Friday, May 08, 2020

Where Credit is Due

In Massachusetts, GOA joined several other plaintiffs who filed suit against the state’s closure of gun stores. Now, because of a favorable ruling from a federal judge, gun stores can reopen this Saturday, May 9th. [More]
Right, but to be clear-- whose case was it that produced the ruling?

If my question shows me to be misinterpreting things, I apologize for asking.

4 comments:

Henry said...

I guess your question is not clear to me. There was only one "case" (suit) to which everybody signed on -- individual residents, national organizations, state organizations. Are you asking "which of the individual defendants' personal experiences evidenced a violation of constitutional rights, as interpreted by the judge?" You can't tell from that document, which is only the plaintiffs' filing.

David Codrea said...

I'm saying the ruling was for SAF's case, not GOA's, but the wording of this press release does not make that clear to me.

Henry said...

I see your point now. There is a very good history of the filings in this case here:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17056865/mccarthy-v-baker/

I don't see GOA listed as an added plaintiff, and I don't even see them listed as having filed an amicus. So now I'm not sure how to interpret their claim of having "joined" the plaintiffs. I do believe I'll attempt to follow this up with them.

Henry said...

It looks like GOA's suit (Cedrone) was filed a week earlier than SAF's (McCarthy), on 4/9:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17058515/1/cedrone-llc-v-baker/

After McCarthy was filed on 4/16, the court took notice that two substantially related cases were pending, reassigned the Cedrone suit to the new judge, and all further court action took case on McCarthy, with Cedrone apparently being limboed. Whether this was the court flipping a coin or the lawyers getting together and deciding the later one was a stronger case, I can't tell from the record. If could even have been because the lawyers agreed the first judge was a stiff and were happy to have the case transferred.

The only questionable element I can detect is that GOAL, a Cedrone plaintiff, submitted an amicus to McCarthy after the consolidation, but none of the others (including GOA) did so. But I do't know how significant that is.