
Chief Justice John Roberts quoted Bob Dylan in a dissenting opinion yesterday — and nearly got it correct. In a case of regarding the ability of collection agencies to sue customers when they have no financial stake in the matter, our first boomer Chief Justice wrote: “The absence of any right to the substantive recovery means that respondents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and thus lack Article III standing. ‘When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.’ Bob Dylan, Like A Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965).” The clerk who checked the quote technically got it right, since the official lyrics on Dylan’s website do phrase it like that. But anyone who has actually heard the song on the record or in concert knows the actual line is “when you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” Maybe he was actually quoting Titanic, since Leonardo DiCaprio’s character says “When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” Leo also misquoted Dylan, but we’ll cut him some slack since the Titanic sank fifty-three years before Dylan wrote that line.

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