Supreme Court Reflections, Part 2 – Stevens and the Master Challenge

I was heartened by the common-sense cut to the chase of the senior associate justice, John Paul Stevens. “I really don’t understand,” Stevens said, “why it makes any difference whether you call a requirement mandatory or whether you call it jurisdictional in terms of the fairness of settlement … [A]s a practical matter, it doesn’t seem to make any difference.”

Earlier, Stevens had raised the same question. Later he reinforced it yet again: “[W]ould you not make all the arguments directed at the fairness of the settlements and so forth if it were merely mandatory?”

Strong stuff.