Home Depot May Not Get Its Way at Supreme Court (1)

Home Depot Inc. may not have a reliable vote in a class action jurisdiction case from Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who seemed to break with his typically business-friendly conservative colleagues at U.S. Supreme Court oral argument Jan. 15.

Home Depot argued its position as a third-party counterclaim defendant to class claims over misleading sales tactics shouldn’t prevent it from exercising the removal rights extended to typical defendants.

But Gorsuch pushed back. “Now how can it be that the word ‘defendant’ expands and contracts like that?” he asked. “What I can’t abide or understand at least, is how the word ‘defendant’ ...