May 24, 2005

Jonathan Adler, in National Review Online:

In case after case, [Priscilla] Owen's critics give almost no consideration whatsoever to the legal merits of her decisions, focusing instead on the end result. In each case, if a corporation is the winner, groups like Earthjustice and the Alliance for Justice assume Justice Owen got it wrong. Such an approach to judicial decision-making is utterly lawless and a recipe for true judicial activism as it elevates policy preferences above the law.

And Beldar (May 19) has a spirited defense of Owen's dissenting vote in a case seeking to affix negligent-hiring liability on the Kirby vacuum cleaner company over a rape committed by "its independent contractor's independent contractor", as Justice Nathan Hecht put it.