Ellis v. United States District Court for the Western District of Washington

I join Judge Wardlaw’s excellent opinion in full and parts III, IV and V of Judge Trott’s fine concurrence. I write separate*1212ly to confess my befuddlement that we’re not unanimous.

I can’t help scratching my head at my dissenting colleagues’ dogged insistence that they’ve found a plausible way to reach the result they prefer. (Befuddlement and head-scratching often cause me to be melodramatic and use heated rhetoric, so delicate souls are cautioned to continue reading only under strict medical supervision.)

While the dissent tries to swaddle the case in all sorts of meta-considerations about the…