey made the first of a\\nseries of exculpatory statements suggesting that his cousin\\n“Kevin,” not he, was the person the officer was looking for.\\nCollins and Kelsey then had a series of brief phone\\nconversations over the course of the next day, during which\\nKelsey said that he would ask Kevin to contact Collins. Five\\ndays later, Kelsey told Collins over the phone that he had\\n“some information.” J.A. 423. Specifically, he said that he\\nhad picked up a girl in Maryland for his cousin Kevin and\\ndriven her to D.C. Kelsey, driving a black Jeep Cherokee, met\\nCollins in person to discuss the information Kelsey wanted to\\nreport. They met at a 7-Eleven store and drove around, with\\nOfficer Collins following in an unmarked car behind Kelsey’s\\nJeep, to look for the place where Kelsey claimed to have\\ndropped off S.H. for Kevin and picked her up a few hours later.\\nKelsey eventually identified a place about five blocks away\\nfrom his father’s house as the drop-off location. (S.H. later\\n\\f 4\\n\\nidentified from photographs a specific house as the place where\\nKelsey had taken her, and the directory in Kelsey’s phone listed\\nthat same address as his father’s.) The next week, Kelsey\\nrepeated essentially the same story about “Kevin” to a friend\\nwho knew both Kelsey and S.H. When that individual\\ntestified at Kelsey’s trial, she said Kelsey seemed “[a] little\\nnervous [when he spoke to her], like he was . . . putting a story\\ntogether.” J.A. 564.\\n\\n Five days after the sexual assault, S.H. identified Kelsey\\nfrom a photo array. Collins had interviewed S.H., who\\ndescribed the perpetrator to him. At their first interview, on\\nthe day that she met Kelsey, S.H. described him as black, with\\nlight skin and tattoos all over his body, and estimated he was\\nnineteen or twenty years old. At the second interview (after\\nCollins had met Kelsey in person), Collins asked S.H. about\\nthe perpetrator’s tattoos, and she told him that the perpetrator\\nhad a tattoo on his ear. Based on those descriptions, Collins\\nselected six photos to show S.H. of “individuals of similar race,\\nage, sex, . . . facial features, facial hair, and skin tone,” one of\\nwhom was Kelsey. Appellant’s Br. 21-22. A detective with\\nno knowledge of the case then showed S.H. the photo array to\\nsee whether she recognized anyone as her assailant. S.H.\\nidentified Kelsey, signed and dated the back of his photo, and\\nwrote “yes this is him.” J.A. 251. It took less than four\\nminutes for the officer to show S.H. the photographs and for\\nS.H. to identify the photograph of Kelsey.\\n\\n Roughly two weeks after the assault, Kelsey gave a\\nrecorded statement to the Metropolitan Police Department of\\nthe District of Columbia at the police station. Detective\\nNicholas Oliver had invited Kelsey there, asking him “if he\\nwould be willing to come talk.” J.A. 264-67. Kelsey agreed\\nto go to the station to talk to Oliver; he arrived at the station on\\nhis own in under an hour. Kelsey was not taken into custody\\n\\f 5\\n\\nor put in any kind of restraints, and Detective Oliver\\nemphasized that the door to the interview room was open.\\nKelsey kept all of his belongings, including his phone, with\\nhim during the interview. Detective Oliver told him that he\\nwas “free to leave at any time.” J.A. 93. Oliver also advised\\nKelsey of his Miranda rights, both orally and in writing, and\\nemphasized that Kelsey was not under arrest. Kelsey then\\nsigned a Miranda waiver form.\\n\\n Oliver, aware that Kelsey had a lawyer, asked Kelsey if he\\nwas “willing to talk to [Oliver] without” his lawyer present.\\nJ.A. 93. Kelsey responded that he “would feel more better\\nwith her being present.” Id. Oliver asked whether he was\\n“saying that [he] want[ed] to stop questioning,” to which\\nKelsey replied that they could “still talk,” but that he would\\nfeel “more comfortable” if his lawyer were there. Id. When\\nOliver pressed Kelsey for clarification, Kelsey said that he\\nwould “answer [Oliver’s] questions but certain questions\\n[he’d] rather for [his lawyer] to be around.” Id. At that point,\\nOliver told Kelsey that “[i]f there [was] something [he didn’t]\\nwant to answer, [to] stop it right then and there.” Id. Kelsey\\nproceeded to answer Oliver’s questions. Ten minutes later,\\nKelsey’s lawyer called him on his cellphone and spoke to both\\nKelsey and Detective Oliver. She told Oliver that Kelsey\\nwanted to leave and Oliver responded that he would “leave that\\nup to” Kelsey and that “[i]f he decides to leave, he’s free to\\ngo.” Id. Kelsey did not leave and indeed resumed speaking\\nwithout any prompting from Oliver, reiterating that he had “no\\nproblem helping.” Id. A few minutes later, his lawyer called\\nhim back. Kelsey told her that he was “leaving the station\\nnow,” spoke to Oliver for a few more minutes, and then left.\\nId. Overall, the substance of Kelsey’s statement to Oliver was\\nconsistent with what he had told Investigator Collins and the\\nfriend who testified at trial—that he had driven his mother’s\\nJeep Cherokee to pick up a girl and drop her off for “Kevin.”\\n\\f 6\\n\\n Before trial, Kelsey moved to suppress his statements at\\nthat interview as involuntary. He also moved to suppress the\\nphoto-array identification and any in-court identification by\\nS.H. as unduly suggestive and unreliable. The district court\\ndenied both motions.\\n\\n The government used both the recorded statements and\\nphoto identification at trial, as well as an in-court identification\\nof Kelsey by S.H. In addition, it presented DNA evidence\\nagainst Kelsey, seeking to show that Kelsey’s DNA matched\\nDNA taken from S.H.’s sexual assault kit. The government\\nintroduced its DNA evidence through eight witnesses, two of\\nwhom testified as experts, with the other six speaking to the\\nfacts establishing the chain of custody. The key expert witness\\nwas Hope Parker, an employee of Bode Technology, a private\\nlaboratory, who compared Kelsey’s DNA with the male DNA\\nfrom S.H.’s sexual assault kit. Parker testified to her\\nconclusion that the DNA almost certainly belonged to Kelsey.\\n\\n Shana Mills, one of the six DNA witnesses not proffered\\nas an expert, testified about processing the DNA swabs from\\nS.H.’s sexual assault kit at the Department of Forensic\\nSciences. Mills performed the physical work of taking\\ncuttings from the swabs, placing them in test tubes, and loading\\nthem into a machine called a genetic analyzer. The genetic\\nanalyzer then produced electropherograms—charts that list the\\nalleles present at different locations of a length of DNA. The\\ninformation from an electropherogram can be analyzed by an\\nexpert and compared with samples from known individuals to\\nidentify whose DNA is present in an evidence sample. The\\ndata that Mills generated was transmitted to the Bode lab,\\nwhere Parker performed her analysis. Mills also recorded her\\nwork in her Report of Examination, which the government\\nprovided to Kelsey during discovery.\\n\\f 7\\n\\n When Mills was on the stand, the government asked her to\\ncompare the information in her report to the information Parker\\nused in her analysis. The questioning apparently aimed to\\nshow that the data that Mills produced from the assault kit\\nswabs was the same data that Parker then subjected to DNA\\nmatching analysis. According to Mills, the work about which\\nshe testified ended when she identified a male DNA profile in\\nthe swabs from S.H.’s assault kit. She did not go on to\\ncompare that male profile to any known sample—that task was\\nfor Parker. After completing the work to pull from the sample\\nthe data that Bode needed, Mills did run the male profile she\\nidentified through CODIS (the Combined DNA Index System,\\nmaintained by the FBI), where it matched with Kelsey’s DNA,\\nbut that information was not shared with Bode, and neither side\\nsought to introduce testimony about that match.\\n\\n Kelsey objected to Mills’ testimony, arguing that she was\\ntestifying as an expert without having been qualified at trial to\\ndo so. Specifically, Kelsey asked the court “to strike the\\ntestimony of [Mills’] comparisons of her raw data to” the data\\nthat Parker used for her analysis. J.A. 595. He also alleged\\nthat there had been problems with the Department of Forensic\\nSciences’ procedures for interpreting mixtures of different\\nDNA profiles, and sought to cross-examine Mills about those\\nproblems. The government objected to the proposed line of\\nquestioning, contending that there had never been problems\\nwith the processes about which Mills had testified.\\n\\n The district court engaged in a lengthy colloquy out of the\\njury’s hearing with counsel on both the expert-qualification\\nand cross-examination issues. During that colloquy, Michael\\nAmbrosino, Special Counsel for DNA and Forensic Evidence\\nLitigation at the United States Attorney’s Office,\\nacknowledged that there had been past problems with the way\\nthat the District of Columbia’s Department of Forensic\\n\\f 8\\n\\nSciences had performed “mixture analysis”—the process of\\nisolating and identifying individual DNA profiles when more\\nthan one person’s DNA is present in a sample. But Mills was\\ntestifying about her “bench work”—the preliminary physical\\nprocessing of DNA samples—not mixture analysis. When the\\nUnited States Attorney’s Office learned of the Department of\\nForensic Sciences’ mixture-analysis problems, it had hired\\noutside DNA experts to review their bench work as well as\\ntheir mixture analyses. Those experts concluded that there\\nwere no problems with the lab’s bench work. As a result, the\\nUnited States Attorney’s Office continued to rely on the\\nDepartment of Forensic Sciences to perform bench work, but\\ncontracted out mixture analysis to companies such as Bode\\nTechnology.\\n\\n Crediting Ambrosino’s proffer, the district court held that\\nMills permissibly testified as a fact witness about the bench\\nwork she performed on the sample before Bode Technology\\ndid the DNA analysis. In addition, it held that the defense’s\\nproposed line of inquiry about the Department of Forensic\\nSciences’ historical problems with mixture analysis was\\nirrelevant, because Mills testified about her bench work,\\nwhereas Bode Technology—not Mills or anyone at the\\nDepartment of Forensic Sciences—performed the mixture\\nanalysis introduced at trial through expert witness testimony.\\n\\n Kelsey did not testify and called only one witness—\\nDetective Oliver—who testified to his investigatory efforts,\\nand confirmed that he videotaped his interview of Kelsey as\\npart of his investigation. After deliberating for approximately\\nforty minutes, the jury convicted Kelsey of transportation of a\\nminor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, 18\\nU.S.C. § 2423(a); aggravated sexual abuse of a child, id.\\n§ 2241(c); and first-degree child sexual abuse with aggravating\\n\\f 9\\n\\ncircumstances, D.C. Code §§ 22-3008, 22-3020(a)(1). This\\nappeal followed.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n The district court did not err in allowing Mills to testify\\nabout her lab work without being qualified as an expert, nor did\\nit err in preventing Kelsey from cross-examining Mills about\\nthe Department of Forensic Sciences’ past problems with\\nmixture analysis. Even if its rulings on those points were\\nerroneous, the errors would have been harmless.\\n\\n 1.\\n\\n The district court’s decision to admit or exclude expert\\ntestimony is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Kumho Tire\\nCo. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 152 (1999); see also United\\nStates v. Machado-Erazo, 901 F.3d 326, 336 (D.C. Cir. 2018).\\nA lay witness may testify to her opinions only insofar as they\\nare “(a) rationally based on the witness’s perception;\\n(b) helpful to clearly understanding the witness’s testimony or\\nto determining a fact in issue; and (c) not based on scientific,\\ntechnical, or other specialized knowledge within the scope of\\nRule 702.” Fed. R. Evid. 701. When a party wishes to\\nintroduce expert testimony, it must qualify the witness by\\nestablishing “the expert’s scientific, technical, or other\\nspecialized knowledge.” Fed. R. Evid. 702. The party also\\nmust show that “the testimony is based on sufficient facts or\\ndata; . . . [that it] is the product of reliable principles and\\nmethods; and . . . [that] the expert has reliably applied the\\nprinciples and methods to the facts of the case.” Id.; see also\\nDaubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 589\\n(1993).\\n\\f 10\\n\\n The district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing\\nMills to testify as a lay witness. At trial, Kelsey’s lawyer\\nargued that Mills should not be permitted to testify about how\\nshe “looked at her raw data and compared it to the data of the\\nother people.” J.A. 594. The government resisted this\\ncharacterization of Mills’ testimony, arguing that Mills was\\nsimply confirming—by comparing the data that she produced\\nto the data that Bode Technology used—that what Bode used\\nwas the raw data she had provided. In other words, Mills\\ntestified that what Bode “received was the same [as what Mills\\nhad] produced.” J.A. 636. The record fully supports the\\ndistrict court’s conclusion that Mills testified as one of multiple\\nlay witnesses who accounted for the chain of custody and\\nphysical processing of the DNA evidence, as distinct from its\\nexpert analysis.\\n\\n Mills tested three swabs from S.H.’s sexual assault kit for\\nthe presence of male DNA. The raw data, in the form of\\nelectropherograms produced by the genetic analyzer, showed\\nthat there was a male DNA profile in the sexual assault kit\\nsamples. Mills then forwarded that data to Bode. The United\\nStates Attorney’s Office’s general instructions to the chief of\\nthe case work unit at Bode directed Bode to then scrub any\\ninterpretations or preliminary conclusions from such material\\nbefore it was sent to one of Bode’s analysts, “so that [the\\nanalyst] would be interpreting the data 100 percent on their\\nown.” J.A. 630-31. “[T]he only thing that went before the\\nanalyst was the raw data.” J.A. 631. No information was\\nsupplied to Hope Parker, the Bode analyst, that there was a\\nmale profile in the DNA, for example, or that the male profile\\nhad matched with a person in the CODIS system.\\n\\n Mills did testify about identifying a male profile in the\\nDNA sample from S.H.’s sexual assault kit—and that required\\na determination whether more than one person’s DNA was\\n\\f 11\\n\\npresent in the sample. But that testimony was not presented\\nto show that any DNA in the sample belonged to Kelsey—or\\nto anyone in particular. Rather, it verified that there was some\\nelectropherogram data that was susceptible of mixture analysis\\nand so should be sent to Bode for that purpose. Bode’s analyst\\nthen did the analysis on the Department of Forensic Sciences’\\nraw data, concluding independently that there was a male\\nprofile in the sample and—ultimately—that the male profile\\nmatched the sample separately taken from Kelsey. Because\\nMills was testifying on a factual matter within her own\\nexperience—the raw data she produced and that it was the\\nsame data as was presented to the outside laboratory—the\\ndistrict court did not abuse its discretion in allowing her to\\ntestify as a fact witness, not an expert.\\n\\n Even if it was error to admit Mills’ testimony without\\nqualifying her as an expert, the error was harmless. Non-\\nconstitutional error is harmful only if it has a “substantial and\\ninjurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.”\\nKotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776 (1946); accord\\nFed. R. Crim. P. 52(a). If a lay witness could have been\\nqualified as an expert had the court so required, that tends to\\nsupport the conclusion that it was harmless to allow her to\\ntestify as a lay witness, especially when the other evidence is\\noverwhelming. United States v. Smith, 640 F.3d 358, 366\\n(D.C. Cir. 2011). Kelsey provided no reason, either at trial or\\non appeal, why Mills could not have qualified as an expert.\\nIndeed, she presumably could have been, as at the time of her\\ntestimony she had already testified as an expert in over thirty-\\nfive cases. The only harm Kelsey alleges is that, by allowing\\nMills to testify without qualifying her as an expert witness, the\\ncourt prevented him from cross-examining her on the\\nDepartment of Forensic Sciences’ laboratory’s recent history\\nof reportedly deficient mixture analyses. But the district\\ncourt’s decision not to permit cross-examination on that topic\\n\\f 12\\n\\ndid not hinge on whether Mills testified as an expert. The\\ndistrict court understood that whether Mills could give her\\ntestimony as a layperson or needed to be qualified as an expert\\nwas a “different issue” from whether there were any\\nlaboratory-specific quality concerns about the type of work\\nabout which Mills was testifying. J.A. 637. In other words,\\nthe district court’s decision on the cross-examination issue was\\nindependent of its decision that Mills gave lay rather than\\nexpert testimony—meaning that the inability to cross-examine\\nMills about the laboratory cannot be a “harm” caused by the\\ndistrict court’s expert-testimony decision.\\n\\n 2.\\n\\n The district court’s decision to preclude a line of inquiry\\non cross-examination is also reviewed for abuse of discretion.\\nUnited States v. Vega, 826 F.3d 514, 542 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (per\\ncuriam).\\n\\n The district court did not abuse its discretion in preventing\\nKelsey from cross-examining Mills on the Department of\\nForensic Sciences’ mixture-analysis problems. The district\\ncourt—after hearing a lengthy proffer from the United States\\nAttorney’s Office—concluded that any such problems were\\nirrelevant to how the jury might weigh and credit Mills’\\ntestimony on direct examination. Testimony confirmed that\\nthe bench work in this case predated the problems with mixture\\nanalysis in the District’s lab. The district court found that “the\\nevidence clearly shows that there ultimately were no concerns\\nabout the quality of work that the DC lab was doing in\\nreference to what [Mills] testified about,” and “the decision to\\nsend the work to the private lab had nothing to do with” the\\nlab’s bench work. J.A. 637.\\n\\f 13\\n\\n The district court further ruled that, if it had permitted the\\ndefense’s requested cross-examination, the court would also\\nhave permitted the government to present the experts who had\\nanalyzed the Department of Forensic Sciences’ bench work\\nand found it to be acceptable and entirely independent of the\\nkinds of problems the defense sought to probe, and would have\\npermitted Mills to testify about the interpretation she had\\nperformed (but had not testified about), which corroborated\\nBode’s interpretation. In other words, with the context the\\ndistrict court said it would have allowed the government to\\nelicit, the ultimate result of the cross-examination Kelsey’s\\ncounsel sought would not, on balance, have been uniformly\\npositive for Kelsey, but might in fact have had a negative effect\\non his defense.\\n\\n There was, in sum, no error and in any event no prejudice\\nto Kelsey from the district court’s allowance of Mills’\\ntestimony.\\n\\n B.\\n\\n The district court’s decision to admit the photo\\nidentification was not error and, even if it were, the ample\\nindependent evidence identifying Kelsey rendered any such\\nerror harmless. A court assessing a challenge to identification\\nevidence under the Due Process Clause must perform a two-\\nstep analysis. United States v. Rattler, 475 F.3d 408, 411\\n(D.C. Cir. 2007). First, the court must determine “whether the\\nidentification procedure ‘was impermissibly suggestive.’” Id.\\n(quoting United States v. Washington, 12 F.3d 1128, 1134\\n(D.C. Cir. 1994)). If the procedure was impermissibly\\nsuggestive, the court must decide “whether, under the totality\\nof the circumstances,” the identification was nonetheless\\n“sufficiently reliable to preclude ‘a very substantial likelihood\\nof irreparable misidentification.’” Id. (quoting Manson v.\\n\\f 14\\n\\nBrathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 116 (1977)). The key factors at the\\nsecond step are “the opportunity of the witness to view the\\ncriminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of\\nattention, the accuracy of [her] prior description of the\\ncriminal, the level of certainty demonstrated at the\\nconfrontation, and the time between the crime and the\\nconfrontation.” Id. (quoting Manson, 432 U.S. at 114). The\\ncourt must weigh these factors against “the corrupting effect of\\nthe suggestive identification itself.” Id. (quoting Manson, 432\\nU.S. at 114) (emphasis omitted). “We review the district\\ncourt’s legal conclusions de novo and its findings of fact for\\nclear error.” Id.\\n\\n The photo array was not impermissibly suggestive. The\\nonly characteristic that Kelsey claims was suggestive is that his\\nwas the only photo showing someone with an ear tattoo;\\notherwise, the defense agreed, the individuals depicted in the\\nphotos were “very, very similar.” J.A. 255. But, as the\\ndistrict court observed, Kelsey’s ear tattoo is not clearly\\ndiscernable in the photo shown to S.H. “[W]hile there is some\\ndiscoloration in the left ear,” the court said, “it’s not clear . . .\\nexactly what the discoloration is.” J.A. 259. According to\\nthe district court, it could have been “just a birth mark or . . . a\\nshadow.” Id. Of course, if only one photo in a photo array\\nhas a characteristic distinctive to the defendant, then the array\\nmay well be impermissibly suggestive. That is not the\\nsituation here, where the distinctive tattoo was barely visible in\\nthe photo. Nor did any other aspect of the photo array single\\nout Kelsey. Not only did the array feature six similar-looking\\nindividuals, it was administered by someone who did not know\\nthe “correct” result and so was in no position to influence S.H.\\nto choose Kelsey over anyone else.\\n\\n Even assuming the photo array was impermissibly\\nsuggestive, the circumstances of S.H.’s identification of\\n\\f 15\\n\\nKelsey’s photograph were sufficiently reliable to avoid any\\n“substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.”\\nRattler, 475 F.3d at 411 (quoting Manson, 432 U.S. at 116);\\nsee Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 199-200 (1972). Kelsey\\nsays he disagrees, but provides no argument as to why. S.H.\\nhad plenty of opportunity to view Kelsey, both on the drive to\\nand from his father’s house and at the house itself, where the\\nsexual assault occurred. S.H. and Kelsey were together for\\nseveral hours during the daylight, under circumstances in\\nwhich S.H. would naturally have been paying attention to\\nKelsey and his appearance. Moreover, when presented with\\nthe photo array very shortly after she had been with Kelsey, she\\nidentified him quickly and with apparent confidence. In\\nresponse to these indicia of reliability, the defense argues only\\nthat S.H.’s youth and the stressful nature of the situation\\nrendered her identification unreliable. There is no basis in this\\nrecord, however, to conclude that those factors undermined\\nS.H.’s ability to correctly identify Kelsey as the man she met\\nonline who picked her up at her summer camp, drove her for\\n45 minutes each way in daylight to and from his father’s house,\\nand took off most of his clothes to have intercourse with her\\nrepeatedly while there.\\n\\n Even if admitting the photo-array evidence had been error,\\nthe totality of the other identification evidence presented\\nagainst Kelsey would have rendered any error in the photo\\narray harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See United States\\nv. Washington, 353 F.3d 42, 45 (D.C. Cir. 2004). Kelsey\\nargues that the error “was not harmless,” Appellant’s Br. 24,\\nbut provides no argument as to why. And in fact there was\\nsignificant evidence corroborating the photo-array\\nidentification. The DNA evidence, for example, strongly\\nsupported the conclusion that Kelsey was the perpetrator.\\nOther evidence, like records showing that S.H. called Kelsey’s\\nphone, further confirmed that conclusion. In light of\\n\\f 16\\n\\noverwhelming evidence identifying Kelsey as the perpetrator,\\nerroneously admitting the photo-array identification would\\nhave been harmless.\\n\\n C.\\n\\n The district court also permissibly admitted the video\\nrecording of Kelsey’s voluntary statement to the police. A\\ndefendant’s statement may only be admitted at trial to prove\\nhis guilt if the statement was voluntarily made. See Dickerson\\nv. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 434 (2000). The burden is on\\nthe government to establish voluntariness by a preponderance\\nof the evidence. Lego v. Twomey, 404 U.S. 477, 489 (1972).\\nTo be voluntary, a statement cannot have been the product of\\ngovernmental coercion, with coerciveness assessed in light of\\nall the circumstances. Dickerson, 530 U.S. at 434 (citing\\nSchneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 226 (1973)).\\nRelevant factors include, without limitation, the defendant’s\\n“age and education, the length of the detention, whether the\\ndefendant was advised of his rights, and the nature of the\\nquestioning.” United States v. Murdock, 667 F.3d 1302,\\n1305-06 (D.C. Cir. 2012). A waiver of Miranda rights is\\n“highly probative” of the voluntariness of subsequent\\nstatements. Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 318 (1985).\\n\\n The district court correctly found that Kelsey’s recorded\\nstatement was voluntary. His only argument that it was not is\\nthat the detective did not stop questioning Kelsey after he said\\nhe would feel better with his lawyer present. On this record,\\nthat was not enough to render his ensuing statements\\ninvoluntary. The interview with Detective Oliver was\\nvideotaped. Immediately after Kelsey made the comment\\nabout his lawyer, the videotape shows that the detective asked\\nKelsey for clarification as to whether he wanted to continue\\nspeaking. After Kelsey said he was comfortable answering\\n\\f 17\\n\\nsome questions but not others without his lawyer present, the\\ndetective told him that “[i]f there [was] something [he didn’t]\\nwant to answer, [to] stop it right then and there.” J.A. 93.\\nMoreover, nothing else about the interview could be\\nconsidered coercive. The detective was not the least bit\\naggressive in content, tone, or body language. Kelsey’s own\\nattorney even described the officer “as passive and as polite\\nand nonaggressive as possible.” J.A. 282. Kelsey came to\\nthe interview of his own volition, was not restrained in any\\nway, and Detective Oliver told him he was free to go at any\\ntime. Because Kelsey was not in custody, he was not required\\nto be informed of his Miranda rights, but Oliver read him his\\nrights anyway and Kelsey signed a written waiver. Kelsey\\nwas allowed to keep his phone and to use it, taking two calls\\nfrom his attorney over the course of the interview. When\\nKelsey did decide to wrap up the conversation and leave, the\\nofficers did not interfere or seek to dissuade him. The\\ninterview itself was less than half an hour long and Kelsey\\nappeared alert and coherent throughout.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n For the reasons discussed above, we affirm the district\\ncourt’s judgment of conviction.\\n\\n So ordered.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4375279/\", \"author_raw\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"HENDERSON"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"PILLARD"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"GINSBURG"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598026/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee v. Robert KELSEY, Also Known as Taiwan Kellsi, Appellant\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-08\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued December 4, 2018 Decided March 8, 2019\n\n No. 16-3125\n\n UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,\n APPELLEE\n\n v.\n\n ROBERT KELSEY, ALSO KNOWN AS TAIWAN KELLSI,\n APPELLANT\n\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the District of Columbia\n (No. 1:16-cr-00055-1)\n\n\n Mary E. Davis, appointed by the court, argued the cause\nand filed the briefs for appellant.\n\n Christopher M. Davis, appointed by the court, entered an\nappearance.\n\n Lauren R. Bates, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause\nfor appellee. With her on the brief were Jessie K. Liu, U.S.\nAttorney, and Elizabeth Trosman and Michael T. Ambrosino,\nAssistant U.S. Attorneys.\n\n Before: HENDERSON and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and\nGINSBURG, Senior Circuit Judge.\n\f 2\n\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD.\n\n PILLARD, Circuit Judge: A jury convicted Robert Kelsey\nof transporting a minor, eleven-year-old S.H., with intent to\nengage in criminal sexual activity, aggravated sexual abuse of\na child, and first-degree child sexual abuse with aggravating\ncircumstances. Kelsey challenges his conviction on three\ngrounds: First, he argues that the district court allowed a fact\nwitness to give expert testimony on DNA evidence without\nhaving been qualified as an expert, which Kelsey contends\nprejudicially prevented him from cross-examining the witness\nabout a history of testing errors at the District of Columbia\nDepartment of Forensic Sciences. Second, he argues that the\nphoto array from which S.H. identified him was prejudicially\nsuggestive. And, third, Kelsey contends that the district court\nerred in admitting statements Kelsey made to the police, which\nhe says were involuntary. For the following reasons, we\nconclude that there was no improper expert testimony, that the\nphoto array was not impermissibly suggestive, and that\nKelsey’s statements were voluntary.\n\n I.\n\n Kelsey’s defense at trial, based primarily on cross-\nexamination of the government’s witnesses, was that he was\nnot the person who committed the sexual offenses against S.H.\nThe facts below are largely drawn from the unrebutted\ntestimony of prosecution witnesses. S.H. and Kelsey met via\nInstagram. Kelsey told S.H. that his name was “Kevin” and\nthat he was nineteen years old. (He was actually twenty-six.)\nS.H. told him her real name and age, and that she wanted to\nhave sex and get pregnant. Kelsey replied that he could get\nher pregnant. Soon after, they made a plan to meet in person.\nThe morning after they made their plan, on July 25, 2014,\nKelsey drove to S.H.’s summer camp in Maryland and told a\n\f 3\n\ncounselor that he was S.H.’s cousin. When S.H. said she\nrecognized Kelsey as her cousin, the camp counselor let her\nleave the camp with Kelsey, who drove S.H. in a black Jeep to\nhis father’s house in the District of Columbia. At the house,\nKelsey and S.H. went upstairs to a bedroom where Kelsey had\nsexual intercourse with S.H. Kelsey then dropped S.H. back\nat camp.\n\n S.H.’s custodial father was at the camp when she returned,\nand he told the camp to call the police. S.H. then explained to\nInvestigator Nicholas Collins of the Prince George’s County\nPolice Department what had happened. She said the man’s\nname was Kevin, described him, and handed Collins her\ncellphone. S.H. was then taken to the Prince George’s\nhospital, where medical personnel used a sexual assault kit to\ncollect and preserve physical evidence from S.H.’s body.\n\n Collins called “Kevin’s” number from S.H.’s phone and\nKelsey answered. At that point, Kelsey made the first of a\nseries of exculpatory statements suggesting that his cousin\n“Kevin,” not he, was the person the officer was looking for.\nCollins and Kelsey then had a series of brief phone\nconversations over the course of the next day, during which\nKelsey said that he would ask Kevin to contact Collins. Five\ndays later, Kelsey told Collins over the phone that he had\n“some information.” J.A. 423. Specifically, he said that he\nhad picked up a girl in Maryland for his cousin Kevin and\ndriven her to D.C. Kelsey, driving a black Jeep Cherokee, met\nCollins in person to discuss the information Kelsey wanted to\nreport. They met at a 7-Eleven store and drove around, with\nOfficer Collins following in an unmarked car behind Kelsey’s\nJeep, to look for the place where Kelsey claimed to have\ndropped off S.H. for Kevin and picked her up a few hours later.\nKelsey eventually identified a place about five blocks away\nfrom his father’s house as the drop-off location. (S.H. later\n\f 4\n\nidentified from photographs a specific house as the place where\nKelsey had taken her, and the directory in Kelsey’s phone listed\nthat same address as his father’s.) The next week, Kelsey\nrepeated essentially the same story about “Kevin” to a friend\nwho knew both Kelsey and S.H. When that individual\ntestified at Kelsey’s trial, she said Kelsey seemed “[a] little\nnervous [when he spoke to her], like he was . . . putting a story\ntogether.” J.A. 564.\n\n Five days after the sexual assault, S.H. identified Kelsey\nfrom a photo array. Collins had interviewed S.H., who\ndescribed the perpetrator to him. At their first interview, on\nthe day that she met Kelsey, S.H. described him as black, with\nlight skin and tattoos all over his body, and estimated he was\nnineteen or twenty years old. At the second interview (after\nCollins had met Kelsey in person), Collins asked S.H. about\nthe perpetrator’s tattoos, and she told him that the perpetrator\nhad a tattoo on his ear. Based on those descriptions, Collins\nselected six photos to show S.H. of “individuals of similar race,\nage, sex, . . . facial features, facial hair, and skin tone,” one of\nwhom was Kelsey. Appellant’s Br. 21-22. A detective with\nno knowledge of the case then showed S.H. the photo array to\nsee whether she recognized anyone as her assailant. S.H.\nidentified Kelsey, signed and dated the back of his photo, and\nwrote “yes this is him.” J.A. 251. It took less than four\nminutes for the officer to show S.H. the photographs and for\nS.H. to identify the photograph of Kelsey.\n\n Roughly two weeks after the assault, Kelsey gave a\nrecorded statement to the Metropolitan Police Department of\nthe District of Columbia at the police station. Detective\nNicholas Oliver had invited Kelsey there, asking him “if he\nwould be willing to come talk.” J.A. 264-67. Kelsey agreed\nto go to the station to talk to Oliver; he arrived at the station on\nhis own in under an hour. Kelsey was not taken into custody\n\f 5\n\nor put in any kind of restraints, and Detective Oliver\nemphasized that the door to the interview room was open.\nKelsey kept all of his belongings, including his phone, with\nhim during the interview. Detective Oliver told him that he\nwas “free to leave at any time.” J.A. 93. Oliver also advised\nKelsey of his Miranda rights, both orally and in writing, and\nemphasized that Kelsey was not under arrest. Kelsey then\nsigned a Miranda waiver form.\n\n Oliver, aware that Kelsey had a lawyer, asked Kelsey if he\nwas “willing to talk to [Oliver] without” his lawyer present.\nJ.A. 93. Kelsey responded that he “would feel more better\nwith her being present.” Id. Oliver asked whether he was\n“saying that [he] want[ed] to stop questioning,” to which\nKelsey replied that they could “still talk,” but that he would\nfeel “more comfortable” if his lawyer were there. Id. When\nOliver pressed Kelsey for clarification, Kelsey said that he\nwould “answer [Oliver’s] questions but certain questions\n[he’d] rather for [his lawyer] to be around.” Id. At that point,\nOliver told Kelsey that “[i]f there [was] something [he didn’t]\nwant to answer, [to] stop it right then and there.” Id. Kelsey\nproceeded to answer Oliver’s questions. Ten minutes later,\nKelsey’s lawyer called him on his cellphone and spoke to both\nKelsey and Detective Oliver. She told Oliver that Kelsey\nwanted to leave and Oliver responded that he would “leave that\nup to” Kelsey and that “[i]f he decides to leave, he’s free to\ngo.” Id. Kelsey did not leave and indeed resumed speaking\nwithout any prompting from Oliver, reiterating that he had “no\nproblem helping.” Id. A few minutes later, his lawyer called\nhim back. Kelsey told her that he was “leaving the station\nnow,” spoke to Oliver for a few more minutes, and then left.\nId. Overall, the substance of Kelsey’s statement to Oliver was\nconsistent with what he had told Investigator Collins and the\nfriend who testified at trial—that he had driven his mother’s\nJeep Cherokee to pick up a girl and drop her off for “Kevin.”\n\f 6\n\n Before trial, Kelsey moved to suppress his statements at\nthat interview as involuntary. He also moved to suppress the\nphoto-array identification and any in-court identification by\nS.H. as unduly suggestive and unreliable. The district court\ndenied both motions.\n\n The government used both the recorded statements and\nphoto identification at trial, as well as an in-court identification\nof Kelsey by S.H. In addition, it presented DNA evidence\nagainst Kelsey, seeking to show that Kelsey’s DNA matched\nDNA taken from S.H.’s sexual assault kit. The government\nintroduced its DNA evidence through eight witnesses, two of\nwhom testified as experts, with the other six speaking to the\nfacts establishing the chain of custody. The key expert witness\nwas Hope Parker, an employee of Bode Technology, a private\nlaboratory, who compared Kelsey’s DNA with the male DNA\nfrom S.H.’s sexual assault kit. Parker testified to her\nconclusion that the DNA almost certainly belonged to Kelsey.\n\n Shana Mills, one of the six DNA witnesses not proffered\nas an expert, testified about processing the DNA swabs from\nS.H.’s sexual assault kit at the Department of Forensic\nSciences. Mills performed the physical work of taking\ncuttings from the swabs, placing them in test tubes, and loading\nthem into a machine called a genetic analyzer. The genetic\nanalyzer then produced electropherograms—charts that list the\nalleles present at different locations of a length of DNA. The\ninformation from an electropherogram can be analyzed by an\nexpert and compared with samples from known individuals to\nidentify whose DNA is present in an evidence sample. The\ndata that Mills generated was transmitted to the Bode lab,\nwhere Parker performed her analysis. Mills also recorded her\nwork in her Report of Examination, which the government\nprovided to Kelsey during discovery.\n\f 7\n\n When Mills was on the stand, the government asked her to\ncompare the information in her report to the information Parker\nused in her analysis. The questioning apparently aimed to\nshow that the data that Mills produced from the assault kit\nswabs was the same data that Parker then subjected to DNA\nmatching analysis. According to Mills, the work about which\nshe testified ended when she identified a male DNA profile in\nthe swabs from S.H.’s assault kit. She did not go on to\ncompare that male profile to any known sample—that task was\nfor Parker. After completing the work to pull from the sample\nthe data that Bode needed, Mills did run the male profile she\nidentified through CODIS (the Combined DNA Index System,\nmaintained by the FBI), where it matched with Kelsey’s DNA,\nbut that information was not shared with Bode, and neither side\nsought to introduce testimony about that match.\n\n Kelsey objected to Mills’ testimony, arguing that she was\ntestifying as an expert without having been qualified at trial to\ndo so. Specifically, Kelsey asked the court “to strike the\ntestimony of [Mills’] comparisons of her raw data to” the data\nthat Parker used for her analysis. J.A. 595. He also alleged\nthat there had been problems with the Department of Forensic\nSciences’ procedures for interpreting mixtures of different\nDNA profiles, and sought to cross-examine Mills about those\nproblems. The government objected to the proposed line of\nquestioning, contending that there had never been problems\nwith the processes about which Mills had testified.\n\n The district court engaged in a lengthy colloquy out of the\njury’s hearing with counsel on both the expert-qualification\nand cross-examination issues. During that colloquy, Michael\nAmbrosino, Special Counsel for DNA and Forensic Evidence\nLitigation at the United States Attorney’s Office,\nacknowledged that there had been past problems with the way\nthat the District of Columbia’s Department of Forensic\n\f 8\n\nSciences had performed “mixture analysis”—the process of\nisolating and identifying individual DNA profiles when more\nthan one person’s DNA is present in a sample. But Mills was\ntestifying about her “bench work”—the preliminary physical\nprocessing of DNA samples—not mixture analysis. When the\nUnited States Attorney’s Office learned of the Department of\nForensic Sciences’ mixture-analysis problems, it had hired\noutside DNA experts to review their bench work as well as\ntheir mixture analyses. Those experts concluded that there\nwere no problems with the lab’s bench work. As a result, the\nUnited States Attorney’s Office continued to rely on the\nDepartment of Forensic Sciences to perform bench work, but\ncontracted out mixture analysis to companies such as Bode\nTechnology.\n\n Crediting Ambrosino’s proffer, the district court held that\nMills permissibly testified as a fact witness about the bench\nwork she performed on the sample before Bode Technology\ndid the DNA analysis. In addition, it held that the defense’s\nproposed line of inquiry about the Department of Forensic\nSciences’ historical problems with mixture analysis was\nirrelevant, because Mills testified about her bench work,\nwhereas Bode Technology—not Mills or anyone at the\nDepartment of Forensic Sciences—performed the mixture\nanalysis introduced at trial through expert witness testimony.\n\n Kelsey did not testify and called only one witness—\nDetective Oliver—who testified to his investigatory efforts,\nand confirmed that he videotaped his interview of Kelsey as\npart of his investigation. After deliberating for approximately\nforty minutes, the jury convicted Kelsey of transportation of a\nminor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, 18\nU.S.C. § 2423(a); aggravated sexual abuse of a child, id.\n§ 2241(c); and first-degree child sexual abuse with aggravating\n\f 9\n\ncircumstances, D.C. Code §§ 22-3008, 22-3020(a)(1). This\nappeal followed.\n\n II.\n\n A.\n\n The district court did not err in allowing Mills to testify\nabout her lab work without being qualified as an expert, nor did\nit err in preventing Kelsey from cross-examining Mills about\nthe Department of Forensic Sciences’ past problems with\nmixture analysis. Even if its rulings on those points were\nerroneous, the errors would have been harmless.\n\n 1.\n\n The district court’s decision to admit or exclude expert\ntestimony is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Kumho Tire\nCo. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 152 (1999); see also United\nStates v. Machado-Erazo, 901 F.3d 326, 336 (D.C. Cir. 2018).\nA lay witness may testify to her opinions only insofar as they\nare “(a) rationally based on the witness’s perception;\n(b) helpful to clearly understanding the witness’s testimony or\nto determining a fact in issue; and (c) not based on scientific,\ntechnical, or other specialized knowledge within the scope of\nRule 702.” Fed. R. Evid. 701. When a party wishes to\nintroduce expert testimony, it must qualify the witness by\nestablishing “the expert’s scientific, technical, or other\nspecialized knowledge.” Fed. R. Evid. 702. The party also\nmust show that “the testimony is based on sufficient facts or\ndata; . . . [that it] is the product of reliable principles and\nmethods; and . . . [that] the expert has reliably applied the\nprinciples and methods to the facts of the case.” Id.; see also\nDaubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 589\n(1993).\n\f 10\n\n The district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing\nMills to testify as a lay witness. At trial, Kelsey’s lawyer\nargued that Mills should not be permitted to testify about how\nshe “looked at her raw data and compared it to the data of the\nother people.” J.A. 594. The government resisted this\ncharacterization of Mills’ testimony, arguing that Mills was\nsimply confirming—by comparing the data that she produced\nto the data that Bode Technology used—that what Bode used\nwas the raw data she had provided. In other words, Mills\ntestified that what Bode “received was the same [as what Mills\nhad] produced.” J.A. 636. The record fully supports the\ndistrict court’s conclusion that Mills testified as one of multiple\nlay witnesses who accounted for the chain of custody and\nphysical processing of the DNA evidence, as distinct from its\nexpert analysis.\n\n Mills tested three swabs from S.H.’s sexual assault kit for\nthe presence of male DNA. The raw data, in the form of\nelectropherograms produced by the genetic analyzer, showed\nthat there was a male DNA profile in the sexual assault kit\nsamples. Mills then forwarded that data to Bode. The United\nStates Attorney’s Office’s general instructions to the chief of\nthe case work unit at Bode directed Bode to then scrub any\ninterpretations or preliminary conclusions from such material\nbefore it was sent to one of Bode’s analysts, “so that [the\nanalyst] would be interpreting the data 100 percent on their\nown.” J.A. 630-31. “[T]he only thing that went before the\nanalyst was the raw data.” J.A. 631. No information was\nsupplied to Hope Parker, the Bode analyst, that there was a\nmale profile in the DNA, for example, or that the male profile\nhad matched with a person in the CODIS system.\n\n Mills did testify about identifying a male profile in the\nDNA sample from S.H.’s sexual assault kit—and that required\na determination whether more than one person’s DNA was\n\f 11\n\npresent in the sample. But that testimony was not presented\nto show that any DNA in the sample belonged to Kelsey—or\nto anyone in particular. Rather, it verified that there was some\nelectropherogram data that was susceptible of mixture analysis\nand so should be sent to Bode for that purpose. Bode’s analyst\nthen did the analysis on the Department of Forensic Sciences’\nraw data, concluding independently that there was a male\nprofile in the sample and—ultimately—that the male profile\nmatched the sample separately taken from Kelsey. Because\nMills was testifying on a factual matter within her own\nexperience—the raw data she produced and that it was the\nsame data as was presented to the outside laboratory—the\ndistrict court did not abuse its discretion in allowing her to\ntestify as a fact witness, not an expert.\n\n Even if it was error to admit Mills’ testimony without\nqualifying her as an expert, the error was harmless. Non-\nconstitutional error is harmful only if it has a “substantial and\ninjurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.”\nKotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776 (1946); accord\nFed. R. Crim. P. 52(a). If a lay witness could have been\nqualified as an expert had the court so required, that tends to\nsupport the conclusion that it was harmless to allow her to\ntestify as a lay witness, especially when the other evidence is\noverwhelming. United States v. Smith, 640 F.3d 358, 366\n(D.C. Cir. 2011). Kelsey provided no reason, either at trial or\non appeal, why Mills could not have qualified as an expert.\nIndeed, she presumably could have been, as at the time of her\ntestimony she had already testified as an expert in over thirty-\nfive cases. The only harm Kelsey alleges is that, by allowing\nMills to testify without qualifying her as an expert witness, the\ncourt prevented him from cross-examining her on the\nDepartment of Forensic Sciences’ laboratory’s recent history\nof reportedly deficient mixture analyses. But the district\ncourt’s decision not to permit cross-examination on that topic\n\f 12\n\ndid not hinge on whether Mills testified as an expert. The\ndistrict court understood that whether Mills could give her\ntestimony as a layperson or needed to be qualified as an expert\nwas a “different issue” from whether there were any\nlaboratory-specific quality concerns about the type of work\nabout which Mills was testifying. J.A. 637. In other words,\nthe district court’s decision on the cross-examination issue was\nindependent of its decision that Mills gave lay rather than\nexpert testimony—meaning that the inability to cross-examine\nMills about the laboratory cannot be a “harm” caused by the\ndistrict court’s expert-testimony decision.\n\n 2.\n\n The district court’s decision to preclude a line of inquiry\non cross-examination is also reviewed for abuse of discretion.\nUnited States v. Vega, 826 F.3d 514, 542 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (per\ncuriam).\n\n The district court did not abuse its discretion in preventing\nKelsey from cross-examining Mills on the Department of\nForensic Sciences’ mixture-analysis problems. The district\ncourt—after hearing a lengthy proffer from the United States\nAttorney’s Office—concluded that any such problems were\nirrelevant to how the jury might weigh and credit Mills’\ntestimony on direct examination. Testimony confirmed that\nthe bench work in this case predated the problems with mixture\nanalysis in the District’s lab. The district court found that “the\nevidence clearly shows that there ultimately were no concerns\nabout the quality of work that the DC lab was doing in\nreference to what [Mills] testified about,” and “the decision to\nsend the work to the private lab had nothing to do with” the\nlab’s bench work. J.A. 637.\n\f 13\n\n The district court further ruled that, if it had permitted the\ndefense’s requested cross-examination, the court would also\nhave permitted the government to present the experts who had\nanalyzed the Department of Forensic Sciences’ bench work\nand found it to be acceptable and entirely independent of the\nkinds of problems the defense sought to probe, and would have\npermitted Mills to testify about the interpretation she had\nperformed (but had not testified about), which corroborated\nBode’s interpretation. In other words, with the context the\ndistrict court said it would have allowed the government to\nelicit, the ultimate result of the cross-examination Kelsey’s\ncounsel sought would not, on balance, have been uniformly\npositive for Kelsey, but might in fact have had a negative effect\non his defense.\n\n There was, in sum, no error and in any event no prejudice\nto Kelsey from the district court’s allowance of Mills’\ntestimony.\n\n B.\n\n The district court’s decision to admit the photo\nidentification was not error and, even if it were, the ample\nindependent evidence identifying Kelsey rendered any such\nerror harmless. A court assessing a challenge to identification\nevidence under the Due Process Clause must perform a two-\nstep analysis. United States v. Rattler, 475 F.3d 408, 411\n(D.C. Cir. 2007). First, the court must determine “whether the\nidentification procedure ‘was impermissibly suggestive.’” Id.\n(quoting United States v. Washington, 12 F.3d 1128, 1134\n(D.C. Cir. 1994)). If the procedure was impermissibly\nsuggestive, the court must decide “whether, under the totality\nof the circumstances,” the identification was nonetheless\n“sufficiently reliable to preclude ‘a very substantial likelihood\nof irreparable misidentification.’” Id. (quoting Manson v.\n\f 14\n\nBrathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 116 (1977)). The key factors at the\nsecond step are “the opportunity of the witness to view the\ncriminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of\nattention, the accuracy of [her] prior description of the\ncriminal, the level of certainty demonstrated at the\nconfrontation, and the time between the crime and the\nconfrontation.” Id. (quoting Manson, 432 U.S. at 114). The\ncourt must weigh these factors against “the corrupting effect of\nthe suggestive identification itself.” Id. (quoting Manson, 432\nU.S. at 114) (emphasis omitted). “We review the district\ncourt’s legal conclusions de novo and its findings of fact for\nclear error.” Id.\n\n The photo array was not impermissibly suggestive. The\nonly characteristic that Kelsey claims was suggestive is that his\nwas the only photo showing someone with an ear tattoo;\notherwise, the defense agreed, the individuals depicted in the\nphotos were “very, very similar.” J.A. 255. But, as the\ndistrict court observed, Kelsey’s ear tattoo is not clearly\ndiscernable in the photo shown to S.H. “[W]hile there is some\ndiscoloration in the left ear,” the court said, “it’s not clear . . .\nexactly what the discoloration is.” J.A. 259. According to\nthe district court, it could have been “just a birth mark or . . . a\nshadow.” Id. Of course, if only one photo in a photo array\nhas a characteristic distinctive to the defendant, then the array\nmay well be impermissibly suggestive. That is not the\nsituation here, where the distinctive tattoo was barely visible in\nthe photo. Nor did any other aspect of the photo array single\nout Kelsey. Not only did the array feature six similar-looking\nindividuals, it was administered by someone who did not know\nthe “correct” result and so was in no position to influence S.H.\nto choose Kelsey over anyone else.\n\n Even assuming the photo array was impermissibly\nsuggestive, the circumstances of S.H.’s identification of\n\f 15\n\nKelsey’s photograph were sufficiently reliable to avoid any\n“substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.”\nRattler, 475 F.3d at 411 (quoting Manson, 432 U.S. at 116);\nsee Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 199-200 (1972). Kelsey\nsays he disagrees, but provides no argument as to why. S.H.\nhad plenty of opportunity to view Kelsey, both on the drive to\nand from his father’s house and at the house itself, where the\nsexual assault occurred. S.H. and Kelsey were together for\nseveral hours during the daylight, under circumstances in\nwhich S.H. would naturally have been paying attention to\nKelsey and his appearance. Moreover, when presented with\nthe photo array very shortly after she had been with Kelsey, she\nidentified him quickly and with apparent confidence. In\nresponse to these indicia of reliability, the defense argues only\nthat S.H.’s youth and the stressful nature of the situation\nrendered her identification unreliable. There is no basis in this\nrecord, however, to conclude that those factors undermined\nS.H.’s ability to correctly identify Kelsey as the man she met\nonline who picked her up at her summer camp, drove her for\n45 minutes each way in daylight to and from his father’s house,\nand took off most of his clothes to have intercourse with her\nrepeatedly while there.\n\n Even if admitting the photo-array evidence had been error,\nthe totality of the other identification evidence presented\nagainst Kelsey would have rendered any error in the photo\narray harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See United States\nv. Washington, 353 F.3d 42, 45 (D.C. Cir. 2004). Kelsey\nargues that the error “was not harmless,” Appellant’s Br. 24,\nbut provides no argument as to why. And in fact there was\nsignificant evidence corroborating the photo-array\nidentification. The DNA evidence, for example, strongly\nsupported the conclusion that Kelsey was the perpetrator.\nOther evidence, like records showing that S.H. called Kelsey’s\nphone, further confirmed that conclusion. In light of\n\f 16\n\noverwhelming evidence identifying Kelsey as the perpetrator,\nerroneously admitting the photo-array identification would\nhave been harmless.\n\n C.\n\n The district court also permissibly admitted the video\nrecording of Kelsey’s voluntary statement to the police. A\ndefendant’s statement may only be admitted at trial to prove\nhis guilt if the statement was voluntarily made. See Dickerson\nv. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 434 (2000). The burden is on\nthe government to establish voluntariness by a preponderance\nof the evidence. Lego v. Twomey, 404 U.S. 477, 489 (1972).\nTo be voluntary, a statement cannot have been the product of\ngovernmental coercion, with coerciveness assessed in light of\nall the circumstances. Dickerson, 530 U.S. at 434 (citing\nSchneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 226 (1973)).\nRelevant factors include, without limitation, the defendant’s\n“age and education, the length of the detention, whether the\ndefendant was advised of his rights, and the nature of the\nquestioning.” United States v. Murdock, 667 F.3d 1302,\n1305-06 (D.C. Cir. 2012). A waiver of Miranda rights is\n“highly probative” of the voluntariness of subsequent\nstatements. Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 318 (1985).\n\n The district court correctly found that Kelsey’s recorded\nstatement was voluntary. His only argument that it was not is\nthat the detective did not stop questioning Kelsey after he said\nhe would feel better with his lawyer present. On this record,\nthat was not enough to render his ensuing statements\ninvoluntary. The interview with Detective Oliver was\nvideotaped. Immediately after Kelsey made the comment\nabout his lawyer, the videotape shows that the detective asked\nKelsey for clarification as to whether he wanted to continue\nspeaking. After Kelsey said he was comfortable answering\n\f 17\n\nsome questions but not others without his lawyer present, the\ndetective told him that “[i]f there [was] something [he didn’t]\nwant to answer, [to] stop it right then and there.” J.A. 93.\nMoreover, nothing else about the interview could be\nconsidered coercive. The detective was not the least bit\naggressive in content, tone, or body language. Kelsey’s own\nattorney even described the officer “as passive and as polite\nand nonaggressive as possible.” J.A. 282. Kelsey came to\nthe interview of his own volition, was not restrained in any\nway, and Detective Oliver told him he was free to go at any\ntime. Because Kelsey was not in custody, he was not required\nto be informed of his Miranda rights, but Oliver read him his\nrights anyway and Kelsey signed a written waiver. Kelsey\nwas allowed to keep his phone and to use it, taking two calls\nfrom his attorney over the course of the interview. When\nKelsey did decide to wrap up the conversation and leave, the\nofficers did not interfere or seek to dissuade him. The\ninterview itself was less than half an hour long and Kelsey\nappeared alert and coherent throughout.\n\n * * *\n\n For the reasons discussed above, we affirm the district\ncourt’s judgment of conviction.\n\n So ordered.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee v. Robert KELSEY, Also Known as Taiwan Kellsi, Appellant\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-08\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued December 4, 2018 Decided March 8, 2019\\n\\n No. 16-3125\\n\\n UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,\\n APPELLEE\\n\\n v.\\n\\n ROBERT KELSEY, ALSO KNOWN AS TAIWAN KELLSI,\\n APPELLANT\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:16-cr-00055-1)\\n\\n\\n Mary E. Davis, appointed by the court, argued the cause\\nand filed the briefs for appellant.\\n\\n Christopher M. Davis, appointed by the court, entered an\\nappearance.\\n\\n Lauren R. Bates, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause\\nfor appellee. With her on the brief were Jessie K. Liu, U.S.\\nAttorney, and Elizabeth Trosman and Michael T. Ambrosino,\\nAssistant U.S. Attorneys.\\n\\n Before: HENDERSON and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and\\nGINSBURG, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\f 2\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD.\\n\\n PILLARD, Circuit Judge: A jury convicted Robert Kelsey\\nof transporting a minor, eleven-year-old S.H., with intent to\\nengage in criminal sexual activity, aggravated sexual abuse of\\na child, and first-degree child sexual abuse with aggravating\\ncircumstances. Kelsey challenges his conviction on three\\ngrounds: First, he argues that the district court allowed a fact\\nwitness to give expert testimony on DNA evidence without\\nhaving been qualified as an expert, which Kelsey contends\\nprejudicially prevented him from cross-examining the witness\\nabout a history of testing errors at the District of Columbia\\nDepartment of Forensic Sciences. Second, he argues that the\\nphoto array from which S.H. identified him was prejudicially\\nsuggestive. And, third, Kelsey contends that the district court\\nerred in admitting statements Kelsey made to the police, which\\nhe says were involuntary. For the following reasons, we\\nconclude that there was no improper expert testimony, that the\\nphoto array was not impermissibly suggestive, and that\\nKelsey’s statements were voluntary.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Kelsey’s defense at trial, based primarily on cross-\\nexamination of the government’s witnesses, was that he was\\nnot the person who committed the sexual offenses against S.H.\\nThe facts below are largely drawn from the unrebutted\\ntestimony of prosecution witnesses. S.H. and Kelsey met via\\nInstagram. Kelsey told S.H. that his name was “Kevin” and\\nthat he was nineteen years old. (He was actually twenty-six.)\\nS.H. told him her real name and age, and that she wanted to\\nhave sex and get pregnant. Kelsey replied that he could get\\nher pregnant. Soon after, they made a plan to meet in person.\\nThe morning after they made their plan, on July 25, 2014,\\nKelsey drove to S.H.’s summer camp in Maryland and told a\\n\\f 3\\n\\ncounselor that he was S.H.’s cousin. When S.H. said she\\nrecognized Kelsey as her cousin, the camp counselor let her\\nleave the camp with Kelsey, who drove S.H. in a black Jeep to\\nhis father’s house in the District of Columbia. At the house,\\nKelsey and S.H. went upstairs to a bedroom where Kelsey had\\nsexual intercourse with S.H. Kelsey then dropped S.H. back\\nat camp.\\n\\n S.H.’s custodial father was at the camp when she returned,\\nand he told the camp to call the police. S.H. then explained to\\nInvestigator Nicholas Collins of the Prince George’s County\\nPolice Department what had happened. She said the man’s\\nname was Kevin, described him, and handed Collins her\\ncellphone. S.H. was then taken to the Prince George’s\\nhospital, where medical personnel used a sexual assault kit to\\ncollect and preserve physical evidence from S.H.’s body.\\n\\n Collins called “Kevin’s” number from S.H.’s phone and\\nKelsey answered. At that point, Kelsey made the first of a\\nseries of exculpatory statements suggesting that his cousin\\n“Kevin,” not he, was the person the officer was looking for.\\nCollins and Kelsey then had a series of brief phone\\nconversations over the course of the next day, during which\\nKelsey said that he would ask Kevin to contact Collins. Five\\ndays later, Kelsey told Collins over the phone that he had\\n“some information.” J.A. 423. Specifically, he said that he\\nhad picked up a girl in Maryland for his cousin Kevin and\\ndriven her to D.C. Kelsey, driving a black Jeep Cherokee, met\\nCollins in person to discuss the information Kelsey wanted to\\nreport. They met at a 7-Eleven store and drove around, with\\nOfficer Collins following in an unmarked car behind Kelsey’s\\nJeep, to look for the place where Kelsey claimed to have\\ndropped off S.H. for Kevin and picked her up a few hours later.\\nKelsey eventually identified a place about five blocks away\\nfrom his father’s house as the drop-off location. (S.H. later\\n\\f 4\\n\\nidentified from photographs a specific house as the place where\\nKelsey had taken her, and the directory in Kelsey’s phone listed\\nthat same address as his father’s.) The next week, Kelsey\\nrepeated essentially the same story about “Kevin” to a friend\\nwho knew both Kelsey and S.H. When that individual\\ntestified at Kelsey’s trial, she said Kelsey seemed “[a] little\\nnervous [when he spoke to her], like he was . . . putting a story\\ntogether.” J.A. 564.\\n\\n Five days after the sexual assault, S.H. identified Kelsey\\nfrom a photo array. Collins had interviewed S.H., who\\ndescribed the perpetrator to him. At their first interview, on\\nthe day that she met Kelsey, S.H. described him as black, with\\nlight skin and tattoos all over his body, and estimated he was\\nnineteen or twenty years old. At the second interview (after\\nCollins had met Kelsey in person), Collins asked S.H. about\\nthe perpetrator’s tattoos, and she told him that the perpetrator\\nhad a tattoo on his ear. Based on those descriptions, Collins\\nselected six photos to show S.H. of “individuals of similar race,\\nage, sex, . . . facial features, facial hair, and skin tone,” one of\\nwhom was Kelsey. Appellant’s Br. 21-22. A detective with\\nno knowledge of the case then showed S.H. the photo array to\\nsee whether she recognized anyone as her assailant. S.H.\\nidentified Kelsey, signed and dated the back of his photo, and\\nwrote “yes this is him.” J.A. 251. It took less than four\\nminutes for the officer to show S.H. the photographs and for\\nS.H. to identify the photograph of Kelsey.\\n\\n Roughly two weeks after the assault, Kelsey gave a\\nrecorded statement to the Metropolitan Police Department of\\nthe District of Columbia at the police station. Detective\\nNicholas Oliver had invited Kelsey there, asking him “if he\\nwould be willing to come talk.” J.A. 264-67. Kelsey agreed\\nto go to the station to talk to Oliver; he arrived at the station on\\nhis own in under an hour. Kelsey was not taken into custody\\n\\f 5\\n\\nor put in any kind of restraints, and Detective Oliver\\nemphasized that the door to the interview room was open.\\nKelsey kept all of his belongings, including his phone, with\\nhim during the interview. Detective Oliver told him that he\\nwas “free to leave at any time.” J.A. 93. Oliver also advised\\nKelsey of his Miranda rights, both orally and in writing, and\\nemphasized that Kelsey was not under arrest. Kelsey then\\nsigned a Miranda waiver form.\\n\\n Oliver, aware that Kelsey had a lawyer, asked Kelsey if he\\nwas “willing to talk to [Oliver] without” his lawyer present.\\nJ.A. 93. Kelsey responded that he “would feel more better\\nwith her being present.” Id. Oliver asked whether he was\\n“saying that [he] want[ed] to stop questioning,” to which\\nKelsey replied that they could “still talk,” but that he would\\nfeel “more comfortable” if his lawyer were there. Id. When\\nOliver pressed Kelsey for clarification, Kelsey said that he\\nwould “answer [Oliver’s] questions but certain questions\\n[he’d] rather for [his lawyer] to be around.” Id. At that point,\\nOliver told Kelsey that “[i]f there [was] something [he didn’t]\\nwant to answer, [to] stop it right then and there.” Id. Kelsey\\nproceeded to answer Oliver’s questions. Ten minutes later,\\nKelsey’s lawyer called him on his cellphone and spoke to both\\nKelsey and Detective Oliver. She told Oliver that Kelsey\\nwanted to leave and Oliver responded that he would “leave that\\nup to” Kelsey and that “[i]f he decides to leave, he’s free to\\ngo.” Id. Kelsey did not leave and indeed resumed speaking\\nwithout any prompting from Oliver, reiterating that he had “no\\nproblem helping.” Id. A few minutes later, his lawyer called\\nhim back. Kelsey told her that he was “leaving the station\\nnow,” spoke to Oliver for a few more minutes, and then left.\\nId. Overall, the substance of Kelsey’s statement to Oliver was\\nconsistent with what he had told Investigator Collins and the\\nfriend who testified at trial—that he had driven his mother’s\\nJeep Cherokee to pick up a girl and drop her off for “Kevin.”\\n\\f 6\\n\\n Before trial, Kelsey moved to suppress his statements at\\nthat interview as involuntary. He also moved to suppress the\\nphoto-array identification and any in-court identification by\\nS.H. as unduly suggestive and unreliable. The district court\\ndenied both motions.\\n\\n The government used both the recorded statements and\\nphoto identification at trial, as well as an in-court identification\\nof Kelsey by S.H. In addition, it presented DNA evidence\\nagainst Kelsey, seeking to show that Kelsey’s DNA matched\\nDNA taken from S.H.’s sexual assault kit. The government\\nintroduced its DNA evidence through eight witnesses, two of\\nwhom testified as experts, with the other six speaking to the\\nfacts establishing the chain of custody. The key expert witness\\nwas Hope Parker, an employee of Bode Technology, a private\\nlaboratory, who compared Kelsey’s DNA with the male DNA\\nfrom S.H.’s sexual assault kit. Parker testified to her\\nconclusion that the DNA almost certainly belonged to Kelsey.\\n\\n Shana Mills, one of the six DNA witnesses not proffered\\nas an expert, testified about processing the DNA swabs from\\nS.H.’s sexual assault kit at the Department of Forensic\\nSciences. Mills performed the physical work of taking\\ncuttings from the swabs, placing them in test tubes, and loading\\nthem into a machine called a genetic analyzer. The genetic\\nanalyzer then produced electropherograms—charts that list the\\nalleles present at different locations of a length of DNA. The\\ninformation from an electropherogram can be analyzed by an\\nexpert and compared with samples from known individuals to\\nidentify whose DNA is present in an evidence sample. The\\ndata that Mills generated was transmitted to the Bode lab,\\nwhere Parker performed her analysis. Mills also recorded her\\nwork in her Report of Examination, which the government\\nprovided to Kelsey during discovery.\\n\\f 7\\n\\n When Mills was on the stand, the government asked her to\\ncompare the information in her report to the information Parker\\nused in her analysis. The questioning apparently aimed to\\nshow that the data that Mills produced from the assault kit\\nswabs was the same data that Parker then subjected to DNA\\nmatching analysis. According to Mills, the work about which\\nshe testified ended when she identified a male DNA profile in\\nthe swabs from S.H.’s assault kit. She did not go on to\\ncompare that male profile to any known sample—that task was\\nfor Parker. After completing the work to pull from the sample\\nthe data that Bode needed, Mills did run the male profile she\\nidentified through CODIS (the Combined DNA Index System,\\nmaintained by the FBI), where it matched with Kelsey’s DNA,\\nbut that information was not shared with Bode, and neither side\\nsought to introduce testimony about that match.\\n\\n Kelsey objected to Mills’ testimony, arguing that she was\\ntestifying as an expert without having been qualified at trial to\\ndo so. Specifically, Kelsey asked the court “to strike the\\ntestimony of [Mills’] comparisons of her raw data to” the data\\nthat Parker used for her analysis. J.A. 595. He also alleged\\nthat there had been problems with the Department of Forensic\\nSciences’ procedures for interpreting mixtures of different\\nDNA profiles, and sought to cross-examine Mills about those\\nproblems. The government objected to the proposed line of\\nquestioning, contending that there had never been problems\\nwith the processes about which Mills had testified.\\n\\n The district court engaged in a lengthy colloquy out of the\\njury’s hearing with counsel on both the expert-qualification\\nand cross-examination issues. During that colloquy, Michael\\nAmbrosino, Special Counsel for DNA and Forensic Evidence\\nLitigation at the United States Attorney’s Office,\\nacknowledged that there had been past problems with the way\\nthat the District of Columbia’s Department of Forensic\\n\\f 8\\n\\nSciences had performed “mixture analysis”—the process of\\nisolating and identifying individual DNA profiles when more\\nthan one person’s DNA is present in a sample. But Mills was\\ntestifying about her “bench work”—the preliminary physical\\nprocessing of DNA samples—not mixture analysis. When the\\nUnited States Attorney’s Office learned of the Department of\\nForensic Sciences’ mixture-analysis problems, it had hired\\noutside DNA experts to review their bench work as well as\\ntheir mixture analyses. Those experts concluded that there\\nwere no problems with the lab’s bench work. As a result, the\\nUnited States Attorney’s Office continued to rely on the\\nDepartment of Forensic Sciences to perform bench work, but\\ncontracted out mixture analysis to companies such as Bode\\nTechnology.\\n\\n Crediting Ambrosino’s proffer, the district court held that\\nMills permissibly testified as a fact witness about the bench\\nwork she performed on the sample before Bode Technology\\ndid the DNA analysis. In addition, it held that the defense’s\\nproposed line of inquiry about the Department of Forensic\\nSciences’ historical problems with mixture analysis was\\nirrelevant, because Mills testified about her bench work,\\nwhereas Bode Technology—not Mills or anyone at the\\nDepartment of Forensic Sciences—performed the mixture\\nanalysis introduced at trial through expert witness testimony.\\n\\n Kelsey did not testify and called only one witness—\\nDetective Oliver—who testified to his investigatory efforts,\\nand confirmed that he videotaped his interview of Kelsey as\\npart of his investigation. After deliberating for approximately\\nforty minutes, the jury convicted Kelsey of transportation of a\\nminor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, 18\\nU.S.C. § 2423(a); aggravated sexual abuse of a child, id.\\n§ 2241(c); and first-degree child sexual abuse with aggravating\\n\\f 9\\n\\ncircumstances, D.C. Code §§ 22-3008, 22-3020(a)(1). This\\nappeal followed.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n The district court did not err in allowing Mills to testify\\nabout her lab work without being qualified as an expert, nor did\\nit err in preventing Kelsey from cross-examining Mills about\\nthe Department of Forensic Sciences’ past problems with\\nmixture analysis. Even if its rulings on those points were\\nerroneous, the errors would have been harmless.\\n\\n 1.\\n\\n The district court’s decision to admit or exclude expert\\ntestimony is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Kumho Tire\\nCo. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 152 (1999); see also United\\nStates v. Machado-Erazo, 901 F.3d 326, 336 (D.C. Cir. 2018).\\nA lay witness may testify to her opinions only insofar as they\\nare “(a) rationally based on the witness’s perception;\\n(b) helpful to clearly understanding the witness’s testimony or\\nto determining a fact in issue; and (c) not based on scientific,\\ntechnical, or other specialized knowledge within the scope of\\nRule 702.” Fed. R. Evid. 701. When a party wishes to\\nintroduce expert testimony, it must qualify the witness by\\nestablishing “the expert’s scientific, technical, or other\\nspecialized knowledge.” Fed. R. Evid. 702. The party also\\nmust show that “the testimony is based on sufficient facts or\\ndata; . . . [that it] is the product of reliable principles and\\nmethods; and . . . [that] the expert has reliably applied the\\nprinciples and methods to the facts of the case.” Id.; see also\\nDaubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 589\\n(1993).\\n\\f 10\\n\\n The district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing\\nMills to testify as a lay witness. At trial, Kelsey’s lawyer\\nargued that Mills should not be permitted to testify about how\\nshe “looked at her raw data and compared it to the data of the\\nother people.” J.A. 594. The government resisted this\\ncharacterization of Mills’ testimony, arguing that Mills was\\nsimply confirming—by comparing the data that she produced\\nto the data that Bode Technology used—that what Bode used\\nwas the raw data she had provided. In other words, Mills\\ntestified that what Bode “received was the same [as what Mills\\nhad] produced.” J.A. 636. The record fully supports the\\ndistrict court’s conclusion that Mills testified as one of multiple\\nlay witnesses who accounted for the chain of custody and\\nphysical processing of the DNA evidence, as distinct from its\\nexpert analysis.\\n\\n Mills tested three swabs from S.H.’s sexual assault kit for\\nthe presence of male DNA. The raw data, in the form of\\nelectropherograms produced by the genetic analyzer, showed\\nthat there was a male DNA profile in the sexual assault kit\\nsamples. Mills then forwarded that data to Bode. The United\\nStates Attorney’s Office’s general instructions to the chief of\\nthe case work unit at Bode directed Bode to then scrub any\\ninterpretations or preliminary conclusions from such material\\nbefore it was sent to one of Bode’s analysts, “so that [the\\nanalyst] would be interpreting the data 100 percent on their\\nown.” J.A. 630-31. “[T]he only thing that went before the\\nanalyst was the raw data.” J.A. 631. No information was\\nsupplied to Hope Parker, the Bode analyst, that there was a\\nmale profile in the DNA, for example, or that the male profile\\nhad matched with a person in the CODIS system.\\n\\n Mills did testify about identifying a male profile in the\\nDNA sample from S.H.’s sexual assault kit—and that required\\na determination whether more than one person’s DNA was\\n\\f 11\\n\\npresent in the sample. But that testimony was not presented\\nto show that any DNA in the sample belonged to Kelsey—or\\nto anyone in particular. Rather, it verified that there was some\\nelectropherogram data that was susceptible of mixture analysis\\nand so should be sent to Bode for that purpose. Bode’s analyst\\nthen did the analysis on the Department of Forensic Sciences’\\nraw data, concluding independently that there was a male\\nprofile in the sample and—ultimately—that the male profile\\nmatched the sample separately taken from Kelsey. Because\\nMills was testifying on a factual matter within her own\\nexperience—the raw data she produced and that it was the\\nsame data as was presented to the outside laboratory—the\\ndistrict court did not abuse its discretion in allowing her to\\ntestify as a fact witness, not an expert.\\n\\n Even if it was error to admit Mills’ testimony without\\nqualifying her as an expert, the error was harmless. Non-\\nconstitutional error is harmful only if it has a “substantial and\\ninjurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.”\\nKotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776 (1946); accord\\nFed. R. Crim. P. 52(a). If a lay witness could have been\\nqualified as an expert had the court so required, that tends to\\nsupport the conclusion that it was harmless to allow her to\\ntestify as a lay witness, especially when the other evidence is\\noverwhelming. United States v. Smith, 640 F.3d 358, 366\\n(D.C. Cir. 2011). Kelsey provided no reason, either at trial or\\non appeal, why Mills could not have qualified as an expert.\\nIndeed, she presumably could have been, as at the time of her\\ntestimony she had already testified as an expert in over thirty-\\nfive cases. The only harm Kelsey alleges is that, by allowing\\nMills to testify without qualifying her as an expert witness, the\\ncourt prevented him from cross-examining her on the\\nDepartment of Forensic Sciences’ laboratory’s recent history\\nof reportedly deficient mixture analyses. But the district\\ncourt’s decision not to permit cross-examination on that topic\\n\\f 12\\n\\ndid not hinge on whether Mills testified as an expert. The\\ndistrict court understood that whether Mills could give her\\ntestimony as a layperson or needed to be qualified as an expert\\nwas a “different issue” from whether there were any\\nlaboratory-specific quality concerns about the type of work\\nabout which Mills was testifying. J.A. 637. In other words,\\nthe district court’s decision on the cross-examination issue was\\nindependent of its decision that Mills gave lay rather than\\nexpert testimony—meaning that the inability to cross-examine\\nMills about the laboratory cannot be a “harm” caused by the\\ndistrict court’s expert-testimony decision.\\n\\n 2.\\n\\n The district court’s decision to preclude a line of inquiry\\non cross-examination is also reviewed for abuse of discretion.\\nUnited States v. Vega, 826 F.3d 514, 542 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (per\\ncuriam).\\n\\n The district court did not abuse its discretion in preventing\\nKelsey from cross-examining Mills on the Department of\\nForensic Sciences’ mixture-analysis problems. The district\\ncourt—after hearing a lengthy proffer from the United States\\nAttorney’s Office—concluded that any such problems were\\nirrelevant to how the jury might weigh and credit Mills’\\ntestimony on direct examination. Testimony confirmed that\\nthe bench work in this case predated the problems with mixture\\nanalysis in the District’s lab. The district court found that “the\\nevidence clearly shows that there ultimately were no concerns\\nabout the quality of work that the DC lab was doing in\\nreference to what [Mills] testified about,” and “the decision to\\nsend the work to the private lab had nothing to do with” the\\nlab’s bench work. J.A. 637.\\n\\f 13\\n\\n The district court further ruled that, if it had permitted the\\ndefense’s requested cross-examination, the court would also\\nhave permitted the government to present the experts who had\\nanalyzed the Department of Forensic Sciences’ bench work\\nand found it to be acceptable and entirely independent of the\\nkinds of problems the defense sought to probe, and would have\\npermitted Mills to testify about the interpretation she had\\nperformed (but had not testified about), which corroborated\\nBode’s interpretation. In other words, with the context the\\ndistrict court said it would have allowed the government to\\nelicit, the ultimate result of the cross-examination Kelsey’s\\ncounsel sought would not, on balance, have been uniformly\\npositive for Kelsey, but might in fact have had a negative effect\\non his defense.\\n\\n There was, in sum, no error and in any event no prejudice\\nto Kelsey from the district court’s allowance of Mills’\\ntestimony.\\n\\n B.\\n\\n The district court’s decision to admit the photo\\nidentification was not error and, even if it were, the ample\\nindependent evidence identifying Kelsey rendered any such\\nerror harmless. A court assessing a challenge to identification\\nevidence under the Due Process Clause must perform a two-\\nstep analysis. United States v. Rattler, 475 F.3d 408, 411\\n(D.C. Cir. 2007). First, the court must determine “whether the\\nidentification procedure ‘was impermissibly suggestive.’” Id.\\n(quoting United States v. Washington, 12 F.3d 1128, 1134\\n(D.C. Cir. 1994)). If the procedure was impermissibly\\nsuggestive, the court must decide “whether, under the totality\\nof the circumstances,” the identification was nonetheless\\n“sufficiently reliable to preclude ‘a very substantial likelihood\\nof irreparable misidentification.’” Id. (quoting Manson v.\\n\\f 14\\n\\nBrathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 116 (1977)). The key factors at the\\nsecond step are “the opportunity of the witness to view the\\ncriminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of\\nattention, the accuracy of [her] prior description of the\\ncriminal, the level of certainty demonstrated at the\\nconfrontation, and the time between the crime and the\\nconfrontation.” Id. (quoting Manson, 432 U.S. at 114). The\\ncourt must weigh these factors against “the corrupting effect of\\nthe suggestive identification itself.” Id. (quoting Manson, 432\\nU.S. at 114) (emphasis omitted). “We review the district\\ncourt’s legal conclusions de novo and its findings of fact for\\nclear error.” Id.\\n\\n The photo array was not impermissibly suggestive. The\\nonly characteristic that Kelsey claims was suggestive is that his\\nwas the only photo showing someone with an ear tattoo;\\notherwise, the defense agreed, the individuals depicted in the\\nphotos were “very, very similar.” J.A. 255. But, as the\\ndistrict court observed, Kelsey’s ear tattoo is not clearly\\ndiscernable in the photo shown to S.H. “[W]hile there is some\\ndiscoloration in the left ear,” the court said, “it’s not clear . . .\\nexactly what the discoloration is.” J.A. 259. According to\\nthe district court, it could have been “just a birth mark or . . . a\\nshadow.” Id. Of course, if only one photo in a photo array\\nhas a characteristic distinctive to the defendant, then the array\\nmay well be impermissibly suggestive. That is not the\\nsituation here, where the distinctive tattoo was barely visible in\\nthe photo. Nor did any other aspect of the photo array single\\nout Kelsey. Not only did the array feature six similar-looking\\nindividuals, it was administered by someone who did not know\\nthe “correct” result and so was in no position to influence S.H.\\nto choose Kelsey over anyone else.\\n\\n Even assuming the photo array was impermissibly\\nsuggestive, the circumstances of S.H.’s identification of\\n\\f 15\\n\\nKelsey’s photograph were sufficiently reliable to avoid any\\n“substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.”\\nRattler, 475 F.3d at 411 (quoting Manson, 432 U.S. at 116);\\nsee Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 199-200 (1972). Kelsey\\nsays he disagrees, but provides no argument as to why. S.H.\\nhad plenty of opportunity to view Kelsey, both on the drive to\\nand from his father’s house and at the house itself, where the\\nsexual assault occurred. S.H. and Kelsey were together for\\nseveral hours during the daylight, under circumstances in\\nwhich S.H. would naturally have been paying attention to\\nKelsey and his appearance. Moreover, when presented with\\nthe photo array very shortly after she had been with Kelsey, she\\nidentified him quickly and with apparent confidence. In\\nresponse to these indicia of reliability, the defense argues only\\nthat S.H.’s youth and the stressful nature of the situation\\nrendered her identification unreliable. There is no basis in this\\nrecord, however, to conclude that those factors undermined\\nS.H.’s ability to correctly identify Kelsey as the man she met\\nonline who picked her up at her summer camp, drove her for\\n45 minutes each way in daylight to and from his father’s house,\\nand took off most of his clothes to have intercourse with her\\nrepeatedly while there.\\n\\n Even if admitting the photo-array evidence had been error,\\nthe totality of the other identification evidence presented\\nagainst Kelsey would have rendered any error in the photo\\narray harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See United States\\nv. Washington, 353 F.3d 42, 45 (D.C. Cir. 2004). Kelsey\\nargues that the error “was not harmless,” Appellant’s Br. 24,\\nbut provides no argument as to why. And in fact there was\\nsignificant evidence corroborating the photo-array\\nidentification. The DNA evidence, for example, strongly\\nsupported the conclusion that Kelsey was the perpetrator.\\nOther evidence, like records showing that S.H. called Kelsey’s\\nphone, further confirmed that conclusion. In light of\\n\\f 16\\n\\noverwhelming evidence identifying Kelsey as the perpetrator,\\nerroneously admitting the photo-array identification would\\nhave been harmless.\\n\\n C.\\n\\n The district court also permissibly admitted the video\\nrecording of Kelsey’s voluntary statement to the police. A\\ndefendant’s statement may only be admitted at trial to prove\\nhis guilt if the statement was voluntarily made. See Dickerson\\nv. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 434 (2000). The burden is on\\nthe government to establish voluntariness by a preponderance\\nof the evidence. Lego v. Twomey, 404 U.S. 477, 489 (1972).\\nTo be voluntary, a statement cannot have been the product of\\ngovernmental coercion, with coerciveness assessed in light of\\nall the circumstances. Dickerson, 530 U.S. at 434 (citing\\nSchneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 226 (1973)).\\nRelevant factors include, without limitation, the defendant’s\\n“age and education, the length of the detention, whether the\\ndefendant was advised of his rights, and the nature of the\\nquestioning.” United States v. Murdock, 667 F.3d 1302,\\n1305-06 (D.C. Cir. 2012). A waiver of Miranda rights is\\n“highly probative” of the voluntariness of subsequent\\nstatements. Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 318 (1985).\\n\\n The district court correctly found that Kelsey’s recorded\\nstatement was voluntary. His only argument that it was not is\\nthat the detective did not stop questioning Kelsey after he said\\nhe would feel better with his lawyer present. On this record,\\nthat was not enough to render his ensuing statements\\ninvoluntary. The interview with Detective Oliver was\\nvideotaped. Immediately after Kelsey made the comment\\nabout his lawyer, the videotape shows that the detective asked\\nKelsey for clarification as to whether he wanted to continue\\nspeaking. After Kelsey said he was comfortable answering\\n\\f 17\\n\\nsome questions but not others without his lawyer present, the\\ndetective told him that “[i]f there [was] something [he didn’t]\\nwant to answer, [to] stop it right then and there.” J.A. 93.\\nMoreover, nothing else about the interview could be\\nconsidered coercive. The detective was not the least bit\\naggressive in content, tone, or body language. Kelsey’s own\\nattorney even described the officer “as passive and as polite\\nand nonaggressive as possible.” J.A. 282. Kelsey came to\\nthe interview of his own volition, was not restrained in any\\nway, and Detective Oliver told him he was free to go at any\\ntime. Because Kelsey was not in custody, he was not required\\nto be informed of his Miranda rights, but Oliver read him his\\nrights anyway and Kelsey signed a written waiver. Kelsey\\nwas allowed to keep his phone and to use it, taking two calls\\nfrom his attorney over the course of the interview. When\\nKelsey did decide to wrap up the conversation and leave, the\\nofficers did not interfere or seek to dissuade him. The\\ninterview itself was less than half an hour long and Kelsey\\nappeared alert and coherent throughout.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n For the reasons discussed above, we affirm the district\\ncourt’s judgment of conviction.\\n\\n So ordered.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1378,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4598027,"string":"4,598,027"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Jane DOE 2, Et Al., Appellees v. Patrick M. SHANAHAN, in His Official Capacity as Acting Secretary of Defense, Et Al., Appellants"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Jane Doe 2 v. Patrick Shanahan"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-08"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"18-5257"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Griffith, Wilkins, Williams\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888118/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}, {\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"030concurrence\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888119/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}, {\"author\": \"Judge WILLIAMS\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued December 10, 2018 Decided March 8, 2019*\\n\\n No. 18-5257\\n\\n JANE DOE 2, ET AL.,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n v.\\n\\nPATRICK M. SHANAHAN, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS ACTING\\n SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, ET AL.,\\n APPELLANTS\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:17-cv-01597)\\n\\n\\n Brinton Lucas, Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General,\\nU.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellants.\\nWith him on the briefs were Hashim M. Mooppan, Deputy\\nAssistant Attorney General, Marleigh D. Dover, and Tara S.\\nMorrissey, Attorneys.\\n\\n Jennifer Levi argued the cause for appellees. With her on\\nthe brief were Paul R.Q. Wolfson, John T. Byrnes, Kevin M.\\nLamb, Alan E. Schoenfeld, Shannon P. Minter, and\\nChristopher Stoll.\\n\\n*\\n The Panel issued a judgment on January 4, 2019 (2019 WL\\n102309). Judges Wilkins and Williams now file separate opinions.\\n\\n 2\\n Maura Healey, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney\\nGeneral for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Robert E.\\nToone, Assistant Attorney General, Janet T. Mills, Attorney\\nGeneral at the time the brief was filed, Office of the Attorney\\nGeneral for the State of Maine, Brian E. Frosh, Attorney\\nGeneral for the State of Maryland, Lori Swanson, Attorney\\nGeneral at the time the brief was filed, Office of the Attorney\\nGeneral for the State of Minnesota, Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney\\nGeneral, Office of the Attorney General for the State of New\\nJersey, Hector Balderas, Attorney General, Office of the\\nAttorney General for the State of New Mexico, Barbara\\nUnderwood, Attorney General at the time the brief was filed,\\nOffice of the Attorney General for the State of New York,\\nJoshua H. Stein, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney\\nGeneral for the State of North Carolina, Xavier Becerra,\\nAttorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the State\\nof California, George Jepsen, Attorney General at the time the\\nbrief was filed, Office of the Attorney General for the State of\\nConnecticut, Matthew P. Denn, Attorney General at the time\\nthe brief was filed, Office of the Attorney General for the State\\nof Delaware, Karl A. Racine, Attorney General, Office of the\\nAttorney General for the District of Columbia, Russell A.\\nSuzuki, Attorney General at the time the brief was filed, Office\\nof the Attorney General for the State of Hawaii, Lisa Madigan,\\nAttorney General at the time the brief was filed, Office of the\\nAttorney General for the State of Illinois, Tom Miller, Attorney\\nGeneral, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Iowa,\\nPeter F. Kilmartin, Attorney General at the time the brief was\\nfiled, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Rhode\\nIsland, Thomas J. Donovan, Jr., Attorney General, Office of\\nthe Attorney General for the State of Vermont, Mark R.\\nHerring, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for\\nthe Commonwealth of Virginia, Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney\\nGeneral, Office of the Attorney General for the State of\\nOregon, and Josh Shapiro, Attorney General, Office of the\\n\\n 3\\nAttorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,\\nwere on the brief for amici curiae The States of Massachusetts,\\net al. in support of appellees and affirmance of the District\\nCourt decision.\\n\\n Peter C. Renn, Diana K. Flynn, and Tara L. Borelli were\\non the brief for amici curiae National Center for Transgender\\nEquality and Other Advocacy Organizations in support of\\nplaintiffs-appellees and affirmance.\\n\\n Andrew J. Ehrlich, George W. Kroup, Eric A. Felleman,\\nand Craig A. Benson were on the brief for amici curiae\\nAmerican Veterans Alliance, et al. in support of plaintiffs-\\nappellees and in support of affirmance.\\n\\n Eamon P. Joyce, John T. Hebden, Christopher A.\\nEiswerth, and Robert S. Chang were on the brief for amici\\ncuriae Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, et\\nal. in support of plaintiffs-appellees.\\n\\n Cynthia Cook Robertson and Suzanne B. Goldberg were\\non the brief for amici curiae The National Organization for\\nWomen Foundation, et al. in support of plaintiffs-appellees.\\n\\n Douglas H. Hallward-Driemeier, Irina Finkel, and\\nDouglas E. Brayley were on the brief for amici curiae The\\nOrganization of Historians and 47 Historians of the Military,\\nNational Security, and Foreign Relations supporting plaintiffs-\\nappellees.\\n\\n Elizabeth B. Wydra and Ashwin P. Phatak were on the\\nbrief for amicus curiae Constitutional Accountability Center in\\nsupport of plaintiffs-appellees.\\n\\n 4\\n Steven G. Thompson Reed was on the brief for amici\\ncuriae The Service Women=s Action Network and Other\\nVeterans Service Organizations and Veterans Advocacy\\nGroups in support of affirmance.\\n\\n Harold Hongju Koh and Phillip Spector were on the brief\\nfor amici curiae Retired Military Offices and Former National\\nSecurity Officials in support of plaintiffs-appellees.\\n\\n Daniel S. Harawa, Sherrilyn A. Ifill, and Janai S. Nelson\\nwere on the brief for amicus curiae NAACP Legal Defense &\\nEducational Fund, Inc. in support of appellees and affirmance.\\n\\n Devi M. Rao was on the brief for amici curiae American\\nMedical Association and Seven Other HealthCare\\nOrganizations in support of plaintiffs-appellees and\\naffirmance.\\n\\n Stuart F. Delery was on the brief for amicus curiae The\\nTrevor Project in support of plaintiffs-appellees and\\naffirmance.\\n\\n Susan Baker Manning and Stephanie Schuster were on the\\nbrief for amici curiae Vice Admiral Donald C. Arthur, USN\\n(Ret.) et al. in support of plaintiffs-appellees and affirmance of\\nthe District Court decision.\\n\\n Before: GRIFFITH and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and\\nWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\n Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge WILKINS.\\n\\n Opinion concurring in the result filed by Senior Circuit\\nJudge WILLIAMS.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4375280/\", \"author_raw\": \"Judge WILLIAMS\"}, {\"author\": \"WILKINS, Circuit Judge, concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"WILKINS, Circuit Judge, concurring:\\n\\n “[T]he passage of time frequently brings about changed\\ncircumstances – changes in the nature of the underlying\\nproblem, changes in governing law or its interpretation by the\\ncourts, and new policy insights – that warrant reexamination of\\nthe original judgment.” Horne v. Flores, 557 U.S. 443, 448\\n(2009). As we described in the Judgment, the District Court’s\\nfinding of no changed circumstances and its denial of the\\nmotion to dissolve the preliminary injunction was error. I write\\nseparately to elaborate on why I believe that was the case.\\n\\n First, we must review some history and background.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n At issue in this case is the regulation of military service by\\ntransgender persons. As noted in the report of the Transgender\\nMilitary Service Commission chaired by former Surgeon\\nGeneral Jocelyn Elders, a prevalent theme in this area is that\\n“regulatory terminology that references transgender identity is\\ninconsistent.” J.A. 753. Thus, to avoid confusion, it is\\ncritically important to define terms and characterize military\\nregulations carefully and precisely.\\n\\n Based on the record, transgender persons are “individuals\\nwho identify with a gender different from the sex they were\\nassigned at birth.” J.A. 606; see also J.A. 263. Thus, while a\\ntransgender woman may have been assigned the male sex at\\nbirth, she nonetheless identifies with the female gender.\\nSimilarly, a transgender man was assigned the female sex at\\nbirth but identifies with the male gender.\\n\\n As explained by amici American Medical Association and\\nseven other healthcare organizations, “[e]very person has a\\ngender identity, which cannot be altered voluntarily or\\nnecessarily ascertained immediately after birth.” AMA\\n\\n 2\\nAmicus Br. 6. A person “communicates gender identity to\\nothers through behavior, clothing, hairstyles, voice, or body\\ncharacteristics,” id., and the extent to which transgender\\nindividuals express their gender identity varies from person to\\nperson. As found by the RAND Corporation in a report for\\nFormer Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, some transgender\\npersons express their gender identity though “transitioning,”\\nwhich is “the act of living and working as a gender different\\nfrom that assigned at birth.” J.A. 606 (emphasis added). But\\naccording to the information that we have in the record, only\\n“[a] subset of transgender individuals may choose to transition\\n. . .” J.A. 606. As explained in the Transgender Military\\nService Commission report:\\n\\n Being transgender does not mean that one has\\n already transitioned to a different gender, or that\\n such a transition will occur in the future. It\\n means recognizing that the gender one has\\n always had does not match the physical gender\\n that was assigned at birth. The transgender\\n community includes people who have already\\n transitioned to the other gender, those who have\\n not yet transitioned but who plan to do so, those\\n who identify with the other gender but do not\\n wish to transition, and others.\\n\\nJ.A. 752.\\n\\n Some, but not all, transgender persons develop gender\\ndysphoria, which manifests as stress and anxiety caused by the\\nincongruence between the sex assigned to the person at birth\\nand the person’s preferred gender identity. J.A. 622-23.\\nGender dysphoria is recognized by the Diagnostic and\\nStatistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), and is often\\ntreated with “psychotherapy, hormone therapy, surgery, and\\n\\n 3\\nchanges to gender expression and role (i.e., how people present\\nthemselves to the world . . .).” J.A. 623. Thus, many\\ntransgender persons with gender dysphoria require medical\\ntreatment, including transitioning to their preferred gender;\\nhowever, “[n]ot all [transgender persons diagnosed with gender\\ndysphoria] will prefer or need all or any of those options.” Id.\\n\\n Prior to 2015, the Department of Defense (DoD)\\neffectively banned all transgender persons from either joining\\nor remaining in the military. J.A. 275; J.A. 734; J.A. 784.\\nThese accession and retention restrictions were enforced\\nthrough medical standards that precluded applicants from\\njoining the military if they had “defects of the genitalia”\\nincluding but not limited to change of sex, and through mental\\nhealth standards that disqualified persons with any history of\\ncertain psychosexual conditions, including “transsexualism”\\nand “transvestism.” J.A. 754. Thus, all transgender persons\\nwere essentially banned from military service, even if they had\\nnever undergone sex-reassignment surgery, even if they did not\\nhave gender dysphoria, and even if they had not transitioned to\\ntheir preferred gender and were willing to serve pursuant to the\\nmilitary standards applicable to the sex assigned to them at\\nbirth.\\n\\n Under the pre-2015 regime, the only thing that mattered to\\nexclude a person from military service was the person’s\\ntransgender status: that the person did not identify with the\\ngender assigned to them at birth.\\n\\n Things began to change in 2015. On July 28, 2015, then-\\nSecretary of Defense Ash Carter issued a memorandum to the\\nsecretaries of the military departments directing that\\n“[e]ffective as of July 13, 2015, no Service member shall be\\ninvoluntarily separated or denied reenlistment or continuation\\nof active or reserve service on the basis of their gender identity,\\n\\n 4\\nwithout the personal approval of the Under Secretary of\\nDefense for Personnel and Readiness.” J.A. 709. The\\nmemorandum further ordered a working group composed of\\nsenior representatives from each of the Military Departments,\\nJoint Staff, and relevant components from the Office of the\\nSecretary of Defense to formulate policy options for the DoD\\nregarding the military service of transgender servicemembers.\\nThe working group commissioned the RAND Corporation’s\\nNational Defense Research Institute to conduct a study on the\\nimpact of permitting transgender servicemembers to serve\\nopenly.\\n\\n The RAND Corporation subsequently issued the\\naforementioned 91-page report (“RAND Report”) that found\\nno evidence that allowing transgender individuals to serve\\nwould have any effect on “unit cohesion,” and concluded that\\nany related costs or impacts on readiness would be\\n“exceedingly small,” “marginal,” or “negligible.” J.A. 597-\\n708. Based on all of the information it collected, the working\\ngroup unanimously concluded that transgender people should\\nbe allowed to serve openly in the military. The group not only\\nconcluded that allowing transgender people to serve would not\\nsignificantly affect military readiness or costs but also found\\nthat prohibiting transgender people from serving would\\nundermine military effectiveness and readiness. Specifically,\\nprohibiting transgender people from serving would exclude\\nqualified individuals on a basis that has no relevance to one’s\\nfitness to serve and create unexpected vacancies requiring\\nexpensive and time-consuming recruitment and training of\\nreplacements.\\n\\n On June 30, 2016, Secretary Carter issued Directive-Type\\nMemorandum 16-005 (“Carter Policy”), which announced\\n“that service in the United States military should be open to all\\nwho can meet the rigorous standards for military service and\\n\\n 5\\nreadiness,” and set forth a policy permitting service by\\nqualified transgender individuals. J.A. 586. The Carter Policy\\ntook immediate effect with respect to retention, allowing\\ncurrent transgender servicemembers to serve under “the same\\nstandards” as cisgender (non-transgender) servicemembers and\\nprohibiting the discharge of otherwise qualified\\nservicemembers “solely on the basis of their gender identity.”\\nJ.A. 588. The Carter Policy also allowed transgender\\nservicemembers diagnosed with gender dysphoria to transition\\nto their preferred gender if they so desired. J.A. 275. Upon\\njoining the military, each servicemember is assigned a “gender\\nmarker” in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting\\nSystem (DEERS), and the servicemember must follow all sex-\\nbased military regulations pertinent to that gender marker. J.A.\\n1045. Thus, under the Carter Policy, transgender servicemembers\\nwith a gender dysphoria diagnosis became eligible to change\\ntheir gender marker in DEERS, and with this transition, begin\\nfollowing the sex-based military regulations for their preferred\\ngender rather than for their biological sex. The sex-based\\nstandards and procedures that vary by gender include\\n(1) uniform, grooming, physical fitness, body fat, and drug\\ntesting standards; (2) requirements for separate berthing,\\nbathroom and shower facilities; and (3) different policies\\nregulating military training and sports, such as boxing. J.A.\\n296-98; J.A. 1045.\\n\\n The Carter Policy directed DoD to update its standards for\\npersons entering the military (a process formally referred to as\\n“accession”) by July 1, 2017. Secretary of Defense James\\nMattis subsequently deferred the July 1, 2017 accession\\ndeadline to January 1, 2018 so that the services could review\\ntheir accession plans and provide input on the impact to the\\nreadiness and lethality of the armed forces. J.A. 426.\\n\\n 6\\n On July 26, 2017, President Donald J. Trump issued a\\nstatement via Twitter announcing that “the United States\\nGovernment will not accept or allow transgender individuals to\\nserve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.” J.A. 124. A formal\\nPresidential Memorandum (“2017 Presidential\\nMemorandum”) followed on August 25, 2017. J.A. 406-07.\\nThe 2017 Presidential Memorandum reversed the Carter\\nPolicy. President Trump explained that “[s]hortly before\\nPresident Obama left office, . . . his Administration dismantled\\nthe Departments’ established framework by permitting\\ntransgender individuals to serve openly in the military,\\nauthorizing the use of the Departments’ resources to fund sex-\\nreassignment surgical procedures, and permitting accession of\\nsuch individuals after July 1, 2017 [later extended to January\\n1, 2018].” J.A. 406. President Trump further declared:\\n\\n In my judgment, the previous Administration\\n failed to identify a sufficient basis to conclude\\n that terminating the Departments’ longstanding\\n policy and practice would not hinder military\\n effectiveness and lethality, disrupt unit\\n cohesion, or tax military resources, and there\\n remain meaningful concerns that further study\\n is needed to ensure that continued\\n implementation of last year’s policy change\\n would not have those negative effects.\\n\\nJ.A. 406. Thus, President Trump directed Secretary Mattis “to\\nreturn to the longstanding policy and practice on military\\nservice by transgender individuals that was in place prior to\\nJune 2016 until such time as a sufficient basis exists upon\\nwhich to conclude that terminating that policy and practice\\nwould not have the negative effects discussed above.” J.A.\\n406. President Trump ordered Secretary Mattis to submit a\\n\\n 7\\nplan for implementing the policy directives of the 2017\\nPresidential Memorandum by February 2018. J.A. 406-07.\\n\\n By ordering a return to pre-Carter policies, President\\nTrump effectively reinstated the prior blanket ban on accession\\nand retention in military service by all transgender persons.\\n\\n The President specified that the ban on transgender\\naccession would go into effect immediately and remain in place\\n“until such time as the Secretary of Defense, after consulting\\nwith the Secretary of Homeland Security, provides a\\nrecommendation to the contrary that I find convincing.” J.A.\\n406. The President also ordered an immediate stop to the “use\\nof DoD or DHS resources to fund sex-reassignment surgical\\nprocedures for military personnel, except to the extent\\nnecessary to protect the health of an individual who has already\\nbegun a course of treatment to reassign his or her sex.” J.A.\\n406. Other than the halt to sex-reassignment funding, the\\nPresident did not make the transgender ban immediately\\neffective with respect to retention standards, which would have\\nled to the immediate discharge of transgender servicemembers.\\nInstead, President Trump instructed Secretary Mattis to\\n“determine how to address transgender individuals currently\\nserving in the United States military” and ordered that “no\\naction may be taken against such individuals” until that study\\nwas complete. J.A. 407.\\n\\n On October 30, 2017, the District Court issued a\\npreliminary injunction enjoining the implementation of the\\n2017 Presidential Memorandum, the effect of which was to\\nreinstate the Carter Policy. As the District Court found, and as\\nwe agreed in denying a motion to stay the preliminary\\ninjunction, a number of factors “strongly suggest[ed]” that\\nPlaintiffs were likely to succeed on their Fifth Amendment due\\nprocess claim. Doe 1 v. Trump, 2017 WL 6553389, at *1 (D.C.\\n\\n 8\\nCir. Dec. 22, 2017). Those factors included the breadth of the\\nexclusion (virtually a complete ban) ordered by the\\nMemorandum, the unusual and abrupt initial announcement of\\nthe ban, the failure to provide any supporting facts for the ban,\\nand the recent professional judgment by the military, after a\\nthorough study, that the prior ban should be lifted. Id. Given\\nthat intemperate contemporaneous statements by\\npolicymakers, departures from normal procedures, and\\nadoption of policies unsupported or contrary to data can be\\nconsidered evidence that invidious discrimination was “a\\nmotivating factor” in the decision, Village of Arlington Heights\\nv. Metro. Hou. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266-68 (1977), the\\ncourse of events leading up to the 2017 Presidential\\nMemorandum had more than a whiff of the stench of\\narbitrariness and of a “bare . . . desire to harm a politically\\nunpopular group.” U.S. Dept. of Agric. v. Moreno, 413 U.S.\\n528, 534 (1973).\\n\\n II.\\n\\n But that is not the end of the story. In February 2018, as\\nordered by the 2017 Presidential Memorandum, Secretary\\nMattis presented a memorandum to the President that proposed\\na policy regarding transgender military service (“the Mattis\\nPlan”). J.A. 263-65. The reasoning underlying the Mattis Plan\\nis spelled out in a 44-page report prepared by a panel of senior\\nmilitary and civilian experts that was also submitted to the\\nPresident in February 2018 (“the Panel Report”). J.A. 268-312.\\nThe Panel Report concludes that transgender persons with\\ngender dysphoria or who have undergone or will require gender\\ntransition undermine the military. According to the Panel\\nReport, these servicemembers are fundamentally incompatible\\nwith the military’s mental health standards, physical health\\nstandards, and sex-based standards and are a detriment to\\nmilitary readiness and unit cohesion. The Panel Report likens\\n\\n 9\\ngender dysphoria to conditions such as “bipolar disorder,\\npersonality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, suicidal\\nbehavior, and even body dysmorphic disorder.” J.A. 288. It\\nconcludes that individuals with gender dysphoria are more\\nlikely to have other mental health conditions and substance\\nabuse problems, and to commit suicide. J.A. 289. The Panel\\nReport also states that these individuals impose\\n“disproportionate costs” on the military, J.A. 309, and\\nrepeatedly cites “uncertainty” in the medical field about these\\nindividuals as a reason to urge that the military “proceed with\\ncaution,” J.A. 274.\\n\\n The Mattis Plan has three key planks. First “[t]ransgender\\npersons without a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria,\\nwho are otherwise qualified for service, may serve, like all\\nother Service members, in their biological sex.” J.A. 265.\\n“Biological sex” is not defined, but it appears to mean that the\\nDEERS gender marker for the servicemember is the same as\\nthe sex assigned to the person at birth based on a physical\\nexamination of the genital organs. J.A. 299. “Serving” in\\none’s biological sex is also not defined, but it appears to mean\\nthat the transgender servicemember must follow all sex-based\\nmilitary regulations pertinent to the person’s DEERS gender\\nmarker. J.A. 273-74. (These critical points should be fleshed\\nout in further proceedings.) The Mattis Plan’s panel of experts\\nsays that this particular recommendation is consistent with the\\nCarter Policy, which also required transgender persons without\\ngender dysphoria to serve in their biological sex, J.A. 300, and\\nthat there are transgender persons who “have served, and are\\nserving, with distinction under the standards for their biological\\nsex,” J.A. 274.\\n\\n Second, transgender persons who require or have\\nundergone gender transition are disqualified from service, so\\nthey may not join, and may not be retained in, the military. J.A.\\n\\n 10\\n273. (However, the Mattis Plan includes a grandfather clause,\\nwhich exempts current servicemembers who were diagnosed\\nwith gender dysphoria and began their transition pursuant to\\nthe Carter Policy and prior to the effective date of the Mattis\\nPlan. J.A. 264; J.A. 273-74; J.A. 311.)\\n\\n Third, transgender persons are disqualified from accession\\nor retention in military service if they have “a history or\\ndiagnosis of gender dysphoria and require, or have already\\nundertaken, a course of treatment to change their gender.” J.A.\\n264; see also J.A. 300. (As above, the grandfather clause in the\\nMattis Plan exempts current servicemembers who were\\ndiagnosed with gender dysphoria and began their transition\\npursuant to the Carter Policy and prior to the effective date of\\nthe Mattis Plan. J.A. 264; J.A. 273-74; J.A. 311.) Thus, unless\\ngrandfathered, a transgender person with a history or current\\ndiagnosis of gender dysphoria can remain in the military only\\nif the person is willing and able to serve in his or her biological\\nsex. Similarly, a transgender person with a current diagnosis\\nof gender dysphoria cannot join the military, and a transgender\\nperson with a history of gender dysphoria can join only if the\\nperson can “demonstrate 36 consecutive months of stability\\n(i.e. absence of gender dysphoria),” has not transitioned, and is\\nwilling and able to serve in his or her biological sex. J.A. 273.\\n\\n On March 23, 2018, the President issued a 2018\\nPresidential Memorandum, which stated that he “revoke[s]” his\\n2017 Presidential Memorandum, “and any other directive [he]\\nmay have made with respect to military service by transgender\\nindividuals.” J.A. 261. The President ordered that “[t]he\\nSecretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security,\\nwith respect to the U.S. Coast Guard, may exercise their\\nauthority to implement any appropriate policies concerning\\nmilitary service by transgender individuals.” J.A. 261. That\\nsame day, the government moved to dissolve the October 2017\\n\\n 11\\ninjunction so that the military could implement the Mattis Plan.\\nOn August 6, 2018, the District Court found that the Mattis\\nPlan had not “genuinely changed” the circumstances in the\\ncase, J.A. 94, and thus denied the motion to dissolve its\\ninjunction, J.A. 64-98.\\n\\n III.\\n\\n As stated earlier, consistency and clarity in terminology\\nand definitions are important, and that was a key problem\\nbelow.\\n\\n The District Court ruled that by definition, transgender\\npersons “do not identify or live in accord with their biological\\nsex.” J.A. 69; J.A. 91. Plaintiffs urged this definition upon the\\nDistrict Court, just as they urge it upon us, by arguing that all\\ntransgender persons undergo a gender transition, Appellee Br.\\n19. The problem is that there is no record support for this\\ndefinition of the term. As noted earlier, everything in the\\nrecord, from the Elders Report, the RAND Study, the Carter\\nPolicy and the Mattis Plan consistently defines a transgender\\nperson as a person who does not “identify” with his or her\\nbiological sex. Indeed, Plaintiffs’ own expert witness, J.A.\\n1056, and the American Medical Association, amici in support\\nof Plaintiffs, AMA Amicus Br. 3, define transgender in terms\\nof identifying with, rather than identifying with and living in\\naccord with, one’s preferred gender.\\n\\n This subtle shift in definition by Plaintiffs is significant,\\nbecause it provides the lynchpin for their argument that the\\nMattis Plan was no different than the policy of the 2017\\nPresidential Memorandum. Plaintiffs, and the District Court,\\nswept aside all distinctions in the various elements of the Mattis\\nPlan by characterizing it as a monolith. Under this construct,\\nthe Mattis Plan is a total ban on service by transgender persons\\n\\n 12\\nbecause a transgender person cannot “liv[e] in accord with their\\ngender identity” while serving in the military according to their\\nbiological sex. Appellee Br. 21; see also J.A. 69; J.A. 91. In\\nthis paradigm, the Mattis Plan is a blanket transgender ban\\nbecause it does not permit each and every transgender person\\nto serve in his or her preferred gender; unless grandfathered,\\nthe Mattis Plan requires that transgender persons serve in\\naccord with their biological sex.\\n\\n Plaintiffs acknowledge that the term transgender is often\\ndefined to include persons who identify with another gender\\nbut who do not wish to live or work in accordance with that\\npreferred gender, but they blithely dismiss that definition with\\nthe argument that any “broader meaning [of transgender] is\\nirrelevant to this case.” Appellee Br. 23. How so? Plaintiffs\\nwant us to ignore the fact that they did not present evidence\\nshowing that all transgender persons necessarily “live” or\\n“work” in their preferred gender rather than their biological\\nsex. There were no findings below describing what it means to\\n“serve in one’s biological sex,” let alone findings that all\\ntransgender persons either currently serving or applying to join\\nthe military must suppress who they are to “serve in their\\nbiological sex” and are unwilling or unable to do so. Instead,\\nPlaintiffs want us to adopt the position that transgender persons\\nwho desire to serve in their biological sex are not really\\ntransgender, at least for the purpose of this lawsuit. But we\\ncannot simply substitute Plaintiffs’ ipse dixit for evidence.\\n\\n In sum, the record – at least at this point – shows that the\\nMattis Plan does not exclude all transgender persons serving in\\nthe military (unless grandfathered), as Plaintiffs maintain and\\nas the District Court found. Rather, the record supports the\\nconclusion that the Mattis Plan excludes (unless grandfathered)\\ntransgender persons who desire to express their gender identity\\nby transitioning – changing their gender marker in DEERS –\\n\\n 13\\nand thereby serving in accordance with all of the military\\nrequirements for their preferred gender. To the extent that\\nthere are transgender servicemembers who desire to serve\\nunder the standards for their biological sex, under the Mattis\\nPlan, they may identify as they wish with their preferred gender\\nwhile complying with the service requirements applicable to\\nthe DEERS gender marker for their biological sex.\\n\\n None of this is to say that the Mattis Plan is not a hardship\\nfor transgender servicemembers who wish to transition. Nor is\\nthis dispositive of whether the Mattis Plan targets only\\ntransgender persons or is instead facially neutral. But it does\\nmean that the Mattis Plan does not target all transgender\\npersons, at least on this record, and it was therefore error to\\nconclude that the Mattis Plan was not a substantive change\\nfrom the 2017 Presidential Memorandum.\\n\\n IV.\\n\\n As we observed in the Judgment, the separation of powers\\nprinciples upon which our Constitution is based requires that\\ncourts defer to the reasoned, professional analysis of Congress\\nand the Executive on matters strictly within the realm of\\nmilitary expertise. This is so because the Constitution vests\\nauthority over the armed forces with Congress and the\\nExecutive, because military policies devised by the political\\nbranches are accountable to the electorate while those imposed\\nby judges are not, and because, generally speaking, judges do\\nnot have competence in matters of military personnel and\\ntraining. See generally Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57, 77-\\n79 (1981); Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503, 507-10\\n(1986).\\n\\n But that does not mean that Congress and the Executive\\nhave a wholesale license to discriminate in matters of military\\n\\n 14\\npolicy. Over forty years ago, the Supreme Court struck down\\na statute that required married female servicemembers to prove\\nthe financial dependency of their husbands in order to receive\\nincreased housing and healthcare benefits, while married male\\nservicemembers automatically received the increased benefits,\\neven if their wives were not financially dependent upon them.\\nFrontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, 678-79 (1973). The\\nstatute, justified as promoting “administrative convenience,”\\nwas a classification based on sex and therefore subject to\\nheightened scrutiny, the same as any non-military, sex-based\\nstatute or policy. Id. at 688-89. To satisfy heightened scrutiny,\\nthe Court demanded “concrete evidence” that the law promoted\\nthe claimed justification of administrative convenience, and\\nfinding none, held that the statute violated due process\\nprotections. Id. at 689-91.\\n\\n There was no deference in Frontiero to the expertise or\\njudgment of the Congress that enacted the law or of the military\\nofficials who administered it. The facially discriminatory\\nmilitary decree in Frontiero was simply struck down.\\n\\n Plaintiffs argue that transgender persons are a suspect class\\nfor due process and equal protection purposes, that the Mattis\\nPlan facially discriminates against transgender persons, and\\nciting Frontiero, that heightened scrutiny is appropriate.\\nAppellee Br. 29-33. The government responds that transgender\\npersons are not a suspect class, that the Mattis Plan does not\\ntarget transgender persons, and that even if it did, it should not\\nreceive heightened scrutiny because policies strictly of a\\nmilitary nature can never be subject to heightened scrutiny.\\nAppellant Br. 19-23; Reply Br. 9-15. The government, citing\\nour opinion in Goldman, argues that the only reason heightened\\nscrutiny was applied in Frontiero was because the statute\\ninvolved personnel benefits and was therefore not “purported\\nto be a congressional judgment on a uniquely military matter.”\\n\\n 15\\nGoldman v. Sec’y of Defense, 734 F.2d 1531, 1537 (D.C. Cir.\\n1984).\\n\\n The government thus has a point, but we also observed in\\nGoldman that not every infringement of a constitutional right\\ncan be judged equally, distinguishing between the “freedom to\\nbelieve” in one’s religion, which is “absolute,” and the\\n“freedom to act” in accordance with one’s religion, which is\\n“regulable for a permissible reason, provided that the\\nregulation is not unduly restrictive.” Id. at 1540-41. It would\\nfollow that a military policy prohibiting a servicemember from\\nstating his adherence to Jewish beliefs would receive more\\nscrutiny than a military policy restricting the wearing of a\\nyarmulke in observance of that faith. Similarly, we have stated\\nthat even in the military context, “[c]lassifications based on\\nrace or religion, of course, would trigger strict scrutiny,”\\nSteffan v. Perry, 41 F.3d 677, 689 n.9 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (en\\nbanc), so we presumably would give more scrutiny to a military\\npolicy that permits the wearing of any religious headgear\\nexcept yarmulkes than we would give to a neutral policy that\\nrestricts all religious headgear.\\n\\n Since Frontiero, facially discriminatory military policies\\nhave been upheld only when there was a showing that the two\\nclasses of individuals were not truly “similarly situated” or\\nwhen the discrimination was not against members of a suspect\\nclass. See Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U.S. 498, 508-09 (1975)\\n(distinguishing Frontiero and upholding tenure statute that\\ndifferentiated between male and female naval officers because\\nit applied only in those circumstances where men and women\\nwere not similarly situated); Rostker, 453 U.S. at 77-79\\n(upholding sex-based draft-registration statute aimed at\\ndeveloping the pool of potential combat troops, where there\\nwas no challenge to the then-existing exclusion of women from\\ncombat, and thus the policy was “not invidious, but rather\\n\\n 16\\nrealistically reflect[ed] the fact that the sexes [were] not\\nsimilarly situated”); Steffan, 41 F.3d at 684 n.3 (no heightened\\nscrutiny of Naval Academy policy prohibiting attendance of\\nhomosexuals because homosexuals were not a suspect class\\nunder the unchallenged, then-existing military regulations\\ncriminalizing homosexual conduct – reasoning that is\\nuntenable after Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 578-79\\n(2003), which struck down a state statute criminalizing\\nconsensual homosexual sodomy). But cf. Trump v. Hawaii,\\n138 S. Ct. 2392, 2419 (2018) (noting that in Fiallo v. Bell, 430\\nU.S. 787 (1977), the Court upheld an immigration statute that\\nincluded a “‘categorical’ entry classification that discriminated\\non the basis of sex and legitimacy”).\\n\\n Furthermore, most constitutional challenges to military\\nlaws and regulations have involved policies that were facially\\nneutral. See, e.g., Greer v. Spock, 424 U.S. 828, 839-40 (1976)\\n(regulations restricting partisan political speeches,\\ndemonstrations, and literature distribution were “politically\\nneutral,” and there was no claim that the military had acted\\n“irrationally, invidiously, or arbitrarily”); Goldman, 475 U.S.\\nat 513 (Stevens, J., concurring) (uniform regulation was “based\\non a neutral, completely objective standard – visibility”); In re\\nNavy Chaplaincy, 738 F.3d 425, 430 (D.C. Cir. 2013)\\n(personnel policies for promoting chaplains were “facially\\nneutral” and there was “no showing of intent to discriminate”\\nbased upon religion). At a minimum, the observation that the\\nmilitary policy was facially neutral in each of those cases\\ndemonstrates that the presence or absence of neutrality must\\nhave some relevance to the analysis. Cf. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. at\\n2417-18 (in resolving constitutional challenge to a Presidential\\nProclamation in the analogous context of national security, the\\nCourt’s first step was to determine that the Proclamation was\\nfacially neutral). Even when dealing with facially neutral\\npolicies, Congress and the Executive receive deference only\\n\\n 17\\nwhere military policies are based upon the “considered\\nprofessional judgment” of “appropriate military officials” and\\nonly after finding that the policies “reasonably and\\nevenhandedly regulate” the matter at issue, Goldman, 475 U.S.\\nat 509-10; see also Rostker, 453 U.S. at 68 (court will not\\nsubstitute its “own evaluation of evidence for a reasonable\\nevaluation by the Legislative Branch”).\\n\\n The point here is that determining the correct standard of\\nreview for military policies, and then properly applying it, is a\\ncomplex venture. In Rostker, the Court declined the\\nGovernment’s invitation to declare that rational basis scrutiny,\\nrather than heightened scrutiny, necessarily applies to all\\nmilitary policies, even when the policy includes a facially\\ndiscriminatory classification:\\n\\n We do not think that the substantive guarantee\\n of due process or certainty in the law will be\\n advanced by any further “refinement” in the\\n applicable tests as suggested by the\\n Government. Announced degrees of\\n “deference” to legislative judgments, just as\\n levels of “scrutiny” which this Court announces\\n that it applies to particular classifications made\\n by a legislative body, may all too readily\\n become facile abstractions used to justify a\\n result. In this case the courts are called upon to\\n decide whether Congress, acting under an\\n explicit constitutional grant of authority, has by\\n that action transgressed an explicit guarantee of\\n individual rights which limits the authority so\\n conferred. Simply labeling the legislative\\n decision “military” on the one hand or “gender-\\n based” on the other does not automatically\\n guide a court to the correct constitutional result.\\n\\n 18\\nRostker, 453 U.S. at 69-70. The fact that a military policy is\\ninvolved certainly counsels greater deference to Congress and\\nthe Executive, but Rostker, Goldman, and the other precedent\\ncited above teach that the standard of review cannot be easily\\nquantified using a specific degree of deference or level of\\nscrutiny. Rather, our review involves the careful assessment of\\na number of factors, including whether the policy is facially\\nneutral, whether it targets a suspect class, whether the class is\\nsimilarly situated to others affected, whether the policy was\\nmotivated by animus, whether it infringes upon a fundamental\\nright (and, if so, how), what military purposes are furthered by\\nthe policy, whether those purposes are legitimate, and whether\\nCongress or the Executive used considered professional\\njudgment and accommodated the servicemembers’ rights in a\\nreasonable and evenhanded manner, given the rights at issue.\\n\\n At this juncture, I express no views on these various\\nfactors, including whether the Mattis Plan was a product of\\ncomparable “considered professional judgment” as the policy\\nin Goldman, other than to concur with the Judgment that the\\nPlan and its accompanying Panel Report constituted changed\\ncircumstances that warrant vacating the preliminary injunction\\nand assessing the Mattis Plan anew. This is especially true\\nsince the preliminary injunction relied heavily on the curious\\ncircumstances surrounding the President’s tweet and\\nsubsequent Memorandum, which reversed a policy supported\\nby lengthy and careful study and replaced it with a policy\\nlacking the apparent support of any contradictory study.\\nReassessment is also necessary to clarify whether requiring\\nservice in one’s biological sex impacts all servicemembers who\\nidentify as transgender in the same manner, because that\\nimpacts whether the Mattis Plan should be construed as one\\nmonolithic policy rather than analyzed separately into its\\nconstituent elements. Once those matters are understood, the\\nDistrict Court can properly review the policy or policies\\n\\n 19\\nchallenged by Plaintiffs. I express no views on the merits or\\nthe outcome of that reassessment. I write only to provide some\\nguidance to the parties and the District Court so that this matter\\ncan proceed in an efficient manner. At this stage, and on this\\nrecord, I believe it is premature to opine, let alone rule, on\\nanything further.\\n\\n My concurring colleague would go much further and not\\nonly reach the merits of the constitutional issues but also take\\nthe drastic step of precluding any discovery and dismissing the\\nlawsuit. Slip op. at 1-2, 20, 58-60 (Williams, J., concurring).\\nFor several reasons, I disagree. To begin with, having found\\nadequate non-constitutional reasons to vacate the preliminary\\ninjunction, it is inappropriate to seek out constitutional\\nquestions to decide in order to reach the same result. The\\nconcurrence strains to find a case on point, but all are\\ninapposite; none holds that we are required to reach the merits\\nof the claims in order to dissolve a preliminary injunction.\\nFurther, even if we have the discretion to reach the merits, that\\ndoesn’t mean we should, particularly when they are\\nconstitutional claims. “A fundamental and longstanding\\nprinciple of judicial restraint requires that courts avoid reaching\\nconstitutional questions in advance of the necessity of deciding\\nthem.” Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass’n,\\n485 U.S. 439, 445 (1988); see also Stillman v. C.I.A., 319 F.3d\\n546, 548 (D.C. Cir. 2003); United States v. Rostenkowski, 59\\nF.3d 1291, 1302-03 (D.C. Cir. 1995).\\n\\n I grant that the Court reached out to decide the\\nconstitutional issues in Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S. 674 (2008),\\nbut that was not only an extraordinary circumstance but also\\none where “[a]djudication of the merits . . . rest[ed] on a\\nquestion of law . . .” id. at 691. Here, the constitutional claims\\nare not purely legal in nature, and the District Court has found\\nthat some factual issues are in dispute. The concurrence frets\\n\\n 20\\nabout “intrusions into executive decision making” and of the\\n“President’s mental processes,” slip op. at 60 (Williams, J.,\\nconcurring), but that does not justify shutting off all discovery.\\nFor instance, as explained in our Judgment and above, there is\\nconsiderable confusion in this case about how the Mattis Plan\\nimpacts transgender servicemembers who must comply with\\nthe service requirements for their biological sex. * Compelling\\nmilitary or executive officials to explain the operation and\\npurpose of this requirement would not improperly intrude upon\\nsuch mental processes. “It is the decision-making process that\\nrequires shielding from public scrutiny, not the decision itself\\nonce it has been acted on.” 3 WEINSTEIN’S FEDERAL EVIDENCE\\n§ 509.23 (2019); see also In re Sealed Case, 121 F.3d 729, 737\\n(D.C. Cir. 1997) (“The deliberative process privilege does not\\nshield documents that simply state or explain a decision the\\ngovernment has already made . . . .”); EDWARD J.\\nIMWINKELREID, THE NEW WIGMORE: A TREATISE ON\\nEVIDENCE § 7.7.2 (3d ed. 2019) (“Nor is there a privilege for a\\npost-decision explanation of the decision.”); 26A CHARLES\\nALAN WRIGHT ET AL., FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE:\\nEVIDENCE § 5680 (2018) (“The [deliberative process] privilege\\ndoes not apply . . . to explanations of existing regulations or of\\na past decision.”). Now that the Mattis Plan has been adopted,\\nthere is nothing unduly intrusive about asking officials to\\ntestify about how the policy operates and what military\\n\\n*\\n My concurring colleague questions the relevance of this fact since\\nPlaintiffs seek a reversion to the Carter Plan, and it, like the Mattis\\nPlan, required transgender servicemembers to serve in accordance\\nwith the requirements for their biological sex, slip op. at 59\\n(Williams, J., concurring). Fair enough, but Plaintiffs’ complaint\\nalso seeks to enjoin “the categorical exclusion of transgender people\\nfrom military service,” J.A. 209, and Plaintiffs clearly argue that the\\nrequirement of serving in one’s biological sex has the effect of a\\ncategorical exclusion. Ultimately, this is a matter best sorted out by\\nthe District Court in the first instance.\\n\\n 21\\npurposes it serves, and we have required similar discovery in\\nthe past where military policies were at issue. See Waldie v.\\nSchlesinger, 509 F.2d 508, 510 & n.1 (D.C. Cir. 1974)\\n(denying summary judgment where affidavits of government\\nwitnesses were “ambiguous” and “conclusory” in explaining\\nmilitary policies). Indeed, this very type of discovery occurred\\nin Goldman and Rostker without any apparent damage to the\\nrepublic. See, e.g., Brief for Respondents, Goldman v.\\nWeinberger, 1985 WL 669077, at *4-5 (“At trial, Air Force\\nwitnesses explained why the extraordinarily detailed regulation\\nof the official uniform worn by its personnel is deemed\\nessential to the accomplishment of the Air Force’s\\nmission.”); Brief for Appellant, Rostker v. Goldberg, 1981\\nWL 390367, at *30 (“[H]igh level military personnel who\\ntestified in this case were of the view . . . that developing\\nmethods of warfare employed by the United States and its allies\\nwould require more combat intensive forces than those that had\\nbeen required during past military conflicts.” (citing deposition\\ntestimony)).\\n\\n My concurring colleague points out that Rostker and\\nGoldman reversed the trial court rulings on the merits, slip op.\\nat 60 (Williams, J., concurring), but in doing so, the Court did\\nnot criticize discovery about how military policies operated or\\nwhat interests they served. Rather, the Court noted that it was\\nimproper for lower courts to consider plaintiff expert testimony\\nthat contradicted the military experts about whether the policies\\nat issue were justified under the circumstances. Rostker, 453\\nU.S. at 80-81; Goldman, 475 U.S. at 509-10. The concurrence\\ncites no case that has adopted the astounding rule that the\\ngovernment is immune from all discovery explaining the\\noperation and purpose of its military policies. Even in a facial\\nchallenge, discovery may be necessary where the impact of the\\nregulation is unclear and disputed. Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v.\\nF.C.C., 512 U.S. 622, 667-68 (1994) (reversing summary\\n\\n 22\\njudgment for the government in facial challenge because of\\nfactual disputes about the “actual effects” of the regulation). It\\nis one thing to defer to the government’s justification for\\nmilitary policy; it is quite another not to require the government\\nto explain fully, under oath, that justification. The former\\ncustom of deference is reasonable, but the latter is imprudent.\\nCf. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 710 n.18 (1974)\\n(“Because of the key role of the testimony of witnesses in the\\njudicial process, courts have historically been cautious about\\nprivileges.”). The concurrence cites no reason why the current\\ncommander-in-chief is entitled to more deference or authorized\\nto provide less explanation than any of his predecessors, and I\\nam certainly not aware of any. It is for this reason that the panel\\njudgment opted for regular order.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4375280/\", \"author_raw\": \"WILKINS, Circuit Judge, concurring\"}, {\"author\": \"WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring in the result:\\n\\n The district court issued a nationwide injunction strictly\\nlimiting the authority of the current President and secretary of\\ndefense to alter or amend their predecessors’ military directives\\nand policy judgments about the composition of the armed\\nforces. In our January 4 judgment, we reversed the court’s\\nrefusal to dissolve the injunction; we also held that it abused its\\ndiscretion to the extent it granted plaintiffs additional relief.\\nSee Doe 2 v. Shanahan, No. 18-5257, 2019 WL 102309, at *1\\n& n.1 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 4, 2019) (“Panel Judgment”), rev’g Doe\\n2 v. Trump, 315 F. Supp. 3d 474 (D.D.C. 2018), cert. before\\njudgment denied, No. 18-677, 2019 WL 272026 (U.S. Jan. 22,\\n2019). I joined the panel in dissolving the injunction—and\\nexplained that a separate opinion would follow. This is that\\nopinion.\\n\\n I write separately because I believe the record and the law\\nrequire dismissal of plaintiffs’ claims. A correct resolution at\\nthis stage is important because the decisions of the district court\\nreflect what in my view are wholly mistaken assumptions about\\nthe nature of constitutional review of military personnel\\npolicy—at least on the facts of this case. To be specific, the\\ncourt contemplates a highly intrusive examination of the mental\\nprocesses of the civilian and military leadership of a coordinate\\nbranch of government. See, e.g., Doe 2 v. Mattis, 322 F. Supp.\\n3d 92, 101 (D.D.C. 2018) (declaring that plaintiffs “are entitled\\nto complete discovery” regarding the executive’s “alleged\\ndeliberations”); Doe 2 v. Trump, 319 F. Supp. 3d 539, 543\\n(D.D.C. 2018) (emphasizing that plaintiffs will “be able” to\\n“seek discovery from” the President). These interrogations are\\nto be aimed, the district court has said, at uncovering infirmities\\nin a policy that the secretary of defense, in his “professional\\njudgment,” has determined is essential to putting our armed\\nforces “in the strongest position to protect the American\\npeople.” Memorandum from Secretary Mattis to President\\n\\n 2\\n\\nTrump 3 (Feb. 22, 2018) (“Mattis Memo”), J.A. 265. Under\\nprevailing constitutional doctrine, however, this case can (and\\nshould) be resolved on the existing record.\\n\\n I should start by clarifying what this case is actually about.\\nIt is not about a “transgender ban.” See, e.g., Appellees’ Br. 2.\\nThe challenged policy expressly provides that “[t]ransgender\\npersons . . . may serve, like all other Service members.” Mattis\\nMemo 3, J.A. 265 (emphasis added). It is instead about whether\\nthe Constitution requires the current administration to reinstate\\na policy created by the previous administration allowing certain\\ntransgender individuals to serve in their preferred gender rather\\nthan their biological sex, as all service members have for\\ndecades. Id. For those transgender persons for whom the value\\nof serving otherwise than in their biological sex exceeds the\\nvalue of being in the military, of course, the policy thwarts their\\nwish to serve. The Constitution does not compel the military\\nto yield to their preference.\\n\\n Once we abstract away from the politically charged\\nsubject-matter—as we must—this is a straightforward legal\\ncase. Our “Constitution vests [t]he complex, subtle, and\\nprofessional decisions as to the composition, training,\\nequipping, and control of a military force exclusively in the\\nlegislative and executive branches.” Panel Judgment *2\\n(alteration in original) (quoting Kreis v. Sec’y of Air Force, 866\\nF.2d 1508, 1511 (D.C. Cir. 1989)) (internal quotation marks\\nomitted); see U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cls. 12–16; art. II, § 2, cl.\\n1. So, although the policy argument in favor of accommodating\\nplaintiffs’ claimed entitlement to transition into their preferred\\ngender may be compelling, the legal argument for requiring\\nsuch accommodation is not.\\n\\n The current administration’s policy—which is far more\\naccommodating to transgender service than that of any\\nadministration from 1789 until 2016—easily passes\\n\\n 3\\n\\nconstitutional muster. Given their biological differences, males\\nand females have long been assigned to separate berthing,\\nbathroom, and shower facilities, and subject to different sets of\\nphysical fitness, body fat, uniform, and grooming standards.\\nThis is unquestionably lawful; it is required (in part) by\\nCongress, see, e.g., 10 U.S.C. § 7419, and has been approved\\n(repeatedly) by the Supreme Court, see, e.g., United States v.\\nVirginia, 518 U.S. 515, 550 n.19 (1996); Rostker v. Goldberg,\\n453 U.S. 57, 81 (1981). To put it simply, there is no\\nconstitutional right for, say, biological males who identify as\\nfemale to live, sleep, shower, and train with biological females.\\nWhether allowing such flexibility in military service is a good\\nidea or not is of no concern to the courts; that is a question for\\nthe people acting through their elected representatives.\\n\\n I\\n\\n With the general issue in mind, I discuss the relevant\\nterminology and the successive policies that lie at the root of\\nthe case, together with a timeline of the litigation; I then turn to\\nthe legal issues.\\n\\n A\\n\\n Transgender individuals, according to plaintiffs’ expert\\nwitness, have a “gender identity”—an “internalized, felt sense\\nof who they are as male or female”—that does not align with\\n“their assigned sex at birth.” Decl. of George Richard Brown\\nin Support of Plaintiffs ¶¶ 13–14 (Aug. 30, 2017) (“Brown\\n2017 Decl.”), J.A. 1056; accord, e.g., Amici Curiae Am.\\nMedical Ass’n et al. Br. (“AMA Br.”) 3. In this way,\\n“[t]rangsender people differ from non-transgender individuals,\\nwhose gender identity aligns with the sex assigned at birth.” Id.\\nat 4. In virtually all cases, the latter concept, “sex assigned at\\nbirth,” lines up with an individual’s “biological sex,” as\\ndetermined by “chromosomes, gonads, hormones, and\\n\\n 4\\n\\ngenitals,” Department of Defense Report and\\nRecommendations on Military Service by Transgender Persons\\n7 n.10 (Feb. 2018) (“DoD Report”), J.A. 275 (emphasis added);\\nsee, e.g., Agnes Gereben Schaefer et al., Assessing the\\nImplications of Allowing Transgender Personnel To Serve\\nOpenly 5 (2016) (“RAND Report”), J.A. 621 (explaining that\\n“birth sex . . . typically correlates with primary sex\\ncharacteristics (e.g., genitalia)”). To be sure, some transgender\\nindividuals undergo sex reassignment surgery. But the rates for\\ncomplete sex reassignment surgery “are exceedingly low—2%\\nof transgender men and 10% of transgender women.” DoD\\nReport 31, J.A. 299.\\n\\n Gender dysphoria, again according to plaintiffs’ experts,\\nis a mental health condition from which only “a subset of\\ntransgender people” suffer. Decl. of George Richard Brown in\\nSupport of Opp’n to Defs.’ Mot. to Dismiss ¶ 9 (May 11, 2018),\\nJ.A. 839; accord, e.g., Decl. of Brad R. Carson in Support of\\nPls.’ Mot. for Preliminary Injunction ¶ 23 (Aug. 28, 2017), J.A.\\n995. It is a serious mental health condition that is recognized\\nby the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and\\nStatistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or “DSM”). Brown\\n2017 Decl. ¶¶ 16–18, J.A. 1057; accord, e.g., DoD Report 13,\\nJ.A. 281; AMA Br. 7. The condition is “associated with\\nclinically significant distress or impairment in social,\\noccupational, or other important areas of functioning.” DoD\\nReport 13, J.A. 281 (quoting Am. Psychiatric Ass’n,\\nDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 453\\n(5th ed. 2013)); accord, e.g., Brown 2017 Decl. ¶ 17, J.A. 1057;\\nAMA Br. 7. “[U]ntreated,” it “can cause debilitating distress,\\ndepression, impairment of function, self-mutilation to alter\\none’s genitals or secondary sex characteristics, other self-\\ninjurious behaviors, and suicide.” Id. at 9.\\n\\n “The recommended treatment for gender dysphoria\\nincludes assessment, counseling, and, as appropriate,” gender\\n\\n 5\\n\\ntransition. AMA Br. at 11. Gender transition includes “social\\ntransition, hormone therapy, and surgical interventions to bring\\nthe body into alignment with one’s gender identity.” Id.;\\naccord, e.g., Brown 2017 Decl. ¶ 23, J.A. 1059. Social\\ntransition, the sole choice of many, consists simply of “living\\none’s life fully in accordance with one’s gender identity.”\\nAMA Br. 11. “This typically includes publicly identifying\\noneself as that gender through all of the ways that people signal\\ntheir gender to others such as through their name, pronoun\\nusage, dress, manner and appearance, and social interactions.”\\nId.\\n\\n Transition became relevant to military personnel\\nadministration for the first time in 2016, under the orders of\\nthen-Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter. The so-called Carter\\npolicy, which we’ll discuss in detail below, defined a transition\\nas being “complete” when a service member had “completed\\nthe medical care identified or approved by a military medical\\nprovider in a documented medical treatment plan as necessary\\nto treat” gender dysphoria. U.S. Dep’t of Defense,\\nTransgender Service in the U.S. Military: An Implementation\\nHandbook 11 (Sept. 30, 2016) (“Carter Memo Implementation\\nHandbook”), J.A. 518; see also Memorandum from Secretary\\nCarter to Secretaries of Military Departments, attachment at 1\\n(June 30, 2017) (“Carter Memo”), J.A. 588 (explaining that a\\n“history of medical treatment associated with gender transition\\nis disqualifying” unless a service member “has completed all\\nmedical treatment associated” with the transition).\\n\\n B\\n\\n We deal here with three successive policies on military\\nservice by transgender persons: (1) Pre-2016; (2) the Carter\\npolicy (so named after Secretary Carter); and (3) the Mattis\\npolicy (so named after James Mattis, Carter’s immediate\\nsuccessor as secretary of defense).\\n\\n 6\\n\\n 1. Pre-2016.\\n\\n (A) Being transgender. The parties appear to agree that\\ntransgender persons with or without gender dysphoria (or the\\nequivalent of this condition in earlier terminology) were barred\\nfrom military service. See, e.g., Appellants’ Br. 12; Appellees’\\nBr. 3. I return to this below.\\n\\n (B) Gender dysphoria was clearly a bar to military service\\n(at least as clearly as one can say, given changes in\\nnomenclature). Given the “unique mental and emotional\\nstresses of military service,” DoD Report 10, J.A. 278, the\\nexecutive branch long presumptively disqualified from service\\nindividuals with “[m]ost mental health conditions,” id. at 20,\\nJ.A. 288. The military leadership has traditionally aligned\\nthese disqualifying conditions with the conditions listed in the\\nDSM. Id. at 34, J.A. 302.\\n\\n For decades, then, the military’s “accession” standards—\\nthe standards governing induction into the armed forces—\\ndisqualified individuals with “psychosexual conditions,”\\nincluding “transsexualism.” M. Joycelyn Elders et al., Medical\\nAspects of Transgender Military Service 3 (2014), J.A. 784.\\n(“Transsexualism” first appeared in the DSM in 1980. DoD\\nReport 10, J.A. 278.) Likewise, the military’s “retention”\\nstandards—the standards governing separation from the armed\\nforces—traditionally permitted discharge of individuals with\\n“sexual gender and identity disorders.” Elders et al., supra, at\\n3, J.A. 784.\\n\\n The parties seem generally to regard the historic accession\\nand retention practices as effectively barring all “[t]ransgender\\nindividuals” from “enlist[ing] or serv[ing] in the US armed\\nforces.” Id. Even transgender individuals who did not “take\\nhormones, have surgery, or undergo any other aspect of gender\\ntransition” were, under these “psychological” standards,\\n\\n 7\\n\\nineligible to serve. Id. (emphasis added); see also Doe 1 v.\\nTrump (Doe I), 275 F. Supp. 3d 167, 178 (D.D.C. 2017)\\n(explaining that “transgender individuals” could not “obtain\\nmedical waivers for entrance into the military”).\\n\\n I frankly have some doubt whether this characterization of\\nthe pre-2016 world is fully accurate. Because many\\ntransgender persons live in their “biological sex,” without\\napparent gender dysphoria, it seems improbable that the\\npolicies in fact excluded all transgender persons. As nothing\\nbefore the court appears to turn on this, however, I will assume\\nthe correctness of the parties’ shared assumptions.\\n\\n 2. Carter Policy.\\n\\n As the administration of President Barack Obama wound\\ndown, the military embarked on a reconsideration of its\\nlongstanding policy on “transsexualism.” By that time, the\\nDSM no longer included that term; it had been replaced with\\n“gender dysphoria,” detailed above. For this and other reasons,\\nthen-Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter adopted a new policy\\nto govern the “accession” and “retention” of “transgender\\npersonnel.” Carter Memo 1, J.A. 585.\\n\\n (A) Transgender individuals not suffering from gender\\ndysphoria or undergoing gender transition were eligible for\\nservice—only in their biological sex.1\\n\\n\\n 1\\n Under the Carter policy, a service member “must meet all military\\nstandards associated with the with member’s gender marker in\\nDEERS [the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System] and\\nuse military berthing, bathroom, and shower facilities in accordance\\nwith the DEERS gender marker.” Carter Memo Implementation\\nHandbook 11, J.A. 518. That gender marker is only changed from a\\nmember’s biological sex to his or her preferred gender after “gender\\ntransition is complete.” Id. at 12, J.A. 519. Because “gender\\n\\n 8\\n\\n (B) For transgender individuals with gender dysphoria or\\nwho embarked on transition to their preferred gender, the story\\nwas more complicated.\\n\\n (1) A “history of gender dysphoria” was “disqualifying”\\nfor accession purposes unless an individual had “been stable\\nwithout clinically significant distress or impairment in social,\\noccupational, or other important areas of functioning for 18\\nmonths.” Carter Memo, attachment at 1, J.A. 588. Individuals\\ndiagnosed with gender dysphoria while serving could continue\\nto serve provided that they met deployability standards, see id.,\\nand were able to serve in their biological sex (unless and until\\nthey completed a gender transition, as discussed below), see\\nCarter Memo Implementation Handbook 11–12, J.A. 518–19;\\nsupra p. 7 n.1.\\n\\n (2) A history of treatment for “gender transition” was\\nlikewise “disqualifying” for accession purposes unless an\\nindividual had “completed all medical treatment associated\\nwith the . . . gender transition” and had “been stable in the\\n\\n\\n\\n\\ntransition” is a “medical treatment” for gender dysphoria, see id. at\\n11, J.A. 518; Carter Memo, attachment at 1, J.A. 588, only\\nindividuals who have had gender dysphoria and have transitioned as\\na treatment for that condition are eligible to serve in their preferred\\ngender. All others must serve in their biological sex. DoD Report 8,\\nJ.A. 276 (“The Carter policy, however, still requires transgender\\nService members who have not changed their gender marker in\\nDEERS, including persons who identify as other than male or female,\\nto meet the standards associated with their biological sex.”); see, e.g.,\\nU.S. Navy, Transgender and Gender Transition: Commanding\\nOfficer’s Toolkit 9, J.A. 468 (“Prior to the DEERS gender marker\\nchange, the Sailor will be assigned to the corresponding berthing of\\ntheir birth gender.”).\\n\\n 9\\n\\npreferred gender for 18 months.” Carter Memo, attachment at\\n1, J.A. 588.\\n\\n Transgender persons who had completed “gender\\ntransition” as a treatment for “gender dysphoria” could access\\nand serve in their “preferred gender” rather than their biological\\nsex. Id.; see also Appellees’ Br. 19, 41, 42 (referring to\\ntransition as “treatment”). Because “gender transition” under\\nthe Carter policy included (as in general medical parlance)\\nsocial transition, i.e., simply “living in the preferred gender,”\\nCarter Memo Implementation Handbook 31, J.A. 538, an\\nindividual could (for example) remain biologically male in\\nevery respect (at least from an external point of view) and,\\nnonetheless, demand to be treated as in all respects female,\\nincluding for “medical fitness, physical fitness, uniform and\\ngrooming, deployability and retention standards,” as well as for\\nassignment to “berthing, bathroom, and shower facilities,” id.\\nat 43–44, J.A. 550–51.\\n\\n For retention purposes, individuals who embarked on\\ngender transition while serving could continue to serve\\nprovided that they met the standards associated with their\\nbiological sex until their transition was “complete” (at which\\npoint, they could serve in their preferred gender). See Carter\\nMemo Implementation Handbook 11–12, J.A. 518–19; supra p.\\n7 n.1.2\\n\\n\\n 2\\n Of course, as the Carter policy acknowledges, gender transition\\n“while serving in the military presents unique challenges associated\\nwith addressing the needs of the Service member in a manner\\nconsistent with military mission and readiness needs.” Carter Memo,\\nattachment at 2, J.A. 589. For example, individuals “undergoing\\ncross-sex hormone therapy may experience changes to their body\\nshape and physical strength, which may have a notable effect on their\\nability to maintain standards.” Carter Memo Implementation\\nHandbook 29, J.A. 536. Accordingly, gender transition may “have\\n\\n 10\\n\\n 3. Mattis Policy.\\n\\n (A) Like the Carter policy before it, the Mattis policy\\nallowed transgender persons without a history or diagnosis of\\ngender dysphoria to serve in their biological sex. Mattis Memo\\n3, J.A. 265.\\n\\n (B) Also like the Carter policy, the Mattis policy applied\\nmore complex rules for those with a history or diagnosis of\\ngender dysphoria or involved in gender transition.\\n\\n (1) The policy presumptively disqualified for accession\\npurposes individuals with a “history” of “gender dysphoria”\\nunless they were stable, without clinically significant\\nsymptoms, for some period of time—36 months under Mattis,\\nid. 2, J.A. 264 (as compared with 18 months under Carter). For\\nretention purposes, individuals “diagnosed with gender\\ndysphoria after entering into service may be retained if they do\\nnot require a change of gender and remain deployable within\\napplicable retention standards.” Id.\\n\\n (2) The Mattis policy diverged strongly from the Carter\\npolicy in its handling of gender transition. It reinstated the prior\\nmilitary practice of requiring that “all” individuals serve in their\\n“biological sex”; those who had undergone “gender transition”\\nwere thus presumptively disqualified. Mattis Memo 2–3, J.A.\\n264–65. In recognition that some individuals had acted in\\nreliance on the Carter policy, however, Secretary Mattis created\\n\\nan impact on . . . deployability, assignment considerations, medical\\nclassification, and aspects of individual readiness (e.g., physical\\nfitness, body composition assessment, and professional military\\neducation attendance).” Id. at 21, J.A. 528; see also id. at 49, J.A.\\n556 (suggesting that some transitioning individuals request to\\n“reschedule[] training events” or enter “extended leave/absence until\\ngender transition process is complete”).\\n\\n 11\\n\\na reliance exception: individuals who were “diagnosed with\\ngender dysphoria” under the Carter policy could “continue to\\nserve in their preferred gender” (rather than their biological\\nsex). Id. at 2, J.A. 264.\\n\\n The following chart summarizes the three policies for\\naccession and retention of transgender personnel:\\n\\n LONGSTAN’G 2016 CARTER POLICY 2018 MATTIS POLICY\\n POLICY\\nGender Dysphoria?; Gender Eligible for Eligible for Eligible for\\nTransition?; Desired Service\\n Standards? Accn Retn Accn Retn Accn Retn\\n\\nNo GD No Trans’n; Bio. Sex No No Yes Yes Yes Yes\\n If Stable If Meet If Stable If Meet\\n No Trans’n; Bio. Sex No No 18 Deployab’y 36 Deployab’y\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 12\\n Months Stand’ds Months Stand’ds\\n Trans’n in Progress; If Stable If Meet Yes, Under\\n No No 18 Deployab’y No Reliance\\nGender Bio. Sex\\nDysph. Months Stand’ds Exception\\n Trans’n in Progress; No No No No No No\\n Pref’d Gender\\n Trans’n Complete; If Stable If Meet Yes, Under\\n No No 18 Deployab’y No Reliance\\n Pref’d Gender\\n Months Stand’ds Exception\\n\\n 13\\n\\n C\\n\\n Plaintiffs launch a comprehensive broadside against the\\nMattis policy and demand a judicial mandate ordering the\\nexecutive branch to “revert to” the Carter policy. See Second\\nAm. Compl. 20, J.A. 209. Plaintiffs claim support in the\\nsupposedly “unusual” circumstances surrounding the\\nannouncement of the new policy. In doing so, they resolutely\\nfocus on a presidential “tweet” from July 2017, an event that,\\nthey say, forever tainted the Mattis policy. But they pay little\\nor no attention to Secretary Mattis’s prior order of June 30,\\n2017, deferring the start of accessions under the Carter policy.\\nAnd while the sequence may have little real consequence under\\na proper legal analysis, plaintiffs’ persistent highlighting of the\\ntweet suggests the need for a precise timeline:\\n\\n July 28, 2015: Secretary Carter convenes a working group\\nto study the “policy options” for allowing service by\\n“transgender Service members.” He instructs the group to\\n“start with [a] presumption”—namely, “that transgender\\npersons can serve openly without adverse impact.”\\nMemorandum from Secretary Carter to Secretaries of Military\\nDepartments (July 28, 2015), J.A. 709.\\n\\n 2016: The Carter working group enlists the RAND\\nNational Defense Research Institute to study the impacts of\\nallowing “transgender service members” to serve openly.\\nRAND finds (at, e.g., J.A. 646–48, 655–59) that the proposed\\npolicy change would have an adverse impact on health care\\nutilization costs and readiness, but concludes (at, e.g., J.A. 685,\\n686) that the impact would be “negligible” or “marginal”\\nbecause of the “small” number of transgender service members\\nrelative to the size of the military as a whole. See RAND\\nReport, J.A. 597–708. RAND does not explain why overall\\nmilitary costs are a relevant comparator, as opposed, for\\nexample, to the benefits to be derived (by the military and the\\n\\n 14\\n\\nindividuals in question) from increased transgender service.\\nRAND further concludes, based on “limited publicly available\\ndata,” that open transgender service would not have a\\n“significant effect” on unit cohesion. Id. at 44, J.A. 660. But\\nRAND does “not have direct survey evidence or other data to\\ndirectly assess the impact on the U.S. military,” id., and\\nidentifies “reports of resistance” in the ranks to a similar policy\\nchange in the United Kingdom, id. at 45, J.A. 661.\\n\\n June 30, 2016: Following this review, Secretary Carter\\nadopts a new policy on “Military Service of Transgender\\nService Members.” The Carter policy “[e]stablishes policy . . .\\nfor the standards for retention, accession, separation, in-service\\ntransition, and medical coverage for transgender personnel\\nserving in the Military Services.” See Carter Memo 1, J.A.\\n585.\\n\\n September 30, 2016: The military issues a 71-page\\nhandbook to address “some of the issues” related to\\n“transgender Americans serving openly in the military.” See\\nCarter Memo Implementation Handbook 8, 10, J.A. 515, 517.\\n\\n June 30, 2017: On the day before the Carter policy’s\\naccession directives were scheduled to go into effect, Secretary\\nMattis “defer[s] the start of accessions [under the Carter policy]\\nfor six months.” He explains that his “intent is to ensure that\\n[he] personally ha[s] the benefit of the views of the military\\nleadership and of the senior civilian officials who are now\\narriving in the Department.” The military will “use this\\nadditional time to evaluate more carefully the impact of such\\naccessions on readiness and lethality.” Memorandum from\\nSecretary Mattis to Secretaries of Military Departments (June\\n30, 2017), J.A. 425.\\n\\n 15\\n\\n July 26, 2017: The President, who appears not to have\\naddressed the issue until now, expresses agreement with\\nSecretary Mattis. He tweets:\\n\\n After consultation with my Generals and military experts,\\n please be advised that the United States Government will\\n not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any\\n capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused\\n on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be\\n burdened with the tremendous medical costs and\\n disruption that transgender in the military would entail.\\n Thank you[.]\\n\\n July 27, 2017: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff\\nannounces that “no modifications” to policy will be made in\\nresponse to the tweet. See Memorandum from Chairman\\nDunford to Chiefs of Military Services (July 27, 2017), J.A.\\n408.\\n\\n August 9, 2017: Without mentioning Secretary Mattis’s\\nJune 30, 2017 deferral order or Chairman Danford’s above\\nannouncement, plaintiffs file suit, claiming that the President’s\\ntweet “reverse[d] the current policy”—referring to the Carter\\npolicy, even though Secretary Mattis had already put that on\\nhold. Compl. ¶ 1 (Aug. 9, 2017), ECF No. 1.3\\n\\n August 25, 2017: The President issues a formal\\nmemorandum announcing that he, like Secretary Mattis, wants\\n“further study” before any implementation of Secretary\\nCarter’s “policy change.” In the President’s “judgment, the\\nprevious Administration failed to identify a sufficient basis to\\nconclude that terminating the Departments’ longstanding\\npolicy and practice would not hinder military effectiveness and\\n 3\\n Citations to ECF Numbers are to the district court docket in Doe\\n2 v. Trump, No. 17-cv-01597-CKK (D.D.C. filed Aug. 9, 2017).\\n\\n 16\\n\\nlethality, disrupt unit cohesion, or tax military resources.”\\nMemorandum of August 25, 2017, 82 Fed. Reg. 41,319, 41,319\\n(Aug. 30, 2017) (“2017 Presidential Memorandum”).\\nAccordingly, exercising the power entrusted to him as\\n“Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy,” U.S. Const. art.\\nII, § 2, cl. 1, the President directs the Secretary of Defense “to\\nreturn to the longstanding policy and practice on military\\nservice by transgender individuals that was in place prior to\\n[former-Secretary Carter’s change]”—at least “until such time\\nas a sufficient basis exists upon which to conclude that\\nterminating that policy and practice would not have [] negative\\neffects,” 2017 Presidential Memorandum, 82 Fed. Reg. at\\n41,319. But the President provides that “no action may be\\ntaken” against “currently serving” transgender individuals until\\nthe Secretary “determine[s] how to address” the issue. Id. at\\n41,320. The President also makes clear that Secretary Mattis\\ncould “advise [him] at any time, in writing, that a change to this\\n[longstanding] policy is warranted.” Id. at 41,319.\\n\\n September 14, 2017: Secretary Mattis convenes a panel of\\nexperts. He orders them to implement “a comprehensive,\\nholistic, and objective approach to study military service by\\ntransgender individuals, focusing on military readiness,\\nlethality, and unit cohesion, with due regard for budgetary\\nconstraints and consistent with applicable law.” Memorandum\\nfrom Secretary Mattis to Secretaries of Military Departments 2\\n(Sept. 14, 2017), J.A. 404.\\n\\n October 30, 2017: At plaintiffs’ request, the district court\\npreliminarily enjoins all branches of the military from\\nenforcing two provisions of the 2017 Presidential\\nMemorandum. See Doe I, 275 F. Supp. 3d 167.\\n\\n Specifically, the court “enjoins Defendants from enforcing\\nthe following directives of the [2017] Presidential\\nMemorandum”: (1) “‘return to the longstanding policy and\\n\\n 17\\n\\npractice on military service by transgender individuals that was\\nin place prior to [the Carter policy]’”; and (2) “‘maintain the\\n[longstanding, pre-Carter] policy regarding accession of\\ntransgender individuals into military service.’” Order 1–2 (Oct.\\n30, 2017), ECF No. 60, J.A. 188–89 (quoting 2017 Presidential\\nMemorandum, 82 Fed. Reg. at 41,319).\\n\\n The court characterizes the President’s directives as\\ndiscriminating on the basis of “transgender identity,” and as\\ntherefore subject to “intermediate scrutiny.” 275 F. Supp. 3d at\\n209. Applying such scrutiny, the court holds that the\\nPresident’s directives likely fail because of several supposedly\\n“unusual” factors associated with the President’s\\nannouncement—namely, that it was “contradicted” by the\\nconclusions of a previous administration, lacked supporting\\n“studies,” and was issued “via Twitter,” without “formality.”\\nId. at 212–13 (emphasis removed).\\n\\n November 21, 2017: The government files an interlocutory\\nappeal of the preliminary injunction. See Defs.’ Notice of\\nAppeal (Nov. 21, 2017), ECF No. 66.\\n\\n November 27, 2017: The district court issues a\\n“clarification.” Although the October 2017 order enjoined\\nimplementation of only two specific provisions of the\\nPresidential Memorandum, the court “clarif[ies]” that “[a]ny\\naction by any of the Defendants that changes [the] status quo\\n[i.e., the Carter policy] is preliminarily enjoined.” Order 2\\n(Nov. 27, 2017) (emphasis in original), ECF No. 70, J.A. 110.\\nThe court, however, continues to view the original October\\n2017 injunction as the operative injunction. See, e.g., Doe 2 v.\\nTrump (Doe II), 315 F. Supp. 3d 474, 498 (D.D.C. 2018) (“To\\navoid any possible need for clarification, the Court states\\nexpressly: enforcing the Mattis Implementation Plan would\\nviolate the Court’s October 30, 2017 preliminary injunction.”).\\n\\n 18\\n\\n January 4, 2018: In anticipation of the announcement of\\nthe Mattis policy (see February 22), the government voluntarily\\ndismisses its appeal. See Doe 1 v. Trump, No. 17-52-67, 2018\\nWL 411236 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 4, 2018).\\n\\n February 2018: The Department of Defense releases a 44-\\npage report based on the recommendations of the panel of\\nexperts convened by Secretary Mattis. “The Panel made\\nrecommendations based on each Panel member’s independent\\nmilitary judgment.” DoD Report 4, J.A. 272.\\n\\n February 22, 2018: In “light of the Panel’s professional\\nmilitary judgment” and his own “professional judgment,”\\nSecretary Mattis recommends a new policy to the President.\\nNoting that the President had “made clear” that the Secretary\\ncould “at any time, in writing,” advise that a change in policy\\nwas “warranted,” Secretary Mattis recommends that the\\nPresident “revoke” his 2017 Presidential Memorandum, “thus\\nallowing” the military to adopt the new policy. Mattis Memo\\n1, 3, J.A. 263, 265.\\n\\n March 23, 2018: The President (again) agrees with\\nSecretary Mattis, revoking all prior directives so that Secretary\\nMattis could “implement any appropriate policies.” See\\nMemorandum of March 23, 2018, 83 Fed. Reg. 13,367, 13,367\\n(Mar. 28, 2018) (revoking the 2017 Presidential Memorandum\\n“and any other directive [the President] may have made with\\nrespect to military service by transgender individuals”).\\n\\n On the same day, the government, in accord with its prior\\ndismissal of its appeal, seeks from the district court protection\\nfrom a possible contempt citation. Though framing its motion\\nas a request to the court to dissolve the injunction, the\\ngovernment “maintain[s] that the Court’s preliminary\\ninjunction, which addressed only certain provisions of the\\nPresident’s 2017 Memorandum [see account of November 27,\\n\\n 19\\n\\n2017 injunction], does not extend to the Department’s new\\npolicy.” “But in an abundance of caution,” the government\\nurges the court “to dissolve the preliminary injunction in order\\nto permit the military to implement the policy it believes will\\nbest ensure our Nation’s defense.” Defs.’ Mot. to Dissolve the\\nPreliminary Injunction 2 (Mar. 23, 2018), ECF No. 96.\\n\\n April 6, 2018: Following an inquiry by the district court as\\nto whether plaintiffs will be “amending the complaint” in light\\nof the announcement of the new Mattis policy, see Tr. 5:16–17\\n(Mar. 28, 2018), ECF No. 102, plaintiffs amend their\\ncomplaint, see Second Am. Compl. (Apr. 6, 2018), ECF No.\\n106, J.A. 190.\\n\\n April 20, 2018: The government again asks the district\\ncourt, “in an abundance of caution,” to dissolve the preliminary\\ninjunction (again asserting that the original injunction did not\\napply to Secretary Mattis’s actual policy choice). Defs.’ Mot.\\nto Dissolve the Preliminary Injunction 2 (Apr. 20, 2018), ECF\\nNo. 116.\\n\\n August 6, 2018: The district court refuses to dissolve the\\ninjunction, holding that the October 2017 injunction still\\napplies because the Mattis policy “merely implements the basic\\npolicy directives in the President’s 2017 tweet and\\nmemorandum.” Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 488 n.6. The court\\nundertakes no detailed comparison between the Mattis policy\\nand the military’s longstanding prior policy, or between the\\nMattis policy and the Carter policy, or between the Mattis\\npolicy and the outstanding preliminary injunction.\\n\\n August 24, 2018: The district court denies the\\ngovernment’s motion for summary judgment, holding that\\nplaintiffs are “entitled to complete discovery” regarding the\\nexecutive branch’s “alleged deliberation” [sic] over the Mattis\\npolicy. 322 F. Supp. 3d at 101.\\n\\n 20\\n\\n November 30, 2018: The district court denies the\\ngovernment’s motion for a stay pending appeal. See Doe 2 v.\\nMattis, 344 F. Supp. 3d 16 (D.D.C. 2018).\\n\\n II\\n\\n On January 4, 2019, we reversed, and I join my colleagues\\nin dissolving the injunction. But this is where I must part ways.\\n\\n A\\n\\n The panel assumes that we are “reviewing” not a new or\\nmodified injunction, but a “motion to dissolve” a pre-existing\\none. Panel Judgment *1. This matters, the panel says, because\\nour review of a motion to dissolve is particularly narrow: The\\nonly issue is whether the government has shown a “significant\\nchange” in circumstances such that continued enforcement of\\nthe original injunction may no longer be appropriate. Id. “The\\nmerits of the preliminary injunction,” the panel concludes, “are\\nnot properly before us.” Id. But on a sound view of the case,\\nthe merits are before us.\\n\\n 1. The merits are properly before us because we confront\\na necessarily new or modified injunction.\\n\\n First, although the government styled its request for relief\\nas a motion to dissolve the earlier preliminary injunction, it\\nmade clear its view that the actions of Secretary Mattis were so\\ndifferent from anything enjoined that the earlier injunction did\\nnot apply. See, e.g., Defs.’ Mot. to Dissolve the Preliminary\\nInjunction 2 (Apr. 20, 2018), ECF No. 116; see also\\nAppellants’ Br. 2, 3, 15, 16, 43, 47 (arguing that the district\\ncourt extended the earlier, October 2017 injunction). When a\\ndistrict court uses a preliminary injunction addressed to certain\\nconduct as a vehicle for barring completely different conduct,\\nit has either “necessarily modified” the prior injunction or\\nissued a “completely new” one. Int’l Ass’n of Machinists &\\n\\n 21\\n\\nAerospace Workers v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc., 849 F.2d 1481,\\n1486 (D.C. Cir. 1988). Either way, our review is standard and\\nfar from narrow: The precedents require us to assess “the\\ndistrict court’s legal conclusions as to each of the four”\\npreliminary injunction factors—including plaintiffs’ likelihood\\nof “success on the merits”—“de novo, and its weighing of them\\nfor abuse of discretion.” Archdiocese of Wash. v. Wash. Metro.\\nArea Transit Auth., 897 F.3d 314, 321 (D.C. Cir. 2018)\\n(quoting League of Women Voters v. Newby, 838 F.3d 1, 6–7\\n(D.C. Cir. 2016)). Here, the likelihood of plaintiffs’ success on\\nthe merits turns on the probability that their constitutional claim\\nis valid.\\n\\n If not completely new, the order before us—the August 6,\\n2018 injunction—is a modified injunction. In that order, the\\ndistrict court purported to “clarif[y]” that the Mattis policy\\n“violate[d] the Court’s [pre-existing] October 30, 2017\\npreliminary injunction.” Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 498. But\\n“we are not governed by the district court’s own\\ncharacterization of the order as [a] . . . ‘clarification,’ as\\ndistinguished from a ‘modification.’” United States v. Philip\\nMorris USA Inc., 686 F.3d 839, 844 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (quoting\\nBirmingham Fire Fighters Ass’n 117 v. Jefferson Cnty., 280\\nF.3d 1289, 1292 (11th Cir. 2002)); see also Abbott v. Perez, 138\\nS. Ct. 2305, 2320 (2018) (refusing to “allow[] district courts to\\n‘shield [their] orders from appellate review’” with the flip of a\\n“label” (alteration in original) (quoting Sampson v. Murray,\\n415 U.S. 61, 87 (1974))). Rather, we must assess “the scope”\\nof the October 2017 injunction with our own “‘independent\\njudgment.’” Philip Morris, 686 F.3d at 844 (quoting Int’l Ass’n\\nof Machinists, 849 F.2d at 1485).\\n\\n The original October 2017 injunction “enjoin[ed]\\nDefendants from enforcing [two] directives of the [2017]\\nPresidential Memorandum”: (1) “‘return to the longstanding\\npolicy and practice on military service by transgender\\n\\n 22\\n\\nindividuals that was in place prior to [the Carter policy]’”; and\\n(2) “‘maintain the [longstanding, pre-Carter] policy regarding\\naccession of transgender individuals into military service.’”\\nOrder 1–2 (Oct. 30, 2017), ECF No. 60, J.A. 188–89 (quoting\\n2017 Presidential Memorandum, 82 Fed. Reg. at 41,319). But\\nthe Mattis policy does neither of the actions forbidden in the\\nlanguage quoted above. The “longstanding policy” was a\\n“blanket ban on all ‘transgender individuals,’” Doe II, 315 F.\\nSupp. 3d at 481; whereas, the Mattis policy, as the panel\\ncorrectly concludes, “allows some transgender persons barred\\nunder the . . . [longstanding policy] to join and serve in the\\nmilitary,” Panel Judgment *2; see also id. (“[T]he District\\nCourt erred in finding that the Mattis Plan was a blanket\\ntransgender ban.”). Because the defendants were not “already\\nbound by the” October 2017 injunction not to pursue the Mattis\\npolicy, Washington Metro. Area Trans. Comm’n v. Reliable\\nlimousine Serv. LLC, 776 F.3d 1, 9 (D.C. Cir. 2015), the August\\n2018 order “change[d] the legal relationship of the parties,” id.\\n(citing Philip Morris, 686 F.3d at 844). The August 2018\\ninjunction is thus fully subject to conventional review.\\n\\n An alternative analysis leads to the same result. The\\nAugust 2018 order is subject to full review because at the time\\nof its issuance the plaintiffs’ lawsuit challenging the President’s\\n2017 directives—the basis of the October 2017 preliminary\\ninjunction—was moot. The district court, to be sure, disagreed,\\nsee Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 492–96, but, again, we review its\\n“interpretation of [the prior] injunction de novo,” United States\\nex rel. Yelverton v. Fed. Ins. Co., 831 F.3d 585, 587 (D.C. Cir.\\n2016) (citing Int’l Ass’n of Machinists, 849 F.2d at 1485). And\\nthat October 2017 injunction addressed the 2017 Presidential\\nMemorandum, which the President revoked, see 83 Fed. Reg.\\nat 13,367, well before the district court issued its August 2018\\ninjunction. Although such a repeal and replace does not always\\nmoot a claim, it does so where the challenged policy is\\n“changed substantially,” NE Fla. Chapter of Associated Gen.\\n\\n 23\\n\\nContractors of Am. v. City of Jacksonville, 508 U.S. 656, 662\\nn.3 (1993), as the Presidential Memorandum undoubtedly was,\\nsee Panel Judgment *2 (“The government took substantial\\nsteps to cure the procedural deficiencies the court identified in\\nthe enjoined 2017 Presidential Memorandum.”). See also\\nTrump v. Int’l Refugee Assistance, 138 S. Ct. 353, 353 (2017)\\n(dismissing as moot a challenge to an expired presidential order\\nthat suspended the entry of certain aliens, even though the\\nPresident had already issued a new, related order); Trump v.\\nHawaii, 138 S. Ct. 377, 377 (2017) (same). Thus, the district\\ncourt “necessarily . . . issued a completely new injunction.”\\nInt’l Ass’n of Machinists, 849 F.2d at 1486. Again, the history\\nof this case puts the merits fully before us.\\n\\n 2. Even viewed solely as a motion to dissolve, the case\\ncalls for review of the Mattis policy’s constitutionality.\\n\\n In any event, even if we were simply reviewing a motion\\nto dissolve, we still must resolve the constitutionality of the\\nMattis policy. A “significant change” in circumstances is only\\na “threshold” showing to dissolve an injunction. Salazar ex rel.\\nSalazar v. District of Columbia, 896 F.3d 489, 492 (D.C. Cir.\\n2018) (emphasis added) (citing Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk Cnty.\\nJail, 502 U.S. 367, 383 (1992)). Once that threshold is met, as\\nhere, we must decide whether the change in circumstances\\n“renders continued enforcement” of the injunction “detrimental\\nto the public interest.” Petties ex rel. Martin v. District of\\nColumbia, 662 F.3d 564, 569 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (quoting Horne\\nv. Flores, 557 U.S. 433, 447 (2009)). To make this\\ndetermination, we “need[] to ascertain whether ongoing\\nenforcement of the original [preliminary injunction] [is]\\nsupported by an ongoing violation of federal law.” Horne, 557\\nU.S. at 454 (emphasis added); but cf. Slip op. 18–19 (Wilkins,\\nJ., concurring) (declining to address whether the Mattis policy\\nviolated federal law). And we do that by assessing whether\\nconstitutional “compliance has been achieved” by the Mattis\\n\\n 24\\n\\npolicy—that is, we decide whether the Mattis policy is\\nconstitutional. Id. at 452 (citing Frew ex rel. Frew v. Hawkins,\\n540 U.S. 431, 442 (2004)).\\n\\n Proceeding with that assessment is especially appropriate\\nwhere, as here, the district court moved well beyond “changed\\ncircumstances” and directly ruled “[o]n the merits” of the\\nMattis policy. See Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 497 (addressing\\nall the preliminary injunction factors: “the merits,” “irreparable\\ninjury,” “the balance of equities,” and the “public interest”); see\\nalso id. at 492 (ruling that “even if” the plaintiffs’ claims\\nagainst the 2017 Presidential Memorandum were “moot,” the\\ncourt would still enjoin implementation of the Mattis policy).\\nThe panel decision quite properly reflects this aspect of the\\nrecord, citing the district court’s discussion of “the merits,” id.\\nat 497–98, cited in Panel Judgment *1 n.1, and “revers[ing],”\\n“[t]o the extent that the District Court granted preliminary relief\\n. . . apart from its refusal to dissolve the existing injunction,”\\nPanel Judgment *1 n.1 (emphasis added). Accordingly, I\\nproceed to the question of whether the injunction “was\\nsupported by an ongoing violation of federal law.” Horne, 557\\nU.S. at 454.\\n\\n B\\n\\n More generally, “once jurisdiction is properly invoked\\nunder § 1292(a)(1),” as it is here, our review permits\\n“disposition of all matters appropriately raised by the record,\\nincluding entry of final judgment.” Hartman v. Duffey, 19 F.3d\\n1459, 1464 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (quoting Wagner v. Taylor, 836\\nF.2d 578, 585 (D.C. Cir. 1987)). “This has long been the rule:\\n‘By the ordinary practice in equity . . . ,’ a reviewing court has\\nthe power on appeal from an interlocutory order ‘to examine\\nthe merits of the case . . . and upon deciding them in favor of\\nthe defendant to dismiss the bill.” Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S.\\n674, 691 (2008) (second alteration in original) (quoting N.\\n\\n 25\\n\\nCarolina R. Co. v. Story, 268 U.S. 288, 292 (1925)); see also,\\ne.g., Ark. Dairy Co-op Ass’n v. U.S. Dep’t of Agriculture, 573\\nF.3d 815, 833 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (“Review of a preliminary\\ninjunction ‘is not confined to the act of granting [or denying]\\nthe injunctio[n], but extends as well to determining whether\\nthere is any insuperable objection, in point of jurisdiction or\\nmerits, to the maintenance of [the] bill, and if so, to direct a\\nfinal decree dismissing it.’” (alterations in original) (quoting\\nMunaf, 553 U.S. at 691)).\\n\\n III\\n\\n I turn now to the merits.\\n\\n A\\n\\n In our government of separate and coordinate powers, it is\\na “basic principle” that “one branch of the Government may not\\nintrude upon the central prerogatives of another.” Loving v.\\nUnited States, 517 U.S. 748, 757 (1996). This restraint serves\\nan important purpose: it preserves the government of our\\npeople’s design. Those who drafted and established our\\nConstitution did not dole out federal power haphazardly; rather,\\nto create “a National Government that is both effective and\\naccountable,” they painstakingly allocated “specific powers\\nand responsibilities” to the branches of government best “fitted\\nto the task.” Id.\\n\\n To the branches “periodically subject to electoral\\naccountability,” Gilligan v. Morgan, 413 U.S. 1, 10 (1973),\\nwent “authorities essential to the common defense,” The\\nFederalist No. 23, at 153 (Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton\\nRossiter ed., 1961); see U.S. Const. art I, § 8, cl. 11 (declare\\nwar); cl. 12 (raise and support armies); cl. 13 (provide and\\nmaintain a navy); cl. 14 (make rules for the land and naval\\nforces); cl. 15 (provide for calling forth the militia); cl. 16\\n\\n 26\\n\\n(provide for organizing the militia); art. II, § 2, cl. 1\\n(commander in chief). For good reason. It is “difficult to\\nconceive of an area of governmental activity in which the\\ncourts have less competence.” Gilligan, 413 U.S. at 10. The\\npolitical branches are far better equipped (and more\\naccountable to the people) for making the types of decisions\\nthat arise in the military setting—decisions that must be made\\nquickly and based on limited, often secret, information.\\n\\n Our Constitution thus vests the “power of oversight and\\ncontrol of military force” in Congress and the President. Id.\\nAnd it does so, as Hamilton put it,\\n\\n without limitation, because it is impossible to foresee or\\n define the extent and variety of national exigencies, and\\n the correspond[ing] extent and variety of the means which\\n may be necessary to satisfy them. The circumstances that\\n endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this\\n reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed\\n on the power to which the care of it is committed.\\n\\nThe Federalist No. 23, at 153 (emphasis in original). “The\\nlater-added Bill of Rights,” of course, “limited this power to\\nsome degree,” but “did not alter” the people’s basic\\n“allocation” of authority, Loving, 517 U.S. at 767 (citations\\nomitted); Congress and the President—not the courts—retained\\nthe primary responsibility for the “delicate task of balancing the\\nrights of servicemen against the needs of the military,” id.\\n(quoting Solorio v. United States, 483 U.S. 435, 447–48\\n(1987)); see also, e.g., United States v. Eliason, 41 U.S. (16\\nPet.) 291, 301 (1842) (“The power of the executive to establish\\nrules and regulations for the government of the army, is\\nundoubted.”).\\n\\n Judges have long respected this allocation of powers.\\nGilligan, 413 U.S. at 11. Thus, “courts traditionally have been\\n\\n 27\\n\\nreluctant to intrude upon the authority of the Executive in\\nmilitary and national security affairs,” Dep’t of Navy v. Egan,\\n484 U.S. 518, 530 (1988), and have “hesitate[d] long” before\\ntampering with the “unique structure of the military\\nestablishment,” Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296, 300 (1983).\\nIn the military realm, citing separation of powers principles, the\\nSupreme Court has rejected numerous attacks on the\\nPresident’s authority, e.g., to define factors for imposition of\\nthe death penalty in military trials, see Loving, 517 U.S. at 768–\\n69; to “control access to information bearing on national\\nsecurity,” see Egan, 484 U.S. at 527; and to make\\ncommissioning of officers dependent on “whatever facts [he]\\nthinks” relevant, see Orloff v. Willoughby, 345 U.S. 83, 91\\n(1953). The issues were, in the words of Loving, within with\\nthe “central prerogative[]” of the executive, not the courts. 517\\nU.S. at 757; see also Orloff, 345 U.S. at 93 (“[J]udges are not\\ngiven the task of running the Army.”).\\n\\n Even addressing laws or regulations that would be subject\\nto heightened scrutiny if applied to civilian society (as plaintiffs\\nassume for the Mattis policy, see Br. 29–32), our “review of\\nmilitary regulations . . . is far more deferential,” Goldman v.\\nWeinberger, 475 U.S. 503, 507–08 (1986), and “the tests and\\nlimitations to be applied may differ because of the military\\ncontext,” Rostker, 453 U.S. at 67.\\n\\n Although the Supreme Court has eschewed a “label[],” id.\\nat 69, our standard of review reflects the separation of powers\\nprinciples detailed above, see id. at 67 (recognizing “that the\\nConstitution itself requires such deference”). Thus—even\\nwhen reviewing a facially discriminatory, gender-based\\nclassification, such as an exclusion of women from draft\\nregistration (see Rostker)—it is “quite wrong” and “palpably\\nexceed[s]” our authority to “undertak[e] an independent\\nevaluation of [] evidence, rather than adopting an appropriately\\ndeferential examination” of the political branches’ “evaluation\\n\\n 28\\n\\nof that evidence.” Id. at 81, 82–83; accord, e.g., Trump v.\\nHawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392, 2421–22 (2018) (declining in matters\\nof national security to “substitute” the Court’s own “predictive\\njudgments,” or its own “evaluation of the underlying facts,” for\\nthose of the President); Goldman, 475 U.S. at 509.\\n\\n Under these principles, I believe the Mattis policy survives\\nconstitutional scrutiny.\\n\\n B\\n\\n To begin, plaintiffs do not—and cannot—seriously\\nchallenge the Mattis policy’s reliance on gender dysphoria for\\nlimiting the access of those suffering from that medical\\ncondition to military service. They, after all, sought and the\\ndistrict court ordered, see Second Am. Compl. 20, J.A. 209;\\nDoe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 480, 484, a return to the Carter\\npolicy, which uses the same condition (a “history of gender\\ndysphoria”) to presumptively disqualify persons from\\naccession into the military, subject to some exceptions. Carter\\nMemo, attachment at 1, J.A. 588; cf. Mattis Memo 2, J.A. 264.\\n\\n In any event, to the extent plaintiffs contend that the Mattis\\npolicy’s focus on gender dysphoria springs from hostility to\\ntransgender persons, this aspect of the policy is far from\\nsuspect. Gender dysphoria affects “[o]nly a subset of” (or\\n“some”) “transgender people,” as even plaintiffs’ experts\\nrepeatedly admit. Decl. of George Richard Brown in Support\\nof Opp’n to Defs.’ Mot. to Dismiss ¶ 9 (May 11, 2018), J.A.\\n839 (emphasis added); Decl. of Brad R. Carson in Support of\\nPls.’ Mot. for Preliminary Injunction ¶ 23 (Aug. 28, 2017), J.A.\\n995 (emphasis added); accord, e.g., Carter Memo\\nImplementation Handbook 13, J.A. 520 (“some transgender\\nindividuals”); DoD Report 19, J.A. 287 (“subset of transgender\\npersons”); id. at 20, J.A. 288 (“[n]ot all transgender people”\\n(alteration in original) (quoting American Psychiatric\\n\\n 29\\n\\nAssociation)); RAND Report 7, J.A. 623 (“[s]ome transgender\\nindividuals (again, the proportion is largely unknown)”); id. at\\nx, J.A. 606 (“transgender status alone does not constitute a\\nmedical condition”; “only transgender individuals who\\nexperience significant related distress are considered to have”\\ngender dysphoria); id. at 6, J.A. 622 (similar); AMA Br. 7\\n(similar).\\n\\n Gender dysphoria is also a serious mental health condition\\nrecognized by the American Psychiatric Association. It is\\n“associated with clinically significant distress or impairment in\\nsocial, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.”\\nDoD Report 13, J.A. 281 (quoting Am. Psychiatric Ass’n,\\nDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 453\\n(5th ed. 2013)); accord, e.g., Geoffrey M. Reed et al., Disorders\\nRelated to Sexuality and Gender Identity in the ICD-11, 15\\nWorld Psychiatry 205, 212 (2016), J.A. 934 (“distress and\\ndysfunction [are] integral aspects of the condition”); RAND\\nReport at 6, J.A. 622 (“significant related distress”); Report of\\nthe Transgender Military Service Commission 10 (Mar. 2014),\\nJ.A. 757 (“clinically significant distress”); AMA Br. 2 (same);\\nsee also Carter Memo, attachment at 1, J.A. 588; Carter Memo\\nImplementation Handbook 12, J.A. 519. Untreated, it “can\\ncause debilitating distress, depression, impairment of function,\\nself-mutilation to alter one’s genital or secondary sex\\ncharacteristics, other self-injurious behaviors, and suicide.”\\nAMA Br. 9.\\n\\n The limits on accession and retention of those with gender\\ndysphoria, imposed by the military (under both Secretaries\\nCarter and Mattis), are thus akin to the many demanding\\nselection practices that render the “vast majority” of military-\\nage Americans—a full 71%— presumptively ineligible. DoD\\nReport 6, J.A. 274; see DoD Instruction 6130.03: Medical\\nStandards for Appointment, Enlistment, or Induction Into the\\nMilitary Services (Mar. 30, 2018), J.A. 212 (providing 49 pages\\n\\n 30\\n\\nof medical guidelines). This includes disqualification for\\n“[a]ny” DSM-recognized condition that (like gender dysphoria)\\nis associated with “residual symptoms, or medication side\\neffects, which impair social or occupational performance.”\\nDoD Report 34, J.A. 302; see, e.g., DoD Instruction 6130.03,\\nsupra, at 44–46, J.A. 255–57 (disqualifying those with a\\n“[h]istory of learning disorders after the 14th birthday,” a\\n“[h]istory of obsessive-compulsive disorder,” or a “[r]epeated\\ninability to maintain reasonable adjustment in school”). In\\npresumptively disqualifying individuals with gender dysphoria,\\nthe Mattis policy, like the Carter policy before it, serves the\\nsame legitimate interests as other disqualifications: ensuring\\nthat the armed forces consist “of qualified, effective, and able-\\nbodied persons.” 10 U.S.C. § 505(a).\\n\\n C\\n\\n Plaintiffs, therefore, hitch their wagon to a different star:\\nthe accommodations (or lack thereof) for “gender transition.”\\n\\n Gender transition, in their view, is “the defining\\ncharacteristic of being transgender.” Appellees’ Br. 20. As\\nplaintiffs see it, “transgender people,” “[b]y definition,” do not\\n“live in accord with their biological sex.” Id. at 19 (emphasis\\nadded) (quoting Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 482). Rather,\\n“transgender people undergo a gender transition in order to live\\nconsistently with their gender identity.” Id. As we’ll soon see,\\nthe record thoroughly belies this claim.\\n\\n Working from this premise, plaintiffs contend, and district\\ncourt agreed, that the Mattis policy “is a ban on transgender\\nservice.” Id. (quoting Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 495 (quoting,\\nin turn, Pls.’ Opp’n to Mot. to Dismiss 10 (May 11, 2018), ECF\\nNo. 130)). That is so, they say, because the Mattis policy,\\nunlike the Carter policy, does not accommodate gender\\ntransition. Whereas the Carter policy allows individuals to\\n\\n 31\\n\\nundergo a gender transition (ranging, as we have seen, from\\npurely “social” changes to complete transformational surgery)\\nand to then serve in their preferred gender (rather than their\\nbiological sex), Carter Memo, attachment at 1–2, J.A. 588–89;\\nCarter Memo Implementation Handbook 43, J.A. 550, the\\nMattis policy sticks to longstanding military practice: “all”\\nindividuals must serve in their “biological sex.” Thus,\\nindividuals who have undergone gender transition (to live\\noutside their biological sex) are ineligible, Mattis Memo 2–3,\\nJ.A. 264–65 (unless they qualify for a waiver or the reliance\\nexception).\\n\\n Plaintiffs’ argument that this policy difference is of\\nconstitutional magnitude is fundamentally flawed—factually\\nand legally.\\n\\n 1. The facts relating to transition for transgender persons\\nand to the polices.\\n\\n At oral argument, plaintiffs doubled down on their claim\\nthat a failure to accommodate gender transition (and life outside\\none’s biological sex) is, in effect, a ban on transgender service.\\nTheir counsel’s first substantive words were as follows:\\n\\n [The Mattis policy] bans transgender people from the\\n military, it bans only transgender people, and all\\n transgender people. [The Mattis policy] requires anyone\\n who serves to do so in their biological sex, [and] not living\\n in a person’s biological sex is the defining characteristic of\\n what it means to be transgender.\\n\\nOral Arg. Tr. 19:10–16.\\n\\n That is wrong. By requiring most individuals to serve in\\ntheir biological sex, the Mattis policy does not “translate[] into\\na ban on transgender persons.” Appellees’ Br. 20 (quoting Doe\\nII, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 494). This is so for at least three reasons.\\n\\n 32\\n\\n First, the factual reality: As the panel found, there is\\n“nothing in the record” to support plaintiffs’ assertion that the\\n“defining” characteristic of being “transgender” is not living in\\none’s biological sex. Panel Judgment *2. To the contrary,\\n“everything in the record, from the Elders Report, the RAND\\nStudy, the Carter Memo and the Mattis Memo consistently\\ndefine a transgender person as a person who does not ‘identify’\\nwith [his or her] biological sex.” Slip op. 11 (Wilkins, J.,\\nconcurring) (emphasis added); see, e.g., DoD Report 7 n.10,\\nJ.A. 275; RAND Report at x, J.A. 606; Report of the\\nTransgender Military Service Commission 5 (Mar. 2014), J.A.\\n752; Carter Memo Implementation Handbook 13, J.A. 520.\\nEven plaintiffs’ own expert, along with the American Medical\\nAssociation (in support of plaintiffs), define “transgender” in\\nterms of how one “identi[fies],” not how one lives. See Brown\\n2017 Decl. ¶ 13, J.A. 1056 (emphasis added); AMA Br. 3\\n(same).\\n\\n There is, moreover, no doubt that many transgender\\nindividuals can, do, and wish to serve in their biological sex.\\nContrary to plaintiffs’ assertion, the transgender community is\\nnot a monolith in which every person wants to take steps\\nnecessary to live in accord with his or her preferred gender\\n(rather than his or her biological sex). Quite the opposite. The\\nimplementation handbook for the Carter policy, for example,\\nexplains that only “some” transgender individuals “feel\\ncompelled” to “transition to the preferred gender.” Carter\\nMemo Implementation Handbook 13, J.A. 52. The Elders\\nReport adds that the “transgender community includes people”\\nwho do not even “wish to transition.” Report of the\\nTransgender Military Service Commission 5, J.A. 752. And the\\nRAND Report specifies that only 55% of “transgender\\nindividuals” reported “living” in their preferred gender; of the\\nremainder, only half—27% of the total—even “wished to\\ntransition at some point in the future.” RAND Report 20 & n.2,\\nJ.A. 636 & n.2. This leaves but one conclusion, as the military\\n\\n 33\\n\\nhas already found: transgender individuals can serve and are\\n“serving[] with distinction . . . [in] their biological sex.” Panel\\nJudgment *2 (quoting DoD Report 6, J.A. 274).\\n\\n Second, the Mattis policy’s exceptions to the requirement\\nof service in one’s biological sex: Again, as the panel found,\\nthe policy “contains a reliance exception,” Panel Judgment *2,\\nthat expressly permits certain transgender individuals “to serve\\nin their preferred gender,” rather than their biological sex,\\nMattis Memo 2, J.A. 264. This exception covers around 1000\\nindividuals, see DoD Report 22, J.A. 290, so that even on the\\nfalse premise that transgender must be equated with transition,\\nthe policy would not be a “ban” on “all transgender people.” It\\nwas “clear error” for the district court to hold otherwise. Panel\\nJudgment *2. Moreover, the military reserves the authority—\\nas it does for virtually all standards, DoD Report 10, J.A. 278—\\nto issue waivers for persons who would otherwise be ineligible,\\nid. at 5, J.A. 273.\\n\\n Third, the internal inconsistency in plaintiffs’ position:\\nPlaintiffs demand a return to the Carter policy. See Second\\nAm. Compl. 20, J.A. 209; Doe I, 275 F. Supp. 3d at 177. But\\neven that policy, plaintiffs admit, requires transgender persons\\nto serve in their biological sex until their gender transition is\\n“complete.” Appellees’ Br. 45; see Carter Memo\\nImplementation Handbook 11, J.A. 518. So, if “a requirement\\nto serve in one’s biological sex is a transgender ban,”\\nAppellees’ Br. 15, plaintiffs’ logic seems to doom the very\\nremedy they now seek.\\n\\n To put it simply: The Mattis policy—by declining to make\\nthe same accommodations for gender transition as the Carter\\npolicy—does not translate into a “transgender ban.” See Panel\\nJudgment *2 (holding that the district court “clear[ly] err[ed]”\\nin “finding that the Mattis Plan was the equivalent of a blanket\\nban on transgender service”). And no amount of discovery will\\n\\n 34\\n\\nchange “this fact.” But cf. Slip op. 20 n.* (Wilkins, J.,\\nconcurring).\\n\\n 2. The executive branch relied on an abundance of\\nlegitimate military concerns.\\n\\n In reasoning about the policy issues it confronted, the\\nexecutive branch relied on an abundance—some might say a\\nsuperabundance—of concerns. Given the “biological\\ndifferences” between males and females, military “policy and\\npractice has long maintained a clear line between” the\\nbiological sexes. DoD Report, 41, J.A. 309. The military, for\\nexample, maintains separate berthing, bathroom, and shower\\nfacilities, along with different sets of physical fitness, body fat,\\nuniform, and grooming standards, for biological males and\\nbiological females, id.—as required (in part) by Congress, see\\n10 U.S.C. §§ 7419, 7420, 8431, 8432, 9419. The DoD Report\\ndrafted at Secretary Mattis’s request found that these “clear\\nsex-differentiated lines” preserve unit cohesion by, among\\nthings, protecting reasonable expectations of privacy, avoiding\\nunfairness (or perceptions thereof), ensuring physical safety,\\nand minimizing leadership challenges that would otherwise\\narise. DoD Report 40, J.A. 308.\\n\\n The Supreme Court has expressly acknowledged the\\n(rather widely shared) understanding of a key premise of the\\nmilitary judgment: that, in the military setting, “[p]hysical\\ndifferences between men and women . . . are enduring: ‘[T]he\\ntwo sexes are not fungible[.]’” Virginia, 518 U.S. at 533\\n(quoting Ballard v. United States, 329 U.S. 187, 193 (1946)).\\nFor that reason, “[s]ex classifications may be used[.]” Id. It is,\\nthe Court has said, “undoubtedly . . . necessary to afford\\nmembers of each sex privacy from the other sex in living\\narrangements” and to “adjust aspects of the physical training\\nprograms” in light of the biological differences between males\\nand females. Id. at 550 n.19; see also Rostker, 453 U.S. at 81\\n\\n 35\\n\\n(recognizing the need for “different treatment” of males and\\nfemales “with regard to dependency, hardship, and physical\\nstandards”).\\n\\n Unsurprisingly, then, plaintiffs “do not challenge the\\nmilitary’s ability to maintain any of its sex-based standards,”\\nAppellees’ Br. 44; instead they try to work around it with a\\nlinguistic device. They contend that “the military can maintain\\nsex-based standards” by applying to each service member the\\nstandard (male or female) that happens to match his or her\\n“gender marker in [the military’s] personnel database.” Id. at\\n45 (citing Carter Memo Implementation Handbook 11, J.A.\\n518). But for transgender persons who have exercised the\\nasserted right to transition (whether socially, hormonally or\\nsurgically), that “marker” would only randomly relate to the\\nphysical differences between biological males and biological\\nfemales (as differentiated by “chromosomes, gonads,\\nhormones, and genitals,” DoD Report 7 n.10, J.A. 275). Those\\nphysical differences, however, are what the military’s sex-\\nbased standards are actually based upon. And they are what the\\nSupreme Court’s approval of those standards, quoted in the\\nparagraph immediately above, actually rested on.\\n\\n Plaintiffs’ plan would demolish the military’s sex-based\\nstandards. Under their view, individuals could switch genders\\n(and adjust their gender marker) by simply “living in the\\npreferred gender.” Carter Memo Implementation Handbook\\n31, J.A. 538. In other words, a person need not undergo any\\n“sex reassignment surgery,” id. at 50, J.A. 557, or even “cross-\\nsex hormone therapy,” id. at 37, J.A. 544, in order to be\\nrecognized as, and thus subject to the standards associated with,\\nhis or her “preferred gender,” id. at 43, J.A. 550. Instead, any\\nperson who remained (for example) biologically male in every\\nrespect could demand to be treated, in all respects, as female,\\nincluding for “medical fitness, physical fitness, uniform and\\ngrooming, deployability and retention standards,” as well as for\\n\\n 36\\n\\nassignment to “berthing, bathroom, and shower facilities.” Id.\\nat 43–44, J.A. 550–51.\\n\\n Plaintiffs’ “approach[]” may be wise (or equitable).\\nAppellees’ Br. 24. But it in no way responds to the concerns\\nover unit cohesion, unit readiness, and related burdens relied on\\nby the executive:\\n\\n Unit cohesion. Consider first service members’\\n“reasonable expectations of privacy.” DoD Report 37, J.A.\\n305. The military explained that “[g]iven the unique nature of\\nmilitary service,” service members “of the same biological sex\\nare often required to live in extremely close proximity to one\\nanother when sleeping, undressing, showering, and using the\\nbathroom.” Id. In these circumstances, permitting an\\nindividual with (for example) “male genitalia” to live, sleep,\\nand shower with biological females would surely, as the\\nmilitary concluded, create some tension within the ranks—as\\neven the Carter Memo Implementation Handbook admits, see\\npp. 63–64, J.A. 570–71 (explaining that biological females may\\nbe “uncomfortable”); see also id. at 29, J.A. 536 (discussing\\n“privacy” concerns about “showers, bathrooms, or other shared\\nspaces”). And while reasonable people might disagree, cf. id.\\nat 65, J.A. 572 (ruling that biological females’ “lack of\\ncomfort” must give way to more egalitarian concerns), the\\nexecutive branch “was certainly entitled, in the exercise of its\\nconstitutional powers . . . , to focus on the question of military\\nneed rather than ‘equity,’” Rostker, 453 U.S. at 80; cf. Virginia,\\n518 U.S. at 550 n.19 (recognizing that it is “necessary to afford\\nmembers of each sex privacy from the other sex in living\\narrangements”).\\n\\n The military’s privacy concerns are grounded in—and\\npartially mandated by—statute. The military is statutorily\\nrequired to physically separate “males” and “females” in\\nvarious contexts. See 10 U.S.C. §§ 7419, 7420, 8431, 8432,\\n\\n 37\\n\\n94194; see also id. § 9420 (“same sex”).5 Plaintiffs have not\\nchallenged—or even mentioned—those provisions. Thus we\\nmust examine plaintiffs’ constitutional objections with these\\nunchallenged “restrictions firmly in mind.” Rostker, 453 U.S.\\nat 77; see also Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U.S. 498, 508 (1975).\\nThe very “existence” of the “restrictions clearly indicates” a\\nlegitimate basis for the policy’s bright-line separation of\\nbiological males and biological females, Rostker, 453 U.S. at\\n77—i.e., compliance with a congressional directive, see DoD\\nReport 29 & n.108, 37, J.A. 297, 305. We must interpret\\nstatutory words “consistent with their ‘ordinary meaning . . . at\\nthe time Congress enacted the statute.’” Wisconsin Central Ltd.\\nv. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2067, 2070 (2018) (alteration in\\noriginal) (quoting Perrin v. United States, 444 U.S. 37, 42\\n(1979)). And at the time Congress enacted the privacy statutes\\nat issue here—in 1998—there can be little doubt what “male”\\nand “female” meant in ordinary parlance. See Pub. L. No. 105-\\n261, §§ 521, 522, 112 Stat. 1920, 2009–13 (1998). Those\\nwords plainly referred to—and thus required separation of\\nindividuals on the basis of—biological sex, not preferred\\ngender.6 See, e.g., Webster’s Third New International\\n\\n 4\\n Consider, for example, § 7419: “The Secretary of the Army shall\\nprovide for housing male recruits and female recruits separately and\\nsecurely from each other during basic training.” 10 U.S.C.\\n§ 7419(a)(1) (emphasis added).\\n 5\\n Sections 7419, 7420, 8431, 8432, 9419, and 9420 were previously\\nsections 4319, 4320, 6931, 6932, 9319, and 9320, respectively. See\\nPub. L. No. 115-232, §§ 806(a)(3), 807(c)(1), 808(c)(1), 132 Stat.\\n1636, 1832, 1836, 1839 (2018) (renumbering).\\n 6\\n The same is true for 10 U.S.C. § 9420, which, in certain\\ncircumstances, prohibits training personnel from accessing the living\\nquarters of recruits unless they are of the “same sex.” “As a matter\\nof ordinary usage, the term ‘sex,’” like the terms male or female,\\n“does not mean . . . ‘transgender status.’” Wittmer v. Phillips 66 Co.,\\n\\n 38\\n\\nDictionary 1366 (unabr. ed. 1993) (defining “male” in terms of\\n“being the sex” that “perform[s] the fertilization function”);\\nThe American Heritage Dictionary 759 (2d coll. ed. 1985) (“the\\nsex that has organs to produce spermatozoa”); The\\nRandomhouse College Dictionary 809 (rev. ed. 1980) (“the sex\\nthat begets young by fertilizing the female”); see also Black’s\\nLaw Dictionary 1379 (7th ed. 1999) (defining “sex” in terms of\\nthe “structure[s] and function[s] that distinguish a male from a\\nfemale organism”).\\n\\n Safety. The military explained that “combat remains a\\nphysical endeavor.” DoD Report 37, J.A. 305. So, naturally,\\n“vigorous competition, especially physical competition,”\\nremains “central to the military life and is indispensable to the\\ntraining and preparation of warriors.” Id. at 36, J.A. 304. But\\nin such “physically violent training and competition,” the\\nmilitary concluded, “pitting biological females against\\nbiological males who identify as female, and vice versa”—as\\nplaintiffs demand, see, e.g., Appellees’ Br. 45 (demanding\\ntreatment in preferred gender “for all purposes”)—would create\\na “serious safety risk.” DoD Report 36, J.A. 304. That is a risk\\nthat the military is not constitutionally required to accept (or\\nforce upon its members). See Virginia, 518 U.S. at 550 n.19\\n(recognizing that it is “necessary” to “adjust aspects of the\\nphysical training programs” for biological males and biological\\nfemales).\\n\\n Unfairness or the perception thereof also provides a\\nlegitimate basis for the Mattis policy—and easily falls within\\nour precedent. The military concluded that it “could be\\n\\n915 F.3d 328, 333 (5th Cir. 2019) (Ho, J., concurring). “In common,\\nordinary usage, . . . the word ‘sex’ means biologically male or\\nfemale[.]” Id. at 333–34 (quoting Hively v. Ivy Tech Community\\nColl. of Indiana, 853 F.3d 339, 363 (7th Cir. 2017) (Sykes, J.,\\ndissenting)).\\n\\n 39\\n\\nperceived as discriminatory to apply different biologically-\\nbased standards to persons of the same biological sex based on\\ngender identity, which is irrelevant to standards grounded in\\nphysical biology.” DoD Report 36, J.A. 304. “For example, it\\nunfairly discriminates against biological males who identify as\\nmale and are held to male standards to allow biological males\\nwho identify as female to be held to female standards,\\nespecially where the transgender female retains many of the\\nbiological characteristics and capabilities of a male.” Id. It\\nwould also “result in perceived unfairness by biological\\nfemales who identify as female” and would “be required to\\ncompete against” biological males who identify as female “in\\ntraining and athletic competition.” Id.\\n\\n In the military’s view, plaintiffs’ demands would pit the\\ninterests of transgender service members against the interests\\nof a potentially vast array of other service members who will\\nbe placed in an awkward, potentially unfair, and possibly\\nbitterness-inducing posture of having to compete against those\\nwho are either far stronger or weaker than they are. It may turn\\nout that these worries are overblown. Or it may be that wisdom\\ncounsels running the risks in order to accommodate transgender\\nservice members’ preferences. But to pretend that the military\\ncannot rationally be concerned about this novel source of\\npotential social conflict, resentment, and intra-unit strife is\\nuntenable. The concern is at least reasonable, and the courts\\ncannot second-guess the military’s decision.\\n\\n Indeed, if, as we’ve previously held, the military could\\nrefuse to exempt certain religious males from male uniform\\nstandards, so as to avoid “incurring resentment from those who\\nare compelled to adhere to the rules strictly,” Goldman v. Sec’y\\nof Defense, 734 F.2d 1531, 1540 (D.C. Cir. 1984), aff’d sub\\nnom. Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503, then surely the\\nmilitary could, for the same reason, refuse to exempt certain\\nbiological males from male dress standards (not to mention\\n\\n 40\\n\\nbody composition assessments and physical readiness testing),\\nDoD Report 31, J.A. 299. After all, the ability to express one’s\\n“religious . . . identity,” Goldman, 475 U.S. at 517 (Brennan,\\nJ., dissenting), is surely no less protected than the ability to\\nexpress one’s “gender identity,” Appellees’ Br. 21; cf. U.S.\\nConst. amend. I.\\n\\n Unit readiness. Gender transition is available under the\\nCarter policy only as a treatment for gender dysphoria. See,\\ne.g., Carter Memo Implementation Handbook 11, 14, J.A. 518,\\n521; Carter Memo Implementation Handbook: Navy\\nSupplement 2, J.A. 461; see also Appellees’ Br. 19, 41, 42\\n(referring to transition as “treatment”). The military concluded\\nhere that accommodating requests for transition would “present\\na significant challenge for unit readiness.” DoD Report 35, J.A.\\n303. As its report noted, “there is considerable scientific\\nuncertainty concerning whether” gender transition treatments\\n(e.g., sex reassignment surgery) “fully remedy . . . the mental\\nhealth problems associated with gender dysphoria.” Id. at 32,\\nJ.A. 300; see, e.g., id. at 24, J.A. 292 (reporting the conclusion\\nof the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services “that there\\nwas ‘not enough high quality evidence to determine whether\\ngender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes for\\nMedicare beneficiaries with gender dysphoria’”); RAND\\nReport 10, J.A. 626 (“[I]t is important to note that none of these\\nstudies [on gender-transition related healthcare] were\\nrandomized controlled trials (the gold standard for determining\\ntreatment efficacy). In the absence of quality randomized trial\\nevidence, it is difficult to fully assess the outcomes of treatment\\nfor [gender dysphoria].”). Those mental health problems, if un-\\nremedied, are substantial: Gender dysphoria is undisputedly\\nassociated with “clinically significant distress,” e.g., Decl. of\\nGeorge Richard Brown in Support of Plaintiffs ¶ 8 (May 11,\\n2018), J.A. 838; Report of the Transgender Military Service\\nCommission 10 (Mar. 2014), J.A. 757; AMA Br. 2; see also\\nAppellees’ Br. 19 (noting the “distress”), and can cause\\n\\n 41\\n\\n“depression, impairment of function, self-mutilation to alter\\none’s genital or secondary sex characteristics, other self-\\ninjurious behaviors, and suicide,” AMA Br. 9. Any\\n“persistence of these problems is,” as the military reasonably\\nconcluded, “a risk for readiness.” DoD Report 32, J.A. 300.\\nThe military’s decision to “proceed cautiously” was thus\\nreasonable. Id. at 27, J.A. 295. We cannot, after all, “substitute\\nour own assessment for the Executive’s predictive judgments”\\non matters of “national security.” Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. at 2421.\\n\\n Administrative burdens. Such burdens are “not for this\\nCourt to dismiss.” Rostker, 453 U.S. at 81 (upholding gender-\\nbased classification where “Congress simply did not consider\\nit worth the added [administrative] burdens of including\\nwomen in draft and registration plans”). As the military\\nrecognized, the “unique leadership challenges arising from\\ngender transition are evident in the [] handbook implementing\\nthe Carter policy.” DoD Report 38, J.A. 306. This 71-page\\nhandbook—actually touted by plaintiffs and the district court\\nas evidence of the Carter policy’s feasibility, see, e.g., Doe 2 v.\\nMattis, 344 F. Supp. 3d 16, 28–29 (D.D.C. 2018); Decl. of\\nDeborah Lee James in Support of Pls.’ Mot. for Preliminary\\nInjunction ¶ 34 (Aug. 29, 2017), J.A. 1008–09—provides\\nguidance on “some of the issues” that commanders will face\\nunder the Carter policy. Carter Memo Implementation\\nHandbook 8, J.A. 515. Consider one example—a simple swim\\ntest, required semi-annually throughout the military: “[A]\\nfemale to male transgender Service member who has fully\\ntransitioned, but did not undergo surgical change, would like to\\nwear a male swimsuit for the test with no shirt or other top\\ncoverage.” Id. at 63, J.A. 570. The commanding officer has\\nmuch to do. First, consult the handbook for his options:\\n“counsel the individual,” “address the unit,” and consider\\n“additional options (e.g., requiring all personnel to wear\\nshirts).” Id. But the handbook is not “directive in nature”; it\\nprovides only a “general discussion.” Id. at 48, J.A. 555. So,\\n\\n 42\\n\\nthe commander is “reminded” to also “consult with [his] Chain\\nof Command, . . . Service, and DoD guidelines before\\ndetermining the best course(s) of action.” Id. And, as always,\\nhe should “[c]onsult with [the] SCCC [the Service Central\\nCoordination Cell],” id. at 63, J.A. 570; accord id. 48, J.A.\\n555—a service-level “cell of experts created to provide multi-\\ndisciplinary (e.g., medical, legal) advice and assistance to\\ncommanders with regard to service by transgender Service\\nmembers,” id. at 12, J.A. 519. And this is only a swim test.\\n\\n A multitude of similar puzzles—e.g., issues concerning\\nshowers (“Scenario 11”), sleeping (“Scenario 15”), and social\\nevents (“Scenario 16”)—would call on the commander to re-\\nconsult the handbook, his “Chain of Command, SCCC,\\nService, and DoD guidelines before determining the best\\ncourse(s) of action.” Id. at 48, J.A. 555; see id. at 60–65, J.A.\\n567–72. If the commander found time for military issues—\\nafter, say, adjusting the “timing” of the shower facilities to\\navoid any conflicts and ensuring that each “shower stall[]”\\ncontains “curtains” and “clothing hooks,” id. at 60–61, J.A.\\n567–68—then matters become “more complicated” still, id. at\\n69, J.A. 576. Consider deployments. Because “[s]ome nations\\nview transgender people as culturally unacceptable and will not\\nrecognize [an] individual’s preferred gender,” the commander\\nmust “[c]onduct a thorough analysis of the” destination country\\nby reviewing “the U.S. State Department’s country specific\\nwebsite” and the “DoD Foreign Clearance Guide”—as well as,\\nof course, “discuss[ing] the situation with [his] chain of\\ncommand and the SCCC.” Id. After that, the commander must\\nalso ensure that any “male” who happened to “have female\\nanatomical characteristics” was “screened for pregnancy.” Id.\\nat 51, J.A. 558. But there’s a wrinkle: Because the Carter policy\\nprovided and plaintiffs demand that a person’s “gender marker\\nin DOD’s personnel database” line up with his or her preferred\\ngender (as opposed to biological sex), see Appellees’ Br. 45,\\nthe commander must remember (because it’s not recorded in\\n\\n 43\\n\\nthe system) which of his “male” subordinates “maintained\\nfemale anatomy,” see Carter Memo Implementation Handbook\\n51, J.A. 558.\\n\\n Whether these accommodations are “worth the added\\nburdens” or not is “not for this Court to” say. Rostker, 453 U.S.\\nat 81. It is for the executive.\\n\\n 3. We assess plaintiffs’ empirical attacks on the military’s\\njustifications with extreme deference.\\n\\n Plaintiffs lob empirical attacks at the military’s\\njustifications. They contend that the justifications are mere ipse\\ndixit, with no “indication” or “data” in the record to support\\nthem, and are “contrary” to both “expert” testimony and “the\\nconsensus of the medical community.” Appellees’ Br. at 42.\\nBut when the Supreme Court instructed that we in the judiciary\\n“must be particularly careful not to substitute . . . our own\\nevaluation of evidence for a reasonable evaluation by” the\\npolitical branches, it meant it. Rostker, 453 U.S. at 68. Given\\nthe military’s reasonable evaluations, recounted above, the\\nCourt has written off arguments like plaintiffs’ as “quite beside\\nthe point.” Goldman, 475 U.S. at 509.\\n\\n Take the military’s decision, citing unit cohesion issues, to\\napply different dress regulations to biological males and\\nbiological females, without exception. In Goldman, a plaintiff\\nattacked comparable dress standards, arguing, as plaintiffs do\\nhere, that the military’s justifications for them were “mere ipse\\ndixit, with no support from actual experience or a scientific\\nstudy in the record, and [were] contradicted by expert\\ntestimony.” 475 U.S. at 509. The Court, however, would have\\nnone of it. Even though the regulations would have been\\nsubject to heightened scrutiny if a government had sought to\\napply them in the civilian world, see id. at 506 (citing Sherbert\\nv. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 406 (1963)), the Court simply held that\\n\\n 44\\n\\nthe “desirability of dress regulations in the military [was]\\ndecided by the appropriate military officials,” who were “under\\nno constitutional mandate to abandon their considered\\nprofessional judgment,” id. at 509. So too here.\\n\\n Or consider the military’s decision to presumptively\\ndisqualify individuals who have undergone gender transition,\\nciting “scientific uncertainty.” DoD Report 32, J.A. 300. The\\nmilitary directly acknowledged plaintiffs’ argument—that the\\n“prevailing judgment of mental health practitioners is that\\ngender dysphoria can be treated with [] transition-related\\ncare”—but explained that none of the relevant “studies account\\nfor the added stress of military life, deployments, and combat.”\\nId. at 24, J.A. 292. I recognize, of course, that a service member\\nwho has surgically transitioned to his or her preferred gender\\ndoes not present many of the anomalies and confusions\\napplicable to social or hormonal transition. But as I’ve already\\nmentioned, the studies leave uncertainty even for civilian life,\\nand the military could reasonably rest on special characteristics\\nof military life. As in Rostker, a court would “palpably\\nexceed[] its authority” if it “ignored” this “considered\\nresponse.” 453 U.S. at 81.\\n\\n D\\n\\n Given the “healthy deference” that we owe the political\\nbranches “in the area of military affairs,” Rostker, 453 U.S. at\\n66, plaintiffs look elsewhere to support their claim—namely, to\\nTwitter. As did the district court, they write off the entire\\nMattis policy (along with the extensive supporting study) as\\nfruit of the poisonous tweet. As plaintiffs and the district court\\nsee it, “unusual factors” supposedly surrounding the\\nPresident’s July 2017 tweet continue to taint all that has\\nhappened since (and, evidently, even the Mattis memo of June\\n30, 2017, which predated the President’s intervention). The\\n“post hoc processes and rationales,” they assert, “appear to\\n\\n 45\\n\\nhave been constrained by, and not truly independent from, the\\nPresident’s initial policy decisions.” Appellees’ Br. 26\\n(quoting Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 497). In fact, it’s hard to\\ndiscern anything especially “unusual” in the process.\\n\\n 1. The executive change of policy was not unusual.\\n\\n What of the circumstances supposedly surrounding the\\n“President’s initial policy decisions”—the July-August 2017\\ntweet and memorandum? Appellees’ Br. 26 (quoting Doe II,\\n315 F. Supp. 3d at 497). As the district court saw it, the “2017\\nPresidential directives” represented “an abrupt reversal in\\npolicy” announced without “formality” (never defined by the\\ncourt) and contrary to the conclusions of the military itself. See\\nDoe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 497; see also Doe I, 275 F. Supp. 3d\\n212–13. Not exactly.\\n\\n First, President Trump’s July-August 2017 directives\\ncame a month after, and were consistent with, Secretary\\nMattis’s prior memorandum. Compare Memorandum from\\nSecretary Mattis, to Secretaries of Military Departments (June\\n30, 2017), J.A. 425 (delaying implementation of Secretary\\nCarter’s policy change in order to have “additional time to\\nevaluate more carefully the impact”), with 2017 Presidential\\nMemorandum, 82 Fed. Reg. at 41,319 (Aug. 25, 2017)\\n(delaying implementation of Secretary Carter’s “policy\\nchange” and, among other things, calling for “further study”).\\nWhat formality was lacking? After Chairman Dunford of the\\nJoint Chiefs made clear that a tweet was an inadequate ground\\nfor action, see Memorandum from Chairman Dunford to Chiefs\\nof Military Services (July 27, 2017), J.A. 408, the President\\nissued a formal memorandum, published in the Federal\\nRegister. See Nat’l Inst. of Military Justice v. U.S. Dep’t of\\nDefense, 512 F.3d 677, 692 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (Tatel, J.,\\ndissenting) (Instructions “published in the Federal Register\\nwould be ‘formal.’”).\\n\\n 46\\n\\n Second, even if the “2017 Presidential directives”\\n“abrupt[ly]” reversed the policy of the prior administration and\\nwere issued without “formality,” Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at\\n497, “there’s nothing unusual about a new” administration\\n“coming to office inclined to favor a different policy direction,\\n. . . disagreeing with staff, or cutting through red tape,” In re\\nDep’t of Commerce, 139 S. Ct. 16, 17 (2018) (Gorsuch, J.,\\nconcurring in part, dissenting in part); cf. Motor Vehicle Mfrs.\\nAss’n of U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S.\\n29, 59 (1983) (Rehnquist, J., concurring in part, dissenting in\\npart) (“A change in administration brought about by the people\\ncasting their votes is a perfectly reasonable basis for an\\nexecutive agency’s reappraisal of the costs and benefits of its\\nprograms and regulations.”); Elena Kagan, Presidential\\nAdministration, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 2245, 2378 (2001) (“[N]ew\\nadministrative interpretations following new presidential\\nelections should provide a reason to think deference\\nappropriate rather than the opposite.”).\\n\\n 2. The military need not be independent of the President.\\n\\n Consider next plaintiffs’ contention, accepted by the\\ndistrict court, that “[d]eference to military decisionmaking . . .\\ndepends on the actual exercise of independent military\\njudgment.” Appellees’ Br. 32; accord, e.g., 322 F. Supp. 3d at\\n100–01; Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 497; Doe I, 275 F. Supp. 3d\\n214. Accordingly, plaintiffs and the district court argue,\\n“deference does not apply here” because the Mattis policy did\\nnot result from a process that was “‘truly independent’” of the\\n“‘President’s initial policy decisions.’” Appellees’ Br. 32\\n(quoting Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 497).\\n\\n Forget the rhetorical disregard of the true sequence of\\nevents. The “Constitution itself requires” deference to the\\nmilitary choices of the political branches. Rostker, 453 U.S. at\\n67; see, e.g., U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 1. This includes\\n\\n 47\\n\\ndeference to the judgments of military officials—not because\\nof their expertise—but because “the military authorities have\\nbeen charged by the” constitutionally responsible branches—\\nthat is, “the Executive and Legislative Branches”—“with\\ncarrying out our Nation’s military policy.” Goldman, 475 U.S.\\nat 507–08.\\n\\n Plaintiffs’ implication that military policies are suspect\\nunless they are (somehow) “independent” of the views of the\\nCommander in Chief, Appellees’ Br. 32; Doe II, 315 F. Supp.\\n3d at 497, verges on weird. We did, after all, rest our claim to\\nnational independence in part on anathematizing George III’s\\nattempts to “render the Military independent of and superior to\\nthe Civil Power.” The Declaration of Independence para. 14\\n(U.S. 1776) (emphasis added). And we endeavored in our\\nConstitution to make sure that such independence was never\\nexercised again. See, e.g., U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 1. That is\\nwhy “decisions as to the composition, training, equipping, and\\ncontrol of a military force are . . . subject always to civilian\\ncontrol of the Legislative and Executive Branches.” Gilligan,\\n413 U.S. at 10 (second emphasis added). “It is this power of\\noversight and control of military force by elected\\nrepresentatives and officials which underlies our entire\\nconstitutional system.” Id. (emphasis added).\\n\\n In any case, the record belies plaintiffs’ claim that the\\nMattis policy and the supporting study were “constrained by\\n. . . the President’s initial policy decisions.” Appellees’ Br. 26\\n(quoting Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 497). Consider the events\\nfollowing Secretary Mattis’s initial order to delay effectiveness\\nof the Carter plan and the President’s later tweet:\\n\\n The President himself called for a comprehensive study:\\n “The Secretary of Defense . . . may advise me at any time,\\n in writing, that a change to [the pre-Carter] policy is\\n\\n 48\\n\\nwarranted.” 2017 Presidential Memorandum, 82 Fed.\\nReg. at 41,319.\\n\\nSecretary Mattis ordered a comprehensive study: “The\\nPanel and designated support personnel shall bring a\\ncomprehensive, holistic, and objective approach to study\\nmilitary service by transgender individuals, focusing on\\nmilitary readiness, lethality, and unit cohesion, with due\\nregard for budgetary constraints and consistent with\\napplicable law.” Memorandum from Secretary Mattis to\\nSecretaries of Military Departments 2 (Sept. 14, 2017),\\nJ.A. 404.\\n\\nThe Department of Defense understood the panel of\\nexperts that Secretary Mattis convened to have conducted\\na comprehensive study: “To fulfill its mandate, the Panel\\naddressed three questions:” (i) “Should the Department of\\nDefense access transgender individuals?” (ii) “Should the\\nDepartment allow transgender individuals to transition\\ngender while serving, and if so, what treatment should be\\nauthorized?” (iii) “How should the Department address\\ntransgender individuals who are currently serving?” DoD\\nReport 18, J.A. 286 (emphasis added).\\n\\nThe Department’s report and recommendations were, in\\nfact, comprehensive—and contrary to the President’s\\ninitial policy decisions: Whereas the President’s July-\\nAugust 2017 directives called for “generally prohibit[ing]\\nopenly transgender individuals” from serving, 2017\\nPresidential Memorandum, 82 Fed. Reg. at 41,319, the\\nDepartment “conclude[d] that transgender persons should\\nnot be disqualified from service solely on account of their\\ntransgender status,” DoD Report 19, J.A. 287.\\n\\nWhen transmitting the proposed policy to the President,\\nSecretary Mattis confirmed that the review was\\n\\n 49\\n\\n independent: “I charged the Panel to provide its best\\n military advise, based on increasing the lethality and\\n readiness of America’s armed forces, without regard to any\\n external factors.” Mattis Memo 1, J.A. 263.\\n\\n In the same transmittal, Secretary Mattis asked the\\n President to “revoke” his initial policy directives: “I []\\n respectfully recommend that you revoke your\\n memorandum of August 25, 2017, regarding Military\\n Service by Transgender Individuals, thus allowing me . . .\\n to implement appropriate policies concerning military\\n service by transgender persons.” Mattis Memo 3, J.A. 265.\\n\\n The President acknowledged Secretary Mattis’s\\n “independent judgment,” and “revoke[d]” his initial\\n policy decisions: “I hereby revoke my memorandum of\\n August 25, 2017, ‘Military Service by Transgender\\n Individuals,’ and any other directives I may have made\\n with respect to military service by transgender\\n individuals. . . . The Secretary of Defense . . . may\\n exercise [his] authority to implement any appropriate\\n policies concerning military service by transgender\\n individuals.” 83 Fed. Reg. at 13,367.\\n\\nEspecially given Secretary Mattis’s initial call for a “review”\\nof “all relevant considerations” a month before the President\\ntweeted anything, see Memorandum from Secretary Mattis to\\nSecretaries of Military Departments (June 30, 2017), J.A.\\n425—this is hardly a fait accompli by tweet, much less a coup\\nd’état, oxymoronic as that would be in context.\\n\\n 3. Our review of military decision-making is limited.\\n\\n Plaintiffs and the district court may, to be sure, regard the\\nentire decisionmaking record as a Potemkin village, designed\\nto pull the wool over the eyes of simple-minded observers\\n\\n 50\\n\\n(including reviewing courts). Of course the plausibility of such\\na scheme tends to unravel as we try to imagine the dozens of\\nparticipants—the “Cabinet members and other officials,”\\nHawaii, 138 S. Ct. at 2405—who would have been needed for\\nits realization.\\n\\n But apart from implausibility, plaintiffs’ approach rests on\\na fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of our review. In\\nTrump v. Hawaii, the Supreme Court addressed an executive\\norder that had been preceded by presidential tweets that the\\ndissenters characterized as “expressing animus toward Islam,”\\n138 S. Ct. at 2435 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting); accord id. at\\n2433 (Breyer, J., dissenting), a claim never directly refuted by\\nthe majority. Refusing to see the issue as “whether to denounce\\nthe statements,” and rejecting the exhortation to “probe the\\nsincerity of the stated justifications for the policy by reference\\nto extrinsic statements,” the Court saw its task as being to\\n“consider not only the statements of a particular President, but\\nalso the authority of the Presidency itself.” 138 S. Ct. at 2418\\n(majority opinion). Although it might be permissible to\\n“consider plaintiffs’ extrinsic evidence” (in Hawaii, the\\ngovernment conceded this point), the Court made clear that\\ncourts must nevertheless “uphold the [challenged] policy so\\nlong as it can reasonably be understood to result from a\\njustification independent of unconstitutional grounds.” Id. at\\n2420. And for all the reasons discussed above, the Mattis\\npolicy can easily be understood to have arisen out of perfectly\\nlegitimate considerations.\\n\\n This “narrow standard of review ‘has particular force’”\\nwhere, as here, the case “overlap[s] with ‘the area of national\\nsecurity.’” Id. at 2419 (quoting Kerry v. Din, 135 S. Ct. 2128,\\n2140 (2015) (Kennedy, J., concurring)). The Hawaii Court\\noffered two justifications for this standard of review—both of\\nwhich readily apply here. “For one, ‘[j]udicial inquiry into the\\nnational-security realm raises concerns for the separation of\\n\\n 51\\n\\npowers’ by intruding on the President’s constitutional\\nresponsibilities[.]” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Ziglar v.\\nAbbasi, 137 S. Ct. 1843, 1861 (2017)); see Gilligan, 413 U.S.\\nat 10–11. “For another, ‘when it comes to collecting evidence\\nand drawing inferences’ on questions of national security, ‘the\\nlack of competence on the part of the courts is marked.’”\\nHawaii, 138 S. Ct. at 2419 (quoting Holder v. Humanitarian\\nLaw Project, 561 U.S. 1, 34 (2010)). For both reasons, our\\nreview into matters of “national security is highly constrained.”\\nId. at 2420; see also id. at 2420 n.5 (rejecting a “more free-\\nranging inquiry” in the “national security” context).\\n\\n This highly deferential approach is evident in the Court’s\\nreview—and affirmance—of two facially discriminatory,\\ngender-based classifications that would unquestionably have\\nfallen had any government attempted to apply them in the\\ncivilian world. In Schlesinger the Court upheld a statute\\nentitling male and female Navy lieutenants to different periods\\nof tenure, 419 U.S. at 499–500—that is, a statue “premised\\nsolely upon” a “[s]uspect” classification, id. at 511 (Brennan,\\nJ., dissenting). Although the dissent focused (at length) on\\nwhat “in fact” was “behind” Congress’s decision, id. at 520, the\\nmajority made quick work of the challenge, looking, instead, to\\nwhat “Congress may . . . quite rationally have believed,” id. at\\n508 (majority opinion) (emphasis added). This was not a\\nsearching inquiry. See id. at 511 (Brennan, J., dissenting)\\n(“[T]he Court goes far to conjure up a legislative purpose which\\nmay have underlain the gender-based distinction here\\nattacked.”). Rather, the majority’s approach was one grounded\\nin—and thus constrained by—a proper understanding of the\\nseparation of powers. See id. at 510–11 (majority opinion)\\n(discussing U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cls. 12–14; art. II, § 2, cl. 1).\\n\\n Rostker—upholding a statutory exclusion of females from\\ndraft registration—pursued a similarly constrained analysis.\\nAs in Schlesinger, the dissenting justices homed in on what\\n\\n 52\\n\\nthey thought “Congress itself [had] concluded.” Rostker, 453\\nU.S. at 83 (White, J., dissenting); see also, e.g., id. at 106–07\\n(Marshall, J., dissenting) (finding “nothing in the Senate\\nReport” to support the majority’s representation of what\\n“Congress believed”). Yet, again, the majority declined to\\nembark on a searching inquiry of congressional motives.\\nRather, invoking Schlesinger, see 453 U.S. at 70 (majority\\nopinion) (describing it as “perhaps” the “best instance[]” of\\nproper “reconciliation between the deference due Congress”\\nand the Court’s own duty), the Court simply identified\\nconclusions or facts in the record that justified Congress’s\\npolicy choice—the whole time scrupulously resisting the urge\\nto substitute its own “evaluation of evidence” for that of\\nCongress, id. at 68.\\n\\n In the words of Hawaii, the Court upheld these policies\\nbecause they could “reasonably be understood to result from a\\njustification independent of unconstitutional grounds,” 138 S.\\nCt. at 2420—as could the Mattis policy.\\n\\n E\\n\\n Confronted with Hawaii, Goldman, Rostker, and\\nSchlesinger, plaintiffs contend that “heightened scrutiny”\\nnevertheless applies. Appellees’ Br. 32; accord, e.g., Doe I,\\n275 F. Supp. 3d at 211 (applying “heightened scrutiny”). This\\nis so, they claim, because the Mattis policy “facially”\\ndiscriminates against a “suspect” class (i.e., transgender\\npersons).7 See, e.g., Appellees’ Br. 16. But (1) the Mattis\\npolicy is facially neutral, and (2) it would not trigger heightened\\nscrutiny even if it were not.\\n\\n\\n\\n 7\\n For the reasons below we need not decide whether transgender\\npersons are members of a suspect class.\\n\\n 53\\n\\n The Mattis policy, like the Carter policy before it, turns not\\non transgender status, but on a medical condition called gender\\ndysphoria. See Mattis Memo 2–3, J.A. 264–65; Carter Memo,\\nattachment at 1, J.A. 588. In fact, the Mattis policy expressly\\nprovides that “[t]ransgender persons without a history or\\ndiagnosis of gender dysphoria, who are otherwise qualified for\\nservice, may serve, like all other Service members, in their\\nbiological sex.” Mattis Memo 3, J.A. 265 (emphasis added).\\n\\n Plaintiffs, of course, object to the requirement that all must\\nserve in their biological sex. That is central to their claim. See\\nOral Arg. Tr. 19:12–16 (arguing that the Mattis policy “requires\\nanyone who serves to do so in their biological sex,” but that\\n“not living in a person’s biological sex is the defining\\ncharacteristic of what it means to be transgender”). But the\\nrequirement is nevertheless facially neutral; “all” means “all.”\\nTransgender or non-transgender; gender dysphoria or non-\\ngender dysphoria; “all” service members must serve “in their\\nbiological sex.” Mattis Memo 3, J.A. 265. This can’t be\\nfacially discriminatory as to transgender persons; military\\nofficials need not know an individual’s transgender status in\\norder to enforce the policy—knowledge of physical\\ncharacteristics unrelated to gender preference is both necessary\\nand sufficient. Cf. Crandall v. Paralyzed Veterans of Am., 146\\nF.3d 894, 897 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (observing that an employer\\ncan’t discriminate on the basis of a disability without an actual\\n“awareness of the disability itself”).\\n\\n To be sure, plaintiffs (wrongly) maintain that the\\nbiological-based sex standards operate as a complete ban on\\ntransgender persons. Panel Judgment *2 (This is “clear\\nerror.”). But the effect of these standards on transgender\\npersons (Slip op. 20 n.* (Wilkins, J., concurring)) is no different\\nfrom that of a regulation barring headgear (and thus yarmulkes)\\non Orthodox Jews. See Goldman, 475 U.S. at 514 (Brennan,\\nJ., dissenting) (“It sets up an almost absolute bar to the\\n\\n 54\\n\\nfulfillment of a religious duty.”). Even if both policies require\\n“suppressi[on] [of] the characteristic that defines [a person’s]\\nidentity,” Appellees’ Br. 21—be it “transgender identity,” id.,\\nor “religious . . . identity,” Goldman, 475 U.S. at 517 (Brennan,\\nJ., dissenting)—the magnitude of the impact does nothing to\\ntransform a facially neutral policy into a facially discriminatory\\none, see id. at 510 (majority opinion) (describing the headgear\\npolicy as “reasonabl[e]” and “evenhanded[]” “even though [its]\\neffect is to restrict . . . [expression] required by [] religious\\nbeliefs”); id. at 513 (Stevens, J., concurring) (agreeing that the\\nheadgear policy is “neutral, completely objective”).\\n\\n Plaintiffs, nevertheless, maintain that the Mattis policy is\\ninvalid because it “hinges on a person’s transgender status; it\\nsubjects transgender people—and only transgender people—to\\na ‘special additional exclusionary rule.’” Appellees’ Br. 20\\n(quoting Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 497); accord, e.g., Stockman\\nv. Trump, 331 F. Supp. 3d 990, 999–1000 (C.D. Cal. 2018),\\nappeal docketed, No. 18-56539 (9th Cir. Nov. 16, 2018),\\nstayed, No. 18A627, 2019 WL 271946 (U.S. Jan. 22, 2019),\\nand cert. before judgment denied, No. 18-678, 2019 WL\\n272027 (U.S. Jan. 22, 2019). The argument (it seems) proceeds\\nas follows: Whereas both transgender and “non-transgender\\npeople can experience gender dysphoria,” Report of the\\nTransgender Military Service Commission 24 n.31, J.A. 771\\n(emphasis added); accord DoD Report 20 n.57, J.A. 288, the\\nMattis policy presumptively disqualifies only “[t]ransgender\\npersons with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria,”\\nAppellees’ Br. 20 (quoting Mattis Memo 2, J.A. 264).\\n\\n But in reality non-transgender people with gender\\ndysphoria are no better off than their transgender compatriots\\nin terms of rules for accession and retention. And this would\\nbe true even if the Mattis policy on gender dysphoria were\\napplied only to transgender persons, as plaintiffs claim, but the\\nrecord appears to bely. See DoD Report 42, J.A. 310\\n\\n 55\\n\\n(describing the Mattis policy’s gender dysphoria\\ndisqualification in terms of all “persons”). Non-transgender\\nindividuals who develop gender dysphoria do so as a\\nconsequence of grievous injuries or diseases, see DoD Report\\n20 n.57, J.A. 288 (citing Report of the Transgender Military\\nService Commission 24 n.31, J.A. 771), that are themselves\\npresumptively disqualifying. The only examples in the record\\ninvolve horrific testicular wounds or mastectomies because of\\ncancer. But, absent waiver, no individual—transgender or\\nnot—may join the military with a history of such conditions.\\nSee DoD Instruction 6130.03: Medical Standards for\\nAppointment, Enlistment, or Induction into the Military\\nServices 25 (May 6, 2018), J.A. 236 (disqualifying those\\nwithout testicles); id. at 46, J.A. 257 (same for those with\\nhistory of malignancy). And if an individual were already in\\nthe military when he or she began experiencing gender\\ndysphoria, then—again, regardless of transgender status—that\\nindividual could “be retained” so long as he or she did “not\\nrequire a change of gender and remain[ed] deployable within\\napplicable retention standards.” Mattis Memo 2, J.A. 26. There\\nis thus no daylight between the opportunities available to\\ntransgender individuals with gender dysphoria and non-\\ntransgender individuals with gender dysphoria.\\n\\n And even if there were a difference—suppose there were,\\ntheoretically, a non-transgender person who suffered from\\ngender dysphoria and who was eligible to serve without\\nwaiver—plaintiffs’ attack on the Mattis policy would still be\\nuntenable. Plaintiffs cannot have their cake and eat it, too: they\\ncannot seek to invalidate the Mattis policy on the basis that it\\n“subjects transgender people—and only transgender people—\\nto a ‘special additional exclusionary rule,’” Appellees’ Br. 20,\\nwhile, at the same time, seeking a remedy (a return to the Carter\\npolicy, see Second Am. Compl. 20, J.A. 209) that runs afoul of\\nprecisely the principle they invoke against the Mattis policy: it\\ntoo subjects “transgender” people—and only “transgender”\\n\\n 56\\n\\npeople—to a special additional exclusionary rule, see Carter\\nMemo 1, J.A. 585 (“This DTM [Directive-type Memorandum]:\\nEstablishes policy . . . for the standards for retention, accession\\n. . . for transgender personnel[.]”). Cf. United States v.\\nBethlehem Steel Corp., 446 F.2d 652, 661 (2d Cir. 1971)\\n(rejecting objection to one remedy where party didn’t object to\\na different remedy that was “logically . . . subject to the same\\n[alleged] defect”).\\n\\n Further, the context refutes plaintiffs’ inference of biased\\nintent. To the extent that Secretary Mattis addressed\\n“transgender persons” (as opposed to all persons), this focus\\nseems more a sign of bureaucratic orderliness than animus.\\nRecall that Secretary Carter first commissioned studies\\nregarding service by “transgender Service members” and,\\nultimately, established a new policy for service by “transgender\\npersonnel.” See Memorandum from Secretary Carter to\\nSecretaries of Military Departments (July 28, 2015), J.A. 709;\\nCarter Memo, J.A. 585. It is only natural that his successor\\nwould follow suit.\\n\\n In addition, there appear to be genuine bureaucratic\\nimperatives that swayed Secretary Carter as much as Secretary\\nMattis. For example, it seems quite rational to handle on a case-\\nby-case basis (rather than with a formal policy) the evidently\\nrare instances in which non-transgender persons develop\\ngender dysphoria. The examples in the record seem in their\\nnature to call for case-specific treatment—grievous battlefield\\ninjuries (i.e., “genital wounds”) and drastic surgeries (i.e.,\\n“mastectom[ies] because of breast cancer”). DoD Report 20\\nn.57, J.A. 288. To handle these on an individualized basis\\nseems more a matter of common sense than animus.\\n\\n In any case, even if the Mattis policy were facially\\ndiscriminatory, this fact would not compel a different result.\\nThe policy disputed in Rostker, after all, “was not facially\\n\\n 57\\n\\nneutral,” as counsel for plaintiffs conceded. See Oral Arg. Tr.\\n26:16–20 (conceding that “Rostker wasn’t” facially neutral).\\nNor is plaintiffs’ comparison to Frontiero v. Richardson, 411\\nU.S. 677 (1973) (plurality opinion), apt. See Appellees’ Br. 33.\\nAs we have explained, the only reason that the Court applied\\nheightened scrutiny to the disputed congressional rules on\\nmilitary fringe benefits was because, unlike here, the\\nchallenged policies “never purported to be a congressional\\njudgment on a uniquely military matter.” Goldman, 734 F.2d\\nat 1537.\\n\\n Here, as in Rostker, the Mattis policy’s classifications are\\n“not invidious, but rather realistically reflect[] the fact that the\\nsexes are not similarly situated.” Rostker, 453 U.S. at 79. To\\nsay, for example, that a biological male (who identifies as\\nfemale) is similarly situated to a biological female is, to put it\\ncourteously, a “gesture[] of superficial equality.” Id. Whatever\\nthe arguments for such a gesture, it is not constitutionally\\nrequired in the military context. Rostker, 453 U.S. at 79.\\n\\n And while some transgender individuals (an exceedingly\\nsmall percentage) undergo sex-reassignment surgery, which\\nmight, in some instances, closely align a person’s biological sex\\nto his preferred gender, the fact is that an anatomical male from\\nbirth is simply not the same as an anatomical male from\\nsurgery: one has undergone a rare medical intervention; the\\nother has not. The military may legitimately decide that the\\ntwo are “not similarly situated,” Rostker, 453 U.S. at 78, and\\nthe executive branch is under no constitutional obligation to roll\\nthe dice, hoping—against its own considered assessment of the\\nevidence, see, e.g., DoD Report 24, J.A. 292; id. at 32, J.A.\\n300—that the efficacy of such surgeries will reliably withstand\\nthe rigors of combat. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. at 2421 (“[W]e cannot\\nsubstitute our own assessment for the Executive’s predictive\\njudgments on” matters of “national security.”).\\n\\n 58\\n\\n IV\\n\\n What I have said thus far is enough to reverse the decision\\nof the district court and dissolve the preliminary injunction.\\nHaving reached this point, a court of appeals would typically\\nend its review; with the injunction dissolved, the case would\\nthen proceed in the district court. (Under my approach, the\\ndistrict court would, of course, be constrained by this court’s\\nanalysis of the merits.)\\n\\n But there are occasions where it is appropriate to proceed\\nfurther and “definitively decid[e] the merits.” U.S. Ass’n of\\nReptile Keepers, Inc. v. Zinke, 852 F.3d 1131, 1134–35 (D.C.\\nCir. 2017) (emphasis added). This is one of them. As I said at\\nthe outset, see supra Part II.B, “once jurisdiction is properly\\ninvoked under [28 U.S.C.] § 1292(a)(1),” we may “‘dispos[e]\\nof all matters appropriately raised by the record, including entry\\nof final judgment.’” Hartman, 19 F.3d at 1464 (quoting\\nWagner, 836 F.2d at 585); accord, e.g., Munaf, 553 U.S. at 691\\n(“[A] reviewing court has the power on appeal from an\\ninterlocutory order ‘to examine the merits of the case . . . and\\nupon deciding them in favor of the defendant to dismiss the\\nbill.’” (second alteration in original) (quoting Story, 268 U.S.\\nat 292)).\\n\\n The present case implicates sensitive separation of powers\\nconcerns—all in the context of military preparedness. See, e.g.,\\nMunaf, 553 U.S. at 692 (resolving the merits and dismissing the\\ncase, which had arisen “in the context of ongoing military\\noperations”); see also Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer,\\n343 U.S. 579, 584–85 (1952) (resolving the merits on appeal\\nfrom stay of preliminary injunction). And, for the reasons\\ndiscussed above, the government “is entitled to judgment as a\\nmatter of law.” Munaf, 553 U.S. at 692. The district court’s\\nfinding that “some factual issues are in dispute,” Slip op. 19\\n(Wilkins, J., concurring), does not warrant a different\\n\\n 59\\n\\nconclusion. As explained above, those “facts”—“about the\\nprocess leading up to the development of the Mattis [policy],”\\n322 F. Supp. 3d at 100; see also Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at\\n497—are irrelevant to the judicial analysis of military\\npersonnel policy dictated by Supreme Court authority, see\\nsupra Part III.D.3. Nor does any “confusion” concerning the\\nMattis policy’s “requirements” for service in accordance with\\nthe standards applicable to one’s “biological sex,” Slip op. 20\\n(Wilkins, J., concurring), call for further discovery. It’s hard to\\nimagine how more detail on that subject could have any impact\\non plaintiffs’ “facial challenge” (Appellees’ Br. 53) to the\\nMattis policy, especially as the Carter policy, which plaintiffs\\nwant the executive branch to “revert to,” see Second Am.\\nCompl. 20, J.A. 209, similarly required service in one’s\\nbiological sex (at least until a service member’s gender\\ntransition was “complete,” see Appellees’ Br. 45).\\n\\n Any further proceedings—including a highly intrusive\\nexamination of the President’s mental processes, see, e.g., 322\\nF. Supp. 3d at 101; 319 F. Supp. 3d at 543—would thus “be\\nidle, or worse,” Orloff, 345 U.S. at 92, see, e.g., Reptile\\nKeepers, 852 F.3d at 1135 (“reach[ing] a definitive judgment\\n. . . in order to ‘save the parties the expense of future litigation’”\\n(quoting Thornburgh v. Am. Coll. of Obstetricians &\\nGynecologists, 476 U.S. 747, 756–57 (1986)). The district\\ncourts in Rostker and Goldman, to be sure, may have permitted\\nsuch intrusions into executive decision making, see Slip op. 21\\n(Wilkins, J., concurring)—but, of course, those courts were\\nreversed, see Goldman, 475 U.S. at 504 (“The Court of Appeals\\n. . . reversed . . . and [we] now affirm.”); Rostker, 453 U.S. at\\n83 (“The decision of the District Court . . . is accordingly\\nReversed.”). And it does not appear that the Supreme Court\\nconsidered any evidence uncovered by those trial courts’\\nexplorations to be necessary—or even pertinent—to its\\ndisposition of the cases. To the contrary, Goldman dismissed\\nplaintiff’s “expert testimony” as “quite beside the point,” 475\\n\\n 60\\n\\nU.S. at 509, and Rostker chastised the district court for\\n“palpably exceed[ing] its authority” in “relying on [such]\\ntestimony,” 453 U.S. at 81. Compare, e.g., Goldberg v.\\nRostker, 509 F. Supp. 586, 600–02 & nn.25–26 (E.D. Pa. 1980)\\n(three-judge court) (citing deposition testimony that 80,000\\nfemales inductees could fill noncombat roles “and release men\\nfor immediate deployment into combat”), and Rostker, 453\\nU.S. at 84 (White, J., dissenting) (similar), with Rostker, 453\\nU.S. at 81 (majority opinion) (criticizing the district court for\\nrelying on precisely that testimony). I do not see inviting a\\ndistrict court to go down the pointless path of the Goldman and\\nRostker district courts as a sign of judicial restraint. But cf. Slip\\nop. 19, 21 (Wilkins, J., concurring).\\n\\n This is not a matter of privilege, see Slip op. 20 (Wilkins,\\nJ., concurring), or of shielding the government “from all\\ndiscovery,” id. at 21, but of respect for the judiciary’s proper\\nplace in our democracy—not to mention common sense:\\nWhere, as here, plaintiffs cannot save their claims with any\\nfurther discovery because the law so clearly forecloses their\\ndemands—both on the current record and with any additions\\nthat can plausibly be imagined—the court should not bless (or\\ninvite) a futile fishing expedition into the executive’s\\ndecisionmaking—especially of the intrusive sort contemplated\\nby the district court. The court should say what the law is and\\nbe done with it.\\n\\n Here, we have the benefit of the Supreme Court’s views in\\nRostker and Goldman—which leave little doubt that further\\nproceedings would do nothing but harm. After all, “judicial\\ninquiries into . . . executive motivation represent a substantial\\nintrusion into the workings of [a coordinate] branch[] of\\ngovernment.” Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Housing\\nDev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 268 n.18 (1977). And litigation itself\\n“might distract [the executive branch] from the energetic\\nperformance of its constitutional duties”—a distraction that we\\n\\n 61\\n\\nmust guard against, as a matter of “paramount necessity.”\\nCheney v. U.S. Dist. Court for D.C., 542 U.S. 367, 382 (2004).\\nThat is why, where, as here, the executive branch has acted\\n“within its appropriate sphere,” its action “must be promptly\\nrecognized, and . . . [the] delay and inconvenience of a\\nprolonged litigation must be avoided by prompt termination of\\nthe proceedings in the district court.” Id. (brackets omitted;\\nellipsis in original) (quoting Ex parte Republic of Peru, 318\\nU.S. 578, 587 (1943)).\\n\\n In this case, the executive branch has reasonably “drawn\\nthe line” for military service, Goldman, 475 U.S. at 510,\\n“balancing” the needs of “servicemen against the needs of the\\nmilitary” itself, Loving, 517 U.S. at 767. Plaintiffs’ claims, by\\ncontrast, are fundamentally flawed in almost every respect.\\nThey give short shrift to the findings of a panel of military\\nexperts commissioned by the secretary of defense. They never\\ngrapple with the fact that the presidential tweet, on which they\\nplace so much weight, post-dates—rather than ante-dates—the\\ndecision of the secretary to reevaluate the previous\\nadministration’s policies. Their theory of the case requires\\nrecharacterizing the policy adopted by Secretary Mattis as a\\n“ban” on service by transgender persons, which it is not, and\\npretending that the military could comply with its existing\\n(partially congressionally mandated) sex-based standards by\\nallowing persons of one biological sex to conform to the rules\\napplicable to the opposite biological sex.\\n\\n In sum, plaintiffs cannot demonstrate a likelihood of\\nsuccess on the merits. For that reason, I “need not consider the\\nother [preliminary injunction] factors,” Greater New Orleans\\nFair Hous. Action Ctr. v. U.S. Dep’t of Hous. & Urban Dev.,\\n639 F.3d 1078, 1089 (D.C. Cir. 2011); see also Munaf, 553 U.S.\\nat 690 (“[A] party seeking a preliminary injunction must\\ndemonstrate, among other things, ‘a likelihood of success on\\nthe merits.’” (quoting Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita\\n\\n 62\\n\\nBeneficente Uniao Do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418, 428 (2006))).\\nPlaintiffs cannot prevail—so, as in Munaf, “the wisest course”\\nis to “terminate the litigation now.” 553 U.S. at 692.\\n\\n 63\\n\\n Appendix: Standing and the Nationwide Injunction\\n\\n Because at least one plaintiff has standing, the rather\\nobvious defects of the others’ standing need not be resolved on\\nthis appeal. And because there would be ample ground to\\nvacate the nationwide injunction even if it ran (properly) only\\nin favor of the parties before the court, the same is true of the\\ninjunction’s breadth. But because the district court’s use of the\\nnarrowness of the group before it as a justification for the\\nbreadth of its injunction is so extraordinary, see 344 F. Supp.\\n3d at 24 (claiming that “nationwide injunctions are proper, and\\nsometimes necessary, in circumstances where class\\ncertification may be impossible”), and because the plaintiffs’\\ntheories of standing (accepted by the district court) are so flatly\\nin contradiction of binding precedent, a brief discussion of\\nthese issues seems worthwhile—especially as the case is set to\\nproceed before the district court. See Air Line Pilots Ass’n v.\\nUAL Corp., 897 F.2d 1394, 1397 (7th Cir. 1990) (an appellate\\ncourt’s reversal on one ground does not moot alternative\\ngrounds for reversal).\\n\\n Standing. To begin, a majority of the plaintiffs\\nunquestionably lack standing. Plaintiffs Regan Kibby, Jane\\nDoes 2 through 5, and John Doe 1 were diagnosed with gender\\ndysphoria in reliance on the Carter policy, see Doe II, 315 F.\\nSupp. 3d at 486; Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 7–21, 27–30, 33–34,\\nJ.A. 191–96, and now demand that the military “revert to” the\\nstandards established under that policy, see id. at 20, J.A. 209.\\nBut Secretary Mattis agreed with them: Pursuant to the reliance\\nexception, these service members “may continue to serve in\\ntheir preferred gender and receive medically necessary\\ntreatment for gender dysphoria.” Mattis Memo 2, J.A. 264.\\nThis is not in dispute. See, e.g., Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 486;\\nAppellees’ Br. 49. What, then, are they doing here? These\\nplaintiffs have already secured agreement to exactly what they\\n\\n 64\\n\\nwant; there is thus nothing left for the court to give them; and\\ntheir claims must be dismissed.\\n\\n Plaintiffs respond that they still need judicial intervention\\nbecause the Mattis policy—even if it were applied only to\\nothers—would, nonetheless, stigmatize them as members of\\n“an inherently inferior class of service members.” 344 F. Supp.\\n3d at 25; see Appellees’ Br. 49–50. But this argument is\\nfrivolous. A military policy that does not apply to plaintiffs,\\nbut “makes them feel like second-class citizens,” does not give\\nrise to a judicially cognizable injury. In re Navy Chaplaincy,\\n534 F.3d 756, 763 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (Kavanaugh, J.). Period.\\nThe district court’s continued insistence that it does is baffling.\\nCompare, e.g., Doe II, 315 F. Supp. 3d at 487–88 (“[T]he\\n‘stigmatic’ aspects of Plaintiffs’ injuries were . . . alone\\nsufficient to confer standing[.]”), with Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S.\\n737, 755 (1984) (Plaintiffs cannot establish “standing to litigate\\ntheir claims based on the[ir] stigmatizing injury[.]”).8\\n\\n As an alternative ground for standing, plaintiffs contend\\nthat the Mattis policy—again, even if it were applied only to\\nothers—would, nonetheless, “imperil [their] military careers by\\nreducing their ‘opportunities for assignments, promotion,\\n\\n 8\\n The “stigmatizing injury often caused by . . . discrimination” may,\\n“in some circumstances,” support standing, Allen, 468 U.S. at 755\\n(citing Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U.S. 728, 739–40 (1984))—namely,\\nwhere an individual has been “personally denied equal treatment,”\\nbut relief in the form of an “extension of benefits” is “forbid[den],”\\nHeckler, 465 U.S. at 740. In such circumstances, the Court has been\\nready to “redress[]” the “unequal treatment” by ordering “withdrawal\\nof benefits from the favored class,” even though the only direct\\nbenefit to the plaintiff would be removal of a “stigma[].” Id. at 739–\\n40. But where, as here, a plaintiff has not been “personally denied\\nequal treatment,” the plaintiff does not “have standing to litigate [his]\\nclaims based on the stigmatizing injury.” Allen, 468 U.S. at 755.\\n\\n 65\\n\\ntraining, and deployment.’” Appellees’ Br. 50 (quoting Doe II,\\n315 F. Supp. 3d at 488). That is so, plaintiffs claim, not because\\nof any particular provision of the policy, but because its mere\\nexistence (along with its “lengthy supporting memorandum”\\nand, of course, the President’s tweets) would spur military\\nofficers to “place less trust in Plaintiffs.” Doe II, 315 F. Supp.\\n3d at 488.\\n\\n How so? Let’s assume (against reason) that plaintiffs are\\nright—that military officers will so over-zealously implement\\nan implied instruction (i.e., “that Plaintiffs’ service is harmful\\nto the military”), that these obsessive followers of “military\\nhierarchy,” id., will completely overlook an explicit instruction\\nto the contrary (i.e., respect the military’s “commitment to\\nthese Service members,” DoD Report 43, J.A. 311). How\\nwould an injunction against enforcement of the Mattis policy\\nbring plaintiffs relief? Whether or not the military could\\nenforce the Mattis policy has nothing to do with how various\\nunspecified officers (who, by the way, are not parties before the\\ncourt) would react to the policy’s “lengthy supporting\\nmemorandum” or to the President’s tweets. See Doe II, 315 F.\\nSupp. 3d at 488. Those allegedly malign directives would still\\nexist: The district court cannot order the Department of Defense\\nto drop all copies of the military’s study down the memory\\nhole; nor can it force the secretary of defense to intone some\\ncourt-approved truth on the Pentagon’s steps. So, whether\\nplaintiffs will end up with “an unfavorable work detail” or not,\\nid., enforcement of the Mattis policy will have nothing to do\\nwith it; their claims, if any ever arise, will be against not the\\npolicy, but the officer who (unlawfully) discriminates.\\n\\n With no plausible claim to standing, then, the claims of\\nplaintiffs Regan Kibby, Jane Does 2 through 5, and John Doe\\n1 must be dismissed.\\n\\n 66\\n\\n Nationwide Injunction. Plaintiffs demanded that a single\\ndistrict judge “bar” a coordinate branch of government from\\n“enforc[ing]” a challenged “policy” directive—not merely\\nagainst the ten plaintiffs, but against any individual to whom it\\nmight be applied, whether they are before the court or not.\\nAppellees’ Br. 53. This so-called “modern” remedy, 344 F.\\nSupp. 3d at 24, is highly unusual, to put it mildly.\\n\\n Just last term, the Supreme Court reiterated a critical\\nmessage about “the proper—and properly limited—role of the\\ncourts in [our] democratic society.” Gill v. Whitford, 138 S. Ct.\\n1916, 1929 (2018) (quoting Allen, 468 U.S. at 750). “The\\nCourt’s constitutionally prescribed role is to vindicate the\\nindividual rights of the people appearing before it.” Id. at 1933.\\nNothing more. “[I]t is not the role of courts, but that of the\\npolitical branches, to shape the institutions of government in\\nsuch fashion as to comply with the laws and the Constitution.”\\nLewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 349 (1996). Thus, the Court\\n“caution[ed],” a plaintiff’s judicial “remedy must be tailored to\\nredress the plaintiff’s particular injury.” Gill, 138 S. Ct. at 1934\\n(emphasis added) (quoting DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno,\\n547 U.S. 332, 353 (2006)).\\n\\n Such judicial restraint is especially appropriate where, as\\nhere, the case concerns the internal operations of the military.\\n“Our constitutional framework ‘requires that the judiciary be as\\nscrupulous not to interfere with legitimate Army matters as the\\nArmy must be scrupulous not to intervene in judicial matters.’”\\nMunaf, 553 U.S. at 700 (quoting Orloff, 345 U.S. at 94). Thus,\\neven if a remedy were appropriate in this case—and it’s not—\\nit should in no event extend beyond the actual plaintiffs. Cf.\\nDep’t of Defense v. Meinhold, 510 U.S. 939, 939 (1993)\\n(staying injunction against military personnel policy to the\\nextent the injunction “grant[ed] relief to persons other than [the\\nplaintiff]”); Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War,\\n418 U.S. 208, 222 (1974) (explaining that the “framing of relief\\n\\n 67\\n\\nno broader than required by the precise facts” of the case is\\n“especially important when the relief sought produces a\\nconfrontation with one of the coordinate branches of the\\nGovernment”).\\n\\n Indeed, when asked at oral argument for any case “in the\\nhistory of the Republic in which the judiciary has decided\\nmilitary-wide rules about accession and retention,” plaintiffs’\\ncounsel offered only Crawford v. Cushman, 531 F.2d 1114 (2d\\nCir. 1976). Oral Arg. Tr. 28:21–29:14. But although Crawford\\nused casual language suggesting readiness to direct an order\\n“declaring the challenged regulation to be unconstitutional,” id.\\nat 1126, 1127, it never issued any such order, and, in any event,\\nthe Second Circuit has broadly rejected Crawford’s entire want\\nof deference to military judgments “in light of the intervening\\nSupreme Court opinion in Rostker[],” see Mack v. Rumsfeld,\\n784 F.2d 438, 439 (2d Cir. 1986); see also Goldman, 734 F.2d\\nat 1537–38 (offering similar criticism).\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4375280/\", \"author_raw\": \"WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"GRIFFITH"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"WILKINS"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"WILLIAMS"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":5,"string":"5"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":2,"string":"2"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598027/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Jane DOE 2, Et Al., Appellees v. Patrick M. SHANAHAN, in His Official Capacity as Acting Secretary of Defense, Et Al., Appellants\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-08\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued December 10, 2018 Decided March 8, 2019*\n\n No. 18-5257\n\n JANE DOE 2, ET AL.,\n APPELLEES\n\n v.\n\nPATRICK M. SHANAHAN, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS ACTING\n SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, ET AL.,\n APPELLANTS\n\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the District of Columbia\n (No. 1:17-cv-01597)\n\n\n Brinton Lucas, Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General,\nU.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellants.\nWith him on the briefs were Hashim M. Mooppan, Deputy\nAssistant Attorney General, Marleigh D. Dover, and Tara S.\nMorrissey, Attorneys.\n\n Jennifer Levi argued the cause for appellees. With her on\nthe brief were Paul R.Q. Wolfson, John T. Byrnes, Kevin M.\nLamb, Alan E. Schoenfeld, Shannon P. Minter, and\nChristopher Stoll.\n\n*\n The Panel issued a judgment on January 4, 2019 (2019 WL\n102309). Judges Wilkins and Williams now file separate opinions.\n\n 2\n Maura Healey, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney\nGeneral for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Robert E.\nToone, Assistant Attorney General, Janet T. Mills, Attorney\nGeneral at the time the brief was filed, Office of the Attorney\nGeneral for the State of Maine, Brian E. Frosh, Attorney\nGeneral for the State of Maryland, Lori Swanson, Attorney\nGeneral at the time the brief was filed, Office of the Attorney\nGeneral for the State of Minnesota, Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney\nGeneral, Office of the Attorney General for the State of New\nJersey, Hector Balderas, Attorney General, Office of the\nAttorney General for the State of New Mexico, Barbara\nUnderwood, Attorney General at the time the brief was filed,\nOffice of the Attorney General for the State of New York,\nJoshua H. Stein, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney\nGeneral for the State of North Carolina, Xavier Becerra,\nAttorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the State\nof California, George Jepsen, Attorney General at the time the\nbrief was filed, Office of the Attorney General for the State of\nConnecticut, Matthew P. Denn, Attorney General at the time\nthe brief was filed, Office of the Attorney General for the State\nof Delaware, Karl A. Racine, Attorney General, Office of the\nAttorney General for the District of Columbia, Russell A.\nSuzuki, Attorney General at the time the brief was filed, Office\nof the Attorney General for the State of Hawaii, Lisa Madigan,\nAttorney General at the time the brief was filed, Office of the\nAttorney General for the State of Illinois, Tom Miller, Attorney\nGeneral, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Iowa,\nPeter F. Kilmartin, Attorney General at the time the brief was\nfiled, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Rhode\nIsland, Thomas J. Donovan, Jr., Attorney General, Office of\nthe Attorney General for the State of Vermont, Mark R.\nHerring, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for\nthe Commonwealth of Virginia, Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney\nGeneral, Office of the Attorney General for the State of\nOregon, and Josh Shapiro, Attorney General, Office of the\n\n 3\nAttorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,\nwere on the brief for amici curiae The States of Massachusetts,\net al. in support of appellees and affirmance of the District\nCourt decision.\n\n Peter C. Renn, Diana K. Flynn, and Tara L. Borelli were\non the brief for amici curiae National Center for Transgender\nEquality and Other Advocacy Organizations in support of\nplaintiffs-appellees and affirmance.\n\n Andrew J. Ehrlich, George W. Kroup, Eric A. Felleman,\nand Craig A. Benson were on the brief for amici curiae\nAmerican Veterans Alliance, et al. in support of plaintiffs-\nappellees and in support of affirmance.\n\n Eamon P. Joyce, John T. Hebden, Christopher A.\nEiswerth, and Robert S. Chang were on the brief for amici\ncuriae Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, et\nal. in support of plaintiffs-appellees.\n\n Cynthia Cook Robertson and Suzanne B. Goldberg were\non the brief for amici curiae The National Organization for\nWomen Foundation, et al. in support of plaintiffs-appellees.\n\n Douglas H. Hallward-Driemeier, Irina Finkel, and\nDouglas E. Brayley were on the brief for amici curiae The\nOrganization of Historians and 47 Historians of the Military,\nNational Security, and Foreign Relations supporting plaintiffs-\nappellees.\n\n Elizabeth B. Wydra and Ashwin P. Phatak were on the\nbrief for amicus curiae Constitutional Accountability Center in\nsupport of plaintiffs-appellees.\n\n 4\n Steven G. Thompson Reed was on the brief for amici\ncuriae The Service Women=s Action Network and Other\nVeterans Service Organizations and Veterans Advocacy\nGroups in support of affirmance.\n\n Harold Hongju Koh and Phillip Spector were on the brief\nfor amici curiae Retired Military Offices and Former National\nSecurity Officials in support of plaintiffs-appellees.\n\n Daniel S. Harawa, Sherrilyn A. Ifill, and Janai S. Nelson\nwere on the brief for amicus curiae NAACP Legal Defense &\nEducational Fund, Inc. in support of appellees and affirmance.\n\n Devi M. Rao was on the brief for amici curiae American\nMedical Association and Seven Other HealthCare\nOrganizations in support of plaintiffs-appellees and\naffirmance.\n\n Stuart F. Delery was on the brief for amicus curiae The\nTrevor Project in support of plaintiffs-appellees and\naffirmance.\n\n Susan Baker Manning and Stephanie Schuster were on the\nbrief for amici curiae Vice Admiral Donald C. Arthur, USN\n(Ret.) et al. in support of plaintiffs-appellees and affirmance of\nthe District Court decision.\n\n Before: GRIFFITH and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and\nWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.\n\n Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge WILKINS.\n\n Opinion concurring in the result filed by Senior Circuit\nJudge WILLIAMS.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Jane DOE 2, Et Al., Appellees v. Patrick M. SHANAHAN, in His Official Capacity as Acting Secretary of Defense, Et Al., Appellants\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-08\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued December 10, 2018 Decided March 8, 2019*\\n\\n No. 18-5257\\n\\n JANE DOE 2, ET AL.,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n v.\\n\\nPATRICK M. SHANAHAN, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS ACTING\\n SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, ET AL.,\\n APPELLANTS\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:17-cv-01597)\\n\\n\\n Brinton Lucas, Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General,\\nU.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellants.\\nWith him on the briefs were Hashim M. Mooppan, Deputy\\nAssistant Attorney General, Marleigh D. Dover, and Tara S.\\nMorrissey, Attorneys.\\n\\n Jennifer Levi argued the cause for appellees. With her on\\nthe brief were Paul R.Q. Wolfson, John T. Byrnes, Kevin M.\\nLamb, Alan E. Schoenfeld, Shannon P. Minter, and\\nChristopher Stoll.\\n\\n*\\n The Panel issued a judgment on January 4, 2019 (2019 WL\\n102309). Judges Wilkins and Williams now file separate opinions.\\n\\n 2\\n Maura Healey, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney\\nGeneral for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Robert E.\\nToone, Assistant Attorney General, Janet T. Mills, Attorney\\nGeneral at the time the brief was filed, Office of the Attorney\\nGeneral for the State of Maine, Brian E. Frosh, Attorney\\nGeneral for the State of Maryland, Lori Swanson, Attorney\\nGeneral at the time the brief was filed, Office of the Attorney\\nGeneral for the State of Minnesota, Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney\\nGeneral, Office of the Attorney General for the State of New\\nJersey, Hector Balderas, Attorney General, Office of the\\nAttorney General for the State of New Mexico, Barbara\\nUnderwood, Attorney General at the time the brief was filed,\\nOffice of the Attorney General for the State of New York,\\nJoshua H. Stein, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney\\nGeneral for the State of North Carolina, Xavier Becerra,\\nAttorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the State\\nof California, George Jepsen, Attorney General at the time the\\nbrief was filed, Office of the Attorney General for the State of\\nConnecticut, Matthew P. Denn, Attorney General at the time\\nthe brief was filed, Office of the Attorney General for the State\\nof Delaware, Karl A. Racine, Attorney General, Office of the\\nAttorney General for the District of Columbia, Russell A.\\nSuzuki, Attorney General at the time the brief was filed, Office\\nof the Attorney General for the State of Hawaii, Lisa Madigan,\\nAttorney General at the time the brief was filed, Office of the\\nAttorney General for the State of Illinois, Tom Miller, Attorney\\nGeneral, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Iowa,\\nPeter F. Kilmartin, Attorney General at the time the brief was\\nfiled, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Rhode\\nIsland, Thomas J. Donovan, Jr., Attorney General, Office of\\nthe Attorney General for the State of Vermont, Mark R.\\nHerring, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for\\nthe Commonwealth of Virginia, Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney\\nGeneral, Office of the Attorney General for the State of\\nOregon, and Josh Shapiro, Attorney General, Office of the\\n\\n 3\\nAttorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,\\nwere on the brief for amici curiae The States of Massachusetts,\\net al. in support of appellees and affirmance of the District\\nCourt decision.\\n\\n Peter C. Renn, Diana K. Flynn, and Tara L. Borelli were\\non the brief for amici curiae National Center for Transgender\\nEquality and Other Advocacy Organizations in support of\\nplaintiffs-appellees and affirmance.\\n\\n Andrew J. Ehrlich, George W. Kroup, Eric A. Felleman,\\nand Craig A. Benson were on the brief for amici curiae\\nAmerican Veterans Alliance, et al. in support of plaintiffs-\\nappellees and in support of affirmance.\\n\\n Eamon P. Joyce, John T. Hebden, Christopher A.\\nEiswerth, and Robert S. Chang were on the brief for amici\\ncuriae Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, et\\nal. in support of plaintiffs-appellees.\\n\\n Cynthia Cook Robertson and Suzanne B. Goldberg were\\non the brief for amici curiae The National Organization for\\nWomen Foundation, et al. in support of plaintiffs-appellees.\\n\\n Douglas H. Hallward-Driemeier, Irina Finkel, and\\nDouglas E. Brayley were on the brief for amici curiae The\\nOrganization of Historians and 47 Historians of the Military,\\nNational Security, and Foreign Relations supporting plaintiffs-\\nappellees.\\n\\n Elizabeth B. Wydra and Ashwin P. Phatak were on the\\nbrief for amicus curiae Constitutional Accountability Center in\\nsupport of plaintiffs-appellees.\\n\\n 4\\n Steven G. Thompson Reed was on the brief for amici\\ncuriae The Service Women=s Action Network and Other\\nVeterans Service Organizations and Veterans Advocacy\\nGroups in support of affirmance.\\n\\n Harold Hongju Koh and Phillip Spector were on the brief\\nfor amici curiae Retired Military Offices and Former National\\nSecurity Officials in support of plaintiffs-appellees.\\n\\n Daniel S. Harawa, Sherrilyn A. Ifill, and Janai S. Nelson\\nwere on the brief for amicus curiae NAACP Legal Defense &\\nEducational Fund, Inc. in support of appellees and affirmance.\\n\\n Devi M. Rao was on the brief for amici curiae American\\nMedical Association and Seven Other HealthCare\\nOrganizations in support of plaintiffs-appellees and\\naffirmance.\\n\\n Stuart F. Delery was on the brief for amicus curiae The\\nTrevor Project in support of plaintiffs-appellees and\\naffirmance.\\n\\n Susan Baker Manning and Stephanie Schuster were on the\\nbrief for amici curiae Vice Admiral Donald C. Arthur, USN\\n(Ret.) et al. in support of plaintiffs-appellees and affirmance of\\nthe District Court decision.\\n\\n Before: GRIFFITH and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and\\nWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\n Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge WILKINS.\\n\\n Opinion concurring in the result filed by Senior Circuit\\nJudge WILLIAMS.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1379,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335321,"string":"7,335,321"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Michael S. FLAHERTY v. Wilbur ROSS"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Flaherty v. Ross"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-09"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Civil Action No. 11-660 (TJK)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Kelly\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253241/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"KELLY"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"KELLY"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335321/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Michael S. FLAHERTY v. Wilbur ROSS\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-09\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Michael S. FLAHERTY v. Wilbur ROSS\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-09\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1380,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7334472,"string":"7,334,472"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"OCEANA, INC. v. Wilbur L. ROSS, in His Official Capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Oceana, Inc. v. Ross"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-11"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Case No. 17-cv-829 (CRC)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Cooper\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7252392/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"COOPER"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"COOPER"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334472/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: OCEANA, INC. v. Wilbur L. ROSS, in His Official Capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-11\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: OCEANA, INC. v. Wilbur L. ROSS, in His Official Capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-11\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1381,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335322,"string":"7,335,322"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Teshome WORKAGEGNEHU v. WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Workagegnehu v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-11"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Civil Action No. 18-0526 (ABJ)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253242/\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335322/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Teshome WORKAGEGNEHU v. WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-11\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Teshome WORKAGEGNEHU v. WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-11\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1382,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335323,"string":"7,335,323"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Dep't of Justice"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-11"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Case No. 17-cv-02682 (CRC)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Cooper\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253243/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"COOPER"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"COOPER"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335323/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-11\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-11\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1383,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335384,"string":"7,335,384"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"The CAYUGA NATION v. David BERNHARDT, The Cayuga Nation Council, Defendant-Intervenor."},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Cayuga Nation v. Bernhardt"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-11"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Civil Action No. 17-1923 (CKK)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Kollar, Kotelly\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253304/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"KOLLAR"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"KOLLAR"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"KOTELLY"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335384/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: The CAYUGA NATION v. David BERNHARDT, The Cayuga Nation Council, Defendant-Intervenor.\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-11\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: The CAYUGA NATION v. David BERNHARDT, The Cayuga Nation Council, Defendant-Intervenor.\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-11\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1384,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4598704,"string":"4,598,704"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":""},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"University of Southern CA v. NLRB"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-12"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"17-1149"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Before: TATEL and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued September 5, 2018 Decided March 12, 2019\\n\\n No. 17-1149\\n\\n UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA,\\n PETITIONER\\n\\n v.\\n\\n NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,\\n RESPONDENT\\n\\n SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION, LOCAL 721,\\n CTW, CLC,\\n INTERVENOR\\n\\n\\n Consolidated with 17-1171\\n\\n\\n On Petition for Review and Cross-Application for\\n Enforcement\\n of an Order of the National Labor Relations Board\\n\\n\\n J. Al Latham Jr. argued the cause for petitioner. With him\\non the briefs was Cameron W. Fox.\\n\\n Jessica L. Ellsworth and Joel Buckman were on the brief\\nfor amicus curiae The American Council on Education and\\nseven other education associations in support of petitioner.\\n\\f 2\\n Heather S. Beard, Attorney, National Labor Relations\\nBoard, argued the cause for respondent. On the brief were Peter\\nB. Robb, General Counsel, John W. Kyle, Deputy General\\nCounsel, Linda Dreeben, Deputy Associate General Counsel at\\nthe time the brief was filed, Usha Dheenan, Supervisory\\nAttorney, and Joel A. Heller, Attorney. John H. Ferguson,\\nAssistant General Counsel, entered an appearance.\\n\\n Maria Keegan Myers argued the cause for intervenor\\nService Employees International Union, Local 721, CTW,\\nCLC. With her on the brief were Glenn E. Rothner and Hannah\\nS. Weinstein.\\n\\n Michael S. Wolly was on the brief for amicus curiae The\\nAmerican Association of University Professors in support of\\nrespondent.\\n\\n Before: TATEL and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and\\nSENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.\\n\\n TATEL, Circuit Judge: Almost four decades ago, in\\nN.L.R.B. v. Yeshiva University, 444 U.S. 672 (1980), the\\nSupreme Court sustained the National Labor Relation Board’s\\nextension of the protections of the National Labor Relations\\nAct to the faculty of private universities. The Court concluded,\\nhowever, that the full-time faculty seeking recognition in that\\ncase qualified as managerial employees exempt from the\\nNLRA’s coverage because, as at other “‘mature’ private\\nuniversit[ies]” where “authority . . . is divided between a\\ncentral administration and one or more collegial bodies,” the\\nfaculty at Yeshiva exercised “effective[] control” over central\\nuniversity policies. Id. at 680, 683. In this case, the Board,\\napplying standards it set forth in its post-Yeshiva decision,\\n\\f 3\\nPacific Lutheran University, 361 N.L.R.B. 1404 (2014), ruled\\nthat the full- and part-time non-tenure-track faculty of the\\nUniversity of Southern California’s (USC’s) Roski School of\\nArt and Design exercised no effective control over university\\npolicies and, as non-managerial employees, were therefore\\neligible to join a union. USC petitions for review, arguing,\\namong other things, that the Pacific Lutheran framework\\nconflicts in several different ways with Yeshiva. Because we\\nagree that one aspect of the Board’s decision here—namely, its\\nextension of Pacific Lutheran’s “majority status rule” to\\nfaculty subgroups—conflicts with Yeshiva, we grant the\\npetition in part and deny the Board’s cross-application for\\nenforcement.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Designed by Congress to quell “industrial strife” and its\\nharmful effects on the “channels of commerce,” the National\\nLabor Relations Act aimed to stabilize industry by vesting\\nindustrial workforces with new labor rights. See Pub. L.\\nNo. 74-198, § 1, 49 Stat. 449, 449 (1935) (codified as amended\\nat 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.). Congress sought to “redress the\\nperceived imbalance of economic power between labor and\\nmanagement . . . by conferring certain affirmative rights on\\nemployees and by placing certain enumerated restrictions on\\nthe activities of employers.” American Ship Building Co. v.\\nN.L.R.B., 380 U.S. 300, 316 (1965). “The central purpose of\\n[the NLRA] was to protect employee self-organization and the\\nprocess of collective bargaining from disruptive interferences\\nby employers.” Id. at 317.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n Years after Congress passed the NLRA, the Supreme\\nCourt issued two opinions central to the question before us in\\nthis case. First, in N.L.R.B. v. Bell Aerospace Co. Division of\\n\\f 4\\nTextron Inc., the Court held that although the NLRA, by its\\nterms, covers all employees (except for supervisors and other\\nexemptions immaterial to this case, see 29 U.S.C. § 152(3),\\n(12)), it nonetheless excludes “managerial” employees from its\\nprotections. 416 U.S. 267, 283–84 (1974). As the Court\\nexplained, Congress “regarded [managers] as so clearly outside\\nthe [NLRA] that no specific exclusionary provision was\\nthought necessary.” Id. at 283.\\n\\n Second, in N.L.R.B. v. Yeshiva University, the Court\\nclarified for the first time that the NLRA covers university\\nemployees and provided guidance about when university\\nfaculties constitute managerial employees exempt from the\\nNLRA’s coverage. See 444 U.S. at 682–90. In doing so, the\\nCourt distinguished between the “type of management-\\nemployee relations that prevail in the pyramidal hierarchies of\\nprivate industry” and those that exist within a “typical ‘mature’\\nprivate university” where “authority . . . is divided between a\\ncentral administration and one or more collegial bodies”\\ncomposed of academic faculty. Id. at 680. Together,\\nadministration and faculty may manage a university through a\\nsystem of shared governance—“‘the process by which various\\nconstituents (traditionally governing boards, senior\\nadministration, and faculty . . .) contribute to decision making\\nrelated to college or university policy and procedure.’”\\nAmerican Council on Education’s (“ACE”) Br. 4 (alteration in\\noriginal) (quoting Association of Governing Boards of\\nUniversities and Colleges, Shared Governance: Changing with\\nthe Times 3 (Mar. 2017)). It was respect for the “shared\\nauthority” that can be embedded in university governance,\\npaired with the need to safeguard the protections afforded by\\nthe NLRA, that guided the Court in Yeshiva. See 444 U.S. at\\n680.\\n\\f 5\\n The facts of Yeshiva are straightforward. A union seeking\\nto represent most of the university’s full-time faculty filed a\\nrepresentation petition, requesting that the Board certify it as\\nthe faculty’s bargaining agent. Id. at 674–75. The university\\nargued that the faculty were managerial, but the Board found\\notherwise. Id. at 678. Grounding its decision in the NLRA’s\\nprotection of professional employees—a designation\\nencompassing employees engaged in “predominantly\\nintellectual” work, 29 U.S.C. § 152(12)—the Board found that\\nmembers of Yeshiva’s faculty were professional employees\\nwho enjoy the NLRA’s protections, rather than exempted\\nmanagerial ones. Yeshiva, 444 U.S. at 678.\\n\\n The Supreme Court disagreed. It pointed out that\\n“professionals, like other employees, may be exempted from\\ncoverage . . . under the judicially implied exclusion for\\n‘managerial employees.’” Id. at 681–82. In non-university\\nsettings, moreover, the Board classifies as exempted\\nmanagerial employees those individuals who “represent[]\\nmanagement interests by taking or recommending\\ndiscretionary actions that effectively control or implement\\nemployer policy.” Id. at 683. Therefore, the Court explained,\\nthe same general analysis must guide the Board in the\\nuniversity setting. Id. at 686. As relevant here, the Court\\ndismissed as inconsistent with these precedents the Board’s\\narguments that faculty members were non-managerial because\\nthey engaged in collective decision making (true of many\\ncorporate managers working through boards and committees)\\nand because they enjoyed less than “ultimate” authority (held\\nin corporate settings by the board of directors). Id. at 684–85,\\n685 nn. 20–21.\\n\\n Instead, the Court looked to the principles underlying the\\nmanagerial exception—namely, that managers fall outside the\\nNLRA’s protections because “an employer is entitled to the\\n\\f 6\\nundivided loyalty of its representatives.” Id. at 682. Unions\\ndivide that loyalty, and the fear of compromised loyalty was\\n“particularly acute” at a university like Yeshiva, where the\\nfaculty exercised “pervasive[]”—even “absolute”—control\\nover academic matters. Id. at 679, 686, 689. “The controlling\\nconsideration in this case,” the Court explained, “is that the\\nfaculty of Yeshiva University exercise authority which in any\\nother context unquestionably would be managerial.” Id. at 686.\\nElaborating, the Court stated:\\n\\n [The faculty’s] authority in academic matters is\\n absolute. They decide what courses will be offered,\\n when they will be scheduled, and to whom they will be\\n taught. They debate and determine teaching methods,\\n grading policies, and matriculation standards. They\\n effectively decide which students will be admitted,\\n retained, and graduated. On occasion their views have\\n determined the size of the student body, the tuition to\\n be charged, and the location of a school. When one\\n considers the function of a university, it is difficult to\\n imagine decisions more managerial than these. To the\\n extent the industrial analogy applies, the faculty\\n determines within each school the product to be\\n produced, the terms upon which it will be offered, and\\n the customers who will be served.\\n\\nId.\\n\\n With the Yeshiva faculty’s “absolute” academic authority\\nas a backdrop, the Court explained to the Board—in language\\nimportant to the issue before us today—how to identify\\nmanagerial faculty in future university cases. Faculty qualify\\nas managerial when they exercise “effective recommendation\\nor control” over central employer policies. Id. at 683 n.17.\\nFaculty exercise such control when a university “depends on\\n\\f 7\\nthe [faculty’s] professional judgment . . . to formulate and\\napply crucial policies constrained only by necessarily general\\ninstitutional goals,” particularly when the university “requires\\nfaculty participation in governance.” Id. at 689.\\n\\n That said, the Court took care to avoid “sweep[ing] all\\nprofessionals outside the [NLRA] in derogation of Congress’\\nexpressed intent to protect them.” Id. at 690. Faculty are\\nprotected by the NLRA if their “decisionmaking is limited to\\nthe routine discharge of professional duties in projects to which\\nthey have been assigned.” Id. Further cabining its holding, the\\nCourt recognized that faculties are heterogeneous, and that\\nnon-managerial subsets may exist within a faculty entrusted\\nwith managerial authority. For instance, the Board might draw\\na “rational line” between “tenured and untenured faculty\\nmembers.” Id. at 690 n.31. Such a distinction turns on “how a\\nfaculty is structured and operates.” Id. In saying this, the Court\\nmade clear that “this is a starting point only, and that other\\nfactors not present here may enter into the analysis in other\\ncontexts.” Id.\\n\\n B.\\n\\n For several decades following Yeshiva, the Board, when\\ndetermining a given faculty’s managerial status, applied a\\ntotality-of-the-circumstances approach informed by the\\ncontours of that case. See, e.g., American International\\nCollege, 282 N.L.R.B. 189, 190–202 (1986) (discussing at\\nlength whether the faculty at issue fell “within the scope of the\\nSupreme Court’s decision in [Yeshiva]”). But in LeMoyne-\\nOwen College v. N.L.R.B., 357 F.3d 55 (D.C. Cir. 2004), we\\nfound the Board’s approach inadequate. There the Board had\\nclassified the full-time faculty of a small private institution in\\nMemphis as non-managerial. Id. at 55–56, 60. Although the\\nBoard had relied on the fact that circumstances at LeMoyne-\\n\\f 8\\nOwen were similar to those at other colleges where it had\\nclassified faculty as non-managerial, we were concerned that\\nthe Board failed to “discuss or even mention a single one of the\\nprecedents on which the College relied.” Id. at 60. Ending our\\nanalysis before reaching the managerial status of the college’s\\nfaculty, we observed that, although the Board’s totality-of-the-\\ncircumstances approach followed naturally from Yeshiva’s\\n“long list of relevant factors” paired with “the exquisite variety\\nof academic institutions across the country,” the Board must\\nprovide an “adequate explanation for the result it reached in\\nthis case.” Id. at 57, 61. We instructed the Board to delineate\\n“which factors are significant and which less so, and why” in\\nmanagerial-faculty determinations. Id. at 61. Doing so, we\\nexplained, would afford faculty, universities, and reviewing\\ncourts “predictability and intelligibility” concerning the\\nBoard’s “[application of] the test to varied fact situations.” Id.;\\nsee also Point Park University v. N.L.R.B., 457 F.3d 42, 50\\n(D.C. Cir. 2006) (reiterating this requirement in another faculty\\ncase).\\n\\n The Board endeavored to satisfy LeMoyne-Owen in\\nPacific Lutheran University. Unlike Yeshiva, which involved\\nfull-time faculty, Pacific Lutheran concerned a faculty\\nsubgroup—specifically, full-time “contingent” (non-tenure\\neligible) faculty. 361 N.L.R.B. at 1417. Drawing on its “30-\\nplus years applying Yeshiva” and echoing the Supreme Court’s\\nlanguage, the Board used Pacific Lutheran as a platform to\\nlaunch a new test designed “to answer the question whether\\nfaculty in a university setting actually or effectively exercise\\ncontrol over decision making pertaining to central policies of\\nthe university such that they are aligned with management.” Id.\\n\\n Under the Pacific Lutheran framework for determining\\nwhether faculty qualify as managerial, the Board “organize[s]\\n[its] review of faculty decision-making into five general areas”:\\n\\f 9\\nacademic programs, enrollment management policies,\\nfinances, academic policies, and personnel policies and\\ndecisions. Id. The Board classifies the first three as “primary”\\nand the last two as “secondary.” Id. at 1420. Although faculty\\nparticipation in these areas takes various forms, under the\\nPacific Lutheran framework the Board trains its focus on\\nparticipation through service on university committees, which\\nspecialize in a given field and then propose policies to the full\\nfaculty or to the university’s administration. See id. at 1424–28\\n(consistently analyzing faculty participation by looking to\\nfaculty committees).\\n\\n Again echoing Yeshiva, the Board then considers whether\\nthe faculty exercise “actual control or effective\\nrecommendation” authority over each of these five areas. Id.\\nat 1421. The test for “effective” control is demanding:\\n“recommendations must almost always be followed by the\\nadministration. Further, faculty recommendations are\\n‘effective’ if they routinely become operative without\\nindependent review by the administration.” Id. (internal\\ncitation omitted). Intent on ensuring that faculty exercise\\n“actual—rather than mere paper—authority,” Pacific Lutheran\\nrequires “specific evidence” of the process by which the\\nadministration adopts faculty recommendations. Id. Under\\nPacific Lutheran, the Board looks at “both the structure of\\nuniversity decisionmaking and where the faculty at issue fit\\nwithin that structure, including the nature of the employment\\nrelationship.” Id. at 1421–22. Relevant distinctions include\\n“tenured vs. tenure eligible vs. nontenure eligible” and “regular\\nvs. contingent” faculty members. Id. at 1422. Rather than\\nrequiring that managerial faculty control some set number of\\ndecision-making areas, Pacific Lutheran calls for a holistic\\nreview of the control exerted over the five areas. See id. at 1423\\n(noting that to determine managerial status the Board will\\nassess faculty’s control “over those areas”).\\n\\f 10\\n Beyond these context-specific inquiries, and central to this\\ncase, Pacific Lutheran sets a bright-line “majority status rule”\\nunder which a committee’s actual control or effective\\nrecommendation authority over a particular decision-making\\narea may be ascribed to faculty only if they constitute a\\nmajority of that committee: “[i]f faculty members do not exert\\nmajority control, we will not attribute the committee’s conduct\\nto the faculty.” Id. at 1421 n.36.\\n\\n Applying this framework to the situation at Pacific\\nLutheran, the Board determined that the contingent faculty\\nwere non-managerial. Although the university had recently\\nallowed contingent faculty to sit on committees, no such\\nfaculty members had yet joined a committee and, in any event,\\nit appeared that they would have had no “right to vote within\\ntheir respective divisions, schools, or constituent departments.”\\nId. at 1424, 1427–28. Contingent faculty did participate in and\\nhave a vote at the faculty assembly, but the Board characterized\\nthe assembly as “little more than a conduit to transmit\\npreviously agreed-upon recommendations to the\\nadministration” and observed that contingent faculty\\ncomprised only about twenty percent of the faculty assembly’s\\naverage attendees. Id. at 1428. According to the Board, the\\nnature of the contingent faculty members’ employment\\nrelationship with the university also counseled against a finding\\nof managerial status. In contrast to Yeshiva, where the\\nuniversity “require[d] faculty participation in governance,” 444\\nU.S. at 689, the Pacific Lutheran administration rarely\\ndiscussed with contingent faculty its expectations for their\\nuniversity service, such as committee participation, see Pacific\\nLutheran, 361 N.L.R.B. at 1423. Contingent faculty had to\\nrenew their contracts annually and received minimal\\ninstitutional support (such as funding for professional\\ndevelopment or research). Id.\\n\\f 11\\n In considering whether faculty held a majority of\\ncommittee seats, the Board left uncertain whether the majority\\nstatus rule applied to the contingent faculty only or to the\\nfaculty as a whole. Even if contingent faculty members sat on\\ncommittees, the Board observed, “they would be a minority on\\nthe . . . committee[s] as their membership is currently\\nstructured.” Id. at 1428. Because the faculty as a whole\\nconstituted a minority on all of these committees, id. at 1424,\\nhowever, the significance of this observation was unclear.\\n\\n Two Board members—Phillip Miscimarra and Harry\\nJohnson—separately dissented in part. They “generally\\nagree[d]” with the Board’s “admirable effort” to craft distinct,\\nworkable decision-making areas. Id. at 1430 (Miscimarra,\", \"author\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL\"}, {\"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"Member, concurring in part and dissenting in part), 1441\\n(Johnson, Member, dissenting). Uncertain about how the\\nBoard would weigh the “primary” and “secondary” areas in\\nfuture cases, however, the dissenters believed that “substantial”\\nauthority in secondary areas—unaccompanied by effective\\ncontrol over any of the three primary areas—may sometimes\\nbe sufficient to trigger managerial status. Id. at 1429–30\\n(Miscimarra, Member, concurring in part and dissenting in\\npart); see also id. at 1441–42 (Johnson, Member, dissenting).\\n\\n The dissenters focused primarily on Pacific Lutheran’s\\n“treatment of authority, control, and effective\\nrecommendation” authority, which they considered “too\\nonerous and inflexible.” Id. at 1430 (Miscimarra, Member,\\nconcurring in part and dissenting in part). According to the\\ndissenters, the Pacific Lutheran framework demands too much\\nbecause it requires that the administration “almost always”\\nfollow faculty recommendations. Id. at 1430 (Miscimarra,\", \"author\": \"Member\"}, {\"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"Member, concurring in part and dissenting in part), 1443\\n(Johnson, Member, dissenting). “[B]y failing to consider the\\nactual, diverse processes of university business operations and\\n\\f 12\\ngovernance,” Johnson argued, Pacific Lutheran “raised the bar\\nfor establishing managerial status of faculty to an unattainable\\nheight.” Id. at 1442–43. He also believed that the Board had\\nfashioned “a false dichotomy” when it held that committees\\nexercise effective control only if administrators routinely\\naccept the committees’ recommendations and do so without\\nindependent review. Id. at 1443–44. Such a rule, he contended,\\nflouts the ideal of universities as “places rich in dialogue”\\nbetween the administration and faculty. Id. at 1444.\\n\\n C.\\n\\n The University of Southern California, a large private\\nuniversity in Los Angeles, has twenty-two schools, some 6,600\\nfaculty, and between 30,000 and 40,000 students. One of these\\nschools, the Gayle Garner Roski School of Art and Design\\n(“Roski”)—the venue for the dispute before us—offers\\nundergraduate and graduate degrees in fine arts and critical\\nstudies, among others. See University of Southern California\\n(“USC”), 365 N.L.R.B. No. 11, at *7 (Dec. 30, 2016). In 2015,\\nthe Service Employees International Union, Local 721\\n(“Union”) petitioned to represent Roski’s full- and part-time\\nnon-tenure-track faculty. Id. at *5.\\n\\n Reprising the battle lines drawn in Yeshiva, USC\\ncontended that the Roski non-tenure-track faculty were\\nmanagerial, and the Union disagreed. In a decision adopted by\\nthe Board without opinion, the Regional Director, applying the\\nPacific Lutheran framework, found the Roski non-tenure-track\\nfaculty non-managerial. See id. at *1, *18.\\n\\n The Regional Director began by addressing several issues\\nleft unresolved in Pacific Lutheran. She first confirmed what\\nthe Board had hinted in that case: to exercise effective control\\nover a committee, the faculty subgroup seeking recognition—\\nnot just the faculty as a whole—must hold a majority of\\n\\f 13\\ncommittee seats. “[E]ven if the faculty on [either committee]\\ncould be said to actually or effectively control decisionmaking\\n. . . , I would not attribute that control to the nontenure track\\nfaculty at issue here, as they do not constitute a majority of\\neither committee.” Id. at *16. Second, although Pacific\\nLutheran left ambiguous whether, for a committee to exercise\\neffective control, the administration must “almost always”\\naccept a committee’s recommendations and those\\nrecommendations must “routinely become operative without\\nindependent review,” Pacific Lutheran, 361 N.L.R.B. at 1421,\\nor whether just one or the other would do, the Regional\\nDirector indisputably required both: “The Board also clarified\\nthat for faculty recommendations to be ‘effective,’ the\\nadministration must ‘almost always’ adopt the\\nrecommendations, and do so ‘routinely’ without independent\\nreview.” USC, 365 N.L.R.B. at *15. Third, the Regional\\nDirector determined that exercising effective control over one\\nsecondary area “alone” is insufficient to trigger faculty\\nmanagerial status. Id. at *17. By affirming the Regional\\nDirector’s decision, the Board has, in effect, adopted these\\ninterpretations as its own. See id. at *1 n.1 (“The Regional\\nDirector’s decision properly applied [Pacific Lutheran].”).\\n\\n Applying this interpretation of Pacific Lutheran, the\\nRegional Director classified the Roski non-tenure-track faculty\\nas non-managerial. For purposes of determining effective\\ncontrol, the Regional Director centered her discussion around\\na dozen or so university-wide committees and other USC\\nfaculty bodies, including the Roski school-level faculty\\ncouncil, that USC contends provide faculty with opportunities\\nto weigh in on university governance. Id. at *15–18. The\\ncommittees conduct studies, write reports, and make\\nrecommendations to either the Academic Senate or the provost.\\nId. at *8. The University Committee on Curriculum, for\\ninstance, approves, rejects, or modifies every proposed USC\\n\\f 14\\ncourse, program, major, minor, and degree offering. Id. at *9,\\n*15. Although the Committee on Finance and Enrollment has\\nmade only a few recommendations, those recommendations\\nhave involved significant issues, including the creation of a\\nuniversity-wide plan to address graduate student enrollment,\\nwhether to maintain a holistic review process for undergraduate\\nstudent admissions, and the payout rate of USC’s endowment.\\nId. at *10, *16–17. Other committees make recommendations\\non academic programs, teaching guidelines, software upgrades,\\ngrading policies, appointments, promotions, and tenure\\ndecisions. Id. at *8–13.\\n\\n Most USC university-wide and school-specific\\ncommittees are open to all faculty members, including non-\\ntenure track, though non-tenure-track faculty are excluded\\nfrom decisions concerning tenure. Id. at *11. Committees are\\nalmost 100 percent faculty, although some faculty also have\\nadministrative appointments. Administrators occasionally sit\\n“ex officio” on committees where they have no vote. See id.\\nat *8–13.\\n\\n Looking at all committees relevant to each of the five\\ndecision-making areas, the Regional Director determined that\\nUSC had failed to show that the faculty serving on these\\ncommittees exercised effective control over any decision-\\nmaking area. Id. at *18; see also Pacific Lutheran, 361\\nN.L.R.B. at 1427 n.65 (noting that the party asserting\\nmanagerial status assumes the burden of proof). In support, she\\nfound that USC had failed to provide “specific evidence,” as\\nrequired by Pacific Lutheran, 361 N.L.R.B. at 1421, of the type\\nof review the administration conducted of the committees’\\nrecommendations before accepting them. See USC, 365\\nN.L.R.B. at *15–18. She also found that the testimony\\nconcerning the work of some committees was vague, see id. at\\n*15, 17–18, as was the testimony about the decision-making\\n\\f 15\\nauthority of other committees, see id. For still other\\ncommittees, she found that they had offered too few\\nrecommendations to characterize their recommendations as\\n“routinely” followed. See id. at *16.\\n\\n In further support of her conclusion that the Roski non-\\ntenure-track faculty exercised no effective control, the\\nRegional Director found that the nature of their “tenuous\\nemployment” relationship “limit[s]” their role at the university.\\nId. at *18. Though non-tenure-track faculty are eligible to join\\nany committee and make up about three-fourths of the USC\\nfaculty, they represent a minority on almost every committee.\\nId. at *7–9. They receive little to no institutional support in the\\nform of funding, evaluations, or other career guidance; “[i]n\\nfact, [non-tenure-track faculty witnesses] testified that\\nadministrators in their departments or schools have never met\\nwith them to discuss expectations about their teaching, their\\nscholarship or artistic work, or their service to the University.”\\nId. at *8.\\n\\n Following her discussion of most every committee\\n(including all committees in the three primary areas), the\\nRegional Director also found that, even if the relevant\\ncommittees exercised effective control, “nontenure track\\nfaculty do not constitute a majority of [those] committee[s].”\\nId. at *17. Therefore, “they cannot be found to possess any\\nmanagerial control.” Id.\\n\\n Upon finding both that no committee exercised effective\\ncontrol and that the Roski non-tenure-track faculty held a\\nminority of seats on the key committees, the Regional Director\\nconcluded that USC had “failed to establish that the full-time\\nand/or part-time nontenure track faculty at . . . the Roski School\\nactually or effectively exercise control over decision making\\npertaining to central policies of the university.” Id. at *18. As\\n\\f 16\\nnoted, on a request for review, the Board adopted the Regional\\nDirector’s opinion in full. Id. at *1 & n.1.\\n\\n Member Miscimarra, one of the Pacific Lutheran\\ndissenters, again disagreed. Asserting that the Board holds\\nmanagers in other industries to a lower standard, Miscimarra\\nfaulted the Board for ascribing managerial status to only those\\nfaculty with “unreviewable authority.” Id. at *2 (Miscimarra,\", \"author\": \"Member\"}, {\"type\": \"dissent\", \"text\": \"Member, dissenting). He also believed that the Court in\\nYeshiva had rejected the idea that possessing a majority of\\ncommittee seats was a prerequisite for exercising effective\\ncontrol over a committee. He put it this way:\\n\\n [Yeshiva] held that a faculty member may possess\\n managerial authority even though he or she cannot\\n individually establish policy separate from the\\n committees on which he or she serves. Similarly,\\n faculty members in an individual department or\\n program may be managerial, even if as a group they\\n are a minority of the total faculty and are outnumbered\\n and outvoted on every issue.\\n\\nId. at *3–4. In Miscimarra’s view, extension of the majority\\nstatus rule to determine the managerial status of a faculty\\nsubgroup conflicts with “the principle of collegial managerial\\nauthority that the Supreme Court recognized in Yeshiva.” Id.\\nat 3.\\n\\n Following the Regional Director’s decision and the\\nBoard’s adoption of it, the Roski non-tenure-track faculty\\nvoted to form a bargaining unit represented by the Union.\\nWhen USC refused to bargain—an unfair labor practice under\\nthe NLRA, see 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(5)—the Union filed a\\ncomplaint with the Board. USC acknowledged its refusal to\\nbargain, and challenged the certification on the grounds that\\nPacific Lutheran conflicts with Yeshiva and that the Roski non-\\n\\f 17\\ntenure-track faculty in fact exercise managerial authority. The\\nBoard granted summary judgment to the Union. See University\\nof Southern California, 365 N.L.R.B. No. 89, at *1 (June 7,\\n2017).\\n\\n In its petition for review, USC makes three basic\\narguments. First, it argues that several elements of the Pacific\\nLutheran framework, as applied in this case, conflict with\\nYeshiva: its requirement that a faculty subgroup must hold a\\nmajority of committee seats in order to exercise effective\\ncontrol through a committee, its standard for “effective”\\ncontrol, and its classification of the five decision-making areas\\nas primary or secondary. Whether the Pacific Lutheran\\nframework comports with Yeshiva is an issue of first\\nimpression given that the university in Pacific Lutheran never\\npetitioned for review and that no other circuit has yet\\nconsidered the question. Second, USC argues that, contrary to\\nLeMoyne-Owen, the Pacific Lutheran framework fails to\\nprovide a workable standard to determine the managerial status\\nof faculty. And third, even assuming the validity of the Pacific\\nLutheran framework, USC argues that the Regional Director\\nlacked substantial evidence to classify the Roski non-tenure-\\ntrack faculty as non-managerial.\\n\\n In considering USC’s challenges, we defer to the Board’s\\njudgment, born of its expertise, so long as its decision is\\n“consistent with controlling precedent,” based on “substantial\\nevidence,” and neither “arbitrary” nor “capricious.”\\nInternational Union of Operating Engineers, Local 147 v.\\nN.L.R.B., 294 F.3d 186, 188 (D.C. Cir. 2002); see also 5 U.S.C.\\n§ 706(2)(A); N.L.R.B. v. Curtin Matheson Scientific, Inc., 494\\nU.S. 775, 786 (1990) (explaining that because “the NLRB has\\nthe primary responsibility for developing and applying national\\nlabor policy,” courts will uphold any rule that is “rational and\\nconsistent with the [NLRA], even if we would have formulated\\n\\f 18\\na different rule had we sat on the Board” (internal citation\\nomitted)).\\n\\n II.\\n\\n We begin with USC’s argument that the Pacific Lutheran\\nframework—and consequently, the decision at issue here—is\\n“[in]consistent with controlling precedent,” i.e., that it conflicts\\nwith the Supreme Court’s decision in Yeshiva. But as even its\\ndissenters acknowledge, Pacific Lutheran represents an\\n“admirable effort” by the Board to tame a thicket of case law\\nthat touches on numerous interrelated features of the faculty\\nexperience at universities. Pacific Lutheran, 361 N.L.R.B. at\\n1441 (Johnson, Member, dissenting). And for the most part,\\nthat effort succeeds. There is, however, a major problem.\\n\\n Under Pacific Lutheran, as interpreted by the Board in this\\ncase, a faculty subgroup seeking recognition exercises effective\\ncontrol over a decision-making area through its participation\\non a committee only when that subgroup constitutes a majority\\nof the committee. See Pacific Lutheran, 361 N.L.R.B. at 1421\\nn.36; USC, 365 N.L.R.B. at *16. This rule, which we shall refer\\nto as the “subgroup majority status rule,” is critical because, as\\ndiscussed above, see supra at 9, the Board generally looks to a\\nfaculty’s authority at the committee level when determining\\nwhether the faculty exercise effective control over Pacific\\nLutheran’s five decision-making areas.\\n\\n USC first claims that the subgroup majority status rule\\nresurrects the theory, foreclosed by Yeshiva, that faculty can\\nattain managerial status based only on authority wielded\\nindividually, as opposed to authority shared collectively with\\nothers. See Yeshiva, 444 U.S. at 685 & n.21 (criticizing the\\ntheory as “flatly inconsistent” with Board precedents that credit\\nmanagerial authority to “supervisors who work through\\ncommittees”). But in neither Pacific Lutheran nor here did the\\n\\f 19\\nBoard run afoul of that precise holding. Indeed, the Board\\nagrees that faculty can exercise managerial authority\\ncollectively. See Respondent’s Br. 37 (“Faculty who constitute\\nthe majority of a committee can be managerial based on their\\nservice on that committee, even though the authority they\\nexercise there is collective.”). The extension of Pacific\\nLutheran’s majority status rule to faculty subgroups instead\\nreflects the Board’s belief that a subgroup, acting collectively,\\nis unable to exercise managerial authority through a committee\\nwhen that subgroup holds a minority of committee seats.\\n\\n Assuming that understanding of the Board’s subgroup\\nmajority status rule, USC next argues that the rule “simply\\ndisregard[s]” the contributions that minority subgroups can\\nmake to university governance. Petitioner’s Br. 34. Under the\\nmajority status theory, USC continues, even when a university\\ndraws “no distinction” between faculty subgroups “in their\\nroles in faculty governance,” including situations where the\\nsubgroups “all participate in the effective management of the\\nUniversity,” the Board will “arbitrarily say that one category\\nmust be in the majority[,] . . . necessarily . . . render[ing] the\\nother category non-managerial—when in fact, all are\\nmanagerial.” Id. at 38 (emphases omitted). Because a\\nsubgroup’s “ability to invoke the rights or protections of the\\n[NLRA] should not hinge on whether some other group of\\nfaculty control or effectively recommend university policy,”\\nthe Board’s response goes, it would be inappropriate to deny a\\nsubgroup the NLRA’s protections when an entirely different\\ngroup of faculty, concerned about advancing its own priorities\\nrather than the subgroup’s, runs the show. Respondent’s Br. 35\\n(emphasis in original).\\n\\n In our view, the Board’s subgroup majority status rule\\nrests on a fundamental misunderstanding of Yeshiva. To\\n\\f 20\\nexplain why, we return to the Court’s opinion and specifically\\nto three key themes.\\n\\n First, as noted above, the Court drew a sharp distinction\\nbetween the “pyramidal” hierarchies characteristic of private\\nindustry and the faculty “bodies” at universities. Yeshiva, 444\\nU.S. at 680. “[T]he authority structure of a university does not,”\\nthe Court explained, “fit neatly within the statutory scheme we\\nare asked to interpret,” and for that reason, “the Board has\\nrecognized that principles developed for use in the industrial\\nsetting cannot be ‘imposed blindly on the academic world.’”\\nId. at 680–81 (quoting Syracuse University, 204 N.L.R.B. 641,\\n643 (1973)). In the “pyramidal” industrial arena, the Board\\nlooks to whether individuals, or groups of individuals, exercise\\nmanagerial authority. Id. at 680. By contrast, the Court in\\nYeshiva returned time and again to the question of whether the\\n“faculty” as a body—as opposed to individual professors or\\nsubgroups—exercises managerial authority. To the Court, the\\n“controlling consideration” was that the “faculty at Yeshiva\\nUniversity exercise authority which in any other context\\nunquestionably would be managerial.” Id. at 686 (emphasis\\nadded). “The ‘business’ of a university is education,” the Court\\nexplained, “and its vitality ultimately must depend on academic\\npolicies that largely are formulated and generally are\\nimplemented by faculty governance decisions.” Id. at 688\\n(emphasis added). Continuing its focus on the “faculty” as a\\nbody, the Court observed that “[t]he university requires faculty\\nparticipation in governance”; that “Yeshiva and like\\nuniversities must rely on their faculties to participate in the\\nmaking and implementation of their policies”; and that “[t]he\\nfaculty participate in University-wide governance through their\\nrepresentatives on an elected student-faculty advisory council.”\\nId. at 675–76, 689 (emphasis added).\\n\\f 21\\n These repeated references to the “faculty” as a body are\\nnot linguistic accidents; they are central to the Court’s\\nreasoning. Take the Court’s discussion of the bedrock principle\\nunderlying the managerial exception: that employers deserve\\nthe loyalty of employees who exercise discretionary authority\\nover central employer policies. Id. at 687–88. Highlighting that\\nthe faculty functions as a single body, the Court observed that\\nif, consistent with principles of shared governance, the\\nuniversity “depends on the professional judgment of its faculty\\nto formulate and apply crucial policies,” then the university\\ndeserves those employees’ “undivided loyalty,” which in turn\\ntriggers managerial status. Id. at 682, 689 (emphasis added).\\nThe Court’s analysis turned not on an aggregation of the power\\ndelegated to a series of individuals or a mosaic of subgroups—\\nthe focus of the Board’s subgroup majority status rule—but\\nrather on the role played by the faculty as a body.\\n\\n Reinforcing this idea—and this is Yeshiva’s second\\ntheme—the Court repeatedly stressed the importance of\\ncollegiality. “[A]uthority in the typical ‘mature’ private\\nuniversity,” the Court explained, is split between the\\nadministration and “one or more collegial bodies.” Id. at 680.\\nThe Court observed that “[t]he Board itself has noted that the\\nconcept of collegiality ‘does not square with the traditional\\nauthority structures with which th[e] [NLRA] was designed to\\ncope,’” and that “traditions of collegiality continue to play a\\nsignificant role at many universities.” Id. (second alteration in\\noriginal) (quoting Adelphi University, 195 N.L.R.B. 639, 648\\n(1972)).\\n\\n The Board’s subgroup majority status rule is unfaithful to\\nthis critical aspect of Yeshiva. It ignores the possibility that\\nfaculty subgroups, despite holding different status within the\\nuniversity, may share common interests and therefore\\neffectively participate together as a body on some or all of the\\n\\f 22\\nissues relevant to managerial status. It is entirely plausible that,\\nfor example, non-tenure-track faculty, especially full-time non-\\ntenure-track faculty, would agree with tenure-track faculty on\\nquestions of course offerings, academic integrity, and grading\\npolicies. Yet the Board’s subgroup majority status rule\\npresupposes that non-tenure-track faculty have no authority\\nover such matters unless they constitute a majority of the\\nrelevant committee. Of course, the interests of some minority\\nfaculty subgroups may differ from the majority on certain\\nissues, such as with respect to promotion and salary. That,\\nhowever, is precisely where the concept of collegiality comes\\ninto play. Disregarding this fundamental characteristic of\\nuniversity governance, the Board’s subgroup majority status\\nrule assumes that minority subgroups can never work out their\\ndifferences with the majority.\\n\\n Taken together, these two themes of Yeshiva—a focus on\\nthe faculty as a body and an emphasis on collegiality—\\ndemonstrate that the question the Board must ask is not whether\\na particular subgroup can force policies through based on crude\\nheadcounts, but rather whether that subgroup is structurally\\nincluded within a collegial faculty body to which the university\\nhas delegated managerial authority. This reading finds support\\nin Yeshiva’s third theme: the Court’s guidance on how the\\nBoard should approach situations where the faculty members\\nseeking recognition constitute a subgroup, such as in this case\\n(non-tenure-track) and in Pacific Lutheran (contingent).\\nEmployees, the Court explained, may not be considered\\nmanagement and thus excluded from the NLRA’s coverage if\\ntheir “decisionmaking is limited to the routine discharge of\\nprofessional duties in projects to which they have been\\nassigned.” Yeshiva, 444 U.S. at 690. Indeed, the Court noted\\nthat there may have been “faculty members at Yeshiva” itself\\n“who properly could be included in a bargaining unit.” Id. at\\n690 n.31. For example, “a rational line could be drawn between\\n\\f 23\\ntenured and untenured faculty members, depending upon how\\na faculty is structured and operates.” Id. Put another way, the\\nquestion the Board must ask is not a numerical one—does the\\nsubgroup seeking recognition comprise a majority of a\\ncommittee—but rather a broader, structural one: has the\\nuniversity included the subgroup in a faculty body vested with\\nmanagerial responsibilities? To answer this question, the Board\\nmust, as required by Yeshiva, examine how the faculty is\\n“structured” and “operates,” as well as the duties employees\\nhave been “assigned.” For example, as in Yeshiva, does the\\nuniversity “require” faculty members to participate in\\ncommittees? If this analysis demonstrates that the subgroup\\nseeking recognition is structurally part of a faculty body to\\nwhich the university has delegated managerial authority, then,\\napart from several exceptions we shall discuss below, that ends\\nthe matter: the subgroup is managerial regardless of whether its\\nmembers constitute a majority of the relevant committees or\\nwhether they even participate at all.\\n\\n Two additional considerations support this understanding\\nof Yeshiva.\\n\\n First, the Court relied on a line of Board decisions from the\\nprivate sector holding that it is possible for minority employee\\nshareholders “who owned enough stock to give them, as a\\ngroup, a substantial voice in the employer’s affairs” to exercise\\neffective control, even absent majority control. Yeshiva, 444\\nU.S. at 685 n.21. Indeed, the Board itself has recognized that it\\n“has excluded groups of shareholder-employees from\\nbargaining units even though they collectively owned less than\\nhalf of the employers’ stock.” Upper Great Lakes Pilots, Inc.,\\n311 N.L.R.B. 131, 132 n.9 (1993). Although the Board cites\\nthese cases in its brief while discussing this very issue, it fails\\nto acknowledge their inconsistency with its subgroup majority\\nstatus rule.\\n\\f 24\\n Second, and quite apart from Yeshiva, we just cannot see\\nhow the subgroup majority status rule will work. As USC\\nnotes, “the make-up of a particular committee will necessarily\\nchange from year to year. If only the majority category is\\nmanagerial, then from one year to the next, different categories\\nof perfectly managerial faculty could be deemed non-\\nmanagerial for no other reason than a one- or two-person swing\\non a committee roster.” Petitioner’s Br. 38. In his dissent,\\nMember Miscimarra pointed out that, under the subgroup\\nmajority status rule, slicing and dicing the faculty in different\\nways—by tenure status, school, seniority, etc.—may allow\\n“even faculty who indisputably exercise managerial authority”\\nto qualify as non-managerial. USC, 365 N.L.R.B. at *4 & n.7\\n(Miscimarra, Member, dissenting). In its amicus brief, the\\nAmerican Council on Education likewise warns that “any\\ngroup of faculty can be sub-divided until it no longer\\ncommands a majority.” ACE Br. 27. The subgroup majority\\nstatus rule contributes to this strategic division of faculties;\\nYeshiva’s structural approach avoids it.\\n\\n That said, whether an individual subgroup possesses a\\nmajority of committee seats is not always irrelevant. Quite to\\nthe contrary, determining whether a subgroup holds a decisive\\nbloc of committee seats may be necessary where a subgroup’s\\ninterests fundamentally diverge from those of the majority.\\nAlthough the Court in Yeshiva emphasized the value of faculty\\ncollegiality, there may well be issues on which the interests of\\nthe subgroup and the faculty as a whole differ so significantly\\nthat they cannot be reconciled even through collegial\\ncompromise. Under such circumstances, which the Board can\\nidentify only through a careful analysis of how the faculty\\nseeking recognition actually functions, the Board might\\nappropriately conclude that the subgroup cannot exercise\\neffective control unless it constitutes a majority of the relevant\\ncommittees. Likewise, if a subgroup that the university expects\\n\\f 25\\nto participate in a committee nonetheless fails to do so, this may\\nsignal the presence of structural barriers to that group’s\\nparticipation. In this case, for example, the Board may well be\\ncorrect that there is something about the status of non-tenure-\\ntrack faculty, especially part-time non-tenure-track, that\\neffectively silences any managerial “voice,” Pacific Lutheran,\\n361 N.L.R.B. at 1423, that such faculty otherwise might\\npossess. See Yeshiva, 444 U.S. at 690 n.31 (acknowledging that\\n“other factors not present here,” such as tenure status, “may\\nenter into the analysis in other contexts”).\\n\\n To be sure, the Pacific Lutheran framework accounts for\\nthese factors (diverging interests and the nature of non-tenure-\\ntrack employment). See 361 N.L.R.B. at 1421–22 (looking at\\nthe “nature of the employment relationship,” including\\n“tenured vs. tenure eligible vs. nontenure eligible”). But\\nPacific Lutheran, as interpreted by the Board in this case, runs\\nafoul of Yeshiva by using these factors as part of a\\ndetermination focused on whether the petitioning subgroup\\nalone exercises effective control. The Board should instead, as\\nrequired by Yeshiva, think of this analysis as having two\\ndistinct inquiries: whether a faculty body exercises effective\\ncontrol and, if so, whether, based on the faculty’s structure and\\noperations, the petitioning subgroup is included in that\\nmanagerial faculty body. Only as part of the latter analysis\\nshould the Board dig into whether a subgroup’s actual interests\\ndiverge so substantially from those championed by the rest of\\nthe faculty that holding a minority of seats on the relevant\\ncommittees is akin to having no managerial role at all, or\\nwhether a subgroup’s low participation rates stem from a\\ntenuous employment relationship that vitiates any managerial\\nrole the university expects the subgroup to perform. See\\nYeshiva, 444 U.S. at 674–77, 686 (examining closely the\\nspecific operations at Yeshiva).\\n\\f 26\\n Of course, the Board has flexibility over how to organize\\nits analysis in any given case. In some situations, it might make\\nsense to address these two inquiries sequentially: is there a\\nmanagerial faculty body and, if so, is the petitioning subgroup\\na part of it? But in other situations, it may be unnecessary for\\nthe Board to consider whether a managerial faculty body exists\\nbecause, even assuming one did, the petitioning subgroup is so\\nclearly not included in it—because, for example, university\\nrules prohibit its participation in committees. The critical point\\nis this: however the Board proceeds, it must treat these two\\ninquiries separately and may not conflate them by asking\\nwhether the petitioning subgroup alone exercises effective\\ncontrol.\\n\\n A final observation: in Pacific Lutheran, the Board\\nemphasized that since the Court decided Yeshiva some four\\ndecades ago, universities “are increasingly run by\\nadministrators” and rely more and more on non-tenure-track\\nfaculty “who, unlike traditional faculty, have been appointed\\nwith no prospect of tenure and often no guarantee of\\nemployment.” Pacific Lutheran, 361 N.L.R.B. at 1422.\\nAccording to the Board, these trends “ha[ve] the effect of\\nconcentrating and centering authority away from the faculty.”\\nId. Building on this point, amicus American Association of\\nUniversity Professors points out that “[r]ather than relying on\\nfaculty expertise and recommendations, the growing ranks of\\nadministrators increasingly make unilateral decisions on\\nuniversity policies and programs, often influenced by\\nconsiderations of external market forces and revenue\\ngeneration.” American Association of University Professors’\\nBr. 10. By contrast, the American Council on Education,\\nthough acknowledging these trends, emphasizes “the continued\\nprimacy of shared governance.” ACE Br. 13. This is an\\ninteresting debate, and it may even be relevant. Regardless of\\nnational trends, however, the Board must not lose sight of the\\n\\f 27\\nfact that the question before it in any case in which a faculty\\nsubgroup seeks recognition is whether that university has\\ndelegated managerial authority to a faculty body and, if so,\\nwhether the petitioning faculty subgroup is a part of that body.\\nAs we explained in Point Park, this requires “an exacting\\nanalysis of the particular institution and faculty at issue.” 457\\nF.3d at 48 (emphasis added).\\n\\n Having thus concluded that the Board’s subgroup majority\\nstatus rule runs afoul of Yeshiva, we turn to USC’s challenge\\nto Pacific Lutheran’s standard for “effective” control.\\n\\n III.\\n\\n Recall that Pacific Lutheran announced the following\\nstandard for determining when faculty exercise effective\\ncontrol over decision making: “[T]o be ‘effective,’\\nrecommendations must almost always be followed by the\\nadministration. Further, faculty recommendations are\\n‘effective’ if they routinely become operative without\\nindependent review by the administration.” 361 N.L.R.B. at\\n1421 (internal citations and footnote omitted). Filling a gap left\\nby the Board in Pacific Lutheran, the Regional Director\\nrequired that both elements—“almost always” followed and\\n“routinely” adopted “without independent review”—must be\\nsatisfied to support an effective control finding. USC, 365\\nN.L.R.B. at *15. USC does not challenge the Regional\\nDirector’s conjunctive interpretation. Instead, drawing from\\nthe Pacific Lutheran dissents, the university argues that “there\\nis no . . . logical conclusion” other than that the Pacific\\nLutheran standard, as interpreted in USC, resurrects the\\n“ultimate authority” requirement for managerial status that\\nYeshiva forbids. Petitioner’s Br. 33 (emphasis omitted); see\\nalso Yeshiva, 444 U.S. at 685 & nn.20–21.\\n\\f 28\\n In Yeshiva, the Court held that, in order to qualify as\\nmanagerial, faculty must exercise “effective recommendation\\nor control” over central university policies. Yeshiva, 444 U.S.\\nat 683 n.17. The Yeshiva faculty met that standard, the Court\\nfound, because their control was “substantial[] and\\npervasive[]”: among other things, the faculty “decide[d] [what]\\nstudents will be admitted, retained, and graduated,” “decide[d]\\nwhat courses will be offered,” and “determine[d] teaching\\nmethods, grading policies, and matriculation standards.” Id. at\\n679, 686. The Court also explained that faculty need not have\\n“final authority” in order to enjoy managerial status; a “rarely\\nexercised veto power” held by the administration “does not\\ndiminish the faculty’s effective power.” Id at 683 n.17, 685.\\n\\n We see nothing in the Board’s two-part standard for\\n“effective” control that runs afoul of Yeshiva. Although USC\\nargues otherwise, the Board’s standard does not require\\n“ultimate authority.” Quite to the contrary, its use of the phrase\\n“almost always” allows for occasional, or as the Court put it,\\n“rarely exercised,” vetoes. The word “routine” likewise leaves\\nroom for some administrative review. True, the standard is\\ndemanding, but it comports with Yeshiva, and we agree with\\nthe Board that setting a high bar for effective control is\\nnecessary to avoid interpreting the managerial exception so\\nbroadly that it chips away at the NLRA’s protections. See\\nPacific Lutheran, 361 N.L.R.B. at 1419 n.32 (“[W]e are\\nmindful of the fundamental principle that ‘exemptions from\\n[the NLRA’s] coverage are not so expansively interpreted as to\\ndeny protection to workers the [NLRA] was designed to\\nreach.’” (quoting Holly Farms Corp. v. N.L.R.B., 517 U.S. 392,\\n399 (1996))). That said, the Board must be careful to apply its\\neffective control standard with sensitivity to the notion of\\n“collegial managerial authority that the Supreme Court\\nrecognized in Yeshiva.” USC, 365 N.L.R.B. at *3 (Miscimarra,\", \"author\": \"Member\"}, {\"type\": \"dissent\", \"author\": \"Member\", \"text\": \"Member, dissenting). “[T]raditions of collegiality continue to\\n\\f 29\\nplay a significant role at many universities,” Yeshiva, 444 U.S.\\nat 680, and the Board’s test for effective control must\\naccommodate these traditions.\\n\\n USC complains about a stray sentence in the Regional\\nDirector’s opinion: “I am not convinced by the conclusory\\nevidence in the record that the Board of Trustees, for example,\\nwould sign off without second thought on a tuition amount or\\nendowment payout based solely on the recommendation of a\\nnewly-formed faculty committee that had never before\\nconsidered such issues.” USC, 365 N.L.R.B. at *17 (emphasis\\nadded). According to USC, requiring that the administration\\naccept committee recommendations “without second thought”\\nsets an even higher bar for effective control than the one we\\nunderstand the Board to have established. Petitioner’s Br. 22.\\nWere this characterization of the Regional Director’s decision\\naccurate, we would share USC’s concerns. The Regional\\nDirector, however, never suggested that her “without second\\nthought” statement amounted to a new requirement for\\nestablishing effective control. Instead, she made the statement\\nin response to USC’s contention that the administration had in\\nfact accepted the newly formed Committee on Finance and\\nEnrollment’s recommendations on important financial matters\\n“without second thought.”\\n\\n IV.\\n\\n We can quickly dispose of USC’s remaining arguments.\\n\\n First, regarding Pacific Lutheran’s classification of the\\nfive decision-making areas as primary and secondary, USC\\nacknowledges that Yeshiva affords the Board leeway to design\\nthese categories, but nonetheless argues that the Pacific\\nLutheran framework inappropriately relegates academic and\\npersonnel policies to secondary status while elevating finances\\nto primary status. Justifying the classification, the Board\\n\\f 30\\nexplained that the primary areas, more so than the secondary\\nones, touch the university as a whole, align faculty with\\nmanagement, and affect the “product” the university offers—\\nall considerations taken from the Court’s discussion in Yeshiva.\\nPacific Lutheran, 361 N.L.R.B. at 1420; see also Yeshiva, 444\\nU.S. at 675–77, 686, 690. Although we can imagine different\\ngroupings of these factors, nothing in Yeshiva dictates the\\noutcome one way or the other, and the Board’s categorization\\nfalls well within its discretion under the NLRA. Indeed, this is\\nprecisely the type of line-drawing that the Board is “entitled”\\nto make “without our constant second-guessing.” N.L.R.B. v.\\nKentucky River Community Care, Inc., 532 U.S. 706, 720\\n(2001).\\n\\n USC next argues that, by leaving open exactly how many\\nof the five decision-making areas over which faculty must\\nexercise control in order to qualify as managerial, Pacific\\nLutheran fails to satisfy this court’s instruction in LeMoyne-\\nOwen that it identify “which factors are significant and which\\nless so, and why.” 357 F.3d at 61. We disagree. At the time of\\nLeMoyne-Owen, the Board was engaging in a totality-of-the-\\ncircumstances analysis that we feared might be nothing more\\nthan “a cloak for agency whim.” Id. In response, the Board\\ndeveloped the Pacific Lutheran framework, which provides\\ndetailed standards for effective control, five precisely\\narticulated decision-making areas, a list of the relevant factors\\nwithin each area, and a prioritization of the areas. True, the\\nBoard could have been more precise, but nothing in LeMoyne-\\nOwen requires it to have done so, especially because\\nmanagerial status determinations “do[] not lend [themselves]\\nto ex ante line drawing or a mathematical exercise in box\\nchecking.” Respondent’s Br. 39.\\n\\n Finally, USC argues that, even if the Pacific Lutheran\\nframework complies with Yeshiva, the Board’s classification of\\n\\f 31\\nthe Roski non-tenure-track faculty as non-managerial was\\nunsupported by substantial evidence. Relatedly, USC argues\\nthat the Regional Director erred in denying its motion to reopen\\nthe record concerning allegedly contradictory testimony from\\na Union witness. But given our conclusion that the Board’s\\nsubgroup majority status rule runs afoul of Yeshiva, and\\nbecause we are uncertain whether the Board would have\\nreached the same conclusion absent that rule, we think it best\\nto leave these arguments unaddressed and to instead give the\\nBoard an opportunity to reconsider the case afresh under the\\nproper legal standard. See Braniff Airways, Inc. v. Civil\\nAeronautics Board, 379 F.2d 453, 466 (D.C. Cir. 1967)\\n(remanding to the agency because the “court [wa]s in\\nsubstantial doubt whether the administrative agency would\\nhave made the same ultimate finding with the erroneous\\nfindings or inferences removed from the picture” (internal\\nquotation marks omitted)).\\n\\n V.\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is\\ngranted in part, the Board’s cross-application for enforcement\\nis denied, and the case is remanded to the Board for further\\nproceedings consistent with this opinion. We, of course,\\nexpress no opinion as to whether the application of the differing\\nstandard on remand would lead to the same or a different result.\\n\\n So ordered.\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"TATEL"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"PILLARD"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"SENTELLE"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"TATEL\": \", Circuit\", \"PILLARD\": \", Circuit\", \"SENTELLE\": \", Senior Circuit\"}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":5,"string":"5"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":2,"string":"2"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":2,"string":"2"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598704/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: University of Southern CA v. NLRB\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-12\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: Yes\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued September 5, 2018 Decided March 12, 2019\n\n No. 17-1149\n\n UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA,\n PETITIONER\n\n v.\n\n NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,\n RESPONDENT\n\n SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION, LOCAL 721,\n CTW, CLC,\n INTERVENOR\n\n\n Consolidated with 17-1171\n\n\n On Petition for Review and Cross-Application for\n Enforcement\n of an Order of the National Labor Relations Board\n\n\n J. Al Latham Jr. argued the cause for petitioner. With him\non the briefs was Cameron W. Fox.\n\n Jessica L. Ellsworth and Joel Buckman were on the brief\nfor amicus curiae The American Council on Education and\nseven other education associations in support of petitioner.\n\f 2\n Heather S. Beard, Attorney, National Labor Relations\nBoard, argued the cause for respondent. On the brief were Peter\nB. Robb, General Counsel, John W. Kyle, Deputy General\nCounsel, Linda Dreeben, Deputy Associate General Counsel at\nthe time the brief was filed, Usha Dheenan, Supervisory\nAttorney, and Joel A. Heller, Attorney. John H. Ferguson,\nAssistant General Counsel, entered an appearance.\n\n Maria Keegan Myers argued the cause for intervenor\nService Employees International Union, Local 721, CTW,\nCLC. With her on the brief were Glenn E. Rothner and Hannah\nS. Weinstein.\n\n Michael S. Wolly was on the brief for amicus curiae The\nAmerican Association of University Professors in support of\nrespondent.\n\n Before: TATEL and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and\nSENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.\n\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.\n\n TATEL, Circuit Judge: Almost four decades ago, in\nN.L.R.B. v. Yeshiva University, 444 U.S. 672 (1980), the\nSupreme Court sustained the National Labor Relation Board’s\nextension of the protections of the National Labor Relations\nAct to the faculty of private universities. The Court concluded,\nhowever, that the full-time faculty seeking recognition in that\ncase qualified as managerial employees exempt from the\nNLRA’s coverage because, as at other “‘mature’ private\nuniversit[ies]” where “authority . . . is divided between a\ncentral administration and one or more collegial bodies,” the\nfaculty at Yeshiva exercised “effective[] control” over central\nuniversity policies. Id. at 680, 683. In this case, the Board,\napplying standards it set forth in its post-Yeshiva decision,\n\f 3\nPacific Lutheran University, 361 N.L.R.B. 1404 (2014), ruled\nthat the full- and part-time non-tenure-track faculty of the\nUniversity of Southern California’s (USC’s) Roski School of\nArt and Design exercised no effective control over university\npolicies and, as non-managerial employees, were therefore\neligible to join a union. USC petitions for review, arguing,\namong other things, that the Pacific Lutheran framework\nconflicts in several different ways with Yeshiva. Because we\nagree that one aspect of the Board’s decision here—namely, its\nextension of Pacific Lutheran’s “majority status rule” to\nfaculty subgroups—conflicts with Yeshiva, we grant the\npetition in part and deny the Board’s cross-application for\nenforcement.\n\n I.\n\n Designed by Congress to quell “industrial strife” and its\nharmful effects on the “channels of commerce,” the National\nLabor Relations Act aimed to stabilize industry by vesting\nindustrial workforces with new labor rights. See Pub. L.\nNo. 74-198, § 1, 49 Stat. 449, 449 (1935) (codified as amended\nat 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.). Congress sought to “redress the\nperceived imbalance of economic power between labor and\nmanagement . . . by conferring certain affirmative rights on\nemployees and by placing certain enumerated restrictions on\nthe activities of employers.” American Ship Building Co. v.\nN.L.R.B., 380 U.S. 300, 316 (1965). “The central purpose of\n[the NLRA] was to protect employee self-organization and the\nprocess of collective bargaining from disruptive interferences\nby employers.” Id. at 317.\n\n A.\n\n Years after Congress passed the NLRA, the Supreme\nCourt issued two opinions central to the question before us in\nthis case. First, in N.L.R.B. v. Bell Aerospace Co. Division of\n\f 4\nTextron Inc., the Court held that although the NLRA, by its\nterms, covers all employees (except for supervisors and other\nexemptions immaterial to this case, see 29 U.S.C. § 152(3),\n(12)), it nonetheless excludes “managerial” employees from its\nprotections. 416 U.S. 267, 283–84 (1974). As the Court\nexplained, Congress “regarded [managers] as so clearly outside\nthe [NLRA] that no specific exclusionary provision was\nthought necessary.” Id. at 283.\n\n Second, in N.L.R.B. v. Yeshiva University, the Court\nclarified for the first time that the NLRA covers university\nemployees and provided guidance about when university\nfaculties constitute managerial employees exempt from the\nNLRA’s coverage. See 444 U.S. at 682–90. In doing so, the\nCourt distinguished between the “type of management-\nemployee relations that prevail in the pyramidal hierarchies of\nprivate industry” and those that exist within a “typical ‘mature’\nprivate university” where “authority . . . is divided between a\ncentral administration and one or more collegial bodies”\ncomposed of academic faculty. Id. at 680. Together,\nadministration and faculty may manage a university through a\nsystem of shared governance—“‘the process by which various\nconstituents (traditionally governing boards, senior\nadministration, and faculty . . .) contribute to decision making\nrelated to college or university policy and procedure.’”\nAmerican Council on Education’s (“ACE”) Br. 4 (alteration in\noriginal) (quoting Association of Governing Boards of\nUniversities and Colleges, Shared Governance: Changing with\nthe Times 3 (Mar. 2017)). It was respect for the “shared\nauthority” that can be embedded in university governance,\npaired with the need to safeguard the protections afforded by\nthe NLRA, that guided the Court in Yeshiva. See 444 U.S. at\n680.\n\f 5\n The facts of Yeshiva are straightforward. A union seeking\nto represent most of the university’s full-time faculty filed a\nrepresentation petition, requesting that the Board certify it as\nthe faculty’s bargaining agent. Id. at 674–75. The university\nargued that the faculty were managerial, but the Board found\notherwise. Id. at 678. Grounding its decision in the NLRA’s\nprotection of professional employees—a designation\nencompassing employees engaged in “predominantly\nintellectual” work, 29 U.S.C. § 152(12)—the Board found that\nmembers of Yeshiva’s faculty were professional employees\nwho enjoy the NLRA’s protections, rather than exempted\nmanagerial ones. Yeshiva, 444 U.S. at 678.\n\n The Supreme Court disagreed. It pointed out that\n“professionals, like other employees, may be exempted from\ncoverage . . . under the judicially implied exclusion for\n‘managerial employees.’” Id. at 681–82. In non-university\nsettings, moreover, the Board classifies as exempted\nmanagerial employees those individuals who “represent[]\nmanagement interests by taking or recommending\ndiscretionary actions that effectively control or implement\nemployer policy.” Id. at 683. Therefore, the Court explained,\nthe same general analysis must guide the Board in the\nuniversity setting. Id. at 686. As relevant here, the Court\ndismissed as inconsistent with these precedents the Board’s\narguments that faculty members were non-managerial because\nthey engaged in collective decision making (true of many\ncorporate managers working through boards and committees)\nand because they enjoyed less than “ultimate” authority (held\nin corporate settings by the board of directors). Id. at 684–85,\n685 nn. 20–21.\n\n Instead, the Court looked to the principles underlying the\nmanagerial exception—namely, that managers fall outside the\nNLRA’s protections because “an employer is entitled to the\n\f 6\nundivided loyalty of its representatives.” Id. at 682. Unions\ndivide that loyalty, and the fear of compromised loyalty was\n“particularly acute” at a university like Yeshiva, where the\nfaculty exercised “pervasive[]”—even “absolute”—control\nover academic matters. Id. at 679, 686, 689. “The controlling\nconsideration in this case,” the Court explained, “is that the\nfaculty of Yeshiva University exercise authority which in any\nother context unquestionably would be managerial.” Id. at 686.\nElaborating, the Court stated:\n\n [The faculty’s] authority in academic matters is\n absolute. They decide what courses will be offered,\n when they will be scheduled, and to whom they will be\n taught. They debate and determine teaching methods,\n grading policies, and matriculation standards. They\n effectively decide which students will be admitted,\n retained, and graduated. On occasion their views have\n determined the size of the student body, the tuition to\n be charged, and the location of a school. When one\n considers the function of a university, it is difficult to\n imagine decisions more managerial than these. To the\n extent the industrial analogy applies, the faculty\n determines within each school the product to be\n produced, the terms upon which it will be offered, and\n the customers who will be served.\n\nId.\n\n With the Yeshiva faculty’s “absolute” academic authority\nas a backdrop, the Court explained to the Board—in language\nimportant to the issue before us today—how to identify\nmanagerial faculty in future university cases. Faculty qualify\nas managerial when they exercise “effective recommendation\nor control” over central employer policies. Id. at 683 n.17.\nFaculty exercise such control when a university “depends on\n\f 7\nthe [faculty’s] professional judgment . . . to formulate and\napply crucial policies constrained only by necessarily general\ninstitutional goals,” particularly when the university “requires\nfaculty participation in governance.” Id. at 689.\n\n That said, the Court took care to avoid “sweep[ing] all\nprofessionals outside the [NLRA] in derogation of Congress’\nexpressed intent to protect them.” Id. at 690. Faculty are\nprotected by the NLRA if their “decisionmaking is limited to\nthe routine discharge of professional duties in projects to which\nthey have been assigned.” Id. Further cabining its holding, the\nCourt recognized that faculties are heterogeneous, and that\nnon-managerial subsets may exist within a faculty entrusted\nwith managerial authority. For instance, the Board might draw\na “rational line” between “tenured and untenured faculty\nmembers.” Id. at 690 n.31. Such a distinction turns on “how a\nfaculty is structured and operates.” Id. In saying this, the Court\nmade clear that “this is a starting point only, and that other\nfactors not present here may enter into the analysis in other\ncontexts.” Id.\n\n B.\n\n For several decades following Yeshiva, the Board, when\ndetermining a given faculty’s managerial status, applied a\ntotality-of-the-circumstances approach informed by the\ncontours of that case. See, e.g., American International\nCollege, 282 N.L.R.B. 189, 190–202 (1986) (discussing at\nlength whether the faculty at issue fell “within the scope of the\nSupreme Court’s decision in [Yeshiva]”). But in LeMoyne-\nOwen College v. N.L.R.B., 357 F.3d 55 (D.C. Cir. 2004), we\nfound the Board’s approach inadequate. There the Board had\nclassified the full-time faculty of a small private institution in\nMemphis as non-managerial. Id. at 55–56, 60. Although the\nBoard had relied on the fact that circumstances at LeMoyne-\n\f 8\nOwen were similar to those at other colleges where it had\nclassified faculty as non-managerial, we were concerned that\nthe Board failed to “discuss or even mention a single one of the\nprecedents on which the College relied.” Id. at 60. Ending our\nanalysis before reaching the managerial status of the college’s\nfaculty, we observed that, although the Board’s totality-of-the-\ncircumstances approach followed naturally from Yeshiva’s\n“long list of relevant factors” paired with “the exquisite variety\nof academic institutions across the country,” the Board must\nprovide an “adequate explanation for the result it reached in\nthis case.” Id. at 57, 61. We instructed the Board to delineate\n“which factors are significant and which less so, and why” in\nmanagerial-faculty determinations. Id. at 61. Doing so, we\nexplained, would afford faculty, universities, and reviewing\ncourts “predictability and intelligibility” concerning the\nBoard’s “[application of] the test to varied fact situations.” Id.;\nsee also Point Park University v. N.L.R.B., 457 F.3d 42, 50\n(D.C. Cir. 2006) (reiterating this requirement in another faculty\ncase).\n\n The Board endeavored to satisfy LeMoyne-Owen in\nPacific Lutheran University. Unlike Yeshiva, which involved\nfull-time faculty, Pacific Lutheran concerned a faculty\nsubgroup—specifically, full-time “contingent” (non-tenure\neligible) faculty. 361 N.L.R.B. at 1417. Drawing on its “30-\nplus years applying Yeshiva” and echoing the Supreme Court’s\nlanguage, the Board used Pacific Lutheran as a platform to\nlaunch a new test designed “to answer the question whether\nfaculty in a university setting actually or effectively exercise\ncontrol over decision making pertaining to central policies of\nthe university such that they are aligned with management.” Id.\n\n Under the Pacific Lutheran framework for determining\nwhether faculty qualify as managerial, the Board “organize[s]\n[its] review of faculty decision-making into five general areas”:\n\f 9\nacademic programs, enrollment management policies,\nfinances, academic policies, and personnel policies and\ndecisions. Id. The Board classifies the first three as “primary”\nand the last two as “secondary.” Id. at 1420. Although faculty\nparticipation in these areas takes various forms, under the\nPacific Lutheran framework the Board trains its focus on\nparticipation through service on university committees, which\nspecialize in a given field and then propose policies to the full\nfaculty or to the university’s administration. See id. at 1424–28\n(consistently analyzing faculty participation by looking to\nfaculty committees).\n\n Again echoing Yeshiva, the Board then considers whether\nthe faculty exercise “actual control or effective\nrecommendation” authority over each of these five areas. Id.\nat 1421. The test for “effective” control is demanding:\n“recommendations must almost always be followed by the\nadministration. Further, faculty recommendations are\n‘effective’ if they routinely become operative without\nindependent review by the administration.” Id. (internal\ncitation omitted). Intent on ensuring that faculty exercise\n“actual—rather than mere paper—authority,” Pacific Lutheran\nrequires “specific evidence” of the process by which the\nadministration adopts faculty recommendations. Id. Under\nPacific Lutheran, the Board looks at “both the structure of\nuniversity decisionmaking and where the faculty at issue fit\nwithin that structure, including the nature of the employment\nrelationship.” Id. at 1421–22. Relevant distinctions include\n“tenured vs. tenure eligible vs. nontenure eligible” and “regular\nvs. contingent” faculty members. Id. at 1422. Rather than\nrequiring that managerial faculty control some set number of\ndecision-making areas, Pacific Lutheran calls for a holistic\nreview of the control exerted over the five areas. See id. at 1423\n(noting that to determine managerial status the Board will\nassess faculty’s control “over those areas”).\n\f 10\n Beyond these context-specific inquiries, and central to this\ncase, Pacific Lutheran sets a bright-line “majority status rule”\nunder which a committee’s actual control or effective\nrecommendation authority over a particular decision-making\narea may be ascribed to faculty only if they constitute a\nmajority of that committee: “[i]f faculty members do not exert\nmajority control, we will not attribute the committee’s conduct\nto the faculty.” Id. at 1421 n.36.\n\n Applying this framework to the situation at Pacific\nLutheran, the Board determined that the contingent faculty\nwere non-managerial. Although the university had recently\nallowed contingent faculty to sit on committees, no such\nfaculty members had yet joined a committee and, in any event,\nit appeared that they would have had no “right to vote within\ntheir respective divisions, schools, or constituent departments.”\nId. at 1424, 1427–28. Contingent faculty did participate in and\nhave a vote at the faculty assembly, but the Board characterized\nthe assembly as “little more than a conduit to transmit\npreviously agreed-upon recommendations to the\nadministration” and observed that contingent faculty\ncomprised only about twenty percent of the faculty assembly’s\naverage attendees. Id. at 1428. According to the Board, the\nnature of the contingent faculty members’ employment\nrelationship with the university also counseled against a finding\nof managerial status. In contrast to Yeshiva, where the\nuniversity “require[d] faculty participation in governance,” 444\nU.S. at 689, the Pacific Lutheran administration rarely\ndiscussed with contingent faculty its expectations for their\nuniversity service, such as committee participation, see Pacific\nLutheran, 361 N.L.R.B. at 1423. Contingent faculty had to\nrenew their contracts annually and received minimal\ninstitutional support (such as funding for professional\ndevelopment or research). Id.\n\f 11\n In considering whether faculty held a majority of\ncommittee seats, the Board left uncertain whether the majority\nstatus rule applied to the contingent faculty only or to the\nfaculty as a whole. Even if contingent faculty members sat on\ncommittees, the Board observed, “they would be a minority on\nthe . . . committee[s] as their membership is currently\nstructured.” Id. at 1428. Because the faculty as a whole\nconstituted a minority on all of these committees, id. at 1424,\nhowever, the significance of this observation was unclear.\n\n Two Board members—Phillip Miscimarra and Harry\nJohnson—separately dissented in part. They “generally\nagree[d]” with the Board’s “admirable effort” to craft distinct,\nworkable decision-making areas. Id. at 1430 (Miscimarra,\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: University of Southern CA v. NLRB\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-12\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: Yes\\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued September 5, 2018 Decided March 12, 2019\\n\\n No. 17-1149\\n\\n UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA,\\n PETITIONER\\n\\n v.\\n\\n NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,\\n RESPONDENT\\n\\n SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION, LOCAL 721,\\n CTW, CLC,\\n INTERVENOR\\n\\n\\n Consolidated with 17-1171\\n\\n\\n On Petition for Review and Cross-Application for\\n Enforcement\\n of an Order of the National Labor Relations Board\\n\\n\\n J. Al Latham Jr. argued the cause for petitioner. With him\\non the briefs was Cameron W. Fox.\\n\\n Jessica L. Ellsworth and Joel Buckman were on the brief\\nfor amicus curiae The American Council on Education and\\nseven other education associations in support of petitioner.\\n\\f 2\\n Heather S. Beard, Attorney, National Labor Relations\\nBoard, argued the cause for respondent. On the brief were Peter\\nB. Robb, General Counsel, John W. Kyle, Deputy General\\nCounsel, Linda Dreeben, Deputy Associate General Counsel at\\nthe time the brief was filed, Usha Dheenan, Supervisory\\nAttorney, and Joel A. Heller, Attorney. John H. Ferguson,\\nAssistant General Counsel, entered an appearance.\\n\\n Maria Keegan Myers argued the cause for intervenor\\nService Employees International Union, Local 721, CTW,\\nCLC. With her on the brief were Glenn E. Rothner and Hannah\\nS. Weinstein.\\n\\n Michael S. Wolly was on the brief for amicus curiae The\\nAmerican Association of University Professors in support of\\nrespondent.\\n\\n Before: TATEL and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and\\nSENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.\\n\\n TATEL, Circuit Judge: Almost four decades ago, in\\nN.L.R.B. v. Yeshiva University, 444 U.S. 672 (1980), the\\nSupreme Court sustained the National Labor Relation Board’s\\nextension of the protections of the National Labor Relations\\nAct to the faculty of private universities. The Court concluded,\\nhowever, that the full-time faculty seeking recognition in that\\ncase qualified as managerial employees exempt from the\\nNLRA’s coverage because, as at other “‘mature’ private\\nuniversit[ies]” where “authority . . . is divided between a\\ncentral administration and one or more collegial bodies,” the\\nfaculty at Yeshiva exercised “effective[] control” over central\\nuniversity policies. Id. at 680, 683. In this case, the Board,\\napplying standards it set forth in its post-Yeshiva decision,\\n\\f 3\\nPacific Lutheran University, 361 N.L.R.B. 1404 (2014), ruled\\nthat the full- and part-time non-tenure-track faculty of the\\nUniversity of Southern California’s (USC’s) Roski School of\\nArt and Design exercised no effective control over university\\npolicies and, as non-managerial employees, were therefore\\neligible to join a union. USC petitions for review, arguing,\\namong other things, that the Pacific Lutheran framework\\nconflicts in several different ways with Yeshiva. Because we\\nagree that one aspect of the Board’s decision here—namely, its\\nextension of Pacific Lutheran’s “majority status rule” to\\nfaculty subgroups—conflicts with Yeshiva, we grant the\\npetition in part and deny the Board’s cross-application for\\nenforcement.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Designed by Congress to quell “industrial strife” and its\\nharmful effects on the “channels of commerce,” the National\\nLabor Relations Act aimed to stabilize industry by vesting\\nindustrial workforces with new labor rights. See Pub. L.\\nNo. 74-198, § 1, 49 Stat. 449, 449 (1935) (codified as amended\\nat 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.). Congress sought to “redress the\\nperceived imbalance of economic power between labor and\\nmanagement . . . by conferring certain affirmative rights on\\nemployees and by placing certain enumerated restrictions on\\nthe activities of employers.” American Ship Building Co. v.\\nN.L.R.B., 380 U.S. 300, 316 (1965). “The central purpose of\\n[the NLRA] was to protect employee self-organization and the\\nprocess of collective bargaining from disruptive interferences\\nby employers.” Id. at 317.\\n\\n A.\\n\\n Years after Congress passed the NLRA, the Supreme\\nCourt issued two opinions central to the question before us in\\nthis case. First, in N.L.R.B. v. Bell Aerospace Co. Division of\\n\\f 4\\nTextron Inc., the Court held that although the NLRA, by its\\nterms, covers all employees (except for supervisors and other\\nexemptions immaterial to this case, see 29 U.S.C. § 152(3),\\n(12)), it nonetheless excludes “managerial” employees from its\\nprotections. 416 U.S. 267, 283–84 (1974). As the Court\\nexplained, Congress “regarded [managers] as so clearly outside\\nthe [NLRA] that no specific exclusionary provision was\\nthought necessary.” Id. at 283.\\n\\n Second, in N.L.R.B. v. Yeshiva University, the Court\\nclarified for the first time that the NLRA covers university\\nemployees and provided guidance about when university\\nfaculties constitute managerial employees exempt from the\\nNLRA’s coverage. See 444 U.S. at 682–90. In doing so, the\\nCourt distinguished between the “type of management-\\nemployee relations that prevail in the pyramidal hierarchies of\\nprivate industry” and those that exist within a “typical ‘mature’\\nprivate university” where “authority . . . is divided between a\\ncentral administration and one or more collegial bodies”\\ncomposed of academic faculty. Id. at 680. Together,\\nadministration and faculty may manage a university through a\\nsystem of shared governance—“‘the process by which various\\nconstituents (traditionally governing boards, senior\\nadministration, and faculty . . .) contribute to decision making\\nrelated to college or university policy and procedure.’”\\nAmerican Council on Education’s (“ACE”) Br. 4 (alteration in\\noriginal) (quoting Association of Governing Boards of\\nUniversities and Colleges, Shared Governance: Changing with\\nthe Times 3 (Mar. 2017)). It was respect for the “shared\\nauthority” that can be embedded in university governance,\\npaired with the need to safeguard the protections afforded by\\nthe NLRA, that guided the Court in Yeshiva. See 444 U.S. at\\n680.\\n\\f 5\\n The facts of Yeshiva are straightforward. A union seeking\\nto represent most of the university’s full-time faculty filed a\\nrepresentation petition, requesting that the Board certify it as\\nthe faculty’s bargaining agent. Id. at 674–75. The university\\nargued that the faculty were managerial, but the Board found\\notherwise. Id. at 678. Grounding its decision in the NLRA’s\\nprotection of professional employees—a designation\\nencompassing employees engaged in “predominantly\\nintellectual” work, 29 U.S.C. § 152(12)—the Board found that\\nmembers of Yeshiva’s faculty were professional employees\\nwho enjoy the NLRA’s protections, rather than exempted\\nmanagerial ones. Yeshiva, 444 U.S. at 678.\\n\\n The Supreme Court disagreed. It pointed out that\\n“professionals, like other employees, may be exempted from\\ncoverage . . . under the judicially implied exclusion for\\n‘managerial employees.’” Id. at 681–82. In non-university\\nsettings, moreover, the Board classifies as exempted\\nmanagerial employees those individuals who “represent[]\\nmanagement interests by taking or recommending\\ndiscretionary actions that effectively control or implement\\nemployer policy.” Id. at 683. Therefore, the Court explained,\\nthe same general analysis must guide the Board in the\\nuniversity setting. Id. at 686. As relevant here, the Court\\ndismissed as inconsistent with these precedents the Board’s\\narguments that faculty members were non-managerial because\\nthey engaged in collective decision making (true of many\\ncorporate managers working through boards and committees)\\nand because they enjoyed less than “ultimate” authority (held\\nin corporate settings by the board of directors). Id. at 684–85,\\n685 nn. 20–21.\\n\\n Instead, the Court looked to the principles underlying the\\nmanagerial exception—namely, that managers fall outside the\\nNLRA’s protections because “an employer is entitled to the\\n\\f 6\\nundivided loyalty of its representatives.” Id. at 682. Unions\\ndivide that loyalty, and the fear of compromised loyalty was\\n“particularly acute” at a university like Yeshiva, where the\\nfaculty exercised “pervasive[]”—even “absolute”—control\\nover academic matters. Id. at 679, 686, 689. “The controlling\\nconsideration in this case,” the Court explained, “is that the\\nfaculty of Yeshiva University exercise authority which in any\\nother context unquestionably would be managerial.” Id. at 686.\\nElaborating, the Court stated:\\n\\n [The faculty’s] authority in academic matters is\\n absolute. They decide what courses will be offered,\\n when they will be scheduled, and to whom they will be\\n taught. They debate and determine teaching methods,\\n grading policies, and matriculation standards. They\\n effectively decide which students will be admitted,\\n retained, and graduated. On occasion their views have\\n determined the size of the student body, the tuition to\\n be charged, and the location of a school. When one\\n considers the function of a university, it is difficult to\\n imagine decisions more managerial than these. To the\\n extent the industrial analogy applies, the faculty\\n determines within each school the product to be\\n produced, the terms upon which it will be offered, and\\n the customers who will be served.\\n\\nId.\\n\\n With the Yeshiva faculty’s “absolute” academic authority\\nas a backdrop, the Court explained to the Board—in language\\nimportant to the issue before us today—how to identify\\nmanagerial faculty in future university cases. Faculty qualify\\nas managerial when they exercise “effective recommendation\\nor control” over central employer policies. Id. at 683 n.17.\\nFaculty exercise such control when a university “depends on\\n\\f 7\\nthe [faculty’s] professional judgment . . . to formulate and\\napply crucial policies constrained only by necessarily general\\ninstitutional goals,” particularly when the university “requires\\nfaculty participation in governance.” Id. at 689.\\n\\n That said, the Court took care to avoid “sweep[ing] all\\nprofessionals outside the [NLRA] in derogation of Congress’\\nexpressed intent to protect them.” Id. at 690. Faculty are\\nprotected by the NLRA if their “decisionmaking is limited to\\nthe routine discharge of professional duties in projects to which\\nthey have been assigned.” Id. Further cabining its holding, the\\nCourt recognized that faculties are heterogeneous, and that\\nnon-managerial subsets may exist within a faculty entrusted\\nwith managerial authority. For instance, the Board might draw\\na “rational line” between “tenured and untenured faculty\\nmembers.” Id. at 690 n.31. Such a distinction turns on “how a\\nfaculty is structured and operates.” Id. In saying this, the Court\\nmade clear that “this is a starting point only, and that other\\nfactors not present here may enter into the analysis in other\\ncontexts.” Id.\\n\\n B.\\n\\n For several decades following Yeshiva, the Board, when\\ndetermining a given faculty’s managerial status, applied a\\ntotality-of-the-circumstances approach informed by the\\ncontours of that case. See, e.g., American International\\nCollege, 282 N.L.R.B. 189, 190–202 (1986) (discussing at\\nlength whether the faculty at issue fell “within the scope of the\\nSupreme Court’s decision in [Yeshiva]”). But in LeMoyne-\\nOwen College v. N.L.R.B., 357 F.3d 55 (D.C. Cir. 2004), we\\nfound the Board’s approach inadequate. There the Board had\\nclassified the full-time faculty of a small private institution in\\nMemphis as non-managerial. Id. at 55–56, 60. Although the\\nBoard had relied on the fact that circumstances at LeMoyne-\\n\\f 8\\nOwen were similar to those at other colleges where it had\\nclassified faculty as non-managerial, we were concerned that\\nthe Board failed to “discuss or even mention a single one of the\\nprecedents on which the College relied.” Id. at 60. Ending our\\nanalysis before reaching the managerial status of the college’s\\nfaculty, we observed that, although the Board’s totality-of-the-\\ncircumstances approach followed naturally from Yeshiva’s\\n“long list of relevant factors” paired with “the exquisite variety\\nof academic institutions across the country,” the Board must\\nprovide an “adequate explanation for the result it reached in\\nthis case.” Id. at 57, 61. We instructed the Board to delineate\\n“which factors are significant and which less so, and why” in\\nmanagerial-faculty determinations. Id. at 61. Doing so, we\\nexplained, would afford faculty, universities, and reviewing\\ncourts “predictability and intelligibility” concerning the\\nBoard’s “[application of] the test to varied fact situations.” Id.;\\nsee also Point Park University v. N.L.R.B., 457 F.3d 42, 50\\n(D.C. Cir. 2006) (reiterating this requirement in another faculty\\ncase).\\n\\n The Board endeavored to satisfy LeMoyne-Owen in\\nPacific Lutheran University. Unlike Yeshiva, which involved\\nfull-time faculty, Pacific Lutheran concerned a faculty\\nsubgroup—specifically, full-time “contingent” (non-tenure\\neligible) faculty. 361 N.L.R.B. at 1417. Drawing on its “30-\\nplus years applying Yeshiva” and echoing the Supreme Court’s\\nlanguage, the Board used Pacific Lutheran as a platform to\\nlaunch a new test designed “to answer the question whether\\nfaculty in a university setting actually or effectively exercise\\ncontrol over decision making pertaining to central policies of\\nthe university such that they are aligned with management.” Id.\\n\\n Under the Pacific Lutheran framework for determining\\nwhether faculty qualify as managerial, the Board “organize[s]\\n[its] review of faculty decision-making into five general areas”:\\n\\f 9\\nacademic programs, enrollment management policies,\\nfinances, academic policies, and personnel policies and\\ndecisions. Id. The Board classifies the first three as “primary”\\nand the last two as “secondary.” Id. at 1420. Although faculty\\nparticipation in these areas takes various forms, under the\\nPacific Lutheran framework the Board trains its focus on\\nparticipation through service on university committees, which\\nspecialize in a given field and then propose policies to the full\\nfaculty or to the university’s administration. See id. at 1424–28\\n(consistently analyzing faculty participation by looking to\\nfaculty committees).\\n\\n Again echoing Yeshiva, the Board then considers whether\\nthe faculty exercise “actual control or effective\\nrecommendation” authority over each of these five areas. Id.\\nat 1421. The test for “effective” control is demanding:\\n“recommendations must almost always be followed by the\\nadministration. Further, faculty recommendations are\\n‘effective’ if they routinely become operative without\\nindependent review by the administration.” Id. (internal\\ncitation omitted). Intent on ensuring that faculty exercise\\n“actual—rather than mere paper—authority,” Pacific Lutheran\\nrequires “specific evidence” of the process by which the\\nadministration adopts faculty recommendations. Id. Under\\nPacific Lutheran, the Board looks at “both the structure of\\nuniversity decisionmaking and where the faculty at issue fit\\nwithin that structure, including the nature of the employment\\nrelationship.” Id. at 1421–22. Relevant distinctions include\\n“tenured vs. tenure eligible vs. nontenure eligible” and “regular\\nvs. contingent” faculty members. Id. at 1422. Rather than\\nrequiring that managerial faculty control some set number of\\ndecision-making areas, Pacific Lutheran calls for a holistic\\nreview of the control exerted over the five areas. See id. at 1423\\n(noting that to determine managerial status the Board will\\nassess faculty’s control “over those areas”).\\n\\f 10\\n Beyond these context-specific inquiries, and central to this\\ncase, Pacific Lutheran sets a bright-line “majority status rule”\\nunder which a committee’s actual control or effective\\nrecommendation authority over a particular decision-making\\narea may be ascribed to faculty only if they constitute a\\nmajority of that committee: “[i]f faculty members do not exert\\nmajority control, we will not attribute the committee’s conduct\\nto the faculty.” Id. at 1421 n.36.\\n\\n Applying this framework to the situation at Pacific\\nLutheran, the Board determined that the contingent faculty\\nwere non-managerial. Although the university had recently\\nallowed contingent faculty to sit on committees, no such\\nfaculty members had yet joined a committee and, in any event,\\nit appeared that they would have had no “right to vote within\\ntheir respective divisions, schools, or constituent departments.”\\nId. at 1424, 1427–28. Contingent faculty did participate in and\\nhave a vote at the faculty assembly, but the Board characterized\\nthe assembly as “little more than a conduit to transmit\\npreviously agreed-upon recommendations to the\\nadministration” and observed that contingent faculty\\ncomprised only about twenty percent of the faculty assembly’s\\naverage attendees. Id. at 1428. According to the Board, the\\nnature of the contingent faculty members’ employment\\nrelationship with the university also counseled against a finding\\nof managerial status. In contrast to Yeshiva, where the\\nuniversity “require[d] faculty participation in governance,” 444\\nU.S. at 689, the Pacific Lutheran administration rarely\\ndiscussed with contingent faculty its expectations for their\\nuniversity service, such as committee participation, see Pacific\\nLutheran, 361 N.L.R.B. at 1423. Contingent faculty had to\\nrenew their contracts annually and received minimal\\ninstitutional support (such as funding for professional\\ndevelopment or research). Id.\\n\\f 11\\n In considering whether faculty held a majority of\\ncommittee seats, the Board left uncertain whether the majority\\nstatus rule applied to the contingent faculty only or to the\\nfaculty as a whole. Even if contingent faculty members sat on\\ncommittees, the Board observed, “they would be a minority on\\nthe . . . committee[s] as their membership is currently\\nstructured.” Id. at 1428. Because the faculty as a whole\\nconstituted a minority on all of these committees, id. at 1424,\\nhowever, the significance of this observation was unclear.\\n\\n Two Board members—Phillip Miscimarra and Harry\\nJohnson—separately dissented in part. They “generally\\nagree[d]” with the Board’s “admirable effort” to craft distinct,\\nworkable decision-making areas. Id. at 1430 (Miscimarra,\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1385,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4598705,"string":"4,598,705"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Darryl LEWIS, Appellant v. Kalev MUTOND, in His Individual Capacity Only, Administrateur Generale, Agence Nationale De Renseignements, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, in His Individual Capacity Only, Ministre De La Justice, Garde Des Sceaux Et Droits Humains, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Appellees"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Darryl Lewis v. Kalev Mutond"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-12"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"17-7118"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Srinivasan, Wilkins, Randolph\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888141/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}, {\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"030concurrence\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888142/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}, {\"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued September 6, 2018 Decided March 12, 2019\\n\\n No. 17-7118\\n\\n DARRYL LEWIS,\\n APPELLANT\\n\\n v.\\n\\n KALEV MUTOND, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY ONLY,\\n ADMINISTRATEUR GENERALE, AGENCE NATIONALE DE\\n RENSEIGNEMENTS, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO\\nAND ALEXIS TAMBWE MWAMBA, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY\\n ONLY, MINISTRE DE LA JUSTICE, GARDE DES SCEAUX ET\\n DROITS HUMAINS, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:16-cv-01547)\\n\\n\\n Merrill C. Godfrey argued the cause and filed the briefs\\nfor appellant.\\n\\n Robert N. Weiner argued the cause for appellees. With\\nhim on the brief were Raul R. Herrera, R. Stanton Jones, and\\nStephen K. Wirth.\\n\\n Before: SRINIVASAN and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and\\nRANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\n 2\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILKINS.\\n\\n Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.\", \"author\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILKINS\"}, {\"type\": \"concurrence\", \"author\": \"Opinion\", \"text\": \"Opinion concurring in the judgment filed by Senior Circuit\\nJudge RANDOLPH.\\n\\n WILKINS, Circuit Judge: This case involves a lawsuit\\nbrought under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991\\n(“TVPA”), Pub. L. 102–256, 106 Stat. 73 (1992), by an\\nAmerican citizen who sued two foreign officials from the\\nDemocratic Republic of the Congo (“DRC”) for alleged torture\\nover a six-week period. Plaintiff seeks compensatory and\\npunitive damages.\\n\\n Defendants moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter\\njurisdiction; lack of personal jurisdiction; and insufficient\\nservice of process. The District Court granted the motion to\\ndismiss, holding the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction\\nbecause the defendants are immune under the common law\\nforeign official immunity doctrine.\\n\\n For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that\\nDefendants are not entitled to foreign official immunity under\\nthe common law. Because such immunity does not apply in\\nthis case, we vacate the ruling of the District Court dismissing\\nfor lack of subject matter jurisdiction and remand for further\\nproceedings. In the opinion by Senior Judge Randolph, which\\nis joined in relevant part by Judge Srinivasan, we provide the\\nalternative holding that the TVPA displaces conduct-based\\nimmunity in this context.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n 3\\n The following facts are taken from the complaint and\\nassumed true on review of Defendants’ motion to dismiss.\\nScandinavian Satellite Sys., AS v. Prime TV Ltd., 291 F.3d 839,\\n844 (D.C. Cir. 2002). In April 2016, Plaintiff Darryl Lewis, an\\nAmerican citizen, was in the DRC working as an “unarmed\\nsecurity advisor” to Moise Katumbi. J.A. 4. Katumbi, the\\nformer governor of the Katanga Province, was running for\\npresident of the DRC. In his complaint, Plaintiff asserts that,\\non April 24, 2016, he was traveling by car with a colleague in\\nLubumbashi when he was stopped by a local police officer near\\na political rally. Lewis, his colleague, and colleagues in a\\nseparate vehicle were detained by the National Intelligence\\nAgency, Agence Nationale de Renseignements (“ANR”).\\nPlaintiff describes being physically assaulted during the arrest\\nprocess and being accused of being an American mercenary\\nsoldier, which he denies. Lewis and his colleagues were then\\ntransported to a local jail, where ANR members continued to\\nassault them during a lengthy interrogation. The following\\nmorning, they were transported by air to Kinshasa, where\\nLewis was incarcerated and interrogated daily for six weeks.\\nPlaintiff alleges that he was interrogated daily by ANR\\nmembers for approximately sixteen hours a day and was\\nintentionally starved and denied sleep and basic hygienic\\nnecessities.\\n\\n Plaintiff claims that Defendant Kalev Mutond, General\\nAdministrator of the ANR, was involved in his detention in\\nKinshasa, at one point warning him: “Don’t let me find out\\nyou’re a mercenary.” J.A. 7. Plaintiff further claims that\\nDefendant Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, DRC Minister of\\nJustice, publicly accused him of being a mercenary sent to\\nassassinate President Joseph Kabila during a press conference\\non May 4, 2016, claiming to have “documented proof.” J.A. 7.\\nThe following day on May 5, 2016, the U.S. Embassy in\\nKinshasa allegedly issued a statement condemning the remarks\\n\\n 4\\nconcerning Lewis and mercenary activities. Lewis was\\nreleased on June 8, 2016, having never been charged with a\\ncrime.\\n\\n Plaintiff contends that Defendants are liable under the\\nTVPA. The TVPA creates an express cause of action against\\n“[a]n individual who, under actual or apparent authority, or\\ncolor of law, of any foreign nation . . . subjects an individual to\\ntorture.’’ 28 U.S.C. § 1350 (note) sec. 2(a). Plaintiff’s\\ncomplaint alleges that “Defendants at all times used their\\nrespective positions of authority to act under apparent authority\\nor color of law of the DRC with respect to the actions alleged\\nin this complaint.” J.A. 11. Rather than order his release from\\ncustody and protect him from torture, Plaintiff argues,\\nDefendants enabled the abuses described in the complaint.\\n\\n Defendants moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter\\njurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil\\nProcedure, claiming that Plaintiff’s complaint alleges acts\\nexclusively taken in Defendants’ official capacity. Because\\nforeign officials enjoy immunity from suits based on official\\nacts committed in their official capacities, Defendants argued,\\nthe District Court lacked jurisdiction. The District Court\\nagreed and granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss. Lewis v.\\nMutond, 258 F. Supp. 3d 168, 172 (D.D.C. 2017). Plaintiff\\ntimely appealed.\\n\\n II.\\n\\nThis Court reviews de novo the District Court’s dismissal for\\nlack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Simon v. Republic of\\nHungary, 812 F.3d 127, 135 (D.C. Cir. 2016). The defendant\\nbears the burden of proving foreign official immunity. Cf.\\nPhoenix Consulting Inc. v. Republic of Angola, 216 F.3d 36, 40\\n(D.C. Cir. 2000) (explaining that a foreign state defendant who\\n\\n 5\\nasserts the defense of immunity under the Foreign Sovereign\\nImmunities Act “bears the burden of proving that the plaintiff's\\nallegations do not bring its case within a statutory exception to\\nimmunity”).\\n\\n A.\\n\\n Because this case involves foreign officials – not foreign\\nstates – the issue of immunity is governed by the common law,\\nnot the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (“FSIA”). See\\nSamantar v. Yousuf, 560 U.S. 305, 325 (2010) (noting that a\\ncase “in which respondents have sued petitioner in his personal\\ncapacity . . . is properly governed by the common law”). The\\ndoctrine of common law foreign immunity distinguishes\\nbetween two types of immunity: status-based and conduct-\\nbased immunity. Status-based immunity is reserved for\\ndiplomats and heads of state and attaches “regardless of the\\nsubstance of the claim.” Chimène I. Keitner, The Common\\nLaw of Foreign Official Immunity, 14 GREEN BAG 2d 61, 64\\n(2010); see also Yousuf v. Samantar, 699 F.3d 763, 774 (4th\\nCir. 2012). Conduct-based immunity is afforded to “any []\\n[p]ublic minister, official, or agent of the state with respect to\\nacts performed in his official capacity if the effect of exercising\\njurisdiction would be to enforce a rule of law against the state.”\\nRestatement (Second) of Foreign Relations Law § 66(f) (1965)\\n(hereinafter Restatement); see also Matar v. Dichter, 563 F.3d\\n9, 14 (2d Cir. 2009); Samantar, 699 F.3d at 774.\\n\\n As explained by the Supreme Court in Samantar, a two-\\nstep procedure is used to determine whether a foreign official\\nis entitled to conduct-based foreign sovereign immunity.\\nSamantar, 560 U.S. at 311-12. At the first step, a foreign\\nofficial requests a “suggestion of immunity” from the State\\nDepartment and, if granted, the District Court is divested of its\\njurisdiction. Id. at 311. If the State Department does not grant\\n\\n 6\\na suggestion of immunity, the District Court is authorized to\\ndecide whether all the requisites for foreign-official immunity\\nexist. Id. at 311-12.\\n\\n B.\\n\\n We turn to the two-step procedure outlined in Samantar to\\nevaluate Defendants’ claim to conduct-based immunity. At\\nstep one, see Samantar, 560 U.S. at 311-12, we conclude that\\nDefendants are not entitled to immunity. On August 9, 2016,\\nthe DRC Ambassador to the United States sent a letter to the\\nUnited States Department of State denying Plaintiff’s\\nallegations and requesting that the State Department submit a\\nsuggestion of immunity to the court. This request was\\nreiterated in a December 13, 2016 follow-up letter. However,\\nthe State Department did not accede to the plea of the DRC,\\nand never issued a request that the District Court surrender its\\njurisdiction.\\n\\n At step two, we consider whether Defendants satisfy the\\nrequisites for conduct-based immunity. The Supreme Court\\nhas “expressed no view on whether Restatement [2d of Foreign\\nRelations] § 66 correctly sets out the scope of the common-law\\nimmunity applicable to current or former foreign officials.”\\nSamantar, 560 U.S. at 321 n.15. Here, however, both parties\\nassume § 66 accurately sets out the scope of common-law\\nimmunity for current or former officials, see Appellees’ Br. 14\\n& n.4, and we therefore proceed on that understanding without\\ndeciding the issue. Assuming, as the parties do, that\\nRestatement § 66 captures the contours of common-law official\\nimmunity, Defendants are not entitled to immunity.\\n\\n Under Restatement § 66, the court considers three factors.\\nFirst, whether the actor is a public minister, official, or agent of\\nthe foreign state. Restatement § 66(f). Second, whether the\\n\\n 7\\nacts were performed in her official capacity. Id. And third,\\nwhether exercising jurisdiction would serve to enforce a rule of\\nlaw against the foreign state. Id. To establish conduct-based\\nimmunity, a defendant must establish all three factors.\\nRestatement § 66 cmt. b (“Public ministers, officials, or agents\\nof a state . . . do not have immunity from personal liability even\\nfor acts carried out in their official capacity, unless the effect\\nof exercising jurisdiction would be to enforce a rule against the\\nforeign state.” (emphasis added)).\\n\\n As a result, to enjoy conduct-based immunity as defined\\nby the Restatement, Defendants must satisfy the third factor by\\nproving that exercising jurisdiction in this case is tantamount\\nto enforcing a rule of law against the DRC itself. See\\nRestatement § 66(f). Defendants attempt to prove this, in part,\\nby arguing that “Plaintiff’s suit seeks to hold high-ranking\\nDRC government officials liable for official conduct carried\\nout entirely within the DRC.” Appellees’ Br. 30. This position\\nelides the second and third elements for establishing conduct-\\nbased immunity. The second immunity element focuses on the\\nnature of Defendant’s acts and whether they were taken within\\nan “official capacity.” By contrast, the third element considers\\nwhether the remedies sought by Plaintiff serve to enforce a rule\\nof law against the DRC. That element, as understood through\\nthe lens of the small number of decisions speaking to the\\nexistence and scope of common-law immunity, would allow\\nfor immunity when a judgment against the official would bind\\n(or be enforceable against) the foreign state. See Beth\\nStephens, The Modern Common Law of Foreign Official\\nImmunity, 79 FORDHAM L. REV. 2669, 2676-78 (2011)\\n(examining cases).\\n\\n This approach is reinforced by the illustrations in the\\nRestatement commentary. For example, the Restatement\\nexplains:\\n\\n 8\\n\\n X, an official of the defense ministry of state A,\\n enters into a contract in state B with Y for the\\n purchase of supplies for the armed forces of A.\\n A disagreement arises under the contract and Y\\n brings suit in B against X as an individual,\\n seeking to compel him to apply certain funds of\\n A in his possession to satisfy obligations of A\\n under the contract. X is entitled to the\\n immunity of A.\\n\\nRestatement § 66, cmt. B(2).\\n\\n Defendants have not proffered anything to show that\\nPlaintiff seeks to draw on the DRC’s treasury or force the state\\nto take specific action, as would be the case if the judgment\\nwere enforceable against the state. Defendants in this case are\\nbeing sued in their individual capacities and Plaintiff is not\\nseeking compensation out of state funds. J.A. 2; see also\\nAppellant’s Br. 27 (“[T]he monetary liability sought here\\nagainst individuals . . . would have no effect on the state\\ntreasury.”). Defendants argue that the effect on the DRC’s\\ntreasury is “irrelevant” because “[e]xercising jurisdiction here\\nwould compel the DRC’s sitting Minister of Justice and\\nGeneral Director of the National Intelligence Agency to defend\\ntheir handling of a high-profile domestic security matter in U.S.\\ncourts.” Appellees’ Br. 32. Taking such foreign officials away\\nfrom their official duties in the DRC, Defendants argue, is a\\n“sufficient sanction to constitute enforcing a rule of law on the\\nDRC.” Appellees’ Br. 32 (alterations and quotations omitted).\\nBut these collateral effects are too attenuated to be equated with\\nthe direct fiscal impacts on the foreign state that are\\ncontemplated by the Restatement. Cf. Edelman v. Jordan, 415\\nU.S. 651, 663 (1974) (“[E]ven though a State is not named a\\nparty to the action, . . . [if] the action is in essence one for the\\n\\n 9\\nrecovery of money from the state, the state is the real,\\nsubstantial party in interest and is entitled to invoke its\\nsovereign immunity.” (citation omitted)). In cases like this\\none, in which the plaintiff pursues an individual-capacity claim\\nseeking relief against an official in a personal capacity,\\nexercising jurisdiction does not enforce a rule against the\\nforeign state. Defendants are thus not entitled to the conduct-\\nbased foreign official immunity. In view of our conclusion that\\nDefendants have not satisfied the necessary third element of\\nconduct-based immunity, we need not address Plaintiff’s\\narguments relating to the first two elements.\\n\\n III.\\n\\n For these reasons, we vacate the District Court’s grant of\\nDefendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter\\njurisdiction and remand for further proceedings. Defendants\\nargue that, even if the District Court has subject matter\\njurisdiction, this Court should affirm on the basis that the court\\nlacks personal jurisdiction over them. Defendants claim they\\ndo not have “any connection to the United States, and all of the\\nconduct at issue is alleged to have occurred entirely within the\\nDRC.” Appellees’ Br. 33 (citing Mwani v. bin Laden, 417 F.3d\\n1, 8 (D.C. Cir. 2005)); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(k)(2).\\nPlaintiff’s memorandum in opposition to Defendants’ motion\\nto dismiss disagreed but requested jurisdictional discovery if\\nthe court were inclined to agree with Defendants. See Second\\nAmendment Found. v. U.S. Conference of Mayors, 274 F.3d\\n521, 525 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (“Certainly, ‘a plaintiff faced with a\\nmotion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction is entitled to\\nreasonable discovery.’” (quoting El-Fadl v. Cent. Bank of\\nJordan, 75 F.3d 668, 676 (D.C. Cir. 1996)) (alterations\\nomitted)). The District Court neither addressed Defendants’\\npersonal jurisdiction argument nor ruled on Plaintiff’s request\\nfor jurisdictional discovery. Lewis v. Mutond, 258 F. Supp. 3d\\n\\n 10\\n168, 174-75 (D.D.C. 2017). We decline to decide the matter in\\nthe first instance. Accordingly, on remand, the District Court\\nshould consider the question of personal jurisdiction and\\nwhether Plaintiff is entitled to jurisdictional discovery.\\n\\n So ordered.\"}, {\"author\": \"SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge, concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge, concurring:\\n\\n I fully join Judge Wilkins’s opinion, which explains that\\nif, as the parties assume, Restatement (Second) of Foreign\\nRelations Law § 66(f) sets out the scope of common-law,\\nconduct-based immunity for foreign officials, the defendants in\\nthis case do not qualify for that immunity. I also agree with the\\nportion of Judge Randolph’s concurrence in the judgment\\nexplaining that the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA)\\nsubjects foreign officials to liability for acts undertaken in an\\nofficial capacity and thus displaces any common-law,\\nconduct-based immunity that might otherwise apply in the\\ncontext of claims under that Act. See Concurring Op. 3–4. In\\nmy view, therefore, the defendants in this case do not qualify\\nfor immunity for either of two reasons: (a) as Judge Wilkins\\nexplains, they fall outside the scope of the common-law,\\nconduct-based immunity contemplated by Restatement § 66(f);\\nor (b) as Judge Randolph explains, they fall within the scope of\\nliability contemplated by the TVPA per the allegations in the\\ncomplaint.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4375958/\", \"author_raw\": \"SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge, concurring\"}, {\"author\": \"RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring\", \"type\": \"concurrence\", \"text\": \"RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment:\\n\\n The court assumes that the immunity of the defendant\\nforeign officials under the Torture Victims Protection Act turns\\non “the common law” and that the Restatement (Second) of\\nForeign Relations Law of the United States § 66(f) (1965)1\\nembodies the governing common law.\\n\\n I think both assumptions are dubious. Neither has been\\ntested in an adversary proceeding.\\n\\n Consider first the proposition that, as the court assumes,\\nRestatement (Second) § 66(f)2 recites the common law. The\\n\\n 1\\n The Restatement (Second) was superseded by the Restatement\\n(Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States (1987). See\\nBeth Stephens, The Modern Common Law of Foreign Official\\nImmunity, 79 Fordham L. Rev. 2669, 2678 n.45 (2011). There may\\nbe a plausible but oddly unexplained reason for invoking the older\\nRestatement version and ignoring the newer. I see no need to get into\\nthis.\\n 2\\n “The immunity of a foreign state under the rule stated in § 65\\nextends to\\n (a) the state itself;\\n (b) its head of state and any person designated by him as a\\n member of his official party;\\n (c) its government or any governmental agency;\\n (d) its head of government and any person designated by him as\\n a member of his official party;\\n (e) its foreign minister and any person designated by him as a\\n member of his official party;\\n (f) any other public minister, official, or agent of the state with\\n respect to acts performed in his official capacity if the effect\\n of exercising jurisdiction would be to enforce a rule of law\\n against the state;\\n (g) a corporation created under its laws and exercising functions\\n comparable to those of an agency of the state.”\\nRestatement (Second) § 66.\\n\\n 2\\n\\ncommon law is “the dominant consensus of common-law\\njurisdictions.” Field v. Mans, 516 U.S. 59, 70 n.9 (1995).3 This\\nRestatement is titled “Foreign Relations Law of the United\\nStates,” but it does not pretend to be a statement of “common\\nlaw.” Instead it sets forth “rules of international law as\\ndistinguished from the rules of domestic law,” “[e]xcept as\\notherwise indicated.” Restatement (Second) § 2(2).4 The\\nimmunity provision of Restatement (Second) § 66(f) contains no\\nsuch exception, express or implied.\\n\\n Restatement § 66(f) appears to be a distillation of scant case\\nlaw in this country, international treaties to which the United\\nStates may or may not be a party, the writings of law professors\\nhere and abroad, negotiated settlements of international disputes,\\nand other non-judicial sources such as actions of our Department\\nof State and perhaps comments in meetings of the American\\nLaw Institute. Restatement (Second) § 1, comment c, explains\\nthat the “paucity of adjudicated decisions in the international\\n\\n\\n 3\\n Another definition of the common law, in a highly regarded\\nposting in the Federal Register, is this: “The common law is a body of\\njudge-made substantive rules, principles, and prescribed standards of\\nconduct.” Federal Trade Commission, Unfair or Deceptive\\nAdvertising and Labeling of Cigarettes in Relation to the Health\\nHazards of Smoking, 29 Fed. Reg. 8324, 8365 (July 2, 1964); see also\\nA. Raymond Randolph, Before Roe v. Wade: Judge Friendly’s Draft\\nAbortion Opinion, 29 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 1035, 1044 (2006)\\n(“The common law judge analyzes past judicial decisions, considers\\nthe reasons behind the decisions, comes up with a principle to explain\\nthe cases, and then applies that principle to a new case.”).\\n 4\\n “Our duty is to enforce the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the\\nUnited States, not to conform the law of the land to norms of\\ncustomary international law.” United States v. Yunis, 924 F.2d 1086,\\n1091 (D.C. Cir. 1991).\\n\\n 3\\n\\nfield has led to greater reliance on non-judicial sources than in\\ndomestic law.” See also Restatement (Second) § 2, cmt. f.\\n\\n If Restatement (Second) § 66(f) is not common law, and\\ndoes not purport to be, how then does one discover the real\\ncommon law? The answer is not obvious. It may well be that\\nthere is not now and never was any common law of immunity\\nfor foreign officials sued in the United States. “The lower courts\\nwill find only minimal guidance from [pre-1976] decisions\\ninvolving the common law immunity of foreign officials. Those\\ncases were ‘few and far between,’ and none addressed claims of\\nhuman rights abuses.” Stephens, supra, at 2671 (footnote\\nomitted) (quoting Samantar v. Yousuf, 560 U.S. 305, 323\\n(2010)).5\\n\\n Even if there were a common law of immunity for foreign\\nofficials and even if the Restatement (Second) § 66(f) stated it,\\nthe question remains: does the Restatement’s version of the\\ncommon law control actions such as this arising under the\\nTorture Victims Protection Act of 1991, 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note?\\nA foreign official may be immune from suit pursuant to the\\nRestatement’s § 66(f) only with respect “to acts performed in his\\nofficial capacity.” Here the Democratic Republic of the Congo\\nnotified the State Department that the defendants’ alleged torture\\nactions were “undertaken in their official capacities.”\\n\\n That may have satisfied a prerequisite for immunity under\\nthe Restatement, but it also amounted to a confession satisfying\\n\\n\\n 5\\n “The courts will not be able to turn to pre-FSIA common law\\ndecisions and commentary to determine the scope of the modern\\ncommon law of official immunity in part because the cases were\\nsparse, leaving a few guidelines but no substantial body of law.” Id.\\nat 2702. “Pre-FSIA” means before enactment of the Foreign\\nSovereign Immunities Act of 1976.\\n\\n 4\\n\\none of the prerequisites for liability under the Torture Act.\\nSection 2(a) of the Torture Act does away with the Nuremberg\\ndefense, and more. Pursuant to § 2(a) an “individual who, under\\nactual or apparent authority, or color of law, of any foreign\\nnation . . . subjects an individual to torture shall, in a civil action,\\nbe liable for damages to that individual.” 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note\\n§ 2(a)(1). The Torture Act thus imposes liability for actions that\\nwould render the foreign official eligible for immunity under the\\nRestatement. When there is such a clear conflict between\\nstatutory law and judge-made common law, the common law\\nmust give way. See City of Milwaukee v. Illinois, 451 U.S. 304,\\n314–15 (1981).6\\n\\n I leave to the last a discussion of the Supreme Court’s\\ndecision in Samantar v. Yousuf and our court’s decision in\\nManoharan v. Rajapaksa, 711 F.3d 178 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (per\\ncuriam).\\n\\n Samantar v. Yousuf interpreted the term “foreign state” in\\nthe following provision of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities\\nAct (FSIA): “a foreign state shall be immune from the\\njurisdiction of the courts of the United States and of the States\\n. . ..” 28 U.S.C. §1604. The Supreme Court held that “foreign\\nstate” did not include foreign officials. In so holding the Court\\ndid “not resolve the dispute among the parties as to the precise\\nscope of an official’s immunity at common law.” 560 U.S. at\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n 6\\n “It has often been said that statutes in derogation of the common\\nlaw are to be strictly construed. That is a relic of the courts’ historical\\nhostility to the emergence of statutory law.” Antonin Scalia & Bryan\\nA. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 318\\n(2012).\\n\\n 5\\n\\n321.7 Although the plaintiffs sued under the Torture Act, the\\nCourt did not address the conflict between the Torture Act and\\nRestatement § 66(f).\\n\\n As to our decision in Manoharan v. Rajapaksa, the case\\ninvolved head-of-state immunity. As the court discusses in this\\ncase, Maj. Op. 5, there are two types of immunity for foreign\\nofficials – status-based, as in Manoharan, and conduct-based, as\\nin the case before us. Head-of-state immunity and other status-\\nbased immunities are the predominant focus of U.S. case law,\\nsparse as it is, related to foreign officials. See Yousuf v.\\nSamantar, 699 F.3d 763, 772 (4th Cir. 2012); Restatement\\n(Second) § 66, reporter’s note 1. It is well established that when\\nthe executive provided a “suggestion of immunity,” a head of\\nstate would be granted immunity by the courts. See, e.g., Ye v.\\nZemin, 383 F.3d 620, 625–27 (7th Cir. 2004). These status-\\nbased immunities also derive from international treaties such as\\nthe Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and United\\nNations Convention on Special Missions. Vienna Convention\\non Diplomatic Relations, art. 31, Apr. 18, 1961, 23 U.S.T. 3227\\n(diplomatic immunity); S. Rep. No. 102-249, at 8 (1991) (citing\\nUnited Nations Convention on Special Missions, art. 21(1),\\nadopted Dec. 8, 1969, 1400 U.N.T.S. 231 (entered into force\\nJune 21, 1985)) (head of state immunity). The legislative\\nhistory of the Torture Act indicated that these immunities would\\nsurvive. H.R. Rep. No. 102-367, at 5 (1991), 1992\\nU.S.C.C.A.N. 84, 88 (“[N]othing in the TVPA overrides the\\ndoctrines of diplomatic and head of state immunity.”).\\n\\n The conflict between the Torture Act’s basis for liability\\nand the Restatement’s basis for immunity from liability was\\n\\n\\n 7\\n The Court “express[ed] no view on whether Restatement § 66\\ncorrectly sets out the scope of the common-law immunity applicable\\nto current or former foreign officials.” Id. at 321 n. 15.\\n\\n 6\\n\\nneither briefed nor argued, although it should have been. The\\nimmunity of foreign officials may be a jurisdictional question.\\nSee Belhas v. Ya’alon, 515 F.3d 1279, 1281, 1283 (D.C. Cir.\\n2008). I agree with the court that if the Restatement did apply,\\nthe defendants were not immune.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4375958/\", \"author_raw\": \"RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"SRINIVASAN"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"WILKINS"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"RANDOLPH"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":6,"string":"6"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":4,"string":"4"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":2,"string":"2"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598705/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Darryl LEWIS, Appellant v. Kalev MUTOND, in His Individual Capacity Only, Administrateur Generale, Agence Nationale De Renseignements, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, in His Individual Capacity Only, Ministre De La Justice, Garde Des Sceaux Et Droits Humains, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Appellees\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-12\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued September 6, 2018 Decided March 12, 2019\n\n No. 17-7118\n\n DARRYL LEWIS,\n APPELLANT\n\n v.\n\n KALEV MUTOND, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY ONLY,\n ADMINISTRATEUR GENERALE, AGENCE NATIONALE DE\n RENSEIGNEMENTS, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO\nAND ALEXIS TAMBWE MWAMBA, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY\n ONLY, MINISTRE DE LA JUSTICE, GARDE DES SCEAUX ET\n DROITS HUMAINS, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO,\n APPELLEES\n\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the District of Columbia\n (No. 1:16-cv-01547)\n\n\n Merrill C. Godfrey argued the cause and filed the briefs\nfor appellant.\n\n Robert N. Weiner argued the cause for appellees. With\nhim on the brief were Raul R. Herrera, R. Stanton Jones, and\nStephen K. Wirth.\n\n Before: SRINIVASAN and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and\nRANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge.\n\n 2\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILKINS.\n\n Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Darryl LEWIS, Appellant v. Kalev MUTOND, in His Individual Capacity Only, Administrateur Generale, Agence Nationale De Renseignements, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, in His Individual Capacity Only, Ministre De La Justice, Garde Des Sceaux Et Droits Humains, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Appellees\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-12\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: Yes\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued September 6, 2018 Decided March 12, 2019\\n\\n No. 17-7118\\n\\n DARRYL LEWIS,\\n APPELLANT\\n\\n v.\\n\\n KALEV MUTOND, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY ONLY,\\n ADMINISTRATEUR GENERALE, AGENCE NATIONALE DE\\n RENSEIGNEMENTS, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO\\nAND ALEXIS TAMBWE MWAMBA, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY\\n ONLY, MINISTRE DE LA JUSTICE, GARDE DES SCEAUX ET\\n DROITS HUMAINS, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:16-cv-01547)\\n\\n\\n Merrill C. Godfrey argued the cause and filed the briefs\\nfor appellant.\\n\\n Robert N. Weiner argued the cause for appellees. With\\nhim on the brief were Raul R. Herrera, R. Stanton Jones, and\\nStephen K. Wirth.\\n\\n Before: SRINIVASAN and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and\\nRANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\n 2\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILKINS.\\n\\n Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1386,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335324,"string":"7,335,324"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"SIERRA CLUB v. Rick PERRY, Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Sierra Club v. Perry"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-12"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"No. 17-cv-2700 (EGS)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Sullivan\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253244/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"SULLIVAN"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"SULLIVAN"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335324/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: SIERRA CLUB v. Rick PERRY, Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-12\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: SIERRA CLUB v. Rick PERRY, Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-12\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1387,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":8443921,"string":"8,443,921"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Service Employees International Union, Local 721, CTW, CLC, Intervenor"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Univ. of S. Cal. v. Nat'l Labor Relations Bd."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-12"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"No. 17-1149; C/w 17-1171"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Pillard, Sentelle, Tatel\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/8415352/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"PILLARD"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"SENTELLE"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"TATEL"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/8443921/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Service Employees International Union, Local 721, CTW, CLC, Intervenor\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-12\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Service Employees International Union, Local 721, CTW, CLC, Intervenor\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-12\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1388,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335325,"string":"7,335,325"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Dep't of State"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-13"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Civil Action No. 18-300 (TJK)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Kelly\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253245/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"KELLY"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"KELLY"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335325/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-13\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-13\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1389,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7334905,"string":"7,334,905"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"FREEDOM WATCH, INC. v. GOOGLE, INC."},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Freedom Watch, Inc. v. Google, Inc."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-14"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Case No. 1:18-cv-02030 (TNM)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"McFadden\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7252825/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"MCFADDEN"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"MCFADDEN"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334905/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: FREEDOM WATCH, INC. v. GOOGLE, INC.\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-14\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: FREEDOM WATCH, INC. v. GOOGLE, INC.\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-14\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1390,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335326,"string":"7,335,326"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Antoinette BURNS v. Matthew D. LEVY"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Burns v. Levy"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-14"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Civil Action No. 13-898 (CKK)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Kollar, Kotelly\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253246/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"KOLLAR"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"KOLLAR"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"KOTELLY"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335326/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Antoinette BURNS v. Matthew D. LEVY\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-14\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Antoinette BURNS v. Matthew D. LEVY\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-14\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1391,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335332,"string":"7,335,332"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"United States v. Mustafa Muhammad Mufta AL-IMAM"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"United States v. Al-Imam"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-14"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Case No. 17-cr-213 (CRC)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Cooper\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253252/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"COOPER"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"COOPER"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335332/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: United States v. Mustafa Muhammad Mufta AL-IMAM\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-14\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: United States v. Mustafa Muhammad Mufta AL-IMAM\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-14\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1392,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335391,"string":"7,335,391"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Marvin Yovany CABRERA CABRERA v. UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Cabrera Cabrera v. United States Citizenship & Immigration Services"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-14"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Case No. 18-cv-01602 (APM)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Mehta\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253311/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"MEHTA"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"MEHTA"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335391/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Marvin Yovany CABRERA CABRERA v. UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-14\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Marvin Yovany CABRERA CABRERA v. UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-14\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1393,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4600239,"string":"4,600,239"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Robert SHI, as Executors of the Will of Yueh-Lan Wang, Et Al., Appellants v. NEW MIGHTY U.S. TRUST, Et Al., Appellees"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Robert Shi v. New Mighty U.S. Trust"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-15"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"18-7066"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Rogers, Griffith, Pillard\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued December 11, 2018 Decided March 15, 2019\\n\\n No. 18-7066\\n\\n ROBERT SHI, AS EXECUTORS OF THE WILL OF YUEH-LAN\\n WANG, ET AL.,\\n APPELLANTS\\n\\n v.\\n\\n NEW MIGHTY U.S. TRUST, ET AL.,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:10-cv-01743)\\n\\n\\n Daniel S. Weinberger argued the cause and filed the briefs\\nfor appellants.\\n\\n John L. Gardiner argued the cause for appellees. With\\nhim on the brief were Andrew Muscato and David B. Leland.\\n\\n Before: ROGERS, GRIFFITH and PILLARD, Circuit Judges.\\n\\n Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.\\n\\n ROGERS, Circuit Judge: This is the second time this case\\nhas come before the court. The first time the court held that the\\n\\f 2\\ndistrict court had jurisdiction and reversed the dismissal of the\\ncomplaint for lack of diversity. Wang ex rel. Wong v. New\\nMighty U.S. Trust, 843 F.3d 487 (D.C. Cir. 2016). The\\nunderlying factual circumstances are summarized there. See\\nid. at 488–89. Suffice it to say, in 2010, Yueh-Lan Wang, the\\nwidow of Taiwanese plastics magnate and billionaire Yung-\\nChing (“Y.C.”) Wang, sued three D.C.-based entities\\n(hereinafter “the Trusts”) created before her husband’s death,\\nalleging that the transfer of a large portion of her husband’s\\nassets to the Trusts unlawfully denied her the full marital estate\\nto which she was entitled. Suing initially through Dr. Wong to\\nwhom she had granted her power of attorney and upon her\\ndeath in 2012 through the executors of her estate, the widow\\nraised claims under District of Columbia and Taiwanese law.\\nAfter seven years of litigation on whether diversity jurisdiction\\nexists, as well as litigation in Taiwan to appoint executors for\\nher estate, the Trusts moved to dismiss the complaint on forum\\nnon conveniens grounds. The district court granted the motion,\\nsubject to conditions that the Trusts consent to process and\\njurisdiction in Taiwan and also waive statute of limitations\\ndefenses, their necessary or indispensable parties argument,\\nand challenges to the power of attorney used to file suit. Hsu\\nv. New Mighty U.S. Trust, 288 F. Supp. 3d 272 (D.D.C. 2018);\\nHsu v. New Mighty U.S. Trust, 308 F. Supp. 3d 178 (D.D.C.\\n2018).\\n\\n The Executors of the widow’s estate appeal. They do not\\ncontest that Taiwan is an adequate alternative forum to the\\nextent its judicial system could, with the Trusts’ consent, assert\\njurisdiction over them and afford some type of remedy for the\\nwidow’s claims, see Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 282–86. Instead,\\nthe Executors contend the district court’s balancing misapplied\\nthe private and public factors and consequently failed to hold\\nthe Trusts to their heavy burden when it dismissed the\\n\\f 3\\ncomplaint. For the following reasons, we conclude we must\\nreverse and remand the case to the district court.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n The Supreme Court has instructed both that a court may\\ndecline to exercise jurisdiction pursuant to the doctrine of\\nforum non conveniens only “in exceptional circumstances,”\\nGulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501, 504 (1947), and that\\n“[a] defendant invoking forum non conveniens ordinarily bears\\na heavy burden in opposing the plaintiff’s chosen forum,”\\nSinochem Int’l Co. v. Malay. Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U.S.\\n422, 430 (2007). In determining whether to dismiss a case on\\nforum non conveniens grounds, the district court “must decide\\n(1) whether an adequate alternative forum for the dispute is\\navailable and, if so, (2) whether a balancing of private and\\npublic interest factors strongly favors dismissal.” Agudas\\nChasidei Chabad of U.S. v. Russian Federation, 528 F.3d 934,\\n950 (D.C. Cir. 2008). The court must balance the relevant\\nprivate and public interest factors in light of the degree of\\ndeference the plaintiff’s choice of forum deserves. El-Fadl v.\\nCent. Bank of Jordan, 75 F.3d 668, 676–77 (D.C. Cir. 1996),\\nabrogated on other grounds by Samantar v. Yousuf, 560 U.S.\\n305 (2010). “[U]nless the balance is strongly in favor of the\\ndefendant, the plaintiff’s choice of forum should rarely be\\ndisturbed.” Gilbert, 330 U.S. at 508.\\n\\n This court’s review of the dismissal of a complaint on\\nforum non conveniens grounds is for “clear abuse of discretion”\\nbecause that “determination is committed to the sound\\ndiscretion of the trial court.” Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454\\nU.S. 235, 257 (1981). Such abuse occurs where the trial court\\n“fails to consider a material factor or clearly errs in evaluating\\nthe factors before it, or does not hold the defendants to their\\nburden of persuasion.” Simon v. Republic of Hungary, 911\\n\\f 4\\nF.3d 1172, 1182 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (quoting El-Fadl, 75 F.3d at\\n677). This court accepts as true all factual allegations in the\\ncomplaint and draws all reasonable inferences in favor of the\\nnonmoving party. Ctr. for Law & Educ. v. Dep’t of Educ., 396\\nF.3d 1152, 1156 (D.C. Cir. 2005).\\n\\n A.\\n The Executors contend as a threshold matter that the\\ndistrict court erred in granting the Trusts’ motion to dismiss on\\nforum non conveniens grounds because this ground was not\\nraised until seven years after the litigation began. The\\nExecutors point to decisions in a number of circuits that have\\nconcluded the defendant must file a motion to dismiss for\\nforum non conveniens “within a reasonable time after the facts\\nor circumstances which serve as the basis for the motion have\\ndeveloped and become known or reasonably knowable to the\\ndefendant.” In re Air Crash Disaster Near New Orleans, La.\\non July 9, 1982, 821 F.2d 1147, 1165 (5th Cir. 1987), vacated\\non other grounds sub nom. Pan Am. World Airways, Inc. v.\\nLopez, 490 U.S. 1032 (1989); accord Rustal Trading US, Inc.\\nv. Makki, 17 F. App’x 331, 338 (6th Cir. 2001); see also\\nSerVaas Inc. v. Republic of Iraq, 540 F. App’x 38, 41–42 (2d\\nCir. 2013); Zelinski v. Columbia 300, Inc., 335 F.3d 633, 643\\n(7th Cir. 2003); Lony v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 935\\nF.2d 604, 614 (3d Cir. 1991); Cable News Network L.P. v.\\nCNNews.com, 177 F. Supp. 2d 506, 528 (E.D. Va. 2001), aff’d\\nin part and vacated in part on other grounds, 56 F. App’x 599\\n(4th Cir. 2003). These courts have recognized that the longer\\nlitigation continues in a U.S. court and the parties incur\\nexpenses before the defendant moves to dismiss on forum non\\nconveniens grounds, the less the defendant can legitimately\\nclaim that litigation in a U.S. forum is so inconvenient as to be\\noppressive or harassing. See, e.g., Air Crash, 821 F.2d at 1165.\\nIn other words, as regards the costs to the parties and the courts\\nthat must be considered when balancing the private and public\\n\\f 5\\ninterests, “a defendant’s dilatoriness promotes and allows the\\nvery incurrence of costs and inconvenience the doctrine is\\nmeant to relieve,” id., which weighs against dismissal. See id.\\nat 1165 & n.30; Zelinski, 335 F.3d at 643.\\n\\n Here, the facts and circumstances that underlie the forum\\nnon conveniens ground remained virtually unchanged since the\\ncomplaint was filed in 2010, yet the Trusts did not move to\\ndismiss the complaint on this ground until 2017, after this court\\nreversed the dismissal for lack of diversity and remanded the\\ncase. In a memorandum of law filed in 2012, the Trusts stated\\nin a footnote they “reserve[d] their right” to move to dismiss\\nthe complaint on forum non conveniens grounds, indicating\\nthey recognized certain facts and circumstances existed at the\\ntime that could justify such a motion. Some of the delay is\\nattributable to litigation on the appointment of executors for the\\nwidow’s estate in Taiwan, and some is attributable to this court\\nholding her appeal in abeyance pending the Supreme Court’s\\ndecision in Americold Realty Trust v. ConAgra Foods, Inc.,\\n136 S. Ct. 1012 (2016). Still, the same law firm and lawyer\\nrepresenting the Trusts in the D.C. litigation also represented\\ndefendants (one of whom manages the Trusts based in D.C.) in\\na similar suit filed by the widow on the same day in the federal\\ncourt in New Jersey, see Shu v. Wang, No. 10-5302, 2016 WL\\n6080199, at *4–5 (D.N.J. Oct. 17, 2016), and filed a forum non\\nconveniens motion in 2011, just 9 months after the complaint\\nwas filed, id. at *5. Meanwhile, instead of moving to dismiss\\nfor forum non conveniens, the D.C.-based Trusts incurred\\nsubstantial expenses pursuing other litigation strategies,\\nincluding a motion to dismiss for lack of diversity jurisdiction,\\na petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court, and\\noppositions to the Executors’ motions to substitute for the\\nwidow in this court and the district court. All the while, the\\nTrusts also challenged the validity of the widow’s power of\\nattorney under Taiwan law and sought dismissal for failure to\\n\\f 6\\nstate a claim on the same Taiwanese law issues that they now\\nclaim are too foreign and difficult for a U.S. court to handle.\\nThe Trusts proceeded, moreover, to obtain declarations from\\nTaiwanese law professors interpreting Taiwanese law issues.\\n\\n Although this litigation is still in its early stages despite its\\nadvanced age, it is not at the beginning of litigation efforts by\\nany standard, and the parties and the judiciary have incurred\\nsubstantial costs. Even if the Trusts did not waive their forum\\nnon conveniens argument by not raising it earlier, an issue we\\nneed not decide for the reasons we explain, their willingness to\\nundergo litigation for seven years in the U.S. federal courts\\nbefore raising it weighs against dismissal of the widow’s\\ncomplaint.\\n\\n B.\\n The Executors are on firm ground in contending that the\\ndistrict court erred by failing to give appropriate weight to the\\nwidow’s choice to sue in the District of Columbia rather than\\nin Taiwan. Although a U.S. plaintiff’s choice of forum is\\nordinarily entitled to significant deference because the court\\nmay “assume that this choice is convenient,” that assumption\\n“applies with less force” to foreign plaintiffs. Piper, 454 U.S.\\nat 255–56; see also Sinochem, 549 U.S. at 430. But the\\nconclusion that “a foreign plaintiff’s choice deserves less\\ndeference,” Piper, 454 U.S. at 256, is a matter of degree.\\nDeference may be appropriate, see, e.g., Lony, 935 F.2d at 609;\\nCarijano v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 643 F.3d 1216, 1227\\n(9th Cir. 2011), and certain considerations may make litigation\\nin a U.S. court the most convenient choice even for foreign\\nplaintiffs, Hefferan v. Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc., 828 F.3d\\n488, 494 (6th Cir. 2016); Norex Petroleum Ltd. v. Access\\nIndus., Inc., 416 F.3d 146, 154–55 (2d Cir. 2005); Lony v. E.I.\\nDu Pont de Nemours & Co., 886 F.2d 628, 634 (3d Cir. 1989);\\ncf. Iragorri v. United Techs. Corp., 274 F.3d 65, 72 (2d Cir.\\n\\f 7\\n2001). Even if the plaintiff resides outside of the forum, these\\ncourts have understood the Supreme Court’s reasoning to\\n“instruct[] that [they] give greater deference to a plaintiff’s\\nforum choice to the extent that it was motivated by legitimate\\nreasons, including the plaintiff’s convenience and the\\nability . . . to obtain jurisdiction over the defendant, and\\ndiminishing deference to a plaintiff’s forum choice to the\\nextent that it was motivated by tactical advantage.” Iragorri,\\n274 F.3d at 73; see also Pollux Holding Ltd. v. Chase\\nManhattan Bank, 329 F.3d 64, 71 (2d Cir. 2003). To the extent\\nthe Executors contend for the first time, however, that they\\nwere entitled the same deference due U.S. plaintiffs under the\\nTreaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the\\nUnited States and Taiwan, this argument is forfeited. United\\nStates v. Layeni, 90 F.3d 514, 522 (D.C. Cir. 1996).\\n\\n The widow had no choice but to sue the D.C.-based\\nentities here because they did not appear to be subject to\\njurisdiction anywhere other than in the United States. See\\nAssociação Brasileira de Medicina de Grupo v. Stryker Corp.,\\n891 F.3d 615, 619 (6th Cir. 2018); Tech. Dev. Co. v.\\nOnischenko, 174 F. App’x 117, 122 (3d Cir. 2006); Norex, 416\\nF.3d at 155–56. The doctrine of forum non conveniens is\\npremised on the assumption that there are “at least two forums\\nin which the defendant is amenable to process,” and “furnishes\\ncriteria for choice between them.” Gilbert, 330 U.S. at 506–\\n07. The district court recognized that the Trusts “effectively\\nconcede that they are not amenable to process in Taiwan,”\\nWang ex rel. Wong v. New Mighty U.S. Trust, 322 F.R.D. 11,\\n25 (D.D.C. 2017), and a Taiwanese forum became available\\nonly when the Trusts acceded to it as a condition of dismissal\\nhere. Although a district court may dismiss a complaint on\\nforum non conveniens grounds even where the plaintiff had no\\nalternative forum available until the defendants later consented\\nto appear in their preferred forum, Schertenleib v. Traum, 589\\n\\f 8\\nF.2d 1156, 1164 (2d Cir. 1978), the lack of an original\\nalternative forum constitutes a “legitimate reason” for a foreign\\nplaintiff’s choice of a U.S. forum. Stryker, 891 F.3d at 619;\\nNorex, 416 F.3d at 155–56. Furthermore, the Trusts were sued\\nin their home jurisdiction, which weighs heavily against\\ndismissal. Schertenleib, 589 F.2d at 1164; see also Galustian\\nv. Peter, 591 F.3d 724, 732 (4th Cir. 2010); Reid-Walen v.\\nHansen, 933 F.2d 1390, 1395 (8th Cir. 1991). The district\\ncourt clearly failed to adequately address these circumstances\\nin determining the amount of deference to accord the widow’s\\nchoice of forum.\\n\\n C.\\n The Executors further persuasively contend the district\\ncourt clearly erred in finding that the private interest factors\\neven “slightly” favor dismissal. The considerations governing\\nthe private interest analysis include “the relative ease of access\\nto sources of proof; availability of compulsory process for\\nattendance of unwilling, and the cost of obtaining attendance\\nof willing, witnesses; possibility of view of premises, if view\\nwould be appropriate to the action; and all other practical\\nproblems that make trial of a case easy, expeditious and\\ninexpensive[, such as] enforc[ea]bility of a judgment if one is\\nobtained [and] relative advantages and obstacles to fair trial.”\\nGilbert, 330 U.S. at 508. A plaintiff “may not, by choice of an\\ninconvenient forum, ‘vex,’ ‘harass,’ or ‘oppress’ the defendant\\nby inflicting upon him expense or trouble not necessary to his\\nown right to pursue his remedy.” Id. Dismissal in favor of suit\\nelsewhere “will ordinarily be appropriate where trial in the\\nplaintiff’s chosen forum imposes a heavy burden on the\\ndefendant or the court, and where the plaintiff is unable to offer\\nany specific reasons of convenience supporting his choice,”\\nsuch as where a plaintiff chooses a particular forum “solely in\\norder to harass the defendant or take advantage of favorable\\nlaw.” Piper, 454 U.S. at 249 & n.15.\\n\\f 9\\n\\n The district court concluded that the language barrier was\\na “substantial obstacle” to access to relevant evidence in the\\nDistrict of Columbia. Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 288. To the\\nextent translation is considered a significant obstacle in this day\\nand age, that obstacle will exist regardless of where this case is\\ntried. See Simon, 911 F.3d at 1186; de Csepel v. Republic of\\nHungary, 714 F.3d 591, 605 (D.C. Cir. 2013). The district\\ncourt focused on the need to interpret a Tax Settlement\\nAgreement cited in the Trusts’ motions to dismiss for failure to\\nstate a claim, regarding whether the other two women who bore\\nY.C. children were also his wives. See Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at\\n288. But in evaluating the convenience to each party, “the\\ncourt should focus on the precise issues that are likely to be\\nactually tried, taking into consideration the convenience of the\\nparties and the availability of witnesses and the evidence\\nneeded for the trial of these issues.” Iragorri, 274 F.3d at 74.\\nThe widow’s claims focus on whether Y.C. owned the assets\\nthat were transferred to the Trusts and whether Y.C. formed the\\nTrusts to reduce the widow’s share of the Marital Estate. The\\ndocuments related to these claims are likely to be in English\\nbecause the relevant transactions were between entities formed\\nin English-speaking countries, and the witnesses who could\\nprovide information about these transactions, such as the\\nlawyers and tax advisors who created the Trusts and officers of\\nthe U.S. subsidiaries whose stock holdings were transferred,\\nspeak English. Whether another “wife” has claims to any\\nassets that may be added to the Marital Estate as a result of the\\nwidow’s lawsuit may be an issue in this litigation down the\\nline, but the widow’s claims do not center chiefly on\\nTaiwanese-language documents. By placing “undue\\nemphasis” on an issue that is “of secondary importance,” the\\ndistrict court distorted the forum non conveniens analysis. R.\\nMaganlal & Co. v. M.G. Chemical Co., 942 F.2d 164, 165, 168\\n(2d Cir. 1991).\\n\\f 10\\n\\n The district court also concluded that the issue of the\\navailability of witnesses and evidence “hangs in equipoise.”\\nHsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 290. Logistical hurdles to obtaining\\nevidence and voluntary testimony in the United States present\\nless of a problem than they used to in light of technological\\nadvances and the ease of international travel. See Simon, 911\\nF.3d at 1186; Maggie Gardner, Retiring Forum Non\\nConveniens, 92 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 390, 409 (2017). The record\\nindicates the widow may face more difficulty compelling\\nwitness testimony in Taiwan than the Trusts will in the United\\nStates. The Trusts do not suggest they will be unlikely to\\npersuade their proposed witnesses located abroad — the “Trust\\nManagers” and other of Y.C.’s companies’ employees — to\\nappear voluntarily in a U.S. court, weighing against dismissal.\\nSee Lehman v. Humphrey Cayman, Ltd., 713 F.2d 339, 342–43\\n(8th Cir. 1983). In contrast, some of the widow’s proposed\\nwitnesses are less likely to testify voluntarily. U.S. witnesses\\nare subject to subpoena by U.S. courts, and those courts can\\nreach foreign non-party witnesses through the Hague Evidence\\nConvention 1 and letters rogatory. See Société Nationale\\nIndustrielle Aérospatiale v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for S. Dist. of Iowa,\\n482 U.S. 522, 540–41 (1987); Fed. R. Civ. P. 28(b). Taiwanese\\ncourts do not appear to have such reliable mechanisms of\\ncompulsory process. See generally Manu Int’l, S.A. v. Avon\\nProds., Inc., 641 F.2d 62, 67 (2d Cir. 1981); Expert Decl. of\\nProf. Tsung-Fu Chen, ¶ 75 (Nov. 16, 2017); Reply Expert Decl.\\nof Prof. Tsung-Fu Chen, ¶¶ 150–52 (May 31, 2017).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n1\\n See Convention of 18 March 1970 on the Taking of Evidence\\nAbroad in Civil or Commercial Matters, List of Contracting Parties,\\nhttps://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/status-table/\\n?cid=82 (last visited Feb. 19, 2019).\\n\\f 11\\n The district court failed to address the enforceability of\\njudgments in its private interest analysis at all, despite\\nacknowledging that it must balance this issue. Hsu, 288 F.\\nSupp. 3d at 285–86. The enforcement of judgments presents a\\nhurdle to trial in Taiwan given that the funds at issue are not\\nlocated in Taiwan. If the widow obtains a judgment against the\\nTrusts in Taiwan, then another lawsuit would have to be filed\\nin the United States to enforce the Taiwanese judgment. See\\nNemariam v. Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 315\\nF.3d 390, 395 (D.C. Cir. 2003).\\n\\n Despite the Supreme Court’s instruction that the defendant\\nmust make a strong showing that a foreign forum is more\\nconvenient, Piper, 454 U.S. at 249, the district court recognized\\nsignificant hurdles to access to evidence and availability of\\nwitnesses in Taiwan but concluded that in the aggregate this\\nfactor “weighs slightly in favor of dismissal.” Hsu, 288 F.\\nSupp. 3d at 289. This conclusion does not follow from the\\ndistrict court’s analysis that the parties will confront serious\\nhurdles in either forum. The district court clearly failed to hold\\nthe Trusts to their “heavy burden” to show that a foreign forum\\nis significantly more convenient than a U.S. forum, Sinochem,\\n549 U.S. at 430, that is their home jurisdiction.\\n\\n D.\\n The Executors’ challenges to the district court’s weighing\\nof the public interest factors, see Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 293,\\nare also persuasive. The considerations governing the public\\ninterest analysis include the “[a]dministrative difficulties”\\nwhen “litigation is piled up in congested centers,” the “burden”\\nof jury duty on “a community which has no relation to the\\nlitigation,” the “local interest in having localized controversies\\ndecided at home,” and the “appropriateness” of trying a\\ndiversity case “in a forum that is at home with the state law that\\nmust govern the case, rather than having a court in some other\\n\\f 12\\nforum untangle problems in conflict of laws, and in law foreign\\nto itself.” Gilbert, 330 U.S. at 508–09.\\n\\n The district court viewed the District of Columbia’s\\ninterest in the widow’s claims as “weak,” concluding the\\n“strong Taiwanese interests” “tip[] sharply in favor of\\ndismissal.” Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 291. The District of\\nColumbia’s interest in this litigation is not weak, though. Y.C.\\nWang and his associates are alleged to have reached into the\\nDistrict of Columbia to establish the Trusts, transferring assets\\nto the Trusts and thereby availing themselves of the benefits of\\nDistrict of Columbia law on trusts. As in DiRienzo v. Philip\\nServices Corp., 294 F.3d 21, 32 (2d Cir. 2002), the widow’s\\nlawsuit exists only because Y.C. Wang and his associates\\nutilized U.S. legal structures to devise their alleged tax and\\nestate avoidance scheme, Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 46–58. See\\nExpert Decl. of Prof. Tsung-Fu Chen, ¶ 76 (Nov. 16, 2017).\\nThe Trusts can hardly complain now that they are burdened by\\nbeing sued in their home jurisdiction when Y.C. Wang\\nspecifically bestowed upon the District of Columbia an interest\\nin this case by establishing the Trusts here. A “defendant’s\\nhome forum always has a strong interest in providing a forum\\nfor redress of injuries caused by its citizens.” Reid-Walen, 933\\nF.2d at 1400. Although Taiwan and its citizens may have an\\ninterest in the division of the estate of one of their wealthiest\\ncitizens, Y.C. allegedly transferred significant assets into the\\nUnited States in order to hide them and avoid legal\\nresponsibilities, Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 37–45. In this\\ncircumstance, Taiwan’s interest does not clearly outweigh the\\nDistrict of Columbia’s interest in this dispute. See DiRienzo,\\n294 F.3d at 31–32.\\n\\n The district court concluded that a jury composed of\\nresidents of the District of Columbia should not be burdened\\nwith this case. Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 293. There are\\n\\f 13\\nobviously significant contacts with the District of Columbia\\ngiven the Trusts’ operations here. “Any economic burden to\\nthe forum is justified because the defendant has undertaken\\nboth the benefits and burdens of citizenship and of the forum’s\\nlaws.” Reid-Walen, 933 F.2d at 1400. This impact on a jury\\nof D.C. residents would not justify dismissing a case against\\nD.C.-based entities on forum non conveniens grounds. See id.\\n\\n The district court further concluded this litigation would\\nrequire it to apply Taiwanese family and inheritance law, which\\n“weighs strongly in favor of dismissal.” Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d\\nat 292. But the need to apply foreign law alone is “not\\nsufficient to warrant dismissal when a balancing of all relevant\\nfactors shows that the plaintiff’s chosen forum is appropriate.”\\nPiper, 454 U.S. at 260 n.29. The widow alleges claims under\\nDistrict of Columbia and Taiwanese law, and U.S. courts\\nregularly apply foreign law when conflict of laws principles\\ndemand it. See Manu Int’l, 641 F.2d at 67–68; Mobil Tankers\\nCo. v. Mene Grande Oil Co., 363 F.2d 611, 615 (3d Cir. 1966).\\nThe ultimate importance of interpreting Taiwanese law\\nregarding division of the Marital Estate among multiple\\nputative “wives” is unclear because the widow’s lawsuit\\ncenters on the size of the estate to be divided, not how it is to\\nbe divided. As discussed, the district court therefore placed\\nundue emphasis on whether Pao Chu Lee was legally a wife of\\nY.C. Wang, a question that is at most only of secondary\\nimportance to the widow’s case.\\n\\n The district court clearly erred in overemphasizing the\\npublic interest factors, particularly the need to answer difficult\\nquestions of Taiwanese law that may have no or minimal\\nbearing on the widow’s suit. And in view of Y.C. Wang’s\\ndecision to establish the Trusts in the District of Columbia and\\ntake advantage of both the benefits and burdens under District\\nof Columbia law, even a complex trial in the widow’s chosen\\n\\f 14\\nforum and the Trusts’ home jurisdiction does not impose\\nunjustified burdens or administrative difficulties on the district\\ncourt.\\n\\n Accordingly, we must reverse and remand the case to the\\ndistrict court for further proceedings. The district court’s\\nerrors, considered together, constitute a clear abuse of\\ndiscretion. The district court failed to give appropriate weight\\nto the widow’s legitimate choice of forum and erred in\\nconcluding that the private interest factors weighed slightly in\\nfavor of dismissal and in overemphasizing the public interest\\nfactors in deciding to dismiss this case on forum non\\nconveniens grounds. The doctrine of forum non conveniens is\\nto be applied only in rare cases, and only where the defendant\\nmeets a heavy burden of showing that suit in the United States\\nis so inconvenient as to be harassing, vexing, or oppressive. No\\nsuch showing has been made here.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4377492/\", \"author_raw\": \"Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"ROGERS"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"GRIFFITH"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"PILLARD"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600239/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Robert SHI, as Executors of the Will of Yueh-Lan Wang, Et Al., Appellants v. NEW MIGHTY U.S. TRUST, Et Al., Appellees\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued December 11, 2018 Decided March 15, 2019\n\n No. 18-7066\n\n ROBERT SHI, AS EXECUTORS OF THE WILL OF YUEH-LAN\n WANG, ET AL.,\n APPELLANTS\n\n v.\n\n NEW MIGHTY U.S. TRUST, ET AL.,\n APPELLEES\n\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the District of Columbia\n (No. 1:10-cv-01743)\n\n\n Daniel S. Weinberger argued the cause and filed the briefs\nfor appellants.\n\n John L. Gardiner argued the cause for appellees. With\nhim on the brief were Andrew Muscato and David B. Leland.\n\n Before: ROGERS, GRIFFITH and PILLARD, Circuit Judges.\n\n Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.\n\n ROGERS, Circuit Judge: This is the second time this case\nhas come before the court. The first time the court held that the\n\f 2\ndistrict court had jurisdiction and reversed the dismissal of the\ncomplaint for lack of diversity. Wang ex rel. Wong v. New\nMighty U.S. Trust, 843 F.3d 487 (D.C. Cir. 2016). The\nunderlying factual circumstances are summarized there. See\nid. at 488–89. Suffice it to say, in 2010, Yueh-Lan Wang, the\nwidow of Taiwanese plastics magnate and billionaire Yung-\nChing (“Y.C.”) Wang, sued three D.C.-based entities\n(hereinafter “the Trusts”) created before her husband’s death,\nalleging that the transfer of a large portion of her husband’s\nassets to the Trusts unlawfully denied her the full marital estate\nto which she was entitled. Suing initially through Dr. Wong to\nwhom she had granted her power of attorney and upon her\ndeath in 2012 through the executors of her estate, the widow\nraised claims under District of Columbia and Taiwanese law.\nAfter seven years of litigation on whether diversity jurisdiction\nexists, as well as litigation in Taiwan to appoint executors for\nher estate, the Trusts moved to dismiss the complaint on forum\nnon conveniens grounds. The district court granted the motion,\nsubject to conditions that the Trusts consent to process and\njurisdiction in Taiwan and also waive statute of limitations\ndefenses, their necessary or indispensable parties argument,\nand challenges to the power of attorney used to file suit. Hsu\nv. New Mighty U.S. Trust, 288 F. Supp. 3d 272 (D.D.C. 2018);\nHsu v. New Mighty U.S. Trust, 308 F. Supp. 3d 178 (D.D.C.\n2018).\n\n The Executors of the widow’s estate appeal. They do not\ncontest that Taiwan is an adequate alternative forum to the\nextent its judicial system could, with the Trusts’ consent, assert\njurisdiction over them and afford some type of remedy for the\nwidow’s claims, see Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 282–86. Instead,\nthe Executors contend the district court’s balancing misapplied\nthe private and public factors and consequently failed to hold\nthe Trusts to their heavy burden when it dismissed the\n\f 3\ncomplaint. For the following reasons, we conclude we must\nreverse and remand the case to the district court.\n\n I.\n\n The Supreme Court has instructed both that a court may\ndecline to exercise jurisdiction pursuant to the doctrine of\nforum non conveniens only “in exceptional circumstances,”\nGulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501, 504 (1947), and that\n“[a] defendant invoking forum non conveniens ordinarily bears\na heavy burden in opposing the plaintiff’s chosen forum,”\nSinochem Int’l Co. v. Malay. Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U.S.\n422, 430 (2007). In determining whether to dismiss a case on\nforum non conveniens grounds, the district court “must decide\n(1) whether an adequate alternative forum for the dispute is\navailable and, if so, (2) whether a balancing of private and\npublic interest factors strongly favors dismissal.” Agudas\nChasidei Chabad of U.S. v. Russian Federation, 528 F.3d 934,\n950 (D.C. Cir. 2008). The court must balance the relevant\nprivate and public interest factors in light of the degree of\ndeference the plaintiff’s choice of forum deserves. El-Fadl v.\nCent. Bank of Jordan, 75 F.3d 668, 676–77 (D.C. Cir. 1996),\nabrogated on other grounds by Samantar v. Yousuf, 560 U.S.\n305 (2010). “[U]nless the balance is strongly in favor of the\ndefendant, the plaintiff’s choice of forum should rarely be\ndisturbed.” Gilbert, 330 U.S. at 508.\n\n This court’s review of the dismissal of a complaint on\nforum non conveniens grounds is for “clear abuse of discretion”\nbecause that “determination is committed to the sound\ndiscretion of the trial court.” Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454\nU.S. 235, 257 (1981). Such abuse occurs where the trial court\n“fails to consider a material factor or clearly errs in evaluating\nthe factors before it, or does not hold the defendants to their\nburden of persuasion.” Simon v. Republic of Hungary, 911\n\f 4\nF.3d 1172, 1182 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (quoting El-Fadl, 75 F.3d at\n677). This court accepts as true all factual allegations in the\ncomplaint and draws all reasonable inferences in favor of the\nnonmoving party. Ctr. for Law & Educ. v. Dep’t of Educ., 396\nF.3d 1152, 1156 (D.C. Cir. 2005).\n\n A.\n The Executors contend as a threshold matter that the\ndistrict court erred in granting the Trusts’ motion to dismiss on\nforum non conveniens grounds because this ground was not\nraised until seven years after the litigation began. The\nExecutors point to decisions in a number of circuits that have\nconcluded the defendant must file a motion to dismiss for\nforum non conveniens “within a reasonable time after the facts\nor circumstances which serve as the basis for the motion have\ndeveloped and become known or reasonably knowable to the\ndefendant.” In re Air Crash Disaster Near New Orleans, La.\non July 9, 1982, 821 F.2d 1147, 1165 (5th Cir. 1987), vacated\non other grounds sub nom. Pan Am. World Airways, Inc. v.\nLopez, 490 U.S. 1032 (1989); accord Rustal Trading US, Inc.\nv. Makki, 17 F. App’x 331, 338 (6th Cir. 2001); see also\nSerVaas Inc. v. Republic of Iraq, 540 F. App’x 38, 41–42 (2d\nCir. 2013); Zelinski v. Columbia 300, Inc., 335 F.3d 633, 643\n(7th Cir. 2003); Lony v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 935\nF.2d 604, 614 (3d Cir. 1991); Cable News Network L.P. v.\nCNNews.com, 177 F. Supp. 2d 506, 528 (E.D. Va. 2001), aff’d\nin part and vacated in part on other grounds, 56 F. App’x 599\n(4th Cir. 2003). These courts have recognized that the longer\nlitigation continues in a U.S. court and the parties incur\nexpenses before the defendant moves to dismiss on forum non\nconveniens grounds, the less the defendant can legitimately\nclaim that litigation in a U.S. forum is so inconvenient as to be\noppressive or harassing. See, e.g., Air Crash, 821 F.2d at 1165.\nIn other words, as regards the costs to the parties and the courts\nthat must be considered when balancing the private and public\n\f 5\ninterests, “a defendant’s dilatoriness promotes and allows the\nvery incurrence of costs and inconvenience the doctrine is\nmeant to relieve,” id., which weighs against dismissal. See id.\nat 1165 & n.30; Zelinski, 335 F.3d at 643.\n\n Here, the facts and circumstances that underlie the forum\nnon conveniens ground remained virtually unchanged since the\ncomplaint was filed in 2010, yet the Trusts did not move to\ndismiss the complaint on this ground until 2017, after this court\nreversed the dismissal for lack of diversity and remanded the\ncase. In a memorandum of law filed in 2012, the Trusts stated\nin a footnote they “reserve[d] their right” to move to dismiss\nthe complaint on forum non conveniens grounds, indicating\nthey recognized certain facts and circumstances existed at the\ntime that could justify such a motion. Some of the delay is\nattributable to litigation on the appointment of executors for the\nwidow’s estate in Taiwan, and some is attributable to this court\nholding her appeal in abeyance pending the Supreme Court’s\ndecision in Americold Realty Trust v. ConAgra Foods, Inc.,\n136 S. Ct. 1012 (2016). Still, the same law firm and lawyer\nrepresenting the Trusts in the D.C. litigation also represented\ndefendants (one of whom manages the Trusts based in D.C.) in\na similar suit filed by the widow on the same day in the federal\ncourt in New Jersey, see Shu v. Wang, No. 10-5302, 2016 WL\n6080199, at *4–5 (D.N.J. Oct. 17, 2016), and filed a forum non\nconveniens motion in 2011, just 9 months after the complaint\nwas filed, id. at *5. Meanwhile, instead of moving to dismiss\nfor forum non conveniens, the D.C.-based Trusts incurred\nsubstantial expenses pursuing other litigation strategies,\nincluding a motion to dismiss for lack of diversity jurisdiction,\na petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court, and\noppositions to the Executors’ motions to substitute for the\nwidow in this court and the district court. All the while, the\nTrusts also challenged the validity of the widow’s power of\nattorney under Taiwan law and sought dismissal for failure to\n\f 6\nstate a claim on the same Taiwanese law issues that they now\nclaim are too foreign and difficult for a U.S. court to handle.\nThe Trusts proceeded, moreover, to obtain declarations from\nTaiwanese law professors interpreting Taiwanese law issues.\n\n Although this litigation is still in its early stages despite its\nadvanced age, it is not at the beginning of litigation efforts by\nany standard, and the parties and the judiciary have incurred\nsubstantial costs. Even if the Trusts did not waive their forum\nnon conveniens argument by not raising it earlier, an issue we\nneed not decide for the reasons we explain, their willingness to\nundergo litigation for seven years in the U.S. federal courts\nbefore raising it weighs against dismissal of the widow’s\ncomplaint.\n\n B.\n The Executors are on firm ground in contending that the\ndistrict court erred by failing to give appropriate weight to the\nwidow’s choice to sue in the District of Columbia rather than\nin Taiwan. Although a U.S. plaintiff’s choice of forum is\nordinarily entitled to significant deference because the court\nmay “assume that this choice is convenient,” that assumption\n“applies with less force” to foreign plaintiffs. Piper, 454 U.S.\nat 255–56; see also Sinochem, 549 U.S. at 430. But the\nconclusion that “a foreign plaintiff’s choice deserves less\ndeference,” Piper, 454 U.S. at 256, is a matter of degree.\nDeference may be appropriate, see, e.g., Lony, 935 F.2d at 609;\nCarijano v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 643 F.3d 1216, 1227\n(9th Cir. 2011), and certain considerations may make litigation\nin a U.S. court the most convenient choice even for foreign\nplaintiffs, Hefferan v. Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc., 828 F.3d\n488, 494 (6th Cir. 2016); Norex Petroleum Ltd. v. Access\nIndus., Inc., 416 F.3d 146, 154–55 (2d Cir. 2005); Lony v. E.I.\nDu Pont de Nemours & Co., 886 F.2d 628, 634 (3d Cir. 1989);\ncf. Iragorri v. United Techs. Corp., 274 F.3d 65, 72 (2d Cir.\n\f 7\n2001). Even if the plaintiff resides outside of the forum, these\ncourts have understood the Supreme Court’s reasoning to\n“instruct[] that [they] give greater deference to a plaintiff’s\nforum choice to the extent that it was motivated by legitimate\nreasons, including the plaintiff’s convenience and the\nability . . . to obtain jurisdiction over the defendant, and\ndiminishing deference to a plaintiff’s forum choice to the\nextent that it was motivated by tactical advantage.” Iragorri,\n274 F.3d at 73; see also Pollux Holding Ltd. v. Chase\nManhattan Bank, 329 F.3d 64, 71 (2d Cir. 2003). To the extent\nthe Executors contend for the first time, however, that they\nwere entitled the same deference due U.S. plaintiffs under the\nTreaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the\nUnited States and Taiwan, this argument is forfeited. United\nStates v. Layeni, 90 F.3d 514, 522 (D.C. Cir. 1996).\n\n The widow had no choice but to sue the D.C.-based\nentities here because they did not appear to be subject to\njurisdiction anywhere other than in the United States. See\nAssociação Brasileira de Medicina de Grupo v. Stryker Corp.,\n891 F.3d 615, 619 (6th Cir. 2018); Tech. Dev. Co. v.\nOnischenko, 174 F. App’x 117, 122 (3d Cir. 2006); Norex, 416\nF.3d at 155–56. The doctrine of forum non conveniens is\npremised on the assumption that there are “at least two forums\nin which the defendant is amenable to process,” and “furnishes\ncriteria for choice between them.” Gilbert, 330 U.S. at 506–\n07. The district court recognized that the Trusts “effectively\nconcede that they are not amenable to process in Taiwan,”\nWang ex rel. Wong v. New Mighty U.S. Trust, 322 F.R.D. 11,\n25 (D.D.C. 2017), and a Taiwanese forum became available\nonly when the Trusts acceded to it as a condition of dismissal\nhere. Although a district court may dismiss a complaint on\nforum non conveniens grounds even where the plaintiff had no\nalternative forum available until the defendants later consented\nto appear in their preferred forum, Schertenleib v. Traum, 589\n\f 8\nF.2d 1156, 1164 (2d Cir. 1978), the lack of an original\nalternative forum constitutes a “legitimate reason” for a foreign\nplaintiff’s choice of a U.S. forum. Stryker, 891 F.3d at 619;\nNorex, 416 F.3d at 155–56. Furthermore, the Trusts were sued\nin their home jurisdiction, which weighs heavily against\ndismissal. Schertenleib, 589 F.2d at 1164; see also Galustian\nv. Peter, 591 F.3d 724, 732 (4th Cir. 2010); Reid-Walen v.\nHansen, 933 F.2d 1390, 1395 (8th Cir. 1991). The district\ncourt clearly failed to adequately address these circumstances\nin determining the amount of deference to accord the widow’s\nchoice of forum.\n\n C.\n The Executors further persuasively contend the district\ncourt clearly erred in finding that the private interest factors\neven “slightly” favor dismissal. The considerations governing\nthe private interest analysis include “the relative ease of access\nto sources of proof; availability of compulsory process for\nattendance of unwilling, and the cost of obtaining attendance\nof willing, witnesses; possibility of view of premises, if view\nwould be appropriate to the action; and all other practical\nproblems that make trial of a case easy, expeditious and\ninexpensive[, such as] enforc[ea]bility of a judgment if one is\nobtained [and] relative advantages and obstacles to fair trial.”\nGilbert, 330 U.S. at 508. A plaintiff “may not, by choice of an\ninconvenient forum, ‘vex,’ ‘harass,’ or ‘oppress’ the defendant\nby inflicting upon him expense or trouble not necessary to his\nown right to pursue his remedy.” Id. Dismissal in favor of suit\nelsewhere “will ordinarily be appropriate where trial in the\nplaintiff’s chosen forum imposes a heavy burden on the\ndefendant or the court, and where the plaintiff is unable to offer\nany specific reasons of convenience supporting his choice,”\nsuch as where a plaintiff chooses a particular forum “solely in\norder to harass the defendant or take advantage of favorable\nlaw.” Piper, 454 U.S. at 249 & n.15.\n\f 9\n\n The district court concluded that the language barrier was\na “substantial obstacle” to access to relevant evidence in the\nDistrict of Columbia. Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 288. To the\nextent translation is considered a significant obstacle in this day\nand age, that obstacle will exist regardless of where this case is\ntried. See Simon, 911 F.3d at 1186; de Csepel v. Republic of\nHungary, 714 F.3d 591, 605 (D.C. Cir. 2013). The district\ncourt focused on the need to interpret a Tax Settlement\nAgreement cited in the Trusts’ motions to dismiss for failure to\nstate a claim, regarding whether the other two women who bore\nY.C. children were also his wives. See Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at\n288. But in evaluating the convenience to each party, “the\ncourt should focus on the precise issues that are likely to be\nactually tried, taking into consideration the convenience of the\nparties and the availability of witnesses and the evidence\nneeded for the trial of these issues.” Iragorri, 274 F.3d at 74.\nThe widow’s claims focus on whether Y.C. owned the assets\nthat were transferred to the Trusts and whether Y.C. formed the\nTrusts to reduce the widow’s share of the Marital Estate. The\ndocuments related to these claims are likely to be in English\nbecause the relevant transactions were between entities formed\nin English-speaking countries, and the witnesses who could\nprovide information about these transactions, such as the\nlawyers and tax advisors who created the Trusts and officers of\nthe U.S. subsidiaries whose stock holdings were transferred,\nspeak English. Whether another “wife” has claims to any\nassets that may be added to the Marital Estate as a result of the\nwidow’s lawsuit may be an issue in this litigation down the\nline, but the widow’s claims do not center chiefly on\nTaiwanese-language documents. By placing “undue\nemphasis” on an issue that is “of secondary importance,” the\ndistrict court distorted the forum non conveniens analysis. R.\nMaganlal & Co. v. M.G. Chemical Co., 942 F.2d 164, 165, 168\n(2d Cir. 1991).\n\f 10\n\n The district court also concluded that the issue of the\navailability of witnesses and evidence “hangs in equipoise.”\nHsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 290. Logistical hurdles to obtaining\nevidence and voluntary testimony in the United States present\nless of a problem than they used to in light of technological\nadvances and the ease of international travel. See Simon, 911\nF.3d at 1186; Maggie Gardner, Retiring Forum Non\nConveniens, 92 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 390, 409 (2017). The record\nindicates the widow may face more difficulty compelling\nwitness testimony in Taiwan than the Trusts will in the United\nStates. The Trusts do not suggest they will be unlikely to\npersuade their proposed witnesses located abroad — the “Trust\nManagers” and other of Y.C.’s companies’ employees — to\nappear voluntarily in a U.S. court, weighing against dismissal.\nSee Lehman v. Humphrey Cayman, Ltd., 713 F.2d 339, 342–43\n(8th Cir. 1983). In contrast, some of the widow’s proposed\nwitnesses are less likely to testify voluntarily. U.S. witnesses\nare subject to subpoena by U.S. courts, and those courts can\nreach foreign non-party witnesses through the Hague Evidence\nConvention 1 and letters rogatory. See Société Nationale\nIndustrielle Aérospatiale v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for S. Dist. of Iowa,\n482 U.S. 522, 540–41 (1987); Fed. R. Civ. P. 28(b). Taiwanese\ncourts do not appear to have such reliable mechanisms of\ncompulsory process. See generally Manu Int’l, S.A. v. Avon\nProds., Inc., 641 F.2d 62, 67 (2d Cir. 1981); Expert Decl. of\nProf. Tsung-Fu Chen, ¶ 75 (Nov. 16, 2017); Reply Expert Decl.\nof Prof. Tsung-Fu Chen, ¶¶ 150–52 (May 31, 2017).\n\n\n\n\n1\n See Convention of 18 March 1970 on the Taking of Evidence\nAbroad in Civil or Commercial Matters, List of Contracting Parties,\nhttps://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/status-table/\n?cid=82 (last visited Feb. 19, 2019).\n\f 11\n The district court failed to address the enforceability of\njudgments in its private interest analysis at all, despite\nacknowledging that it must balance this issue. Hsu, 288 F.\nSupp. 3d at 285–86. The enforcement of judgments presents a\nhurdle to trial in Taiwan given that the funds at issue are not\nlocated in Taiwan. If the widow obtains a judgment against the\nTrusts in Taiwan, then another lawsuit would have to be filed\nin the United States to enforce the Taiwanese judgment. See\nNemariam v. Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 315\nF.3d 390, 395 (D.C. Cir. 2003).\n\n Despite the Supreme Court’s instruction that the defendant\nmust make a strong showing that a foreign forum is more\nconvenient, Piper, 454 U.S. at 249, the district court recognized\nsignificant hurdles to access to evidence and availability of\nwitnesses in Taiwan but concluded that in the aggregate this\nfactor “weighs slightly in favor of dismissal.” Hsu, 288 F.\nSupp. 3d at 289. This conclusion does not follow from the\ndistrict court’s analysis that the parties will confront serious\nhurdles in either forum. The district court clearly failed to hold\nthe Trusts to their “heavy burden” to show that a foreign forum\nis significantly more convenient than a U.S. forum, Sinochem,\n549 U.S. at 430, that is their home jurisdiction.\n\n D.\n The Executors’ challenges to the district court’s weighing\nof the public interest factors, see Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 293,\nare also persuasive. The considerations governing the public\ninterest analysis include the “[a]dministrative difficulties”\nwhen “litigation is piled up in congested centers,” the “burden”\nof jury duty on “a community which has no relation to the\nlitigation,” the “local interest in having localized controversies\ndecided at home,” and the “appropriateness” of trying a\ndiversity case “in a forum that is at home with the state law that\nmust govern the case, rather than having a court in some other\n\f 12\nforum untangle problems in conflict of laws, and in law foreign\nto itself.” Gilbert, 330 U.S. at 508–09.\n\n The district court viewed the District of Columbia’s\ninterest in the widow’s claims as “weak,” concluding the\n“strong Taiwanese interests” “tip[] sharply in favor of\ndismissal.” Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 291. The District of\nColumbia’s interest in this litigation is not weak, though. Y.C.\nWang and his associates are alleged to have reached into the\nDistrict of Columbia to establish the Trusts, transferring assets\nto the Trusts and thereby availing themselves of the benefits of\nDistrict of Columbia law on trusts. As in DiRienzo v. Philip\nServices Corp., 294 F.3d 21, 32 (2d Cir. 2002), the widow’s\nlawsuit exists only because Y.C. Wang and his associates\nutilized U.S. legal structures to devise their alleged tax and\nestate avoidance scheme, Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 46–58. See\nExpert Decl. of Prof. Tsung-Fu Chen, ¶ 76 (Nov. 16, 2017).\nThe Trusts can hardly complain now that they are burdened by\nbeing sued in their home jurisdiction when Y.C. Wang\nspecifically bestowed upon the District of Columbia an interest\nin this case by establishing the Trusts here. A “defendant’s\nhome forum always has a strong interest in providing a forum\nfor redress of injuries caused by its citizens.” Reid-Walen, 933\nF.2d at 1400. Although Taiwan and its citizens may have an\ninterest in the division of the estate of one of their wealthiest\ncitizens, Y.C. allegedly transferred significant assets into the\nUnited States in order to hide them and avoid legal\nresponsibilities, Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 37–45. In this\ncircumstance, Taiwan’s interest does not clearly outweigh the\nDistrict of Columbia’s interest in this dispute. See DiRienzo,\n294 F.3d at 31–32.\n\n The district court concluded that a jury composed of\nresidents of the District of Columbia should not be burdened\nwith this case. Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 293. There are\n\f 13\nobviously significant contacts with the District of Columbia\ngiven the Trusts’ operations here. “Any economic burden to\nthe forum is justified because the defendant has undertaken\nboth the benefits and burdens of citizenship and of the forum’s\nlaws.” Reid-Walen, 933 F.2d at 1400. This impact on a jury\nof D.C. residents would not justify dismissing a case against\nD.C.-based entities on forum non conveniens grounds. See id.\n\n The district court further concluded this litigation would\nrequire it to apply Taiwanese family and inheritance law, which\n“weighs strongly in favor of dismissal.” Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d\nat 292. But the need to apply foreign law alone is “not\nsufficient to warrant dismissal when a balancing of all relevant\nfactors shows that the plaintiff’s chosen forum is appropriate.”\nPiper, 454 U.S. at 260 n.29. The widow alleges claims under\nDistrict of Columbia and Taiwanese law, and U.S. courts\nregularly apply foreign law when conflict of laws principles\ndemand it. See Manu Int’l, 641 F.2d at 67–68; Mobil Tankers\nCo. v. Mene Grande Oil Co., 363 F.2d 611, 615 (3d Cir. 1966).\nThe ultimate importance of interpreting Taiwanese law\nregarding division of the Marital Estate among multiple\nputative “wives” is unclear because the widow’s lawsuit\ncenters on the size of the estate to be divided, not how it is to\nbe divided. As discussed, the district court therefore placed\nundue emphasis on whether Pao Chu Lee was legally a wife of\nY.C. Wang, a question that is at most only of secondary\nimportance to the widow’s case.\n\n The district court clearly erred in overemphasizing the\npublic interest factors, particularly the need to answer difficult\nquestions of Taiwanese law that may have no or minimal\nbearing on the widow’s suit. And in view of Y.C. Wang’s\ndecision to establish the Trusts in the District of Columbia and\ntake advantage of both the benefits and burdens under District\nof Columbia law, even a complex trial in the widow’s chosen\n\f 14\nforum and the Trusts’ home jurisdiction does not impose\nunjustified burdens or administrative difficulties on the district\ncourt.\n\n Accordingly, we must reverse and remand the case to the\ndistrict court for further proceedings. The district court’s\nerrors, considered together, constitute a clear abuse of\ndiscretion. The district court failed to give appropriate weight\nto the widow’s legitimate choice of forum and erred in\nconcluding that the private interest factors weighed slightly in\nfavor of dismissal and in overemphasizing the public interest\nfactors in deciding to dismiss this case on forum non\nconveniens grounds. The doctrine of forum non conveniens is\nto be applied only in rare cases, and only where the defendant\nmeets a heavy burden of showing that suit in the United States\nis so inconvenient as to be harassing, vexing, or oppressive. No\nsuch showing has been made here.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Robert SHI, as Executors of the Will of Yueh-Lan Wang, Et Al., Appellants v. NEW MIGHTY U.S. TRUST, Et Al., Appellees\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued December 11, 2018 Decided March 15, 2019\\n\\n No. 18-7066\\n\\n ROBERT SHI, AS EXECUTORS OF THE WILL OF YUEH-LAN\\n WANG, ET AL.,\\n APPELLANTS\\n\\n v.\\n\\n NEW MIGHTY U.S. TRUST, ET AL.,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:10-cv-01743)\\n\\n\\n Daniel S. Weinberger argued the cause and filed the briefs\\nfor appellants.\\n\\n John L. Gardiner argued the cause for appellees. With\\nhim on the brief were Andrew Muscato and David B. Leland.\\n\\n Before: ROGERS, GRIFFITH and PILLARD, Circuit Judges.\\n\\n Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.\\n\\n ROGERS, Circuit Judge: This is the second time this case\\nhas come before the court. The first time the court held that the\\n\\f 2\\ndistrict court had jurisdiction and reversed the dismissal of the\\ncomplaint for lack of diversity. Wang ex rel. Wong v. New\\nMighty U.S. Trust, 843 F.3d 487 (D.C. Cir. 2016). The\\nunderlying factual circumstances are summarized there. See\\nid. at 488–89. Suffice it to say, in 2010, Yueh-Lan Wang, the\\nwidow of Taiwanese plastics magnate and billionaire Yung-\\nChing (“Y.C.”) Wang, sued three D.C.-based entities\\n(hereinafter “the Trusts”) created before her husband’s death,\\nalleging that the transfer of a large portion of her husband’s\\nassets to the Trusts unlawfully denied her the full marital estate\\nto which she was entitled. Suing initially through Dr. Wong to\\nwhom she had granted her power of attorney and upon her\\ndeath in 2012 through the executors of her estate, the widow\\nraised claims under District of Columbia and Taiwanese law.\\nAfter seven years of litigation on whether diversity jurisdiction\\nexists, as well as litigation in Taiwan to appoint executors for\\nher estate, the Trusts moved to dismiss the complaint on forum\\nnon conveniens grounds. The district court granted the motion,\\nsubject to conditions that the Trusts consent to process and\\njurisdiction in Taiwan and also waive statute of limitations\\ndefenses, their necessary or indispensable parties argument,\\nand challenges to the power of attorney used to file suit. Hsu\\nv. New Mighty U.S. Trust, 288 F. Supp. 3d 272 (D.D.C. 2018);\\nHsu v. New Mighty U.S. Trust, 308 F. Supp. 3d 178 (D.D.C.\\n2018).\\n\\n The Executors of the widow’s estate appeal. They do not\\ncontest that Taiwan is an adequate alternative forum to the\\nextent its judicial system could, with the Trusts’ consent, assert\\njurisdiction over them and afford some type of remedy for the\\nwidow’s claims, see Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 282–86. Instead,\\nthe Executors contend the district court’s balancing misapplied\\nthe private and public factors and consequently failed to hold\\nthe Trusts to their heavy burden when it dismissed the\\n\\f 3\\ncomplaint. For the following reasons, we conclude we must\\nreverse and remand the case to the district court.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n The Supreme Court has instructed both that a court may\\ndecline to exercise jurisdiction pursuant to the doctrine of\\nforum non conveniens only “in exceptional circumstances,”\\nGulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501, 504 (1947), and that\\n“[a] defendant invoking forum non conveniens ordinarily bears\\na heavy burden in opposing the plaintiff’s chosen forum,”\\nSinochem Int’l Co. v. Malay. Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U.S.\\n422, 430 (2007). In determining whether to dismiss a case on\\nforum non conveniens grounds, the district court “must decide\\n(1) whether an adequate alternative forum for the dispute is\\navailable and, if so, (2) whether a balancing of private and\\npublic interest factors strongly favors dismissal.” Agudas\\nChasidei Chabad of U.S. v. Russian Federation, 528 F.3d 934,\\n950 (D.C. Cir. 2008). The court must balance the relevant\\nprivate and public interest factors in light of the degree of\\ndeference the plaintiff’s choice of forum deserves. El-Fadl v.\\nCent. Bank of Jordan, 75 F.3d 668, 676–77 (D.C. Cir. 1996),\\nabrogated on other grounds by Samantar v. Yousuf, 560 U.S.\\n305 (2010). “[U]nless the balance is strongly in favor of the\\ndefendant, the plaintiff’s choice of forum should rarely be\\ndisturbed.” Gilbert, 330 U.S. at 508.\\n\\n This court’s review of the dismissal of a complaint on\\nforum non conveniens grounds is for “clear abuse of discretion”\\nbecause that “determination is committed to the sound\\ndiscretion of the trial court.” Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454\\nU.S. 235, 257 (1981). Such abuse occurs where the trial court\\n“fails to consider a material factor or clearly errs in evaluating\\nthe factors before it, or does not hold the defendants to their\\nburden of persuasion.” Simon v. Republic of Hungary, 911\\n\\f 4\\nF.3d 1172, 1182 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (quoting El-Fadl, 75 F.3d at\\n677). This court accepts as true all factual allegations in the\\ncomplaint and draws all reasonable inferences in favor of the\\nnonmoving party. Ctr. for Law & Educ. v. Dep’t of Educ., 396\\nF.3d 1152, 1156 (D.C. Cir. 2005).\\n\\n A.\\n The Executors contend as a threshold matter that the\\ndistrict court erred in granting the Trusts’ motion to dismiss on\\nforum non conveniens grounds because this ground was not\\nraised until seven years after the litigation began. The\\nExecutors point to decisions in a number of circuits that have\\nconcluded the defendant must file a motion to dismiss for\\nforum non conveniens “within a reasonable time after the facts\\nor circumstances which serve as the basis for the motion have\\ndeveloped and become known or reasonably knowable to the\\ndefendant.” In re Air Crash Disaster Near New Orleans, La.\\non July 9, 1982, 821 F.2d 1147, 1165 (5th Cir. 1987), vacated\\non other grounds sub nom. Pan Am. World Airways, Inc. v.\\nLopez, 490 U.S. 1032 (1989); accord Rustal Trading US, Inc.\\nv. Makki, 17 F. App’x 331, 338 (6th Cir. 2001); see also\\nSerVaas Inc. v. Republic of Iraq, 540 F. App’x 38, 41–42 (2d\\nCir. 2013); Zelinski v. Columbia 300, Inc., 335 F.3d 633, 643\\n(7th Cir. 2003); Lony v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 935\\nF.2d 604, 614 (3d Cir. 1991); Cable News Network L.P. v.\\nCNNews.com, 177 F. Supp. 2d 506, 528 (E.D. Va. 2001), aff’d\\nin part and vacated in part on other grounds, 56 F. App’x 599\\n(4th Cir. 2003). These courts have recognized that the longer\\nlitigation continues in a U.S. court and the parties incur\\nexpenses before the defendant moves to dismiss on forum non\\nconveniens grounds, the less the defendant can legitimately\\nclaim that litigation in a U.S. forum is so inconvenient as to be\\noppressive or harassing. See, e.g., Air Crash, 821 F.2d at 1165.\\nIn other words, as regards the costs to the parties and the courts\\nthat must be considered when balancing the private and public\\n\\f 5\\ninterests, “a defendant’s dilatoriness promotes and allows the\\nvery incurrence of costs and inconvenience the doctrine is\\nmeant to relieve,” id., which weighs against dismissal. See id.\\nat 1165 & n.30; Zelinski, 335 F.3d at 643.\\n\\n Here, the facts and circumstances that underlie the forum\\nnon conveniens ground remained virtually unchanged since the\\ncomplaint was filed in 2010, yet the Trusts did not move to\\ndismiss the complaint on this ground until 2017, after this court\\nreversed the dismissal for lack of diversity and remanded the\\ncase. In a memorandum of law filed in 2012, the Trusts stated\\nin a footnote they “reserve[d] their right” to move to dismiss\\nthe complaint on forum non conveniens grounds, indicating\\nthey recognized certain facts and circumstances existed at the\\ntime that could justify such a motion. Some of the delay is\\nattributable to litigation on the appointment of executors for the\\nwidow’s estate in Taiwan, and some is attributable to this court\\nholding her appeal in abeyance pending the Supreme Court’s\\ndecision in Americold Realty Trust v. ConAgra Foods, Inc.,\\n136 S. Ct. 1012 (2016). Still, the same law firm and lawyer\\nrepresenting the Trusts in the D.C. litigation also represented\\ndefendants (one of whom manages the Trusts based in D.C.) in\\na similar suit filed by the widow on the same day in the federal\\ncourt in New Jersey, see Shu v. Wang, No. 10-5302, 2016 WL\\n6080199, at *4–5 (D.N.J. Oct. 17, 2016), and filed a forum non\\nconveniens motion in 2011, just 9 months after the complaint\\nwas filed, id. at *5. Meanwhile, instead of moving to dismiss\\nfor forum non conveniens, the D.C.-based Trusts incurred\\nsubstantial expenses pursuing other litigation strategies,\\nincluding a motion to dismiss for lack of diversity jurisdiction,\\na petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court, and\\noppositions to the Executors’ motions to substitute for the\\nwidow in this court and the district court. All the while, the\\nTrusts also challenged the validity of the widow’s power of\\nattorney under Taiwan law and sought dismissal for failure to\\n\\f 6\\nstate a claim on the same Taiwanese law issues that they now\\nclaim are too foreign and difficult for a U.S. court to handle.\\nThe Trusts proceeded, moreover, to obtain declarations from\\nTaiwanese law professors interpreting Taiwanese law issues.\\n\\n Although this litigation is still in its early stages despite its\\nadvanced age, it is not at the beginning of litigation efforts by\\nany standard, and the parties and the judiciary have incurred\\nsubstantial costs. Even if the Trusts did not waive their forum\\nnon conveniens argument by not raising it earlier, an issue we\\nneed not decide for the reasons we explain, their willingness to\\nundergo litigation for seven years in the U.S. federal courts\\nbefore raising it weighs against dismissal of the widow’s\\ncomplaint.\\n\\n B.\\n The Executors are on firm ground in contending that the\\ndistrict court erred by failing to give appropriate weight to the\\nwidow’s choice to sue in the District of Columbia rather than\\nin Taiwan. Although a U.S. plaintiff’s choice of forum is\\nordinarily entitled to significant deference because the court\\nmay “assume that this choice is convenient,” that assumption\\n“applies with less force” to foreign plaintiffs. Piper, 454 U.S.\\nat 255–56; see also Sinochem, 549 U.S. at 430. But the\\nconclusion that “a foreign plaintiff’s choice deserves less\\ndeference,” Piper, 454 U.S. at 256, is a matter of degree.\\nDeference may be appropriate, see, e.g., Lony, 935 F.2d at 609;\\nCarijano v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 643 F.3d 1216, 1227\\n(9th Cir. 2011), and certain considerations may make litigation\\nin a U.S. court the most convenient choice even for foreign\\nplaintiffs, Hefferan v. Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc., 828 F.3d\\n488, 494 (6th Cir. 2016); Norex Petroleum Ltd. v. Access\\nIndus., Inc., 416 F.3d 146, 154–55 (2d Cir. 2005); Lony v. E.I.\\nDu Pont de Nemours & Co., 886 F.2d 628, 634 (3d Cir. 1989);\\ncf. Iragorri v. United Techs. Corp., 274 F.3d 65, 72 (2d Cir.\\n\\f 7\\n2001). Even if the plaintiff resides outside of the forum, these\\ncourts have understood the Supreme Court’s reasoning to\\n“instruct[] that [they] give greater deference to a plaintiff’s\\nforum choice to the extent that it was motivated by legitimate\\nreasons, including the plaintiff’s convenience and the\\nability . . . to obtain jurisdiction over the defendant, and\\ndiminishing deference to a plaintiff’s forum choice to the\\nextent that it was motivated by tactical advantage.” Iragorri,\\n274 F.3d at 73; see also Pollux Holding Ltd. v. Chase\\nManhattan Bank, 329 F.3d 64, 71 (2d Cir. 2003). To the extent\\nthe Executors contend for the first time, however, that they\\nwere entitled the same deference due U.S. plaintiffs under the\\nTreaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the\\nUnited States and Taiwan, this argument is forfeited. United\\nStates v. Layeni, 90 F.3d 514, 522 (D.C. Cir. 1996).\\n\\n The widow had no choice but to sue the D.C.-based\\nentities here because they did not appear to be subject to\\njurisdiction anywhere other than in the United States. See\\nAssociação Brasileira de Medicina de Grupo v. Stryker Corp.,\\n891 F.3d 615, 619 (6th Cir. 2018); Tech. Dev. Co. v.\\nOnischenko, 174 F. App’x 117, 122 (3d Cir. 2006); Norex, 416\\nF.3d at 155–56. The doctrine of forum non conveniens is\\npremised on the assumption that there are “at least two forums\\nin which the defendant is amenable to process,” and “furnishes\\ncriteria for choice between them.” Gilbert, 330 U.S. at 506–\\n07. The district court recognized that the Trusts “effectively\\nconcede that they are not amenable to process in Taiwan,”\\nWang ex rel. Wong v. New Mighty U.S. Trust, 322 F.R.D. 11,\\n25 (D.D.C. 2017), and a Taiwanese forum became available\\nonly when the Trusts acceded to it as a condition of dismissal\\nhere. Although a district court may dismiss a complaint on\\nforum non conveniens grounds even where the plaintiff had no\\nalternative forum available until the defendants later consented\\nto appear in their preferred forum, Schertenleib v. Traum, 589\\n\\f 8\\nF.2d 1156, 1164 (2d Cir. 1978), the lack of an original\\nalternative forum constitutes a “legitimate reason” for a foreign\\nplaintiff’s choice of a U.S. forum. Stryker, 891 F.3d at 619;\\nNorex, 416 F.3d at 155–56. Furthermore, the Trusts were sued\\nin their home jurisdiction, which weighs heavily against\\ndismissal. Schertenleib, 589 F.2d at 1164; see also Galustian\\nv. Peter, 591 F.3d 724, 732 (4th Cir. 2010); Reid-Walen v.\\nHansen, 933 F.2d 1390, 1395 (8th Cir. 1991). The district\\ncourt clearly failed to adequately address these circumstances\\nin determining the amount of deference to accord the widow’s\\nchoice of forum.\\n\\n C.\\n The Executors further persuasively contend the district\\ncourt clearly erred in finding that the private interest factors\\neven “slightly” favor dismissal. The considerations governing\\nthe private interest analysis include “the relative ease of access\\nto sources of proof; availability of compulsory process for\\nattendance of unwilling, and the cost of obtaining attendance\\nof willing, witnesses; possibility of view of premises, if view\\nwould be appropriate to the action; and all other practical\\nproblems that make trial of a case easy, expeditious and\\ninexpensive[, such as] enforc[ea]bility of a judgment if one is\\nobtained [and] relative advantages and obstacles to fair trial.”\\nGilbert, 330 U.S. at 508. A plaintiff “may not, by choice of an\\ninconvenient forum, ‘vex,’ ‘harass,’ or ‘oppress’ the defendant\\nby inflicting upon him expense or trouble not necessary to his\\nown right to pursue his remedy.” Id. Dismissal in favor of suit\\nelsewhere “will ordinarily be appropriate where trial in the\\nplaintiff’s chosen forum imposes a heavy burden on the\\ndefendant or the court, and where the plaintiff is unable to offer\\nany specific reasons of convenience supporting his choice,”\\nsuch as where a plaintiff chooses a particular forum “solely in\\norder to harass the defendant or take advantage of favorable\\nlaw.” Piper, 454 U.S. at 249 & n.15.\\n\\f 9\\n\\n The district court concluded that the language barrier was\\na “substantial obstacle” to access to relevant evidence in the\\nDistrict of Columbia. Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 288. To the\\nextent translation is considered a significant obstacle in this day\\nand age, that obstacle will exist regardless of where this case is\\ntried. See Simon, 911 F.3d at 1186; de Csepel v. Republic of\\nHungary, 714 F.3d 591, 605 (D.C. Cir. 2013). The district\\ncourt focused on the need to interpret a Tax Settlement\\nAgreement cited in the Trusts’ motions to dismiss for failure to\\nstate a claim, regarding whether the other two women who bore\\nY.C. children were also his wives. See Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at\\n288. But in evaluating the convenience to each party, “the\\ncourt should focus on the precise issues that are likely to be\\nactually tried, taking into consideration the convenience of the\\nparties and the availability of witnesses and the evidence\\nneeded for the trial of these issues.” Iragorri, 274 F.3d at 74.\\nThe widow’s claims focus on whether Y.C. owned the assets\\nthat were transferred to the Trusts and whether Y.C. formed the\\nTrusts to reduce the widow’s share of the Marital Estate. The\\ndocuments related to these claims are likely to be in English\\nbecause the relevant transactions were between entities formed\\nin English-speaking countries, and the witnesses who could\\nprovide information about these transactions, such as the\\nlawyers and tax advisors who created the Trusts and officers of\\nthe U.S. subsidiaries whose stock holdings were transferred,\\nspeak English. Whether another “wife” has claims to any\\nassets that may be added to the Marital Estate as a result of the\\nwidow’s lawsuit may be an issue in this litigation down the\\nline, but the widow’s claims do not center chiefly on\\nTaiwanese-language documents. By placing “undue\\nemphasis” on an issue that is “of secondary importance,” the\\ndistrict court distorted the forum non conveniens analysis. R.\\nMaganlal & Co. v. M.G. Chemical Co., 942 F.2d 164, 165, 168\\n(2d Cir. 1991).\\n\\f 10\\n\\n The district court also concluded that the issue of the\\navailability of witnesses and evidence “hangs in equipoise.”\\nHsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 290. Logistical hurdles to obtaining\\nevidence and voluntary testimony in the United States present\\nless of a problem than they used to in light of technological\\nadvances and the ease of international travel. See Simon, 911\\nF.3d at 1186; Maggie Gardner, Retiring Forum Non\\nConveniens, 92 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 390, 409 (2017). The record\\nindicates the widow may face more difficulty compelling\\nwitness testimony in Taiwan than the Trusts will in the United\\nStates. The Trusts do not suggest they will be unlikely to\\npersuade their proposed witnesses located abroad — the “Trust\\nManagers” and other of Y.C.’s companies’ employees — to\\nappear voluntarily in a U.S. court, weighing against dismissal.\\nSee Lehman v. Humphrey Cayman, Ltd., 713 F.2d 339, 342–43\\n(8th Cir. 1983). In contrast, some of the widow’s proposed\\nwitnesses are less likely to testify voluntarily. U.S. witnesses\\nare subject to subpoena by U.S. courts, and those courts can\\nreach foreign non-party witnesses through the Hague Evidence\\nConvention 1 and letters rogatory. See Société Nationale\\nIndustrielle Aérospatiale v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for S. Dist. of Iowa,\\n482 U.S. 522, 540–41 (1987); Fed. R. Civ. P. 28(b). Taiwanese\\ncourts do not appear to have such reliable mechanisms of\\ncompulsory process. See generally Manu Int’l, S.A. v. Avon\\nProds., Inc., 641 F.2d 62, 67 (2d Cir. 1981); Expert Decl. of\\nProf. Tsung-Fu Chen, ¶ 75 (Nov. 16, 2017); Reply Expert Decl.\\nof Prof. Tsung-Fu Chen, ¶¶ 150–52 (May 31, 2017).\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n1\\n See Convention of 18 March 1970 on the Taking of Evidence\\nAbroad in Civil or Commercial Matters, List of Contracting Parties,\\nhttps://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/status-table/\\n?cid=82 (last visited Feb. 19, 2019).\\n\\f 11\\n The district court failed to address the enforceability of\\njudgments in its private interest analysis at all, despite\\nacknowledging that it must balance this issue. Hsu, 288 F.\\nSupp. 3d at 285–86. The enforcement of judgments presents a\\nhurdle to trial in Taiwan given that the funds at issue are not\\nlocated in Taiwan. If the widow obtains a judgment against the\\nTrusts in Taiwan, then another lawsuit would have to be filed\\nin the United States to enforce the Taiwanese judgment. See\\nNemariam v. Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 315\\nF.3d 390, 395 (D.C. Cir. 2003).\\n\\n Despite the Supreme Court’s instruction that the defendant\\nmust make a strong showing that a foreign forum is more\\nconvenient, Piper, 454 U.S. at 249, the district court recognized\\nsignificant hurdles to access to evidence and availability of\\nwitnesses in Taiwan but concluded that in the aggregate this\\nfactor “weighs slightly in favor of dismissal.” Hsu, 288 F.\\nSupp. 3d at 289. This conclusion does not follow from the\\ndistrict court’s analysis that the parties will confront serious\\nhurdles in either forum. The district court clearly failed to hold\\nthe Trusts to their “heavy burden” to show that a foreign forum\\nis significantly more convenient than a U.S. forum, Sinochem,\\n549 U.S. at 430, that is their home jurisdiction.\\n\\n D.\\n The Executors’ challenges to the district court’s weighing\\nof the public interest factors, see Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 293,\\nare also persuasive. The considerations governing the public\\ninterest analysis include the “[a]dministrative difficulties”\\nwhen “litigation is piled up in congested centers,” the “burden”\\nof jury duty on “a community which has no relation to the\\nlitigation,” the “local interest in having localized controversies\\ndecided at home,” and the “appropriateness” of trying a\\ndiversity case “in a forum that is at home with the state law that\\nmust govern the case, rather than having a court in some other\\n\\f 12\\nforum untangle problems in conflict of laws, and in law foreign\\nto itself.” Gilbert, 330 U.S. at 508–09.\\n\\n The district court viewed the District of Columbia’s\\ninterest in the widow’s claims as “weak,” concluding the\\n“strong Taiwanese interests” “tip[] sharply in favor of\\ndismissal.” Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 291. The District of\\nColumbia’s interest in this litigation is not weak, though. Y.C.\\nWang and his associates are alleged to have reached into the\\nDistrict of Columbia to establish the Trusts, transferring assets\\nto the Trusts and thereby availing themselves of the benefits of\\nDistrict of Columbia law on trusts. As in DiRienzo v. Philip\\nServices Corp., 294 F.3d 21, 32 (2d Cir. 2002), the widow’s\\nlawsuit exists only because Y.C. Wang and his associates\\nutilized U.S. legal structures to devise their alleged tax and\\nestate avoidance scheme, Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 46–58. See\\nExpert Decl. of Prof. Tsung-Fu Chen, ¶ 76 (Nov. 16, 2017).\\nThe Trusts can hardly complain now that they are burdened by\\nbeing sued in their home jurisdiction when Y.C. Wang\\nspecifically bestowed upon the District of Columbia an interest\\nin this case by establishing the Trusts here. A “defendant’s\\nhome forum always has a strong interest in providing a forum\\nfor redress of injuries caused by its citizens.” Reid-Walen, 933\\nF.2d at 1400. Although Taiwan and its citizens may have an\\ninterest in the division of the estate of one of their wealthiest\\ncitizens, Y.C. allegedly transferred significant assets into the\\nUnited States in order to hide them and avoid legal\\nresponsibilities, Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 37–45. In this\\ncircumstance, Taiwan’s interest does not clearly outweigh the\\nDistrict of Columbia’s interest in this dispute. See DiRienzo,\\n294 F.3d at 31–32.\\n\\n The district court concluded that a jury composed of\\nresidents of the District of Columbia should not be burdened\\nwith this case. Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d at 293. There are\\n\\f 13\\nobviously significant contacts with the District of Columbia\\ngiven the Trusts’ operations here. “Any economic burden to\\nthe forum is justified because the defendant has undertaken\\nboth the benefits and burdens of citizenship and of the forum’s\\nlaws.” Reid-Walen, 933 F.2d at 1400. This impact on a jury\\nof D.C. residents would not justify dismissing a case against\\nD.C.-based entities on forum non conveniens grounds. See id.\\n\\n The district court further concluded this litigation would\\nrequire it to apply Taiwanese family and inheritance law, which\\n“weighs strongly in favor of dismissal.” Hsu, 288 F. Supp. 3d\\nat 292. But the need to apply foreign law alone is “not\\nsufficient to warrant dismissal when a balancing of all relevant\\nfactors shows that the plaintiff’s chosen forum is appropriate.”\\nPiper, 454 U.S. at 260 n.29. The widow alleges claims under\\nDistrict of Columbia and Taiwanese law, and U.S. courts\\nregularly apply foreign law when conflict of laws principles\\ndemand it. See Manu Int’l, 641 F.2d at 67–68; Mobil Tankers\\nCo. v. Mene Grande Oil Co., 363 F.2d 611, 615 (3d Cir. 1966).\\nThe ultimate importance of interpreting Taiwanese law\\nregarding division of the Marital Estate among multiple\\nputative “wives” is unclear because the widow’s lawsuit\\ncenters on the size of the estate to be divided, not how it is to\\nbe divided. As discussed, the district court therefore placed\\nundue emphasis on whether Pao Chu Lee was legally a wife of\\nY.C. Wang, a question that is at most only of secondary\\nimportance to the widow’s case.\\n\\n The district court clearly erred in overemphasizing the\\npublic interest factors, particularly the need to answer difficult\\nquestions of Taiwanese law that may have no or minimal\\nbearing on the widow’s suit. And in view of Y.C. Wang’s\\ndecision to establish the Trusts in the District of Columbia and\\ntake advantage of both the benefits and burdens under District\\nof Columbia law, even a complex trial in the widow’s chosen\\n\\f 14\\nforum and the Trusts’ home jurisdiction does not impose\\nunjustified burdens or administrative difficulties on the district\\ncourt.\\n\\n Accordingly, we must reverse and remand the case to the\\ndistrict court for further proceedings. The district court’s\\nerrors, considered together, constitute a clear abuse of\\ndiscretion. The district court failed to give appropriate weight\\nto the widow’s legitimate choice of forum and erred in\\nconcluding that the private interest factors weighed slightly in\\nfavor of dismissal and in overemphasizing the public interest\\nfactors in deciding to dismiss this case on forum non\\nconveniens grounds. The doctrine of forum non conveniens is\\nto be applied only in rare cases, and only where the defendant\\nmeets a heavy burden of showing that suit in the United States\\nis so inconvenient as to be harassing, vexing, or oppressive. No\\nsuch showing has been made here.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1394,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4600240,"string":"4,600,240"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":""},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. AGRI"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-15"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"18-5074"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, KATSAS, Circuit Judge, and WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued January 25, 2019 Decided March 15, 2019\\n\\n No. 18-5074\\n\\n PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS, ET AL.,\\n APPELLANTS\\n\\n v.\\n\\nUNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND ANIMAL\\n AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:17-cv-00269)\\n\\n\\n Katherine Anne Meyer argued the cause for appellants.\\nWith her on the briefs was William N. Lawton.\\n\\n John S. Koppel, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,\\nargued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief was Mark\\nB. Stern, Attorney. Michael S. Raab and Daniel Tenny,\\nAttorneys, entered appearances.\\n\\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, KATSAS, Circuit Judge,\\nand WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge\\nWILLIAMS.\\n\\f 2\\n\\n WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: A coalition of animal\\nrights advocates led by People for the Ethical Treatment of\\nAnimals (collectively “PETA”) appeals the dismissal of their\\nFOIA claims seeking records relating to animal welfare laws\\nand regulations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture\\n(“USDA”). Plaintiffs sued after the agency had removed\\ncertain records posted online, explaining its action in language\\nconsistent with an intention to restore them except for\\nredactions required by privacy interests (but without a clear\\ncommitment to such restorations).\\n\\n The district court dismissed all claims on varying grounds:\\n(1) on the merits—as to certain issues not appealed; (2) on\\nmootness with regard to material restored by USDA to the\\nwebsite, and (3) as to redactions from restored materials, on the\\nground that plaintiffs’ complaint did not address them. We\\nreverse on the last issue without reaching the merits, and we\\nremand for further factual clarification bearing on plaintiffs’\\ncontention that USDA’s voluntary cessation of unlawful\\nactivity renders mootness inapplicable. We affirm the district\\ncourt’s refusal to grant discovery against the agency.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n Plaintiffs seek documents from the Animal and Plant\\nHealth Inspection Service (“APHIS”), the entity within USDA\\nthat administers the Animal Welfare Act (“AWA”), 7 U.S.C.\\n§§ 2131 et seq., and is responsible for licensing and inspecting\\nanimal research facilities, among other things. Plaintiffs filed\\nthis suit shortly after USDA took down from its website a large\\nswath of documents relating to AWA compliance. On\\nFebruary 3, 2017, USDA announced that, “during the past\\nyear,” APHIS had been “conduct[ing] a comprehensive review\\nof the information it posts” online. See USDA, Stakeholder\\nAnnouncement: Updates to APHIS’ Website Involving Animal\\nWelfare Act and Horse Protection Act Compliance Information\\n\\f 3\\n\\n(Feb. 3, 2017) (updated Feb. 15, 2017),\\nhttps://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/newsroom/stakeholder-info\\n/sa_by_date/sa-2017/sa-02/awa-hpa-compliance. The\\nannouncement stated that USDA was taking down a host of\\nrecords with the aim of “remov[ing] certain personal\\ninformation.” Id. In doing so, the agency was “striving to\\nbalance the need for transparency with rules protecting\\nindividual privacy.” Id. Though the announcement did not\\nexpressly say that the takedown was temporary or provide a\\ntimeline to repost records, the agency in this litigation describes\\nthe removal as “provisional[],” suggesting that “remov[ing] . .\\n. personal information” is a task temporary in nature. See\\nUSDA Br. 6; see also J.A. 43 (USDA’s motion to dismiss\\ndescribing the takedown as “a temporary precaution”). The\\ndistrict court agreed, calling the removal “temporary” and\\n“one-time,” People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc. v.\\nU.S. Dep’t of Agric. (PETA I), 285 F. Supp. 3d 307, 313\\n(D.D.C. 2018), though plaintiffs do not concede the point, see\\nPETA Br. 31.\\n\\n On February 13, 2017, plaintiffs filed this suit asking for\\ndeclaratory and injunctive relief, invoking what is known as\\nFOIA’s “reading room” provision, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2). That\\nprovision requires agencies to “make available for public\\ninspection in an electronic format” five categories of\\ndocuments. The complaint focuses on four types of records (as\\ngrouped by the district court) that the agency had removed: (1)\\nresearch facility annual reports; (2) inspection reports; (3) lists\\nof entities licensed under the AWA; and (4) regulatory\\ncorrespondence and enforcement records that had not yet\\nreceived final adjudication. See Compl. ¶¶ 1, 30; 285 F. Supp.\\n3d at 310–11.\\n\\n Plaintiffs allege that they depend on these documents for,\\ninter alia, scholarly endeavors, see Compl. ¶ 5, and wide-\\nranging advocacy work, including unearthing and correcting\\n\\f 4\\n\\nAWA compliance violations, Compl. ¶ 24. The records at\\nissue, plaintiffs allege, were “routine[ly]” made available “[f]or\\nmany years,” Compl. ¶ 31, though admittedly with redactions\\nin line with relevant FOIA exemptions, including for “personal\\nprivacy,” Compl. ¶ 21; see 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6). PETA alleges\\nthat under § 552(a)(2) USDA must disclose all removed\\nrecords, Compl. ¶ 34, and avers that requiring plaintiffs to file\\nFOIA requests for these records under § 552(a)(3) would be\\nonerous, exacerbating USDA’s existing “substantial backlog”\\nin processing FOIA requests. Compl. ¶ 27.\\n\\n PETA asked for an order requiring that USDA\\n“immediately” “make all . . . records” described in the\\ncomplaint available by electronic means. It also sought a\\ndeclaration that USDA had violated FOIA by removing the\\ndocuments, along with an injunction ordering the agency to\\n“make all such records available” to plaintiffs on an ongoing\\nbasis. Compl. 15.\\n\\n For simplicity’s sake, we exclude two groups of\\ndocuments from further discussion: the entirety of category (4)\\nabove, and the portion of category (2) consisting of animal\\ninventories. As to these, the district court dismissed plaintiffs’\\ncomplaint under Rule 12(b)(6) on the ground that it failed to\\nsay why they were covered by 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2), but\\nexpressly made its ruling without prejudice. Plaintiffs do not\\nappeal those rulings.\\n\\n In granting USDA’s motion to dismiss, the district court\\nreasoned in three steps. See Table 1. First, as to categories (1)–\\n(3) above, it concluded that “it appears” the agency had\\nreposted the requested materials, apart from animal inventories\\nin category (2). 285 F. Supp. 3d at 312. The court therefore\\ndismissed PETA’s claims under headings (1)–(3) as moot. It\\nlikewise rejected the possibility that the “voluntary cessation”\\ndoctrine negated USDA’s claim of mootness. Id. at 313. The\\n\\f 5\\n\\ndistrict court cited the temporary nature of the removals along\\nwith statements made by USDA in its December 4, 2017, letter,\\nsee J.A. 235–39, responding to the district court’s Minute Order\\nof November 27, 2017. The letter outlines the agency’s\\nprogress in reposting materials and states its plans as to future\\npostings of existing and newly created records in certain\\ncategories of documents. In light of its ruling on mootness, the\\ndistrict court denied plaintiffs’ request for discovery against the\\nagency to probe its rationales for the takedown. 285 F. Supp.\\n3d at 315 n.7.\\n\\n Second, the district court addressed the agency’s\\nredactions from the records taken down and then reposted. See\\nUSDA Br. 8, 11, 19; see also J.A. 236. Though plaintiffs\\nobjected to these redactions, the district court did not address\\ntheir demands because, on its view, the complaint did not\\nencompass those demands. 285 F. Supp. 3d at 313 n.3. Still,\\nthe court left the door open for PETA to “raise challenges to the\\nredactions that now accompany these records,” id., perhaps by\\namending its complaint or bringing another suit. (Plaintiffs did\\nnot amend their complaint.)\\n\\f 6\\n\\n\\n\\n Table 1\\n\\n Documents Plaintiffs Seek from USDA on Appeal\\n\\n Category 1 Category 2 Category 3\\n Research Inspection Lists of entities\\n facility reports licensed under\\n annual (with animal AWA\\n reports inventories)\\n\\nReposted Yes Yes Yes\\nduring (but not animal (monthly list of\\nlitigation inventories; new active licensees,\\n redactions in registrants; no\\n some documents) real-time list)\\n\\nAgency’s “reposted “now posting all” “posting the\\nintent in all” records reports for recent monthly list of\\nDec. 4, & “intends to 3-year period, active (current)\\n2017, continue J.A. 236 licensees,” J.A.\\nletter, J.A. posting,” 237\\n235–39 J.A. 236\\nDistrict Moot Moot Moot\\ncourt as to all but\\ndisposition redactions\\n\\n Failure to plead\\n as to new\\n redactions\\n\\f 7\\n\\n Third, the court dealt with the items that for simplicity’s\\nsake we are not addressing here, as we explained above. As to\\nthem, plaintiffs have now filed a new lawsuit, which is not\\nbefore us, pressing these and other claims, including their\\nobjections to USDA’s latest redactions. See People for the\\nEthical Treatment of Animals, Inc., et al. v. Sonny Perdue, et\\nal. (PETA II), No. 18-cv-887-CRC (D.D.C. filed Apr. 16,\\n2018).\\n\\n This appeal, then, centers on reposted records—both with\\nand without new redactions. We consider each in turn and\\nremand for further proceedings.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n We first address reposted records diminished by new\\nredactions. The district court declined to consider PETA’s\\nobjections on this score because those objections were not “part\\nof the complaint as filed,” which focused, in the district court’s\\nview, on the “wholesale removal of the records.” 285 F. Supp.\\n3d at 313 n.3. PETA contends that the district court erred. We\\nagree.\\n\\n To begin with, since the new redactions post-date the filing\\nof the complaint, plaintiffs could have known of them at the\\noutset of litigation only in the most general way, as a possibility\\nof unknown scope. Cf. PETA Br. 39. More important, we\\nthink the complaint can’t be reasonably read as demanding only\\nthat the agency be required to restore mutilated versions of\\ndocuments previously published without redactions—at least\\nwithout the redactions in question. It states that “records that\\nfor many years were easily accessible . . . are now no longer\\nreadily available to Plaintiffs,” Compl. ¶ 31, and requests relief\\n“immediately” making “all such records that have been\\nremoved available to Plaintiffs,” Compl. 15 (emphasis added).\\nThe complaint, tellingly, is also not limited to talk of records.\\n\\f 8\\n\\nIt repeatedly speaks of information. And, as we have long said,\\nFOIA’s “focus . . . is information, not documents.” Kimberlin\\nv. Dep’t of Justice, 139 F.3d 944, 950 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (quoting\\nMead Data Central, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Air Force, 566 F.2d\\n242, 260 (D.C. Cir. 1977)). PETA alleges that “[d]efendants’\\ndecision to remove from APHIS’s website the information that\\nis required to be affirmatively disclosed . . . violates FOIA,”\\nCompl. ¶ 36 (emphasis added), and its “actions in removing\\nsuch information . . . injure Plaintiffs by denying them\\nimmediate electronic access to such records,” Compl. ¶ 37\\n(emphasis added). We read the complaint as demanding an\\norder requiring USDA to repost documents in their original,\\npre-takedown form.\\n\\n We thus remand to the district court to take up plaintiffs’\\nobjections to new redactions from the reposted records on the\\nmerits (including examining whether plaintiffs have satisfied\\nFOIA’s exhaustion requirements, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6), and\\nsubstantive provisions).\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n We now turn to PETA’s argument that USDA’s reposting\\nof records did not moot the case even as to materials without\\nnew redactions. Why so? PETA argues that USDA’s actions\\nand statements, taken as a whole, do not meet the high bar set\\nby the “voluntary cessation” doctrine.\\n\\n We review the district court’s dismissal for lack of subject\\nmatter jurisdiction on mootness grounds de novo, see, e.g., Del\\nMonte Fresh Produce Co. v. United States, 570 F.3d 316, 321\\n(D.C. Cir. 2009); the parties agree on that standard of review,\\nsee PETA Br. 26–27, USDA Br. 12. Though a motion to\\ndismiss is ordinarily handled on the pleadings, a defendant’s\\nclaim of voluntary cessation requires an evaluation of\\nprobabilities as to future conduct that can, as here, involve\\n\\f 9\\n\\ndetailed inquiry beyond the pleadings that is “a matter for the\\ntrial judge.” United States v. Concentrated Phosphate Exp.\\nAss’n, 393 U.S. 199, 204 (1968). A related inquiry takes place,\\nof course, whenever a plaintiff supplements the pleadings with\\naffidavits to establish a court’s jurisdiction. See Haase v.\\nSessions, 835 F.2d 902, 906 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (“In 12(b)(1)\\nproceedings, it has been long accepted that the judiciary may\\nmake ‘appropriate inquiry’ beyond the pleadings to ‘satisfy\\nitself on authority to entertain the case.’” (quoting Gordon v.\\nNat’l Youth Work Alliance, 675 F.2d 356, 362–63 (D.C. Cir.\\n1982) (citations omitted))). Though the inquiry into voluntary\\ncessation might be thought to invite a degree of deference to a\\ndistrict court’s fact-finding role, our precedent appears not to\\nrecognize it. But cf. Comm. in Solidarity with People of El\\nSalvador (CISPES) v. Sessions, 929 F.2d 742, 744–45 (D.C.\\nCir. 1991) (crediting, with limited analysis, a district court’s\\nfactual findings as to voluntary cessation on a motion to\\ndismiss). In any event, even with a more deferential posture,\\nwe would remand for further proceedings in this case for the\\nreasons we explain below.\\n\\n Typically, an end to offending behavior moots a case. But\\nthere are exceptions. As relevant here, “[m]ere voluntary\\ncessation of allegedly illegal conduct does not moot a case,” for\\na defendant may be “free to return to his old ways.”\\nConcentrated Phosphate, 393 U.S. at 203 (quotation marks and\\ncitation omitted in second phrase). But again, there is “an\\nimportant exception to this important exception [to mootness].”\\nTroiano v. Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach Cty., Fla.,\\n382 F.3d 1276, 1283 (11th Cir. 2004). If a defendant can\\ndemonstrate that there is no reasonable expectation that the\\nallegedly unlawful conduct will recur, the claim may be moot.\\n“A case might become moot if subsequent events made it\\nabsolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not\\nreasonably be expected to recur.” Friends of the Earth, Inc. v.\\nLaidlaw Envtl. Servs., Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 189 (2000). In that\\n\\f 10\\n\\nevent, the “‘heavy burden of persua[ding]’ the court that the\\nchallenged conduct cannot reasonably be expected to start up\\nagain lies with the party asserting mootness,” id. (citation\\nomitted)—here, the agency.\\n\\n That general principle must be read in light of the\\n“presumption of legitimacy accorded to the Government’s\\nofficial conduct,” to which the Supreme Court has referred in\\nthe FOIA context. Nat’l Archives & Records Admin. v. Favish,\\n541 U.S. 157, 174 (2004). A “presumption of regularity\\nsupports the official acts of public officers and, in the absence\\nof clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that they have\\nproperly discharged their official duties.” Id. (quoting United\\nStates v. Chemical Found. Inc., 272 U.S. 1, 14–15 (1926)). In\\nanalyses of “voluntary cessation,” many of our sister circuits\\nhave been ready to give declarations by (or on behalf of)\\ngovernment officials––public servants sworn to uphold the\\nlaw––somewhat higher credence than statements made by\\nprivate parties. See, e.g., Sossamon v. Lone Star State of Texas,\\n560 F.3d 316, 325 (5th Cir. 2009) (“[G]overnment actors in\\ntheir sovereign capacity and in the exercise of their official\\nduties are accorded a presumption of good faith because they\\nare public servants, not self-interested private parties. Without\\nevidence to the contrary, we assume that formally announced\\nchanges to official governmental policy are not mere litigation\\nposturing.”), aff’d sub nom. Sossamon v. Texas, 563 U.S. 277\\n(2011); accord America Cargo Transp., Inc. v. United States,\\n625 F.3d 1176, 1180 (9th Cir. 2010); Troiano, 382 F.3d at\\n1283; Ammex, Inc. v. Cox, 351 F.3d 697, 705 (6th Cir. 2003);\\nRagsdale v. Turnock, 841 F.2d 1358, 1365 (7th Cir. 1988); see\\nalso Rio Grande Silvery Minnow v. Bureau of Reclamation, 601\\nF.3d 1096, 1116 n.15 (10th Cir. 2010) (dictum to similar\\neffect); 13C Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and\\nProcedure § 3533.7 (3d ed. 2008) (similar); cf. Meeropol v.\\nMeese, 790 F.2d 942, 952 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (holding that\\naffidavits of government officials are entitled to a presumption\\n\\f 11\\n\\nof good faith in the context of locating responsive records to\\nFOIA requests); Ground Saucer Watch, Inc. v. CIA, 692 F.2d\\n770, 771 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (per curiam) (same).\\n\\n PETA asserts that USDA has failed to satisfy the\\n“voluntary cessation” doctrine. PETA Br. 28–36. The district\\ncourt disagreed. It underscored the temporary nature of the\\nremovals and, relying on statements in USDA’s letter of\\nDecember 4, 2017, see J.A. 235–39, concluded that “there is no\\nreasonable expectation the Department will remove the records\\nagain,” 285 F. Supp. 3d at 313. Our view diverges from that of\\nthe parties and the district court. On the present record, we\\nbelieve, there is not enough clarity fully to assess the agency’s\\nintentions with respect to future posting of certain categories of\\nrecords.\\n\\n The USDA letter is incomplete in key respects. It doesn’t\\nexpress the agency’s position clearly enough to convince us\\nthat, as to all requested document types, it is “absolutely clear\\nthat the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be\\nexpected to recur,” Laidlaw, 528 U.S. at 189 (emphasis added)\\n(citation omitted)—even once we credit a presumption of\\nregularity afforded to government parties.\\n\\n Before addressing USDA representations as to each\\ncategory, we note three pertinent elements of the context. First,\\nUSDA’s aim in removing the records was to enhance privacy\\nprotections. Not only is this objective unproblematic in itself,\\nbut new administrations are entitled to reevaluate and modify\\nagency practices, even longstanding ones. Cf. Motor Vehicle\\nMfrs. Ass’n of U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463\\nU.S. 29, 59 (1983) (Rehnquist, J., concurring in part, dissenting\\nin part) (“A change in administration brought about by the\\npeople casting their votes is a perfectly reasonable basis for an\\nexecutive agency’s reappraisal of the costs and benefits of its\\nprograms and regulations.”). Second, the district court\\n\\f 12\\n\\nunderstood USDA’s announcement of February 3, 2017, as\\nimplying the takedowns would be temporary. See 285 F. Supp.\\n3d at 313. (“[F]rom the beginning, the Department has\\nindicated—and both parties have recognized—that the removal\\nwas a temporary measure”). USDA has lived up to this view\\nby beginning to repost numerous records quite promptly. See\\nid. at 311. Third, USDA did not shift its rationale after PETA\\nfiled suit or engage in “transitory litigation postur[ing],”\\nAmerica Cargo Transp., 625 F.3d at 1180, or in the equivalent\\nof what the Court has called “postcertiorari maneuvers,” Knox\\nv. Serv. Employees Int’l Union, Local 1000, 567 U.S. 298, 307\\n(2012).\\n\\n Proceeding by category, we address research facility\\nannual reports, inspection reports (sans animal inventories),\\nand lists of entities regulated under the AWA.\\n\\n Research Reports. Here the agency has adequately\\nexpressed its forward-looking plans. “APHIS intends to\\ncontinue posting annual reports going forward consistent with\\nits practice prior to February 3, 2017.” J.A. 236.\\n\\n With respect to the remaining two categories, inspection\\nreports and entity lists, however, the record is less certain.\\nUSDA explains that it “is now posting all inspection reports for\\nthe most recent three-year period,” id., and says that “APHIS\\nposts new inspection reports on a rolling basis,” “limited to the\\nmost recent three-year period,” J.A. 236–37. USDA’s\\ntreatment of entity lists is similarly confined to a description of\\ncurrently ongoing practice. It explains that it “is posting the\\nmonthly list of active (current) licensees and registrants that are\\nregulated under the AWA on the agency’s website,” but doesn’t\\nbroach future plans. Id. at 237.\\n\\n Given the forward-looking character of the inquiry into a\\ndefendant’s intent, these fall short of the necessary precision.\\n\\f 13\\n\\nThat is especially so given the agency’s view that its ongoing\\npostings are discretionary. See USDA Br. 6, 12, 20.\\n\\n Put differently, the December 4, 2017 letter’s treatment of\\ninspection reports and entity lists falls short of the kinds of\\nstatements that courts have credited in the very cases the\\nagency cites. See USDA Br. 18. In one instance, government\\ncounsel committed an agency to a “new permanent policy” that\\n“agreed with” plaintiff’s position. America Cargo Transp., 625\\nF.3d at 1180 (emphasis added in first quotation). In another\\ncontext, a court found governmental “self-correction” that\\n“appears genuine,” Ragsdale, 841 F.2d at 1365, based on a\\n“public policy of non-enforcement” of a requirement that was\\n“barred by clear Supreme Court precedent,” id. at 1365–66, and\\nhad “no real prospect” of repetition, id. at 1366. In a third, a\\ncourt laid stress on “formally announced changes to official\\ngovernmental policy.” Sossamon, 560 F.3d at 325. And in a\\nfourth, the government gave exactly the “relief plaintiffs\\nrequested.” CISPES, 929 F.2d at 742. Neither USDA’s letter,\\nnor the representations in its briefing or at oral argument,\\nexhibits this level of clarity about inspection reports and entity\\nlists.\\n\\n We thus remand for clarification with respect to USDA’s\\nfuture plans to post inspection reports (apart from animal\\ninventories) and lists of AWA regulated entities—and would\\nhave done so even had we accorded deference to factual\\nfindings of the district court. If the agency makes clear that it\\ncommits to timely posting on an ongoing basis, such a\\ndeclaration will moot PETA’s non-redaction claims.\\n\\n In light of USDA’s seemingly unproblematic rationale for\\nremoving the records; the one-time nature of the takedown; the\\nabsence of any signs of bad faith in litigation; and a\\npresumption of regularity when government officials express a\\nclear intention to do as the complaint requests, we conclude that\\n\\f 14\\n\\na declaration by (or on behalf of) USDA officials that the\\nagency intends to post documents in the inspection reports and\\nentity lists categories on an ongoing basis will moot PETA’s\\nclaims. This is so, we emphasize, even though USDA\\ncontinues to assert that posting the records is a matter of\\ndiscretion, rather than a FOIA-imposed duty (as plaintiffs\\nwould have it). Given our holding, we find that the district\\ncourt did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiffs’ request\\nfor discovery against the agency aimed at showing that the\\n“voluntary cessation” doctrine isn’t met. See 285 F. Supp. 3d\\nat 315 n.7; Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington\\nv. Office of Admin., 566 F.3d 219, 221 (D.C. Cir. 2009).\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n To sum up, as to reposted records featuring new\\nredactions, the complaint is most plausibly read as requesting\\nthat USDA repost all information that those records contained\\nbefore their takedown. The district court should thus proceed\\nto the merits on remand. As to “voluntary cessation,” we affirm\\nthe mootness dismissal as to the research reports but remand\\nfor further elucidation as to the inspection reports and the entity\\nlists. If the agency unambiguously commits to continued\\nposting of those documents, plaintiffs’ claims should be\\ndismissed as moot, without discovery, even if USDA continues\\nto regard its postings as voluntary.\\n\\n So ordered.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4377493/\", \"author_raw\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"GARLAND"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"KATSAS"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"WILLIAMS"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"GARLAND\": \", Chief\", \"KATSAS\": \", Circuit\", \"WILLIAMS\": \", Senior Circuit\"}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600240/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. AGRI\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued January 25, 2019 Decided March 15, 2019\n\n No. 18-5074\n\n PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS, ET AL.,\n APPELLANTS\n\n v.\n\nUNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND ANIMAL\n AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE,\n APPELLEES\n\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the District of Columbia\n (No. 1:17-cv-00269)\n\n\n Katherine Anne Meyer argued the cause for appellants.\nWith her on the briefs was William N. Lawton.\n\n John S. Koppel, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,\nargued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief was Mark\nB. Stern, Attorney. Michael S. Raab and Daniel Tenny,\nAttorneys, entered appearances.\n\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, KATSAS, Circuit Judge,\nand WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.\n\n Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge\nWILLIAMS.\n\f 2\n\n WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: A coalition of animal\nrights advocates led by People for the Ethical Treatment of\nAnimals (collectively “PETA”) appeals the dismissal of their\nFOIA claims seeking records relating to animal welfare laws\nand regulations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture\n(“USDA”). Plaintiffs sued after the agency had removed\ncertain records posted online, explaining its action in language\nconsistent with an intention to restore them except for\nredactions required by privacy interests (but without a clear\ncommitment to such restorations).\n\n The district court dismissed all claims on varying grounds:\n(1) on the merits—as to certain issues not appealed; (2) on\nmootness with regard to material restored by USDA to the\nwebsite, and (3) as to redactions from restored materials, on the\nground that plaintiffs’ complaint did not address them. We\nreverse on the last issue without reaching the merits, and we\nremand for further factual clarification bearing on plaintiffs’\ncontention that USDA’s voluntary cessation of unlawful\nactivity renders mootness inapplicable. We affirm the district\ncourt’s refusal to grant discovery against the agency.\n\n * * *\n\n Plaintiffs seek documents from the Animal and Plant\nHealth Inspection Service (“APHIS”), the entity within USDA\nthat administers the Animal Welfare Act (“AWA”), 7 U.S.C.\n§§ 2131 et seq., and is responsible for licensing and inspecting\nanimal research facilities, among other things. Plaintiffs filed\nthis suit shortly after USDA took down from its website a large\nswath of documents relating to AWA compliance. On\nFebruary 3, 2017, USDA announced that, “during the past\nyear,” APHIS had been “conduct[ing] a comprehensive review\nof the information it posts” online. See USDA, Stakeholder\nAnnouncement: Updates to APHIS’ Website Involving Animal\nWelfare Act and Horse Protection Act Compliance Information\n\f 3\n\n(Feb. 3, 2017) (updated Feb. 15, 2017),\nhttps://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/newsroom/stakeholder-info\n/sa_by_date/sa-2017/sa-02/awa-hpa-compliance. The\nannouncement stated that USDA was taking down a host of\nrecords with the aim of “remov[ing] certain personal\ninformation.” Id. In doing so, the agency was “striving to\nbalance the need for transparency with rules protecting\nindividual privacy.” Id. Though the announcement did not\nexpressly say that the takedown was temporary or provide a\ntimeline to repost records, the agency in this litigation describes\nthe removal as “provisional[],” suggesting that “remov[ing] . .\n. personal information” is a task temporary in nature. See\nUSDA Br. 6; see also J.A. 43 (USDA’s motion to dismiss\ndescribing the takedown as “a temporary precaution”). The\ndistrict court agreed, calling the removal “temporary” and\n“one-time,” People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc. v.\nU.S. Dep’t of Agric. (PETA I), 285 F. Supp. 3d 307, 313\n(D.D.C. 2018), though plaintiffs do not concede the point, see\nPETA Br. 31.\n\n On February 13, 2017, plaintiffs filed this suit asking for\ndeclaratory and injunctive relief, invoking what is known as\nFOIA’s “reading room” provision, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2). That\nprovision requires agencies to “make available for public\ninspection in an electronic format” five categories of\ndocuments. The complaint focuses on four types of records (as\ngrouped by the district court) that the agency had removed: (1)\nresearch facility annual reports; (2) inspection reports; (3) lists\nof entities licensed under the AWA; and (4) regulatory\ncorrespondence and enforcement records that had not yet\nreceived final adjudication. See Compl. ¶¶ 1, 30; 285 F. Supp.\n3d at 310–11.\n\n Plaintiffs allege that they depend on these documents for,\ninter alia, scholarly endeavors, see Compl. ¶ 5, and wide-\nranging advocacy work, including unearthing and correcting\n\f 4\n\nAWA compliance violations, Compl. ¶ 24. The records at\nissue, plaintiffs allege, were “routine[ly]” made available “[f]or\nmany years,” Compl. ¶ 31, though admittedly with redactions\nin line with relevant FOIA exemptions, including for “personal\nprivacy,” Compl. ¶ 21; see 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6). PETA alleges\nthat under § 552(a)(2) USDA must disclose all removed\nrecords, Compl. ¶ 34, and avers that requiring plaintiffs to file\nFOIA requests for these records under § 552(a)(3) would be\nonerous, exacerbating USDA’s existing “substantial backlog”\nin processing FOIA requests. Compl. ¶ 27.\n\n PETA asked for an order requiring that USDA\n“immediately” “make all . . . records” described in the\ncomplaint available by electronic means. It also sought a\ndeclaration that USDA had violated FOIA by removing the\ndocuments, along with an injunction ordering the agency to\n“make all such records available” to plaintiffs on an ongoing\nbasis. Compl. 15.\n\n For simplicity’s sake, we exclude two groups of\ndocuments from further discussion: the entirety of category (4)\nabove, and the portion of category (2) consisting of animal\ninventories. As to these, the district court dismissed plaintiffs’\ncomplaint under Rule 12(b)(6) on the ground that it failed to\nsay why they were covered by 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2), but\nexpressly made its ruling without prejudice. Plaintiffs do not\nappeal those rulings.\n\n In granting USDA’s motion to dismiss, the district court\nreasoned in three steps. See Table 1. First, as to categories (1)–\n(3) above, it concluded that “it appears” the agency had\nreposted the requested materials, apart from animal inventories\nin category (2). 285 F. Supp. 3d at 312. The court therefore\ndismissed PETA’s claims under headings (1)–(3) as moot. It\nlikewise rejected the possibility that the “voluntary cessation”\ndoctrine negated USDA’s claim of mootness. Id. at 313. The\n\f 5\n\ndistrict court cited the temporary nature of the removals along\nwith statements made by USDA in its December 4, 2017, letter,\nsee J.A. 235–39, responding to the district court’s Minute Order\nof November 27, 2017. The letter outlines the agency’s\nprogress in reposting materials and states its plans as to future\npostings of existing and newly created records in certain\ncategories of documents. In light of its ruling on mootness, the\ndistrict court denied plaintiffs’ request for discovery against the\nagency to probe its rationales for the takedown. 285 F. Supp.\n3d at 315 n.7.\n\n Second, the district court addressed the agency’s\nredactions from the records taken down and then reposted. See\nUSDA Br. 8, 11, 19; see also J.A. 236. Though plaintiffs\nobjected to these redactions, the district court did not address\ntheir demands because, on its view, the complaint did not\nencompass those demands. 285 F. Supp. 3d at 313 n.3. Still,\nthe court left the door open for PETA to “raise challenges to the\nredactions that now accompany these records,” id., perhaps by\namending its complaint or bringing another suit. (Plaintiffs did\nnot amend their complaint.)\n\f 6\n\n\n\n Table 1\n\n Documents Plaintiffs Seek from USDA on Appeal\n\n Category 1 Category 2 Category 3\n Research Inspection Lists of entities\n facility reports licensed under\n annual (with animal AWA\n reports inventories)\n\nReposted Yes Yes Yes\nduring (but not animal (monthly list of\nlitigation inventories; new active licensees,\n redactions in registrants; no\n some documents) real-time list)\n\nAgency’s “reposted “now posting all” “posting the\nintent in all” records reports for recent monthly list of\nDec. 4, & “intends to 3-year period, active (current)\n2017, continue J.A. 236 licensees,” J.A.\nletter, J.A. posting,” 237\n235–39 J.A. 236\nDistrict Moot Moot Moot\ncourt as to all but\ndisposition redactions\n\n Failure to plead\n as to new\n redactions\n\f 7\n\n Third, the court dealt with the items that for simplicity’s\nsake we are not addressing here, as we explained above. As to\nthem, plaintiffs have now filed a new lawsuit, which is not\nbefore us, pressing these and other claims, including their\nobjections to USDA’s latest redactions. See People for the\nEthical Treatment of Animals, Inc., et al. v. Sonny Perdue, et\nal. (PETA II), No. 18-cv-887-CRC (D.D.C. filed Apr. 16,\n2018).\n\n This appeal, then, centers on reposted records—both with\nand without new redactions. We consider each in turn and\nremand for further proceedings.\n\n * * *\n\n We first address reposted records diminished by new\nredactions. The district court declined to consider PETA’s\nobjections on this score because those objections were not “part\nof the complaint as filed,” which focused, in the district court’s\nview, on the “wholesale removal of the records.” 285 F. Supp.\n3d at 313 n.3. PETA contends that the district court erred. We\nagree.\n\n To begin with, since the new redactions post-date the filing\nof the complaint, plaintiffs could have known of them at the\noutset of litigation only in the most general way, as a possibility\nof unknown scope. Cf. PETA Br. 39. More important, we\nthink the complaint can’t be reasonably read as demanding only\nthat the agency be required to restore mutilated versions of\ndocuments previously published without redactions—at least\nwithout the redactions in question. It states that “records that\nfor many years were easily accessible . . . are now no longer\nreadily available to Plaintiffs,” Compl. ¶ 31, and requests relief\n“immediately” making “all such records that have been\nremoved available to Plaintiffs,” Compl. 15 (emphasis added).\nThe complaint, tellingly, is also not limited to talk of records.\n\f 8\n\nIt repeatedly speaks of information. And, as we have long said,\nFOIA’s “focus . . . is information, not documents.” Kimberlin\nv. Dep’t of Justice, 139 F.3d 944, 950 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (quoting\nMead Data Central, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Air Force, 566 F.2d\n242, 260 (D.C. Cir. 1977)). PETA alleges that “[d]efendants’\ndecision to remove from APHIS’s website the information that\nis required to be affirmatively disclosed . . . violates FOIA,”\nCompl. ¶ 36 (emphasis added), and its “actions in removing\nsuch information . . . injure Plaintiffs by denying them\nimmediate electronic access to such records,” Compl. ¶ 37\n(emphasis added). We read the complaint as demanding an\norder requiring USDA to repost documents in their original,\npre-takedown form.\n\n We thus remand to the district court to take up plaintiffs’\nobjections to new redactions from the reposted records on the\nmerits (including examining whether plaintiffs have satisfied\nFOIA’s exhaustion requirements, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6), and\nsubstantive provisions).\n\n * * *\n\n We now turn to PETA’s argument that USDA’s reposting\nof records did not moot the case even as to materials without\nnew redactions. Why so? PETA argues that USDA’s actions\nand statements, taken as a whole, do not meet the high bar set\nby the “voluntary cessation” doctrine.\n\n We review the district court’s dismissal for lack of subject\nmatter jurisdiction on mootness grounds de novo, see, e.g., Del\nMonte Fresh Produce Co. v. United States, 570 F.3d 316, 321\n(D.C. Cir. 2009); the parties agree on that standard of review,\nsee PETA Br. 26–27, USDA Br. 12. Though a motion to\ndismiss is ordinarily handled on the pleadings, a defendant’s\nclaim of voluntary cessation requires an evaluation of\nprobabilities as to future conduct that can, as here, involve\n\f 9\n\ndetailed inquiry beyond the pleadings that is “a matter for the\ntrial judge.” United States v. Concentrated Phosphate Exp.\nAss’n, 393 U.S. 199, 204 (1968). A related inquiry takes place,\nof course, whenever a plaintiff supplements the pleadings with\naffidavits to establish a court’s jurisdiction. See Haase v.\nSessions, 835 F.2d 902, 906 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (“In 12(b)(1)\nproceedings, it has been long accepted that the judiciary may\nmake ‘appropriate inquiry’ beyond the pleadings to ‘satisfy\nitself on authority to entertain the case.’” (quoting Gordon v.\nNat’l Youth Work Alliance, 675 F.2d 356, 362–63 (D.C. Cir.\n1982) (citations omitted))). Though the inquiry into voluntary\ncessation might be thought to invite a degree of deference to a\ndistrict court’s fact-finding role, our precedent appears not to\nrecognize it. But cf. Comm. in Solidarity with People of El\nSalvador (CISPES) v. Sessions, 929 F.2d 742, 744–45 (D.C.\nCir. 1991) (crediting, with limited analysis, a district court’s\nfactual findings as to voluntary cessation on a motion to\ndismiss). In any event, even with a more deferential posture,\nwe would remand for further proceedings in this case for the\nreasons we explain below.\n\n Typically, an end to offending behavior moots a case. But\nthere are exceptions. As relevant here, “[m]ere voluntary\ncessation of allegedly illegal conduct does not moot a case,” for\na defendant may be “free to return to his old ways.”\nConcentrated Phosphate, 393 U.S. at 203 (quotation marks and\ncitation omitted in second phrase). But again, there is “an\nimportant exception to this important exception [to mootness].”\nTroiano v. Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach Cty., Fla.,\n382 F.3d 1276, 1283 (11th Cir. 2004). If a defendant can\ndemonstrate that there is no reasonable expectation that the\nallegedly unlawful conduct will recur, the claim may be moot.\n“A case might become moot if subsequent events made it\nabsolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not\nreasonably be expected to recur.” Friends of the Earth, Inc. v.\nLaidlaw Envtl. Servs., Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 189 (2000). In that\n\f 10\n\nevent, the “‘heavy burden of persua[ding]’ the court that the\nchallenged conduct cannot reasonably be expected to start up\nagain lies with the party asserting mootness,” id. (citation\nomitted)—here, the agency.\n\n That general principle must be read in light of the\n“presumption of legitimacy accorded to the Government’s\nofficial conduct,” to which the Supreme Court has referred in\nthe FOIA context. Nat’l Archives & Records Admin. v. Favish,\n541 U.S. 157, 174 (2004). A “presumption of regularity\nsupports the official acts of public officers and, in the absence\nof clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that they have\nproperly discharged their official duties.” Id. (quoting United\nStates v. Chemical Found. Inc., 272 U.S. 1, 14–15 (1926)). In\nanalyses of “voluntary cessation,” many of our sister circuits\nhave been ready to give declarations by (or on behalf of)\ngovernment officials––public servants sworn to uphold the\nlaw––somewhat higher credence than statements made by\nprivate parties. See, e.g., Sossamon v. Lone Star State of Texas,\n560 F.3d 316, 325 (5th Cir. 2009) (“[G]overnment actors in\ntheir sovereign capacity and in the exercise of their official\nduties are accorded a presumption of good faith because they\nare public servants, not self-interested private parties. Without\nevidence to the contrary, we assume that formally announced\nchanges to official governmental policy are not mere litigation\nposturing.”), aff’d sub nom. Sossamon v. Texas, 563 U.S. 277\n(2011); accord America Cargo Transp., Inc. v. United States,\n625 F.3d 1176, 1180 (9th Cir. 2010); Troiano, 382 F.3d at\n1283; Ammex, Inc. v. Cox, 351 F.3d 697, 705 (6th Cir. 2003);\nRagsdale v. Turnock, 841 F.2d 1358, 1365 (7th Cir. 1988); see\nalso Rio Grande Silvery Minnow v. Bureau of Reclamation, 601\nF.3d 1096, 1116 n.15 (10th Cir. 2010) (dictum to similar\neffect); 13C Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and\nProcedure § 3533.7 (3d ed. 2008) (similar); cf. Meeropol v.\nMeese, 790 F.2d 942, 952 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (holding that\naffidavits of government officials are entitled to a presumption\n\f 11\n\nof good faith in the context of locating responsive records to\nFOIA requests); Ground Saucer Watch, Inc. v. CIA, 692 F.2d\n770, 771 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (per curiam) (same).\n\n PETA asserts that USDA has failed to satisfy the\n“voluntary cessation” doctrine. PETA Br. 28–36. The district\ncourt disagreed. It underscored the temporary nature of the\nremovals and, relying on statements in USDA’s letter of\nDecember 4, 2017, see J.A. 235–39, concluded that “there is no\nreasonable expectation the Department will remove the records\nagain,” 285 F. Supp. 3d at 313. Our view diverges from that of\nthe parties and the district court. On the present record, we\nbelieve, there is not enough clarity fully to assess the agency’s\nintentions with respect to future posting of certain categories of\nrecords.\n\n The USDA letter is incomplete in key respects. It doesn’t\nexpress the agency’s position clearly enough to convince us\nthat, as to all requested document types, it is “absolutely clear\nthat the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be\nexpected to recur,” Laidlaw, 528 U.S. at 189 (emphasis added)\n(citation omitted)—even once we credit a presumption of\nregularity afforded to government parties.\n\n Before addressing USDA representations as to each\ncategory, we note three pertinent elements of the context. First,\nUSDA’s aim in removing the records was to enhance privacy\nprotections. Not only is this objective unproblematic in itself,\nbut new administrations are entitled to reevaluate and modify\nagency practices, even longstanding ones. Cf. Motor Vehicle\nMfrs. Ass’n of U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463\nU.S. 29, 59 (1983) (Rehnquist, J., concurring in part, dissenting\nin part) (“A change in administration brought about by the\npeople casting their votes is a perfectly reasonable basis for an\nexecutive agency’s reappraisal of the costs and benefits of its\nprograms and regulations.”). Second, the district court\n\f 12\n\nunderstood USDA’s announcement of February 3, 2017, as\nimplying the takedowns would be temporary. See 285 F. Supp.\n3d at 313. (“[F]rom the beginning, the Department has\nindicated—and both parties have recognized—that the removal\nwas a temporary measure”). USDA has lived up to this view\nby beginning to repost numerous records quite promptly. See\nid. at 311. Third, USDA did not shift its rationale after PETA\nfiled suit or engage in “transitory litigation postur[ing],”\nAmerica Cargo Transp., 625 F.3d at 1180, or in the equivalent\nof what the Court has called “postcertiorari maneuvers,” Knox\nv. Serv. Employees Int’l Union, Local 1000, 567 U.S. 298, 307\n(2012).\n\n Proceeding by category, we address research facility\nannual reports, inspection reports (sans animal inventories),\nand lists of entities regulated under the AWA.\n\n Research Reports. Here the agency has adequately\nexpressed its forward-looking plans. “APHIS intends to\ncontinue posting annual reports going forward consistent with\nits practice prior to February 3, 2017.” J.A. 236.\n\n With respect to the remaining two categories, inspection\nreports and entity lists, however, the record is less certain.\nUSDA explains that it “is now posting all inspection reports for\nthe most recent three-year period,” id., and says that “APHIS\nposts new inspection reports on a rolling basis,” “limited to the\nmost recent three-year period,” J.A. 236–37. USDA’s\ntreatment of entity lists is similarly confined to a description of\ncurrently ongoing practice. It explains that it “is posting the\nmonthly list of active (current) licensees and registrants that are\nregulated under the AWA on the agency’s website,” but doesn’t\nbroach future plans. Id. at 237.\n\n Given the forward-looking character of the inquiry into a\ndefendant’s intent, these fall short of the necessary precision.\n\f 13\n\nThat is especially so given the agency’s view that its ongoing\npostings are discretionary. See USDA Br. 6, 12, 20.\n\n Put differently, the December 4, 2017 letter’s treatment of\ninspection reports and entity lists falls short of the kinds of\nstatements that courts have credited in the very cases the\nagency cites. See USDA Br. 18. In one instance, government\ncounsel committed an agency to a “new permanent policy” that\n“agreed with” plaintiff’s position. America Cargo Transp., 625\nF.3d at 1180 (emphasis added in first quotation). In another\ncontext, a court found governmental “self-correction” that\n“appears genuine,” Ragsdale, 841 F.2d at 1365, based on a\n“public policy of non-enforcement” of a requirement that was\n“barred by clear Supreme Court precedent,” id. at 1365–66, and\nhad “no real prospect” of repetition, id. at 1366. In a third, a\ncourt laid stress on “formally announced changes to official\ngovernmental policy.” Sossamon, 560 F.3d at 325. And in a\nfourth, the government gave exactly the “relief plaintiffs\nrequested.” CISPES, 929 F.2d at 742. Neither USDA’s letter,\nnor the representations in its briefing or at oral argument,\nexhibits this level of clarity about inspection reports and entity\nlists.\n\n We thus remand for clarification with respect to USDA’s\nfuture plans to post inspection reports (apart from animal\ninventories) and lists of AWA regulated entities—and would\nhave done so even had we accorded deference to factual\nfindings of the district court. If the agency makes clear that it\ncommits to timely posting on an ongoing basis, such a\ndeclaration will moot PETA’s non-redaction claims.\n\n In light of USDA’s seemingly unproblematic rationale for\nremoving the records; the one-time nature of the takedown; the\nabsence of any signs of bad faith in litigation; and a\npresumption of regularity when government officials express a\nclear intention to do as the complaint requests, we conclude that\n\f 14\n\na declaration by (or on behalf of) USDA officials that the\nagency intends to post documents in the inspection reports and\nentity lists categories on an ongoing basis will moot PETA’s\nclaims. This is so, we emphasize, even though USDA\ncontinues to assert that posting the records is a matter of\ndiscretion, rather than a FOIA-imposed duty (as plaintiffs\nwould have it). Given our holding, we find that the district\ncourt did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiffs’ request\nfor discovery against the agency aimed at showing that the\n“voluntary cessation” doctrine isn’t met. See 285 F. Supp. 3d\nat 315 n.7; Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington\nv. Office of Admin., 566 F.3d 219, 221 (D.C. Cir. 2009).\n\n * * *\n\n To sum up, as to reposted records featuring new\nredactions, the complaint is most plausibly read as requesting\nthat USDA repost all information that those records contained\nbefore their takedown. The district court should thus proceed\nto the merits on remand. As to “voluntary cessation,” we affirm\nthe mootness dismissal as to the research reports but remand\nfor further elucidation as to the inspection reports and the entity\nlists. If the agency unambiguously commits to continued\nposting of those documents, plaintiffs’ claims should be\ndismissed as moot, without discovery, even if USDA continues\nto regard its postings as voluntary.\n\n So ordered.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. AGRI\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued January 25, 2019 Decided March 15, 2019\\n\\n No. 18-5074\\n\\n PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS, ET AL.,\\n APPELLANTS\\n\\n v.\\n\\nUNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND ANIMAL\\n AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE,\\n APPELLEES\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:17-cv-00269)\\n\\n\\n Katherine Anne Meyer argued the cause for appellants.\\nWith her on the briefs was William N. Lawton.\\n\\n John S. Koppel, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,\\nargued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief was Mark\\nB. Stern, Attorney. Michael S. Raab and Daniel Tenny,\\nAttorneys, entered appearances.\\n\\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, KATSAS, Circuit Judge,\\nand WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge\\nWILLIAMS.\\n\\f 2\\n\\n WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: A coalition of animal\\nrights advocates led by People for the Ethical Treatment of\\nAnimals (collectively “PETA”) appeals the dismissal of their\\nFOIA claims seeking records relating to animal welfare laws\\nand regulations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture\\n(“USDA”). Plaintiffs sued after the agency had removed\\ncertain records posted online, explaining its action in language\\nconsistent with an intention to restore them except for\\nredactions required by privacy interests (but without a clear\\ncommitment to such restorations).\\n\\n The district court dismissed all claims on varying grounds:\\n(1) on the merits—as to certain issues not appealed; (2) on\\nmootness with regard to material restored by USDA to the\\nwebsite, and (3) as to redactions from restored materials, on the\\nground that plaintiffs’ complaint did not address them. We\\nreverse on the last issue without reaching the merits, and we\\nremand for further factual clarification bearing on plaintiffs’\\ncontention that USDA’s voluntary cessation of unlawful\\nactivity renders mootness inapplicable. We affirm the district\\ncourt’s refusal to grant discovery against the agency.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n Plaintiffs seek documents from the Animal and Plant\\nHealth Inspection Service (“APHIS”), the entity within USDA\\nthat administers the Animal Welfare Act (“AWA”), 7 U.S.C.\\n§§ 2131 et seq., and is responsible for licensing and inspecting\\nanimal research facilities, among other things. Plaintiffs filed\\nthis suit shortly after USDA took down from its website a large\\nswath of documents relating to AWA compliance. On\\nFebruary 3, 2017, USDA announced that, “during the past\\nyear,” APHIS had been “conduct[ing] a comprehensive review\\nof the information it posts” online. See USDA, Stakeholder\\nAnnouncement: Updates to APHIS’ Website Involving Animal\\nWelfare Act and Horse Protection Act Compliance Information\\n\\f 3\\n\\n(Feb. 3, 2017) (updated Feb. 15, 2017),\\nhttps://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/newsroom/stakeholder-info\\n/sa_by_date/sa-2017/sa-02/awa-hpa-compliance. The\\nannouncement stated that USDA was taking down a host of\\nrecords with the aim of “remov[ing] certain personal\\ninformation.” Id. In doing so, the agency was “striving to\\nbalance the need for transparency with rules protecting\\nindividual privacy.” Id. Though the announcement did not\\nexpressly say that the takedown was temporary or provide a\\ntimeline to repost records, the agency in this litigation describes\\nthe removal as “provisional[],” suggesting that “remov[ing] . .\\n. personal information” is a task temporary in nature. See\\nUSDA Br. 6; see also J.A. 43 (USDA’s motion to dismiss\\ndescribing the takedown as “a temporary precaution”). The\\ndistrict court agreed, calling the removal “temporary” and\\n“one-time,” People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc. v.\\nU.S. Dep’t of Agric. (PETA I), 285 F. Supp. 3d 307, 313\\n(D.D.C. 2018), though plaintiffs do not concede the point, see\\nPETA Br. 31.\\n\\n On February 13, 2017, plaintiffs filed this suit asking for\\ndeclaratory and injunctive relief, invoking what is known as\\nFOIA’s “reading room” provision, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2). That\\nprovision requires agencies to “make available for public\\ninspection in an electronic format” five categories of\\ndocuments. The complaint focuses on four types of records (as\\ngrouped by the district court) that the agency had removed: (1)\\nresearch facility annual reports; (2) inspection reports; (3) lists\\nof entities licensed under the AWA; and (4) regulatory\\ncorrespondence and enforcement records that had not yet\\nreceived final adjudication. See Compl. ¶¶ 1, 30; 285 F. Supp.\\n3d at 310–11.\\n\\n Plaintiffs allege that they depend on these documents for,\\ninter alia, scholarly endeavors, see Compl. ¶ 5, and wide-\\nranging advocacy work, including unearthing and correcting\\n\\f 4\\n\\nAWA compliance violations, Compl. ¶ 24. The records at\\nissue, plaintiffs allege, were “routine[ly]” made available “[f]or\\nmany years,” Compl. ¶ 31, though admittedly with redactions\\nin line with relevant FOIA exemptions, including for “personal\\nprivacy,” Compl. ¶ 21; see 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6). PETA alleges\\nthat under § 552(a)(2) USDA must disclose all removed\\nrecords, Compl. ¶ 34, and avers that requiring plaintiffs to file\\nFOIA requests for these records under § 552(a)(3) would be\\nonerous, exacerbating USDA’s existing “substantial backlog”\\nin processing FOIA requests. Compl. ¶ 27.\\n\\n PETA asked for an order requiring that USDA\\n“immediately” “make all . . . records” described in the\\ncomplaint available by electronic means. It also sought a\\ndeclaration that USDA had violated FOIA by removing the\\ndocuments, along with an injunction ordering the agency to\\n“make all such records available” to plaintiffs on an ongoing\\nbasis. Compl. 15.\\n\\n For simplicity’s sake, we exclude two groups of\\ndocuments from further discussion: the entirety of category (4)\\nabove, and the portion of category (2) consisting of animal\\ninventories. As to these, the district court dismissed plaintiffs’\\ncomplaint under Rule 12(b)(6) on the ground that it failed to\\nsay why they were covered by 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2), but\\nexpressly made its ruling without prejudice. Plaintiffs do not\\nappeal those rulings.\\n\\n In granting USDA’s motion to dismiss, the district court\\nreasoned in three steps. See Table 1. First, as to categories (1)–\\n(3) above, it concluded that “it appears” the agency had\\nreposted the requested materials, apart from animal inventories\\nin category (2). 285 F. Supp. 3d at 312. The court therefore\\ndismissed PETA’s claims under headings (1)–(3) as moot. It\\nlikewise rejected the possibility that the “voluntary cessation”\\ndoctrine negated USDA’s claim of mootness. Id. at 313. The\\n\\f 5\\n\\ndistrict court cited the temporary nature of the removals along\\nwith statements made by USDA in its December 4, 2017, letter,\\nsee J.A. 235–39, responding to the district court’s Minute Order\\nof November 27, 2017. The letter outlines the agency’s\\nprogress in reposting materials and states its plans as to future\\npostings of existing and newly created records in certain\\ncategories of documents. In light of its ruling on mootness, the\\ndistrict court denied plaintiffs’ request for discovery against the\\nagency to probe its rationales for the takedown. 285 F. Supp.\\n3d at 315 n.7.\\n\\n Second, the district court addressed the agency’s\\nredactions from the records taken down and then reposted. See\\nUSDA Br. 8, 11, 19; see also J.A. 236. Though plaintiffs\\nobjected to these redactions, the district court did not address\\ntheir demands because, on its view, the complaint did not\\nencompass those demands. 285 F. Supp. 3d at 313 n.3. Still,\\nthe court left the door open for PETA to “raise challenges to the\\nredactions that now accompany these records,” id., perhaps by\\namending its complaint or bringing another suit. (Plaintiffs did\\nnot amend their complaint.)\\n\\f 6\\n\\n\\n\\n Table 1\\n\\n Documents Plaintiffs Seek from USDA on Appeal\\n\\n Category 1 Category 2 Category 3\\n Research Inspection Lists of entities\\n facility reports licensed under\\n annual (with animal AWA\\n reports inventories)\\n\\nReposted Yes Yes Yes\\nduring (but not animal (monthly list of\\nlitigation inventories; new active licensees,\\n redactions in registrants; no\\n some documents) real-time list)\\n\\nAgency’s “reposted “now posting all” “posting the\\nintent in all” records reports for recent monthly list of\\nDec. 4, & “intends to 3-year period, active (current)\\n2017, continue J.A. 236 licensees,” J.A.\\nletter, J.A. posting,” 237\\n235–39 J.A. 236\\nDistrict Moot Moot Moot\\ncourt as to all but\\ndisposition redactions\\n\\n Failure to plead\\n as to new\\n redactions\\n\\f 7\\n\\n Third, the court dealt with the items that for simplicity’s\\nsake we are not addressing here, as we explained above. As to\\nthem, plaintiffs have now filed a new lawsuit, which is not\\nbefore us, pressing these and other claims, including their\\nobjections to USDA’s latest redactions. See People for the\\nEthical Treatment of Animals, Inc., et al. v. Sonny Perdue, et\\nal. (PETA II), No. 18-cv-887-CRC (D.D.C. filed Apr. 16,\\n2018).\\n\\n This appeal, then, centers on reposted records—both with\\nand without new redactions. We consider each in turn and\\nremand for further proceedings.\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n We first address reposted records diminished by new\\nredactions. The district court declined to consider PETA’s\\nobjections on this score because those objections were not “part\\nof the complaint as filed,” which focused, in the district court’s\\nview, on the “wholesale removal of the records.” 285 F. Supp.\\n3d at 313 n.3. PETA contends that the district court erred. We\\nagree.\\n\\n To begin with, since the new redactions post-date the filing\\nof the complaint, plaintiffs could have known of them at the\\noutset of litigation only in the most general way, as a possibility\\nof unknown scope. Cf. PETA Br. 39. More important, we\\nthink the complaint can’t be reasonably read as demanding only\\nthat the agency be required to restore mutilated versions of\\ndocuments previously published without redactions—at least\\nwithout the redactions in question. It states that “records that\\nfor many years were easily accessible . . . are now no longer\\nreadily available to Plaintiffs,” Compl. ¶ 31, and requests relief\\n“immediately” making “all such records that have been\\nremoved available to Plaintiffs,” Compl. 15 (emphasis added).\\nThe complaint, tellingly, is also not limited to talk of records.\\n\\f 8\\n\\nIt repeatedly speaks of information. And, as we have long said,\\nFOIA’s “focus . . . is information, not documents.” Kimberlin\\nv. Dep’t of Justice, 139 F.3d 944, 950 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (quoting\\nMead Data Central, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Air Force, 566 F.2d\\n242, 260 (D.C. Cir. 1977)). PETA alleges that “[d]efendants’\\ndecision to remove from APHIS’s website the information that\\nis required to be affirmatively disclosed . . . violates FOIA,”\\nCompl. ¶ 36 (emphasis added), and its “actions in removing\\nsuch information . . . injure Plaintiffs by denying them\\nimmediate electronic access to such records,” Compl. ¶ 37\\n(emphasis added). We read the complaint as demanding an\\norder requiring USDA to repost documents in their original,\\npre-takedown form.\\n\\n We thus remand to the district court to take up plaintiffs’\\nobjections to new redactions from the reposted records on the\\nmerits (including examining whether plaintiffs have satisfied\\nFOIA’s exhaustion requirements, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6), and\\nsubstantive provisions).\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n We now turn to PETA’s argument that USDA’s reposting\\nof records did not moot the case even as to materials without\\nnew redactions. Why so? PETA argues that USDA’s actions\\nand statements, taken as a whole, do not meet the high bar set\\nby the “voluntary cessation” doctrine.\\n\\n We review the district court’s dismissal for lack of subject\\nmatter jurisdiction on mootness grounds de novo, see, e.g., Del\\nMonte Fresh Produce Co. v. United States, 570 F.3d 316, 321\\n(D.C. Cir. 2009); the parties agree on that standard of review,\\nsee PETA Br. 26–27, USDA Br. 12. Though a motion to\\ndismiss is ordinarily handled on the pleadings, a defendant’s\\nclaim of voluntary cessation requires an evaluation of\\nprobabilities as to future conduct that can, as here, involve\\n\\f 9\\n\\ndetailed inquiry beyond the pleadings that is “a matter for the\\ntrial judge.” United States v. Concentrated Phosphate Exp.\\nAss’n, 393 U.S. 199, 204 (1968). A related inquiry takes place,\\nof course, whenever a plaintiff supplements the pleadings with\\naffidavits to establish a court’s jurisdiction. See Haase v.\\nSessions, 835 F.2d 902, 906 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (“In 12(b)(1)\\nproceedings, it has been long accepted that the judiciary may\\nmake ‘appropriate inquiry’ beyond the pleadings to ‘satisfy\\nitself on authority to entertain the case.’” (quoting Gordon v.\\nNat’l Youth Work Alliance, 675 F.2d 356, 362–63 (D.C. Cir.\\n1982) (citations omitted))). Though the inquiry into voluntary\\ncessation might be thought to invite a degree of deference to a\\ndistrict court’s fact-finding role, our precedent appears not to\\nrecognize it. But cf. Comm. in Solidarity with People of El\\nSalvador (CISPES) v. Sessions, 929 F.2d 742, 744–45 (D.C.\\nCir. 1991) (crediting, with limited analysis, a district court’s\\nfactual findings as to voluntary cessation on a motion to\\ndismiss). In any event, even with a more deferential posture,\\nwe would remand for further proceedings in this case for the\\nreasons we explain below.\\n\\n Typically, an end to offending behavior moots a case. But\\nthere are exceptions. As relevant here, “[m]ere voluntary\\ncessation of allegedly illegal conduct does not moot a case,” for\\na defendant may be “free to return to his old ways.”\\nConcentrated Phosphate, 393 U.S. at 203 (quotation marks and\\ncitation omitted in second phrase). But again, there is “an\\nimportant exception to this important exception [to mootness].”\\nTroiano v. Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach Cty., Fla.,\\n382 F.3d 1276, 1283 (11th Cir. 2004). If a defendant can\\ndemonstrate that there is no reasonable expectation that the\\nallegedly unlawful conduct will recur, the claim may be moot.\\n“A case might become moot if subsequent events made it\\nabsolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not\\nreasonably be expected to recur.” Friends of the Earth, Inc. v.\\nLaidlaw Envtl. Servs., Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 189 (2000). In that\\n\\f 10\\n\\nevent, the “‘heavy burden of persua[ding]’ the court that the\\nchallenged conduct cannot reasonably be expected to start up\\nagain lies with the party asserting mootness,” id. (citation\\nomitted)—here, the agency.\\n\\n That general principle must be read in light of the\\n“presumption of legitimacy accorded to the Government’s\\nofficial conduct,” to which the Supreme Court has referred in\\nthe FOIA context. Nat’l Archives & Records Admin. v. Favish,\\n541 U.S. 157, 174 (2004). A “presumption of regularity\\nsupports the official acts of public officers and, in the absence\\nof clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that they have\\nproperly discharged their official duties.” Id. (quoting United\\nStates v. Chemical Found. Inc., 272 U.S. 1, 14–15 (1926)). In\\nanalyses of “voluntary cessation,” many of our sister circuits\\nhave been ready to give declarations by (or on behalf of)\\ngovernment officials––public servants sworn to uphold the\\nlaw––somewhat higher credence than statements made by\\nprivate parties. See, e.g., Sossamon v. Lone Star State of Texas,\\n560 F.3d 316, 325 (5th Cir. 2009) (“[G]overnment actors in\\ntheir sovereign capacity and in the exercise of their official\\nduties are accorded a presumption of good faith because they\\nare public servants, not self-interested private parties. Without\\nevidence to the contrary, we assume that formally announced\\nchanges to official governmental policy are not mere litigation\\nposturing.”), aff’d sub nom. Sossamon v. Texas, 563 U.S. 277\\n(2011); accord America Cargo Transp., Inc. v. United States,\\n625 F.3d 1176, 1180 (9th Cir. 2010); Troiano, 382 F.3d at\\n1283; Ammex, Inc. v. Cox, 351 F.3d 697, 705 (6th Cir. 2003);\\nRagsdale v. Turnock, 841 F.2d 1358, 1365 (7th Cir. 1988); see\\nalso Rio Grande Silvery Minnow v. Bureau of Reclamation, 601\\nF.3d 1096, 1116 n.15 (10th Cir. 2010) (dictum to similar\\neffect); 13C Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and\\nProcedure § 3533.7 (3d ed. 2008) (similar); cf. Meeropol v.\\nMeese, 790 F.2d 942, 952 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (holding that\\naffidavits of government officials are entitled to a presumption\\n\\f 11\\n\\nof good faith in the context of locating responsive records to\\nFOIA requests); Ground Saucer Watch, Inc. v. CIA, 692 F.2d\\n770, 771 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (per curiam) (same).\\n\\n PETA asserts that USDA has failed to satisfy the\\n“voluntary cessation” doctrine. PETA Br. 28–36. The district\\ncourt disagreed. It underscored the temporary nature of the\\nremovals and, relying on statements in USDA’s letter of\\nDecember 4, 2017, see J.A. 235–39, concluded that “there is no\\nreasonable expectation the Department will remove the records\\nagain,” 285 F. Supp. 3d at 313. Our view diverges from that of\\nthe parties and the district court. On the present record, we\\nbelieve, there is not enough clarity fully to assess the agency’s\\nintentions with respect to future posting of certain categories of\\nrecords.\\n\\n The USDA letter is incomplete in key respects. It doesn’t\\nexpress the agency’s position clearly enough to convince us\\nthat, as to all requested document types, it is “absolutely clear\\nthat the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be\\nexpected to recur,” Laidlaw, 528 U.S. at 189 (emphasis added)\\n(citation omitted)—even once we credit a presumption of\\nregularity afforded to government parties.\\n\\n Before addressing USDA representations as to each\\ncategory, we note three pertinent elements of the context. First,\\nUSDA’s aim in removing the records was to enhance privacy\\nprotections. Not only is this objective unproblematic in itself,\\nbut new administrations are entitled to reevaluate and modify\\nagency practices, even longstanding ones. Cf. Motor Vehicle\\nMfrs. Ass’n of U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463\\nU.S. 29, 59 (1983) (Rehnquist, J., concurring in part, dissenting\\nin part) (“A change in administration brought about by the\\npeople casting their votes is a perfectly reasonable basis for an\\nexecutive agency’s reappraisal of the costs and benefits of its\\nprograms and regulations.”). Second, the district court\\n\\f 12\\n\\nunderstood USDA’s announcement of February 3, 2017, as\\nimplying the takedowns would be temporary. See 285 F. Supp.\\n3d at 313. (“[F]rom the beginning, the Department has\\nindicated—and both parties have recognized—that the removal\\nwas a temporary measure”). USDA has lived up to this view\\nby beginning to repost numerous records quite promptly. See\\nid. at 311. Third, USDA did not shift its rationale after PETA\\nfiled suit or engage in “transitory litigation postur[ing],”\\nAmerica Cargo Transp., 625 F.3d at 1180, or in the equivalent\\nof what the Court has called “postcertiorari maneuvers,” Knox\\nv. Serv. Employees Int’l Union, Local 1000, 567 U.S. 298, 307\\n(2012).\\n\\n Proceeding by category, we address research facility\\nannual reports, inspection reports (sans animal inventories),\\nand lists of entities regulated under the AWA.\\n\\n Research Reports. Here the agency has adequately\\nexpressed its forward-looking plans. “APHIS intends to\\ncontinue posting annual reports going forward consistent with\\nits practice prior to February 3, 2017.” J.A. 236.\\n\\n With respect to the remaining two categories, inspection\\nreports and entity lists, however, the record is less certain.\\nUSDA explains that it “is now posting all inspection reports for\\nthe most recent three-year period,” id., and says that “APHIS\\nposts new inspection reports on a rolling basis,” “limited to the\\nmost recent three-year period,” J.A. 236–37. USDA’s\\ntreatment of entity lists is similarly confined to a description of\\ncurrently ongoing practice. It explains that it “is posting the\\nmonthly list of active (current) licensees and registrants that are\\nregulated under the AWA on the agency’s website,” but doesn’t\\nbroach future plans. Id. at 237.\\n\\n Given the forward-looking character of the inquiry into a\\ndefendant’s intent, these fall short of the necessary precision.\\n\\f 13\\n\\nThat is especially so given the agency’s view that its ongoing\\npostings are discretionary. See USDA Br. 6, 12, 20.\\n\\n Put differently, the December 4, 2017 letter’s treatment of\\ninspection reports and entity lists falls short of the kinds of\\nstatements that courts have credited in the very cases the\\nagency cites. See USDA Br. 18. In one instance, government\\ncounsel committed an agency to a “new permanent policy” that\\n“agreed with” plaintiff’s position. America Cargo Transp., 625\\nF.3d at 1180 (emphasis added in first quotation). In another\\ncontext, a court found governmental “self-correction” that\\n“appears genuine,” Ragsdale, 841 F.2d at 1365, based on a\\n“public policy of non-enforcement” of a requirement that was\\n“barred by clear Supreme Court precedent,” id. at 1365–66, and\\nhad “no real prospect” of repetition, id. at 1366. In a third, a\\ncourt laid stress on “formally announced changes to official\\ngovernmental policy.” Sossamon, 560 F.3d at 325. And in a\\nfourth, the government gave exactly the “relief plaintiffs\\nrequested.” CISPES, 929 F.2d at 742. Neither USDA’s letter,\\nnor the representations in its briefing or at oral argument,\\nexhibits this level of clarity about inspection reports and entity\\nlists.\\n\\n We thus remand for clarification with respect to USDA’s\\nfuture plans to post inspection reports (apart from animal\\ninventories) and lists of AWA regulated entities—and would\\nhave done so even had we accorded deference to factual\\nfindings of the district court. If the agency makes clear that it\\ncommits to timely posting on an ongoing basis, such a\\ndeclaration will moot PETA’s non-redaction claims.\\n\\n In light of USDA’s seemingly unproblematic rationale for\\nremoving the records; the one-time nature of the takedown; the\\nabsence of any signs of bad faith in litigation; and a\\npresumption of regularity when government officials express a\\nclear intention to do as the complaint requests, we conclude that\\n\\f 14\\n\\na declaration by (or on behalf of) USDA officials that the\\nagency intends to post documents in the inspection reports and\\nentity lists categories on an ongoing basis will moot PETA’s\\nclaims. This is so, we emphasize, even though USDA\\ncontinues to assert that posting the records is a matter of\\ndiscretion, rather than a FOIA-imposed duty (as plaintiffs\\nwould have it). Given our holding, we find that the district\\ncourt did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiffs’ request\\nfor discovery against the agency aimed at showing that the\\n“voluntary cessation” doctrine isn’t met. See 285 F. Supp. 3d\\nat 315 n.7; Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington\\nv. Office of Admin., 566 F.3d 219, 221 (D.C. Cir. 2009).\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n To sum up, as to reposted records featuring new\\nredactions, the complaint is most plausibly read as requesting\\nthat USDA repost all information that those records contained\\nbefore their takedown. The district court should thus proceed\\nto the merits on remand. As to “voluntary cessation,” we affirm\\nthe mootness dismissal as to the research reports but remand\\nfor further elucidation as to the inspection reports and the entity\\nlists. If the agency unambiguously commits to continued\\nposting of those documents, plaintiffs’ claims should be\\ndismissed as moot, without discovery, even if USDA continues\\nto regard its postings as voluntary.\\n\\n So ordered.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1395,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4600241,"string":"4,600,241"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"MISSOURI RIVER ENERGY SERVICES, Petitioner v. FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION, Respondent Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Et Al., Intervenors"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Missouri River Energy Services v. F.E.R.C."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-15"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"18-1166"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Garland, Srinivasan, Silberman\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued February 6, 2019 Decided March 15, 2019\\n\\n No. 18-1166\\n\\n MISSOURI RIVER ENERGY SERVICES,\\n PETITIONER\\n\\n v.\\n\\n FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION,\\n RESPONDENT\\n\\n BASIN ELECTRIC POWER COOPERATIVE, ET AL.,\\n INTERVENORS\\n\\n\\n On Petition for Review of Orders of the\\n Federal Energy Regulatory Commission\\n\\n\\n Lawrence G. Acker argued the cause for petitioner. With\\nhim on the briefs were Philip W. Mone and Gabriel L. Tabak.\\n\\n Jared B. Fish, Attorney, Federal Energy Regulatory\\nCommission, argued the cause for respondent. With him on\\nthe brief were James P. Danly, General Counsel, and Robert H.\\nSolomon, Solicitor. Carol J. Banta, Attorney, entered an\\nappearance.\\n\\f 2\\n William D. Booth argued the cause for intervenors. With\\nhim on the joint brief was David D’Alessandro. Jonathan P.\\nTrotta and Marie Denyse Zosa entered appearances.\\n\\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, SRINIVASAN, Circuit\\nJudge, and SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.\\n\\n SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge: In 2015, Missouri River\\nEnergy Services, a collection of municipal entities, became a\\nmember of the Southwest Power Pool. Missouri River claimed\\nit should be exempt from certain charges assessed by the Pool,\\nand the parties submitted the dispute to the Federal Energy\\nRegulatory Commission. FERC sustained the charges, and\\nMissouri River now petitions for review of FERC’s decision.\\nWe conclude that FERC’s determination was not arbitrary and\\ncapricious and thus deny Missouri River’s petition for review.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Missouri River Energy Services is an organization of 61\\nmunicipal utilities in the Upper Midwest. Missouri River helps\\nits member municipal electric systems source power. To that\\nend, in the 1970s, Missouri River teamed up with other energy-\\nrelated entities to construct the Laramie River Station (a power\\nplant) and various transmission facilities.\\n\\n In 1977, those entities entered into a contract with\\nNebraska Public Power District, under which Missouri River\\nand its partners agreed to help defray Nebraska Power’s\\nconstruction and operation costs for new transmission\\nfacilities. In exchange, Nebraska Power agreed to allow the\\nentities to use the new facilities to transmit some of the power\\nfrom the Laramie River Station. For the last four decades,\\n\\f 3\\nMissouri River has used that arrangement under the 1977\\nContract to help move electricity generated by the Laramie\\nRiver Station part of the way from the power plant to Missouri\\nRiver’s member utilities.\\n\\n In 2008, Nebraska Power asked to join the Southwest\\nPower Pool, a Regional Transmission Organization that\\n“provides transmission service to approximately 6 million\\nhouseholds across portions of eight states.” Okla. Gas & Elec.\\nCo. v. FERC, 827 F.3d 75, 77 (D.C. Cir. 2016). (A Regional\\nTransmission Organization oversees electricity grids on a\\nregional scale and coordinates transmission service to ensure\\nreliable and efficient transmission. See Morgan Stanley\\nCapital Grp. v. Pub. Utility Dist. No. 1, 554 U.S. 527, 535–37\\n(2008).) As part of the process of accepting Nebraska Power\\ninto the Southwest Power Pool, the Pool filed proposed\\nrevisions of its bylaws and Tariff. Those revisions included\\nadding the 1977 Contract to the Pool’s list of Grandfathered\\nAgreements, which meant that service under the 1977 Contract\\nwould be exempt from certain provisions of the Tariff. In late\\n2008, FERC approved the proposed revisions, Nebraska Power\\nbecame a member of the Pool, and Missouri River’s\\ntransmission service under the 1977 Contract continued\\nunchanged.\\n\\n Four years later, the Pool decided to implement a new\\nIntegrated Marketplace that included energy markets in which\\nPool members could bid for energy services. As part of that\\nimplementation, the Pool proposed imposing additional\\ncharges on its members to account for energy loss due to\\ntransmission and transmission congestion. A number of\\nparties, including Missouri River, protested the imposition of\\nthose charges on transmission covered by Grandfathered\\nAgreements (including the 1977 Contract).\\n\\f 4\\n The Pool stated that it would not impose additional charges\\non Missouri River’s reservation under the 1977 Contract\\nbecause Missouri River was outside the footprint of the Pool.\\nMissouri River then withdrew its protest. The Pool proceeded\\nto settlement negotiations with the other protesting parties, and\\nthose negotiations produced a Carve-Out Settlement that\\nidentified specific Grandfathered Agreements that were\\neligible for exemption (i.e., eligible to be carved out) from the\\ncongestion and marginal loss charges. In particular, § 2.2 of\\nthe Carve-Out Settlement stated that Schedule 1 of the Carve-\\nOut Settlement “constitutes the exclusive list of eligible\\n‘Carved-Out GFAs,’ meaning that only those agreements and\\nthe megawatts associated with them identified on Schedule 1\\nare eligible for carve-out treatment.” J.A. 377. And Schedule\\n1 clarifies that, with respect to the 1977 Contract, Missouri\\nRiver’s reservation is not “eligible for carve-out.” J.A. 385.\\nThe Pool filed that Carve-Out Settlement with FERC, and\\nFERC approved it.\\n\\n In 2014, after the Carve-Out Settlement had been filed and\\napproved, a number of Missouri River’s business partners (but\\nnot Missouri River) filed a request to join the Southwest Power\\nPool. The Pool, in turn, filed proposed Tariff revisions with\\nFERC to allow those parties to join. Missouri River protested\\nthe Pool’s proposal, which did not carve out Missouri River\\nfrom congestion and marginal loss charges for transmission\\nunder the 1977 Contract. In response, FERC generally\\napproved the Pool’s proposed revisions but set aside the carve-\\nout issue for settlement procedures. In late 2015, those parties\\nbecame members of the Pool, as did Missouri River.\\n\\n Although Missouri River and the Pool engaged in\\nextensive settlement negotiations, they were unable to reach an\\nagreement on the carve-out issue. Instead, they agreed to a set\\nof stipulated facts and requested a shortened hearing process\\n\\f 5\\nbefore FERC on the issue of whether Missouri River is entitled\\nto carve-out treatment for its transmission reservation under the\\n1977 Contract. Following that hearing process, FERC sided\\nwith the Pool.\\n\\n First, FERC determined that the terms of the Southwest\\nPower Pool Tariff did not entitle Missouri River to carve-out\\ntreatment. FERC reasoned that the Tariff is ambiguous about\\nwhich agreements are eligible for carve-out treatment and then\\nlooked to extrinsic evidence to resolve that ambiguity in the\\nPool’s favor with regard to Missouri River’s reservation under\\nthe 1977 Contract. Second, FERC determined that the\\nexclusion of Missouri River from carve-out eligibility was\\npermissible, rejecting Missouri River’s arguments that the\\nexclusion constituted undue discrimination, that the exclusion\\nimpermissibly modified or abrogated the 1977 Contract, and\\nthat the Pool should be equitably estopped from denying\\nMissouri River carve-out treatment.\\n\\n After FERC denied Missouri River’s motion for rehearing,\\nMissouri River filed the present petition for review.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n We review FERC’s orders under “the arbitrary and\\ncapricious standard of the Administrative Procedure Act.”\\nAlcoa Inc. v. FERC, 564 F.3d 1342, 1347 (D.C. Cir. 2009); see\\n5 U.S.C. § 706(2). That means “[w]e affirm the Commission’s\\norders so long as FERC examined the relevant data and\\narticulated a rational connection between the facts found and\\nthe choice made.” Alcoa, 564 F.3d at 1347 (internal quotation\\nmarks and alterations omitted).\\n\\f 6\\n Missouri River challenges FERC’s determination that it is\\nineligible for carve-out treatment on five grounds. We find\\nnone of Missouri River’s arguments persuasive.\\n\\n First, Missouri River argues that Southwest Power Pool’s\\nTariff unambiguously establishes that Missouri River’s\\ntransmission reservation under the 1977 Contract is eligible for\\ncarve-out treatment. The relevant language of the Tariff, in\\n§ 2.16 (entitled “Grandfathered Agreement [GFA] Carve\\nOut”), provides that Pool members “that are a party to GFA(s)\\neligible for GFA Carve Out” may elect from among various\\noptions, including carve-out treatment. J.A. 415. According\\nto Missouri River, because the Tariff’s list of Grandfathered\\nAgreements includes the 1977 Contract, the carve-out\\nprovision unambiguously provides Missouri River a right to\\nelect carve-out treatment. That is incorrect.\\n\\n Of course, the 1977 Contract is a GFA. But § 2.16 of the\\nTariff provides that only GFAs “eligible for GFA Carve Out”\\nmay receive carve-out treatment, which implies that some\\nGFAs are eligible for such treatment and others are not. And\\nneither § 2.16 nor any other provision of the Tariff explains\\nwhat makes a GFA carve-out eligible. For that reason, FERC\\nunderstandably found the Tariff ambiguous with respect to the\\neligibility of Missouri River’s transmission reservation for\\ncarve-out treatment. We thus reject Missouri River’s argument\\nthat the Tariff unambiguously confers carve-out eligibility on\\nits transmission reservation under the 1977 Contract.\\n\\n Second, Missouri River argues that, even if the Tariff is\\nambiguous, FERC erred by relying on extrinsic evidence—in\\nthe form of § 2.2 and Schedule 1 of the Carve-Out Settlement—\\nto resolve the ambiguity. In Missouri River’s view, FERC\\ninstead should have resolved the ambiguity by reference to the\\ndoctrine of contra proferentem, under which ambiguities are\\n\\f 7\\nresolved against the drafter. Missouri River contends that\\nFERC has previously adhered to a policy favoring use of contra\\nproferentem to resolve ambiguities and it therefore must\\nexplain its decision to depart from that policy and to rely\\ninstead on extrinsic evidence.\\n\\n Missouri River’s argument fails at the threshold: FERC\\nhas not adhered to a policy of resolving ambiguities with the\\ncontra proferentem canon rather than with extrinsic evidence.\\nAlthough Missouri River identifies a number of cases in which\\nFERC has relied on the contra proferentem canon, see Missouri\\nRiver Br. 34–35 (collecting cases), in none of those cases did\\nthe agency turn to contra proferentem in the face of available\\nextrinsic evidence.\\n\\n By contrast, FERC has repeatedly relied on extrinsic\\nevidence to resolve ambiguities even in the face of arguments\\nfrom a party to use the contra proferentem canon. See, e.g.,\\nCent. N.Y. Oil & Gas Co., 152 FERC ¶ 61,097, at pp. 20–37\\n(2015) (using extrinsic evidence to help resolve an ambiguity\\nin a service agreement even though one party urged FERC to\\napply the contra proferentem canon); Miss. River Transmission\\nCorp., 96 FERC ¶ 61,185, at p. 61,189 (2001) (rejecting a\\nparty’s assertion that a tariff ambiguity should, as a matter of\\nlaw, be resolved against the drafter and instead scheduling an\\nevidentiary hearing to allow the parties to introduce extrinsic\\nevidence of intent); cf. KN Energy, Inc., 59 FERC ¶ 61,332, at\\np. 62,219 (1992) (applying contra proferentem but only\\nbecause the objecting party had “offer[ed] no evidence, nor\\ndescribe[d] any surrounding circumstances, that would\\nindicate” the intent behind the relevant ambiguous provision).\\nBecause FERC has had no policy of favoring contra\\nproferentem over extrinsic evidence as a means of resolving\\nambiguities, we reject Missouri River’s argument that FERC\\n\\f 8\\nimproperly changed course by relying on extrinsic evidence in\\nthis case.\\n\\n We note, moreover, the strength of the extrinsic evidence\\non which FERC relied. Section 2.2 of the Carve-Out\\nSettlement, filed on the same day as the Tariff revision at issue,\\nstates that Schedule 1 of the Carve-Out Settlement “constitutes\\nthe exclusive list of eligible ‘Carved-Out GFAs,’ meaning that\\nonly those agreements and the megawatts associated with them\\nidentified on Schedule 1 are eligible for carve-out treatment.”\\nJ.A. 377 (emphasis added). FERC reasonably concluded that\\nthe concurrently filed Carve-Out Settlement, which identified\\n“eligible ‘Carved-Out GFAs,’” gives meaning to which GFAs\\nare “eligible for GFA Carve Out” under § 2.16 of the Tariff.\\nJ.A. 415. And because Missouri River’s reservation under the\\n1977 Contract is not identified on that “exclusive list,” it is,\\nunder the Carve-Out Settlement, not “eligible for carve-out.”\\nJ.A. 385.\\n\\n Third, Missouri River argues that excluding its\\ntransmission reservation from carve-out eligibility amounts to\\nundue discrimination in violation of the Federal Power Act.\\nUnder the Act, no public utility may “make or grant any undue\\npreference or advantage to any person or subject any person to\\nundue prejudice or disadvantage” nor may a public utility\\n“maintain any unreasonable difference in rates, charges,\\nservice, facilities, or in any other respect, either as between\\nlocalities or as between classes of service.” 16 U.S.C.\\n§ 824d(b). A mere difference in the treatment of two entities\\ndoes not violate that provision; instead, undue discrimination\\noccurs only if the entities are “similarly situated,” State Corp.\\nComm’n v. FERC, 876 F.3d 332, 335 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (internal\\nquotation marks omitted), such that “there is no reason for the\\ndifference,” Transmission Access Policy Study Grp. v. FERC,\\n225 F.3d 667, 721 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (per curiam). FERC has\\n\\f 9\\n“wide discretion . . . to determine what constitute[s]” undue\\ndiscrimination. Id.\\n\\n Here, Missouri River’s claim of undue discrimination rests\\non the Pool’s grant of carve-out treatment to a transmission\\nreservation owned by Lincoln Electric System pursuant to the\\nsame 1977 Contract. FERC acknowledged that excluding\\nMissouri River’s transmission reservation from carve-out\\nresulted in a disparity in treatment between Missouri River and\\nLincoln Electric. FERC, though, concluded that there was no\\nundue discrimination because Missouri River and Lincoln\\nElectric are not similarly situated with respect to the Pool’s\\ncongestion and marginal loss charges. Specifically, FERC\\nexplained that Lincoln Electric was a member of the Pool when\\nthe Pool changed its Tariff to impose those charges (and was\\ntherefore “subject to a forced transition” to a Tariff with the\\ncharges), whereas Missouri River joined the Pool after the\\nTariff was changed to incorporate those charges. Sw. Power\\nPool, Inc., 160 FERC ¶ 61,115, at pp. 61–63 (2017), J.A. 645–\\n46. In light of that difference, FERC determined, it was\\npermissible to treat the two entities differently. Id.\\n\\n The distinction between pre-existing and new members is\\nwell-supported in FERC precedent. In one case, the Midwest\\nIndependent System Operator (MISO) sought to revise its\\nTariff to eliminate the possibility of carve-out treatment for\\ncertain Grandfathered Agreements held by prospective\\nmembers and also to remove five of Dairyland’s Grandfathered\\nAgreements from eligibility for carve-out treatment. See\\nDairyland Power Coop. v. MISO, 131 FERC ¶ 61,163, at pp.\\n7–9 (2010). FERC approved in part and rejected in part those\\nchanges.\\n\\n On the one hand, FERC allowed MISO to eliminate the\\navailability of carve-out treatment for some agreements held by\\n\\f 10\\nprospective members because a “prospective transmission\\nowner,” unlike an existing member, “can analyze the costs of\\nconverting its GFAs to tariff service prior to integration, and\\nweigh those costs against the benefits of [MISO] membership.”\\nDairyland Power Coop. v. MISO, 129 FERC ¶ 61,221, at pp.\\n39–41 (2009). On the other hand, FERC rejected MISO’s\\nproposal to remove Dairyland’s GFAs from the list of carve-\\nout eligible agreements. Id. at pp. 42–44. FERC thereby drew\\nexactly the distinction that it drew here, allowing different\\ntreatment of (i) prospective members seeking new carve-out\\ntreatment and (ii) members seeking to preserve pre-existing\\ncarve-out eligibility. In light of that precedent, Missouri River\\nhas not met its burden of showing that FERC acted arbitrarily\\nand capriciously in determining that Missouri River and\\nLincoln Electric are not similarly situated. We therefore reject\\nMissouri River’s undue discrimination claim.\\n\\n Fourth, Missouri River argues that imposing congestion\\nand marginal loss charges on its transmission reservation\\nimproperly modifies the 1977 Contract. In rejecting that\\nargument, FERC determined that “the assessment of\\ncongestion and marginal loss charges associated with GFA\\ntreatment do not represent a modification of the 1977 Contract\\nbecause these charges are associated with new services\\navailable to [Missouri River] as a result of joining SPP,\\nincluding access to the Integrated Marketplace and the ability\\nto hedge congestion costs.” Sw. Power Pool, 160 FERC\\n¶ 61,115, at p. 81, J.A. 653–54. Because FERC’s “analysis\\nhinges on interpretation of utility contracts, our review of that\\nanalysis is deferential.” Wis. Pub. Power, Inc. v. FERC, 493\\nF.3d 239, 271 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (per curiam). Missouri River\\nprovides us with no reason to reject FERC’s conclusion.\\n\\n Missouri River notes that FERC once previously found,\\nand we agreed, that excluding a Grandfathered Agreement\\n\\f 11\\nfrom carve-out eligibility constituted a modification of that\\nagreement. See Missouri River Br. 19–20 (citing MISO, 121\\nFERC ¶ 61,166 (2007); and Wis. Pub. Power, 493 F.3d 239).\\nIn that case, however, FERC determined that subjecting the\\nparties to the new Tariff “would impose significant changes in\\nthe manner in which transmission service is provided for”\\nbecause there was a “direct collision between GFA scheduling\\npractices and the MISO Tariff’s scheduling requirements.”\\nWis. Pub. Power, 493 F.3d at 272–73 (internal quotation marks\\nomitted). Here, by contrast, FERC found no such “direct\\ncollision” between the 1977 Contract and the Pool’s Tariff\\nbecause the marginal loss and congestion charges related to\\nadditional services provided by Southwest Power Pool, such as\\n“access to the Integrated Marketplace and the ability to hedge\\ncongestion costs,” which were not provided for by (and the\\ncosts of which thus were not covered by the rates set in) the\\n1977 Contract. Sw. Power Pool, 160 FERC ¶ 61,115, at p. 81,\\nJ.A. 653–54; cf. E. Ky. Power Coop., Inc. v. FERC, 489 F.3d\\n1299, 1306–08 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (affirming FERC’s\\ndetermination that MISO may impose certain costs to account\\nfor various services and benefits that were not provided under\\nthe Grandfathered Agreements but that are provided by MISO).\\nWe see no reason to reject FERC’s conclusion that the\\ncongestion and marginal loss charges at issue here pay for new\\nservices not provided for in the 1977 Contract.\\n\\n Fifth, Missouri River argues that Southwest Power Pool\\nshould be equitably estopped from denying it carve-out\\ntreatment. Missouri River relies on the Pool’s representation\\nin 2013 that, “because [Missouri River’s] reservation is not\\nassociated with an SPP Settlement Location or SPP\\ntransmission service, and is not tagged by SPP, it will not be\\nsubject to the rules and tariff requirements of SPP’s proposed\\nIntegrated Marketplace” and “will not be assessed congestion\\ncosts or marginal losses.” J.A. 819. Missouri River’s\\n\\f 12\\nequitable-estoppel argument is forfeited because Missouri\\nRiver has failed to fully develop it. See SEC v. Banner Fund\\nInt’l, 211 F.3d 602, 613–14 (D.C. Cir. 2000). The argument is\\nunpersuasive in any event.\\n\\n The “traditional elements of” equitable estoppel include\\n“false representation, a purpose to invite action by the party to\\nwhom the representation was made, ignorance of the true facts\\nby that party, and reliance, as well as a showing of an injustice\\nand lack of undue damage to the public interest.” ATC Petrol.,\\nInc. v. Sanders, 860 F.2d 1104, 1111 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (internal\\nquotation marks and alterations omitted). Here, FERC\\nconcluded that if Missouri River relied on Southwest Power\\nPool’s 2013 statement “to mean that [its] reservation under the\\n1977 Contract would be eligible for carve out treatment after\\n[it] joined SPP, such reliance was unreasonable.” Sw. Power\\nPool, 160 FERC ¶ 61,115, at p. 75, J.A. 651. That is because\\nthe language used by the Pool—that Missouri River would not\\nbe subject to the charges “because” it was not within the Pool’s\\nfootprint—cannot reasonably be interpreted to mean that, if\\nMissouri River were to come within SPP’s footprint in the\\nfuture, then the Pool would not impose charges at that time.\\nAnd that is exactly what happened. The Pool did not seek to\\nimpose congestion and marginal loss charges on the 1977\\nreservation until Missouri River subsequently came within the\\nPool’s footprint. We thus reject Missouri River’s argument, to\\nthe extent it is not forfeited, that the Pool should be equitably\\nestopped from imposing congestion and marginal loss charges\\nagainst Missouri River.\\n\\n * * * * *\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, we deny the petition for review.\\n\\n It is so ordered.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4377494/\", \"author_raw\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"GARLAND"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"SRINIVASAN"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"SILBERMAN"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600241/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: MISSOURI RIVER ENERGY SERVICES, Petitioner v. FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION, Respondent Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Et Al., Intervenors\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued February 6, 2019 Decided March 15, 2019\n\n No. 18-1166\n\n MISSOURI RIVER ENERGY SERVICES,\n PETITIONER\n\n v.\n\n FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION,\n RESPONDENT\n\n BASIN ELECTRIC POWER COOPERATIVE, ET AL.,\n INTERVENORS\n\n\n On Petition for Review of Orders of the\n Federal Energy Regulatory Commission\n\n\n Lawrence G. Acker argued the cause for petitioner. With\nhim on the briefs were Philip W. Mone and Gabriel L. Tabak.\n\n Jared B. Fish, Attorney, Federal Energy Regulatory\nCommission, argued the cause for respondent. With him on\nthe brief were James P. Danly, General Counsel, and Robert H.\nSolomon, Solicitor. Carol J. Banta, Attorney, entered an\nappearance.\n\f 2\n William D. Booth argued the cause for intervenors. With\nhim on the joint brief was David D’Alessandro. Jonathan P.\nTrotta and Marie Denyse Zosa entered appearances.\n\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, SRINIVASAN, Circuit\nJudge, and SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.\n\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.\n\n SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge: In 2015, Missouri River\nEnergy Services, a collection of municipal entities, became a\nmember of the Southwest Power Pool. Missouri River claimed\nit should be exempt from certain charges assessed by the Pool,\nand the parties submitted the dispute to the Federal Energy\nRegulatory Commission. FERC sustained the charges, and\nMissouri River now petitions for review of FERC’s decision.\nWe conclude that FERC’s determination was not arbitrary and\ncapricious and thus deny Missouri River’s petition for review.\n\n I.\n\n Missouri River Energy Services is an organization of 61\nmunicipal utilities in the Upper Midwest. Missouri River helps\nits member municipal electric systems source power. To that\nend, in the 1970s, Missouri River teamed up with other energy-\nrelated entities to construct the Laramie River Station (a power\nplant) and various transmission facilities.\n\n In 1977, those entities entered into a contract with\nNebraska Public Power District, under which Missouri River\nand its partners agreed to help defray Nebraska Power’s\nconstruction and operation costs for new transmission\nfacilities. In exchange, Nebraska Power agreed to allow the\nentities to use the new facilities to transmit some of the power\nfrom the Laramie River Station. For the last four decades,\n\f 3\nMissouri River has used that arrangement under the 1977\nContract to help move electricity generated by the Laramie\nRiver Station part of the way from the power plant to Missouri\nRiver’s member utilities.\n\n In 2008, Nebraska Power asked to join the Southwest\nPower Pool, a Regional Transmission Organization that\n“provides transmission service to approximately 6 million\nhouseholds across portions of eight states.” Okla. Gas & Elec.\nCo. v. FERC, 827 F.3d 75, 77 (D.C. Cir. 2016). (A Regional\nTransmission Organization oversees electricity grids on a\nregional scale and coordinates transmission service to ensure\nreliable and efficient transmission. See Morgan Stanley\nCapital Grp. v. Pub. Utility Dist. No. 1, 554 U.S. 527, 535–37\n(2008).) As part of the process of accepting Nebraska Power\ninto the Southwest Power Pool, the Pool filed proposed\nrevisions of its bylaws and Tariff. Those revisions included\nadding the 1977 Contract to the Pool’s list of Grandfathered\nAgreements, which meant that service under the 1977 Contract\nwould be exempt from certain provisions of the Tariff. In late\n2008, FERC approved the proposed revisions, Nebraska Power\nbecame a member of the Pool, and Missouri River’s\ntransmission service under the 1977 Contract continued\nunchanged.\n\n Four years later, the Pool decided to implement a new\nIntegrated Marketplace that included energy markets in which\nPool members could bid for energy services. As part of that\nimplementation, the Pool proposed imposing additional\ncharges on its members to account for energy loss due to\ntransmission and transmission congestion. A number of\nparties, including Missouri River, protested the imposition of\nthose charges on transmission covered by Grandfathered\nAgreements (including the 1977 Contract).\n\f 4\n The Pool stated that it would not impose additional charges\non Missouri River’s reservation under the 1977 Contract\nbecause Missouri River was outside the footprint of the Pool.\nMissouri River then withdrew its protest. The Pool proceeded\nto settlement negotiations with the other protesting parties, and\nthose negotiations produced a Carve-Out Settlement that\nidentified specific Grandfathered Agreements that were\neligible for exemption (i.e., eligible to be carved out) from the\ncongestion and marginal loss charges. In particular, § 2.2 of\nthe Carve-Out Settlement stated that Schedule 1 of the Carve-\nOut Settlement “constitutes the exclusive list of eligible\n‘Carved-Out GFAs,’ meaning that only those agreements and\nthe megawatts associated with them identified on Schedule 1\nare eligible for carve-out treatment.” J.A. 377. And Schedule\n1 clarifies that, with respect to the 1977 Contract, Missouri\nRiver’s reservation is not “eligible for carve-out.” J.A. 385.\nThe Pool filed that Carve-Out Settlement with FERC, and\nFERC approved it.\n\n In 2014, after the Carve-Out Settlement had been filed and\napproved, a number of Missouri River’s business partners (but\nnot Missouri River) filed a request to join the Southwest Power\nPool. The Pool, in turn, filed proposed Tariff revisions with\nFERC to allow those parties to join. Missouri River protested\nthe Pool’s proposal, which did not carve out Missouri River\nfrom congestion and marginal loss charges for transmission\nunder the 1977 Contract. In response, FERC generally\napproved the Pool’s proposed revisions but set aside the carve-\nout issue for settlement procedures. In late 2015, those parties\nbecame members of the Pool, as did Missouri River.\n\n Although Missouri River and the Pool engaged in\nextensive settlement negotiations, they were unable to reach an\nagreement on the carve-out issue. Instead, they agreed to a set\nof stipulated facts and requested a shortened hearing process\n\f 5\nbefore FERC on the issue of whether Missouri River is entitled\nto carve-out treatment for its transmission reservation under the\n1977 Contract. Following that hearing process, FERC sided\nwith the Pool.\n\n First, FERC determined that the terms of the Southwest\nPower Pool Tariff did not entitle Missouri River to carve-out\ntreatment. FERC reasoned that the Tariff is ambiguous about\nwhich agreements are eligible for carve-out treatment and then\nlooked to extrinsic evidence to resolve that ambiguity in the\nPool’s favor with regard to Missouri River’s reservation under\nthe 1977 Contract. Second, FERC determined that the\nexclusion of Missouri River from carve-out eligibility was\npermissible, rejecting Missouri River’s arguments that the\nexclusion constituted undue discrimination, that the exclusion\nimpermissibly modified or abrogated the 1977 Contract, and\nthat the Pool should be equitably estopped from denying\nMissouri River carve-out treatment.\n\n After FERC denied Missouri River’s motion for rehearing,\nMissouri River filed the present petition for review.\n\n II.\n\n We review FERC’s orders under “the arbitrary and\ncapricious standard of the Administrative Procedure Act.”\nAlcoa Inc. v. FERC, 564 F.3d 1342, 1347 (D.C. Cir. 2009); see\n5 U.S.C. § 706(2). That means “[w]e affirm the Commission’s\norders so long as FERC examined the relevant data and\narticulated a rational connection between the facts found and\nthe choice made.” Alcoa, 564 F.3d at 1347 (internal quotation\nmarks and alterations omitted).\n\f 6\n Missouri River challenges FERC’s determination that it is\nineligible for carve-out treatment on five grounds. We find\nnone of Missouri River’s arguments persuasive.\n\n First, Missouri River argues that Southwest Power Pool’s\nTariff unambiguously establishes that Missouri River’s\ntransmission reservation under the 1977 Contract is eligible for\ncarve-out treatment. The relevant language of the Tariff, in\n§ 2.16 (entitled “Grandfathered Agreement [GFA] Carve\nOut”), provides that Pool members “that are a party to GFA(s)\neligible for GFA Carve Out” may elect from among various\noptions, including carve-out treatment. J.A. 415. According\nto Missouri River, because the Tariff’s list of Grandfathered\nAgreements includes the 1977 Contract, the carve-out\nprovision unambiguously provides Missouri River a right to\nelect carve-out treatment. That is incorrect.\n\n Of course, the 1977 Contract is a GFA. But § 2.16 of the\nTariff provides that only GFAs “eligible for GFA Carve Out”\nmay receive carve-out treatment, which implies that some\nGFAs are eligible for such treatment and others are not. And\nneither § 2.16 nor any other provision of the Tariff explains\nwhat makes a GFA carve-out eligible. For that reason, FERC\nunderstandably found the Tariff ambiguous with respect to the\neligibility of Missouri River’s transmission reservation for\ncarve-out treatment. We thus reject Missouri River’s argument\nthat the Tariff unambiguously confers carve-out eligibility on\nits transmission reservation under the 1977 Contract.\n\n Second, Missouri River argues that, even if the Tariff is\nambiguous, FERC erred by relying on extrinsic evidence—in\nthe form of § 2.2 and Schedule 1 of the Carve-Out Settlement—\nto resolve the ambiguity. In Missouri River’s view, FERC\ninstead should have resolved the ambiguity by reference to the\ndoctrine of contra proferentem, under which ambiguities are\n\f 7\nresolved against the drafter. Missouri River contends that\nFERC has previously adhered to a policy favoring use of contra\nproferentem to resolve ambiguities and it therefore must\nexplain its decision to depart from that policy and to rely\ninstead on extrinsic evidence.\n\n Missouri River’s argument fails at the threshold: FERC\nhas not adhered to a policy of resolving ambiguities with the\ncontra proferentem canon rather than with extrinsic evidence.\nAlthough Missouri River identifies a number of cases in which\nFERC has relied on the contra proferentem canon, see Missouri\nRiver Br. 34–35 (collecting cases), in none of those cases did\nthe agency turn to contra proferentem in the face of available\nextrinsic evidence.\n\n By contrast, FERC has repeatedly relied on extrinsic\nevidence to resolve ambiguities even in the face of arguments\nfrom a party to use the contra proferentem canon. See, e.g.,\nCent. N.Y. Oil & Gas Co., 152 FERC ¶ 61,097, at pp. 20–37\n(2015) (using extrinsic evidence to help resolve an ambiguity\nin a service agreement even though one party urged FERC to\napply the contra proferentem canon); Miss. River Transmission\nCorp., 96 FERC ¶ 61,185, at p. 61,189 (2001) (rejecting a\nparty’s assertion that a tariff ambiguity should, as a matter of\nlaw, be resolved against the drafter and instead scheduling an\nevidentiary hearing to allow the parties to introduce extrinsic\nevidence of intent); cf. KN Energy, Inc., 59 FERC ¶ 61,332, at\np. 62,219 (1992) (applying contra proferentem but only\nbecause the objecting party had “offer[ed] no evidence, nor\ndescribe[d] any surrounding circumstances, that would\nindicate” the intent behind the relevant ambiguous provision).\nBecause FERC has had no policy of favoring contra\nproferentem over extrinsic evidence as a means of resolving\nambiguities, we reject Missouri River’s argument that FERC\n\f 8\nimproperly changed course by relying on extrinsic evidence in\nthis case.\n\n We note, moreover, the strength of the extrinsic evidence\non which FERC relied. Section 2.2 of the Carve-Out\nSettlement, filed on the same day as the Tariff revision at issue,\nstates that Schedule 1 of the Carve-Out Settlement “constitutes\nthe exclusive list of eligible ‘Carved-Out GFAs,’ meaning that\nonly those agreements and the megawatts associated with them\nidentified on Schedule 1 are eligible for carve-out treatment.”\nJ.A. 377 (emphasis added). FERC reasonably concluded that\nthe concurrently filed Carve-Out Settlement, which identified\n“eligible ‘Carved-Out GFAs,’” gives meaning to which GFAs\nare “eligible for GFA Carve Out” under § 2.16 of the Tariff.\nJ.A. 415. And because Missouri River’s reservation under the\n1977 Contract is not identified on that “exclusive list,” it is,\nunder the Carve-Out Settlement, not “eligible for carve-out.”\nJ.A. 385.\n\n Third, Missouri River argues that excluding its\ntransmission reservation from carve-out eligibility amounts to\nundue discrimination in violation of the Federal Power Act.\nUnder the Act, no public utility may “make or grant any undue\npreference or advantage to any person or subject any person to\nundue prejudice or disadvantage” nor may a public utility\n“maintain any unreasonable difference in rates, charges,\nservice, facilities, or in any other respect, either as between\nlocalities or as between classes of service.” 16 U.S.C.\n§ 824d(b). A mere difference in the treatment of two entities\ndoes not violate that provision; instead, undue discrimination\noccurs only if the entities are “similarly situated,” State Corp.\nComm’n v. FERC, 876 F.3d 332, 335 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (internal\nquotation marks omitted), such that “there is no reason for the\ndifference,” Transmission Access Policy Study Grp. v. FERC,\n225 F.3d 667, 721 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (per curiam). FERC has\n\f 9\n“wide discretion . . . to determine what constitute[s]” undue\ndiscrimination. Id.\n\n Here, Missouri River’s claim of undue discrimination rests\non the Pool’s grant of carve-out treatment to a transmission\nreservation owned by Lincoln Electric System pursuant to the\nsame 1977 Contract. FERC acknowledged that excluding\nMissouri River’s transmission reservation from carve-out\nresulted in a disparity in treatment between Missouri River and\nLincoln Electric. FERC, though, concluded that there was no\nundue discrimination because Missouri River and Lincoln\nElectric are not similarly situated with respect to the Pool’s\ncongestion and marginal loss charges. Specifically, FERC\nexplained that Lincoln Electric was a member of the Pool when\nthe Pool changed its Tariff to impose those charges (and was\ntherefore “subject to a forced transition” to a Tariff with the\ncharges), whereas Missouri River joined the Pool after the\nTariff was changed to incorporate those charges. Sw. Power\nPool, Inc., 160 FERC ¶ 61,115, at pp. 61–63 (2017), J.A. 645–\n46. In light of that difference, FERC determined, it was\npermissible to treat the two entities differently. Id.\n\n The distinction between pre-existing and new members is\nwell-supported in FERC precedent. In one case, the Midwest\nIndependent System Operator (MISO) sought to revise its\nTariff to eliminate the possibility of carve-out treatment for\ncertain Grandfathered Agreements held by prospective\nmembers and also to remove five of Dairyland’s Grandfathered\nAgreements from eligibility for carve-out treatment. See\nDairyland Power Coop. v. MISO, 131 FERC ¶ 61,163, at pp.\n7–9 (2010). FERC approved in part and rejected in part those\nchanges.\n\n On the one hand, FERC allowed MISO to eliminate the\navailability of carve-out treatment for some agreements held by\n\f 10\nprospective members because a “prospective transmission\nowner,” unlike an existing member, “can analyze the costs of\nconverting its GFAs to tariff service prior to integration, and\nweigh those costs against the benefits of [MISO] membership.”\nDairyland Power Coop. v. MISO, 129 FERC ¶ 61,221, at pp.\n39–41 (2009). On the other hand, FERC rejected MISO’s\nproposal to remove Dairyland’s GFAs from the list of carve-\nout eligible agreements. Id. at pp. 42–44. FERC thereby drew\nexactly the distinction that it drew here, allowing different\ntreatment of (i) prospective members seeking new carve-out\ntreatment and (ii) members seeking to preserve pre-existing\ncarve-out eligibility. In light of that precedent, Missouri River\nhas not met its burden of showing that FERC acted arbitrarily\nand capriciously in determining that Missouri River and\nLincoln Electric are not similarly situated. We therefore reject\nMissouri River’s undue discrimination claim.\n\n Fourth, Missouri River argues that imposing congestion\nand marginal loss charges on its transmission reservation\nimproperly modifies the 1977 Contract. In rejecting that\nargument, FERC determined that “the assessment of\ncongestion and marginal loss charges associated with GFA\ntreatment do not represent a modification of the 1977 Contract\nbecause these charges are associated with new services\navailable to [Missouri River] as a result of joining SPP,\nincluding access to the Integrated Marketplace and the ability\nto hedge congestion costs.” Sw. Power Pool, 160 FERC\n¶ 61,115, at p. 81, J.A. 653–54. Because FERC’s “analysis\nhinges on interpretation of utility contracts, our review of that\nanalysis is deferential.” Wis. Pub. Power, Inc. v. FERC, 493\nF.3d 239, 271 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (per curiam). Missouri River\nprovides us with no reason to reject FERC’s conclusion.\n\n Missouri River notes that FERC once previously found,\nand we agreed, that excluding a Grandfathered Agreement\n\f 11\nfrom carve-out eligibility constituted a modification of that\nagreement. See Missouri River Br. 19–20 (citing MISO, 121\nFERC ¶ 61,166 (2007); and Wis. Pub. Power, 493 F.3d 239).\nIn that case, however, FERC determined that subjecting the\nparties to the new Tariff “would impose significant changes in\nthe manner in which transmission service is provided for”\nbecause there was a “direct collision between GFA scheduling\npractices and the MISO Tariff’s scheduling requirements.”\nWis. Pub. Power, 493 F.3d at 272–73 (internal quotation marks\nomitted). Here, by contrast, FERC found no such “direct\ncollision” between the 1977 Contract and the Pool’s Tariff\nbecause the marginal loss and congestion charges related to\nadditional services provided by Southwest Power Pool, such as\n“access to the Integrated Marketplace and the ability to hedge\ncongestion costs,” which were not provided for by (and the\ncosts of which thus were not covered by the rates set in) the\n1977 Contract. Sw. Power Pool, 160 FERC ¶ 61,115, at p. 81,\nJ.A. 653–54; cf. E. Ky. Power Coop., Inc. v. FERC, 489 F.3d\n1299, 1306–08 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (affirming FERC’s\ndetermination that MISO may impose certain costs to account\nfor various services and benefits that were not provided under\nthe Grandfathered Agreements but that are provided by MISO).\nWe see no reason to reject FERC’s conclusion that the\ncongestion and marginal loss charges at issue here pay for new\nservices not provided for in the 1977 Contract.\n\n Fifth, Missouri River argues that Southwest Power Pool\nshould be equitably estopped from denying it carve-out\ntreatment. Missouri River relies on the Pool’s representation\nin 2013 that, “because [Missouri River’s] reservation is not\nassociated with an SPP Settlement Location or SPP\ntransmission service, and is not tagged by SPP, it will not be\nsubject to the rules and tariff requirements of SPP’s proposed\nIntegrated Marketplace” and “will not be assessed congestion\ncosts or marginal losses.” J.A. 819. Missouri River’s\n\f 12\nequitable-estoppel argument is forfeited because Missouri\nRiver has failed to fully develop it. See SEC v. Banner Fund\nInt’l, 211 F.3d 602, 613–14 (D.C. Cir. 2000). The argument is\nunpersuasive in any event.\n\n The “traditional elements of” equitable estoppel include\n“false representation, a purpose to invite action by the party to\nwhom the representation was made, ignorance of the true facts\nby that party, and reliance, as well as a showing of an injustice\nand lack of undue damage to the public interest.” ATC Petrol.,\nInc. v. Sanders, 860 F.2d 1104, 1111 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (internal\nquotation marks and alterations omitted). Here, FERC\nconcluded that if Missouri River relied on Southwest Power\nPool’s 2013 statement “to mean that [its] reservation under the\n1977 Contract would be eligible for carve out treatment after\n[it] joined SPP, such reliance was unreasonable.” Sw. Power\nPool, 160 FERC ¶ 61,115, at p. 75, J.A. 651. That is because\nthe language used by the Pool—that Missouri River would not\nbe subject to the charges “because” it was not within the Pool’s\nfootprint—cannot reasonably be interpreted to mean that, if\nMissouri River were to come within SPP’s footprint in the\nfuture, then the Pool would not impose charges at that time.\nAnd that is exactly what happened. The Pool did not seek to\nimpose congestion and marginal loss charges on the 1977\nreservation until Missouri River subsequently came within the\nPool’s footprint. We thus reject Missouri River’s argument, to\nthe extent it is not forfeited, that the Pool should be equitably\nestopped from imposing congestion and marginal loss charges\nagainst Missouri River.\n\n * * * * *\n\n For the foregoing reasons, we deny the petition for review.\n\n It is so ordered.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: MISSOURI RIVER ENERGY SERVICES, Petitioner v. FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION, Respondent Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Et Al., Intervenors\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued February 6, 2019 Decided March 15, 2019\\n\\n No. 18-1166\\n\\n MISSOURI RIVER ENERGY SERVICES,\\n PETITIONER\\n\\n v.\\n\\n FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION,\\n RESPONDENT\\n\\n BASIN ELECTRIC POWER COOPERATIVE, ET AL.,\\n INTERVENORS\\n\\n\\n On Petition for Review of Orders of the\\n Federal Energy Regulatory Commission\\n\\n\\n Lawrence G. Acker argued the cause for petitioner. With\\nhim on the briefs were Philip W. Mone and Gabriel L. Tabak.\\n\\n Jared B. Fish, Attorney, Federal Energy Regulatory\\nCommission, argued the cause for respondent. With him on\\nthe brief were James P. Danly, General Counsel, and Robert H.\\nSolomon, Solicitor. Carol J. Banta, Attorney, entered an\\nappearance.\\n\\f 2\\n William D. Booth argued the cause for intervenors. With\\nhim on the joint brief was David D’Alessandro. Jonathan P.\\nTrotta and Marie Denyse Zosa entered appearances.\\n\\n Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, SRINIVASAN, Circuit\\nJudge, and SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.\\n\\n SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge: In 2015, Missouri River\\nEnergy Services, a collection of municipal entities, became a\\nmember of the Southwest Power Pool. Missouri River claimed\\nit should be exempt from certain charges assessed by the Pool,\\nand the parties submitted the dispute to the Federal Energy\\nRegulatory Commission. FERC sustained the charges, and\\nMissouri River now petitions for review of FERC’s decision.\\nWe conclude that FERC’s determination was not arbitrary and\\ncapricious and thus deny Missouri River’s petition for review.\\n\\n I.\\n\\n Missouri River Energy Services is an organization of 61\\nmunicipal utilities in the Upper Midwest. Missouri River helps\\nits member municipal electric systems source power. To that\\nend, in the 1970s, Missouri River teamed up with other energy-\\nrelated entities to construct the Laramie River Station (a power\\nplant) and various transmission facilities.\\n\\n In 1977, those entities entered into a contract with\\nNebraska Public Power District, under which Missouri River\\nand its partners agreed to help defray Nebraska Power’s\\nconstruction and operation costs for new transmission\\nfacilities. In exchange, Nebraska Power agreed to allow the\\nentities to use the new facilities to transmit some of the power\\nfrom the Laramie River Station. For the last four decades,\\n\\f 3\\nMissouri River has used that arrangement under the 1977\\nContract to help move electricity generated by the Laramie\\nRiver Station part of the way from the power plant to Missouri\\nRiver’s member utilities.\\n\\n In 2008, Nebraska Power asked to join the Southwest\\nPower Pool, a Regional Transmission Organization that\\n“provides transmission service to approximately 6 million\\nhouseholds across portions of eight states.” Okla. Gas & Elec.\\nCo. v. FERC, 827 F.3d 75, 77 (D.C. Cir. 2016). (A Regional\\nTransmission Organization oversees electricity grids on a\\nregional scale and coordinates transmission service to ensure\\nreliable and efficient transmission. See Morgan Stanley\\nCapital Grp. v. Pub. Utility Dist. No. 1, 554 U.S. 527, 535–37\\n(2008).) As part of the process of accepting Nebraska Power\\ninto the Southwest Power Pool, the Pool filed proposed\\nrevisions of its bylaws and Tariff. Those revisions included\\nadding the 1977 Contract to the Pool’s list of Grandfathered\\nAgreements, which meant that service under the 1977 Contract\\nwould be exempt from certain provisions of the Tariff. In late\\n2008, FERC approved the proposed revisions, Nebraska Power\\nbecame a member of the Pool, and Missouri River’s\\ntransmission service under the 1977 Contract continued\\nunchanged.\\n\\n Four years later, the Pool decided to implement a new\\nIntegrated Marketplace that included energy markets in which\\nPool members could bid for energy services. As part of that\\nimplementation, the Pool proposed imposing additional\\ncharges on its members to account for energy loss due to\\ntransmission and transmission congestion. A number of\\nparties, including Missouri River, protested the imposition of\\nthose charges on transmission covered by Grandfathered\\nAgreements (including the 1977 Contract).\\n\\f 4\\n The Pool stated that it would not impose additional charges\\non Missouri River’s reservation under the 1977 Contract\\nbecause Missouri River was outside the footprint of the Pool.\\nMissouri River then withdrew its protest. The Pool proceeded\\nto settlement negotiations with the other protesting parties, and\\nthose negotiations produced a Carve-Out Settlement that\\nidentified specific Grandfathered Agreements that were\\neligible for exemption (i.e., eligible to be carved out) from the\\ncongestion and marginal loss charges. In particular, § 2.2 of\\nthe Carve-Out Settlement stated that Schedule 1 of the Carve-\\nOut Settlement “constitutes the exclusive list of eligible\\n‘Carved-Out GFAs,’ meaning that only those agreements and\\nthe megawatts associated with them identified on Schedule 1\\nare eligible for carve-out treatment.” J.A. 377. And Schedule\\n1 clarifies that, with respect to the 1977 Contract, Missouri\\nRiver’s reservation is not “eligible for carve-out.” J.A. 385.\\nThe Pool filed that Carve-Out Settlement with FERC, and\\nFERC approved it.\\n\\n In 2014, after the Carve-Out Settlement had been filed and\\napproved, a number of Missouri River’s business partners (but\\nnot Missouri River) filed a request to join the Southwest Power\\nPool. The Pool, in turn, filed proposed Tariff revisions with\\nFERC to allow those parties to join. Missouri River protested\\nthe Pool’s proposal, which did not carve out Missouri River\\nfrom congestion and marginal loss charges for transmission\\nunder the 1977 Contract. In response, FERC generally\\napproved the Pool’s proposed revisions but set aside the carve-\\nout issue for settlement procedures. In late 2015, those parties\\nbecame members of the Pool, as did Missouri River.\\n\\n Although Missouri River and the Pool engaged in\\nextensive settlement negotiations, they were unable to reach an\\nagreement on the carve-out issue. Instead, they agreed to a set\\nof stipulated facts and requested a shortened hearing process\\n\\f 5\\nbefore FERC on the issue of whether Missouri River is entitled\\nto carve-out treatment for its transmission reservation under the\\n1977 Contract. Following that hearing process, FERC sided\\nwith the Pool.\\n\\n First, FERC determined that the terms of the Southwest\\nPower Pool Tariff did not entitle Missouri River to carve-out\\ntreatment. FERC reasoned that the Tariff is ambiguous about\\nwhich agreements are eligible for carve-out treatment and then\\nlooked to extrinsic evidence to resolve that ambiguity in the\\nPool’s favor with regard to Missouri River’s reservation under\\nthe 1977 Contract. Second, FERC determined that the\\nexclusion of Missouri River from carve-out eligibility was\\npermissible, rejecting Missouri River’s arguments that the\\nexclusion constituted undue discrimination, that the exclusion\\nimpermissibly modified or abrogated the 1977 Contract, and\\nthat the Pool should be equitably estopped from denying\\nMissouri River carve-out treatment.\\n\\n After FERC denied Missouri River’s motion for rehearing,\\nMissouri River filed the present petition for review.\\n\\n II.\\n\\n We review FERC’s orders under “the arbitrary and\\ncapricious standard of the Administrative Procedure Act.”\\nAlcoa Inc. v. FERC, 564 F.3d 1342, 1347 (D.C. Cir. 2009); see\\n5 U.S.C. § 706(2). That means “[w]e affirm the Commission’s\\norders so long as FERC examined the relevant data and\\narticulated a rational connection between the facts found and\\nthe choice made.” Alcoa, 564 F.3d at 1347 (internal quotation\\nmarks and alterations omitted).\\n\\f 6\\n Missouri River challenges FERC’s determination that it is\\nineligible for carve-out treatment on five grounds. We find\\nnone of Missouri River’s arguments persuasive.\\n\\n First, Missouri River argues that Southwest Power Pool’s\\nTariff unambiguously establishes that Missouri River’s\\ntransmission reservation under the 1977 Contract is eligible for\\ncarve-out treatment. The relevant language of the Tariff, in\\n§ 2.16 (entitled “Grandfathered Agreement [GFA] Carve\\nOut”), provides that Pool members “that are a party to GFA(s)\\neligible for GFA Carve Out” may elect from among various\\noptions, including carve-out treatment. J.A. 415. According\\nto Missouri River, because the Tariff’s list of Grandfathered\\nAgreements includes the 1977 Contract, the carve-out\\nprovision unambiguously provides Missouri River a right to\\nelect carve-out treatment. That is incorrect.\\n\\n Of course, the 1977 Contract is a GFA. But § 2.16 of the\\nTariff provides that only GFAs “eligible for GFA Carve Out”\\nmay receive carve-out treatment, which implies that some\\nGFAs are eligible for such treatment and others are not. And\\nneither § 2.16 nor any other provision of the Tariff explains\\nwhat makes a GFA carve-out eligible. For that reason, FERC\\nunderstandably found the Tariff ambiguous with respect to the\\neligibility of Missouri River’s transmission reservation for\\ncarve-out treatment. We thus reject Missouri River’s argument\\nthat the Tariff unambiguously confers carve-out eligibility on\\nits transmission reservation under the 1977 Contract.\\n\\n Second, Missouri River argues that, even if the Tariff is\\nambiguous, FERC erred by relying on extrinsic evidence—in\\nthe form of § 2.2 and Schedule 1 of the Carve-Out Settlement—\\nto resolve the ambiguity. In Missouri River’s view, FERC\\ninstead should have resolved the ambiguity by reference to the\\ndoctrine of contra proferentem, under which ambiguities are\\n\\f 7\\nresolved against the drafter. Missouri River contends that\\nFERC has previously adhered to a policy favoring use of contra\\nproferentem to resolve ambiguities and it therefore must\\nexplain its decision to depart from that policy and to rely\\ninstead on extrinsic evidence.\\n\\n Missouri River’s argument fails at the threshold: FERC\\nhas not adhered to a policy of resolving ambiguities with the\\ncontra proferentem canon rather than with extrinsic evidence.\\nAlthough Missouri River identifies a number of cases in which\\nFERC has relied on the contra proferentem canon, see Missouri\\nRiver Br. 34–35 (collecting cases), in none of those cases did\\nthe agency turn to contra proferentem in the face of available\\nextrinsic evidence.\\n\\n By contrast, FERC has repeatedly relied on extrinsic\\nevidence to resolve ambiguities even in the face of arguments\\nfrom a party to use the contra proferentem canon. See, e.g.,\\nCent. N.Y. Oil & Gas Co., 152 FERC ¶ 61,097, at pp. 20–37\\n(2015) (using extrinsic evidence to help resolve an ambiguity\\nin a service agreement even though one party urged FERC to\\napply the contra proferentem canon); Miss. River Transmission\\nCorp., 96 FERC ¶ 61,185, at p. 61,189 (2001) (rejecting a\\nparty’s assertion that a tariff ambiguity should, as a matter of\\nlaw, be resolved against the drafter and instead scheduling an\\nevidentiary hearing to allow the parties to introduce extrinsic\\nevidence of intent); cf. KN Energy, Inc., 59 FERC ¶ 61,332, at\\np. 62,219 (1992) (applying contra proferentem but only\\nbecause the objecting party had “offer[ed] no evidence, nor\\ndescribe[d] any surrounding circumstances, that would\\nindicate” the intent behind the relevant ambiguous provision).\\nBecause FERC has had no policy of favoring contra\\nproferentem over extrinsic evidence as a means of resolving\\nambiguities, we reject Missouri River’s argument that FERC\\n\\f 8\\nimproperly changed course by relying on extrinsic evidence in\\nthis case.\\n\\n We note, moreover, the strength of the extrinsic evidence\\non which FERC relied. Section 2.2 of the Carve-Out\\nSettlement, filed on the same day as the Tariff revision at issue,\\nstates that Schedule 1 of the Carve-Out Settlement “constitutes\\nthe exclusive list of eligible ‘Carved-Out GFAs,’ meaning that\\nonly those agreements and the megawatts associated with them\\nidentified on Schedule 1 are eligible for carve-out treatment.”\\nJ.A. 377 (emphasis added). FERC reasonably concluded that\\nthe concurrently filed Carve-Out Settlement, which identified\\n“eligible ‘Carved-Out GFAs,’” gives meaning to which GFAs\\nare “eligible for GFA Carve Out” under § 2.16 of the Tariff.\\nJ.A. 415. And because Missouri River’s reservation under the\\n1977 Contract is not identified on that “exclusive list,” it is,\\nunder the Carve-Out Settlement, not “eligible for carve-out.”\\nJ.A. 385.\\n\\n Third, Missouri River argues that excluding its\\ntransmission reservation from carve-out eligibility amounts to\\nundue discrimination in violation of the Federal Power Act.\\nUnder the Act, no public utility may “make or grant any undue\\npreference or advantage to any person or subject any person to\\nundue prejudice or disadvantage” nor may a public utility\\n“maintain any unreasonable difference in rates, charges,\\nservice, facilities, or in any other respect, either as between\\nlocalities or as between classes of service.” 16 U.S.C.\\n§ 824d(b). A mere difference in the treatment of two entities\\ndoes not violate that provision; instead, undue discrimination\\noccurs only if the entities are “similarly situated,” State Corp.\\nComm’n v. FERC, 876 F.3d 332, 335 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (internal\\nquotation marks omitted), such that “there is no reason for the\\ndifference,” Transmission Access Policy Study Grp. v. FERC,\\n225 F.3d 667, 721 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (per curiam). FERC has\\n\\f 9\\n“wide discretion . . . to determine what constitute[s]” undue\\ndiscrimination. Id.\\n\\n Here, Missouri River’s claim of undue discrimination rests\\non the Pool’s grant of carve-out treatment to a transmission\\nreservation owned by Lincoln Electric System pursuant to the\\nsame 1977 Contract. FERC acknowledged that excluding\\nMissouri River’s transmission reservation from carve-out\\nresulted in a disparity in treatment between Missouri River and\\nLincoln Electric. FERC, though, concluded that there was no\\nundue discrimination because Missouri River and Lincoln\\nElectric are not similarly situated with respect to the Pool’s\\ncongestion and marginal loss charges. Specifically, FERC\\nexplained that Lincoln Electric was a member of the Pool when\\nthe Pool changed its Tariff to impose those charges (and was\\ntherefore “subject to a forced transition” to a Tariff with the\\ncharges), whereas Missouri River joined the Pool after the\\nTariff was changed to incorporate those charges. Sw. Power\\nPool, Inc., 160 FERC ¶ 61,115, at pp. 61–63 (2017), J.A. 645–\\n46. In light of that difference, FERC determined, it was\\npermissible to treat the two entities differently. Id.\\n\\n The distinction between pre-existing and new members is\\nwell-supported in FERC precedent. In one case, the Midwest\\nIndependent System Operator (MISO) sought to revise its\\nTariff to eliminate the possibility of carve-out treatment for\\ncertain Grandfathered Agreements held by prospective\\nmembers and also to remove five of Dairyland’s Grandfathered\\nAgreements from eligibility for carve-out treatment. See\\nDairyland Power Coop. v. MISO, 131 FERC ¶ 61,163, at pp.\\n7–9 (2010). FERC approved in part and rejected in part those\\nchanges.\\n\\n On the one hand, FERC allowed MISO to eliminate the\\navailability of carve-out treatment for some agreements held by\\n\\f 10\\nprospective members because a “prospective transmission\\nowner,” unlike an existing member, “can analyze the costs of\\nconverting its GFAs to tariff service prior to integration, and\\nweigh those costs against the benefits of [MISO] membership.”\\nDairyland Power Coop. v. MISO, 129 FERC ¶ 61,221, at pp.\\n39–41 (2009). On the other hand, FERC rejected MISO’s\\nproposal to remove Dairyland’s GFAs from the list of carve-\\nout eligible agreements. Id. at pp. 42–44. FERC thereby drew\\nexactly the distinction that it drew here, allowing different\\ntreatment of (i) prospective members seeking new carve-out\\ntreatment and (ii) members seeking to preserve pre-existing\\ncarve-out eligibility. In light of that precedent, Missouri River\\nhas not met its burden of showing that FERC acted arbitrarily\\nand capriciously in determining that Missouri River and\\nLincoln Electric are not similarly situated. We therefore reject\\nMissouri River’s undue discrimination claim.\\n\\n Fourth, Missouri River argues that imposing congestion\\nand marginal loss charges on its transmission reservation\\nimproperly modifies the 1977 Contract. In rejecting that\\nargument, FERC determined that “the assessment of\\ncongestion and marginal loss charges associated with GFA\\ntreatment do not represent a modification of the 1977 Contract\\nbecause these charges are associated with new services\\navailable to [Missouri River] as a result of joining SPP,\\nincluding access to the Integrated Marketplace and the ability\\nto hedge congestion costs.” Sw. Power Pool, 160 FERC\\n¶ 61,115, at p. 81, J.A. 653–54. Because FERC’s “analysis\\nhinges on interpretation of utility contracts, our review of that\\nanalysis is deferential.” Wis. Pub. Power, Inc. v. FERC, 493\\nF.3d 239, 271 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (per curiam). Missouri River\\nprovides us with no reason to reject FERC’s conclusion.\\n\\n Missouri River notes that FERC once previously found,\\nand we agreed, that excluding a Grandfathered Agreement\\n\\f 11\\nfrom carve-out eligibility constituted a modification of that\\nagreement. See Missouri River Br. 19–20 (citing MISO, 121\\nFERC ¶ 61,166 (2007); and Wis. Pub. Power, 493 F.3d 239).\\nIn that case, however, FERC determined that subjecting the\\nparties to the new Tariff “would impose significant changes in\\nthe manner in which transmission service is provided for”\\nbecause there was a “direct collision between GFA scheduling\\npractices and the MISO Tariff’s scheduling requirements.”\\nWis. Pub. Power, 493 F.3d at 272–73 (internal quotation marks\\nomitted). Here, by contrast, FERC found no such “direct\\ncollision” between the 1977 Contract and the Pool’s Tariff\\nbecause the marginal loss and congestion charges related to\\nadditional services provided by Southwest Power Pool, such as\\n“access to the Integrated Marketplace and the ability to hedge\\ncongestion costs,” which were not provided for by (and the\\ncosts of which thus were not covered by the rates set in) the\\n1977 Contract. Sw. Power Pool, 160 FERC ¶ 61,115, at p. 81,\\nJ.A. 653–54; cf. E. Ky. Power Coop., Inc. v. FERC, 489 F.3d\\n1299, 1306–08 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (affirming FERC’s\\ndetermination that MISO may impose certain costs to account\\nfor various services and benefits that were not provided under\\nthe Grandfathered Agreements but that are provided by MISO).\\nWe see no reason to reject FERC’s conclusion that the\\ncongestion and marginal loss charges at issue here pay for new\\nservices not provided for in the 1977 Contract.\\n\\n Fifth, Missouri River argues that Southwest Power Pool\\nshould be equitably estopped from denying it carve-out\\ntreatment. Missouri River relies on the Pool’s representation\\nin 2013 that, “because [Missouri River’s] reservation is not\\nassociated with an SPP Settlement Location or SPP\\ntransmission service, and is not tagged by SPP, it will not be\\nsubject to the rules and tariff requirements of SPP’s proposed\\nIntegrated Marketplace” and “will not be assessed congestion\\ncosts or marginal losses.” J.A. 819. Missouri River’s\\n\\f 12\\nequitable-estoppel argument is forfeited because Missouri\\nRiver has failed to fully develop it. See SEC v. Banner Fund\\nInt’l, 211 F.3d 602, 613–14 (D.C. Cir. 2000). The argument is\\nunpersuasive in any event.\\n\\n The “traditional elements of” equitable estoppel include\\n“false representation, a purpose to invite action by the party to\\nwhom the representation was made, ignorance of the true facts\\nby that party, and reliance, as well as a showing of an injustice\\nand lack of undue damage to the public interest.” ATC Petrol.,\\nInc. v. Sanders, 860 F.2d 1104, 1111 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (internal\\nquotation marks and alterations omitted). Here, FERC\\nconcluded that if Missouri River relied on Southwest Power\\nPool’s 2013 statement “to mean that [its] reservation under the\\n1977 Contract would be eligible for carve out treatment after\\n[it] joined SPP, such reliance was unreasonable.” Sw. Power\\nPool, 160 FERC ¶ 61,115, at p. 75, J.A. 651. That is because\\nthe language used by the Pool—that Missouri River would not\\nbe subject to the charges “because” it was not within the Pool’s\\nfootprint—cannot reasonably be interpreted to mean that, if\\nMissouri River were to come within SPP’s footprint in the\\nfuture, then the Pool would not impose charges at that time.\\nAnd that is exactly what happened. The Pool did not seek to\\nimpose congestion and marginal loss charges on the 1977\\nreservation until Missouri River subsequently came within the\\nPool’s footprint. We thus reject Missouri River’s argument, to\\nthe extent it is not forfeited, that the Pool should be equitably\\nestopped from imposing congestion and marginal loss charges\\nagainst Missouri River.\\n\\n * * * * *\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, we deny the petition for review.\\n\\n It is so ordered.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1396,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":4600242,"string":"4,600,242"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Jeffrey A. LOVITKY, Appellant v. Donald J. TRUMP, in His Official Capacity as President of the United States, Appellee"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Jeffrey Lovitky v. Donald Trump"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-15"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"18-5105"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Tatel, Griffith, Williams\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.\", \"type\": \"010combined\", \"text\": \"United States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued December 14, 2018 Decided March 15, 2019\\n\\n No. 18-5105\\n\\n JEFFREY A. LOVITKY,\\n APPELLANT\\n\\n v.\\n\\n DONALD J. TRUMP, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS PRESIDENT\\n OF THE UNITED STATES,\\n APPELLEE\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:17-cv-00450)\\n\\n\\n Jeffrey A. Lovitky argued the cause and filed the briefs for\\nappellant.\\n\\n Matthew J. Glover, Counsel to the Assistant Attorney,\\nU.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellee.\\nWith him on the brief were Mark B. Stern and Michael Shih,\\nAttorneys.\\n\\n Before: TATEL and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and\\nWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\f 2\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge\\nWILLIAMS.\\n\\n WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: Officers of the United\\nStates swear to “faithfully discharge the duties of the[ir]\\noffice.” 5 U.S.C. § 3331; see also U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 8\\n(requiring the President to swear that he “will faithfully execute\\nthe Office of the President”). When they fall short, the\\nMandamus Act offers relief; it vests district courts with\\njurisdiction over “any action in the nature of mandamus to\\ncompel an officer or employee of the United States . . . to\\nperform a duty owed to the plaintiff.” 28 U.S.C. § 1361. The\\nquestion here is whether the Act extends to duties pertaining\\nnot to an officer’s public office, but to his pre-election (or pre-\\nappointment) acts. We hold that it does not.\\n\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n This case concerns a dispute about a then-presidential\\ncandidate’s financial disclosure report. Under the Ethics in\\nGovernment Act of 1978, candidates for certain offices,\\nincluding the Presidency, must file financial disclosures with\\nthe Federal Election Commission. 5 U.S.C. app. § 103(e).\\nSubject to some limitations, a presidential candidate’s financial\\ndisclosure “shall include a full and complete statement with\\nrespect to,” among other things, the “identity and category of\\nthe total liabilities owed to any creditor.” Id. § 102(a)(4).\\n\\n Plaintiff Jeffrey Lovitky, appellant here, alleges that, as a\\npresidential candidate, Donald J. Trump filed a financial\\ndisclosure report with the FEC on May 16, 2016. Compl. ¶ 13,\\nJ.A. 11; see J.A. 28–131. Part 8 of this disclosure listed 16\\nfinancial liabilities, identifying each creditor, and describing\\nthe nature and terms of each liability. Compl. ¶ 16, J.A. 12; see\\n\\f 3\\nJ.A. 84. The “appropriate reviewing officials” (see generally 5\\nU.S.C. app. § 106; 5 C.F.R. § 2634.605) determined that\\ncandidate Trump’s disclosures were “in apparent compliance\\nwith the disclosure requirements of the Ethics in Government\\nAct.” Compl. ¶ 13, J.A. 11; see J.A. 28.\\n\\n Lovitky sees non-compliance. He alleges that then-\\ncandidate Trump’s financial disclosure included both personal\\nand business liabilities, Compl. ¶¶ 37–42, J.A. 18–19, and that\\nthis violated the Ethics in Government Act, which, Lovitky\\nargues, “requires disclosure of only those liabilities for which\\ncandidates are themselves liable . . . or for which the spouse or\\ndependent child of the candidate are liable,” id. ¶ 24, J.A. 15;\\nsee also id. ¶¶ 43–44, 46, J.A. 19–20. Candidate Trump,\\nLovitky contends, “obscured his liabilities by commingling\\nthem with the liabilities of business entities.” Appellant’s Br.\\n11.\\n\\n Lovitky brought suit in the district court for the District of\\nColumbia, seeking “relief in the nature of mandamus, directing\\n[now-President Trump] to amend his financial disclosure\\nreport” so that it “specifically identif[ies] any debts [that then-\\ncandidate Trump] owed.” Compl. 14, J.A. 21.\\n\\n On April 10, 2018, the district court dismissed, holding\\nthat Lovitky lacked Article III standing because the court could\\nnot “issue the relief that [he] request[ed]” and thus could not\\n“redress [his] grievance.” Lovitky v. Trump, 308 F. Supp. 3d\\n250, 260 (D.D.C. 2018). Lovitky appeals, and we affirm—but\\non other grounds.\\n\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n We begin (and end) with subject-matter jurisdiction,\\nwithout reaching the question of standing. See, e.g., Moms\\n\\f 4\\nAgainst Mercury v. FDA, 483 F.3d 824, 826 (D.C. Cir. 2007)\\n(“Where both standing and subject matter jurisdiction are at\\nissue . . . a court may inquire into either and, finding it lacking,\\ndismiss the matter without reaching the other.”). In his Second\\nAmended Complaint, Lovitky asserts three bases of federal\\nsubject-matter jurisdiction: 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal\\nquestion); 28 U.S.C. § 1361 (mandamus); and 28 U.S.C.\\n§ 2201 (declaratory judgment). Compl. ¶ 3, J.A. 9; see also\\nAppellant’s Br. 1.\\n\\n But § 2201 (declaratory judgment) “is not an independent\\nsource of federal jurisdiction.” Metz v. BAE Sys. Tech.\\nSolutions & Servs. Inc., 774 F.3d 18, 25 n.8 (D.C. Cir. 2014)\\n(quoting Ali v. Rumsfeld, 649 F.3d 762, 778 (D.C. Cir. 2011)).\\nAnd Lovitky makes no effort to challenge the district court’s\\nfinding, see 308 F. Supp. 3d at 260 n.8, that he abandoned\\nreliance on § 1331 (federal question), thus forfeiting that\\npossible font of jurisdiction for purposes of this appeal, see\\nDeJesus v. WP Co., 841 F.3d 527, 532 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 2016).\\n\\n This leaves the Mandamus Act, which reads in full:\\n\\n § 1361. Action to compel an officer of the United States\\n to perform his duty\\n\\n The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any\\n action in the nature of mandamus to compel an officer or\\n employee of the United States or an agency thereof to\\n perform a duty owed to the plaintiff.\\n\\n28 U.S.C. § 1361. Lovitky brings this “action . . . to compel”\\nan individual—namely, President Trump “in his official\\ncapacity.” See Compl. ¶ 2, J.A. 9. We assume, without\\ndeciding, that the President is “an officer” subject to the\\nMandamus Act and that the alleged obligation—to provide a\\n\\f 5\\n“full and complete statement” of liabilities, see, e.g., Compl. ¶\\n44, J.A. 20 (quoting 5 U.S.C. app. § 102(a)(4)); Appellant’s Br.\\n35 (same)—is one “owed to the plaintiff.” The only question,\\nthen, is whether the obligation sued on, see 5 U.S.C. app.\\n§ 101(c) (identifying candidates as persons required to file); id.\\n§ 102(a)(4) (identifying liabilities required to be disclosed), is\\na “duty” within the meaning of the Mandamus Act.\\n\\n It is not. Lovitky has challenged only one of Trump’s\\nfinancial disclosure reports—the one filed in May 2016. At\\nthat time, Trump’s obligation to provide a “full and complete\\nstatement” of liabilities arose out of his status as a candidate\\nfor the office of President, as he had not yet been elected. See\\n5 U.S.C. app. § 101(c) (imposing reporting obligations on\\n“candidate[s]” for “the office of President . . . other than an\\nincumbent President”). That makes all the difference. As we’ll\\ndevelop below, duties within the meaning of the Mandamus\\nAct include only those obligations that pertain to a defendant\\nofficer’s (or employee’s) public office. (Because Lovitky\\nbases his claim on an obligation that was supposedly imposed\\nby § 101(c), see, e.g., Appellant’s Supplemental Br. 4, we need\\nnot—and do not—express an opinion as to whether other\\nprovisions of the Ethics in Government Act impose a “duty”\\nwithin the meaning of the Mandamus Act.)\\n\\n True, if read in isolation, the phrase “a duty owed to the\\nplaintiff,” 28 U.S.C. § 1361, could—at least in theory—mean\\nany “tasks” that any officer of the United States happens to be\\n“obligat[ed]” to perform—whether by statute, private contract,\\nor (perhaps) even “feeling[s]” of “moral obligation,” Webster’s\\nThird New International Dictionary 705 (1981).\\n\\n But the context points to a narrower meaning. See, e.g.,\\nLife Techs. Corp. v. Promega Corp., 137 S. Ct. 734, 740\\n(2017). Here, “duty” is associated (in the text and title of the\\n\\f 6\\nAct) with “officer,” see 28 U.S.C. § 1361—that is, one “who\\nperforms the duties of the office,” Black’s Law Dictionary 977\\n(5th ed. 1979) (emphasis added); see also Webster’s Third,\\nsupra, at 1567 (defining an “office” as “a special duty, charge,\\nor position conferred by an exercise of governmental authority\\nand for a public purpose”). (The word “officer,” we note, is\\nitself derived from the Latin word officium, meaning “duty.”\\nId.). In this context—where a statute links an officer to his\\n“duty”—the most natural reading of “duty” refers only to those\\nduties entailed by the office in question.\\n\\n The statute’s common law background also supports\\nreading it to require that the duty a plaintiff seeks to compel via\\n§ 1361 must pertain to a defendant’s public office. “It is a\\nsettled principle of interpretation that, absent other indication,\\n‘Congress intends to incorporate the well-settled meaning of\\nthe common-law terms its uses.’” Sekhar v. United States, 570\\nU.S. 729, 732 (2013) (quoting Neder v. United States, 527 U.S.\\n1, 23 (1999)). By using the terms “action[s] in the nature of\\nmandamus,” § 1361 invokes the common-law writ of\\nmandamus. Apart from defendants of no relevance here (i.e.,\\ncommon carriers, corporations, and certain public franchises,\\nsee, e.g., S.S. Merrill, Law of Mandamus §§ 25–28, at 23–28\\n(Chicago, T.H. Flood & Co. 1892)), the subjects of mandamus\\nunder the common law were persons who owed not just any\\nact, but an act that “appertain[ed] to their office and duty.”\\nCrocker v. Piedmont Aviation, Inc., 49 F.3d 735, 745 (D.C. Cir.\\n1995) (quoting 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries *110);\\naccord, e.g., Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 147\\n(1803) (Marshall, C.J.). The common law writ, in other words,\\nissued “to compel the performance of an act which the law\\nenjoin[ed] as a duty resulting from an office, trust or station.”\\nMerrill, supra, § 13, at 7 (emphasis added), cited in Appellant’s\\nSupplemental Br. 2 & n.3; accord, e.g., N. Pac. R.R. Co. v.\\nWashington ex rel. Dustin, 142 U.S. 492, 506 (1892); see also,\\n\\f 7\\ne.g., Eberle v. King, 93 P. 748, 753 (Okla. 1908) (“[W]here the\\nwrit is sought to be invoked, the proper inquiry is, does the duty\\nsought to be enforced clearly result from an office, trust, or\\nstation?”); Merrill, supra, § 23, at 20 (“The rule is, that this writ\\nwill not . . . lie against an officer for acts done in an unofficial\\ncharacter.”).\\n\\n Detachment of the duty from the office of the defendant\\nwould lead to serious incongruities. For example, where an\\nofficer is sued in his official capacity, as here, Rule 25(d) of the\\nFederal Rules of Civil Procedure automatically substitutes as\\ndefendant the official’s successor in office. See, e.g., Nader v.\\nSaxbe, 497 F.2d 676, 677 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 1974). Acceptance of\\nLovitky’s theory would thus, in principle, mean that a public\\nofficial could be compelled to perform the personal financial\\ndisclosure duties of his predecessor (and who knows what other\\nduties)—an exceedingly odd result.\\n\\n In sum, the Mandamus Act applies only to duties that flow\\nfrom a defendant’s public office. And because the alleged duty\\nhere—directed at candidates for public office—lacks that\\ndefining characteristic, the district court had no jurisdiction\\nunder that Act over Lovitky’s claims.\\n\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s judgment\\ndismissing the case is affirmed.\\n\\n So ordered.\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/4377495/\", \"author_raw\": \"Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"TATEL"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"GRIFFITH"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":"WILLIAMS"},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600242/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Jeffrey A. LOVITKY, Appellant v. Donald J. TRUMP, in His Official Capacity as President of the United States, Appellee\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\nUnited States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued December 14, 2018 Decided March 15, 2019\n\n No. 18-5105\n\n JEFFREY A. LOVITKY,\n APPELLANT\n\n v.\n\n DONALD J. TRUMP, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS PRESIDENT\n OF THE UNITED STATES,\n APPELLEE\n\n\n Appeal from the United States District Court\n for the District of Columbia\n (No. 1:17-cv-00450)\n\n\n Jeffrey A. Lovitky argued the cause and filed the briefs for\nappellant.\n\n Matthew J. Glover, Counsel to the Assistant Attorney,\nU.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellee.\nWith him on the brief were Mark B. Stern and Michael Shih,\nAttorneys.\n\n Before: TATEL and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and\nWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.\n\f 2\n\n Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge\nWILLIAMS.\n\n WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: Officers of the United\nStates swear to “faithfully discharge the duties of the[ir]\noffice.” 5 U.S.C. § 3331; see also U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 8\n(requiring the President to swear that he “will faithfully execute\nthe Office of the President”). When they fall short, the\nMandamus Act offers relief; it vests district courts with\njurisdiction over “any action in the nature of mandamus to\ncompel an officer or employee of the United States . . . to\nperform a duty owed to the plaintiff.” 28 U.S.C. § 1361. The\nquestion here is whether the Act extends to duties pertaining\nnot to an officer’s public office, but to his pre-election (or pre-\nappointment) acts. We hold that it does not.\n\n\n * * *\n\n This case concerns a dispute about a then-presidential\ncandidate’s financial disclosure report. Under the Ethics in\nGovernment Act of 1978, candidates for certain offices,\nincluding the Presidency, must file financial disclosures with\nthe Federal Election Commission. 5 U.S.C. app. § 103(e).\nSubject to some limitations, a presidential candidate’s financial\ndisclosure “shall include a full and complete statement with\nrespect to,” among other things, the “identity and category of\nthe total liabilities owed to any creditor.” Id. § 102(a)(4).\n\n Plaintiff Jeffrey Lovitky, appellant here, alleges that, as a\npresidential candidate, Donald J. Trump filed a financial\ndisclosure report with the FEC on May 16, 2016. Compl. ¶ 13,\nJ.A. 11; see J.A. 28–131. Part 8 of this disclosure listed 16\nfinancial liabilities, identifying each creditor, and describing\nthe nature and terms of each liability. Compl. ¶ 16, J.A. 12; see\n\f 3\nJ.A. 84. The “appropriate reviewing officials” (see generally 5\nU.S.C. app. § 106; 5 C.F.R. § 2634.605) determined that\ncandidate Trump’s disclosures were “in apparent compliance\nwith the disclosure requirements of the Ethics in Government\nAct.” Compl. ¶ 13, J.A. 11; see J.A. 28.\n\n Lovitky sees non-compliance. He alleges that then-\ncandidate Trump’s financial disclosure included both personal\nand business liabilities, Compl. ¶¶ 37–42, J.A. 18–19, and that\nthis violated the Ethics in Government Act, which, Lovitky\nargues, “requires disclosure of only those liabilities for which\ncandidates are themselves liable . . . or for which the spouse or\ndependent child of the candidate are liable,” id. ¶ 24, J.A. 15;\nsee also id. ¶¶ 43–44, 46, J.A. 19–20. Candidate Trump,\nLovitky contends, “obscured his liabilities by commingling\nthem with the liabilities of business entities.” Appellant’s Br.\n11.\n\n Lovitky brought suit in the district court for the District of\nColumbia, seeking “relief in the nature of mandamus, directing\n[now-President Trump] to amend his financial disclosure\nreport” so that it “specifically identif[ies] any debts [that then-\ncandidate Trump] owed.” Compl. 14, J.A. 21.\n\n On April 10, 2018, the district court dismissed, holding\nthat Lovitky lacked Article III standing because the court could\nnot “issue the relief that [he] request[ed]” and thus could not\n“redress [his] grievance.” Lovitky v. Trump, 308 F. Supp. 3d\n250, 260 (D.D.C. 2018). Lovitky appeals, and we affirm—but\non other grounds.\n\n\n * * *\n\n We begin (and end) with subject-matter jurisdiction,\nwithout reaching the question of standing. See, e.g., Moms\n\f 4\nAgainst Mercury v. FDA, 483 F.3d 824, 826 (D.C. Cir. 2007)\n(“Where both standing and subject matter jurisdiction are at\nissue . . . a court may inquire into either and, finding it lacking,\ndismiss the matter without reaching the other.”). In his Second\nAmended Complaint, Lovitky asserts three bases of federal\nsubject-matter jurisdiction: 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal\nquestion); 28 U.S.C. § 1361 (mandamus); and 28 U.S.C.\n§ 2201 (declaratory judgment). Compl. ¶ 3, J.A. 9; see also\nAppellant’s Br. 1.\n\n But § 2201 (declaratory judgment) “is not an independent\nsource of federal jurisdiction.” Metz v. BAE Sys. Tech.\nSolutions & Servs. Inc., 774 F.3d 18, 25 n.8 (D.C. Cir. 2014)\n(quoting Ali v. Rumsfeld, 649 F.3d 762, 778 (D.C. Cir. 2011)).\nAnd Lovitky makes no effort to challenge the district court’s\nfinding, see 308 F. Supp. 3d at 260 n.8, that he abandoned\nreliance on § 1331 (federal question), thus forfeiting that\npossible font of jurisdiction for purposes of this appeal, see\nDeJesus v. WP Co., 841 F.3d 527, 532 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 2016).\n\n This leaves the Mandamus Act, which reads in full:\n\n § 1361. Action to compel an officer of the United States\n to perform his duty\n\n The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any\n action in the nature of mandamus to compel an officer or\n employee of the United States or an agency thereof to\n perform a duty owed to the plaintiff.\n\n28 U.S.C. § 1361. Lovitky brings this “action . . . to compel”\nan individual—namely, President Trump “in his official\ncapacity.” See Compl. ¶ 2, J.A. 9. We assume, without\ndeciding, that the President is “an officer” subject to the\nMandamus Act and that the alleged obligation—to provide a\n\f 5\n“full and complete statement” of liabilities, see, e.g., Compl. ¶\n44, J.A. 20 (quoting 5 U.S.C. app. § 102(a)(4)); Appellant’s Br.\n35 (same)—is one “owed to the plaintiff.” The only question,\nthen, is whether the obligation sued on, see 5 U.S.C. app.\n§ 101(c) (identifying candidates as persons required to file); id.\n§ 102(a)(4) (identifying liabilities required to be disclosed), is\na “duty” within the meaning of the Mandamus Act.\n\n It is not. Lovitky has challenged only one of Trump’s\nfinancial disclosure reports—the one filed in May 2016. At\nthat time, Trump’s obligation to provide a “full and complete\nstatement” of liabilities arose out of his status as a candidate\nfor the office of President, as he had not yet been elected. See\n5 U.S.C. app. § 101(c) (imposing reporting obligations on\n“candidate[s]” for “the office of President . . . other than an\nincumbent President”). That makes all the difference. As we’ll\ndevelop below, duties within the meaning of the Mandamus\nAct include only those obligations that pertain to a defendant\nofficer’s (or employee’s) public office. (Because Lovitky\nbases his claim on an obligation that was supposedly imposed\nby § 101(c), see, e.g., Appellant’s Supplemental Br. 4, we need\nnot—and do not—express an opinion as to whether other\nprovisions of the Ethics in Government Act impose a “duty”\nwithin the meaning of the Mandamus Act.)\n\n True, if read in isolation, the phrase “a duty owed to the\nplaintiff,” 28 U.S.C. § 1361, could—at least in theory—mean\nany “tasks” that any officer of the United States happens to be\n“obligat[ed]” to perform—whether by statute, private contract,\nor (perhaps) even “feeling[s]” of “moral obligation,” Webster’s\nThird New International Dictionary 705 (1981).\n\n But the context points to a narrower meaning. See, e.g.,\nLife Techs. Corp. v. Promega Corp., 137 S. Ct. 734, 740\n(2017). Here, “duty” is associated (in the text and title of the\n\f 6\nAct) with “officer,” see 28 U.S.C. § 1361—that is, one “who\nperforms the duties of the office,” Black’s Law Dictionary 977\n(5th ed. 1979) (emphasis added); see also Webster’s Third,\nsupra, at 1567 (defining an “office” as “a special duty, charge,\nor position conferred by an exercise of governmental authority\nand for a public purpose”). (The word “officer,” we note, is\nitself derived from the Latin word officium, meaning “duty.”\nId.). In this context—where a statute links an officer to his\n“duty”—the most natural reading of “duty” refers only to those\nduties entailed by the office in question.\n\n The statute’s common law background also supports\nreading it to require that the duty a plaintiff seeks to compel via\n§ 1361 must pertain to a defendant’s public office. “It is a\nsettled principle of interpretation that, absent other indication,\n‘Congress intends to incorporate the well-settled meaning of\nthe common-law terms its uses.’” Sekhar v. United States, 570\nU.S. 729, 732 (2013) (quoting Neder v. United States, 527 U.S.\n1, 23 (1999)). By using the terms “action[s] in the nature of\nmandamus,” § 1361 invokes the common-law writ of\nmandamus. Apart from defendants of no relevance here (i.e.,\ncommon carriers, corporations, and certain public franchises,\nsee, e.g., S.S. Merrill, Law of Mandamus §§ 25–28, at 23–28\n(Chicago, T.H. Flood & Co. 1892)), the subjects of mandamus\nunder the common law were persons who owed not just any\nact, but an act that “appertain[ed] to their office and duty.”\nCrocker v. Piedmont Aviation, Inc., 49 F.3d 735, 745 (D.C. Cir.\n1995) (quoting 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries *110);\naccord, e.g., Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 147\n(1803) (Marshall, C.J.). The common law writ, in other words,\nissued “to compel the performance of an act which the law\nenjoin[ed] as a duty resulting from an office, trust or station.”\nMerrill, supra, § 13, at 7 (emphasis added), cited in Appellant’s\nSupplemental Br. 2 & n.3; accord, e.g., N. Pac. R.R. Co. v.\nWashington ex rel. Dustin, 142 U.S. 492, 506 (1892); see also,\n\f 7\ne.g., Eberle v. King, 93 P. 748, 753 (Okla. 1908) (“[W]here the\nwrit is sought to be invoked, the proper inquiry is, does the duty\nsought to be enforced clearly result from an office, trust, or\nstation?”); Merrill, supra, § 23, at 20 (“The rule is, that this writ\nwill not . . . lie against an officer for acts done in an unofficial\ncharacter.”).\n\n Detachment of the duty from the office of the defendant\nwould lead to serious incongruities. For example, where an\nofficer is sued in his official capacity, as here, Rule 25(d) of the\nFederal Rules of Civil Procedure automatically substitutes as\ndefendant the official’s successor in office. See, e.g., Nader v.\nSaxbe, 497 F.2d 676, 677 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 1974). Acceptance of\nLovitky’s theory would thus, in principle, mean that a public\nofficial could be compelled to perform the personal financial\ndisclosure duties of his predecessor (and who knows what other\nduties)—an exceedingly odd result.\n\n In sum, the Mandamus Act applies only to duties that flow\nfrom a defendant’s public office. And because the alleged duty\nhere—directed at candidates for public office—lacks that\ndefining characteristic, the district court had no jurisdiction\nunder that Act over Lovitky’s claims.\n\n\n * * *\n\n For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s judgment\ndismissing the case is affirmed.\n\n So ordered.\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Jeffrey A. LOVITKY, Appellant v. Donald J. TRUMP, in His Official Capacity as President of the United States, Appellee\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\nUnited States Court of Appeals\\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\\n\\n\\n\\nArgued December 14, 2018 Decided March 15, 2019\\n\\n No. 18-5105\\n\\n JEFFREY A. LOVITKY,\\n APPELLANT\\n\\n v.\\n\\n DONALD J. TRUMP, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS PRESIDENT\\n OF THE UNITED STATES,\\n APPELLEE\\n\\n\\n Appeal from the United States District Court\\n for the District of Columbia\\n (No. 1:17-cv-00450)\\n\\n\\n Jeffrey A. Lovitky argued the cause and filed the briefs for\\nappellant.\\n\\n Matthew J. Glover, Counsel to the Assistant Attorney,\\nU.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellee.\\nWith him on the brief were Mark B. Stern and Michael Shih,\\nAttorneys.\\n\\n Before: TATEL and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and\\nWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.\\n\\f 2\\n\\n Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge\\nWILLIAMS.\\n\\n WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: Officers of the United\\nStates swear to “faithfully discharge the duties of the[ir]\\noffice.” 5 U.S.C. § 3331; see also U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 8\\n(requiring the President to swear that he “will faithfully execute\\nthe Office of the President”). When they fall short, the\\nMandamus Act offers relief; it vests district courts with\\njurisdiction over “any action in the nature of mandamus to\\ncompel an officer or employee of the United States . . . to\\nperform a duty owed to the plaintiff.” 28 U.S.C. § 1361. The\\nquestion here is whether the Act extends to duties pertaining\\nnot to an officer’s public office, but to his pre-election (or pre-\\nappointment) acts. We hold that it does not.\\n\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n This case concerns a dispute about a then-presidential\\ncandidate’s financial disclosure report. Under the Ethics in\\nGovernment Act of 1978, candidates for certain offices,\\nincluding the Presidency, must file financial disclosures with\\nthe Federal Election Commission. 5 U.S.C. app. § 103(e).\\nSubject to some limitations, a presidential candidate’s financial\\ndisclosure “shall include a full and complete statement with\\nrespect to,” among other things, the “identity and category of\\nthe total liabilities owed to any creditor.” Id. § 102(a)(4).\\n\\n Plaintiff Jeffrey Lovitky, appellant here, alleges that, as a\\npresidential candidate, Donald J. Trump filed a financial\\ndisclosure report with the FEC on May 16, 2016. Compl. ¶ 13,\\nJ.A. 11; see J.A. 28–131. Part 8 of this disclosure listed 16\\nfinancial liabilities, identifying each creditor, and describing\\nthe nature and terms of each liability. Compl. ¶ 16, J.A. 12; see\\n\\f 3\\nJ.A. 84. The “appropriate reviewing officials” (see generally 5\\nU.S.C. app. § 106; 5 C.F.R. § 2634.605) determined that\\ncandidate Trump’s disclosures were “in apparent compliance\\nwith the disclosure requirements of the Ethics in Government\\nAct.” Compl. ¶ 13, J.A. 11; see J.A. 28.\\n\\n Lovitky sees non-compliance. He alleges that then-\\ncandidate Trump’s financial disclosure included both personal\\nand business liabilities, Compl. ¶¶ 37–42, J.A. 18–19, and that\\nthis violated the Ethics in Government Act, which, Lovitky\\nargues, “requires disclosure of only those liabilities for which\\ncandidates are themselves liable . . . or for which the spouse or\\ndependent child of the candidate are liable,” id. ¶ 24, J.A. 15;\\nsee also id. ¶¶ 43–44, 46, J.A. 19–20. Candidate Trump,\\nLovitky contends, “obscured his liabilities by commingling\\nthem with the liabilities of business entities.” Appellant’s Br.\\n11.\\n\\n Lovitky brought suit in the district court for the District of\\nColumbia, seeking “relief in the nature of mandamus, directing\\n[now-President Trump] to amend his financial disclosure\\nreport” so that it “specifically identif[ies] any debts [that then-\\ncandidate Trump] owed.” Compl. 14, J.A. 21.\\n\\n On April 10, 2018, the district court dismissed, holding\\nthat Lovitky lacked Article III standing because the court could\\nnot “issue the relief that [he] request[ed]” and thus could not\\n“redress [his] grievance.” Lovitky v. Trump, 308 F. Supp. 3d\\n250, 260 (D.D.C. 2018). Lovitky appeals, and we affirm—but\\non other grounds.\\n\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n We begin (and end) with subject-matter jurisdiction,\\nwithout reaching the question of standing. See, e.g., Moms\\n\\f 4\\nAgainst Mercury v. FDA, 483 F.3d 824, 826 (D.C. Cir. 2007)\\n(“Where both standing and subject matter jurisdiction are at\\nissue . . . a court may inquire into either and, finding it lacking,\\ndismiss the matter without reaching the other.”). In his Second\\nAmended Complaint, Lovitky asserts three bases of federal\\nsubject-matter jurisdiction: 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal\\nquestion); 28 U.S.C. § 1361 (mandamus); and 28 U.S.C.\\n§ 2201 (declaratory judgment). Compl. ¶ 3, J.A. 9; see also\\nAppellant’s Br. 1.\\n\\n But § 2201 (declaratory judgment) “is not an independent\\nsource of federal jurisdiction.” Metz v. BAE Sys. Tech.\\nSolutions & Servs. Inc., 774 F.3d 18, 25 n.8 (D.C. Cir. 2014)\\n(quoting Ali v. Rumsfeld, 649 F.3d 762, 778 (D.C. Cir. 2011)).\\nAnd Lovitky makes no effort to challenge the district court’s\\nfinding, see 308 F. Supp. 3d at 260 n.8, that he abandoned\\nreliance on § 1331 (federal question), thus forfeiting that\\npossible font of jurisdiction for purposes of this appeal, see\\nDeJesus v. WP Co., 841 F.3d 527, 532 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 2016).\\n\\n This leaves the Mandamus Act, which reads in full:\\n\\n § 1361. Action to compel an officer of the United States\\n to perform his duty\\n\\n The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any\\n action in the nature of mandamus to compel an officer or\\n employee of the United States or an agency thereof to\\n perform a duty owed to the plaintiff.\\n\\n28 U.S.C. § 1361. Lovitky brings this “action . . . to compel”\\nan individual—namely, President Trump “in his official\\ncapacity.” See Compl. ¶ 2, J.A. 9. We assume, without\\ndeciding, that the President is “an officer” subject to the\\nMandamus Act and that the alleged obligation—to provide a\\n\\f 5\\n“full and complete statement” of liabilities, see, e.g., Compl. ¶\\n44, J.A. 20 (quoting 5 U.S.C. app. § 102(a)(4)); Appellant’s Br.\\n35 (same)—is one “owed to the plaintiff.” The only question,\\nthen, is whether the obligation sued on, see 5 U.S.C. app.\\n§ 101(c) (identifying candidates as persons required to file); id.\\n§ 102(a)(4) (identifying liabilities required to be disclosed), is\\na “duty” within the meaning of the Mandamus Act.\\n\\n It is not. Lovitky has challenged only one of Trump’s\\nfinancial disclosure reports—the one filed in May 2016. At\\nthat time, Trump’s obligation to provide a “full and complete\\nstatement” of liabilities arose out of his status as a candidate\\nfor the office of President, as he had not yet been elected. See\\n5 U.S.C. app. § 101(c) (imposing reporting obligations on\\n“candidate[s]” for “the office of President . . . other than an\\nincumbent President”). That makes all the difference. As we’ll\\ndevelop below, duties within the meaning of the Mandamus\\nAct include only those obligations that pertain to a defendant\\nofficer’s (or employee’s) public office. (Because Lovitky\\nbases his claim on an obligation that was supposedly imposed\\nby § 101(c), see, e.g., Appellant’s Supplemental Br. 4, we need\\nnot—and do not—express an opinion as to whether other\\nprovisions of the Ethics in Government Act impose a “duty”\\nwithin the meaning of the Mandamus Act.)\\n\\n True, if read in isolation, the phrase “a duty owed to the\\nplaintiff,” 28 U.S.C. § 1361, could—at least in theory—mean\\nany “tasks” that any officer of the United States happens to be\\n“obligat[ed]” to perform—whether by statute, private contract,\\nor (perhaps) even “feeling[s]” of “moral obligation,” Webster’s\\nThird New International Dictionary 705 (1981).\\n\\n But the context points to a narrower meaning. See, e.g.,\\nLife Techs. Corp. v. Promega Corp., 137 S. Ct. 734, 740\\n(2017). Here, “duty” is associated (in the text and title of the\\n\\f 6\\nAct) with “officer,” see 28 U.S.C. § 1361—that is, one “who\\nperforms the duties of the office,” Black’s Law Dictionary 977\\n(5th ed. 1979) (emphasis added); see also Webster’s Third,\\nsupra, at 1567 (defining an “office” as “a special duty, charge,\\nor position conferred by an exercise of governmental authority\\nand for a public purpose”). (The word “officer,” we note, is\\nitself derived from the Latin word officium, meaning “duty.”\\nId.). In this context—where a statute links an officer to his\\n“duty”—the most natural reading of “duty” refers only to those\\nduties entailed by the office in question.\\n\\n The statute’s common law background also supports\\nreading it to require that the duty a plaintiff seeks to compel via\\n§ 1361 must pertain to a defendant’s public office. “It is a\\nsettled principle of interpretation that, absent other indication,\\n‘Congress intends to incorporate the well-settled meaning of\\nthe common-law terms its uses.’” Sekhar v. United States, 570\\nU.S. 729, 732 (2013) (quoting Neder v. United States, 527 U.S.\\n1, 23 (1999)). By using the terms “action[s] in the nature of\\nmandamus,” § 1361 invokes the common-law writ of\\nmandamus. Apart from defendants of no relevance here (i.e.,\\ncommon carriers, corporations, and certain public franchises,\\nsee, e.g., S.S. Merrill, Law of Mandamus §§ 25–28, at 23–28\\n(Chicago, T.H. Flood & Co. 1892)), the subjects of mandamus\\nunder the common law were persons who owed not just any\\nact, but an act that “appertain[ed] to their office and duty.”\\nCrocker v. Piedmont Aviation, Inc., 49 F.3d 735, 745 (D.C. Cir.\\n1995) (quoting 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries *110);\\naccord, e.g., Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 147\\n(1803) (Marshall, C.J.). The common law writ, in other words,\\nissued “to compel the performance of an act which the law\\nenjoin[ed] as a duty resulting from an office, trust or station.”\\nMerrill, supra, § 13, at 7 (emphasis added), cited in Appellant’s\\nSupplemental Br. 2 & n.3; accord, e.g., N. Pac. R.R. Co. v.\\nWashington ex rel. Dustin, 142 U.S. 492, 506 (1892); see also,\\n\\f 7\\ne.g., Eberle v. King, 93 P. 748, 753 (Okla. 1908) (“[W]here the\\nwrit is sought to be invoked, the proper inquiry is, does the duty\\nsought to be enforced clearly result from an office, trust, or\\nstation?”); Merrill, supra, § 23, at 20 (“The rule is, that this writ\\nwill not . . . lie against an officer for acts done in an unofficial\\ncharacter.”).\\n\\n Detachment of the duty from the office of the defendant\\nwould lead to serious incongruities. For example, where an\\nofficer is sued in his official capacity, as here, Rule 25(d) of the\\nFederal Rules of Civil Procedure automatically substitutes as\\ndefendant the official’s successor in office. See, e.g., Nader v.\\nSaxbe, 497 F.2d 676, 677 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 1974). Acceptance of\\nLovitky’s theory would thus, in principle, mean that a public\\nofficial could be compelled to perform the personal financial\\ndisclosure duties of his predecessor (and who knows what other\\nduties)—an exceedingly odd result.\\n\\n In sum, the Mandamus Act applies only to duties that flow\\nfrom a defendant’s public office. And because the alleged duty\\nhere—directed at candidates for public office—lacks that\\ndefining characteristic, the district court had no jurisdiction\\nunder that Act over Lovitky’s claims.\\n\\n\\n * * *\\n\\n For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s judgment\\ndismissing the case is affirmed.\\n\\n So ordered.\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1397,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335327,"string":"7,335,327"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Campaign Legal Ctr. v. U.S. Dep't of Justice"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-15"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Civil Action No. 18-0340 (ABJ)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253247/\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335327/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1398,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":7335328,"string":"7,335,328"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"Karen KLOTZBACH-PIPER v. NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION, dba Amtrak"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Klotzbach-Piper v. Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp."},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-15"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"Civil Action No.: 18-1702 (RC)"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Contreras, Introduction\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253248/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"CONTRERAS"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"CONTRERAS"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335328/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: Karen KLOTZBACH-PIPER v. NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION, dba Amtrak\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: Karen KLOTZBACH-PIPER v. NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION, dba Amtrak\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}},{"rowIdx":1399,"cells":{"id":{"kind":"number","value":8443922,"string":"8,443,922"},"name":{"kind":"string","value":"PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE"},"name_abbreviation":{"kind":"string","value":"Peta v. U.S. Dept. Of Agriculture"},"decision_date":{"kind":"string","value":"2019-03-15"},"docket_number":{"kind":"string","value":"No. 18-5074"},"court":{"kind":"string","value":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit"},"casebody":{"kind":"string","value":"{\"judges\": \"Williams\", \"parties\": \"\", \"opinions\": [{\"author\": \"\", \"type\": \"020lead\", \"text\": \"\", \"resource_uri\": \"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/8415353/\", \"author_raw\": \"\"}]}"},"judge1":{"kind":"string","value":"WILLIAMS"},"judge2":{"kind":"string","value":"WILLIAMS"},"judge3":{"kind":"string","value":""},"exactly_three_caps":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"extra_judges":{"kind":"string","value":""},"judge_designations":{"kind":"string","value":"{}"},"opinions_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"majority_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"other_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"primary_citation":{"kind":"string","value":""},"reporter":{"kind":"string","value":""},"volume":{"kind":"null"},"resource_url":{"kind":"string","value":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/8443922/"},"precedential_status":{"kind":"string","value":"Published"},"010combined_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"020lead_count":{"kind":"number","value":1,"string":"1"},"030concurrence_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"035concurrenceinpart_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"040dissent_count":{"kind":"number","value":0,"string":"0"},"year":{"kind":"number","value":2019,"string":"2,019"},"month":{"kind":"number","value":3,"string":"3"},"messages":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"content":"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\n\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\nobject that encodes the following variables:\n\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\n- Disposition of Case\n- Winning Party\n- Issue Area\n- Legal Provisions\n- Decision Direction\n- Lower Court Direction\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\n\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \"the Court\"** and assuming\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\n\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\n\n==================================================\n1. INPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou will receive input in two sections:\n\n[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\">\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\nOpinion type: <e.g. \"majority\", \"per curiam\", \"on-the-merits\", \"rehearing\", \"en banc\", etc.>\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\n[END_CASE]\n\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\n\n==================================================\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\n==================================================\n\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\n\n- \"petitioner\"\n- \"respondent\"\n- \"case_disposition\"\n- \"winning_party\"\n- \"issue_area\"\n- \"legal_provisions\"\n- \"decision_direction\"\n- \"lower_court_direction\"\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\"\n- \"method\"\n- \"who_appealed\"\n- \"dissent_basis\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\n- \"concurrence_type\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"concurrence_basis\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\n- \"justification\"\n\nSchema:\n\n- \"petitioner\": {\n \"name\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\n \"description\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"respondent\": {\n \"name\": string,\n \"description\": string, // e.g. \"United States as appellee\", \"private employer\", \"federal agency\"\n \"category\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\n \"category_label\": string // label for the category code\n }\n\n- \"case_disposition\": {\n \"code\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"winning_party\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"issue_area\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\n \"label\": string // short description of the main issue area\n }\n\n- \"issue_area_alt\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"legal_provisions\": [\n {\n \"area_code\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\n \"area_label\": string,\n \"provision_text\": string // e.g. \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\", \"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\"\n },\n ...\n ]\n\n- \"decision_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"lower_court_direction\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\n \"label\": string // \"no\" or \"yes\"\n }\n\n- \"method\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"who_appealed\": {\n \"code\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"dissent_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_type\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"code\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\n \"label\": string\n }\n\n- \"concurrence_basis\": { // ONLY include if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\" in metadata\n \"procedural\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n \"merits\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\n }\n\n- \"justification\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\n\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\n\n==================================================\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\n==================================================\n\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\n\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\n- The \"name\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\n- The \"description\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \"federal prisoner challenging sentence\",\n \"state official in civil-rights suit\", \"private corporation defendant\", \"federal agency\").\n\nFor each party, also assign a \"category\" code using this 7-category typology:\n\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\n\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\n\n\n3.2 Disposition of Case\n\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\n\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\n2 = reversed\n3 = reversed and remanded\n4 = vacated and remanded\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\n7 = vacated\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\n0 = no disposition\n\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\n or original authority (the word \"remand\" must appear in the opinion text).\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\"no disposition\").\n\n\n3.3 Winning Party\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\n\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\n- A \"favorable disposition\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\n regardless of the case disposition.\n\n\n3.4 Issue Area\n\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\n\n1 = Criminal Procedure\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\n\n2 = Civil Rights\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\n\n3 = First Amendment\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\n\n4 = Due Process\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\n\n5 = Privacy\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\n\n6 = Attorneys\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\n\n7 = Unions\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\n\n8 = Economic Activity\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\n\n9 = Judicial Power\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\n\n10 = Federalism\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\n\n11 = Interstate Relations\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\n\n12 = Federal Taxation\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\n\n13 = Miscellaneous\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\n\n14 = Private Action\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\n\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\n\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\n\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\n\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\n\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \"issue_area_alt\" with your\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\nset \"issue_area_alt\" to the same code and label as \"issue_area\".\n\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\n\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\n\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\n\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\n\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\n use 8.\n\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\n allegation.\n\n\n3.5 Legal Provisions\n\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \"legal_provisions\".\n\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\n\n1 = Constitution (original text)\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\n\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\n\n3 = Federal Statute\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\n\n4 = Court Rules\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\n (prejudicial evidence).\n\n5 = Other\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\n the categories above.\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\n of laches, implied contracts.\n\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\n\n8 = State or local law or regulation\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\n than federal law.\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\n\n9 = No Legal Provision\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\n citing specific legal authority.\n\nFor each entry:\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \"Constitution\", \"Federal Statute\").\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\",\n \"42 U.S.C. § 1983\", \"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\", \"state tort law\").\n\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\n\nDistinguishing area codes:\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\n\n\n3.6 Decision Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\nCRITICAL: The codes \"conservative\" and \"liberal\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\n\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\n\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\n | with one of the patterns above |\n\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\nprinciples — use the table.\n\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\n\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\n\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\n\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\n says \"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\n\n\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\n\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\n row for code 1 says \"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\"\n\n\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\n\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\n\n Coding:\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\n lookup table row for code 8 says \"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\"\n\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \"pro-business\" outcome (e.g., it\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\n\n\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\n\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\n\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\n\n\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = conservative\n2 = liberal\n3 = unspecifiable\n\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\n\nUse this rule of thumb:\n\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \"affirmed\"\n or 8 \"petition denied or appeal dismissed\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \"reversed\",\n 3 \"reversed and remanded\", 4 \"vacated and remanded\", or 7 \"vacated\"), then the lower court's direction is the\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\n\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\n- \"SAME\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\n- \"OPPOSITE\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\n\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\n\nCodes:\n\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\n\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\n\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\nchallenged provision, code 0.\n\n\n3.9 Method\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\n\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\nstatements like \"before the court en banc,\" \"on rehearing,\" \"upon reconsideration,\" or\n\"per curiam.\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\n\n\n3.10 Who Appealed\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\n\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\nhistory. The \"original plaintiff\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \"original\ndefendant\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\n\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\n\n\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\" or \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\",\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\n\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\n\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\n\n\"dissent_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\n - \"merits\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\n\n\"concurrence_basis\" (include ONLY if \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\"):\n - \"procedural\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\n - \"merits\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\n\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\n(the longest or most substantive).\n\nIf the metadata says \"Has dissenting opinion: No\", OMIT \"dissent_basis\" entirely from your output.\nIf the metadata says \"Has concurring opinion: No\", OMIT \"concurrence_type\" and \"concurrence_basis\" entirely from your output.\n\n\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\n\nIf the case metadata states \"Has concurring opinion: Yes\", classify the concurrence as one of\nthe following types:\n\nCodes:\n\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\n\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\n like \"concurring in the result,\" \"concurring in the judgment,\" \"concurring in the result\n only,\" or \"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\n majority's analysis.\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\n\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\n the majority opinion or only the result.\n\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\nboth outcome and reasoning.\n\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\n\n\n==================================================\n4. GENERAL RULES\n==================================================\n\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \"unspecifiable\" or \"no disposition\" code\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\n directions in Section 3.6.\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\n- Include \"dissent_basis\", \"concurrence_type\", and \"concurrence_basis\" ONLY when the metadata\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\n\n\n==================================================\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\n==================================================\n\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\n","role":"system"},{"content":"[CASE_METADATA]\nCase name: PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\nOpinion type: majority\nHas dissenting opinion: No\nHas concurring opinion: No\nAdditional notes: \n\n[CASE_TEXT]\n\n[END_CASE]","role":"user"}],"string":"[\n {\n \"content\": \"You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the codebook below.\\n\\nYour task: Given metadata and text for a single federal appellate case, output a single JSON\\nobject that encodes the following variables:\\n\\n- Petitioner (name, description, and general category)\\n- Respondent (name, description, and general category)\\n- Disposition of Case\\n- Winning Party\\n- Issue Area\\n- Legal Provisions\\n- Decision Direction\\n- Lower Court Direction\\n- Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n- Method (panel, en banc, or rehearing)\\n- Who Appealed (original plaintiff vs. defendant)\\n- Dissent Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if dissent exists)\\n- Concurrence Type (regular vs. special/result-only — only if concurrence exists)\\n- Concurrence Basis (procedural vs. merits — only if concurrence exists)\\n\\nYou are working with U.S. Courts of Appeals, not the Supreme Court. Apply the SCDB coding\\nrules as closely as possible, treating the **Court of Appeals as \\\"the Court\\\"** and assuming\\nthat the **lower court is, e.g., a federal district court** whose decision is being reviewed.\\n\\nTo encode these variables, start by determining the petitioner and respondent, following the\\ninstructions in Section 3.1. Then, find the disposition of the case and code it according\\nto Section 3.2. Knowing the disposition will guide your next step: determining if the petitioner\\nwas the winning party, following the directions in Section 3.3. Next, use the overall opinion content\\nto code the issue area as described in Section 3.4. This step will also inform the legal provisions\\ncoding as laid out in Section 3.5. With the winning party, disposition, and issue area fixed,\\ncarefully and precisely follow the directions in Section 3.6 to assign a decision direction for the opinion.\\nBased on that decision direction and the disposition, you can assign a lower court direction as well,\\nfollowing Section 3.7. Finally, justify your decisions in the manner described below.\\n\\n==================================================\\n1. INPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou will receive input in two sections:\\n\\n[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: <case name as in the caption>\\nCourt: <name of the Court of Appeals, e.g. \\\"United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit\\\">\\nDate decided: <YYYY-MM-DD or best approximation>\\nOpinion type: <e.g. \\\"majority\\\", \\\"per curiam\\\", \\\"on-the-merits\\\", \\\"rehearing\\\", \\\"en banc\\\", etc.>\\nHas dissenting opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate dissent>\\nHas concurring opinion: <Yes or No, based on whether the input data contains a separate concurrence>\\nAdditional notes: <any other metadata or summary, if provided>\\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n<full or excerpted opinion text here>\\n[END_CASE]\\n\\nUse both metadata and text to code the variables. If metadata and text conflict, prefer the\\nsubstantive discussion in the opinion.\\n\\n==================================================\\n2. OUTPUT FORMAT\\n==================================================\\n\\nYou must output ONLY a single JSON object with exactly these keys:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\"\\n- \\\"respondent\\\"\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\"\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\"\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\"\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\"\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\"\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\"\\n- \\\"method\\\"\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\"\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\" (only if the case has a dissenting opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (only if the case has a concurring opinion)\\n- \\\"justification\\\"\\n\\nSchema:\\n\\n- \\\"petitioner\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string, // short party name from caption; usually the appellant\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // role and identity, e.g. \\\"federal criminal defendant appealing conviction\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"respondent\\\": {\\n \\\"name\\\": string,\\n \\\"description\\\": string, // e.g. \\\"United States as appellee\\\", \\\"private employer\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\"\\n \\\"category\\\": integer, // 1–7 general litigant type (see Section 3.1)\\n \\\"category_label\\\": string // label for the category code\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"case_disposition\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // must be one of the codes below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"winning_party\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0, 1, or 2 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14 from the list below\\n \\\"label\\\": string // short description of the main issue area\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"issue_area_alt\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–14; your best non-Misc alternative if issue_area.code == 13, else same as issue_area.code\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"legal_provisions\\\": [\\n {\\n \\\"area_code\\\": integer, // 1–9 (law area codes below)\\n \\\"area_label\\\": string,\\n \\\"provision_text\\\": string // e.g. \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\", \\\"18 U.S.C. § 924(c)\\\"\\n },\\n ...\\n ]\\n\\n- \\\"decision_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"lower_court_direction\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1, 2, or 3 as defined below\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"declaration_of_unconstitutionality\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 0 or 1 (see Section 3.8)\\n \\\"label\\\": string // \\\"no\\\" or \\\"yes\\\"\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"method\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.9)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"who_appealed\\\": {\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–4 (see Section 3.10)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"dissent_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_type\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"code\\\": integer, // 1–3 (see Section 3.12)\\n \\\"label\\\": string\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"concurrence_basis\\\": { // ONLY include if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\" in metadata\\n \\\"procedural\\\": integer, // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n \\\"merits\\\": integer // 0–3 (see Section 3.11)\\n }\\n\\n- \\\"justification\\\": string // 2–4 sentences summarizing why you chose these codes.\\n // You MUST explicitly say: (a) who won and why, (b) what issue_area.code is,\\n // (c) how that combination implied the decision_direction.code you chose, and\\n // (d) why the lower_court_direction is the same as or opposite to decision_direction.\\n\\nYour entire response must be exactly one JSON object in this schema and nothing else.\\n\\n==================================================\\n3. VARIABLE INTERPRETATION\\n==================================================\\n\\n3.1 Petitioner and Respondent\\n\\n- Use the case caption, opinion type, and text to determine who is appealing.\\n- Petitioner = the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals (typically the appellant).\\n- Respondent = the party opposing the appeal (typically the appellee).\\n- The \\\"name\\\" should be a reasonably short label from the caption.\\n- The \\\"description\\\" should describe their role and identity (e.g., \\\"federal prisoner challenging sentence\\\",\\n \\\"state official in civil-rights suit\\\", \\\"private corporation defendant\\\", \\\"federal agency\\\").\\n\\nFor each party, also assign a \\\"category\\\" code using this 7-category typology:\\n\\n1 = private business or corporation (including partnerships, sole proprietorships)\\n2 = nonprofit organization, interest group, or union (as an institutional party)\\n3 = federal government (including U.S. as party, federal agencies like DOJ, IRS, EPA, SEC, NLRB, etc.)\\n4 = sub-state government (city, county, municipality, school district, local official)\\n5 = state government (state, governor, state agency, state official in official capacity)\\n6 = tribal government or Indian nation\\n7 = natural person (individual, including pro se litigants and individual officials sued personally)\\n\\nChoose the category based on who the party IS, not what kind of case it is. When a government\\nofficial is sued in their official capacity, code them as the relevant government level (3, 4, or 5).\\nWhen sued in their personal/individual capacity, code them as 7 (natural person).\\n\\n\\n3.2 Disposition of Case\\n\\nCodes (Songer-style numbering):\\n\\n1 = affirmed (includes modified and affirmed)\\n2 = reversed\\n3 = reversed and remanded\\n4 = vacated and remanded\\n5 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part\\n6 = affirmed in part, reversed (or vacated) in part, and remanded\\n7 = vacated\\n8 = petition denied or appeal dismissed\\n9 = stay, petition, or motion granted\\n10 = certification to or from a lower court\\n11 = affirmed, vacated, and remanded (without reversal)\\n0 = no disposition\\n\\n- Use the text and opinion type (majority, rehearing, etc.) to identify what the Court of Appeals actually did.\\n- Only choose options 3, 4, or 6 if the opinion contains explicit instructions to remand the matter to the lower court\\n or original authority (the word \\\"remand\\\" must appear in the opinion text).\\n- For rehearing petitions, be explicit about whether the petition is granted (9), denied (8), or leads to modification\\n or vacatur (7) of the prior judgment.\\n- If the Court takes no substantive action on the merits (e.g., purely procedural opinion), use 0 (\\\"no disposition\\\").\\n\\n\\n3.3 Winning Party\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = no favorable disposition for petitioning party apparent\\n1 = petitioning party received a favorable disposition\\n2 = favorable disposition for petitioning party unclear\\n\\n- Treat the **petitioner** as the party seeking relief in the Court of Appeals.\\n- A \\\"favorable disposition\\\" is one that materially improves the petitioner's position relative to the lower court judgment\\n (e.g., reversal, vacatur, remand requiring relief, sentence reduction).\\n- For mixed outcomes (e.g., affirmed in part and reversed in part), assess whether, on balance, the petitioner is better off.\\n If clearly better off, use 1; if clearly not better off, use 0; if ambiguous, use 2.\\n- Note that an outcome favoring the petitioning party may be either an affirmation (if the lower court had ruled in favor of the petitioner)\\n OR a reversal (if the lower court had ruled against the petitioner). You should focus on whether the petitioner is better off,\\n regardless of the case disposition.\\n\\n\\n3.4 Issue Area\\n\\nChoose exactly one code and label from this list, based on the main legal/policy issue in the appeal:\\n\\n1 = Criminal Procedure\\n (e.g., search and seizure, arrest, interrogation, right to counsel, trial and sentencing rules, habeas)\\n\\n2 = Civil Rights\\n (e.g., equal protection, discrimination based on race or other protected traits, voting rights, school desegregation)\\n\\n3 = First Amendment\\n (e.g., freedom of speech, press, association, religion, and related expression claims)\\n\\n4 = Due Process\\n (e.g., non-criminal procedural fairness, property or liberty deprivations, economic regulation challenges framed as due process)\\n\\n5 = Privacy\\n (e.g., contraception, abortion, family relationships, intimate or sexual privacy, personal autonomy)\\n\\n6 = Attorneys\\n (e.g., attorney's fees, sanctions, bar admission and discipline, representation issues)\\n\\n7 = Unions\\n (e.g., labor relations, union membership and internal affairs, collective bargaining, union security)\\n\\n8 = Economic Activity\\n (e.g., antitrust, securities, regulation of business, commercial law, bankruptcy, financial regulation)\\n\\n9 = Judicial Power\\n (e.g., jurisdiction, standing, mootness, justiciability, sovereign immunity, standards of review, appellate procedure)\\n\\n10 = Federalism\\n (e.g., conflicts between federal and state authority, preemption, Tenth Amendment issues, state sovereign immunity vs federal power)\\n\\n11 = Interstate Relations\\n (e.g., disputes between states, boundary and water disputes, interstate compacts and obligations)\\n\\n12 = Federal Taxation\\n (e.g., federal income, corporate, estate, excise, and other federal tax issues)\\n\\n13 = Miscellaneous\\n (cases that genuinely do not fit any other issue area — see IMPORTANT note below)\\n\\n14 = Private Action\\n (e.g., private law disputes in property, contracts, torts, wills, estates, and similar matters)\\n\\nPick the **single best** issue area based on what the Court of Appeals treats as the central question.\\nIf multiple areas appear, choose the one most emphasized in the reasoning.\\n\\nIMPORTANT — AVOID MISCELLANEOUS (13):\\n\\nCode 13 should be used ONLY as a genuine last resort when NO other category applies even\\napproximately. Before choosing 13, reconsider the following common mappings:\\n\\n - Medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, breach of contract,\\n admiralty, property disputes → 14 (Private Action)\\n - Workers' compensation (LHWCA, FELA, Longshore Act) → 7 (Unions) or 14 (Private Action)\\n - Bankruptcy, securities, antitrust, business regulation → 8 (Economic Activity)\\n - Social Security, disability, welfare benefits → 2 (Civil Rights)\\n - Attorneys' fees, bar discipline → 6 (Attorneys)\\n - Federal preemption of state law → 10 (Federalism)\\n - Procedural rehearing or jurisdictional questions → 9 (Judicial Power)\\n - Separation of powers, legislative veto → 13 (Miscellaneous) — this is a genuine use\\n\\nIf you DO choose issue_area.code = 13, you MUST also fill in \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" with your\\nbest-guess alternative code (the closest non-Misc category). If issue_area.code is not 13,\\nset \\\"issue_area_alt\\\" to the same code and label as \\\"issue_area\\\".\\n\\nISSUE AREA TIEBREAKING RULES:\\n\\nWhen a case implicates more than one issue area, apply these rules to select the primary one:\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Civil Rights (2): If the court's holding concerns criminal\\n conviction, sentencing, or procedure itself (e.g., suppression of evidence, habeas review of\\n a conviction), use 1 even if discrimination or civil-rights statutes are mentioned. Use 2\\n only when the holding primarily addresses whether discriminatory treatment occurred or whether\\n a civil-rights statute was violated.\\n\\n- Criminal Procedure (1) vs. Due Process (4): If the party is a criminal defendant raising\\n due-process claims about trial procedure, sentencing, or conditions of confinement, use 1.\\n Use 4 only when the due-process claim arises in a non-criminal context (e.g., government\\n termination of benefits, property seizure in a civil case).\\n\\n- Judicial Power (9) vs. any other area: Many cases discuss jurisdiction, standing, or\\n justiciability before reaching the merits. Use 9 ONLY when the court's holding is\\n primarily about whether it has the power to hear the case — i.e., the court resolves a\\n jurisdictional or justiciability question and that resolution IS the outcome. If the court\\n establishes jurisdiction and then rules on the merits, use the substantive merits area instead.\\n\\n- Economic Activity (8) vs. Federalism (10): If the holding is about whether a federal\\n statute preempts state regulation, use 10. If the holding is about the substance of a\\n federal regulatory scheme (e.g., upholding or striking down an EPA rule on the merits),\\n use 8.\\n\\n- Civil Rights (2) vs. Due Process (4): If the claim involves alleged discrimination under\\n equal protection or a civil-rights statute, use 2. Use 4 only when the claim is about\\n procedural fairness or property/liberty deprivation without an underlying discrimination\\n allegation.\\n\\n\\n3.5 Legal Provisions\\n\\nFor each major legal provision the Court of Appeals applies or interprets, add an entry to \\\"legal_provisions\\\".\\n\\nLaw Area codes (SCDB varLawArea):\\n\\n1 = Constitution (original text)\\n An Article or Section of the original Constitution (not an Amendment).\\n Examples: Article I (congressional power), Article II (executive power),\\n Article III (judicial power), Supremacy Clause, Commerce Clause, Full Faith\\n and Credit Clause, Contracts Clause.\\n\\n2 = Constitutional Amendment\\n Any Amendment to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.\\n Examples: First Amendment (speech, religion), Fourth Amendment (search and\\n seizure), Fifth Amendment (due process, takings, self-incrimination), Sixth\\n Amendment (right to counsel, jury trial), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual\\n punishment), Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, due process).\\n\\n3 = Federal Statute\\n A statute enacted by Congress, cited by title and section of the U.S. Code or\\n by its popular name. This is the most common category.\\n Examples: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question\\n jurisdiction), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Sherman Act § 1 (antitrust),\\n 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (firearms), ERISA, CERCLA, ADA, FOIA, Sentencing Guidelines.\\n\\n4 = Court Rules\\n Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, or Appellate\\n Procedure, as well as local circuit rules.\\n Examples: Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim), Fed. R. Civ. P.\\n 56 (summary judgment), Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 (plea agreements), Fed. R. Evid. 403\\n (prejudicial evidence).\\n\\n5 = Other\\n Common law doctrines, equitable principles, or other legal authorities not fitting\\n the categories above.\\n Examples: common law fraud, maritime law (general), equitable estoppel, doctrine\\n of laches, implied contracts.\\n\\n6 = Infrequently litigated statutes\\n Federal statutes that appear rarely in appellate litigation and are not well-known\\n by popular name. Use this when the statute is obscure or highly specialized.\\n Examples: Railway Labor Act, Packers and Stockyards Act, Suits in Admiralty Act,\\n obscure provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.\\n\\n8 = State or local law or regulation\\n A state statute, state constitutional provision, local ordinance, or state/local\\n regulation. Use this when the court applies or interprets state or local law rather\\n than federal law.\\n Examples: state tort law, state contract law, state criminal statute, local zoning\\n ordinance, state environmental regulation.\\n\\n9 = No Legal Provision\\n The opinion does not meaningfully rely on any identifiable legal provision. Very\\n rare — use only when the court's analysis is purely factual or procedural without\\n citing specific legal authority.\\n\\nFor each entry:\\n- `area_code`: choose the single best area for the provision.\\n- `area_label`: the corresponding label (e.g., \\\"Constitution\\\", \\\"Federal Statute\\\").\\n- `provision_text`: identify the specific provision (e.g., \\\"Fourth Amendment, search and seizure\\\",\\n \\\"42 U.S.C. § 1983\\\", \\\"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)\\\", \\\"state tort law\\\").\\n\\nInclude the one to three provisions central to the court's analysis. If the opinion does not meaningfully\\nrely on any legal provision (very rare), use a single entry with area_code 9 and a brief explanation.\\n\\nDistinguishing area codes:\\n- If the court interprets the CONSTITUTION ITSELF (e.g., Commerce Clause), use 1.\\n- If the court interprets a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (e.g., Fourth Amendment), use 2.\\n- If the court interprets a FEDERAL STATUTE (the most common scenario), use 3.\\n- If the dispute is about a PROCEDURAL RULE (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6) motion), use 4.\\n- Use 8 for STATE LAW even if the case is in federal court on diversity jurisdiction.\\n- Use 5 for common law doctrines that are not codified in any statute or rule.\\n- Use 6 only for genuinely obscure federal statutes that would not be recognized by name.\\n\\n\\n3.6 Decision Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\n>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\\nCRITICAL: The codes \\\"conservative\\\" and \\\"liberal\\\" are MECHANICAL LABELS defined by the SCDB\\ncodebook. They are NOT your own assessment of political ideology. You MUST apply them exactly\\nas the lookup table below specifies, even when the result seems counterintuitive. For example,\\na decision favoring a taxpayer over the IRS is ALWAYS coded conservative (1) in a Federal\\nTaxation case, regardless of the policy context. A decision upholding a government regulation\\nis ALWAYS coded liberal (2) in an Economic Activity case, even if the regulation benefits\\nbusiness. Do NOT let your general understanding of politics override these rules.\\n<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\\n\\nDIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE — apply mechanically based on issue_area.code and who benefits:\\n\\nissue_area.code | benefiting side | direction\\n----------------|------------------------------------------------------------|----------\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | accused / convicted person / criminal defendant | 2 (liberal)\\n1 (Crim. Pro.) | prosecution / law enforcement / government | 1 (conservative)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | civil rights or civil liberties claimant | 2 (liberal)\\n2 (Civ. Rts.) | government defendant / party opposing civil rights claim | 1 (conservative)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | person asserting First Amendment protections | 2 (liberal)\\n3 (1st Amend.) | government restricting speech, press, religion, etc. | 1 (conservative)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | individual challenging deprivation of liberty or property | 2 (liberal)\\n4 (Due Proc.) | government upholding deprivation | 1 (conservative)\\n5 (Privacy) | person asserting privacy / autonomy / reproductive choice | 2 (liberal)\\n5 (Privacy) | government restricting privacy or autonomy | 1 (conservative)\\n7 (Unions) | union / workers / collective bargaining interests | 2 (liberal)\\n7 (Unions) | employer / management / anti-union interests | 1 (conservative)\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | workers, consumers, injured parties, environment, govt | 2 (liberal)\\n | regulation, or small entities against large business |\\n8 (Econ. Act.) | employers, large business, property owners, deregulation | 1 (conservative)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | broader court access / standing / review | 2 (liberal)\\n9 (Jud. Power) | narrower court access / standing / review | 1 (conservative)\\n10 (Federalism) | federal authority over state authority | 2 (liberal)\\n10 (Federalism) | state sovereignty over federal power | 1 (conservative)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | United States / IRS / federal taxing authority | 2 (liberal)\\n12 (Fed. Tax.) | taxpayer | 1 (conservative)\\n11,14 | use 3 (unspecifiable) unless decision clearly aligns | 3 (unspecifiable)\\n | with one of the patterns above |\\n\\nPROCEDURE: You MUST FIRST determine who won the case (winning_party), THEN identify the\\nissue_area, and LAST look up the decision_direction from the table above by matching the\\nissue_area.code with the side that benefited. Do NOT reason about direction from first\\nprinciples — use the table.\\n\\nIf, after applying the table, you cannot determine which side benefited, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n\\n3.6.1 Worked Examples\\n\\nThe following three examples demonstrate correct mechanical application of the direction\\nlookup table, including cases where the SCDB coding may seem counterintuitive:\\n\\nEXAMPLE A — Federal Taxation (issue_area.code = 12)\\n\\n Facts: A taxpayer appeals an IRS assessment to the Court of Appeals. The court reverses the\\n Tax Court, holding that the taxpayer's deductions were proper and the assessment was incorrect.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 12 (Federal Taxation)\\n winning_party.code = 1 (petitioner/taxpayer received favorable disposition)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← taxpayer won; lookup table row for code 12\\n says \\\"taxpayer → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even though the taxpayer prevailed against the government, the SCDB mechanically\\n codes this as conservative (1) because the taxpayer benefited.\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE B — Criminal Procedure (issue_area.code = 1)\\n\\n Facts: A criminal defendant appeals his conviction, arguing that evidence was obtained\\n through an unlawful search. The Court of Appeals affirms, holding the search was lawful.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 1 (Criminal Procedure)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner)\\n decision_direction = 1 (conservative) ← prosecution/government benefited; lookup table\\n row for code 1 says \\\"prosecution → 1 (conservative)\\\"\\n\\n\\nEXAMPLE C — Economic Activity (issue_area.code = 8)\\n\\n Facts: A chemical company challenges an EPA water-quality regulation. The Court of Appeals\\n affirms, upholding the regulation as within the agency's statutory authority.\\n\\n Coding:\\n issue_area.code = 8 (Economic Activity)\\n winning_party.code = 0 (no favorable disposition for petitioner/company)\\n decision_direction = 2 (liberal) ← government regulation upheld against business;\\n lookup table row for code 8 says \\\"govt regulation → 2 (liberal)\\\"\\n\\n NOTE: Even if one might view upholding a regulation as a \\\"pro-business\\\" outcome (e.g., it\\n creates regulatory certainty), the SCDB mechanically codes government regulation prevailing\\n over a business challenge as liberal (2).\\n\\n\\n3.6.2 Internal Consistency Check\\n\\nBefore you output the JSON, you MUST run the following consistency check:\\n\\n1. Identify issue_area.code.\\n2. Identify which side won in the case (petitioner vs respondent) and what kind of party they are.\\n3. Look up the corresponding row in the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE above.\\n4. Verify that your decision_direction.code matches the table entry.\\n5. If it does not match, CORRECT decision_direction.code to match the table.\\n\\n\\n3.7 Lower Court Direction\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = conservative\\n2 = liberal\\n3 = unspecifiable\\n\\nUse the same DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE as for Decision Direction (see Section 3.6), but applied to\\nthe **lower court's outcome**. You MUST determine the lower court's direction by comparing the lower\\ncourt's judgment and the appellate court's disposition.\\n\\nUse this rule of thumb:\\n\\n1. First, identify the appellate disposition (case_disposition.code).\\n2. Next, identify the decision_direction.code for the Court of Appeals.\\n3. Last, infer who benefited in the lower court and assign lower_court_direction as follows:\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **leaves the lower court judgment in place** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 1 \\\"affirmed\\\"\\n or 8 \\\"petition denied or appeal dismissed\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- If the Court of Appeals clearly **undoes the lower court judgment** (e.g., case_disposition.code = 2 \\\"reversed\\\",\\n 3 \\\"reversed and remanded\\\", 4 \\\"vacated and remanded\\\", or 7 \\\"vacated\\\"), then the lower court's direction is the\\n OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n\\n- For mixed outcomes (case_disposition.code = 5 or 6), compare who won more in the lower court vs on appeal:\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is better off after the appeal than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the OPPOSITE of decision_direction.code.\\n * If, on balance, the petitioner is worse off or no better off than under the lower court judgment, then\\n the lower court's direction should usually be the SAME as decision_direction.code.\\n * If you cannot determine who benefited more from the lower court judgment even approximately, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\n- For stays, motions, certifications, or purely procedural dispositions (codes 9, 10, 0), infer who benefited in\\n the lower court if possible; if not, use 3 (unspecifiable).\\n\\nWhen you set lower_court_direction, remember:\\n- \\\"SAME\\\" means lower_court_direction.code = decision_direction.code.\\n- \\\"OPPOSITE\\\" means: if decision_direction.code = 1 (conservative), then lower_court_direction.code = 2 (liberal);\\n if decision_direction.code = 2 (liberal), then lower_court_direction.code = 1 (conservative).\\n\\n3.8 Declaration of Unconstitutionality\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n0 = the court did NOT strike down any statute, regulation, or government action as unconstitutional\\n1 = the court DID declare a statute, regulation, or government action unconstitutional\\n\\nCode 1 if the court holds that a law, regulation, executive action, or government practice violates\\nthe Constitution (whether facial or as-applied). This includes striking down acts of Congress, federal\\nregulations, state statutes, state constitutional provisions, and local ordinances.\\n\\nDo NOT code 1 merely because the court discusses constitutional issues. The court must actually\\nhold that something is unconstitutional. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the\\nchallenged provision, code 0.\\n\\n\\n3.9 Method\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = standard panel decision (typically 3 judges, first hearing)\\n2 = panel rehearing (same panel reconsidering its prior decision)\\n3 = en banc (full court or en banc panel rehearing a case)\\n4 = per curiam (unsigned opinion — may overlap with codes 1 or 3)\\n\\nUse the opinion text, metadata, and case caption to determine the method. Look for explicit\\nstatements like \\\"before the court en banc,\\\" \\\"on rehearing,\\\" \\\"upon reconsideration,\\\" or\\n\\\"per curiam.\\\" If the metadata indicates more than 3 judges participated, this strongly\\nsuggests en banc (code 3). If none of these indicators are present, use 1 (standard panel).\\n\\n\\n3.10 Who Appealed\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = original plaintiff (or the equivalent, e.g. the Title VII complainant, habeas petitioner)\\n2 = original defendant (or the equivalent, e.g. the employer in a Title VII suit)\\n3 = federal government on behalf of the original plaintiff\\n4 = federal government on behalf of the original defendant\\n\\nDetermine who initiated the appeal by examining the case caption, opinion text, and procedural\\nhistory. The \\\"original plaintiff\\\" is the party who filed suit in the lower court; the \\\"original\\ndefendant\\\" is the party who was sued. In criminal cases, the original plaintiff is typically the\\ngovernment (prosecution) and the original defendant is the accused.\\n\\nIf the opinion describes a cross-appeal, code based on who filed the PRIMARY appeal (the one\\nthe court addresses as the main appeal). If you cannot determine who appealed, use 1 as default\\nfor criminal defendants (who are most commonly appellants) or your best judgment from the caption\\nordering (appellant is typically listed first).\\n\\n\\n3.11 Dissent/Concurrence Basis (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\" or \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\",\\ncode whether that separate opinion addresses procedural issues, merits issues, or both.\\n\\nFor each dimension (procedural / merits), use one of these codes:\\n\\n0 = the dissent/concurrence exists but does NOT address this type of issue\\n1 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and DISAGREES with the majority's resolution\\n2 = addresses the SAME issue as the majority and AGREES with the majority's resolution\\n3 = addresses an issue NOT discussed by the majority opinion\\n\\n\\\"dissent_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has dissenting opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the dissent address procedural questions (jurisdiction, standing,\\n standard of review, procedural default, timeliness, etc.)?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the dissent address the substantive legal merits (statutory interpretation,\\n constitutional analysis, factual sufficiency, etc.)?\\n\\n\\\"concurrence_basis\\\" (include ONLY if \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\"):\\n - \\\"procedural\\\": Does the concurrence address procedural questions?\\n - \\\"merits\\\": Does the concurrence address the substantive legal merits?\\n\\nIf multiple dissenting or concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY one\\n(the longest or most substantive).\\n\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has dissenting opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"dissent_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\nIf the metadata says \\\"Has concurring opinion: No\\\", OMIT \\\"concurrence_type\\\" and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" entirely from your output.\\n\\n\\n3.12 Concurrence Type (Conditional)\\n\\nIf the case metadata states \\\"Has concurring opinion: Yes\\\", classify the concurrence as one of\\nthe following types:\\n\\nCodes:\\n\\n1 = regular concurrence — the concurring judge JOINED the majority opinion AND wrote or joined\\n a separate concurrence to add additional reasoning, emphasize a point, or note a limitation.\\n The key indicator: the judge agrees with BOTH the outcome AND the reasoning of the majority.\\n\\n2 = special concurrence / concurrence in result only — the concurring judge agrees with the\\n OUTCOME (disposition) but does NOT join the majority opinion's reasoning. Look for language\\n like \\\"concurring in the result,\\\" \\\"concurring in the judgment,\\\" \\\"concurring in the result\\n only,\\\" or \\\"I concur in the judgment but write separately because I disagree with the\\n majority's analysis.\\\" The key indicator: the judge explicitly declines to join the majority\\n opinion or distances themselves from the majority's reasoning.\\n\\n3 = cannot determine — the opinion text does not make clear whether the concurring judge joined\\n the majority opinion or only the result.\\n\\nThis distinction matters because special concurrences (code 2) signal reasoning disagreement\\nwithin a nominally unanimous disposition. A case where all judges agree on the outcome but one\\nwrites a special concurrence is qualitatively different from one where all judges agree on\\nboth outcome and reasoning.\\n\\nIf multiple concurring opinions exist, code based on the PRIMARY concurrence (the longest or\\nmost substantive). If one is a regular concurrence and another is a special concurrence,\\ncode based on the special concurrence (code 2), as it is more analytically informative.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n4. GENERAL RULES\\n==================================================\\n\\n- Use metadata (case name, court, date, opinion type) to:\\n - distinguish main merits opinions from rehearing or procedural opinions,\\n - interpret how the appellate disposition relates to the prior judgment,\\n - infer whether the case is criminal, civil rights, tax, etc.\\n- If some information is missing, use the appropriate \\\"unspecifiable\\\" or \\\"no disposition\\\" code\\n (e.g., 3 for direction, 11 for case_disposition); do not invent facts.\\n- Carefully follow the steps laid out in the introduction in order. In particular,\\n decide who won the case (winning_party). Then, decide what the issue_area is.\\n Only choose decision_direction once you have completed those steps, and follow the exact\\n directions in Section 3.6.\\n- In the justification, explicitly state who won, why (according to the disposition), and\\n how that winner and the issue_area code together implied the direction code you chose.\\n Reference the DIRECTION LOOKUP TABLE row you applied.\\n- ALWAYS choose exactly one code for each coded variable where required.\\n- NEVER output any keys other than the ones defined in the schema above.\\n- Include \\\"dissent_basis\\\", \\\"concurrence_type\\\", and \\\"concurrence_basis\\\" ONLY when the metadata\\n indicates the corresponding opinion type exists. Omit them entirely otherwise.\\n- NEVER output any numeric codes outside the permitted lists above.\\n\\n\\n==================================================\\n5. FINAL REQUIREMENT\\n==================================================\\n\\nAfter reading [CASE_METADATA] and [CASE_TEXT], respond ONLY with the JSON object in the schema\\nabove. Do not include any extra commentary, markdown, or explanation outside the JSON.\\n\",\n \"role\": \"system\"\n },\n {\n \"content\": \"[CASE_METADATA]\\nCase name: PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE\\nCourt: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit\\nDate decided: 2019-03-15\\nOpinion type: majority\\nHas dissenting opinion: No\\nHas concurring opinion: No\\nAdditional notes: \\n\\n[CASE_TEXT]\\n\\n[END_CASE]\",\n \"role\": \"user\"\n }\n]","isConversational":true}}}],"truncated":false,"partial":false},"paginationData":{"pageIndex":13,"numItemsPerPage":100,"numTotalItems":31175,"offset":1300,"length":100}},"jwt":"eyJhbGciOiJFZERTQSJ9.eyJyZWFkIjp0cnVlLCJwZXJtaXNzaW9ucyI6eyJyZXBvLmNvbnRlbnQucmVhZCI6dHJ1ZX0sImlhdCI6MTc3ODc4NDk3MCwic3ViIjoiL2RhdGFzZXRzL2VpdGFucy1wdS9jbC1jb2RpbmctaW5wdXQiLCJleHAiOjE3Nzg3ODg1NzAsImlzcyI6Imh0dHBzOi8vaHVnZ2luZ2ZhY2UuY28ifQ.ROhBT62OfN8pEeEdDpv5KVrOf96kOnTMy-K2EYc12ou9HRPgxpEvuIFkidIt4y6iDPgGNcsDxWaRQwLv7iajCA","displayUrls":true,"splitSizeSummaries":[{"config":"default","split":"train","numRows":31175,"numBytesParquet":1629387251}]},"discussionsStats":{"closed":0,"open":1,"total":1},"fullWidth":true,"hasGatedAccess":true,"hasFullAccess":true,"isEmbedded":false,"savedQueries":{"community":[],"user":[]}}">
id int64 | name string | name_abbreviation string | decision_date string | docket_number string | court string | casebody string | judge1 string | judge2 string | judge3 string | exactly_three_caps int64 | extra_judges string | judge_designations string | opinions_count int64 | majority_count int64 | dissent_count int64 | concurrence_count int64 | other_count int64 | primary_citation string | reporter string | volume null | resource_url string | precedential_status string | 010combined_count int64 | 020lead_count int64 | 030concurrence_count int64 | 035concurrenceinpart_count int64 | 040dissent_count int64 | year int64 | month int64 | messages list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4,603,408 | Micah Jessop v. City of Fresno | 2019-03-20 | 17-16756 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | {"judges": "Before: MILAN D. SMITH, JR., JACQUELINE H. NGUYEN, Circuit Judges, and JANE A. RESTANI, * Judge.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "M. SMITH, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "FOR PUBLICATION\n\n UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT\n\nMICAH JESSOP; BRITTAN A... | MILAN D SMITH JR | JACQUELINE H NGUYEN | JANE A RESTANI | 1 | {"MILAN D SMITH JR": ", Circuit", "JACQUELINE H NGUYEN": ", Circuit", "JANE A RESTANI": ","} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603408/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,603,409 | Jose Duran-Rodriguez v. William Barr | 2019-03-20 | 16-72957 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | {"judges": "Before: Michael Daly Hawkins, Milan D. Smith, Jr., and Andrew D. Hurwitz, Circuit Judges.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"type": "010combined", "text": "FOR PUBLICATION\n\n UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT\n\n\n JOSE JESUS DURAN- No. 16-72957\n R... | MICHAEL DALY HAWKINS | MILAN D SMITH JR | ANDREW D HURWITZ | 1 | {} | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603409/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,603,405 | United States v. Joshua Cooley | 2019-03-21 | 17-30022 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | {"judges": "Before: Marsha S. Berzon, Stephanie Dawn Thacker, * and Andrew D. Hurwitz, Circuit Judges.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "BERZON, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "FOR PUBLICATION\n\n UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT\n\n\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ... | MARSHA S BERZON | STEPHANIE DAWN THACKER | ANDREW D HURWITZ | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603405/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,603,406 | Chemehuevi Indian Tribe v. Gavin Newsom | 2019-03-21 | 17-55604 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | {"judges": "Before: Sandra S. Ikuta and John B. Owens, Circuit Judges, and Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr., ** District Judge.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "GILLIAM, District Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "FOR PUBLICATION\n\n UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT\n\n\nCHEMEHUEVI ... | SANDRA S IKUTA | JOHN B OWENS | HAYWOOD S GILLIAM JR | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603406/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,603,402 | United States v. Martin Jauregui | 2019-03-22 | 16-50429 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | {"judges": "Before: Marsha S. Berzon and N. Randy Smith, Circuit Judges, and P. Kevin Castel, * District Judge.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "BERZON, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "FOR PUBLICATION\n\n UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT\n\n\nUNITED STATES OF AME... | MARSHA S BERZON | N RANDY SMITH | P KEVIN CASTEL | 1 | {} | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603402/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,603,403 | Shyriaa Henderson v. United Student Aid Funds, Inc. | 2019-03-22 | 17-55373 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | {"judges": "Before: Dorothy W. Nelson, William A. Fletcher, and Jay S. Bybee, Circuit Judges.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "D.W. NELSON, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "FOR PUBLICATION\n\n UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT\n\nSHYRIAA HENDERSON, on behalf of ... | DOROTHY W NELSON | WILLIAM A FLETCHER | JAY S BYBEE | 1 | {} | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603403/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,603,404 | James Troiano v. United States | 2019-03-22 | 18-15183 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | {"judges": "Before: Richard C. Tallman, Jay S. Bybee, and N. Randy Smith, Circuit Judges.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "TALLMAN, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "FOR PUBLICATION\n\n UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT\n\n\nJAMES TROIANO, No. 18... | RICHARD C TALLMAN | JAY S BYBEE | N RANDY SMITH | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603404/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,603,401 | James Steinle v. City and County of S.F. | 2019-03-25 | 17-16283 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | {"judges": "Before: Susan P. Graber, Stephanie Dawn Thacker, * and Mark J. Bennett, Circuit Judges.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "BENNETT, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "FOR PUBLICATION\n\n UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT\n\n\nJAMES STEINLE, individually and a... | SUSAN P GRABER | STEPHANIE DAWN THACKER | MARK J BENNETT | 1 | {} | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603401/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,604,297 | United States v. Donnell Artis | 2019-03-27 | 18-10246 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | {"judges": "Before: A. Wallace Tashima and Paul J. Watford, Circuit Judges, and Eduardo C. Robreno,* District Judge.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "WATFORD, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "FOR PUBLICATION FILED\n UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS ... | A WALLACE TASHIMA | PAUL J WATFORD | EDUARDO C ROBRENO | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4604297/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,604,650 | Pedro Aguirre Barbosa v. William Barr | 2019-03-28 | 15-72092 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | {"judges": "Before: Susan P. Graber and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges, and John R. Tunheim,* Chief District Judge.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "GRABER, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "FOR PUBLICATION\n\n UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT\n\n\n PEDRO AGUIR... | SUSAN P GRABER | MARSHA S BERZON | JOHN R TUNHEIM | 1 | {} | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4604650/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
9,023,007 | Pedro Aguirre BARBOSA v. William P. BARR, Attorney General | Barbosa v. Barr | 2019-03-28 | No. 15-72092 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | {"judges": "Berzon, Graber", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9016247/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "030concurrence", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinion... | BERZON | GRABER | BERZON | 1 | {} | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/9023007/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,605,223 | Americans for Prosperity Found v. Xavier Becerra | 2019-03-29 | 16-55727 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | {"judges": "Before: Raymond C. Fisher, Richard A. Paez, and Jacqueline H. Nguyen, Circuit Judges.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "persons whose associational freedoms are threatened. Judge", "type": "010combined", "text": "FOR PUBLICATION\n\n UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT\n\n\n... | RAYMOND C FISHER | RICHARD A PAEZ | JACQUELINE H NGUYEN | 1 | {} | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4605223/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,596,482 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Stacy Jo KNAPP, A/K/A Stacy Jo Rafay, A/K/A Stacey Jo Knapp, Defendant - Appellant. | United States v. Knapp | 2019-03-05 | 18-8031 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Holmes, McKay, Kelly", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "KELLY, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLISH Te... | HOLMES | MCKAY | KELLY | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4596482/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,596,483 | Rockwood Casualty Insurance v. Director, OWCP | 2019-03-05 | 18-9520 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Before BRISCOE, MATHESON, and BACHARACH, Circuit Judges.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "MATHESON, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLIS... | BRISCOE | MATHESON | BACHARACH | 1 | {"BRISCOE": ", Circuit", "MATHESON": ", Circuit", "BACHARACH": ", Circuit"} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4596483/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,596,485 | HIGH DESERT RELIEF, INC., a New Mexico Non-Profit Corporation, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Through Its Agency the Internal Revenue Service, Defendant-Appellee. | High Desert Relief, Inc. v. United States | 2019-03-05 | 17-2083 & 17-2095 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Lucero, Holmes, Eid", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "HOLMES, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n Tenth Circuit\n\n ... | LUCERO | HOLMES | EID | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4596485/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
8,443,914 | ROCKWOOD CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, Insurer of Hidden Splendor Resources, Inc. v. DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION PROGRAMS, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Tony Kourianos | Rockwood Cas. Ins. Co. v. Dir., Office of Workers' Comp. Programs | 2019-03-05 | No. 18-9520 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Bacharach, Briscoe, Matheson", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/8415345/", "author_raw": ""}]} | BACHARACH | BRISCOE | MATHESON | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/8443914/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,597,630 | BILL BARRETT CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. YMC ROYALTY COMPANY, LP ; YBC Managers, LLC; And Bayshore Royalty, LP, Defendants-Appellants. | Bill Barrett Corporation v. YMC Royalty Company | 2019-03-07 | 18-1067 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Tymkovich, Murphy, Hartz", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "PER CURIAM", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n Tenth Circuit\n\n ... | TYMKOVICH | MURPHY | HARTZ | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4597630/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,597,719 | WICHITA CENTER FOR GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION, INC., on Behalf of the Themselves and All Other Taxpayers Similarly Situated, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant - Appellee. | Wichita Ctr. for Graduate Med. Educ., Inc. v. United States | 2019-03-07 | 18-3016 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Tymkovich, Holmes, Phillips", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "TYMKOVICH, Chief Judge", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n Tenth Circuit\n\n ... | TYMKOVICH | HOLMES | PHILLIPS | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4597719/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,598,452 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Ian Alexander BOWLINE, Defendant - Appellant. | United States v. Bowline | 2019-03-11 | 17-7080 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Hartz, Holmes, Carson", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "HARTZ, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLISH Tenth C... | HARTZ | HOLMES | CARSON | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598452/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,598,759 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Delano Marco MEDINA, A/K/A Michael David Allen Bell, A/K/A William Anders Bryant, Defendant-Appellant. | United States v. Medina | 2019-03-12 | 17-1455 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Hartz, Matheson, Eid", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "MATHESON, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLISH Tenth... | HARTZ | MATHESON | EID | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598759/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,598,760 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Rande Brian ISABELLA, Defendant-Appellant. | United States v. Isabella | 2019-03-12 | 17-1197 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Hartz, Matheson, Eid", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "MATHESON, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLISH ... | HARTZ | MATHESON | EID | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598760/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,598,761 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Darren GONZALES, Defendant - Appellant. | United States v. Gonzales | 2019-03-12 | 18-8017 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Matheson, Murphy, Carson", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "MURPHY, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLISH T... | MATHESON | MURPHY | CARSON | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598761/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,598,762 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Desmond S. GAINES, Defendant-Appellant. | United States v. Gaines | 2019-03-12 | 17-3270 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Bacharach, McHUGH, Tymkovich", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888143/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "040dissent", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/... | BACHARACH | MCHUGH | TYMKOVICH | 1 | {} | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598762/ | Published | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,598,764 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee/Cross-Appellant, v. Dustin E. ASH, Defendant-Appellant/Cross-Appellee. | United States v. Ash | 2019-03-12 | 17-3223 & 17-3245 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Tymkovich, Lucero, Matheson", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "LUCERO, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLISH ... | TYMKOVICH | LUCERO | MATHESON | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598764/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,598,765 | Keshia PORTER, as the Wrongful Death Representative for the Claimants Entitled to Recover for the Wrongful Death of Delandis Richardson, Deceased, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Defendant - Appellee. | Porter v. Ford Motor Company | 2019-03-12 | 18-8028 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Lucero, McHUGH, Moritz", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "LUCERO, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLISH Ten... | LUCERO | MCHUGH | MORITZ | 1 | {"McHUGH": ", Circuit"} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598765/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,599,777 | Alyssa BISTLINE; Ruby Jessop; Susan Broadbent; Gina Rohbock; Nolan Barlow; Jason Black; May Musser; Holly Bistline; T.B.; M.B.; P.B.; A.B.; A.B.; Derrell Barlow; Alicia Rohbock; R.R.; R.R.; B.J.R.; Wallace Jeffs; Lawrence Barlow ; Steven Dockstader; Marvin Cooke; Helen Barlow; Vergel Barlow; Carole Jessop; Briell Liber... | Bistline v. Parker | 2019-03-14 | 17-4020 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Briscoe", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888149/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "040dissent", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888150/"... | BRISCOE | BRISCOE | 0 | {} | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4599777/ | Published | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,600,287 | KELVION, INC., a Foreign Corporation, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. PETROCHINA CANADA LTD., Formerly Known as Brion Energy Corporation, a Foreign Corporation, Defendant - Appellee. | Kelvion, Inc. v. PetroChina Canada Ltd. | 2019-03-15 | 17-5097 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Tymkovich, McKay, Carson", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "TYMKOVICH, Chief Judge", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n Tenth Circuit\n\n ... | TYMKOVICH | MCKAY | CARSON | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600287/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,600,845 | Tessa FARMER, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY, Defendant - Appellant. Sara Weckhorst, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Kansas State University, Defendant - Appellant. | Farmer v. Kansas State University | 2019-03-18 | 17-3207; 17-3208 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Matheson, Ebel, Eid", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "EBEL, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLISH Tenth ... | MATHESON | EBEL | EID | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600845/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,601,096 | Kyle LINDSEY and Zayne Mann, Plaintiffs - Appellants, v. Brandon HYLER, Individually and in His Official Capacity as a Webbers Falls Police Officer; The City of Webbers Falls, Oklahoma; Larry Ruiz, in His Capacity as Chief of Police for the City of Webbers Falls; And Bob Ross, in His Capacity as Mayor of the City of We... | Lindsey v. Hyler | 2019-03-19 | 17-7074 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Tymkovich, McKay, Carson", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "TYMKOVICH, Chief Judge", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n Tenth Circuit\n\n ... | TYMKOVICH | MCKAY | CARSON | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4601096/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,601,097 | Raymond Eugene JOHNSON, Petitioner - Appellant, v. Mike CARPENTER, Warden, Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Respondent - Appellee. | Johnson v. Carpenter | 2019-03-19 | 16-5165 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Tymkovich, Lucero, Matheson", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "TYMKOVICH, Chief Judge", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n Tenth Circuit\n\n ... | TYMKOVICH | LUCERO | MATHESON | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4601097/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,602,288 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee v. Michael DALTON, Defendant - Appellant. | United States v. Dalton | 2019-03-21 | 17-2146 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Lucero, Ebel, Phillips", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "EBEL, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLISH ... | LUCERO | EBEL | PHILLIPS | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4602288/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,603,251 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. John Eugene WALKER, Defendant - Appellee. | United States v. Walker | 2019-03-25 | 17-4103 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Tymkovich, Holmes, Phillips", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "HOLMES, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n Tenth Circuit\n\n ... | TYMKOVICH | HOLMES | PHILLIPS | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603251/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,603,670 | ESTATE OF Jaime CEBALLOS ; Quianna Vigil; Naveyah Ceballos, Through Next Friend; Jayden Ceballos, Through Next Friend, Plaintiffs - Appellees, v. William HUSK, Individually; City of Thornton, Defendants - Appellants. | Estate of Jaime Ceballos v. Husk | 2019-03-26 | 17-1216 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Bacharach, Ebel, Moritz", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888205/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "035concurrenceinpart", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/... | BACHARACH | EBEL | MORITZ | 1 | {} | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603670/ | Published | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,603,798 | Karna SACCHI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. IHC HEALTH SERVICES, INC.; Joy Singh, Defendants-Appellees. | Sacchi v. Ihc Health Servs., Inc. | 2019-03-26 | 18-4027 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Phillips, Kelly, Carson", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "KELLY, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLISH ... | PHILLIPS | KELLY | CARSON | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603798/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,604,106 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Keon Anthony NIXON, A/K/A Young Taz, Defendant - Appellant. | United States v. Nixon | 2019-03-27 | 18-1154 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Bacharach, Baldock, Phillips", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "BACHARACH, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLISH Tenth Ci... | BACHARACH | BALDOCK | PHILLIPS | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4604106/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,604,107 | John TEETS, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. GREAT-WEST LIFE & ANNUITY INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant - Appellee, AARP; AARP Foundation; American Council of Life Insurers, Amici Curiae. | Teets v. Great-West Life & Annuity Ins. Co. | 2019-03-27 | 18-1019 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Matheson, Bacharach", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888211/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "030concurrence", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/op... | MATHESON | BACHARACH | MATHESON | 1 | {} | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4604107/ | Published | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,604,164 | BLUE VALLEY HOSPITAL, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Alex M. AZAR, II, in His Official Capacity as Secretary, United States Department of Health and Human Services; Seema Verma, Administrator for the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services; Jeff Hinson, Regional Administrator for (Region 7) the Center for Medicare and ... | Blue Valley Hosp., Inc. v. Azar | 2019-03-27 | 18-3117 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Lucero, Hartz, Carson", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "LUCERO, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n PUBLISH Te... | LUCERO | HARTZ | CARSON | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4604164/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,612,216 | John TEETS, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. GREAT-WEST LIFE & ANNUITY INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant - Appellee, AARP; AARP Foundation; American Council of Life Insurers, Amici Curiae. | Teets v. Great-West Life & Annuity Ins. Co. | 2019-03-27 | 18-1019 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Matheson, Bacharach, McHugh", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888383/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "030concurrence", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/re... | MATHESON | BACHARACH | MCHUGH | 1 | {} | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4612216/ | Published | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,605,224 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellant / Cross-Appellee, v. Mary Carol S. JOHNSON; James W. Smith, Defendants - Appellees / Cross-Appellants, and Marian S. Barnwell; Billie Ann S. Devine; Eve H. Smith, Defendants. | United States v. Johnson | 2019-03-29 | 17-4083; 17-4093; 18-4036 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Tymkovich, Murphy, Hartz", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "MURPHY, Circuit Judge.", "type": "010combined", "text": "FILED\n United States Court of Appeals\n Tenth Circuit\n\n ... | TYMKOVICH | MURPHY | HARTZ | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4605224/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
8,443,951 | Jerud BUTLER v. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS FOR SAN MIGUEL COUNTY Mike Horner, in his individual capacity Kristl Howard, in her individual capacity | Butler v. Bd. of Cnty. Com'Rs for San Miguel Cnty. | 2019-03-29 | No. 18-1012 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit | {"judges": "Ebel, Lucero, Tymkovich", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/8415382/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "040dissent", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/op... | EBEL | LUCERO | TYMKOVICH | 1 | {} | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/8443951/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,595,671 | Nancy KING, Et Al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, Polk County, Florida, Et Al., Defendants-Appellees. | Nancy King, M.D. v. Board of County Commissioners, Polk County, Florida | 2019-03-01 | 18-10631 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Carnes, Martin, Rogers", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "ROGERS, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 18-10631 Date Filed: 03/01/2019 Page: 1 of 24\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n IN T... | CARNES | MARTIN | ROGERS | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4595671/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,595,924 | QUALITY AUTO PAINTING CENTER OF ROSELLE, INC., Traded as Prestige Auto Body, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE FARM INDEMNITY COMPANY, State Farm Guaranty Insurance Company, Et Al., Defendants-Appellees. Ultimate Collision Repair, Inc., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. State Farm Indemnity Company, State Farm Guaranty Insurance Com... | Quality Auto Painting Ctr. of Roselle, Inc. v. State Farm Indem. Co. | 2019-03-04 | 15-14160; 15-14162; 15-14178; 15-14179; 15-14180 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Carnes, Tjoflat, Wilson, Pryor, Martin, Jordan, Newsom, Branch, Anderson", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "ANDERSON, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "[PUBLISH]\n\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS\n\n FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT\n\n _... | CARNES | TJOFLAT | WILSON | 1 | PRYOR; MARTIN; JORDAN; NEWSOM; BRANCH; ANDERSON | {} | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4595924/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||
4,596,890 | Pankajkumar S. PATEL, Jyotsnaben P. Patel, Nishantkumar Patel, Petitioners, v. U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. | Pankajkumar S. Patel v. U.S. Attorney General | 2019-03-06 | 17-10636 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Tjoflat, Marcus, Newsom", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888104/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "030concurrence", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v... | TJOFLAT | MARCUS | NEWSOM | 1 | {} | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4596890/ | Published | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,596,906 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Reginald Wayne GIBBS, Defendant-Appellant. | United States v. Reginald Wayne Gibbs | 2019-03-06 | 17-12474 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Marcus, Dubina, Goldberg", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "MARCUS, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 17-12474 Date Filed: 03/06/2019 Page: 1 of 16\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n\n IN TH... | MARCUS | DUBINA | GOLDBERG | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4596906/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,596,945 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Rachel Lee PADGETT, A.K.A. Rachel Tobak, A.K.A. Rachel Rae, Defendant - Appellant. | United States v. Rachel Lee Padgett | 2019-03-06 | 16-16144 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Wilson, Branch, Vinson", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888106/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "040dissent", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opi... | WILSON | BRANCH | VINSON | 1 | {} | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4596945/ | Published | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,596,946 | Elly Marisol Estrada v. Mark Becker | 2019-03-06 | 17-12668 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Before TJOFLAT and JORDAN, Circuit Judges, and HUCK, * District Judge.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 17-12668 Date Filed: 03/06/2019 Page: 1 of 27\n\n\n [PUB... | TJOFLAT | JORDAN | HUCK | 1 | {"TJOFLAT": ", Circuit", "JORDAN": ", Circuit", "HUCK": ", District"} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4596946/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,597,312 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Clifford B. GANDY, Jr., Defendant-Appellant. | United States v. Clifford B. Gandy, Jr. | 2019-03-06 | 17-15035 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Pryor, Rosenbaum, Conway", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888110/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "040dissent", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/o... | PRYOR | ROSENBAUM | CONWAY | 1 | {} | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4597312/ | Published | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
8,443,915 | Elly Marisol ESTRADA, Salvador Alvarado, Diana Umana, Each an Individual v. Mark BECKER, President of Georgia State University, in His Individual and Official Capacity, Steve Michael Dorman, President of Georgia College and State University, in His Individual and Official Capacity, Brooks A. Keel, President of Augusta ... | Estrada v. Becker | 2019-03-06 | No. 17-12668 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Huck, Jordan, Tjoflat", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/8415346/", "author_raw": ""}]} | HUCK | JORDAN | TJOFLAT | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/8443915/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,598,023 | Darleen R. Schuster v. Commissioner of Social Security | 2019-03-08 | 16-14004 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Before MARTIN, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 1 of 2\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES ... | MARTIN | JILL PRYOR | ANDERSON | 1 | {"MARTIN": ", Circuit", "JILL PRYOR": ", Circuit", "ANDERSON": ", Circuit"} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598023/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,598,933 | Darleen R. Schuster v. Commissioner of Social Security | 2019-03-08 | 16-14004 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Before MARTIN, JILL PRYOR, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 16-14004 Date Filed: 03/08/2019 Page: 1 of 2\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n CORR... | MARTIN | JILL PRYOR | ANDERSON | 1 | {"MARTIN": ", Circuit", "JILL PRYOR": ", Circuit", "ANDERSON": ", Circuit"} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598933/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
8,443,916 | Darleen R. SCHUSTER, Richard Allen Culbertson v. COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY | Schuster v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec. | 2019-03-08 | No. 16-14004 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Anderson, Calculation, Fees, Light, Martin, Pryor, Remand, Ruling, Ryhill, Supreme", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/8415347/", "author_raw": ""}]} | ANDERSON | FEES | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/8443916/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,598,932 | Richard D. Jackson v. David M. McCurry | 2019-03-12 | 18-10231 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Before WILLIAM PRYOR and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges, and CONWAY, * District Judge.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "PER CURIAM", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 18-10231 Date Filed: 03/12/2019 Page: 1 of 30\n\n\n [DO NOT PUBLISH]\n\n... | WILLIAM PRYOR | ROSENBAUM | CONWAY | 1 | {"WILLIAM PRYOR": ", Circuit", "ROSENBAUM": ", Circuit", "CONWAY": ", District"} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598932/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,599,632 | Ruben SEBASTIAN, Plaintiff -Appellee, v. Javier ORTIZ, Defendant - Appellant, Jay Grossman, Daniel Crocker, Et Al., Defendants. | Ruben Sebastian v. Javier Ortiz | 2019-03-14 | 17-14751 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Marcus, Dubina, Goldberg", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "MARCUS, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 17-14751 Date Filed: 03/14/2019 Page: 1 of 20\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES CO... | MARCUS | DUBINA | GOLDBERG | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4599632/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,600,798 | MSPA CLAIMS 1, LLC, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TENET FLORIDA, INC., and St. Mary's Medical Center, Inc., Defendants-Appellees. | MSPA Claims 1, LLC v. Tenet Florida, Inc. | 2019-03-18 | 18-11816 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Wilson, Pryor, Thapar", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "THAPAR, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 18-11816 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 1 of 18\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF ... | WILSON | PRYOR | THAPAR | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600798/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,600,848 | COMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Holman CF Warden, Donaldson CF Warden, Defendants-Appellants, v. ADVANCE LOCAL MEDIA, LLC, D.B.A. Alabama Media Group, Montgomery Advertiser, the Associated Press, Intervenors-Appellees. | Advance Local Media, LLC v. Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections | 2019-03-18 | 18-12402 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Tjoflat, Wilson, Jordan", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "WILSON, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 18-12402 Date Filed: 03/18/2019 Page: 1 of 25\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n IN THE UNITED STATE... | TJOFLAT | WILSON | JORDAN | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600848/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,601,264 | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Michael ST. HUBERT, Defendant - Appellant. | United States v. Michael St. Hubert | 2019-03-19 | 16-10874 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Carnes, Tjoflat, Marcus, Wilson, Pryor, Martin, Jordan, Rosenbaum, Newsom, Branch", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "Judge Grant did not participate in the decision to rehear this case en banc", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 16-10874 Date Filed: 03/19/2019 Page: 1 of 90\n\n\n ... | CARNES | TJOFLAT | MARCUS | 1 | WILSON; PRYOR; MARTIN; JORDAN; ROSENBAUM; NEWSOM; BRANCH | {} | 9 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4601264/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||
4,601,361 | ORION MARINE CONSTRUCTION, INC., as Owner of Barges M-1801, M-1802, M-1701 and M-1402, Their Engines, Tackle, Appurtenances, Equipment, Etc., in a Cause of Exoneration From or Limitation of Liability, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. Elizabeth CARROLL, Defendant, Daniel F. Bowen, Et Al., Claimants, Mark Dawson, Christine M. D... | Orion Marine Construction, Inc. v. Mark Dawson | 2019-03-20 | 17-11961 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Marcus, Newsom, Anderson", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 17-11961 Date Filed: 03/20/2019 Page: 1 of 33\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n IN THE UNITED STAT... | MARCUS | NEWSOM | ANDERSON | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4601361/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,602,166 | Jacqueline LEWIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF UNION CITY, GEORGIA, Chief of Police Charles Odom, in His Official and Individual Capacities, Defendant -Appellees. | Jacqueline Lewis v. City of Union City, Georgia | 2019-03-21 | 15-11362 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 1 of 10... | ED CARNES | TJOFLAT | MARCUS | 2 | WILSON; WILLIAM PRYOR; MARTIN; JORDAN; ROSENBAUM; JILL PRYOR; NEWSOM; BRANCH; GRANT | {"ED CARNES": ", Chief", "TJOFLAT": ", Circuit", "MARCUS": ", Circuit", "WILSON": ", Circuit", "WILLIAM PRYOR": ", Circuit", "MARTIN": ", Circuit", "JORDAN": ", Circuit", "ROSENBAUM": ", Circuit", "JILL PRYOR": ", Circuit", "NEWSOM": ", Circuit", "BRANCH": ", Circuit", "GRANT": ", Circuit"} | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4602166/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||
4,602,369 | GEORGIA MUSLIM VOTER PROJECT, Asian-Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, Plaintiffs - Appellees, v. Brian KEMP, in His Official Capacity as the Secretary of State of Georgia, Defendant - Appellant, Gwinnett County Board of Voter Registration and Elections, on Behalf of Itself and All Others Similarly Situated, Defendan... | GEORGIA MUSLIM VOTER PROJECT v. Kemp | 2019-03-21 | 18-14502-GG; 18-14503-GG | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Tjoflat, Pryor, Newsom", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888178/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "040dissent", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opi... | TJOFLAT | PRYOR | NEWSOM | 1 | {} | 7 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4602369/ | Published | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,602,856 | Jacqueline Lewis v. City of Union City, Georgia | 2019-03-21 | 15-11362 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, MARCUS, WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 15-11362 Date Filed: 03/21/2019 Page: 1 of 10... | ED CARNES | TJOFLAT | MARCUS | 2 | WILSON; WILLIAM PRYOR; MARTIN; JORDAN; ROSENBAUM; JILL PRYOR; NEWSOM; BRANCH; GRANT | {"ED CARNES": ", Chief", "TJOFLAT": ", Circuit", "MARCUS": ", Circuit", "WILSON": ", Circuit", "WILLIAM PRYOR": ", Circuit", "MARTIN": ", Circuit", "JORDAN": ", Circuit", "ROSENBAUM": ", Circuit", "JILL PRYOR": ", Circuit", "NEWSOM": ", Circuit", "BRANCH": ", Circuit", "GRANT": ", Circuit"} | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4602856/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,603,070 | Willie Seth CRAIN, Jr., Petitioner - Appellant, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Attorney General, State of Florida, Respondents - Appellees. | Willie Seth Crain, Jr. v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections. | 2019-03-22 | 15-14347; 18-11604 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Tjoflat, Marcus, Pryor", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "PER CURIAM", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 15-14347 Date Filed: 03/22/2019 Page: 1 of 4\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n\n IN THE UNITED STATES COURT ... | TJOFLAT | MARCUS | PRYOR | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603070/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,603,220 | Johnnie Teresa MARCHISIO, Adrian Marchisio, Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross Appellees, v. CARRINGTON MORTGAGE SERVICES, LLC, Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellant. | Johnnie Teresa Marchisio v. Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC. | 2019-03-25 | 17-10584 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit | {"judges": "Rosenbaum, Hull, Carnes", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judge:", "type": "010combined", "text": "Case: 17-10584 Date Filed: 03/25/2019 Page: 1 of 60\n\n\n [PUBLISH]\n\n\n\n IN THE UNITED S... | ROSENBAUM | HULL | CARNES | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4603220/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
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4,595,449 | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee v. John Milton AUSBY, Appellant | United States v. John Ausby | 2019-03-01 | 17-3077 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Henderson, Srinivasan, Millett", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "PER CURIAM", "type": "010combined", "text": "United States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued November 5, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\n\n No. 17-3077\n\n ... | HENDERSON | SRINIVASAN | MILLETT | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4595449/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,595,450 | NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION, Appellant v. Todd T. SEMONITE, Lieutenant General, Et Al., Appellees | Nat'l Parks Conservation Ass'n v. Semonite | 2019-03-01 | 18-5179; C/w 18-5186 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Garland, Tatel, Millett", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL", "type": "010combined", "text": "United States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued December 7, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\n\n ... | GARLAND | TATEL | MILLETT | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4595450/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
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4,595,451 | Daniel BARBOSA, Et Al., Appellants v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY and Federal Emergency Management Agency, Appellees | Barbosa v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland SEC. | 2019-03-01 | 17-5206 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Katsas, Silberman, Williams", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge SILBERMAN.", "type": "010combined", "text": "United States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued November 19, 2018 Decided March 1, ... | KATSAS | SILBERMAN | WILLIAMS | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4595451/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,595,452 | Brittany MONTROIS, Class of More Than 700,000 Similarly Situated Individuals and Businesses, Et Al., Appellees v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellant | Brittany Montrois v. United States | 2019-03-01 | 17-5204 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Garland, Srinivasan, Millett", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN", "type": "010combined", "text": "United States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued May 11, 2018 Decided March 1, 2019\n... | GARLAND | SRINIVASAN | MILLETT | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4595452/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
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7,334,993 | REPORTERS COMMITTEE FOR FREEDOM OF the PRESS v. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION | Reporters Comm. for Freedom Press v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation | 2019-03-01 | Civil Action No.: 17-1701 (RC) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Contreras", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7252913/", "author_raw": ""}]} | CONTRERAS | CONTRERAS | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334993/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
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7,334,065 | NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER v. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET | Nat'l Women's Law Ctr. v. Office of Mgmt. & Budget | 2019-03-04 | Civil Action No. 17-cv-2458 (TSC) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Chutkan", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7251985/", "author_raw": ""}]} | CHUTKAN | CHUTKAN | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334065/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
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7,334,388 | Fielding MCGEHEE v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE | McGehee v. U.S. Dep't of Justice | 2019-03-04 | Case No. 1:01-cv-01872 (TNM) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "McFadden", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7252308/", "author_raw": ""}]} | MCFADDEN | MCFADDEN | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334388/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
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7,335,318 | NEW ORLEANS WORKERS' CENTER FOR RACIAL JUSTICE v. UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION & CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT | New Orleans Workers' Ctr. for Racial Justice v. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement | 2019-03-04 | Civil Action No. 15-431 (RBW) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Walton", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253238/", "author_raw": ""}]} | WALTON | WALTON | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335318/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
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4,596,448 | NOVATO HEALTHCARE CENTER, Petitioner v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent | Novato Healthcare Ctr. v. Nat'l Labor Relations Bd. | 2019-03-05 | 17-1221; C/w 17-1232 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Garland, Griffith, Edwards", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GARLAND", "type": "010combined", "text": "United States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued September 17, 2018 Decided March 5, 2019\n\n ... | GARLAND | GRIFFITH | EDWARDS | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4596448/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,596,449 | Jeffrey O. SIEGEL, Petitioner v. ADMINISTRATOR OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION AND NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD, Respondents | Siegel v. Adm'r of the Fed. Aviation Admin. & Nat'l Transp. Safety Bd. | 2019-03-05 | 18-1102 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Srinivasan, Katsas, Sentelle", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge SENTELLE.", "type": "010combined", "text": "United States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\n\nArgued December 12, 2018 Decided March 5, ... | SRINIVASAN | KATSAS | SENTELLE | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4596449/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
7,334,063 | CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON v. UNITED STATES GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION | Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Wash. v. U.S. Gen. Servs. Admin. | 2019-03-05 | Case No. 18-cv-377 (CRC) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Cooper", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7251983/", "author_raw": ""}]} | COOPER | COOPER | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334063/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
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7,334,474 | United States v. Jameka BURNETTE | United States v. Burnette | 2019-03-05 | Case No. 1:18-cr-00282 (TNM) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "McFadden", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7252394/", "author_raw": ""}]} | MCFADDEN | MCFADDEN | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334474/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
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7,334,643 | COUNCIL OF PARENT ATTORNEYS AND ADVOCATES, INC. v. Elizabeth (Betsy) DEVOS, Secretary of Education Johnny W. Collet, Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services U.S. Department of Education | Council of Parent Attorneys v. Devos | 2019-03-07 | Civil Action No. 18-cv-1636 (TSC) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Chutkan", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7252563/", "author_raw": ""}]} | CHUTKAN | CHUTKAN | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334643/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
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7,335,320 | John LOTT v. NOT-FOR-PROFIT HOSPITAL CORPORATION d/b/a/ United Medical Center & the District of Columbia | Lott v. Not-For-Profit Hosp. Corp. | 2019-03-07 | Case No. 16-cv-01546 (APM) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Introduction, Mehta", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253240/", "author_raw": ""}]} | MEHTA | MEHTA | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335320/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
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7,335,390 | Rhonda MADDOX v. WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A. | Maddox v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. | 2019-03-07 | Case No. 17-cv-2634 (CRC) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Cooper", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253310/", "author_raw": ""}]} | COOPER | COOPER | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335390/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
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4,598,026 | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee v. Robert KELSEY, Also Known as Taiwan Kellsi, Appellant | United States v. Robert Kelsey | 2019-03-08 | 16-3125 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Henderson, Pillard, Ginsburg", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD", "type": "010combined", "text": "United States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued December 4, 2018 Decided March 8, 2019\n\n ... | HENDERSON | PILLARD | GINSBURG | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598026/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,598,027 | Jane DOE 2, Et Al., Appellees v. Patrick M. SHANAHAN, in His Official Capacity as Acting Secretary of Defense, Et Al., Appellants | Jane Doe 2 v. Patrick Shanahan | 2019-03-08 | 18-5257 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Griffith, Wilkins, Williams", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888118/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "030concurrence", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/re... | GRIFFITH | WILKINS | WILLIAMS | 1 | {} | 5 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598027/ | Published | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
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7,335,321 | Michael S. FLAHERTY v. Wilbur ROSS | Flaherty v. Ross | 2019-03-09 | Civil Action No. 11-660 (TJK) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Kelly", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253241/", "author_raw": ""}]} | KELLY | KELLY | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335321/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
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7,334,472 | OCEANA, INC. v. Wilbur L. ROSS, in His Official Capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce | Oceana, Inc. v. Ross | 2019-03-11 | Case No. 17-cv-829 (CRC) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Cooper", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7252392/", "author_raw": ""}]} | COOPER | COOPER | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334472/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
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7,335,322 | Teshome WORKAGEGNEHU v. WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY | Workagegnehu v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth. | 2019-03-11 | Civil Action No. 18-0526 (ABJ) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253242/"}]} | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335322/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
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7,335,323 | JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE | Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Dep't of Justice | 2019-03-11 | Case No. 17-cv-02682 (CRC) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Cooper", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253243/", "author_raw": ""}]} | COOPER | COOPER | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335323/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
7,335,384 | The CAYUGA NATION v. David BERNHARDT, The Cayuga Nation Council, Defendant-Intervenor. | Cayuga Nation v. Bernhardt | 2019-03-11 | Civil Action No. 17-1923 (CKK) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Kollar, Kotelly", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253304/", "author_raw": ""}]} | KOLLAR | KOLLAR | KOTELLY | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335384/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,598,704 | University of Southern CA v. NLRB | 2019-03-12 | 17-1149 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Before: TATEL and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"type": "010combined", "text": "United States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued September 5, 2018 Decided March 12, 2019\n\n ... | TATEL | PILLARD | SENTELLE | 1 | {"TATEL": ", Circuit", "PILLARD": ", Circuit", "SENTELLE": ", Senior Circuit"} | 5 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598704/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,598,705 | Darryl LEWIS, Appellant v. Kalev MUTOND, in His Individual Capacity Only, Administrateur Generale, Agence Nationale De Renseignements, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Alexis Thambwe Mwamba, in His Individual Capacity Only, Ministre De La Justice, Garde Des Sceaux Et Droits Humains, Democratic Republic of the Congo... | Darryl Lewis v. Kalev Mutond | 2019-03-12 | 17-7118 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Srinivasan, Wilkins, Randolph", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/9888141/", "author_raw": ""}, {"author": "", "type": "030concurrence", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/... | SRINIVASAN | WILKINS | RANDOLPH | 1 | {} | 6 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4598705/ | Published | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
7,335,324 | SIERRA CLUB v. Rick PERRY, Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy | Sierra Club v. Perry | 2019-03-12 | No. 17-cv-2700 (EGS) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Sullivan", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253244/", "author_raw": ""}]} | SULLIVAN | SULLIVAN | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335324/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
8,443,921 | UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Service Employees International Union, Local 721, CTW, CLC, Intervenor | Univ. of S. Cal. v. Nat'l Labor Relations Bd. | 2019-03-12 | No. 17-1149; C/w 17-1171 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Pillard, Sentelle, Tatel", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/8415352/", "author_raw": ""}]} | PILLARD | SENTELLE | TATEL | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/8443921/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
7,335,325 | JUDICIAL WATCH, INC. v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE | Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Dep't of State | 2019-03-13 | Civil Action No. 18-300 (TJK) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Kelly", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253245/", "author_raw": ""}]} | KELLY | KELLY | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335325/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
7,334,905 | FREEDOM WATCH, INC. v. GOOGLE, INC. | Freedom Watch, Inc. v. Google, Inc. | 2019-03-14 | Case No. 1:18-cv-02030 (TNM) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "McFadden", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7252825/", "author_raw": ""}]} | MCFADDEN | MCFADDEN | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7334905/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
7,335,326 | Antoinette BURNS v. Matthew D. LEVY | Burns v. Levy | 2019-03-14 | Civil Action No. 13-898 (CKK) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Kollar, Kotelly", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253246/", "author_raw": ""}]} | KOLLAR | KOLLAR | KOTELLY | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335326/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
7,335,332 | United States v. Mustafa Muhammad Mufta AL-IMAM | United States v. Al-Imam | 2019-03-14 | Case No. 17-cr-213 (CRC) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Cooper", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253252/", "author_raw": ""}]} | COOPER | COOPER | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335332/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
7,335,391 | Marvin Yovany CABRERA CABRERA v. UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES | Cabrera Cabrera v. United States Citizenship & Immigration Services | 2019-03-14 | Case No. 18-cv-01602 (APM) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Mehta", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253311/", "author_raw": ""}]} | MEHTA | MEHTA | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335391/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,600,239 | Robert SHI, as Executors of the Will of Yueh-Lan Wang, Et Al., Appellants v. NEW MIGHTY U.S. TRUST, Et Al., Appellees | Robert Shi v. New Mighty U.S. Trust | 2019-03-15 | 18-7066 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Rogers, Griffith, Pillard", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS", "type": "010combined", "text": "United States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued December 11, 2018 Decided March 15, 2019\n\n ... | ROGERS | GRIFFITH | PILLARD | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600239/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,600,240 | People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. AGRI | 2019-03-15 | 18-5074 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, KATSAS, Circuit Judge, and WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.", "type": "010combined", "text": "United States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n... | GARLAND | KATSAS | WILLIAMS | 1 | {"GARLAND": ", Chief", "KATSAS": ", Circuit", "WILLIAMS": ", Senior Circuit"} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600240/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
4,600,241 | MISSOURI RIVER ENERGY SERVICES, Petitioner v. FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION, Respondent Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Et Al., Intervenors | Missouri River Energy Services v. F.E.R.C. | 2019-03-15 | 18-1166 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Garland, Srinivasan, Silberman", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN", "type": "010combined", "text": "United States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued February 6, 2019 Decided March 15, 2019... | GARLAND | SRINIVASAN | SILBERMAN | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600241/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
4,600,242 | Jeffrey A. LOVITKY, Appellant v. Donald J. TRUMP, in His Official Capacity as President of the United States, Appellee | Jeffrey Lovitky v. Donald Trump | 2019-03-15 | 18-5105 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Tatel, Griffith, Williams", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.", "type": "010combined", "text": "United States Court of Appeals\n FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT\n\n\n\nArgued December 14, 2018 Decided March 15, 2... | TATEL | GRIFFITH | WILLIAMS | 1 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/4600242/ | Published | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | |||
7,335,327 | CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE | Campaign Legal Ctr. v. U.S. Dep't of Justice | 2019-03-15 | Civil Action No. 18-0340 (ABJ) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253247/"}]} | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335327/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||||
7,335,328 | Karen KLOTZBACH-PIPER v. NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION, dba Amtrak | Klotzbach-Piper v. Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. | 2019-03-15 | Civil Action No.: 18-1702 (RC) | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Contreras, Introduction", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/7253248/", "author_raw": ""}]} | CONTRERAS | CONTRERAS | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/7335328/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... | ||||
8,443,922 | PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE | Peta v. U.S. Dept. Of Agriculture | 2019-03-15 | No. 18-5074 | U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | {"judges": "Williams", "parties": "", "opinions": [{"author": "", "type": "020lead", "text": "", "resource_uri": "https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/opinions/8415353/", "author_raw": ""}]} | WILLIAMS | WILLIAMS | 0 | {} | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | null | https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/clusters/8443922/ | Published | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2,019 | 3 | [
{
"content": "You are an expert legal coding assistant trained to classify U.S. federal Courts of Appeals\ncases using an adaptation of the Supreme Court Database (SCDB_2023_01) codebook. You follow the coding procedure\nin the codebook step by step and use the precise definitions of terms presented in the code... |
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