Just a brief note on today’s ruling in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co., in which the Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not prohibit a state from requiring an out-of-state corporation to consent to being sued in its courts as a condition of doing business in the state.

Justice Alito, in casting his critical fifth vote, argued that the Commerce Clause—more precisely, the so-called dormant Commerce Clause theory—might render such a requirement unconstitutional. So the same issue might return to the Court in different constitutional garb. Indeed, that dormant Commerce Clause claim is open for the Pennsylvania supreme court to address on remand in this case.

Justice Gorsuch wrote the lead opinion, joined in full by Justices Thomas, Sotomayor, and Jackson. Alito joined only Parts I and III-B of Gorsuch’s opinion, so it was the “opinion of the Court” only in those parts.

The Court’s reporter of decisions is ordinarily meticulous in differentiating between those parts of the lead opinion that garner a majority and those that have a mere plurality. The pages that have a majority bear “Opinion of the Court” at the top, and those with a plurality instead have “Opinion of [Name], J.” Oddly, the reporter failed to do that for Mallory, and every page in Gorsuch’s opinion is denominated “Opinion of the Court.”