Frank filed a petition of
certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence,
Cato Institute, Center for Individual Rights, and Attorney General of Arizona, in a brief joined by 15 other states, filed
amicus curiae briefs urging the court to
grant certiorari. The court granted
certiorari on April 30, 2018. The Solicitor General filed an
amicus brief in support of neither party arguing that, before reaching the merits on the question presented, there is "considerable doubt whether the Court has Article III jurisdiction to address that question, because plaintiffs’ standing in the district court depended on a theory of injury that this Court subsequently rejected in
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016)" and that the court may wish to vacate and remand the case to address the issue of standing. Oral arguments were heard on October 31, 2018, with Frank having been one of the few Supreme Court attorneys ever to argue his own case. The justices were divided along partisan lines based on observers' opinions, with the liberal justices supporting the
cy pres approach used, while the conservative members felt the
cy pres decision denied the class members their restitution and were critical of how much of the settlement went to legal fees. Writing for
SCOTUSblog, Ronald Mann noted that at oral argument "all seemed to agree that the district court’s reasoning could not withstand scrutiny under
Spokeo. The point of disagreement seemed to be whether there was any prospect that the plaintiffs could identify some new argument that would satisfy
Spokeo at this late date." The following week, the court ordered the parties and the Solicitor General "to file supplemental briefs addressing whether any named plaintiff has standing such that the federal courts have
Article III jurisdiction over this dispute." ==Notes==