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from NewsMax.com
Samuel Alito, nominated Monday by President Bush for an associate justice position on the U.S. Supreme Court, has been called “Scalito” by detractors, comparing him to conservative associate justice Antonin Scalia.
However, according to a recent article in Time magazine, the judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has a distinct history of being his own man.
For example: A 2002 case before the Third Circuit involved a disabled woman who had been laid off from her job as an elevator operator. Further, the position of “elevator operator” had all but disappeared from the modern lexicon.
The trial court had held that a narrow and technical reading of the Social Security statute did not entitle the woman to benefits.
But Alito led the charge in the Appeals Court to convince his fellow judges that the trial court’s interpretation was “absurd.” When the dust had cleared, the Third Circuit had ruled to overturn the lower court and give the elevator operator her Social Security benefit.
“I think he really looks at the facts of the case; he’d be very realistic,” says former clerk Katherine K. Huang. “He doesn’t have his head in the clouds. He’s not going to be carried away by some legal doctrine or some arcane grammatical rule.”
Speaking of grammar, however, that was the basis for the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Alito’s Social Security decision just a year later in 2003.
None other than associate justice Scalia rebuked Alito’s opinion, accusing him of “disregarding” basic grammatical rules for interpreting the law.
Scalia sided with the narrow and technical reading and denied the woman her Social Security benefits.
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