This morning the Court decided Hertz Corp. v. Friend, a case involving what a corporation’s “principal place of business” is for purposes of a diversity jurisdiction statute. I became interested in the case after reading Anita Krishnakumar’s post on the topic (she predicted the outcome very well, by the way), and I used the Hertz facts as the basis for one of the questions on my legislation exam last semester.
In any case, today’s opinion is unanimous. That result does not surprise me, but I see that Justice Breyer relied not just on a plain meaning and administrability argument, but also upon some legislative history. Why did Justice Scalia sign on? I believe he must have negotiated with Justice Breyer for the middle clause in this sentence on page 16: “Third, the statute’s legislative history, for those who accept it, offers a simplicity-related interpretive bench-mark.”