- SCOTUS takes up oral argument Monday on one of this year’s cases on uninjured plaintiff standing [Anne Friedman/DLA Piper, Richard Samp/WLF on Spokeo, Inc., v. Robins, more from Theodore Olson/Lucas Townsend, WLF on uninjured-plaintiff class actions]
- Time magazine asked law professors to pick best and worst SCOTUS rulings. Much consequentialism ensued [Orin Kerr, Ilya Somin]
- Fisher v. University of Texas, the affirmative action case, returns to the high court [Alison Somin, Federalist Society blog]
- CBIA vs San Jose case could upend some of zoning law [Ilya Shapiro and Trevor Burrus, Cato, via @nickzaiac]
- Rebuff to DoJ: “Supreme Court denies cert in US v. Newman insider trading tipping case” [Prof. Bainbridge, more, Peter Van Doren/Cato]
- Will Court agree to revisit Alien Tort Statute in Ivory Coast-related case of Nestle v. Doe? [WLF]
- Can defendant moot a class action by fully satisfying claim of named plaintiff? [Daniel Fisher on Campbell-Ewald v. Gomez] “Gomez Is Not the Slam Dunk You Think It Is” [Andrew Trask]
Posts Tagged ‘Supreme Court’
Plaintiff wants to bring Austrian train crash claim to U.S. courts
At the Supreme Court’s first oral argument of its new term, “the court’s most liberal justices joined in criticizing the idea the Austrian national railway could be liable simply for allowing its tickets to be sold in the U.S. Carol Sachs v. OBB Personenverkehr revolves around whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act protects the state-owned rail company from being sued in U.S. courts over injuries that occur overseas. Judging from the arguments, it can. Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor all expressed doubt that OBB could be liable simply because Sachs bought a Eurailpass through a Massachusetts online ticket agency.” The Ninth Circuit had allowed the case of Sachs v. OBB Personenverkehr to go forward over “strenuous dissents from several of its judges.” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]
October 21 roundup
- “Rightscorp’s Copyright Trolling Phone Script Tells Innocent People They Need To Give Their Computers To Police” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
- “‘Affordable housing’ policies have made housing less affordable” [Matt Welch, L.A. Times]
- South Mountain Creamery case: “Lawmakers Call for Return of Cash Seized From Dairy Farmers” [Tony Corvo/Heartland, quotes me, earlier on this structuring forfeiture case]
- Be prepared to explain your social media trail, like by like: “Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 2035” [Orin Kerr]
- From Eugene Volokh, what looks very much like a case against assisted suicide, embedded in a query about whether state Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs) might cut a legal path to it [Volokh Conspiracy]
- “The complaint also indicated that the injuries could affect Reid’s ability to secure employment” after Senate exit [Roll Call on Majority Leader’s suit against exercise equipment firm over eye injury]
- Amazon responds to NYT’s “everyone cries at their desk” hatchet job on its workplace culture [Jay Carney, Medium]
More about EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores
Cato has now posted the video of its annual Constitution Day conference including the civil rights panel, on which I spoke. My talk on EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch, the hijab religious-accommodation case, begins at 40:30, after presentations by William Eskridge of Yale Law School on the Obergefell (same-sex marriage) case, and Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity on disparate impact in fair housing. Roger Pilon of Cato introduces us and moderates.
You can read my article on the Abercrombie case here, part of the newly published 2014-2015 Cato Supreme Court Review. I’m also quoted in the ABA Journal’s coverage of the case. Earlier here.
Supreme Court roundup
The Court begins its new term each year on the first Monday in October:
- Court agrees to tackle RICO extraterritoriality [Alison Frankel/Reuters and earlier background, Washington Legal Foundation; RJR Nabisco v. European Community]
- New term shaping up as even bigger for class action law than expected [Jess Bravin, W$J, Alison Frankel in June] In addition to Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo (“trial by formula“) and Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins [uninjured plaintiff standing: Kevin LaCroix, more], cases include DirecTV v. Imburgia [can California court refuse to enforce arbitration clause waiving class actions?; Ronald Mann, WLF]; Campbell-Ewald v. Gomez [is class action mooted when defendant proffers full recoverable amount to named plaintiff? Ronald Mann]; and now, just granted, MHN Government Services, Inc. v. Zaborowski (“Whether California’s arbitration-only severability rule is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act”). DirecTV is slated for oral argument Tues., Oct. 6, and Campbell-Ewald Wed., Oct. 14;
- Rating John Roberts as Chief Justice: a lot to like if you get past the overdone deference to political branches [Roger Pilon, Cato; a contrary view, Evan Bernick] “The Fatal Conceit of Chief Justice Roberts’s ‘Long Game'” [Josh Blackman]
- Why the Little Sisters of the Poor have a better religious liberty case than Kim Davis [Noah Feldman, Cato amicus and Josh Blackman podcast]
- Did 2012 Congressional enactment on frozen Iran assets and terrorism claimants unconstitutionally direct courts how to decide pending litigation? Court grants cert [Bank Markazi v. Peterson; Lyle Denniston]
- Symposium on teacher-dues First Amendment case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association with Deborah LaFetra, David Rifkin/Andrew Grossman, and others [SCOTUSblog] “If unions lose agency fees, what next?” [Joanne Jacobs]
- A regulatory taking? PLF seeks certiorari on California Supreme Court decision upholding San Jose “inclusionary zoning” rules [Pacific Legal Foundation, more; Scott Beyer]
- Plus: “Supreme Court Justices Get More Liberal As They Get Older” [Oliver Roeder/Five Thirty-Eight, with charts]
Bernie Sanders: I’ll make justices pledge
“Sen. Sanders goes one step further. He would require that nominees publicly commit to case outcomes…. Although under President Sanders’ proposal judicial impartiality in fact and in appearance will suffer, there is a bright side. If President Sanders filled a majority of seats on the Court with pre-committed Justices, lawyers before the Court could significantly reduce the time and effort expended on the argument sections of their briefs.” [Raymond McKoski, Legal Ethics Forum]
Note also that Sanders managed to find a position on Citizens United worse than Hillary Clinton’s “Banning a critical movie about me should’ve been OK.”
Workers shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to not fund union politics
So argues a Cato Institute amicus brief in the important pending case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which builds on the Court’s recent First Amendment precedents in Knox v. SEIU (2012) and Harris v. Quinn (2014) [Andrew Grossman and Ilya Shapiro]
Are SCOTUS justices swayed by foreign law?
The much-discussed flirtation of Supreme Court justices with foreign law and transnational standards is something they can seemingly turn on and off at will, argues CEI’s Iain Murray in a WSJ letter to the editor: “to allow more lawsuits, the Supreme Court disregarded every foreign court ruling defining the word ‘accident’ in the Warsaw Convention, in Olympic Airways v. Husain (2004)…. The Supreme Court regularly ignores the international consensus against punitive damages and broad discovery, which most of the world forbids in civil cases, but the U.S. permits.”
Supreme Court and constitutional law roundup
- New York Times suggests Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinions borrow too much language from briefs and lower courts. Orin Kerr on why that’s unfair;
- Prosecutors have too much leeway to request freeze on defendant’s assets pending trial [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
- Certiorari petition arising from Newman/Chiasson prosecution: “Obama Administration Gambles On Supreme Court Review Of Insider-Trading Case” [Daniel Fisher]
- “Another Chance To Clean Up ‘Trial by Formula’ Class Actions” [Andrew Grossman/Cato, SCOTUSBlog on Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo]
- “Bench Memos” to the barricades: National Review builds case for “resistance” to Supreme Court decisions” [my two cents at Cato on rhetoric likening Obergefell to Dred Scott]
- Media firms including Time, Meredith, Advance, NPR jump into Spokeo case before high court, warn of Fair Credit Reporting Act litigation “quagmire” [Media Post]
- After a tainted-food episode, managers convicted without a showing of mens rea? Egg case deserves a closer look [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
Last year’s (and next’s) Supreme Court term
Caleb Brown interviews me and Trevor Burrus about some of the term’s lower-profile Supreme Court cases, including Abercrombie & Fitch (religious accommodation), disparate impact housing discrimination, Yates (whether the Sarbanes-Oxley financial accounting law forbids destroying fish), Horne (raisin takings), three-strikes sentencing and (Trevor) the Texas confederate flag license plate case. We also preview next term’s important Friedrich v. California Teachers Association case on public sector union dues collection (more on which, Michael Rosman).
Related: ten cases the Court should have taken last term but didn’t [Mark Chenoweth, WLF]