Washington Legal Foundation v. Texas Equal Access to Justice Foundation
Washington Legal Foundation v. Texas Equal Access to Justice Foundation
Dissenting Opinion
and JOLLY, WIENER, BENAVIDES, STEWART, PARKER, and DENNIS, Circuit Judges, dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc.
In this second round of the captioned case, a divided panel of our court reversed the district court’s ruling and held the Texas Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA) program unconstitutional. Soon afterwards, the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, upheld the constitutionality of an essentially identical IOLTA program in the State of Washington.
supplementing the foregoing dissent from denial of rehearing en banc:
My reasons for believing that this case is worthy of en banc review are the same as those set forth in the foregoing dissent by the seven of us who voted to rehear it. I now write separately to add the substantive law reasons why I am convinced that we should have reheard this appeal en banc and reinstated the judgment of the district court.
As a practical outcome for our circuit, the panel majority’s holding dismantles IOLTA programs that have found favor in all fifty states as a means of funding legal services for the underprivileged while fulfilling lawyers’ ethical obligations to contribute to the delivery of such services for that segment of society.
I IOLTA I
Following our first go-around with Washington Legal Foundation v. Texas Equal Access to Justice,
We express no view as to whether these funds have been “taken” by the State; nor do we express an opinion as to the amount of “just compensation,” if any, due respondents. We leave these issues to be addressed on remand.3
The Court neither stated nor implied that prospective (injunctive) relief is even a possibility. Pursuant to the Supreme Court’s directive and the crucial, far-reach
Our panel majority’s opinion and the Ninth Circuit’s en banc opinion validate Justice Souter’s worst concerns and predictions in Phillips.
II. IOLTA II
A. Takings: Ad Hoc versus Per Se Analysis
A divided panel of this court has now established the Takings jurisprudence for this circuit regarding whether to use ad hoc or per se analysis when the property purportedly “taken” is money — more specifically, the illusory right to future interest, if any — that is both fungible and valued in dollars on its face. Consequently, determination whether the workings of IOLTA effect a taking depends largely on the analytical methodology employed by the examining court. The Ninth Circuit noted that, in Takings Clause cases, one or the other of two analyses — ad hoc or per se — has been employed.
Our analysis should have been guided by an understanding of the exact nature of the “property” at issue, not merely that, according to the Supreme Court, it is property. Here, we deal with neither tangible or intangible real property, nor even tangible personal property, such as a painting taken by a city for display in the Hotel de Ville. Rather, the “property” here at issue is the ephemeral net interest, if any, on a client’s funds deposited into an IOLTA account, which can only produce net interest when combined with funds of other clients: Separately, the deposited funds are too few or are held too briefly to produce net interest for the individual client who owns the principal on deposit.
The only answer provided by the Supreme Court in Phillips is that this potential interest to be earned on funds in an IOLTA account is property. Post Phil'lips, the first question we must answer— whether to apply ad hoc or per se analysis, or some yet unarticulated method to be used in situations when money is the purportedly taken property — is a novel and open one for our circuit, not to mention the entire federal system, save only the Ninth Circuit. Our panel majority’s opinion assumes that the appropriation of IOLTA funds is a physical intrusion of property requiring application of the per se test articulated in Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp,
This longstanding distinction between acquisitions of property for public use, on the one had, and regulations prohibiting private uses, on the other, makes it inappropriate to treat cases involving physical takings as a controlling precedents for the evaluation of a claim that there has been a “regulatory taking,” and vice versa.13
The key inquiry thus becomes whether appropriation of IOLTA funds is akin to the physical intrusion discussed in other per se cases. Scrutiny of (1) the original “fairness and justice” purposes of the Fifth Amendment, (2) the rationale underlying the per se doctrine, (3) the methodology employed by takings cases involving money or monetary liability, in addition to (4) a thorough evaluation of the cases purportedly supporting application of the per se doctrine, makes clear that this doctrine, as it is used in cases dealing with real or
B. Fairness and Justice
The original purpose of the Fifth Amendment reflects an understanding that situations like the one presented by IOLTA do not fall neatly into any particular takings analysis. One of the Supreme Court’s venerable Takings Clause cases, Armstrong v. United States, teaches that “The Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation was designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens, which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.”
It is indeed a novel extension of Fifth Amendment jurisprudence to allow these plaintiffs to prevail without any showing of loss or hardship. In fact, in this case, it is the prescribing of injunctive relief that assaults the notions of fairness and justice underlying the Amendment. It is the plaintiffs — accused by some of playing the dog in the manger
C. Incongruous Rationale Underlying the Per Se Doctrine
Loretto explains the rationale for employing the per se analysis in physical invasion cases: “Property rights in a physical thing have been described as the rights ‘to possess, use and dispose of it.’ To the extent that the government permanently occupies physical property, it effectively destroys each of these rights.”
The Supreme Court, in deciding that the interest on IOLTA accounts is property, noted that valuable rights other than economic rights appertain to property. Specifically, the Court’s majority opinion states that “[w]hile the interest at issue here may have no economically realizable value to its owner, possession, control, and disposition are nonetheless valuable rights that inhere in property.”
Second, none dispute that, even without IOLTA, the plaintiffs cannot physically “possess” this chimeric interest or even “control” where these funds end up. The plaintiffs’ mythical “choice” is between allowing banks to gobble the interest, using each client’s principal as an interest-free loan, on the one hand, or allowing the lawyers of Texas, under the supervision of the Texas Supreme Court, to fulfill the legal profession’s ethical duty to the needy by diverting the interest to legal aid societies, on the other. Put simply, the “valuable rights” other than economic value that appertain to real or tangible personal property simply do not exist when the property at issue is potential interest on a principal amount that alone is too small or held too fleetingly to generate net interest for its owner.
When carefully assayed, the property at issue in IOLTA constitutes a unique variety that does not easily conform to the traditional rights attendant on real or tangible personal property. Understanding this, Justice Souter stated in dissent that “it is enough to note the possible significance of the facts that there is no physical occupation or seizure of tangible property, that there is no apparent economic impact....”
The difficulty in evaluating the type of analysis that is appropriate for IOLTA funds is especially important in light of the Supreme Court’s explanation that “physical appropriations are relatively rare, easily identified, and usually represent a greater affront to individual property rights.”
D. Balancing Approach Employed in Takings Cases Involving Money
Unfortunately, the few cases that address the Takings Clause in the context of money are not wholly on point. They do, however, confirm that when the property at issue is money, a distinct analysis— separate from per se or ad hoc, or any other method used for real and tangible personal property — is required. Both Webb’s Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beckwith
More importantly, the focus in Webb’s and Sperry is on the reasonableness of the relationship between the appropriated amount and the reasons for the appropriation, suggesting that, in the context of monéy, the Supreme Court does not apply the same per se analysis it uses in the context of real and tangible personal property. Without question, in both cases the governmental entity forthrightly took control of the funds, but in neither case was the taking by itself determinative of the outcome. Significantly, one of the disposi-tive factors in Webb’s was that “Webb’s creditors ... had more than a unilateral expectation” in the accruing interest and that “it was property held only for the ultimate benefit of Webb’s creditors.”
In all likelihood, these specific concerns, which arise when the property at issue is money, are what prompted the Court to
This theme as articulated in Sperry— that money is a unique type of property which is inadequately covered by conventional real or personal property analysis— is reflected in two subsequent appellate court cases. In Nixon v. United States, the D.C. Circuit held that personal property is subject to Loretto’s per se doctrine. In doing so, however, the court expressly described Sperry as clarifying that, although real and personal property are subject to the doctrine, money does not receive per se analysis.
The Texas IOLTA program is nothing if not a “less conventional” method of regulating financial dealings with commercial institutions so as to fulfill the legal profession’s ethical obligation to the underprivileged members of society. Thus, the panel majority’s application of the per se doctrine, in the form developed for real and personal property other than money, is a highly questionable proposition that suffers from two palpable analytical flaws: (1) It is not grounded in definitive or wholly applicable Supreme Court precedent; and (2) it fails to address the special treatment accorded by the Supreme Court and other appellate courts to situations in which the property purportedly taken is money.
E. Inadequate Case Law Support for Application of Per Se Analysis
A closer study of the four cases relied on here by the panel majority to reach its conclusion regarding the per se doctrine further illustrates the weakness of the panel’s argument.
Furthermore, as discussed above, those case are factually and legally distinguishable from the instant case, making any rote application of their reasonings of holdings simplistic and incongruous. Webb’s was a user-fee case that did not address either per se or ad hoc approaches, instead basing its holding on (1) the legitimate expectation of accrued interest by creditors, and (2) the arbitrary relationship between the amount taken and any service rendered by the government.
With similar fallacy, the panel majority reads Loretto to stand for the proposition that physical occupation of property constitutes a per se taking “regardless of the economic impact. on the owner.”
Finally, Lucas, another case cited by the panel majority in an effort to support its application of per se takings analysis, provides only paper-thin support, if any support at all, for the panel majority’s position. In Lucas, the Court dealt with a regulatory taking of real property. Even though it was a regulatory taking and not a physical invasion, the Court abandoned the ad hoc test of Penn Central and declared the regulation a taking because it had caused the property owner to “sacrifice all economically beneficial” uses of his property.
The panel majority’s reliance on Lucas is rendered even more tenuous by the Supreme Court’s statement in that case regarding the treatment of commercial dealings. Discussing the regulatory taking of real property, the Court in Lucas declared
It seems to us that the property owner necessarily expects the uses of his property to be restricted, from time to time, by various measures newly enacted by the State in legitimate exercise of its police power; ... And in the case of personal property, by reason of the State’s traditionally high degree of control over commercial dealing, he ought to be aware of the possibility that new regulation might even render his property economically worthless (at least if the property’s only economically productive use is sale or manufacture for sale). In the case of land, however, ....36
This statement in Lucas, read in conjunction with the Federal Circuit’s approach in Branch,
III. The Amount of Just Compensation Due, If Any
The second question left open by the Supreme Court’s opinion in Phillips is what just compensation, if any, is due. Consistent with my dissent but contrary to the panel majority’s view, the Ninth Circuit held that, even if there were a “taking of property,” it was not done without just
The Supreme Court’s opinion in Phillips neither decreed nor compelled an answer to the just compensation question; in fact, the Phillips majority specifically wrote that “whether client funds held in IOLTA accounts could generate net interest is a matter of some dispute.”
Keeping the finding of zero compensable loss firmly in mind, our panel should have followed the chronological analysis prescribed for all takings cases! First determine whether a takings occurred, and then determine the amount of just compensation, if any, that is due. Importantly, the Fifth Amendment has never been read to proscribe a taking vel non;
Assuming, arguendo, that a takings occurred (whether per se or otherwise), the proper analysis of IOLTA should have proceeded thusly: (1) The potential interest on an IOLTA account is property; (2) a taking occurred (my arguendo assumption); but (3) the plaintiffs demonstrated a
When reduced to its essentials, the panel’s novel methodology appears to proceed in this order: (1) the potential interest on the IOLTA accounts is property; (2) a per se takings occurred under Loretto; (3) having determined that a per se taking of property occurred, the district court’s finding of zero loss is irrelevant; (4) because a takings has occurred there must be some available remedy (even though none is mentioned in the Constitution) regardless of the district court’s finding; so (5) in the absence of provable loss, the appropriate remedy is injunctive relief, a prophylactic which prohibits the taking rather than simply placing a condition on it. This logic is a perversion of all established Fifth Amendment jurisprudence and finds absolutely no support in case law.
Under the instant facts, the rule should be that when the allegations specify that a monetary interest was taken, what follows from the finding of zero loss is not that declaratory and injunctive must be awarded, but rather that the taking is not unconstitutional. The panel majority has conflated (1) its determination that the appropriation of IOLTA interest is a per se taking with (2) the determination that it is also per se unconstitutional. This conflation puts the proverbial cart before the horse: Finding no provable economic loss (for the alleged taking of money), but somehow convinced of the impropriety of the transaction and thus the need to find a remedy, the panel majority retroactively searches for the only other possible remedy available — injunction.
But again, this novel creation produces a flawed methodology. The plaintiffs in this case do not receive monetary compensation because they have lost nothing of economic value, putting the lie to their claim that the government has unconstitutionally taken their property (specifically, their speculative interest from their contribution to the pooled principal in the IOLTA account).
Finally, even if the panel majority’s per se analysis were to be accepted, injunctive relief, although the only potential remediation available to a plaintiff with no provable loss, is wholly inappropriate. Rather than fabricating jurisprudence that seeks to match some remedy with a perceived constitutional violation, the direct (and correct) approach is to provide the expressly prescribed constitutional remedy. In this case, because money is the only property alleged to have been taken — and because money is fungible — the only remedy is the payment of just compensation in money. This leads to the absurdity of taking a
Furthermore, given the nature of the property at issue, agreement with the Ninth Circuit’s en banc position or my dissent does not equate to subscribing to a blanket rule that the taking of property of no fair-market value results in a rule that no unconstitutional taking has occurred each and every time. I recognize, for example, that if, as part of its permanent retrospective on its founders, a town wants to take Aunt Bertha’s amateurish self-portrait (with zero net fair market value), or if, for its historical display, a city wishes to take the remains of a chimney (with zero net market value) from a burned-down house on my old home place, such governmental actions may well constitute “takings” of “property that might properly be addressed with injunctive relief, But when the taken property is dollars (or, more accurately, the abstract right to potential dollars of net interest earned when one client’s principal is pooled with the principal of other clients of the law firm), declaratory or injunctive relief is, at best, a highly questionable proposition. Loss of a “monetizable” interest is a stereotypical example of a situation in which there need be no relief, injunctive or otherwise. When — more accurately, if — the plaintiff/client can prove an actual dollar loss, he can be compensated fully for that loss and be made whole, without resorting to declaratory or injunctive relief; if he cannot prove deprivation of actual monetary value, his redress against the taker must be at the ballot box, not in court.
As I noted in my panel 'dissent, “our” district court found that under any applicable accounting method or economic analysis — either in-firm pooling, sub-accounting, or net-benefit theory — the plaintiff/cliént (Summers) suffered no loss. Put simply, Summers is in exactly the same financial position with the IOLTA program in place as he would be in its absence. As he complains of an outright financial taking (and not the taking of either real or tangible, personal property), our most straightforward approach would be — and' should be — to determine the exact dollar amount purportedly confiscated from Summers.
As a factual matter, the district court found (as did the Ninth Circuit regarding similarly situated plaintiffs) that the plaintiffs compensable loss — past, present, and future — summed to zero dollars. Thus, although Summers complains of the confiscation of his property right to interest, he cannot under any accounting theory or economic analysis establish a dollar — or cents! — figure that is owed to him by the governmental taker. He presents a perfect illustration of Justice Holmes’s point: Although the- state (actually, various legal services organizations) gained money, Summers was deprived of none.
TV. Conclusion
Vested with the constitutional authority to regulate the legal profession — the state’s recognition of classic republican separation of powers — the Texas Supreme Court created the Texas IOLTA program to address, inter alia, lawyers’ ethical responsibility to provide legal services to the poor. Even if — unlike real or tangible personal property — the interest earned (or to be earned) on lawyers’ trust accounts
As I disagree with the reasoning and result of the panel majority opinion, I respectfully dissent from denial to rehear this case en banc and, as a result of that denial, from failing to reinstate the ruling of the district court.
. Judge Higginbotham recused himself from the case, leaving fourteen active Circuit Judges, seven of whom voted for en banc rehearing and seven of whom voted against it. Pursuant to Fifth Circuit operating procedure, an evenly divided vote on an en banc poll results in denial of rehearing en banc, leaving the panel opinion in effect.
. Washington Legal Foundation v. Legal Foundation of Washington, 271 F.3d 835 (9th Cir. 2001) (holding that, although interest in IOLTA accounts is property, no taking occurred and no just compensation was due).
. Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation, 524 U.S. 156, 172, 118 S.Ct. 1925, 141 L.Ed.2d 174 (Rehnquist, C.J.):
We express no view as to whether these funds have been "taken” by the State; nor do we express an opinion as to the amount of "just compensation,” if any, due respondents. We leave these issues to be addressed on remand.
Chief Judge King and Judges Benavides, Stewart, Parker, and Dennis join in this supplemental dissent.
.Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation, 524 U.S. 156, 159 n. 1, 118 S.Ct. 1925, 141 L.Ed.2d 174 (1998); Model Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 6.1; State Bar of Tex. Pro Bono Policy; Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., After Professional Virtue, 6 Sup.Ct. Rev. 213, 215 (1989).
. Washington Legal Foundation v. Texas Equal Access to Justice (IOLTA I), 873 F.Supp. 1 (W.D.Tex. 1995) aff'd. in part, vacated in part, rev’d in part by 94 F.3d 996 (5th Cir. 1996) r’hrg en banc denied by 106 F.3d 640 (5th Cir. 1997) cert. granted in part by Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation (Phillips), 521 U.S. 1117, 117 S.Ct. 2535, 138 L.Ed.2d 1011 (1997) aff’d. by 524 U.S. 156, 118 S.Ct. 1925, 141 L.Ed.2d 174 (1998) appeal after remand by 86 F.Supp.2d 624 (W.D.Tex. 2000) (IOLTA II) rev’d and remanded by 270 F.3d 180 (2001) (Wiener, J. dissenting).
. Phillips, 524 U.S. at 172, 118 S.Ct. 1925 (Rehnquist, C.J.) (emphasis added).
. Phillips, 524 U.S. at 175-76, 178, 118 S.Ct. 1925 (Souter, J., joined by Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer JJ., dissenting).
. Id. ("One may wonder here not only whether the theoretical property analysis may skew the resolution of the taking and compensation issues that will follow, but also how far today’s holding may unsettle accepted governmental practice elsewhere.”)
. Id. at 854 (citing Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419, 102 S.Ct. 3164, 73 L.Ed.2d 868 (1982) (use of per se analysis); Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978) (use of ad hoc analysis)).
.Id. at 856-57:
Although we note that the Fifth Circuit recently has decided in a two to one decision to adopt the per se method of analysis in similar (but not identical) circumstances, given the monetary nature of the property in question, the public nature of the IOLTA program, and the highly-regulated nature of the banking industry, we believe the belter approach is [the ad hoc analysis] of Penn Central, (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
. Id. at 857
. In. my panel dissent I assumed arguendo that a taking had occurred so as to reach the position that, even if there is a taking, it is unconstitutional only if done without just compensation.
. 458 U.S. 419, 102 S.Ct. 3164, 73 L.Ed.2d 868 (1982) (holding that a takings had occurred by the fact of the physical intrusion of a cable company’s cable on the roof of a privately owned building).
.Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535 U.S, -, -, 122 S.Ct. 1465, 1479, 152 L.Ed.2d 517 (2002) (citation omitted).
. 364 U.S. 40, 49, 80 S.Ct. 1563, 4 L.Ed.2d 1554 (1960).
. See Donald L. Beschle, The Supreme Court’s IOLTA Decision: Of Dogs, Mangers, and the Ghost of Mrs. Frothingham, 30 Seton Hall L.Rev. 846, 867 (2000); see also, Aesop, Aesop's Fables 1 (Grosset & Dunlap, eds. 1947) (describing a dog that cannot derive beneficial use of straw, but inexplicably, perhaps for some perverse satisfaction, denies an ox that eats the straw access to it; the author includes the story’s moral: "Ah, people often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.”).
. Loretto, 458 U.S. at 435, 102 S.Ct. 3164 (emphasis in original) (citation omitted).
. The interest that accrued on those accounts would be forfeited to the banks which held the accounts. See IOLTA II, 270 F.3d 180, 182-83 (5th Cir. 2001).
. Phillips, 524 U.S. at 170, 118 S.Ct. 1925.
. Id. at 176, 118 S.Ct. 1925 (Souter, J. dissenting).
.Tahoe-Sierra, 535 U.S. at-, 122 S.Ct. at 1479 (discussing the contrast between regulatory takings of real property and physical intrusions on real property).
. 449 U.S. 155, 101 S.Ct. 446, 66 L.Ed.2d 358 (1980) (holding that the court clerk's appropriation of the interest on funds held by the court in an interpleader action was an unconstitutional taking because the funds were held for the benefit of creditors and the amount withheld was not reasonably related to services rendered by the court).
. 493 U.S. 52, 110 S.Ct. 387, 107 L.Ed.2d 290 (1989) (holding that withholding of a small percentage of an award from Iran-United States Claims Tribunal was not an unconstitutional taking because the amount was not clearly excessive as a user fee).
. TEAJF Rule 6 (Client funds may be deposited in an IOLTA account only if those funds "could not reasonably be expected to earn interest for the client or if the interest which might be earned on such funds is not likely to be sufficient to offset the cost of establishing and maintaining the account....”)
. Webb’s, 449 U.S. at 155, 101 S.Ct. 446.
. See supra note 23.
. 493 U.S. at 62, n. 9, 110 S.Ct. 387. Contrary to Judge Kozinski’s argument in his dissent from the Ninth Circuit's en banc opinion in WLF v. LFW, fungibility is relevant and important. It .not only affects the choice of Supreme Court precedent to be applied, but, as discussed further below, obviates and renders inapt injunctive remedies.
. 978 F.2d 1269, 1285 (D.C.Cir. 1992) (the court’s parenthetical explanation of Sperry following its citation of that case reads: "distinguishing between money, which is not subject to the per se doctrine because it is fungible, and 'real or personal property' ”).
. 69 F.3d 1571, 1576 (Fed.Cir. 1996) (quoting Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992)).
. Id.
. See Phillips, 524 U.S. 156, 118 S.Ct. 1925, 141 L.Ed.2d 174; Lucas, 505 U.S. 1003, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798; Webb’s, 449 U.S. 155, 101 S.Ct. 446, 66 L.Ed.2d 358; Loretto, 458 U.S. 419, 102 S.Ct. 3164, 73 L.Ed.2d 868.
. As already stated, the Court’s focus on these factors in Webb’s implicitly endorses a non-categorical approach to takings analyses that involve money. The panel majority's focus on the “factual similarity’’ of Wehb’s is misleading because the cases would be factually analogous only if clients whose principals could, on their own, earn net interest were pooled in an IOLTA account despite those clients’ legitimate expectations of possessing the interest on their principals.
. 270 F.3d at 187 (emphasis added).
. 505 U.S. at 1019, 112 S.Ct. 2886 (emphasis added).
. See supra notes 27-28 and accompanying text.
. 271 F.3d at 862 (quoting Boston Chamber of Commerce v. City of Boston, 217 U.S. 189, 195, 30 S.Ct. 459, 54 L.Ed. 725 (1910)).
. 524 U.S. at 169, 118 S.Ct. 1925 (emphasis added).
. First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. Los Angeles (First English), 482 U.S. 304, 314, 107 S.Ct. 2378, 96 L.Ed.2d 250 (1987) ("As its language indicates, and as the court has frequently noted, [the Fifth Amendment] does not prohibit the taking of private property, but instead places a condition on the exercise of that power.’’) (emphasis added).
.Id. ("This basic understanding of the Amendment makes clear that it is designed not to limit the governmental interference with property rights per se, but rather to secure compensation in the event of otherwise proper interference amounting to a taking.”) (emphasis in original).
. Id.
. See United States v. Causby, 328 U.S. 256, 261, 66 S.Ct. 1062, 90 L.Ed. 1206 (1946) ("It is the owner’s loss, not the taker’s gain, which is the measure of the value of the property taken.”).
Opinion of the Court
ON PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
Treating the Petition for Rehearing En Banc as a Petition for Panel Rehearing, the Petition for Panel Rehearing is DENIED. The court having been polled at the request of one of the members of the court and a majority of the judges who are in regular active service not having voted in favor (Fed. R.App. P. and 5th Cir. R. 35), the Petition for Rehearing En Banc is DENIED.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.