Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson accused the Supreme Court’s GOP-appointed majority of turning “a deaf ear” in a case that split the court along party lines over the proper way to interpret legal texts. It was the latest battle in a long-running legal war between the Republican and Democratic appointees’ different approaches, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett leading the way for the majority.

The case, FS Credit Opportunities Corp. v. Saba Capital Master Fund, involved a federal law called the Investment Company Act. In her opinion for the court’s six Republican appointees, Barrett said the question was whether the law lets private parties sue to rescind any contract that allegedly violates the act. “The answer is no,” she wrote, rejecting activist investors and backing investment funds, the Chamber of Commerce and the Trump administration.

“If a statute does not spell out a right of action, we examine the statute’s text and structure to determine whether it implicitly provides one,” the Trump appointee wrote. She said the question was whether the phrase “rescission at the instance of any party” implies that private parties may sue.

“It does not,” she concluded. “In sum, nothing in the text or structure of the ICA indicates that Congress authorized private parties to enforce virtually every provision in the statute. For a cause of action to exist, we would have to create it.”

Jackson said in her dissent that the court betrayed its proper role “to give effect to the will of the people” rather than “supplant it.”

The Biden appointee said the court refused to “consult all reliable indicia of Congress’s intent” or to wrestle with congressional committee reports “that unequivocally expressed Congress’s ‘wish’ that the statute continue to be interpreted to allow private suits.”

She said the court “turns a deaf ear to the unified call of text, statutory structure, and history, and substitutes its own views as to the undesirability of private enforcement.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined Jackson completely. Justice Elena Kagan only joined partly and wrote her own short dissent to explain why. She said her views on the proper use of background legislative history materials, as opposed to only looking at the final text of a law, “fall someplace in between the majority’s and the principal dissent’s. The one-sentence version is: Reliance on legislative history may be appropriate when statutory text in context remains, after careful review, stubbornly ambiguous.”

Kagan said she didn’t think the investment law at issue displayed such a lack of clarity. But putting aside the part of Jackson’s dissent focused on legislative history, Kagan said she agreed with Jackson’s reasoning in support of private rights of action here. Kagan said she “therefore gladly” joined part of Jackson’s dissent while declining to join the part about the value of congressional reports related to the law.

Kagan’s slight separation from Jackson and Sotomayor also makes this case the latest example of her staking out a position between the majority on the one hand, and her two Democratic-appointed colleagues on the other in some cases.

Barrett said Jackson’s use of legislative history showed why courts should stick to the final text.

“Far from demonstrating the value of legislative history, the dissent models its misuse,” Barrett wrote. The Trump appointee quoted a well-known saying in legal circles that was championed by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the famous proponent of textualism for whom Barrett clerked and who dueled on this subject with retired Justice Stephen Breyer, for whom Jackson clerked.

“The classic criticism of using legislative history is that it is ‘the equivalent of entering a crowded cocktail party and looking over the heads of the guests for one’s friends,’” Barrett wrote, adding, “True to form, the dissent navigates around unwelcome guests.”

Jackson said it was “wrong to suggest that a court’s reference to and reliance on statements in committee reports is like picking out friends at a crowded party.” She said, “the better analogy is to consulting the user’s manual the manufacturer writes to guide piecing together its product.”

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A “volcano of corruption” is what plaintiffs suing to stop this weekend’s UFC fights at the White House called the planned event, telling a judge that President Donald Trump and his allies are poised to profit “from the first private, for-profit sporting event ever held on White House grounds.”

The stark portrayal comes in the final court filing before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee in Washington, decides whether to let the event proceed as planned.

“The event will feature million-dollar VIP packages, brand placement opportunities adjacent to the Lincoln Memorial, and an exclusive broadcast on the President’s favored streaming service,” plaintiffs Susan Douglas and Paul Romano told the judge.

The streaming service they referred to is Paramount Plus, noting in their complaint that the UFC’s broadcast partner, Paramount Skydance, is run by Trump allies Larry and David Ellison and “has decided that no American will be able to take in this ‘celebration of America’ without first paying $8.99 plus tax for a Paramount Plus streaming subscription.”

“Such a volcano of corruption, if allowed to go forward, will mark an inflection point in American history,” they said. Douglas, an activist, and Romano, a Vietnam War veteran, alleged that the government’s planned event runs afoul of federal regulations.

“The images it generates will one day appear in the history books — and not in the chapters about times remembered fondly,” the plaintiffs said of the activities set to culminate with professional mixed martial artists fighting on Sunday on the White House’s South Lawn in a massive structure built for the event, known as “the Claw.”

Douglas and Romano are challenging the use of the Lincoln Memorial and the South Lawn for the event, which Trump and UFC head Dana White have said is a celebration of America. The plaintiffs noted that the event coincides with Trump’s 80th birthday on Sunday and that White is a close friend and ally of the president’s. They said Trump is giving White and his company “what none have enjoyed before: unfettered access to the White House and Lincoln Memorial to stage a private, for-profit sports event, with all the promotional and branding opportunities that accompany such access.”

Douglas and Romano added that Trump stands to benefit directly, citing reporting that he bought stock in the company that owns the UFC earlier this spring.

They said White “has good reason to stick to his story” about the event being a celebration of America because, they observed, federal law “tightly restricts private use of the national capital’s most sacred monumental spaces, which are national parklands.”

The Trump administration said the plan is to hold a press conference at the Lincoln Memorial on Friday; a ceremonial weigh-in at the Ellipse on Saturday, followed by a concert headlined by the Zac Brown Band; and seven UFC matches at the White House South Lawn on Sunday.

Defending the event, the administration called it a “collaboration” with the UFC and called the suit meritless, arguing, among other things, that the plaintiffs lack legal standing to bring the case in the first place. Rather than being truly harmed, officials said, the plaintiffs sought to “seek out that which offends their sensibilities, just so they can complain about it.”

The administration said the suit’s last-minute nature alone should defeat it, calling the timing “inexcusable” because “these events were publicly announced almost a year ago; the dates were confirmed by the White House three months ago; and site preparations have been publicly visible for weeks.” The plaintiffs insisted they “acted promptly as soon as their injuries accrued and the full scope of the event’s lawlessness became clear.”

The plaintiffs alleged they suffer “aesthetic injuries” from the Claw’s construction and that Douglas in particular “will suffer aesthetic injury if the UFC Freedom 250 weigh-ins are permitted to occur at the Lincoln Memorial.” Douglas said she “regularly travels to the affected areas for protests and has specific plans to visit on four occasions between now and the conclusion of UFC Freedom 250, including on the nights of both the weigh-ins, June 13, and the June 14 fights.”

Romano said he “has no choice but to see the offending aesthetics, as he must frequently travel through the area for work [as a part-time ride-share driver]. He therefore has no choice but to observe the desecration of these sites.” As a Vietnam War veteran, he said he suffers “the dignitary and emotional harms that come from national memorials being used for corrupt purposes.”

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