Talk:W.M.M. v. Trump#Requested move 17 May 2025

What does AARP stand for in this case? Bcostley (talk) 21:45, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

:It's the initials of the first plaintiff's name. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:49, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

::I'm not sure where or what wording would be best but this should probably be clarified somewhere in the article, particularly given the likely confusion with the AARP. 174.74.71.210 (talk) 19:02, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

::Yes, this needs explanation as I supposed that it was the American Association of Retired People too. The same goes for J.G.G. which doesn't have the same dab issue but could use some clarification. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:01, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I'll add an endnote later. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:11, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

::::@Andrew Davidson: I will update what you added later. This should not be stated in the body of the lead. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:49, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

::::: Explaining who or what A.A.R.P. means is fundamental because it forms the primary part of the title and it's not intuitive or obvious. Per WP:LEAD, "{{tq|The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic...}}" Andrew🐉(talk)

:Changed to an endnote. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:58, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

::At the request of the AARP, the judge has [https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69898198/44/wmm-v-donald-j-trump/ changed] the case title to W.M.M. v. Trump, so you'll likely want to move the page and also won't need the endnote. FactOrOpinion (talk) 03:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Good point. I have made a start on the move and name change but there may still be some loose ends. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:30, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:::First, it should be W.M.M. v. Trump, not W.M.M. v. Donald J. Trump. Second, the common name is still AARP v. Trump. I object to this move. There is no reason to move so quickly on these things. voorts (talk/contributions) 12:54, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Also, @Andrew Davidson, we don't summarize procedural history of cases in the lead. Please review MOS:INTRO. The lead is meant to summarize the article. The name change is not due for inclusion there. voorts (talk/contributions) 12:56, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::::: What does "we" mean – US lawyers? You may be familiar with the conventional style of such US cases but this topic is of interest to international readers such as myself. MOS:LEADALT states that "{{tq|significant alternative names for the topic should be mentioned in the article}}" but you have completely suppressed the original title even though it has some currency in the sources and you say "{{tq|the common name is still AARP v. Trump}}". As there are multiple cases, it seems quite important to provide the reader with clarity that they have come to the right place and so the lead should give and explain this alternate name. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:40, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::Added a paranthetical. Along with the endnote, I think that suffices to explain the case name(s). By "we" I meant on Wikipedia as editors. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:55, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I'm willing to keep the title as is right now. I don't think an RM is needed. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:56, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Voorts is naturally willing to keep the current title of "W.M.M. v. Trump" because they created it. The previous title of "W.M.M. v. Donald J. Trump" came from the [https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69898198/aarp-v-trump/ docket] where it appears in the citation entry. This indicates that it's the recommended form of the case name for citation purposes and so seemed a sensible choice. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:10, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::What I meant was I'm not going to fight over keeping it AARP v. Trump. The Donald J., however, should not be part of the title. Courtlistener isn't an official docket and case names in every legal citation system drop the first names of litigants. That's also how cases are pretty much always titled on Wikipedia. voorts (talk/contributions) 12:52, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::: Court Listener provides dockets from PACER and so seems quite authoritative. As it's an open source project which specifically provides free access to this public information, it's a good fit with Wikipedia and so we should support and use it. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:41, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::I donate to Court Listener. I'm aware of how valuable it is and how they operate. PACER does not tell you how to cite cases; that function is purely something Court Listener does, and my guess is it just pulls the data from PACER. In this case, the way they say to cite this case is not how any legal style guide says to cite cases. It's also not consistent with how cases are titled on Wikipedia. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:45, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::By pull the data, I mean it probably takes the first party name on each side and slaps a v. in between them. I doubt they've programmed a way to strip first names because that would be way too complicated, and nobody is manually reviewing docket information at the Free Law Project. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:47, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

So the article isn't named AARP anymore and there's a note explaining that it was renamed to avoid confusion with the Retired Persons organization. But the Per Curium opinion from this morning (May 16) ( https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1007_g2bh.pdf ) has it listed as "A. A. R. P., ET AL. v. DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT

OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL." What's the deal here? Which is the correct name? Nithin🚀 ^talk 02:01, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

{{requested move/dated|A.A.R.P. v. Trump}}

:W.M.M. v. Trump → {{no redirect|A.A.R.P. v. Trump}} – Per WP:COMMONNAME. Additionally, both of the Supreme Court rulings are styled A.A.R.P. v. Trump, notwithstanding that the district court decided to rename the case W.M.M. v. Trump. Even if the official name is important, we now have two of them, and per WP:SURPRISE, we should use the one that [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/redirectviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2025-04-19&end=2025-05-15&sort=views&direction=1&view=list&page=W.M.M.%20v.%20Trump most readers] are looking for. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:13, 17 May 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. – robertsky (talk) 15:27, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

:Pinging @Andrew Davidson, @FactOrOpinion, and @Nithin. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:13, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:Support – Per the reasoning above and the Supreme Court’s own styling of the case as A.A.R.P. v. Trump in its May 16 opinion. This aligns with WP:COMMONNAME and avoids reader confusion, especially since both SCOTUS rulings use A.A.R.P. and not the district court’s W.M.M. styling. Nithin🚀 ^talk 02:17, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:Note: WikiProject Law has been notified of this discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:21, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:I'm OK with either title. Both have been used in news reporting, and I don't actually know which is used more often. A lot of people searched for A.A.R.P. v. Trump right after the initial SCOTUS ruling, and more people have been looking for it as W.M.M. v. Trump [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&start=2025-04-19&end=2025-05-15&pages=A.A.R.P._v._Trump|W.M.M._v._Trump since then], though not by huge margins. I have a mild preference at this point for A.A.R.P. v. Trump, since that's the caption used by both the 5th Circuit and SCOTUS, and presumably will be the title used by news organizations more often in their future reporting. FactOrOpinion (talk) 03:28, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

::I was listening to Trump v. CASA earlier today (originally argued on May 15) and the Advocates in that case just referred to the case ("a few weeks ago") as AARP. Nithin🚀 ^talk 05:57, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose at the moment. The recent SCOTUS ruling wasn't an opinion in the case, but rather an order granting an injunction pending further proceedings; these proceedings include the still-pending lower court case, which got renamed in April (though I've seen that case referenced as A.A.R.P. and W.M.M. v. Trump, not just the current page name). As such, I don't think now is the right time to move the page back to A.A.R.P. v. Trump (and I wouldn't support such a page move unless the case has that name when and if SCOTUS is officially considering it after the lower courts issue their rulings).

::And separately, a somewhat-related comment: court case names changing isn't a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence; a notable recent example is Sharp v. Murphy (which was first appealed to the Supreme Court as Royal v. Murphy and then became Carpenter v. Murphy before assuming its final name during the following Court term when the case was reargued; here, the appellant was a government official who resigned and was succeeded on an interim basis, and then the interim official was replaced — all while the SCOTUS case was ongoing). Andrew11374265 (talk) 06:24, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

::{{tq|The recent SCOTUS ruling wasn't an opinion in the case}} This is incorrect. The Court granted cert and issued a per curiam decision. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:56, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:::{{tq|and I wouldn't support such a page move unless the case has that name when and if SCOTUS is officially considering it after the lower courts issue their rulings}} This is not relevant under WP:AT. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:25, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

• Wait and clarify The nominal title is not a priority as we have redirects for alternate names. What seems more important is to clarify whether this is the same class action or whether it has been forked for the different plaintiffs or what. You see the article now says {{tq|"On May 9, 2025, Judge Hendrix denied the ACLU's motion for class certification, holding that the named plaintiffs were too dissimilar from one another and the purported class, and that adjudicating their legal claims would involve distinct factual determinations."}} Is this the reason that the name has been reverted in the latest ruling? Let's understand what's happened before making more moves. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:48, 17 May 2025 (UTC)
• :No, it's not the reason that the name is different in the district vs. SCOTUS cases. The ACLU appealed to the 5th Circuit and SCOTUS on 4/18, and Hendrix didn't order that the case be re-captioned W.M.M. v. Trump until 4/21. All of this was weeks before Hendrix's ruling rejecting the class certification, and there's already a motion in the district court that Hendrix reconsider his ruling rejecting class certification. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:22, 17 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::Hendrix's class certification denial was automatically vacated when the Supreme Court issued its decision yesterday. It's also irrelevant to the case name. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:09, 17 May 2025 (UTC)
• :SCOTUS continued using "A.A.R.P." instead of "W.M.M." because there was no motion in the Supreme Court. The trial court granting a motion for a name change doesn't affect the SCOTUS docket. The cases have not "been forked" (and that's not something a federal court can do anyways). SCOTUS literally granted classwide relief yesterday notwithstanding the trial court's now vacated denial of class certification. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:27, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose Disagree with both Andrews that a per curiam SCOTUS injunction pending further proceedings is too procedural to establish a primary topic name or that these two SCOTUS orders are simply forks of the main case. However, the confusion with AARP that got the case renamed is enough for me to side with keeping the name as W.M.M. v. Trump so long as the pageviews are similar between these titles. voorts' pageviews link unfairly starts on 19APR2025, despite this title only coming into existence on 22APR2025 to coincide with the case renaming, and since then, the pageviews have been similar with W.M.M. v. Trump generally on top. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 03:07, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose This is not an article about SCOTUS's injunction, so the name it went to SCOTUS under is irrelevant outside of the section about that injunction. This is an article about the case in the federal district court. The article's name should follow the lower court's decisions about what to call the case before it unless the COMMONNAME is clearly at odds with it. The COMMONNAME is not clearly at odds, so no change. lethargilistic (talk) 17:47, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose. The case name is now W.M.M. v. Trump, it's not AARP v. Trump. Moreover, that name isn't concise and makes it seem as though the AARP is a party to the case. It is not, and the American Association of Retired Persons even intervened specifically to disassociate the organization's name from the case. Pleasant editing, Irruptive Creditor (talk) 01:19, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

@Lethargilistic: Starting the discuss part of WP:BRD. {{tq|including orders where they put that on the end would expand the scope of the category by a great deal}}. What's your source for this claim? This is a case where cert was granted and is labeled a per curiam decision. It includes a citation to 605 U.S. ___. There's nothing in any of the categorization guidelines, or any law-specific guidelines, that this isn't a United States Supreme Court case. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:05, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:It's also not just tacked on at the end. Look at page 3 of the decision: "We now construe the application as a petition for writ of certiorari from the decision of the Fifth Circuit. See Reply 15. We grant the petition as well as the application for injunction pending further proceedings, vacate the judgment of the Fifth Circuit, and remand for further proceedings." voorts (talk/contributions) 19:07, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::@lethargilistic: if you're going to insist on a discussion about something, you should be prepared to actually discuss it. voorts (talk/contributions) 12:09, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

:::@Voorts It's graduation season, and I've been busy. Wikipedia discussions are not imminent, and there is no requirement to reply immediately. Poking me was a good idea, but insinuating that I was acting in bad faith was not. Regardless:

:::I expressed it informally in my edit summaries, so I wouldn't get caught up on "they said they granted cert" or "they said it more than once." My concern is that this is a GVR order. These happen all the time, and they have not been included in the SCOTUS case category because they're not cases before the Supreme Court. Maybe more pertinently from Wikipedia's perspective, they're treated explicitly separate by secondary sources like the ones studying the shadow docket.

:::By all means, if I have misread this order and it is not a GVR, I'll probably relent. However, the problem I'm identifying is that putting the categories on this implies putting the categories on any other article about a lower court case where the Supreme Court responded to a request with a GVR. That has not been our practice, and it is not what the categories currently reflect. lethargilistic (talk) 13:54, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

::::I apologize for losing my cool. On the merits, this isn't just a standard GVR; it's a vacate and remand to do something specific, regarding a still uncertified class. In addition to the GVR, the Court granted the application for an injunction; I can't think of the last time that SCOTUS issued an injunction of its own accord under the All Writs Act. Standard GVRs also don't usually get reported with a per curiam decision. We don't have scholarly sources yet, but I doubt that this case will be treated as a standard shadow docket decision in the law reviews. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:26, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::@Voorts I have still been busy, so thanks for your patience, but this is still on my mind. In the interim, I have boosted it to WP:SCOTUS to maybe get another opinion or two. lethargilistic (talk) 20:32, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

In this dispute about :Category:United States Supreme Court cases in 2025 and :Category:United States Supreme Court cases of the Roberts Court, it seems plain and obvious to me that the Supreme Court granting an emergency application is part of a Supreme Court "case". Furthermore, :Category:United States Supreme Court per curiam opinions is a subcategory of :Category:United States Supreme Court cases, sensibly. If editors want normal, merits docket, orally argued cases to be separately categorized from other kinds of cases, they can propose such a categorization scheme. For now, I would say cases means cases. Adumbrativus (talk) 23:08, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

I have thought more about this, and I have come around to thinking that it can be included in the category. We should not expand this practice to other cases in which the court happened to issue a GVR or made a decision about other kinds of orders. But I think limiting it to controversies that get opinions printed in the reporter might work? That's more than people think, but the various kinds of orders that get printed (normally cataloged on Wikipedia via the per curium opinion lists) are not typically notable in the way this one clearly is, so this situation is not likely to repeat. However, to the extent that a talk page comment is a message to the future, I think it matters that I expand some of the reasons why I continue to have reservations about this.

: First, even if SCOTUS gave the lower court more specific directions than the typical GVR, this is still a GVR. That distinction matters procedurally because GVRs from SCOTUS are not precedential. It very well be that the opinion attached to this one will be treated as precedential because it was more specific and it is going in the Reporter, but that is not the typical GVR scenario. Therefore, presenting it as a "case" before SCOTUS in the article implies something that may not be formally true as a baseline. We do not actually have secondary sources pointing us away from that baseline, so this presentation verges on OR, even if I don't think it crosses the line because this is so unusual.

: Second—and this is another fundamental problem—this page is different from essentially every other SCOTUS case article because it is not, in fact, an article about a SCOTUS case. It is an article about the putative class action that will be decided in a federal district court. Cases are categorized by where they end, not at every stage where they were ever heard. For instance, SFFA is not categorized as a First Circuit case; it's a SCOTUS case. Currently, this article about WMM is categorized as a case at the specific district court, the fifth circuit, and the Supreme Court; that is clearly erroneous if we're treating it like any other case article rather than an exception. If we were to "remedy" that, the Fifth Circuit one should just not be there, and the injunction would get its own article (perhaps under the AARP name). But that strikes me as formalism winning over practicality because this order is not the star of this case at this time. It is entirely possible that this case makes it all the way to SCOTUS on the merits docket; in which case, my concern about categorization would be mooted by removing the other categories. One could also argue that treating the Supreme Court case as the most important part of the case is not good as a universal practice anyway, because it regularly gives short shrift to interesting things that may have happened in the very same case after the case goes back to lower courts.

: Third, if we are bending what a SCOTUS "case" is to incorporate this, WP:CAT strongly suggests that we ought to engage in some defining what we mean by "case." IMHO, it should not just mean "any proceeding" or "any issued order" because that is not what it means to either ordinary readers or to the secondary literature. Categorization should follow the "normal" case by default, and I think one would be hard-pressed to find a reader who reads "Supreme Court case" and does not think "normal, merits docket, [intended to be] orally argued cases." But I also think that a reader might expand that to at least some of the other scenarios in which SCOTUS issues a formal opinion and which it is foreseeable that commentators will treat it as a "case" in the future even if that is not completely accurate. On this point, I do want to say that I found myself disagreeing with the argument that Adumbrativus made. Whether or not this opinionated GVR was properly a "case," including a situation like this in the SCOTUS category is a change from what has been done previously. Just acting like it's not a change (or, on my part, not an exceptional circumstance) is not accurate and would get us back to the problem I identified initially: expanding the SCOTUS case category to every kind of proceeding before the Supreme Court has never been properly contemplated, and I do not predict it would be beneficial. Moreover, it is not incumbent upon the people implementing the current categorization scheme to "propose" that the current categorization scheme continue unchanged.

: In any event, I will add the categories back. lethargilistic (talk) 17:36, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::Some responses:

::* {{tq|GVRs from SCOTUS are not precedential}}: GVRs from SCOTUS are not usually precedential because they are usually issued without opinion. This GVR was (1) issued with a per curiam decision that simultaneously granted an injunction under the All Writs Act (with Alito calling it "far too much like an expansion of our original jurisdiction"); (2) applied a set of facts to the law regarding refusal of injunctions (and, according to the dissent, created law), which sources have associated with the current political moment; and (3) is [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinion/24 listed] as an opinion of the Court.

::* {{tq|Currently, this article about WMM is categorized as a case at the specific district court, the fifth circuit, and the Supreme Court; that is clearly erroneous if we're treating it like any other case article rather than an exception.}}: An article can be about multiple topics, and as you've noted above, that is often the most effective way to present information. Here, the subtopics (i.e., the SCOTUS, circuit court, and district court proceedings) are so intertwined that they should be discussed in a single article. They are all defining of the broader topic of the article (the proceedings in their entirety), and thus using all categories is appropriate.

::* {{tq|WP:CAT strongly suggests that we ought to engage in some defining what we mean by "case." IMHO, it should not just mean "any proceeding" or "any issued order" because that is not what it means to either ordinary readers or to the secondary literature.}} Could you please point to where in the secondary literature something like this case would not be described as a case?

::* {{tq|I think one would be hard-pressed to find a reader who reads "Supreme Court case" and does not think "normal, merits docket, [intended to be] orally argued cases."}} I'm a reader (and hopefully a reasonable one) who thinks that this is an important SCOTUS case.

:: voorts (talk/contributions) 02:12, 30 May 2025 (UTC)