Samuel Alito did not take part in a Supreme Court decision released Monday that left in place a Fourth Circuit ruling against a former employee in a pension dispute tied to companies linked to DuPont and Corteva. The justices affirmed the lower court’s judgment without him, one of two recusals in separate cases decided the same day.
The case involved David Gasper, who said his monthly retirement benefit had been improperly reduced following his divorce. The Fourth Circuit sided with the corporate defendants in Gasper v. EIDP, Inc., finding that the plan administrator’s method of spreading the cost of a survivor benefit across the total pension was valid and rejecting his bid for penalties over delayed document disclosures.
Monday’s ruling mattered because it was not just another procedural entry on the Court’s docket. The Supreme Court has only nine members, hears dozens of matters each term, and decisions are often issued with fewer than nine justices participating, especially in procedural cases. In this instance, the vote left the appellate ruling standing in full.
Why Alito stepped aside was not explained. The Supreme Court does not typically say why a justice recuses himself, even though federal ethics law requires justices to sit out cases where their impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including when they hold financial interests in companies tied to the litigation. Recusals are usually grouped around prior involvement, money interests or personal relationships, and Alito’s absence fits the kind of conflict concern that can arise in corporate cases.
That silence leaves the central question unresolved: whether his recusal reflected a financial tie, some earlier involvement or another conflict altogether. The Court’s practice is normal and necessary, but recent debate over Supreme Court ethics has turned such absences into a test of transparency as much as procedure. For Gasper, the result is settled; for the public, the reason behind Alito’s withdrawal is still not.
