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BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court says the Idaho Supreme Court erred when it didn't follow the precedent set by an earlier Supreme Court ruling.
In a written opinion issued Friday, the nation's highest court reversed the state court's decision on how to award attorney's fees in a civil rights lawsuit.
"The Idaho Supreme Court, like any other state or federal court, is bound by this Court's interpretation of federal law," the nation's highest court wrote Friday. "The state court erred in concluding otherwise."
The issue arose in a lawsuit brought by a woman named Melene James, who sued the city of Boise after she was mistaken for a burglar and bitten by a police dog. A state district court dismissed her lawsuit, and the Idaho Supreme Court upheld that ruling and ordered her to pay the city of Boise's attorney's fees.
When making the award of attorney's fees, the Idaho Supreme Court relied on a federal law but disregarded the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings detailing what the law means. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling found that the state court failed to consider whether the lawsuit was frivolous or not when it awarded attorney's fees.
In the opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court said it is responsible for saying what a federal statute means, and other courts have the duty to respect that.
"And for good reason," the high court wrote in the opinion. "As Justice Story explained 200 years ago, if state courts were permitted to disregard this Court's rulings on federal law, 'the laws, the treaties, and the constitution of the United States would be different in different states, and might, perhaps, never have precisely the same construction, obligation, or efficacy, in any two states.'"
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