Sotomayor took $3M from publisher, didn’t recuse from cases.

Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has come under scrutiny for declining to recuse herself from multiple copyright infringement cases involving book publisher Penguin Random House, despite receiving millions of dollars from the company for her own books. Records show that Sotomayor received a $1.2 million book advance from Knopf Doubleday Group, a part of the conglomerate, in 2010, and two advance payments totaling $1.9 million in 2012. She also received payments each year from Penguin Random House itself, which continued annually through at least 2021, totaling more than $500,000. In all, she received $3.6 million from Penguin Random House or its subsidiaries.

Despite this, Sotomayor voted in a decision for whether the court should hear a case against the publisher called Aaron Greenspan v. Random House, despite then-fellow Justice Stephen Breyer recusing after also receiving money from the publisher. In October 2019, children’s author Jennie Nicassio petitioned the Supreme Court to hear her lawsuit against Penguin Random House alleging that the book publisher had copied her book by selling one that was nearly identical. On the same day that the petition was distributed to the justices, Sotomayor received a $10,586 check from the publisher.

Lawyers for Nicassio made a compelling argument that her case was worthy of being taken up by the Supreme Court. Nicassio wrote a book called “Rocky” which “tells the story of a little evergreen tree named Rocky who dreams of becoming the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and embarks on an adventure toward that goal” against all adversity, getting advice from a mentor and facing attack by other plants, they wrote. Penguin Random House then published a book called “Albert” in which all of the same occurs, with the name of the Christmas tree changed. The lawyers said “Albert” even lifted key pieces of language from “Rocky,” and that the publisher had legally conceded that the work was copied.

The case being heard by the high court would be of significant concern to publishers because it could set a precedent that could open the floodgates to many other copyright infringement suits against them.