Do-overs and footsies

Today's DJ has 9th Circuit will reconsider ban on mandated arbitration -- "Legal observers said the decision, which comes as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was seeking en banc review of a decision in favor of the state, is all the more mysterious because the three-judge panel took the case back." Law360's story is 9th Circ. Panel Will Review Calif. Arbitration Law Again

Law360 also has Decision Awash In Footnotes Reveals 5th Circ. Judges' Depth

• Fifth Circuit judges recently headed below deck to skirmish over claims stemming from a sea accident, packing dozens of salty footnotes into a split en banc opinion and leaving legal experts to contemplate the role of these often-overlooked treasures buried in judicial opinions.
  
• Circuit Judge Edith H. Jones set the tone in an early footnote in the majority opinion she penned, writing, "By standing up for the law as it has been accepted unanimously among the circuit courts, we decline to consider adversarially untested propositions."
• In that footnote, Judge Jones was referring to the principal dissent's proposition that the Fifth Circuit should throw precedent to the wind, adopt the latest originalist scholarship suggesting that "due process of law" has undergone "linguistic drift," and ultimately reverse a Louisiana district court's ruling that it lacked personal jurisdiction over federal claims against the Japanese company, stemming from the 2017 collision between a container ship and the Navy vessel in waters off Japan.
• And with that shot fired across the bow, the footnotes of the opinion were soon flooded with attempts to sink the other judges' rationales. The opinion had 83 footnotes: 31 in the majority opinion by Judge Jones; one in the concurrence by Circuit Judge James C. Ho; 45 in the principal dissent by Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod; four in Circuit Judge Stephen A. Higginson's dissent; and two in Circuit Judge Andy Oldham's dissent.

Closer to home, 2/7 dumps a doctor's appeal here because you can't appeal from a judgment denying a petition for writ of administrative mandate challenging a Medical Board decision to revoke a doctor's license. Such decisions are reviewable only by writ, per B&P Code section 2337.