UNITED STATES
on petition for writ of certiorari to the united
states court of appeals for the eleventh circuit
ALEXIS LAWRENCE, guardian and next friend on
behalf of KEMMERLYN D. LAWRENCE, a minor
94-9323v.
SHIRLEY S. CHATER, COMMISSIONER OF
SOCIAL SECURITY
on petition for writ of certiorari to the united
states court of appeals for the fourth circuit
Nos. 94-8988 and 94-9323. Decided January 8, 1996.
Chief Justice Rehnquist , concurring in No. 94-9323
I agree, for the reasons given by Justice Scalia, that
the Court is mistaken in vacating the judgment in No.
94-8988, Stutson v. United States. I also agree with
much of the rest of Justice Scalia's dissent, but I do
not agree with that portion post, at 3-4, dealing with
what he describes as "situations calling forth the special
deference owed to state law and state courts in our
system of federalism." Of the three cases which he cites
for this proposition, one, Missouri ex rel. Wabash R. Co.
v. Public Serv. Comm'n,273 U.S. 126 (1927), came to
this Court on writ of error and therefore was required
to be decided on the merits. The second, State Farm
Mut. Automobile Ins. Co. v. Duel,324 U.S. 154 (1945),
came to us on appeal from a State Supreme Court, and
was thus also required to be decided on the merits. The
third, Huddleston v. Dwyer, 322 U.S. 232 (1944), wasa case in which certiorari had already been granted, and
the case argued on the merits. None of them, then,
involved a choice between denying certiorari, on the one
hand, and simply vacating the judgment of the lower
court without any opinion, on the other. Vacating a
judgment without explanation when the alternative is to
simply deny certiorari involves at best the correction of
perceived error made by the lower courts. In this
connection, we would do well to bear in mind the
admonition of Chief Justice William Howard Taft, one of
the architects of the Certiorari Act of 1925, as described
by his biographer:
"It was vital, he said in opening his drive for the
Judges' bill, that cases before the Court be reduced
without limiting the function of pronouncing `the last
word on every important issue under the Constitution and the statutes of the United States.' A
Supreme Court, on the other hand, should not be a
tribunal obligated to weigh justice among contesting
parties.
`They have had all they have a right to claim,'
Taft said, `when they have had two courts in which
to have adjudicated their controversy.' " 2 H.
Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft
997-998 (1939).
I agree with the decision announced in the percuriam
to vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the
Fourth Circuit in No. 94-9323, Lawrence v. Chater.
Whether or not the change of position by the Social
Security Administration is "cognizable," in the words of
Justice Scalia, post, at 11, it is perfectly reasonable to
request the Court of Appeals to answer that question in
the first instance.