CHICAGO–President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, was the author of a 2018 ruling that dismissed a lawsuit against a credit union in Illinois alleging violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) as lacking standing.
As CUToday.info reported here, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit dismissed a lawsuit against Illinois-based Aurora Policemen Credit Union that alleged its website violated the ADA.
The 7th Circuit agreed with the district court that the plaintiff has not suffered an injury-in-fact, which is required to establish standing. The court’s opinion was written by Coney Barrett and came at a time when credit unions across the country were facing a wave of similar lawsuits over their websites and ADA-access related issues.
Additional details on the case can be found here.
As CUToday.info also reported, credit unions will be carefully watching what Coney Barrett’s appointment to the Supreme Court will mean, as it will likely have ramifications.
Too Early to Tell, But…
Although it’s too early to know anything specific, NAFCU EVP/General Counsel Carrie Hunt said a big issue will be the Chevron deference, of the Chevron doctrine. Chevron is an administrative law principle that compels federal courts to defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statute that Congress delegated to the agency to administer.
Such deference to a federal agency has included cases involving NCUA, most recently, in its new field of membership rules, which it let stand after declining to hear a banking industry appeal of a lower court ruling upholding the agency’s decision.