...what we mean when we talk about "going back to Lochner."#SCOTUS today: "Although COVID–19 is a risk that occurs in many workplaces, it is not an *occupational* hazard in most."#SCOTUS in Lochner (1905): "Clean and wholesome bread does not depend upon whether the baker works but ten hours per day or only sixty hours a week."
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) January 13, 2022
Gorsuch is as happy as a pig in slop.
The last paragraph of the dissent is worth repeating:
ReplyDeleteAnd then, there is this Court. Its Members are elected by, and accountable to, no one. And we “lack[] the background, competence, and expertise to assess” workplace health and safety issues. South Bay United Pentecostal Church, 590 U. S., at ___ (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.) (slip op., at 2). When we are wise, we know enough to defer on matters like this one. When we are wise, we know not to displace the judgments of experts, acting within the sphere Congress marked out and under Presidential control, to deal with emergency conditions. Today, we are not wise. In the face of a still-raging pandemic, this Court tells the agency charged with protecting worker safety that it may not do so in all the workplaces needed. As disease and death continue to mount, this Court tells the agency that it cannot respond in the most effective way possible. Without legal basis, the Court usurps a decision that rightfully belongs to others. It undercuts the capacity of the responsible 14 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. OSHA BREYER, J., dissenting BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting federal officials, acting well within the scope of their authority, to protect American workers from grave danger.