Posted by Orin Kerr:
Yale Law Clinic Sues Yale Law Graduate for Bad Lawyering:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_12_30-2008_01_05.shtml#1199480362
There's a particularly interesting angle to the Jose Padilla lawsuit
[1]my co-blogger Jonathan Adler discusses below: Yale Law School's
International Human Rights Law Clinic (representing Padilla) is
bringing the suit against a Yale Law School graduate (Yoo '92), for
providing bad legal advice.
Based on the complaint, I don't think Yale ends up looking very good
on either side of this one. Yoo's legal analysis was very weak, for
reasons we have explored at length here. But I don't think the Yale
clinic is on a strong legal footing, either. First, there's an
interesting question whether Yoo would be entitled to [2]absolute
immunity or only qualified immunity for the legal opinions he drafted
at OLC. My quick look at the cases suggests there's no clear answer to
that.
Second, while I am no expert in civil tort actions, I would think
there is a significant problem with causation. As I understand it, the
claim against Yoo is that he adopted legal positions in memos that
permitted others to perform acts that violated Padilla's rights. I
would think that is too far removed to satisfy the causation
requirement for a civil tort action.
References
1. http://volokh.com/posts/1199480622.shtml
2. http://supreme.justia.com/us/457/731/case.html
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