Category Archives: General Litigation & Trial Practice
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SCOTUS Opinion: Immigrants Bear Burden Of Proving Eligibility For Discretionary Relief From Removal
The Immigration and Nationality Act allows immigrants facing an order of removal to petition for discretionary relief from that removal. To be eligible for that relief, an immigrant must show that they have not been convicted of a “crime of moral turpitude.” In Pereida v. Wilkinson, an immigrant facing such a removal order was convicted under Nebraska law for “attempted ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Dismissal of Claims Under Federal Tort Claims Act Bars Bivens Claims
In Brownback v. King, a student at the University of Michigan was mistaken for a fugitive and tackled and punched by two federal officers. The student sued, alleging tort claims against the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, and separately sued the individual officers under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). The district ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Deals Trump Two More Defeats
Today the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear two appeals by former President Donald Trump, one of which may be setting up further legal troubles for him. In Trump v. Vance, the Court, without any dissent, declined to hear Trump’s last-gasp attempt to stop the Manhattan district attorney’s subpoena seeking Trump’s tax records as part of an investigation into Trump’s ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Enjoins California’s Ban On Indoor Church Services
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, California’s governor issued several restrictions on indoor church services: (1) a 25% capacity limitation; (2) a prohibition on singing and chanting; and (3) a total prohibition on all indoor worship services. Several churches filed suit, and sought an order to preliminarily enjoin the restrictions because they violated the First Amendment. A fractured Court, by a ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Judicial Review Available For Claims Under Railroad Retirement Act
In Salinas v. United States Railroad Retirement Board, a Union Pacific Railroad employee applied for disability benefits under the Railroad Retirement Act of 1974. His first three applications were denied, but he was awarded benefits on the fourth. He then moved to reopen his third application, but the Board denied the request. The employee sought judicial review, but the Fifth ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Thwarts Efforts To Reclaim German Artifacts
During the Weimar Republic, a consortium of German Jewish art dealers purchased a collection of medieval relics known as the Welfenschatz for preservation. When the Nazis took over Germany, they forced the consortium to sell the relics to the government for a third of their value. Heirs of the consortium failed to recover the artifacts in Germany, so they filed ... Read More
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Client Alert: Chicago Title Insurance Co. v. Allynnore M. Jen
Last Thursday, the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland issued an opinion on an insurance coverage matter that only eight (8) jurisdictions have issued a published decision on since 1951. Fortunately for the title insurer, the Court of Special Appeals sided with the majority and joined seven (7) of those jurisdictions. While the case raises other issues such as the ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Passive Retention of a Debtor’s Property Does Not Violate Bankruptcy Automatic Stay
After Chicago impounded their vehicles for unpaid fines, the owners filed petitions for bankruptcy. The Bankruptcy Code automatically creates an estate comprising of all of the debtor’s property interests, requires those in possession of such property to deliver it to the trustee, and creates a stay prohibiting “any act to obtain possession of the property of the estate or of ... Read More
TAGGED: SCOTUS opinion, bankruptcy code, Chicago v. Fulton
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Defers Action On Census Case
In July, President Trump ordered that the 2020 census tabulate unlawful immigrants separately from other residents so that he would have the discretion to exclude unlawful immigrants from being counted for the basis of determining the apportionment of House seats for each state. Several states challenged that order, and a three-judge district court panel enjoined operation of the order due ... Read More
TAGGED: SCOTUS opinion, 2020 census, Trump v. New York
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SCOTUS Opinion: Religious School Denied Relief From Governor’s Closure Order
On November 18, the Governor of Kentucky issued an order closing all K-12 schools through the start of the holiday break, December 18, with schools reopening on January 4, due to the ongoing pandemic. In Danville Christian Academy, Inc. v. Beshear, a religious school sued and sought a preliminary injunction against that order as applied to religious schools. The district ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: New Mexico Receives Credit For Evaporated Water Under River Contract With Texas
In 1949, Texas and New Mexico entered into the Pecos River Compact under which the states would share in the water flowing through the Pecos River – essentially, New Mexico agreed to “deliver” a certain amount of water to Texas by that river. In 2014, a tropical storm hit the area, and to avoid flooding Texas asked New Mexico to ... Read More
TAGGED: Texas v. New Mexico, Pecos River Compact
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Reinforces High Standard For Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel
The case of Shinn v. Keyer featured another death row inmate seeking to overturn his conviction through a federal habeas challenge under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Keyer alleged that his counsel was ineffective because he failed to present enough evidence of mitigation at sentencing, although Keyer himself had obstructed efforts of his counsel to develop ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Unanimously Rejects Texas’ Last Gasp Attempt To Undo Election
After various efforts by the Trump campaign to reverse the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin through state court lawsuits had failed, Texas filed a motion seeking leave to file its own lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court alleging that the same deficiencies alleged by the Trump campaign in the failed suits caused Texas to suffer injury in ... Read More
TAGGED: Texas v. Pennsylvania
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Preserves Rape Convictions Against Military Servicemembers
Originally, the Uniform Code of Military Justice mandated that a rape conviction could be punishable by death. Under that Code, penalties punishable by death could be brought at any time, while all other offenses had to be brought within five years. In United States v. Briggs, three servicemembers were convicted of rape, but after their convictions the Court ruled in ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Political Independent Lacks Standing To Challenge Delaware Political Balance Law
Delaware’s Constitution requires that no more than a bare majority of judges in any of its courts be from the same political party (the “bare majority requirement”). It also states that the remaining members of three of those courts must be from “the other major political party” (the “major party requirement”). In Carney v. Adams, a registered political independent sued, ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Religious Freedom Act Permits Claimants To Seek Monetary Damages Against Federal Agents Personally
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 permits people to seek “appropriate relief” when their religious exercise has been unlawfully burdened by the federal government. In Tanzin v. Tanvir, three practicing Muslims sued certain FBI agents who placed them on the No Fly List after they refused to act as informants against their religious communities, seeking monetary damages under the ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Enjoins New York Restrictions on Religious Gatherings
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order limiting public gatherings in color-coded zones. In a red zone, religious services were limited to ten people, while in orange zones the gatherings could total 25 attendees. In Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York v. Cuomo, certain religious institutions challenged that order as violating ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Scope Of Duty By BLM Protest Organizer To Be Determined By State Courts
During a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Louisiana protesting a recent police shooting, one of the officers was struck in the face by a chunk of rock causing serious injuries. No one could identify who threw the rock, so in Mckesson v. Doe, the officer sued the organizer of the protest on the theory that the demonstration was negligently staged ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Begins Scaling Back Qualified Immunity
In Taylor v. Riojas, an inmate sued the correctional officers who confined him in a pair of “shockingly unsanitary cells,” one of which the inmate was forced to sleep in without a bunk or clothing in frigid conditions. The Fifth Circuit had held that the conditions violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, but since the law ... Read More
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Virginia Supreme Court Suspends All Evictions For Rent Nonpayment Until September 7, 2020
A narrowly divided Court, in an order signed by Justice Mims, suspended all writs of eviction pursuant to unlawful detainer actions in Virginia, effective August 10, 2020, and continuing through September 7, 2020. The four-justice majority noted that the ongoing public health emergency limited the ability of tenants to avail themselves of the court system, and the Governor’s request for ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Narrow Majority Finds Indian Reservation Over Much of Oklahoma
In McGirt v. Oklahoma, a member of the Seminole Nation was prosecuted in Oklahoma state court of serious sexual offenses and sentenced to 1,000 years plus life in prison. He argued that the state court lacked jurisdiction because under the Major Crimes Act, only federal courts had jurisdiction over crimes committed by an Indian on “Indian country,” and he argued ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Sets Forth Standard For Congress To Subpoena President Trump’s Financial Records
Three different House committees issued subpoenas to President Trump’s accountant and two banks seeking information about his finances and his businesses. Trump fought the subpoenas, arguing that the subpoenas violated the separation of powers and were not linked to a valid legislative purpose, but he did not claim executive privilege. The DC and Second Circuits both declined to stop the ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Expands the Breadth of the “Ministerial Exception” to the First Amendment
In prior cases, the Court had held that the First Amendment’s Religious Clauses prevented the courts from adjudicating employment discrimination claims between a church and certain employees, which was dubbed the “ministerial exception.” In Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, two elementary school teachers at Roman Catholic churches brought employment discrimination claims against their churches. In both cases, the ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Upholds Birth Control Exclusion for Religious Organizations Under ACA
While the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act required employers to provide coverage for contraceptives, the Government issued rules exempting religious employers from that mandate. After subsequent rulings by the Supreme Court on claims that the rules violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, the Government issued new rules expanding the exemption ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Strikes Down Faithless Electors
Instead of voting directly for presidential candidates, voters actually vote for electors appointed by each State, who then vote for the presidential candidate preferred by the voters. In 2016, however, three electors in the State of Washington pledged to vote according to what the voters preferred, but then violated that pledge and refused to vote for Hillary Clinton as they ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Government Collections Robocalls Violate the First Amendment
The 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act originally barred practically all robocalls to cell phones, but in 2015 Congress carved out an exception to allow robocalls solely for the purpose of collecting a debt owed to the Government. Certain political groups filed suit arguing that that exception violated the First Amendment, and thus the entire robocall ban should be invalidated. The ... Read More
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SCOTUS: States Cannot Exclude Religious Schools From Tuition Programs
Montana created a program that granted tax credits to organizations that awarded scholarships for private school tuition. Because Montana’s Constitution expressly prohibits “appropriation or payment” to sectarian schools—a “no-aid clause”—the State issued a rule prohibiting the scholarships from being used toward religious schools. Three mothers who wanted to use the scholarships to send their children to a Christian private school ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Declines to Extend First Amendment Protections to Foreign Corporate Affiliates
The United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act was enacted in 2003 as a foreign aid program focused on global health. Congress dedicated billions of dollars in funding to the Act, but required that organizations could only receive funds if they had a “policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.” In Agency for Int’l Development v. Alliance for ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Is Removable At Will
To ensure that consumer debt products were safe and transparent, Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which had power to investigate and seek relief on behalf of consumers, among other Executive Branch powers. Unlike other independent agencies, the Bureau was led by a single Director, appointed by the President with advice and consent of the Senate for a five-year ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Narrow Majority Strikes Down Louisiana Abortion Law
The Louisiana law at issue in June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo was practically identical to the Texas law the Court struck down in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 579 U.S. ___ (2016), which required abortion providers to hold active admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where they perform abortions. Since that time, however, one member of ... Read More