'Trash heap': Enraged Gorsuch says Supreme Court performed 'root canal' with ruling

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch was not happy about the ruling issued by the court's latest member, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, regarding a long-simmering case on bankruptcy law — and he made clear in his dissent that he thought the ruling was a "trash heap."

The case in question was Office of the United States Trustee v. John Q. Hammons Fall 2006, LLC.

According to Newsweek, "The case centered on a 2017 law that increased quarterly fees large companies paid to fund the U.S. Trustee. However, North Carolina and Alabama, not part of the U.S. Trustee program, did not impose a matching fee increase in their bankruptcy courses, leading to a disparity in how much companies paid, according to Reuters. In 2022, the court found that the increase was unconstitutional. In this case, the court heard arguments about whether refunds should be issued to fix this previous constitutional violation. The majority of the court's justices ruled that prospective parity, rather than refunds, would be the proper remedy."

The case broke down along unusual ideological lines, with all three liberals being joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, with Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Amy Coney Barrett dissenting. Gorsuch did not disguise his disdain.

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"Two years ago, we held that this geographically discriminatory treatment violated the Constitution's Bankruptcy Clause — a provision that, we stressed, was not 'toothless,'" wrote Gorsuch. "Today, however, the Court performs a remedial root canal, permitting the government to keep the cash it extracted from its unconstitutional fee regime." He went on to say, "Still, if the majority wishes to rest its holding today on the lack of party presentation of these arguments, I will not stand in its way, for it means debtors who have more forcefully pressed the arguments the majority overlooks need not join Hammons on the remedial trash-heap. Courts below remain free to consider those arguments."

Gorsuch, the first of former President Donald Trump's three appointees to the Supreme Court, is a hardline ideological conservative on most issues, but can be tough to pin down occasionally, as he will sometimes adopt expansive views of civil liberties that put him at odds with his Republican colleagues.