Supreme Court issues its first deadlocked opinion since Justice Scalia's death

(Image credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

published 22 March 2016

The U.S. Supreme Court hit its first deadlocked opinion since Justice Antonin Scalia's death Tuesday, splitting 4-4 on a Missouri case over whether two wives could be held responsible for their husbands' failed real estate endeavors under a federal equal-credit law. The split opinion means that while the lower court ruling will be upheld, a nationwide precedent will not be set, Bloomberg reports.

The ruling hands a victory to the Community Bank of Raymore, affirming that the wives were not discriminated against by the bank when it also demanded payment from the women after their husbands defaulted on loans, which the bank had required the women to guarantee. The women claimed the bank only required the guarantees because they were married, which they said violated the U.S. Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

However, the deadlocked opinion also means that the Supreme Court did not resolve conflicting lower court rulings on the issue and leaves the question of whether the Equal Credit Opportunity Act can be applied to those who are required to guarantee loans but who don't apply for them. Politico reports that, as a result, "Americans in some states have the protection of the rule the Federal Reserve Bank issued decades ago, imposing such a requirement, those in others don't, and in still others the Fed's authority to enforce the rule is unclear."