Scalia to News Media: Focus on the Text!

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While we’d be honored if Justice Scalia read the Law Blog, we sure hope he didn’t have us in mind yesterday. In D.C., at a conference of the Food and Drug Law Institute, Scalia reportedly took the news media to task for failing to focus on the text of the laws the High Court interprets.

According to the AP story, he cited news accounts of February’s 8-1 decision in Riegel v. Medtronic, a preemption case that addressed whether the manufacturer of a medical device approved for sale by the FDA can be sued for damages under state law if the device injures a patient. (Click here for past LB coverage.) The Court sided with Medtronic. Scalia wrote the opinion.

In his talk, Scalia singled out for criticism a New York Times editorial on the case headlined “No Recourse for the Injured.” He said the media often make it appear as though the Court is reaching policy judgments on its own rather than basing its decisions on the text of the law at issue.

In some instances, said Scalia, the news media leave the impression that no ruling based on the text of a law “is even possible.”