Gorsuch's warped ruling on the trucker case

Considering Trump's bad record as an employer, not surprising he would nominate someone warpted like this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2017/live-updates/trump-white-house/neil-gorsuch-confirmation-hearings-updates-and-analysis-on-the-supreme-court-nominee/the-trucker-case-and-why-it-matters/?utm_term=.04e64f507ab5

March 20, 2017 by Sean Sullivan

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The Post’s Robert Barnes wrote about it last week:

Some liberals wary of Judge Neil Gorsuch’s fitness for the Supreme Court point to the Case of the Frozen Trucker. As an appeals court judge, Gorsuch ruled against a driver who claimed he’d been wrongly fired because he ignored his supervisor’s demands by unhitching his unheated truck from its malfunctioning trailer and driving away in subzero weather in search of safety.

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“Seven different judges heard my case — one of those judges found against me,” Maddin said. “That judge was Neil Gorsuch.”

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An administrative law judge and a review board of the Labor Department concluded Maddin was fired in violation of whistleblower provisions. They protect an employee who “refuses to operate a vehicle because . . . the employee has a reasonable apprehension of serious injury to the employee or the public because of the vehicle’s hazardous safety or security condition.”

Gorsuch’s two colleagues on the appeals court panel agreed Maddin’s actions were consistent with “refusing to operate” his truck in a dangerous way.

But Gorsuch dissented. “The trucker in this case wasn’t fired for refusing to operate his vehicle,” Gorsuch wrote. Perhaps TransAm should not have fired him, Gorsuch said, but Maddin’s only legally protected option was to sit and wait.