On the Washington Legal Foundation’s new Legal Pulse blog, Glenn Lammi critiques People for the American Way’s wild claim that five justices of the Supreme Court are all about “putting business first.” Lammi properly asks:

If the Court is so decidedly “pro-business,” then how can PFAW explain cases like last year’s Wyeth v. Levine, which allows state failure-to-warn lawsuits against makers of FDA-approved drugs? If it feels the Court openly advances the interests of tobacco producers, how does one account for the 2008 ruling Altria Group v. Good, which allowed state consumer fraud suits against such companies to go forward? Or three decisions from this year, Jones v. Harris Associates (unanimously allowing shareholder suits vs. investment advisors), Shady Grove Orthopedic v. Allstate (Scalia majority opinion permitting federal class action lawsuits in a state which prohibits such suits), and, just issued this morning, Merck v. Reynolds (unanimous Breyer opinion permitting securities fraud suits involving Vioxx to proceed)?

See also Carrie Severino’s two recent posts responding to similar claims by Senator Leahy.