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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brussel from Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: What did they pay? They should sure you prepaid tens

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Speaker 1: of millions of dollars. I prepaid my tax tens over

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Speaker 1: the last number of years. Tens of millions of dollars.

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Speaker 1: I prepaid. Well, the Manhattan District Attorney will soon know

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Speaker 1: whether former President Donald Trump was telling the truth. Millions

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Speaker 1: of pages of financial documents were handed over to the

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Speaker 1: d A by Trump's accountants on Monday, just hours after

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Speaker 1: Trump lost his last ditch effort at the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: to keep them secret. The justices essentially slammed the door

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Speaker 1: on Trump, rejecting not only his appeal over his tax records,

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Speaker 1: but also eight appeals that attempted to overturn the presidential

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Speaker 1: election results in five states. Joining me is Bloomberg New

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court reporter Greg Store Greg in sixteen words, the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court finally disposed of the issue of Trump's tax

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Speaker 1: for turns sixteen words that it took him four months

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Speaker 1: to produce. June. This was the case where the District

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Speaker 1: attorney in Manhattan's Irish Fans Jr. Who was trying to

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Speaker 1: get Donald Trump's patch returns as part of a criminal

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Speaker 1: investigation that he is conducting there and Dance has been

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Speaker 1: trying to get those returns for some time from Trump's

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Speaker 1: accounting firm, and this case, they recall, was up at

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court last year. The Supreme Court refused to

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Speaker 1: grant broad presidential immunity from these sorts of things, kicked

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Speaker 1: it back down to the lower courts and said, if

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Speaker 1: you want to look at more specific challenges to the subpoena,

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Speaker 1: that's fine. Those specific challenges were rejected by the lower courts,

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Speaker 1: and now finally the Supreme Court, after four months of delay,

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Speaker 1: said we are not going to block that lower court ruling.

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Speaker 1: So now, is there any explanation for why they said

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Speaker 1: on this for four months? There is no explanation. It

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Speaker 1: is highly unusual for them to wait this long. I

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Speaker 1: can speculate a little bit. The issue, all the not

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Speaker 1: necessarily about Trump being president, did change a little bit

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Speaker 1: once Trump left office, so it's possible the court was

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Speaker 1: waiting until he left office. They claimed that Trump was

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Speaker 1: making was basically that the subpoena was too broad and

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Speaker 1: it was designed to harass him rather than really further

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Speaker 1: and investigated. And but that still doesn't explain why the

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Speaker 1: court needed to wait for an entire month after the

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Speaker 1: inauguration to issue this one sentence order. It's a bit

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Speaker 1: of a head scratcher. Uh. It's important to note that

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Speaker 1: it's not just Trump's tax returns, and this is eight

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Speaker 1: years worth of record. It's also the Trump organization's tax returns,

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Speaker 1: it's other financial documents, and the d a's in investigation

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Speaker 1: has broadened, and he's beating up his team. He has

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Speaker 1: beefed up his team, that is right. He has contracted

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Speaker 1: with a forensic accounting firm. He's had it on a

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Speaker 1: veteran prosecutor. The initial investigation that was about these hush

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Speaker 1: payments to Stormy Daniels and another woman. Since then, Advance's

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Speaker 1: office has said that the investigation may actually be much

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Speaker 1: broader and may involve tax fraud other forms of financial fraud.

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Speaker 1: So it does at this point seem like it is

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Speaker 1: a pretty robust investigation and now we'll just have to

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Speaker 1: wait to see where it goes. Trump lost on the taxes.

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Speaker 1: He and his allies also lost on eight appeals related

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Speaker 1: to efforts to overturn the election. Yeah, some of these

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Speaker 1: were expected, and some of these maybe weren't the ones

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Speaker 1: that were expected were the most consequential ones in terms

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Speaker 1: of had the Court actually taken them up. These were

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Speaker 1: the cases that claimed that Joe Biden's election was procured

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Speaker 1: by fraud should be overturned. The Court had already indicated,

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Speaker 1: both by not expediting those cases and by refusing to

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Speaker 1: grant emergency relief that it wasn't especially interested in taking

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Speaker 1: them up, so it was really a formality in terms

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Speaker 1: of those cases. There were two other appeals actually stemming

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Speaker 1: from the same case that look like it had a

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Speaker 1: very good chance of being taken in affecting future presidential elections.

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Speaker 1: These are appeals out of Pennsylvania filed by Republicans of

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Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that granted a three day

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Speaker 1: extension of time for absentee ballots to be received in

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Speaker 1: that state for mail in ballots to be received and

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Speaker 1: to count. And the Supreme Court refused to block that

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Speaker 1: ruling before the election and then refused to expect the

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Speaker 1: case in here arguments before the election, but there was

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Speaker 1: still a chance they were going to take it up. Instead,

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Speaker 1: the Court, after several weeks of deliberation, decided not to

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Speaker 1: take the case Rere. Conservative justices say they would have

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Speaker 1: granted it, but you need for for the court to

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Speaker 1: take the case. That was interesting because the three conservative

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Speaker 1: justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Leto, and Neil Gorsage were unable

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Speaker 1: to get a fourth vote. So that means that the

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Speaker 1: two newest justices appointed by Trump wouldn't vote to take

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Speaker 1: the case. That's right, and it is fascinating. Kavanaugh had

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Speaker 1: previously signaled that he disagreed with that Pennsylvania's Supreme Court decisions.

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Speaker 1: The argument is basically that the constitution says that the

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Speaker 1: state legislature gets to set the rules for presidential elections

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Speaker 1: and that a state supreme court doesn't have the power

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Speaker 1: to overturn what was pretty explicit in the state code

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Speaker 1: and back when we had a shorthanded Supreme Court. B

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Speaker 1: Kavanaugh had cast a vote to stay that lower court decision.

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Speaker 1: But kavanag did not vote to grant this case after

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Speaker 1: the fact, and it may be that he the case

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Speaker 1: was now moot and the court shouldn't take it up now,

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Speaker 1: Amy Coney Barrett, we really don't know anything, but it

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Speaker 1: is certainly very interesting that she did not join her

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Speaker 1: conservative colleagues and agreeing to take it up. This is

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Speaker 1: an issue that has cropped up on a lot of situations,

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Speaker 1: a variation of that cropped up in the bush By

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Speaker 1: Goal case. Conservatives have been arguing for a couple of

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Speaker 1: decades that state supreme courts don't have this power to

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Speaker 1: override a state legislature. So it is a mischance for

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Speaker 1: a lot of conservatives to get a ruling that might

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Speaker 1: have clarified that there are real limits on what state

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Speaker 1: courts can do in the context of presidential elections. Justice

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Speaker 1: Alito said that this could lead to guidance for future elections,

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Speaker 1: But wasn't the case moot? And is this Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: in the habit of going outside what it has to do?

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Speaker 1: So the case was arguably moot. Absolutely. There is some

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Speaker 1: precedent that Justice Alito pointed to where the Court has

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Speaker 1: said that in election cases in particular, they fall into

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Speaker 1: the exception to the muteness doctrine that says, if an

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Speaker 1: issue is recurring but hends to evade review, for example,

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Speaker 1: because of course, run out of time to decide the

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Speaker 1: case before it becomes moot, then the Court will make

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Speaker 1: an exception and say, we need to decide this issue

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Speaker 1: so we can, you know, set the rules for future disputes.

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Speaker 1: There's certainly not a consensus on whether the courts should

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Speaker 1: have done that in this case, but there was at

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Speaker 1: least an argument that the court could have done that

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Speaker 1: if I wanted to. Trump did win one case because

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court turned away a film star Stormy Daniels

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Speaker 1: over her defamation lawsuit against Trump. Yes, and she filed

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Speaker 1: a certain petition asking the court to hear her her

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Speaker 1: argument and revived the lawsuits. This stems from allegations not

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Speaker 1: just that she had an affair with Donald Trump, but

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Speaker 1: that a man approached her in a parking lot and

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Speaker 1: threatened her because she was talking with the magazine about

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Speaker 1: cooperating with the story about the affair Donald Trump. Uh

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Speaker 1: later tweeted that this whole thing, that the man was

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Speaker 1: non existent, that this whole thing was a con job,

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Speaker 1: and she said that that defamed her. And a lower

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Speaker 1: court said, the Federal Peals Court said, a new Texas

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Speaker 1: law that's not that doesn't constitute defamation. You can't procede

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Speaker 1: it with the suit Stormy Daniels UH, and the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court yesterday refused to hear the appeal. Am I going

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Speaker 1: too far, Greg in saying that with not taking any

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Speaker 1: of those cases involving Trump's personal disputes, the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: were sort of washing their hands of him. That's certainly

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Speaker 1: a conclusion wanted to draw, uh, and certainly a theme

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Speaker 1: that maybe the Court does have Trump exhaustion. I mean

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Speaker 1: that said, they did also, on the same orders list,

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Speaker 1: agree to hear a couple of cases involving Trump policies. Now,

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Speaker 1: these cases may eventually wash out because the Biden administration

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Speaker 1: has suggestives are going to change the policies. But in

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Speaker 1: terms of cases involving Donald Trump the individual, yes, it

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Speaker 1: does sort of appear like the Court as a whole

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Speaker 1: didn't have a whole lot of appetite for getting involved

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Speaker 1: in those About the two cases that you're talking about,

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Speaker 1: the Court took cases involving the immigrant wealth tax that

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Speaker 1: the Trump administration instituted and abortion counseling rule. Why would

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Speaker 1: the court take up those cases know that the Biden

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Speaker 1: administration and is not going to enforce those rules or

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Speaker 1: is going to just write them off the books. It's

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Speaker 1: a good question, and really all I can do is speculate,

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Speaker 1: and my speculation is that the Biden administration in either

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Speaker 1: of those cases filed anything saying we are going to

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Speaker 1: change the rules, please hold off on granting the case,

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Speaker 1: and until the Biden administration does that, perhaps the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court decided we're going to go ahead and do what

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Speaker 1: we would normally do, which is to take these cases

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Speaker 1: up because they do involve lower courts that have struck

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Speaker 1: down important government policies. Uh, it may just be an

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Speaker 1: access a formality. It is very hard to imagine the

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Speaker 1: Court ultimately would hear these cases if indeed the Biden

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Speaker 1: administration has changed the underlying policy. The Court has gotten

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Speaker 1: rid of a few cases dealing with immigration because the

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Speaker 1: Biden administration has changed policy. Sees that's right. The Court

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Speaker 1: has already done that with case involving the border wall,

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Speaker 1: a case involving Trump's remain in Mexico policy for asylum applicants.

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Speaker 1: The Court really doesn't have any interest in reviewing a

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Speaker 1: policy that is no longer enforced or that is being changed,

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Speaker 1: or enforcing a new administration to defend something an old

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Speaker 1: administration did. So they appear to be giving the Biden

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Speaker 1: administration some running room here to say they're going to

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Speaker 1: change things. Thanks Craig, that's Bloomberg Supreme Court reporter Greg's store.

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Speaker 1: Coming up next? Who can you see when the lights

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Speaker 1: go out? You're listening to Bloomberg. Thanks Gregg, that's Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court reporter Greg's store. Power outage is left millions

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Speaker 1: of Texas residents without heat and some without water in

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Speaker 1: the midst of a bitter coal wave, and the operator

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Speaker 1: of the power grid in Texas was hit with a

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Speaker 1: second lawsuit in as many days over those power outages.

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Speaker 1: The lawsuit alleges that are cut the Electric Reliant Ability

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Speaker 1: Council of Texas failed to properly weatherize the state's electric

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Speaker 1: infrastructure despite a history of cold weather power outages. Also

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Speaker 1: named in the suit is the American Electric Power Company,

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Speaker 1: a multi state electric utility that serves parts of Texas.

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Speaker 1: But plaintiffs may be frustrated by the legal system. Legal

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Speaker 1: shields offer power companies broad protections from most weather related blackouts.

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Speaker 1: Joining me is Ellen Gilmer, Senior legal reporter at Bloomberg Law.

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Speaker 1: So far, what kind of lawsuits or complaints have you

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Speaker 1: seen with regard to the Texas outage. We've seen at

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Speaker 1: least a couple of cases so far that has been

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Speaker 1: filed in Texas State Court by consumers who are saying

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Speaker 1: that ARCOT, which is the Electric Reliability Council of Texas,

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Speaker 1: the grid overseer, they operating the electric grid in Texas.

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Speaker 1: So we've seen a couple of cases against both ARCOT

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Speaker 1: and a couple of local electric utilities, including a de

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Speaker 1: Texas and Center Points UM. And the claims so far

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Speaker 1: on negligence growth, negligence UM, but also a very interesting

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Speaker 1: taking claim which says that are Coot effectively took private

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Speaker 1: property without proper compensation by h arguably allowing these outages

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Speaker 1: that lead to food spoilers and damage to homes and

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Speaker 1: and what have you. So let's talk about it why

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Speaker 1: it's so hard to sue electric utilities for blackouts. It's

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Speaker 1: very hard because an electric utility operates under what called

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Speaker 1: a tariff, which is basically a contract with consumers and

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Speaker 1: it's approved by regulators, and it says that the utility

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Speaker 1: isn't responsible for outages, isn't liable for outagence that are

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Speaker 1: caused by the weather or other things that they usually

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Speaker 1: can't control. So that that stipulation is in all of

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Speaker 1: these caraffs that govern all of these different companies that

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Speaker 1: are operating in start. And that's going to be the

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Speaker 1: first defense, is we you know, look we can't control

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Speaker 1: the weather. This stuff happened, um, And there are some workarounds. Uh.

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Speaker 1: If h litigant can demonstrate the utility was negligent, grossly

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Speaker 1: negligent and will form misconduct or all of these other

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Speaker 1: kind of really high legal bars, then a complaint might

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Speaker 1: get subtractions. In your story, you mentioned that one of

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Speaker 1: the state utilities even says on its website, in our business,

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Speaker 1: we cannot guarantee an uninterruptible supply of power. Tell us

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Speaker 1: why the Texas case may be even more difficult than others.

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Speaker 1: Texas is especially complicated because so many different things went wrong.

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Speaker 1: So it wasn't um, you know, it wasn't just the utilities.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just a grid over years. It wasn't just

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Speaker 1: the power generators. It was of all of those things.

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Speaker 1: You know, you had all these different types of power

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Speaker 1: generators that stripped offline, we're grows up or were otherwise unreliable.

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Speaker 1: You had uh, the grid overseers mandating these outages. Um.

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Speaker 1: Some people say they didn't properly anticipate the problems that

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Speaker 1: would arise with this kind of weather in Texas, UM,

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Speaker 1: and then you have the utilities who are actually responsible

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Speaker 1: for um bringing that electricity to your home, and so

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Speaker 1: you can't point the finger at just one parties here.

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Speaker 1: That makes it potentially a little bit tougher to bring

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Speaker 1: the claim is a consumer or to want to go

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Speaker 1: to court over this. So what are some of the workarounds?

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Speaker 1: What are some of the ways that people in the

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Speaker 1: past have one lawsuits over outages? The main opportunity that

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Speaker 1: they have to to actually pin liability on the utility

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Speaker 1: is to say that the utility acted in growth negligence

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Speaker 1: or negligently um willfulness conduct. Uh So any of that

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Speaker 1: kind of extreme alleged mis behavior or failures are properly

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Speaker 1: respond to the circumstances. That's where UM some legends have

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Speaker 1: occasionally had success UM, but it is that's really hard

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Speaker 1: in any case. Those they're really high legal bars to clear.

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Speaker 1: And then in one of these Texas cases that we've

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Speaker 1: seen filed so far, they have also claimed takings and

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Speaker 1: that's just a whole different type of claim, which is

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Speaker 1: a unique approach to challenging what's happened here. And we

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Speaker 1: don't really know how that's going to work out, So

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Speaker 1: we'll just have to keep an eye on that case

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Speaker 1: and see what happens. So one of the lawsuits says

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Speaker 1: that Texas had practically identical failures in nine and eleven

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Speaker 1: that resulted in exhaustive reports and recommendations. Does that play

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Speaker 1: in here definitely If you're trying to say that a

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Speaker 1: party was nelligent, being able to point to all of

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Speaker 1: this information that they had that they could have used

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Speaker 1: in their planning process is enormously powerful. So that's going

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Speaker 1: to be that One of the main arguments that these

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Speaker 1: lookins will have to make is we look, first of all,

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Speaker 1: we've seen this happen before, maybe not at the scale,

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Speaker 1: but we've seen this kind of weather in Texas before,

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Speaker 1: and we've seen that various elements of our electric grid

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Speaker 1: warrant equipped for this kind of situation, and yet these

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Speaker 1: various parties didn't do what they needed to do to

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Speaker 1: prepare for that situation. That would be the argument. And

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Speaker 1: are there a lot of law firms already plaintiffs law

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Speaker 1: firms advertising for plaintiffs. There are actually a number of

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Speaker 1: new websites have just cropped up to recruit plaintiffs or

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Speaker 1: potential plaintiffs. UM for proposed class accidents and other types

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Speaker 1: of lotication. So you'll definitely see more plaintiffs firms UM

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Speaker 1: trying to get in the game here and and scoop

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Speaker 1: up any any party too who have really suffered as

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Speaker 1: a result of the blackouts and and want to try

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Speaker 1: to assign that liability to someone. Have any states made

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Speaker 1: or any counties made any moves to hold utilities more

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Speaker 1: accountable for blackouts. Well, it's being a unique area of

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Speaker 1: law for sure, and we haven't seen a lot on

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Speaker 1: the actual liability in the court room front. UM. Probably

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Speaker 1: the most similar situation doesn't have to do with blackouts,

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Speaker 1: but with wildfires, and in California certainly only see PPNI

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Speaker 1: held liable for wildfires that were linked to their equipment. UM.

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Speaker 1: So that's kind of interesting, but but different from what's

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Speaker 1: happening in Texas. More often, what we're seeing is proceedings

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Speaker 1: in state regulatory bodies UM public service commissions that regulate

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Speaker 1: the electric grid, and you're seeing more consumers UM and

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Speaker 1: consumer advertates going to those regulators and saying UM that

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Speaker 1: utilities either need to reimburse customers or they need to

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Speaker 1: invest in various resilience efforts and UH we'll probably see

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Speaker 1: a lot more on that front in Texas and in

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Speaker 1: all of the other states that are looking at what's

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Speaker 1: happening there where. Does climate change fit in to this, Well,

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Speaker 1: that's a really interesting question, and it's something that that

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Speaker 1: we explored the years too. Are trying to really champion

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Speaker 1: a unique new type of torque claim, which would be

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Speaker 1: called kind of climate resilience claims, the argument that, uh,

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Speaker 1: some company or or somebody knew that, you know, the

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Speaker 1: impacts of climate change would make something worse, and they

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Speaker 1: failed to respond to to that knowledge. So it's similar

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Speaker 1: to what you see in any claim that has to

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Speaker 1: do with extreme weather and poor planning, but it has

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Speaker 1: this this climate lens where you are really trying to

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Speaker 1: hold people accountable for, you know, allegedly ignoring what we

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Speaker 1: all what all of them scientific research and you know,

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Speaker 1: various regulatory bodies have said about how climate change could

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Speaker 1: worse in the effects of storms and worse in particular

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Speaker 1: impacts on the ground. Do you see any utilities or

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Speaker 1: grid operators planning for climate change. That's a great question.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we're definitely seeing it. I think advocates would argue, Uh,

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Speaker 1: environmental advocates and consumer advocates would argue that the utilities

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Speaker 1: and great overseers and everybody else aren't doing nearly enough

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Speaker 1: to respond to the impacts of climate change that we're

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Speaker 1: already seeing and the impact that will see in the future. Um.

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Speaker 1: But there are efforts that are underway at the state

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Speaker 1: and federal level. It's just a matter of is it

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Speaker 1: enough and uh, if it's not enough, you know what

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Speaker 1: what needs to change and who can make that change.

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Speaker 1: So here you have these law firms looking to get

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Speaker 1: plaintiffs for class actions, despite the fact that it seems

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Speaker 1: to be an uphill battle. Are these sometimes settled so

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Speaker 1: that the planiffs get some money and don't even have

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Speaker 1: to go to court? Yes, I think the the objective

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Speaker 1: of a lot of class actions is really to settle.

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Speaker 1: Most people don't want to go to Kyle, so that

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Speaker 1: would be one of the outcomes that the lawyers could

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Speaker 1: be pushing for here. Um. But the kind of first

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Speaker 1: order of business is just getting all the claims out

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Speaker 1: on the table and uh and and fighting over over

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Speaker 1: whether they're fair claims and whether the utilities or other

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Speaker 1: parties have have good defenses to them. So it's a

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Speaker 1: real uphill battle. Then it is it is, But if

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Speaker 1: there are settlements, or if even just one of these

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Speaker 1: cases we're successful, that would really open the door for

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Speaker 1: more claim places UM, either related to the Texas blackouts

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Speaker 1: or for future scenarios. So it's a really important area

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Speaker 1: of law to watch. And are there any investigations by

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Speaker 1: the state going on in Texas? The Attorney General has

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Speaker 1: also started an investigation with some claims that you know,

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Speaker 1: could could relate to future legal actions. On Friday night,

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Speaker 1: the Attorney General issued what are called UM civil investigative demands,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of the first step in an investigation UM.

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Speaker 1: And he issued these to or Cut, the grid operator

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Speaker 1: and a whole bunch of different utilities to figure out

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Speaker 1: exactly what happened, who knew what at what time, And

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Speaker 1: these are really kind of a building block for any

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Speaker 1: future legal action that he might bring against the companies.

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Speaker 1: He says he's looking at whether uh Urcat and the

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Speaker 1: other in the company's quote grossly mishandled the extreme weather situation.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for being on the Bloomberg Law Show, Ellen, that's

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Speaker 1: Allen Gilmer, senior legal reporter for Bloomberg Law. And that's

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Speaker 1: it for the edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember

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Speaker 1: you can always get the latest legal news on our

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

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Speaker 1: and at www dot bloomberg dot com slash podcast slash Law.

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Speaker 1: I'm June Grasso. Thanks so much for listening, and please

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Speaker 1: tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every week down at

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Speaker 1: ten p m. Eastern right here on Bloomberg Radio