-
An undated handout photo shows US Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor - Source: Reuters -
Related
Sonia Sotomayor, nominated by President Barack Obama for the US
Supreme Court, has a lengthy record of rulings in business cases as
a federal judge in New York.
But legal experts said Sotomayor does not appear to be either
particularly liberal or conservative on business issues - resulting
in a patchwork of decisions based more on the merits and facts of
the cases than an ideological approach to the law.
"If you look through the decisions she has written while on the
Second Circuit (US Court of Appeals), there seems to be a
surprisingly small number of cases that involve securities laws,"
said Roger Kirby, a partner at class-action law firm Kirby
McInerney LLP in New York.
Experts say it can be difficult to predict how a federal appeals
court judge like Sotomayor will rule on business cases as a member
of the Supreme Court.
Following are some of Sotomayor's more notable
business-related decisions. Four of the rulings were later
overturned by the Supreme Court.
Concern for investor rights advocates
One case Kirby cited as potentially of concern for investor
rights advocates is a 2007 decision in an investor lawsuit accusing
the New York Stock Exchange of violating securities laws by
allowing improper trading by floor traders.
Sotomayor, writing for a three-judge panel of the appeals court,
partially revived the case, which was brought by the California
Public Employees' Retirement System and another plaintiff.
But the court also said the stock exchange had absolute immunity
from the specialists' activities because of its self-regulatory
role in the securities market - a position which could make it
harder to file such lawsuits in future.
Securities fraud ruling overturned by Supreme
Court
Sotomayor wrote the majority decision in 2005 in a securities
fraud case involving Merrill Lynch that later was overturned by the
Supreme Court in a victory for corporate defendants.
The purported securities fraud class-action case had been brought
by a former Merrill Lynch broker who accused the investment firm of
fraudulently manipulating stock prices.
Sotomayor reinstated the case, after it had been dismissed by a
lower court, ruling that it was not barred by a federal law which
makes it harder to bring such lawsuits.
The Supreme Court in 2006 unanimously disagreed with her ruling and
held such suits were prohibited by federal law.
Baseball strike
Sotomayor made headlines as a trial judge in 1995 with an order
preventing Major League Baseball owners from using replacement
players, ending a nearly year-long strike by unionized
players.
She drew praise from players by ruling that the owners could not
unilaterally discard the two-decade-old system of free
agency.
Sotomayor ruled the owners were trying to subvert the labor system
and that the strike had placed the entire concept of collective
bargaining on trial. She granted an injunction sought by the
National Labor Relations Board.
Discrimination cases
In cases involving race, sex, age and disability discrimination,
Sotomayor has more often sided with the plaintiffs than the
employer, according to analysis of her record as part of a project
directed by Tom Goldstein, a lawyer who argues before the Supreme
Court and who created the SCOTUSblog Web site.
Environmental law involving power plants
Sotomayor wrote a major environmental law ruling that the Bush
administration Environmental Protection Agency could not weigh the
costs of introducing technology used in power plant cooling
structures against the benefits of protecting aquatic life.
Her ruling was reversed by the Supreme Court on April 1 by a 6-3
vote in a defeat for environmentalists and a victory for the EPA
and energy companies that operate power plants.
Wine shipments
Sotomayor was part of a three-judge panel that upheld New York's
law barring direct shipments of out-of-state wine to in-state
consumers.
The Supreme Court in 2005 struck down such laws, arguing they
unconstitutionally limited interstate commerce.
Copyright case
Freelance journalists had sued the New York Times Company for
copyright infringement because the Times included in an electronic
database the work of the authors it had published.
Sotomayor as a trial judge ruled that the publisher had the right
to license the work of the freelancers, in a decision that limited
the copyright rights of the authors.
Her decision was reversed on appeal, and the Supreme Court in 2001
upheld the reversal.
