Adams v. Robertson

Adams v. Robertson, 520 U.S. 83 (1997), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court, in a per curiam opinion, "dismissed the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted."[1]

Adams v. Robertson
Argued January 14, 1997
Decided March 3, 1997
Full case nameGuy E. Adams, et al., Petitioners v. Charlie Frank Robertson and Liberty National Life Insurance Company
Citations520 U.S. 83 (more)
117 S. Ct. 1028; 137 L. Ed. 2d 203; 1997 U.S. LEXIS 1490; 65 U.S.L.W. 4180; 97 Cal. Daily Op. Service 1538; 97 Daily Journal DAR 2270; 10 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 339
Case history
PriorOn writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Alabama, reported at: 1995 Ala. LEXIS 689. Adams v. Robertson, 676 So. 2d 1265, 1995 Ala. LEXIS 689 (Ala., 1995)
Court membership
Chief Justice
William Rehnquist
Associate Justices
John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor
Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
David Souter · Clarence Thomas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinion
Per curiam

Background

The defendant, Charlie Frank Robertson, filed a class action lawsuit in 1992, alleging that "Liberty National Life Insurance Company had fraudulently encouraged its customers to exchange existing health insurance policies for new policies" that provided an insubstantial amount of coverage for cancer treatment. At trial, a settlement was agreed upon that precluded class members from individually suing Liberty National. However several of the people included in the class action lawsuit disagreed with the settlement. Guy E. Adams, the plaintiff in this case, was one of those people.[1]

Question before the court

Does the Supreme Court of Alabama's approval of the settlement violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?[1]

Decision of the Supreme Court

In a unanimous decision in favor of Robertson, the opinion of the court was written per curiam. The court dismissed the writ of certiorari and noted that the State Supreme Court "did not expressively address the question on which certiorari was granted." Further, the court found that the petitioners had "failed to establish that they had properly presented the issues to that court." The court concluded that it could not answer the question before the court because it would "unbalance" the US dual system of government.[1][2]

gollark: I think they mean "exists" as "is a thing which can theoretically be implemented".
gollark: So you might not be able to reach consensus.
gollark: I think the biggest issue is that any system doing it is either going to have a central authority or some sort of web-of-trust-y federated model, and it might be possible for some groups to just completely discard votes from people they don't like.
gollark: Decentralized vote counting is... nontrivial, but probably possible.
gollark: You *can* do direct democracy.

References
  1. "Adams v. Robertson 520 US 83 (1997)". Oyez: Chicago-Kent College of Law. Retrieved January 30, 2014.
  2. "Adams v. Robertson - 520 U.S. 83 (1997)". Justia: US Supreme Court. Retrieved January 30, 2014.
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