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At a minimum, don't omit "at a minimum"

At a minimum, don't omit "at a minimum": On behalf of a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor today issued an opinion involving the "prevailing party" requirement to obtain attorneys' fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act.

At page 9 of today's opinion, Justice O'Connor describes the facts of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Sole v. Wyner (2007) as follows:

The plaintiff there had filed a lawsuit claiming the state’s "Bathing Suit" rule, which required all patrons of state parks to wear a thong and (if female) a bikini top, violated the First Amendment.

Fortunately, the rule at issue in Sole did not require "all patrons of state parks to wear a thong." Rather, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's opinion for a unanimous Court in Sole makes clear, "That rule required patrons, in all areas of Florida's state parks, to wear, at a minimum, a thong and, if female, a bikini top."

Thus, you don't have to be wearing thong underwear to use the state parks of Florida, but you must wear at least a thong (and a bikini top, if female) in order to use those parks. In Justice O'Connor's defense, the Sole case was argued and decided after she had retired from the Supreme Court.

Full post as published by How Appealing on March 18, 2008 (boomark / email).