US Supreme Court Argument Dispute Turns Unusually Hostile (1)

Arguments at the US Supreme Court turned surprisingly aggressive over when school districts can be liable for discriminating against disabled students.

The back and forth on Monday between the justices and Williams & Connolly’s Lisa Blatt got particularly testy when the veteran advocate accused the other side of “lying” about her stance in representing a Minnesota school system.

Several justices were troubled by her accusation. Neil Gorsuch admonished Blatt to “be more careful with your words,” raising his voice several times during the exchange.

“OK, well, they should be more careful in mischaracterizing a position by an experienced advocate of the Supreme Court, with all due respect,” Blatt responded.

She later withdrew her comment.

Supreme Court arguments are usually predictable and defined by civility. The justices encourage advocates to refer to opposing counsel as “my friend on the other side.”

Blatt is a powerhouse attorney who’s argued more than 50 cases at the court. She has a casual and sometimes antagonistic style, and has tangled previously with Gorsuch. “You didn’t hear anything I said,” she told him in another memorable argument encounter in February 2024.

Still, court watchers were surprised by Monday’s tone.

“This Gorsuch-Blatt exchange is causing me serious pain. Holy crap,” said Wright Close & Barger partner Raffi Melkonian on Bluesky. “I’ve never heard Justice Gorsuch so angry.”

Georgetown law professor Stephen Vladeck posted a clip of the exchange on Bluesky. “You might want to listen somewhere where you can cringe in peace,” Vladeck said.

‘Out-of-Body Experience’

Blatt represented the Osseo Public School District in a clash with parents of a student who has a rare form of epilepsy that makes it impossible for her to attend school in the morning. The schools refused to provide at-home school in the evening, even though she’d received it in other districts.

Her parents sued under several overlapping disability statutes, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Americans with Disability Act, and the Rehabilitation Act.

They won on some claims before the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit but lost in others where the lower court judges applied a heightened standard in the school context, as opposed to other disability suits.

In particular, the Eighth Circuit said plaintiffs suing over educational services must meet the higher burden of showing that the school district acted with “bad faith” in denying services—not just deliberate indifference.

Appellate courts have split on that question, but a majority of circuits have applied the heightened standard in the educational context.

Latham & Watkins’ Roman Martinez, who represented the parents, and Justice Department attorney Nicole Reaves accused the school district of “flip-flopping” in the Supreme Court by abandoning its school-specific argument and instead asserting that all disability claims are subject to the heightened standard, including, for example, disability employment claims.

That’s a “breathtakingly broad rule,” Reaves said on behalf of the government, which is siding with the parents. Martinez went further, categorizing it as “revolutionary and radical.”

“That would be a sea change” for disability cases, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said. “This seems like a really pretty big deal.”

Blatt said she had an “out-of-body experience” listening to Martinez and Reaves describe her client’s argument. She said the school district had always argued the standard applied across all disability claims, not just in the school-specific context.

But most of the justices made clear they also thought that Blatt had changed her position in giving up the school-specific argument for a broader one.

“I would have thought from the framing of the whole case, that the question was whether you had a different standard in the educational context,” Chief Justice John Roberts said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she didn’t think the justices understood that they were “biting off that big of a chunk.”

Sotomayor suggested that Blatt violated Supreme Court rules that require counsel to highlight any confusion over what’s being argued.

“You don’t think that you might have violated Rule 15.2 of our rules that” reminds counsel of its obligation, “to address any perceived misstatement of fact or law in the petition that bares on what issues properly would be before the court if certiorari were granted?” Sotomayor asked Blatt.

Blatt responded that that’s been their position all along.

Narrow Focus

Barrett said that at the end of the day there was “radical agreement” that federal statutes don’t set out a school-specific rule. All parties agree that that “two-tiered” approach is wrong and that there’s no special school-specific rule. The question then is what is the standard?

The parents and the federal government say the standard that should apply across the board is “deliberate indifference.” The school board said it’s something closer to “bad faith.”

The justices seemed unlikely to decide the broader question of whether a heightened standard applies across the board. Several of them suggested that the issue hadn’t been briefed before the court and that they shouldn’t decide it.

“Why would we do it,” Barrett asked Blatt.

Blatt said the court would be inviting confusion if it didn’t decide the correct standard.

“I know it’s sometimes easier for you to say we don’t have to do a lot, but you cause real harm to the parties who don’t have Supreme Court counsel and lower courts who get confused when you just remand and say we just remand,” Blatt said.

Martinez said it wouldn’t be fair to disability rights advocates who “would have rung a five alarm fire” if they thought the case was as broad as Blatt was arguing.

The case is A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, Independent School District No. 279, U.S., No. 24-249, argued 4/28/25.