Back in 2016, federal district judge Ann L. Aiken issued what I described as “perhaps the most pervasively lunatic ruling I have ever seen.” In Juliana v. United States, she denied the Obama administration’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit in which “a group of young people,” ages eight to nineteen, claim that they have a substantive due process right to a stable climate.
To make a longer story short: More than four years ago, a Ninth Circuit panel majority consisting of two Obama appointees, taking the not-so-subtle hint that the Supreme Court provided, directed Aiken to dismiss the lawsuit on the ground that plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue their claim. But Aiken refused to follow the Ninth Circuit’s mandate to dismiss the case and instead invited plaintiffs to file an amended complaint that suffered from the same standing defect. She then denied the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint.
In an order today, the Ninth Circuit granted DOJ’s petition for mandamus to enforce its earlier mandate to dismiss the case. So that ought finally to end this matter.
Of course, I’ve thought the same thing before. So who knows what lunacy Aiken might concoct now?