Retailers Ask SCOTUS: Overturn Harmful 9th Circuit Decision
- By [ Deborah White ]
- Washington, DC
- 03/04/2024
In Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court will consider a Ninth Circuit decision that imposes unworkable preconditions on municipalities that seek to use laws tailored to their communities as one of many tools to address public encampments. Retailers are asking the Supreme Court to overturn the decision.
The RLC/RILA brief shares information about RILA’s Vibrant Communities Initiative a first-of-its-kind national partnership between the Retail Industry Leaders Association and the National District Attorneys Association to address safety concerns of employees and consumers by launching a partnership among relevant public and private stakeholders focused on identifying and tackling issues that contribute to the increase in crime, violence, and vagrancy in and around retail environments, business districts and communities across the country.
“Retailers are on the front lines of many community issues, including the health and safety effects of public encampments,” said RLC President and RILA General Counsel, Deborah White. “RILA’s Vibrant Communities Initiative seeks to bring partners together to solve problems, but those partners also rely on tools like regulation of unsafe conditions that communities enact based on known needs. The Ninth Circuit’s holding in Grants Pass is not only wrong as a matter of constitutional law, it is unworkable in practice.”
The RLC and RILA’s brief is an important addition to the dialogue around this case because of the background it offers on the inability of communities to follow the Ninth Circuit’s constitutional regime and how resulting de facto un-enforcement or post-hoc judicial enforcement hurts public health and safety efforts already underway.
“This case is not a binary choice on policy preferences around solving the complex and compelling problem of homelessness,” said the RLC Litigation Counsel, Larissa Whittingham. “Instead, the appeal asks the Supreme Court to correct a constitutional doctrine that cannot be applied in practice and to allow communities to continue working together to address complex problems in many ways, including generally applicable laws when necessary.”
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The Retail Litigation Center
Directed by the chief legal officers of the country's leading retail companies, the Retail Litigation Center (RLC) is the only organization dedicated to advocating for the industry's top priorities in the federal and state judiciary. The RLC also works with leading law firms and retail corporate counsel to develop forward-thinking strategies to combat meritless mass action litigation. Founded by the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) in 2010 as an independent organization, the RLC is a 501(c)(6) membership association open to all retailers and select law firms.
Retail Industry Leaders Association
RILA is the US trade association for leading retailers. We convene decision-makers, advocate for the industry, and promote operational excellence and innovation. Our aim is to elevate a dynamic industry by transforming the environment in which retailers operate.
RILA members include more than 200 retailers, product manufacturers, and service suppliers, which together account for more than $2.7 trillion in annual sales, millions of American jobs, and hundreds of thousands of stores, manufacturing facilities, and distribution centers domestically and abroad.
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