The Supreme Court issued a unanimous 8-0 opinion in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, also known as the dusky gopher frog case. (Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the opinion, began it with a brief exegesis about the frog, leading to some positive Twitter commentary on his writing style.) The Endangered Species … Continue reading Opinion: The Dusky Gopher Frog Faces a Setback at the Court
On Monday the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) made a rare request of the Supreme Court. The department filed a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment in the case U.S. Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, which the Ninth U.S Circuit Court of Appeals is currently deciding. That court … Continue reading DACA Filings and the Terms’s First Opinion
During Justice Kennedy’s last weeks at the Supreme Court, the Court decided a number of important cases, many of them 5-4. We’ve already posted about many of them, including the partisan gerrymandering cases, Janus v. AFSCME (the big union fees case), and the internet taxation case. We’ll post about the rest over the next few … Continue reading End of the 2017-18 Term: Race and Redistricting
On the last day of the term, the Supreme Court issued one of the most anticipated decisions of recent years, Janus v. AFSCME. As widely expected, a five-justice majority overturned Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977) and held that unions could not require public-sector employees to pay “agency fees” that would be used to … Continue reading Unions and Free Speech—The Janus Decision
In addition to Wayfair, (discussed here) the Supreme Court issued a second tax opinion on the same day in Wisconsin Central, Ltd. v. United States. Although the case is about interpreting a federal statute, the Railroad Retirement Tax Act of 1937 (RRTA), Wisconsin Central made headlines in the cryptocurrency community because Justice Breyer used the … Continue reading Opinions: Bitcoin, Officers, and Appropriate Notice
On Thursday, June 21, the Court released its opinion in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., one of two cases decided last month in which the Court reversed its own precedent. (The second case was Janus v. AFSCME.) Wayfair is a case with important tax ramifications for both consumers and online retailers, as it involved a … Continue reading Opinions: Internet Taxation
In a decision issued the same day as the partisan gerrymandering opinions, the Supreme Court ruled in Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach. This is the second opinion the Court has issued involving Fane Lozman and the City of Riviera Beach — and the lawsuits are related but independent of each other. In 2013, Lozman … Continue reading Opinions: Repeat Litigants at the Court and Sentencing Guidelines
The Court issued opinions in its two partisan gerrymandering cases — Gill v. Whitford and Benisek v. Lamone — on the same day near the end of the Term. Although these decisions were highly anticipated, the opinions themselves shed virtually no new light on either the justiciability of partisan gerrymandering claims or on the standard … Continue reading Opinions: Partisan Gerrymandering – Still Unresolved
Ordinarily, the Court decides all of the cases argued during a Term (beginning in October) by the end of June. Occasionally, it may hold a case over for reargument or for some other reason — this happened with Citizens United — but that’s quite rare. And following an unusually slow pace of issuing opinions, the … Continue reading Opinions: Political Apparel in Polling Places and Foreign Law
In a 5-4 opinion, which was quickly criticized by some as “flagrantly political” and “nakedly political,” and praised by others as “a victory for election integrity, ”the Court reversed the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Husted v. A Philip Randolph Institute. The Court held that the voter list-maintenance process in Ohio does not violate the National … Continue reading Opinions and Orders: Voting Rights, Contracts Clause, and Class Actions