Short Circuit

We at the Institute for Justice are increasingly involved with combatting retaliation against free speech. Which is why we were highly interested to hear from Daniel Cragg and his recent win at the Eighth Circuit. Dan is a Minneapolis attorney who regularly sues the government for all kinds of things. This particular case was about a doctor who made a few remarks that weren’t very politically popular at her place of work—a public hospital—at the height of the pandemic and cultural ferment in 2020. She lost her discrimination and retaliation claims at summary judgment but the Eight Circuit sent the retaliation claim back for trial. It also called her other claims “interlocutory.” We discuss the free speech issues at the heart of the matter but in addition your panel perplexes about how the court could think the other claims were interlocutory, considering the appeal was from a final judgment. Then Michael Bindas of IJ discusses a recent Ninth Circuit en banc opinion about a police shooting. The interesting thi