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The dirty secret is that civil lawsuits and common law are a constitutional blind spot. So much of the constitution only really applies to state actors[0], which means that private litigants are relatively unrestrained[1] in their ability to wield state power against other private litigants. In other words, the constitution doesn't care about your rights until and unless it means you being put behind bars.

The reason why SCOTUS is humoring Texas is because actually stopping their legal shenaniganery requires legislating a whole new tort reform regime from the bench. 'Cause that's the only thing that would really work to stop Texas: ending or severely curtailing "private AG"[2] causes of action in the law. But that also means rolling back a lot of legal liability that corporations otherwise would have for their actions. Balancing this properly would be difficult - it's something that Congress really should be doing, not the Supreme Court... but they never did, so now here we are.

[0] "State actors" means all levels of government plus private corporations acting in the role of a government.

[1] For starters, the 5th Amendment does not apply to civil litigation. If the government wants to throw you in jail for 10 years for making counterfeit Mickey Mouse merch, you are allowed to refuse to testify and the court cannot assume your guilt from a refusal to testify. However, if Disney sued you for $10,000,000 for the same tort, you can be forced to testify against yourself and refusal to do so will result in an "adverse inference" being placed upon you.

[2] Laws which allow private individuals to bring class action lawsuits on behalf of some public interest, in lieu of the US government prosecuting them. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_attorney_general




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