Tag Archives: scotus
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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: Gay and Transgender Employees Are Protected Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
Bostock v. Clayton County consisted of several cases in which a long-time employee was terminated solely for being gay or transgender. Those employees sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it unlawful to fire an employee “because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” arguing that employment discrimination on account of ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Declines to Preclude Nonsignatories from Being Able to Enforce Arbitration Provision
At the heart of GE Energy Power Conversion France SAS, Corp. v. Outokumpu Stainless USA, LLC is a construction contract with an arbitration clause. One of the signatories to that contract engaged a subcontractor to do part of that construction. When the subcontractor’s work allegedly failed, the owner sued the subcontractor. The subcontractor moved to dismiss the case and compel ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Upholds Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board Against Appointments Clause Challenge
After Puerto Rico suffered a fiscal crisis starting in 2006, Congress enacted the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, creating a Financial Oversight and Management Board that would be able to file bankruptcy on behalf of Puerto Rico or its instrumentalities, among other things, to regain financial stability. The members of the Board were to be appointed by ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Motion to Amend Judgment in Habeas Proceeding is Not a Separate Habeas Petition
After Gregory Banister was sentenced to 30 years in prison in Texas state court, and after he had exhausted his appeals in the Texas courts, he filed a petition for habeas relief under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, arguing, among other things, ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court denied the petition. Banister then filed a ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Beneficiaries Receiving Full Benefits Have No Standing To Challenge ERISA Plan Governance
U.S. Bank maintains a retirement plan for its employees. Two of those beneficiaries, who had retired, were entitled to a fixed payment each month, and received every such payment. Regardless, they sued their former employer under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, arguing that the plan had been mismanaged and should be re-payed about $750 million. The Eighth ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Enlarges Scope of Judicial Review of Orders Under the Convention Against Torture
Nidal Khalid Nasrallah received some stolen property, which made him eligible to be removed under federal immigration law. Nasrallah argued to the immigration court that he should not be removed to his home country of Lebanon under the Convention Against Torture because it was likely that, as a member of the Druze religion, he would be tortured upon his return ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Declines to Suspend COVID-19 Restrictions on Church Worship in California
The Governor of California issued an executive order to limit the spread of COVID-19, which in part limited attendance at places of worship to 25% of building capacity or 100 people, whichever is less. Several churches challenged that order, and asked the courts to enter an injunction staying its effect during the course of the litigation due to its First ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Stays District Court’s Order Affecting Wisconsin’s Election
Despite the ongoing danger of COVID-19, Wisconsin decided to go forward with its election on April 7. Since voters would be discouraged from arriving en masse at the polls, it was expected that absentee voting would surge. Various political groups filed suit to ease the burden of absentee voting. Although Wisconsin law required absentee votes to be received by 8 ... Read More
TAGGED: scotus, SCOTUS opinion, COVID-19
SCOTUS Opinion: Age Discrimination Need Not Be The But-For Cause To Be Actionable
In Babb v. Wilkie, a clinical pharmacist at a Veterans Affairs medical center alleged that he suffered various adverse personnel actions due to age discrimination. Under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, personnel actions affecting individuals 40 and over must be made “free from any discrimination based on age.” The VA offered legitimate reasons for its actions and ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Permits Routine Stops Of Vehicles Whose Owners Have Revoked Licenses
While on routine patrol, a Kansas deputy ran the plate of a vehicle and discovered that its owner, Charles Glover, Jr., had a revoked driver’s license. On that basis alone, the deputy pulled over the vehicle, assuming, correctly, that Glover was driving it. Glover was charged with driving as a habitual violator and Glover appealed, arguing that the deputy lacked ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: “Safe-Berth” Clause In Maritime Contract Creates A Warranty of Safety
In Citgo Asphalt Refining Company v. Frescati Shipping Company, a punctured hull in a tanker caused a huge oil spill, which the owner of the tanker and the United States then paid millions to clean up. Those parties then sued the groups who chartered the tanker to recover those costs under a clause in the maritime contract that required the ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Courts May Consider Whether Deadline To Contest A Removal Order Has Been Equitably Tolled
When the Government has ordered that an immigrant be removed from the country for committing certain crimes, the Immigration and Nationality Act allows judicial review only on “constitutional claims or questions of law.” In Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr, two such immigrants sought appellate review of their removal orders based on whether their motions to reopen their removal proceedings were untimely or ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Civil Rights Plaintiffs Must Prove But-For Causation
For years, Entertainment Studios Network, an African-American owned company, sought to have Comcast Corp. carry its channels. Comcast refused and ESN sued, alleging racial discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. ESN alleged that Comcast’s legitimate business reasons for refusing to carry ESN channels were pretextual. The district court dismissed the complaint, holding that ESN had failed to allege but-for causation ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: States Need Not Have Insanity Defense Based on Moral Understanding
Kansas permits defendants to raise an insanity defense based on whether the defendant “lacked the culpable mental state required as an element of the offense charged.” James Kahler, who was charged with capital murder for killing four family members, argued that he should have been able to raise an insanity defense based on whether he had a mental illness that ... Read More
TAGGED: scotus, SCOTUS opinion, Due Process, Kahler v. Kansas
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SCOTUS Opinion: States Immune from Copyright Claims
When North Carolina published a photographer’s copyrighted work recording operations to recover a shipwreck off of its coast, the photographer sued under the Copyright Remedy and Classification Act of 1990. The district court held that the Act abrogated State sovereign immunity from such claims, but the Fourth Circuit reversed, holding that the decision in Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Appellate Courts Must Review Late-Raised Arguments For Plain Error
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) provides that where a criminal defendant fails to raise an argument in the district court, the appellate court can review the issue for plain error. The Fifth Circuit, as opposed to other circuits, had the practice of refusing to review factual matters not raised before the district court. In Davis v. United States, a ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: No Pre-emption for States to Use Federal Immigration Information to Enforce State Identity Theft Law
Under federal law, employers must verify, through an I-9 form, that they have “verified” that each new employee “is not an unauthorized alien.” In Kansas v. Garcia, three persons who were living in the United States illegally used the same false Social Security number on their I-9 forms, as well as their tax withholding forms, and were prosecuted under ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Strictly Interprets “Actual Knowledge” For ERISA Limitations Period
Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, a person with “actual knowledge” of an alleged fiduciary breach by the administrator of a pension plan must file suit within three years of gaining such knowledge—otherwise, a six-year limitations period applies. In Intel Corp. Investment Policy Committee v. Sulyma, Intel argued that its former employee filed such a claim ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Rejects Comparison of State Offenses to Generic Offenses for Armed Career Criminal Act Enhancement
The Armed Career Criminal Act mandates a 15-year sentence for defendants that have prior convictions for a “serious drug offense” that “involve[es] manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to manufacture or distribute, a controlled substance.” Eddie Lee Shular had six prior Florida convictions for selling and possessing cocaine with intent to sell. The federal trial court deemed those to be ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Permits Appellate Review of Added Mitigating Factor in Death Penalty Case
After James McKinney was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, the trial court sentenced him to death upon the finding that he had two aggravating circumstances for each such murder. Twenty years later, a narrowly divided en banc Ninth Circuit reversed upon habeas review, holding that the state courts had not properly considered McKinney's post-traumatic stress disorder as a ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Strikes Down The “Bob Richards Rule”
The IRS allows affiliated corporations to file a group tax return. When the IRS issues a tax return to the group as a whole, federal law does not describe how to allocate the funds. The Ninth Circuit created a rule for that when it decided In re Bob Richards Chrysler-Plymouth Corp., 473 F.2d 262 (1973). The "Bob Richards Rule" mandated ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Declines To Extend Bivens To Allow Suit Against Border Agent For Shooting
U.S. Border Patrol agent Jesus Mesa, Jr. shot 15 year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca while Mesa was on U.S. land, and Hernandez had run back across onto Mexican soil. Hernandez's family sued Mesa under Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), which permits damages claims against federal agents even though no federal statute authorized the claim ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Infant’s “Habitual Residence” Not Determined by Agreement of the Parents
The Hague Convention requires that a child wrongfully removed from her country of "habitual residence" must be returned to that country. In Monasky v. Taglieri, an infant was born in Italy to an American mother and Italian father. The relationship was abusive, and the mother soon relocated to America, taking the child with her. The father moved to have ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Enforces Removal Jurisdiction In Vacating Orders Against The Catholic Church
The case of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Yuan, Puerto Rico v. Feliciano concerned complaints filed by employees of Catholic schools in Puerto Rico alleging wrongful termination of their pension plan. Initially, the Puerto Rico trial court determined that the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church in Puerto Rico was the proper entity that owed obligations to the plan, and ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Enforces The “American Rule” Of Costs Against The Patent And Trademark Office
The Patent Act provides that when an applicant for a patent brings suit against the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) when the Office rejects the applicant’s patent, the applicant must pay “[a]ll the expenses of the proceedings.” In Peter v. Nantkwest, Inc., a patent applicant sued the PTO under the Act when the PTO denied its application for a ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Rejects Discovery Rule For Fair Debt Collection Practices Act Claims
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act requires that claims be brought “within one year from the date on which the violation occurs.” In Rotkiske v. Klemm, a debt collector filed suit against Kevin Rotkiske, served him where he no longer lived, and obtained a default judgment against him in 2009. Rotkiske learned of the judgment in 2014, and sued ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Remands Alaska Political Contribution Limits Case For Closer Review
The first opinion handed down by the Court in its 2019 Term concerned Alaska’s law limiting contributions to candidates or election-oriented groups to $500 per year. The Ninth Circuit upheld the law, but the Court, in a per curiam decision in Thompson v. Hebdon, reversed and remanded. The Court noted that the Ninth Circuit chose not to apply the ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Police May Take Blood Test Of Unconscious Driver Without Warrant Under Exigent Circumstances Doctrine
After Gerald Mitchell was arrested for driving while intoxicated, his breath test came out three times over the legal limit. He then became unconscious. Wisconsin law presumed that an unconscious person consents to a blood test, so the police took him to a hospital where a blood test revealed his BAC well over the legal limit. During his prosecution, Mitchell ... Read More
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SCOTUS Opinion: Court Decides That Federal Courts Cannot Address Partisan Gerrymandering Claims
The case of Rucho v. Common Cause combined two different gerrymandering claims: one from North Carolina where the claim was that the redistricting plan hurt Democrats, one from Maryland which claimed that the plan hurt Republicans. In both cases, the district courts ruled that the plans violated the Constitution. The Court, in a 5-4 opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, ... Read More