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Remedial Harassment by Lawsuit in the Supreme Court
What can high-level government officials do to avoid being distracted from their work by lawsuits? That seemed to be the question of the day at the U.S. Supreme Court, considering the case of Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Javaid Iqbal sued then-Attorney General Ashcroft, FBI Director Mueller, and several other government officials after he was arrested on credit card fraud charges shortly after 9/11. Iqbal claims that he was mistreated—held in a maximum-security prison for nearly six months, where he was subjected to invasive daily searches, beatings, extremes in temperature, sleep disruption, and prohibitions on his religious practices—all because he was an Arab Muslim. He alleges his classification as a "high interest" detainee was racial and religious profiling by the government, in violation of his rights.

The trial has not even begun, though, since the Department of Justice is claiming that pre-trial discovery, including possible depositions with officials, would burden them and prevent them from doing their jobs. They say that the lawsuit's initial filings, claiming Ashcroft and Mueller knew about and approved of the racial and religious profiling, are not specific enough, so the lawsuit should be dismissed. Of course Iqbal's lawyers argue that they do have enough information to support their allegations, but they need discovery to fully develop their case.

All members of the Supreme Court today seemed perplexed by the situation. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allow a case to be dismissed if it is purely frivolous, but generally not until after discovery has taken place. Further, the Rules allow judges to discipline attorneys who file frivolous lawsuits, but only after the lawsuits have been disposed of.

Justice Breyer, seeking to simplify the situation, asked how an important but non-government person would be able to escape the burden of lawsuits. He asked, as an example, how the president of the Coca-Cola Company would deal with a lawsuit claiming he personally put mice in Coke bottles: the claim is clearly preposterous, but neither attorney could give a clear federal rule that would allow dismissal of the case at such an early stage.

The Department of Justice argued that the resolution should come in a more stringent requirement on the initial filings of the case—when a suit is filed against an important government official, the filings should be held to a higher standard and need to be more specific. The DoJ said that this standard could be held to be a corollary of the "qualified immunity" rule that allows government officials to normally escape being held personally liable for actions taken while in office.

The Justices are unlikely to accept that suggestion, however. Firstly, there are procedures set out for changing the rules on court filings, so the Supreme Court cannot simply impose new standards. Secondly, such a standard would go against the American tradition of allowing easy access to the court system. Thirdly, the proposed standard would still allow private officials, such as the Coca-Cola president, to be burdened.

The Supreme Court will likely release its decision in the spring.