Gorsuch says law gave a truck driver two choices: Freeze or be fired. His fellow judges disagreed

His Supreme Court confirmation hearing gave Neil Gorsuch a chance to defend his dissent in a case in which he argued that a company had the right to fire a truck driver if he didn’t take one of the two options his supervisor presented: haul a trailer with frozen brakes—or sit in an unheated truck in subzero weather, potentially freezing to death. The driver had taken option three—unhitching the trailer and driving the trailerless truck to safety and warmth—an option Gorsuch said did not exist under the law. Here’s how Gorsuch defended his position:

"The law as written said that he would be protected if he refused to operate and I think by any plain understanding he operated the vehicle," Gorsuch said Tuesday, when asked about the case. "My job isn't to write the law, Senator. It is to apply the law. And if Congress passes the law saying a trucker in those circumstances gets to choose how to operate his vehicle, I will be the first one in line to enforce it. "

The two other judges who served on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals panel hearing that case with Gorsuch disagreed, and in the opinion directly took issue with his insistence that “by any plain understanding [the driver] operated the vehicle.” A lot here hinges on the definition of the term “operate,” since the employee had the right to refuse to operate, and it sounds like Gorsuch’s fellow judges were about out of patience with him on this one: