Allison v. Fulton-De Kalb Hospital Authority
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction and, treating the filing as a request for review, denied that request too, leaving Georgia's ruling against a father who owed hospital bills in place.
Two justices dissented, arguing that Georgia's brand-new rule for when constitutional claims must be raised unfairly penalized the father for not predicting a timing requirement the state court invented only after his case was already underway.
“Appeal from Sup. Ct. Ga. dismissed for want of jurisdiction. Treating the papers whereon the appeal was taken as a petition for writ of certiorari, certiorari denied.”
The Court's entire disposition, dismissing the appeal and denying review without explanation.
How it got here: A Georgia trial court ruled against Allison's late-raised constitutional defense; the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed on timeliness grounds; Allison appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A Georgia hospital sued a father, Allison, for medical expenses from his teenage daughter's childbirth, relying on a state law making fathers responsible for a child's support. After the Supreme Court decided Orr v. Orr, suggesting sex-based support laws might be unconstitutional, Allison amended his answer to add an equal protection challenge before trial began.
The question before the Court
Could Georgia refuse to hear a father's constitutional challenge to a child-support law because he raised it later than a brand-new deadline the state court had just announced?
Why it matters
By declining to step in, the Court leaves standing a Georgia rule that can require people to raise constitutional objections earlier than other legal arguments. That makes it riskier for defendants to wait and raise a constitutional defense once it becomes clear one applies, since a court could later decide the challenge came too late.
What changes now
The denial ends the case at the Supreme Court level; the judgment against Allison stands, and because this is a civil case he has no other federal-court avenue to raise his constitutional defense. The Georgia Supreme Court's timing rule remains in force in Georgia unless a future case revisits it. No further proceedings are expected in this matter.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Georgia's child-support law violates equal protection or whether Orr v. Orr applies retroactively to debts predating it. It simply declined to hear the case, so the Georgia Supreme Court's ruling that the challenge came too late remains the final word here.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Dissent (1). Justice Brennan (author).
Dissent — Justice Brennan
“This is yet another case, therefore, where novelty in procedural requirements cannot defeat review by this Court when a party justifiably acted in reliance on prior state law.”Brennan's core objection that Georgia's brand-new timing rule unfairly trapped the father.
Justice Brennan argued the case presented a substantial federal question because Georgia's new rule requiring constitutional claims to be raised 'at the first opportunity' was announced for the first time in Allison's own case and conflicted with the state's own civil procedure statute allowing pretrial amendments as of right. He doubted the rule served any legitimate state interest, since it burdened only constitutional claims and not ordinary state-law claims raised at the same point. He would have postponed the jurisdictional question and set the case for full argument rather than deny review. Read the full dissent →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The dissent examined whether the Georgia Supreme Court's newly announced rule -- that constitutional claims must be raised 'at the first opportunity,' meaning as soon as the challenger's lawyer learns of the law -- counted as an independent and adequate state-law reason that could block Supreme Court review.
- The dissent pointed out that Georgia's own civil procedure statute let a party amend a pleading as a matter of course any time before a pretrial order was entered, and no such order had been entered before Allison added his constitutional claim, so the amendment looked timely under existing law.
- Because the timing rule was announced for the first time in Allison's own case, the dissent argued he could not have anticipated it, and applying it against him retroactively would make it an inadequate state ground for refusing to hear his constitutional claim.
- The dissent further argued the rule served no legitimate state interest, since it placed extra burdens on federal constitutional claims that were not placed on ordinary state-law claims raised at the same stage of a lawsuit.
- Concluding the case raised a substantial federal question about whether the new rule could fairly block review, the dissenting justices said they would have postponed the jurisdictional question and set the case for full briefing and argument rather than denying review outright.