In 1980, in response to concerns about the repercussions of toxic waste dumping, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), which was designed to establish a comprehensive response mechanism and to shift the cost of the clean-up to the parties responsible. In 1986, Congress amended CERCLA by adding a section stating that, if a state statute of limitations allows the period in which action may be brought to begin before the plaintiff has knowledge of the harm, CERCLA preempts the state statute and allows the period to begin only from the point at which the plaintiff has knowledge.

CTS Corporation (CTS) manufactures and disposes of electronics and electronic parts. From 1959 to 1985, CTS operated the Mills Gap Road Facility (Facility) in Asheville, North Carolina, where notable quantities of carcinogenic solvents were stored. In 1987, CTS sold the Facility and promised the realtors that the property was environmentally safe and clean. Subsequently, the land was sold to David Bradley, Renee Richardson, and others (landowners), who learned that the land was contaminated and that their well water contained concentrated levels of carcinogenic solvents in 2009. The landowners sued CTS in federal district court and argued that CTS should be required to remove the toxic contaminants as well as pay monetary damages. CTS moved to dismiss the case by arguing that North Carolina's ten-year statute of limitations on real property actions resulting from physical damage to a claimant's property prevented the suit from going forward. Although the landowners argued that CERCLA preempted the limitation, the district court held that the ten-year limitation was actually a statute of repose, which limits legal action to a particular timeframe regardless of when the harm becomes apparent. The district court granted the motion to dismiss. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed and held that CERCLA's preemption applied to both statutes of repose, in which a plaintiff's knowledge of the harm is not relevant to when the time period begins, as well as to statutes of limitation, in which a plaintiff's knowledge of the harm is relevant.

No. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the opinion for the 7-2 majority. The Court explained the differences between statutes of limitations, which begin to run when the injury was discovered, and statutes of repose, which place an absolute bar on lawsuits regardless of whether any injury has been discovered. The Court held that statutes of limitations reflect a policy of encouraging a plaintiff to pursue his or her rights diligently and may be paused if an extraordinary circumstance prevents a plaintiff from bringing his or her claim. Statutes of repose, however, reflect a policy of freeing defendants from potential liability and generally cannot be paused even in extraordinary circumstances. Although the Court recognized that Congress has used the terms interchangeably in the past, in CERCLA Congress only used the term "statute of limitations" despite the Study Group Report's use of both terms. Given Congress' awareness of the distinction, the Court held that CERCLA could not be extended to pre-empt "statutes of repose."

In Part II-D of the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy argued that when a pre-emption clause is open to more than one plausible reading, courts tend to disfavor pre-emption and interpret the clause narrowly, especially when the law covers subject matter that is traditionally covered by state law. Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan joined in Part II-D. Justice Antonin G. Scalia wrote a separate concurring opinion with respect to Part II-D and argued that pre-emption clauses should be interpreted simply by applying their ordinary meaning. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined the separate concurrence.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissenting opinion in which she argued that the statute of repose was essentially a statute of limitations and should be pre-empted by CERCLA because CERCLA's purpose would be defeated if it did not pre-empt statutes of repose as well as statutes of limitations. Justice Ginsburg also wrote that the majority decision gave contaminators an incentive to conceal the hazards they have created. Justice Stephen G. Breyer joined the dissent.


Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc.

Biosig Instruments, Inc. (Biosig) holds the '753 Patent, which refers to a heart rate monitor associated with exercise equipment and procedures. Biosig sued Nautilus, Inc. (Nautilus) in federal district court and alleged that Nautilus infringed on several claims of the patent. Nautilus moved for summary judgment on two issues: whether there was infringement, and whether the patent was invalid due to its vagueness. The district court denied Nautilus' motion as far as the issue of infringement due to lack of discovery and granted the motion as it related to the patent's invalidity because of its vagueness. Biosig appealed and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed. The Court of Appeals held that a patent claim could only be considered legally indefinite when it is "insolubly ambiguous," or not possible for a person of ordinary skill in the area to understand and resolve.

No, unanswered. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court first held that determining whether a patent claim is sufficiently definite must be done by evaluating the patent with the perspective of an individual learned in the relevant field, a standard that accepts a certain amount of ambiguity in the patent claim. However, because patents serve a public service function, patent claims must be definite enough to appraise the public at large as to what has or has not been patented yet. In attempting to balance these interests, the Court held that a patent is sufficiently definite when the patent taken as a whole which includes the patent application, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's response, and any amendments made by the applicant informs those learned in the relevant field of the scope of the invention with reasonable certainty. The Court then remanded the case back to the Federal Circuit to reevaluate Nautilus's claim in light of this newly articulated standard.


Paul D. Clement
Malcolm L. Stewart
David C. Frederick

Aereo, Inc. (Aereo) provides a service that allows its subscribers to watch programs that are currently airing on network television or record programs that will air in the future over the Internet. By allowing subscribers to watch live television as well as record and watch shows on Internet-enabled devices including mobile phones, Aereo serves three functions: that of a regular television antenna, a recording device, and an application that makes these services work on devices other than televisions and computers. Aereo is currently only available to subscribers in the New York City area and offers only New York City local channels. Aereo does not have a license from the copyright holders of the programs to record or transmit their programs.

Two groups of plaintiffs filed separate copyright infringement suits against Aereo and moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent Aereo from transmitting programs to its subscribers while the programs were still being broadcast. The plaintiffs claimed that the transmission of the programs violated their right to "publicly perform" their copyrighted works. The district court denied the motion and held that Aereo's system was not substantially different from another that had been determined non-violative of the rights of copyright holders and that, while the injunction might prevent harm for the plaintiffs' businesses, it would irreparably harm Aereo's. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the lower court's ruling to deny the motion.

Yes. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion for the 6-3 majority. The Court held that, because Aereo is functionally similar to community antenna television (CATV), which Congress specifically amended the Copyright Act to cover, the Copyright Act regulates Aereo's actions in a similar manner. Under the definitions Congress established in the Copyright Act, Aereo performs work because it shows images in sequence with the accompanying audio, and it does so publicly because those images and sounds are received beyond the place from where they were sent by a large number of unrelated people. Therefore, Aereo, like CATV, is not just an equipment provider but rather a broadcaster.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissent in which he argued that Aereo merely provides a platform for the customer to use as he sees fit. Because Aereo plays no role in the selection of content, it does not "perform" in any meaningful sense and cannot be held liable for the customer's choice of transmission content. Justice Scalia wrote that the majority opinion was based on the faulty assumption that Aereo's services resembled CATV, which creates a rule so broad as to be useless. Instead, Justice Scalia argued that the question of volitional conduct is the appropriate bright-line test to use in such cases. Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the dissent.


Minnesota's Constitution provides for the selection of all state judges by popular election. The announcement clause of the Minnesota Supreme Court's canon of judicial conduct prohibits a candidate from announcing his or her views on disputed legal or political issues. While running for associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, Gregory Wersal filed suit, seeking a declaration that the announce clause violates the First Amendment and an injunction against its enforcement. Wersal alleged that he was forced to refrain from announcing his views on disputed issues during the 1998 campaign, to the point where he declined response to questions put to him by the press and public, out of concern that he might run afoul of the announce clause. The District Court found that the announcement clause did not violate the First Amendment. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

No. In a 5-4 opinion delivered by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court held that the announce clause violates the First Amendment. The Court reasoned that the announce clause prohibits speech based on its content and burdens a category of speech that is at the core of First Amendment freedoms - speech about the qualifications of candidates for public office. Moreover, the Court concluded that the clause did not serve to preserve the state judiciary's impartiality, its argued compelling state interest. "There is an obvious tension between the article of Minnesota's popularly approved Constitution which provides that judges shall be elected, and the Minnesota Supreme Court's announce clause which places most subjects of interest to the voters off limits," wrote Justice Scalia.


A public hospital fired an obstetrics nurse, Cheryl Churchill, for insubordination after she allegedly complained about her superiors to a nurse trainee during a dinner break in the hospital's obstetrics unit. Churchill claimed that the hospital fired her because she opposed its policy of nurse cross-training and said it was leaving certain units understaffed.

Yes, but the Court was unable to forge a majority opinion. A four-justice plurality held that government workers cannot be dismissed or otherwise punished for their words unless the employer has a reasonable basis for believing that the speech either was disruptive or involved a matter of purely private concern, outside the scope of the First Amendment's protection. The hospital need not conduct a full-scale investigation, but it must have some reasonable, factual basis for its actions.


After the 2000 census caused Mississippi to lose one congressional seat, the State legislature failed to pass a new redistricting plan. Subsequently, lawsuits were filed in both the Mississippi State Chancery Court and the Federal District Court, asking that each court issue its own redistricting plan. While the federal court stayed its hand, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that the Chancery Court had jurisdiction to issue a redistricting plan. The Chancery Court adopted such a plan, which was submitted for preclearance pursuant to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Meanwhile, the Federal District Court promulgated a plan that would fix the State's congressional districts for the 2002 elections should the state-court plan not be precleared by the state-law deadline. Ultimately, the District Court enjoined the State from using the state-court plan and ordered that its own plan be used in 2002 until the State produced a precleared, constitutional plan. The State did not appeal and no determination was made on the preclearance submission because the District Court's injunction rendered the state-court plan incapable of administration.

Yes. In a plurality opinion delivered by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court held, 9-0, that the District Court properly enjoined enforcement of the state- court plan that lacked the required timely preclearance. The Court also held, 7-2, that the federal court properly fashioned its own congressional reapportionment plan, which drew the requisite single-member districts rather than directing at-large elections, under 2 USC section 2c. Regarding the second holding, Justice Scalia, joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reasoned that the provision for at-large elections under 2 USC section 2a(c) was subject to the requirement under section 2c that single-member districts must be drawn whenever possible. Justice John Paul Stevens, with whom Justices David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer joined, concluded that section 2c impliedly repealed section 2a(c). Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, with whom Justice Clarence Thomas joined, disagreed with the plurality's interpretations of section 2c.


Kansas and Colorado disputed ownership of the Arkansas River. In 1949 Congress approved the Arkansas River Compact, which set out to resolve the states' dispute. In 1986 Kansas alleged Colorado violated the Compact. The U.S. Supreme Court appointed a Special Master to investigate the dispute and in 1994 the Special Master said Colorado violated the Compact. The Court agreed with the Special Master. Kansas later took issue with the Special Master's fourth set of recommendations. Kansas said it was entitled to interest from 1985 onward - before the Court's ruling against Colorado - for damages from Colorado's violations of the Compact from 1950 to 1985. Kansas also requested a "river master" to resolve a dispute over computer modeling of the river.

No and no. In an 8-1 judgment delivered by Justice Stephen Breyer, the Court denied Kansas' request to appoint a river master to decide various technical disputes between the states. A river master was inappropriate because the nature of the disputes was legal, not purely technical, and the appointment of a river master would make it easier to continue litigation. The Court also rejected Kansas' claim to all interest from 1985 forward for damages, because that would contradict the Court's ruling in an earlier dispute between the states (Kansas III). In that ruling, the Court had endorsed an equitable approach that yielded a post-1985 interest calculation based on late damages only.


Under the Housing Act of 1949, the Farmers Home Administration makes direct loans to private, nonprofit entities to develop and/or construct rural housing for the elderly and low-or middle-income individuals and families. Franconia Associates is a property owner that entered into such loans before December 21, 1979. The promissory notes Franconia executed authorized "prepaymen[t] of scheduled installments, or any portion thereof...at any time at the option of Borrower." In 1988, Congress enacted the Emergency Low Income Housing Preservation Act of 1987 (ELIHPA), which amended the Housing Act of 1949 to impose permanent restrictions upon prepayment of mortgages entered into before December 21, 1979. In 1997, Franconia filed suit, charging that ELIHPA abridged the absolute prepayment right set forth in their promissory notes and thereby effected a repudiation of their contracts. In dismissing Franconia's contract claims as untimely, the Court of Federal Claims concluded that the claims first accrued on the ELIHPA regulations' effective date. In affirming on statute of limitations grounds, the Federal Circuit ruled that, if the Government's continuing duty to allow Franconia to prepay their loans was breached, the breach occurred immediately upon ELIHPA's enactment date.

No. In a unanimous opinion delivered by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held that because ELIHPA's enactment qualified as a repudiation of the parties' bargain, not a present breach of the loan agreements, breach would occur, and the six-year limitations period would commence to run, when a borrower tenders prepayment and the Government then dishonors its obligation to accept the tender and release its control over use of the property securing the loan. The Court reasoned that the government's pledged performance was properly comprehended as an obligation to accept prepayment, not an obligation to allow borrowers to have the right to prepay. Therefore, the borrowers' repudiation claims were not time-barred, because the cause of action would not accrue until the government dishonors its obligation to accept the prepayment.


Archibald Cox
Roger Robb
Erwin N. Griswold

The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) fairness doctrine requires radio and television broadcasters to present a balanced and fair discussion of public issues on the airwaves. The doctrine is composed of two primary requirements concerning personal attacks in the context of public issue debates and political editorializing. The FCC conditioned its renewal of broadcast licenses on compliance with its regulations. Red Lion Broadcasting challenged the application of the fairness doctrine with respect to a particular broadcast. In a companion case (United States v. Radio Television News Directors Association (RTNDA)), the fairness doctrine's requirements concerning any broadcast were challenged.

In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the fairness doctrine was consistent with the First Amendment. Writing for the Court, Justice White argued that spectrum scarcity made it "idle to posit an unabridgeable First Amendment right to broadcast comparable to the right of every individual to speak, write, or publish." The Court held that the FCC's fairness doctrine regulations enhanced rather than infringed the freedoms of speech protected under the First Amendment. With respect to the regulation of personal attacks made in the context of public issue debates, the FCC's requirement that the subject of the attack be provided with a tape, transcript, or broadcast summary, as well as an opportunity to respond without having to prove an inability to pay for the "air-time," insured a balanced and open discussion of contested issues. The requirement that political editorializing be presented for and against both sides of the debated issues also contributed to the balanced discussion of public concerns.


A federal grand jury indicted Sila Luis for her alleged role in a Medicare fraud scheme that involved giving kickbacks to patients who enrolled with her home healthcare companies. Because federal law allows the government to file a pretrial motion to restrain the assets of defendants accused of particular types of fraud, including substitute assets not directly related to the fraud, the government did so in this case. Luis objected to the motion and argued that she needed those funds in order to pay for her criminal defense lawyer, and therefore granting the motion would violate her right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment. The district court granted the motion, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed.

The pretrial restraint of assets untainted by the crime that are needed to retain counsel of choice violates the Sixth Amendment. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered an opinion for the four-justice plurality, which held that the fundamental nature of the right in question prohibits the government from undermining the defendant’s ability to be represented by the counsel of his choice that he can afford. While it is important that the defendant’s assets be available to pay penalties, the assets in question are untainted by the crime, which means that they remain firmly in the lawful possession of the defendant. The government does not have a sufficiently substantial interest to provide the legal authority to restrain them. Because the defendant’s interest in being able to afford counsel of his or her choice outweighs any interest the government may have in ensuring the defendant has assets to pay criminal penalties, the government’s pretrial restraint of assets untainted by the crime that are needed to retain counsel of choice violates the Sixth Amendment. The Court held that this decision was in line with Sixth Amendment and forfeiture jurisprudence, and creates a workable line between tainted and untainted assets.

In his opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the text of the Sixth Amendment clearly implies the right to use lawful property to pay for counsel of choice. Without that implication, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel would be meaningless, and constitutional rights must also protect related acts necessary to their exercise. Additionally, common law has historically limited the pretrial restraint of assets to those tainted by the crime, which further supports this reading of the Sixth Amendment and provides an easily administrable line. Justice Thomas also argued that the plurality’s balancing test was unnecessary to reach this conclusion.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote a dissent in which he argued that the Court’s holding allows defendants to protect assets that might be needed to provide the victim with adequate restitution. Especially in cases that involve fungible assets, it is important to allow the government to restrain such assets, in the same manner that it may be important to restrain the defendant. In holding otherwise, the Court goes against forfeiture precedent and asserts a Sixth Amendment right to spend forfeitable assets that lacks a firm basis in precedent. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the dissent. In her separate dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that, according to precedent, as long as the government has established probable cause to believe that it will eventually recover the assets, the defendant cannot use those assets to pay for counsel of choice. The distinction between tainted and untainted assets is meaningless prior to a judgment of guilt, and therefore the government has the same right to restrain either type.


In 2011, the Maryland General Assembly enacted a redistricting plan based on the results of the 2010 census. Several of the districts consisted of de-facto non-contiguous segments—discrete segments that would be wholly unconnected but for one or two narrow strips connecting the two—often with largely inconsistent demographics between the two large segments. The plaintiffs were a group of citizens who sued the Chair of the Maryland State Board of Elections (Board) and the State Administrator of the Board and argued that the new districting plan violated their rights to political association and equal representation under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The defendants moved to dismiss the suit under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which requires that a complaint be plausible on its face and enable the court to draw a reasonable inference of misconduct. The district court granted the motion to dismiss and held that the complaint did no more than imply the mere possibility of misconduct. Therefore, the case did not go before a three-judge panel, as the Three-Judge Court Act requires for cases dealing with congressional districts unless the claim is determined to be insubstantial. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal.

Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that a claim covered by the Three-Judge Court Act must be heard by a three-judge panel. The text of the Act requires that any covered claim be heard by a three-judge panel and does not grant an individual district court judge the discretion to decide otherwise. A district court judge may only decide whether the claim is one that the Three-Judge Court Act covers and may not make any judgments on the merit of the case. The Court also held that the question of whether a claim is “insubstantial” is a jurisdictional one addressing whether the district court can hear the case, and not a question of whether the lawsuit failed to state a claim for which relief can be granted. Especially for constitutional claims, the “insubstantial” barrier is a high one, and the claim in this case should not have been dismissed as insubstantial.


Dollar General Corporation v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians

Thomas C. Goldstein
Neal Kumar Katyal
Edwin S. Kneedler

Dollar General Corporation (Dollar General) operates a store on land held in trust for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (Tribe). The store operates pursuant to a lease and business license agreement with the Tribe. In the spring of 2003, John Doe, a 13-year-old member of the Tribe alleged that he was sexually molested by the store manager, Dale Townsend, while he was working at the store as part of an internship program that the Tribe runs and in which the Townsend agreed to participate.

In 2005, Doe sued Townsend and Dollar General in tribal court. Both defendants moved to dismiss the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and the tribal court denied the motions. The Choctaw Supreme Court upheld the denial of the motions by finding that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Montana v. United States, which allowed a tribe to regulate the activities of nonmembers who enter into a consensual arrangement with the tribe, applied in this case. The defendants then sued the Tribe in federal district court and sought injunctions to stop the suit in tribal court. The district court granted the injunction for Townsend but not for Dollar General because the company had failed to carry its burden to show that the Montana decision did not apply in this case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed.

In an unsigned per curiam opinion, the equally divided Court affirmed the judgment of the lower court.


Several prisoners housed in the Special Management Unit (SMU) of the Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega, which is for gang-affiliated and other disruptive inmates, sued Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officials and claimed that SMUs violated the Eighth Amendment. Because SMUs housed gang-affiliated prisoners, the petitioners argued that the SMUs were unconstitutionally violent and dangerous because the BOP officials did not separate members of rival gangs. The prisoners moved to proceed in forma pauperis, which would allow them to waive filing fees. The parties then engaged in extensive back-and-forth filings regarding the collection of filing fees and the ability of other prisoners to join in the case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the Prison Litigation Reform Act prevented the prisoners from completely waiving filing fees, and that they instead must pay a percentage of their monthly income to cover filing fees.

The filing fee requirement of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) is assessed on a per-case, rather than per-prisoner, basis. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court, which held that, for each case a prisoner filed, the PLRA requires simultaneous payment of filing fees. Because the PLRA generally refers to cases individually and provides instructions for each case, the per-case approach is a better reading of the statute that also comports with the PLRA’s goal of deterring frivolous claims.


Federal Energy Regulatory Commission v. Electric Power Supply Association, et al.

Donald B. Verrilli, Jr.
Carter G. Phillips
Paul D. Clement

The Federal Power Act (FPA) grants the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) the authority to regulate the wholesale interstate transmission and sale of electric power. In 2011, FERC promulgated a rule that established uniform compensation levels for suppliers of demand-side resources that meet certain conditions, including cost-effectiveness as measured by a net benefits test. The rule’s stated purpose was to incentivize retail customers to reduce electricity consumption when it was economically efficient to do so. Various state regulatory agencies, trade associations, publicly owned utilities, transmission owners, and other industry groups requested a rehearing on the rule and argued that it conflicted with FERC’s efforts to promote a competitive market as well as FERC’s statutory mandate to avoid unjust and discriminatory rates. FERC confirmed the rule, and the industry groups petitioned for review in federal court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that FERC did not have the statutory authority to directly regulate the retail market and that the rule was arbitrary and capricious because FERC did not adequately consider and respond to the arguments made in opposition to the rule.

The Federal Power Act (FPA) grants the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) the authority to regulate wholesale market operators’ compensation for reduction in electricity consumption, and the rule in question was not arbitrary and capricious. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion of the 6-2 majority. The Court held that the rule in question regulates wholesale market operators’ payments for demand response commitments, which affects the wholesale market at large and is therefore within FERC’s authority pursuant to the FPA. The rule does not regulate retail markets, which the FPA reserves for the states to regulate. The contrary view would prevent FERC from effectively regulating the wholesale market, which would contradict the express purpose of the FPA. The Court also held that, because FERC examined all the the relevant considerations, articulated a satisfactory reason for its decision, and there was a rational connection between the facts and the choice made, the rule it implemented was not arbitrary and capricious. FERC also responded to the reasonable alternatives that were advanced and offered explanations for why those alternatives were not chosen. Therefore, FERC met its duty of “reasoned judgment.”

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissent in which he argued that the rule at issue falls outside of the authority the FPA grants to FERC. The plain language of the FPA only allows FERC to regulate wholesale activity. Because the demand-response bidders that the rule in question regulates do not resell energy to other customers, they are not wholesalers and therefore the FPA does not allow FERC to regulate them. Additionally, the rule in fact interferes with retail prices in a manner that the FPA expressly forbids. Justice Clarence Thomas joined in the dissent.

Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


Bert W. Rein
Gregory G. Garre
Donald B. Verrilli, Jr.

Abigail Fisher, a white female, applied for admission to the University of Texas but was denied. She did not qualify for Texas' Top Ten Percent Plan, which guarantees admission to the top ten percent of every in-state graduating high school class. For the remaining spots, the university considers many factors, including race. Fisher sued the University and argued that the use of race as a consideration in the admissions process violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court held that the University’s admissions process was constitutional, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. The case went to the Supreme Court, which held that the appellate court erred by not applying the strict scrutiny standard to the University’s admission policies. The case was remanded, and the appellate court reaffirmed the lower court’s decision by holding that the University of Texas’ use of race as a consideration in the admissions process was sufficiently narrowly tailored to the legitimate interest of promoting educational diversity and therefore satisfied strict scrutiny.

The University of Texas’ use of race as a consideration in the admissions process did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 4-3 majority. The Court held that the University of Texas’ use of race as a factor in the holistic review used to fill the spots remaining after the Top Ten Percent Plan was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. Previous precedent had established that educational diversity is a compelling interest as long as it is expressed as a concrete and precise goal that is neither a quota of minority students nor an amorphous idea of diversity. In this case, the Court determined that the University of Texas sufficiently expressed a series of concrete goals along with a reasoned explanation for its decision to pursue these goals along with a thoughtful consideration of why previous attempts to achieve the goals had not been successful. The University of Texas’ plan is also narrowly tailored to serve this compelling interest because there are no other available and workable alternatives for doing so.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment categorically prohibits the use of race as a consideration in a higher education admissions process. In his separate dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote that majority’s decision was too deferential to the University of Texas’ determination that its use of race in the admissions process was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest and that the majority failed to properly apply strict scrutiny. Because the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause was enacted at least in part to prevent the government from treating individuals as merely components of racial class, race-based classifications, regardless of their purpose must be subject to the strictest level of constitutional scrutiny. In this case, the University of Texas’ use of race in its admissions policy cannot withstand strict scrutiny because the University’s interest is not sufficiently clearly defined and therefore judicial review to determine whether the policy is narrowly tailored is impossible. Even if it were, the goal of demographic diversity could only feasibly be achieved using impermissible quotas for racial balancing that are based on stereotypes. Justice Alito also argued that the use of racial preferences is unnecessary to achieve the goal of diversity because the admissions process could use a race-neutral holistic review based on life experiences that would achieve the same effect. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Clarence Thomas joined in the dissent.

Justice Elena Kagan did not participate in the discussion or decision of the case.


In 1986, Timothy Tyrone Foster, an 18-year-old black man, was charged with murdering Queen White, an elderly white woman. At the trial, the prosecution used peremptory strikes against all four of the qualified black jurors. Pursuant to the Supreme Court’s decision in Batson v. Kentucky, which prohibits the use of peremptory strikes on the basis of race, the defense objected to those strikes, and the burden shifted to the prosecution to prove that there were race-neutral explanation for the strikes. The prosecution provided reasons, and the trial court held that the reasons were sufficient. An all-white jury convicted Foster of murder and imposed the death penalty.

Foster filed a motion for post-judgment discovery regarding the prosecution’s notes during jury selection and a motion for a new trial, both of which the trial court denied. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s decisions, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari. Foster  petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in Butts County Superior Court and submitted a new Batson challenge based on the prosecutor's notes obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act. The court denied Foster's petition. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the denial of the writ. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari.

The evidence was sufficient to establish that there was purposeful discrimination of the type that Batson v. Kentucky prohibits in the jury selection process of Foster’s trial. Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the 7-1 majority. The Court held that the third step of a Batson challenge, which requires the defendant to show that the strikes of prospective jurors based on race was purposeful discrimination, was clearly met in this case, and the state court erred in finding otherwise. Although the prosecutor offered a long list of reasons those jurors were struck, the evidence from the prosecution’s notes that Foster obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act shows that the first five names on the prosecution’s “definite NOs” list were of five black jurors, all of whom were eventually struck. Therefore, the evidence shows that the prosecution was never seriously considering allowing the prospective jurors in question to serve, and the reasons for striking them were likely pretextual. Further, the fact that several white jurors with the same traits as the black jurors in question were allowed to serve on the jury, the prosecution’s explanations for striking the jurors in question shifted over time, there were misrepresentations of the record to support the strikes, and the prosecution notes continually highlighted race lend credible support to Foster’s argument that he suffered purposeful discrimination.

In his opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote that the Georgia courts’ decisions to deny Foster’s Batson challenge was likely based on state law restricting the opportunity to relitigate previously rejected claims. Because the U.S. Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction to review state court decisions on state law claims, the proper course of action in a case like this one would be for the Court to decide the relevant question of federal law that influenced the state court’s decision and remand the case to allow the state court to decide the issue in light of the Supreme Court’s clarification.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the Supreme Court likely did not have proper jurisdiction over this case because the state courts seemed to base their decisions on issues of procedural state law. Therefore, the Court should have vacated the lower decision and remanded for clarification regarding whether the state court’s decision implicated an issue of federal law before deciding this case. Justice Thomas also argued that, because the trial court’s decision was essentially a credibility determination, the majority should have granted more deference to that decision, which the new evidence did not invalidate.


Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co.

Bridget C. Asay
John F. Bash
Seth P. Waxman

Liberty Mutual Insurance Company (Liberty Mutual) operates a self-insured employee health plan through a third-party administrator. Vermont state law requires that all health plans, including self-insured plans, file reports containing claims data and other information with the state. The statute specifies what type of information is required and how it is transmitted. When Vermont subpoenaed claims data from the third-party administrator, Liberty Mutual sued the state and argued that the reporting requirements of the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) preempted the Vermont statute. The district court found in favor of the state and held that ERISA did not preempt the Vermont statute. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and held that ERISA preempted the state statute because the state statute’s requirements were connected to the ERISA requirements and therefore were preempted.

The reporting requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) preempt a Vermont state statute regarding reporting requirements as applied to a self-insured employee health plan. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 6-2 majority. The Court held that the preemption clause of ERISA was meant to be construed broadly, and precedent has established that ERISA preempts a state law when the existence of ERISA plans is essential to the operation of the state law or when the state law interferes with nationally uniform plan administration. Because ERISA contains various recordkeeping, disclosing, and reporting requirements that are integral aspects of ERISA, the Vermont state statute interferes with nationally uniform plan administration.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that, while the majority’s opinion follows precedent regarding ERISA preemption, that preemption jurisprudence is possibly becoming impermissibly broad. In future cases, the Court may have to address the question of whether the Constitution allows such broad federal preemption of state laws. Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote a separate concurring opinion in which he emphasized that ERISA preemption avoids the potential of having different reporting requirements in each state. However, if a state needs information beyond what ERISA requires, it can request authorization through the Secretary of Labor.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent in which she argued that Vermont’s statute serves a different purpose than the ERISA reporting requirements and therefore should not be preempted. While ERISA’s reporting requirements allow the Secretary of Labor to examine plan management and solvency, the Vermont statute is concerned with how residents obtain health care and how effective it is. Because the state statute does not impose burdens on plan management that effectively dictate the plans’ administration, preemption is not required. Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined in the dissent.


Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association

Michael A. Carvin
Edward C. DuMont
David C. Frederick
Donald B. Verrilli, Jr.

California law allows unions to become the exclusive bargaining representative for the public school employees of that district and therefore have a great deal of influence over a wide range of conditions of employment. Once a union is the exclusive bargaining representative for the school district, it may establish an “agency shop” arrangement, which means that a school district may require a public school employee to either join the union or pay the equivalent of dues to the union in the form of a “fair share service fee.” Because the First Amendment prohibits unions from compelling nonmembers to support activities that are not exclusively devoted to negotiations, contract administration, and other duties as an exclusive bargaining representative, unions must send notices to all nonmembers laying out the breakdown of the chargeable and nonchargeable portions of the fee. To avoid paying for the nonchargeable portion of the fee, a nonmember must affirmatively opt out each year.

Petitioners are a group of public school employees who sued the California Teachers Association and other similar organizations as well as school districts and argued that the agency shop arrangement and the opt-out requirement violated the First Amendment. The district court held that precedent upholding those practices precluded its judgment on the issue. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed.


Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission

Mark F. Hearne, II
Mark Brnovich
Paul M. Smith
Sarah E. Harrington

In 2012, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission redrew the map for the state legislative districts based on the results of the 2010 census. Wesley Harris and other individual voters sued the Commission and alleged that the newly redrawn districts were under-populated in Democratic-leaning districts and over-populated in Republican-leaning ones, and therefore that the Commission had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Commission argued that the population deviations were the result of attempts to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The district court found in favor of the Commission and held that the redrawn districts represented a good faith effort to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

Although the desire to gain advantage for one political party over another does not justify deviating from absolute equality of districts, doing so for “legitimate considerations,” such as to achieve compliance with the Voting Rights Act, does not violate the “one person, one vote” principle of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that the Constitution permits deviations from the baseline “one person, one vote” principle of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment when they are based on “legitimate considerations” intended to effectuate “rational state policy.” Such considerations include, but are not limited to, traditional interests in compactness and contiguity, as well as maintaining the integrity of political subdivisions and the competing balance among political parties. In previous decisions, some members of the Court have also expressed the view that complying with the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits redistricting plans that effectively disenfranchise minorities, is a legitimate consideration. Precedent has also established that, while deviations of more than 10% may be presumed to represent invidious discrimination, deviations of less than 10% must be shown to be the result of illegitimate considerations, and such evidence was not present in this case. Instead, the evidence shows that the deviations resulted from the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission’s good faith effort to comply with the Voting Rights Act, which was in effect at the time the plan was created.


Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States

Various policies, regulations, and statutes of the federal government are intended to promote small businesses, especially those run by veterans. Although agencies generally have wide discretion to decide what method of contracting to use, a 2003 amendment to the Small Business Act established a goal of awarding three percent of government contracts to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, and the Veterans Act of 2006 expanded the reach of the relevant provisions.

Kingdomware Technologies is a small business owned and controlled by a service-disabled veteran and has been certified as such by the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA). In 2012, Kingdomware filed a bid for a project, but the VA awarded the contract to a company that was not a veteran-owned business. Kingdomware filed a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and argued that the contract award was illegal. The GAO issued a recommendation that the VA cancel the contract and re-solicit bids. The VA refused to accept the recommendation, and Kingdomware sued in U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which held that there was sufficient ambiguity in the relevant statute and that the VA’s interpretation was reasonable, so therefore the contract award should stand. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed.

The Court had jurisdiction to address the merits of the case even if the contracts had already been performed, and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ “set-aside” for veteran-owned businesses is mandatory. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court, which held that, while a case would generally be moot when there is no actual controversy that a court can resolve by granting relief, there is an exception for controversies that are capable of repetition but evade review. Such controversies are those that are often so short in duration that they are difficult to litigate and there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be subjected to the same action. Because this case presents such a controversy, the Court can examine the merits of the case. On the merits, the Court held that the Department of Veterans Affairs must award a contract to a veteran-owned small business when there is a reasonable expectation that two or more such businesses will offer reasonable bids for the contract, even when the Department will otherwise meet its minimum contracting goals for the year. The plain language of the relevant text of the Veterans Act of 2006, which established guidelines for contracting with veteran-owned businesses, makes it clear that this rule for contracting is mandatory, not discretionary.


In June 2010, undercover federal agents conducted an operation in which Avondale Lockhart ordered a number of videos containing child pornography. When the agents ostensibly delivered the ordered videos, they executed a search warrant and discovered over 15,000 images and at least nine videos depicting child pornography on Lockhart’s computer. Lockhart was subsequently charged with possession of child pornography, and he pled guilty. Lockhart had previously been convicted in state court of first-degree sexual abuse due to an incident involving his adult girlfriend. Based on this previous conviction, the pre-sentencing report for Lockhart’s child pornography sentencing recommended that Lockhart be subject to a mandatory minimum sentence. Lockhart argued that the mandatory minimum did not apply to him because the previous sexual offense did not involve a minor. The district court rejected Lockhart’s argument and held that the mandatory minimum sentence applied. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision.

A prior conviction of “aggravated sexual abuse” or “sexual abuse” may trigger a mandatory minimum sentence even when the prior conviction did not involve a minor. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion for the 6-2 majority. The Court held that the “last antecedent rule” of statutory interpretation dictates that a limiting clause following a list of terms or phrases only modifies the one that directly precedes it. Although that presumption may be overcome, there is no indication that the presumption is meant to be overcome in this case. The context of the mandatory minimum sentencing section indicates that Congress intended to mirror the language of Chapter 109A of the Federal Criminal Code, the subdivisions of which map onto the language in question with only the third of the group being limited to sexual abuse involving a minor. Additionally, when ambiguity can be resolved through basic grammatical analysis, there is no reason to apply other canons of statutory construction.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent in which she argued that an ordinary understanding of language dictates that, unless the elements of a series are so disparate that the modifier would not make sense if applied to all of them, a modifier of a series should be applied to all parts of the series. Because there is a “straightforward, parallel construction” that neatly encompasses all parts of the sentence and comports with common usage, that interpretation should override the last antecedent rule. Justice Kagan also argued that the legislative history supported the reading of the text as being limited to sexual abuse involving minors, and even if there were no clear indications of what Congress intended, the rule of lenity states that the Court should side with the defendant when the canons of construction do not resolve the ambiguity. Justice Stephen G. Breyer joined in the dissent.


Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin v. United States

Between 1995 and 2004, the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin (Menominee Tribe) provided healthcare services to members of the tribe pursuant to a self-determination contract with the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). The self-determination contract states that the federal government will pay the participating tribe the amount that the government would have paid the Department of the Interior and HHS if those agencies were administering the program. The tribe and the government negotiate those costs in annual funding agreements.

In 2005, the Menominee Tribe filed administrative claims with the HHS’s Indian Health Service to recover contract support costs for the years 1995 through 2004. The claims were denied for the years 1996 through 1998 as untimely because the six-year statute of limitations had run. The Menominee Tribe challenged that decision in federal district court and argued that the statute of limitations should not have been running. The district court rejected the Menominee Tribe’s argument. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit remanded the case for further consideration, and the district court again held that the statute of limitations had run. The appellate court affirmed and held that there were no extraordinary circumstances that should have prevented the statute of limitations from running.

There were no extraordinary circumstances in this case that would have prevented the statute of limitations from running. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court, which held that, because the Menominee Tribe was unable to prove the existence of extraordinary circumstances to prevent the statute of limitations from running, the appellate court properly affirmed the lower court’s ruling. In order to qualify for tolling of the statute of limitations, the Menominee Tribe must show that the circumstances delaying its actions were extraordinary and out of its control. The Court found that the Menominee Tribe did not file a claim because it was operating under the presumption that it need not file a claim at that point, which was a mistake rather than an extraordinary circumstance.


Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Manning

The plaintiffs are shareholders in Escala Group, Inc. (Escala), and the defendants are a group of financial institutions that engage in equity trading. The plaintiffs sued the defendants in state court and alleged that the defendants participated in the short selling of Escala stock, which increased the pool of tradeable shares by electronically manufacturing counterfeit shares, thereby causing the plaintiffs’ shares to decline in value and dilute their voting rights. The plaintiffs’ claims were based on state law, but the Amended Complaint repeatedly mentioned a 2004 regulation that was adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pursuant to the authority granted to it by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and no parties dispute the fact that the claims included violations of federal law. The defendants sought to remove the case from state court to federal court based on the question of whether the federal court has jurisdiction over the state law issues. The plaintiffs sought to bring the case back to state court, and the magistrate judge recommended that the district court grant the plaintiffs’ motion. The district court disagreed, and the issue went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The appellate court held that the case should properly be heard in state court.

The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 creates the same test for establishing federal jurisdiction as the general test for whether a federal court has jurisdiction: Whether the case “arises under” federal law. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the 8-0 majority. The Court held that the text of the Securities Exchange Act that relates to jurisdiction should be interpreted as conferring the same jurisdiction as the general federal question statute because both the relevant language and judicial precedent support that reading. Although the language of the statutes are not identical, there is no indication that Congress intended for the courts to use a different test than the one that already existed. Additionally, the Court had previously rejected the more expansive reading for which the petitioners advocated and has traditionally read statutory grants of jurisdiction as not altering the usual balance of jurisdiction between state and federal courts.

In his opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the express language of the Securities Exchange Act provides the appropriate test. Under that Act, a suit that is “brought to enforce” Exchange Act requirements may be heard in federal court; therefore, if a claim depends on a breach of a statutory requirement, the Act grants federal jurisdiction. Applying this test in this case, Justice Thomas argued that the case was properly within state court jurisdiction rather than federal. Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined in the opinion concurring in the judgment.


Michael Musacchio was the president of Exel Transportation Services (ETS), a transportation brokerage company that arranges freight shipments for business clients, until his resignation in 2004. In 2005, Musacchio founded Total Transportation Services (TTS), a competing company, and several ETS agents moved to the new company with him. Around the same time, the new president of ETS became suspicious when potential new agents were unexpectedly familiar with the terms of ETS contracts. He discovered that Musacchio and other TTS agents had been accessing ETS servers, so ETS sued TTS and the parties settled for $10 million.

In 2010, the government indicted Musacchio and other TTS agents on counts of conspiracy and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. At trial, the district court incorrectly instructed the jury that the government had to prove more stringent elements than the statute actually requires, and the government did not object. After he was convicted, Musacchio appealed and argued that, by not objecting, the government acceded to the higher burden and failed to meet it. Musacchio also argued that one of the counts was barred by a statute of limitations, but he had not raised this defense at trial. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the district court’s instructional error did not become the law of the case when the government failed to object and that Musacchio waived the statute of limitations defense by failing to raise it at trial.

The sufficiency of evidence should be measured against the elements of the statute rather than the elements laid out in the jury instructions, and a statute of limitations defense that is not raised at trial is not reviewable on appeal. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court, which held that the additional element added to the jury instruction did not affect the prosecution’s burden of proof because the sufficiency of evidence should be weighed against the elements of the charged crime, not the “erroneously” added element. Furthermore, the Court held that a statute of limitations objection cannot be raised during the appeal unless there is a clear error as to why it was not raised earlier in the trial. The Court held that no such error existed in this case.


Matthew L. Guadagno
Elaine J. Goldenberg

In 1999, Jorge Luna Torres, a citizen of the Dominican Republic and a lawful permanent resident of the United States, was convicted of violating a New York state arson statute. In 2007, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) issued a notice charging Luna Torres with inadmissibility because he was an “alien convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude.” Luna Torres applied for a cancellation of the removal order and the immigration judge held that Luna Torres was both removable as charged and ineligible for a cancellation of the removal order because he was a permanent resident convicted of an aggravated felony; the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) had previously held that a conviction under the New York state arson statute constituted an aggravated felony. Luna Torres appealed to the BIA and argued that the previous ruling should be reexamined. The BIA dismissed Luna Torres’ appeal, and Luna Torres petitioned for review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to the oral argument before the appellate court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated the BIA’s ruling and concluded that violation of the New York state arson statute did not constitute an aggravated felony because the state statute lacked the federal statute’s interstate commerce element. That decision conflicted with the interpretations of other circuit courts of appeals, and the appellate court in this case upheld the denial of Torres’ petition for cancellation of the removal order.

A state offense may constitute an aggravated felony for the purpose of the removal of a permanent resident when it includes all the elements of the federal statute, with the exception of the interstate commerce element. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion of the 5-3 majority. The Court held that the absence of a jurisdictional element is not material in determining whether the elements of a state crime correspond to those of a federal offense. Because the federal government can only punish felonies through one of its constitutionally enumerated powers, the jurisdictional element of a federal crime simply ties the substantive offense to Congress’ authority to punish it. State legislatures, however, do not need to do so. The relevant text of the Immigration and Naturalization Act clearly indicated that Congress intended for both federal and state offenses -- that lack the jurisdictional element -- to constitute aggravated felonies for the purpose of removal. Additionally, courts have traditionally treated the jurisdictional element of a crime as wholly distinct from the elements that make up the substantive offense. When courts determine whether a state offense is sufficiently similar to a federal one, the presumption is that Congress meant for the jurisdictional element of the federal offense to be set aside. In this case, because the only difference between the New York arson statute and the federal one is the jurisdictional element, the state statute was properly treated as an aggravated felony for the purpose of removal.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent in which she argued that, because there was an additional limiting element in the federal offense that was not a part of the state offense, the two were not the same for the purpose of removal under the Immigration and Naturalization Act. The plain language of the Act is specific to offenses described in the federal criminal code, and the defendant in this case was not convicted under such an offense. Justice Sotomayor also argued that the courts do not always consider the jurisdictional element of an offense as separate from the substantive ones, and therefore that was not the “well-settled approach” that the majority opinion argued it was. Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer joined in the dissent.


Carter G. Phillips
David C. Frederick
Elizabeth B. Prelogar

Peg Bouaphakeo and the rest of the plaintiff class are current and former employees of Tyson Foods, Inc. (Tyson) at the company’s meat-processing facility in Storm Lake, Iowa. The employees worked on a “gang-time” system, which means they were paid only for time they were at their working stations and the production line was moving. The employees sued Tyson and argued that the company violated the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and the Iowa Wage Payment Collection Law by not paying appropriate compensation for the time spent putting on and taking off protective clothing at the beginning and end of the work day and lunch break. The district court certified the class, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs and awarded damages of several million dollars.

Tyson appealed and argued that the district court erred in certifying the plaintiff class because factual differences among the plaintiffs made class certification improper. Tyson also argued that the class should be decertified because evidence presented at trial showed that some members of the class were not injured by the company’s actions and therefore had no right to damages. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s certification of the plaintiff class.

Despite differences among class members, the class action was based under one question and therefore the class was properly certified. Additionally, although some class members who had not been injured would have no right to damages, the award had not yet been dispersed, so the district court can review the disbursement on remand. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion for the 6-2 majority, which held that the class members were joined under one common question, and that satisfies the requirements for a class action suit despite differences among the members. The case was remanded for the lower court to consider of the proper disbursement of the award.

In his concurring opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote that the district court would be unable to appropriately distribute the $2.9 million award among the class members. The jury did not allocate the direct calculation of damages to unpaid overtime compensation and each plaintiff spent different amounts of time doffing and donning the protective clothing, so it would be extremely difficult to determine which plaintiffs are excluded from the award for lack of damages and the amount of the damages the other plaintiffs should receive. Justice Samuel A. Alito joined in the part of the concurrence that addressed the problems of allocating damages.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the district court erred in certifying the class action because the amount of time individual plaintiffs spent dealing with the protective clothing varied significantly. Some plaintiffs may not have been pushed over 40 hours a week and would not be owed damages. The awarded $2.9 million will be difficult to distribute among the 3344-members of the class action suit, and the district court should not have certified the class action suit. Justice Alito joined in the dissent.


Juan C. Basombrio
Edwin S. Kneedler
Jeffrey L. Fisher

OBB Personenverkehr AG (OBB) is owned by OBB Holding Group, a joint-stock company created by the Republic of Austria to operate rail service within Austria. OBB is a member of the Eurail Group, an association organized under Luxembourg law to provide rail pass to non-European residents.

In March 2007, Carol Sachs purchased a four-day Eurail Pass from the Rail Pass Experts (RPE) website for travel in Austria and the Czech Republic. RPE is located in Massachusetts, and the pass Sachs purchased listed a series of disclaimers, including that the “issuing office is merely an intermediary of the carriers in Europe and assumes no liability resulting from the transport.” In April 2007, Sachs used her Eurail Pass in Innsbruck, Austria. While boarding the train, Sachs fell between the tracks, and her legs were crushed by the moving train; they had to be amputated above the knee. Sachs sued OBB in district court in California. OBB moved to dismiss and argued that it was entitled to immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), or alternatively, that there was a lack of personal jurisdiction. The district court dismissed the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction on foreign-sovereign-immunity grounds. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit originally affirmed but, upon rehearing en banc, later reversed and held that the commercial-activity exception of FSIA applied in this case because OBB was a common carrier owned by a foreign state that acted through a domestic agent to sell tickets to U.S. citizens and residents. Therefore, the district court did have subject-matter jurisdiction.

Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court, which held that a tort claim for personal injuries suffered in connection with travel outside of the United States was not “based upon” the sale of the ticket in the United States. Therefore, the lawsuit fell outside of the commercial activity exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, and sovereign immunity barred the suit. According to the Court’s decision in Saudi Arabia v. Nelson, the fact that the relevant commercial activity would establish a single element of the claim in question was not sufficient to prove that the claim was “based upon” the commercial activity. In this case, the conduct that gave rise to the lawsuit occurred entirely abroad and therefore was not “based upon” commercial activity in the United States sufficient to satisfy the commercial activity exception.


John M. Duggan
Brian H. Fletcher
Stephen R. McAllister

Valerie Hawkins and Janice Patterson’s husbands are the two members of PHC Development, LLC (PHC). Between 2005 and 2008, Community Bank of Raymore (Community) made four loans totaling more than $2,000,000 to PHC for the development of a residential subdivision. The Hawkins and Pattersons each executed personal guaranties to secure the loans. In April 2012, PHC failed to make the payments due under the loan agreements, and Community declared the loans to be in default, accelerated the loans, and demanded payment.

Hawkins and Patterson sued Community seeking damages and an order declaring their guaranties void and unenforceable. They argued that they had only been required to execute their guaranties because they were married to their respective husbands, which constituted discrimination based on their marital status in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). Community moved for summary judgment, and the district court granted the motion by holding that the wives, in joining their husbands’ loans, did not apply to a lender and therefore did not qualify as applicants that gain the protections of the ECOA. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed.


Samuel Ocasio was a police officer of the Baltimore Police Department who was indicted in connection with a kickback scheme involving payments to police officers in exchange for referrals to Majestic Auto Repair Shop (Majestic). The indictment charged Ocasio with conspiring to violate the Hobbs Act by agreeing to unlawfully obtain money or property under color of right from Majestic. The jury convicted Ocasio, and he appealed by arguing that he cannot be guilty of conspiring to commit extortion with the owners of Majestic because they were also the victims of the conspiracy, and the victim of a Hobbes Act conspiracy must be a person outside of the alleged conspiracy. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed Ocasio’s conviction.

A conspiracy to commit extortion can involve the purported victims of the extortion as members of the conspiracy. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. delivered the opinion of the 5-3 majority. The Court held that, under longstanding principles of conspiracy law, a defendant may be convicted of conspiring to violate the Hobbs Act based on proof that he was conspiring to obtain property from another conspirator under color of law. Although conspirators have to be pursuing the same criminal objective, an individual conspirator need not agree to facilitate every element of the crime; the intent to agree that the substantive offense be committed is all that is necessary. The Court also held that this reading of the Hobbs Act is not overly broad because it still focused on the intent to commit the conspiracy.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision in Evans v. United States makes it difficult to draw a distinction between the involuntary action of paying a bribe and the voluntary behavior of joining a conspiracy.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that the Court’s decision in Evans v. United States wrongly conflated bribery with extortion and that the majority’s opinion in this case continued that error. Under the Hobbs Act definition of extortion, people cannot conspire to extort one of their own because all those involved would know that the person accepting the money is not entitled to it. In her separate dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the majority opinion endorses an unnatural reading of the Hobbs Act, which clearly criminalizes extortion “from another.” Therefore, a conspiracy to violate the Hobbs Act must still focus on a victim that is “other” than the conspiratorial group. This reading is also consistent with the Court’s conspiracy precedent, which focuses on the criminal behavior of the conspiratorial group as a whole. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. joined in the dissent.


Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams in the 1800 presidential election. Before Jefferson took office on March 4, 1801, Adams and Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which created new courts, added judges, and gave the president more control over appointment of judges. The Act was essentially an attempt by Adams and his party to frustrate his successor, as he used the act to appoint 16 new circuit judges and 42 new justices of the peace. The appointees were approved by the Senate, but they would not be valid until their commissions were delivered by the Secretary of State.

William Marbury had been appointed Justice of the Peace in the District of Columbia, but his commission was not delivered. Marbury petitioned the Supreme Court to compel the new Secretary of State, James Madison, to deliver the documents. Marbury, joined by three other similarly situated appointees, petitioned for a writ of mandamus compelling the delivery of the commissions.

The Court found that Madison’s refusal to deliver the commission was illegal, but did not order Madison to hand over Marbury’s commission via writ of mandamus. Instead, the Court held that the provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 enabling Marbury to bring his claim to the Supreme Court was itself unconstitutional, since it purported to extend the Court’s original jurisdiction beyond that which Article III, Section 2, established.

Marshall expanded that a writ of mandamus was the proper way to seek a remedy, but concluded the Court could not issue it. Marshall reasoned that the Judiciary Act of 1789 conflicted with the Constitution. Congress did not have power to modify the Constitution through regular legislation because Supremacy Clause places the Constitution before the laws.

In so holding, Marshall established the principle of judicial review, i.e., the power to declare a law unconstitutional.


In 1795, the Georgia legislature passed an act granting approximately 35 million acres of land in present-day Alabama and Mississippi to four companies, including the Georgia Company, for $500,000. The grant was procured through widespread bribery of legislators, with company representatives promising legislators shares in the land if they voted for the bill. In 1796, a newly elected Georgia legislature, responding to public outrage over the corruption, passed an act rescinding the 1795 grant, declaring it null and void, and directing that all records of the original act be expunged. However, before the rescinding act, innocent third parties had already purchased portions of the land. Robert Fletcher purchased 15,000 acres from John Peck in 1803, with Peck's deed containing covenants that Georgia had authority to sell the land and that the title had not been constitutionally impaired by any subsequent act of the legislature.

Fletcher subsequently sued Peck in the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleging breach of these covenants based on the corruption in the original grant and Georgia's 1796 rescinding act. The circuit court ruled in favor of Peck on all counts, finding that the pleas were sufficient and that Georgia was seised in fee simple of the lands at the time of the original grant. Fletcher brought a writ of error to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A state legislature cannot rescind a land grant made by a previous legislature, even if the original grant was obtained through corruption, because such a rescission would violate the Contract Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Chief Justice John Marshall authored the unanimous 4-2 majority opinion of the Court.

The Contract Clause prohibits states from passing any law "impairing the Obligation of Contracts," and a land grant from a state to private purchasers constitutes a binding contract that vests absolute property rights in the grantees. Once Georgia conveyed the land through the 1795 act, it created a contract that transferred complete ownership to the purchasers, and the state's rights to the property were entirely extinguished. The fact that the original grant may have been procured through bribery or corruption does not change this constitutional protection, as innocent third-party purchasers who bought the land without knowledge of the corruption have legitimate vested rights that cannot be destroyed by subsequent legislative action.

Furthermore, the Constitution's Contract Clause applies to contracts made by states themselves, not just private contracts, and states cannot exempt themselves from this constitutional limitation by claiming sovereign authority. While legislatures generally have broad powers to repeal their own acts, they cannot undo a completed contract that has already conveyed property rights, as this would retroactively destroy vested interests in violation of fundamental principles of law and the constitutional protection of contracts. The 1796 rescinding act was therefore void as an unconstitutional impairment of contract obligations.

Justice William Johnson authored a concurring opinion, agreeing with the result but basing his reasoning on general principles of law rather than specifically on the Contract Clause.


During the American Revolution, Virginia created laws allowing the state to seize property of Loyalists. In 1781, Denny Martin, a British subject, inherited land from his uncle, a Loyalist. The following year, the Virginia legislature voided the land grant and transferred the land back to Virginia. Virginia granted a portion of this land to David Hunter. A federal treaty dictated that Lord Fairfax was entitled to the property.

The Virginia Supreme Court upheld Virginia's law permitting the confiscation of property, even though it conflicted with the federal treaty. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed and remanded, holding that the treaty superseded state law under the Supremacy Clause of Article VI. On remand, the Virginia Court of Appeals declined to follow the ruling and argued that the law granting the Supreme Court appellate review over state court decisions, section 25 of the Judiciary Act (the Act), was unconstitutional.

No. Article VI of the US Constitution (the Supremacy Clause), combined with the grant of appellate jurisdiction in Article III, gives federal courts the power to review state court decisions that interpret federal law or the Constitution.

The Court rejected the claim that Virginia and the national government were equal sovereigns. Relying on the Supremacy Clause, Justice Story held that federal interpretations of federal law should supersede state interpretations. He reasoned that there should be uniform and predictable outcomes across all states.


Daniel Webster
William Wirt
William Pinkney
Luther Martin

In 1816, Congress chartered The Second Bank of the United States. In 1818, the state of Maryland passed legislation to impose taxes on the bank. James W. McCulloch, the cashier of the Baltimore branch of the bank, refused to pay the tax. The state appeals court held that the Second Bank was unconstitutional because the Constitution did not provide a textual commitment for the federal government to charter a bank.

In a unanimous decision, the Court held that Congress had the power to incorporate the bank and that Maryland could not tax instruments of the national government employed in the execution of constitutional powers.

Pursuant to the Necessary and Proper Clause (Art. I, Section 8), Chief Justice Marshall noted that Congress possessed powers not explicitly outlined in the U.S. Constitution. Marshall redefined “necessary” to mean “appropriate and legitimate,” covering all methods for furthering objectives covered by the enumerated powers.  Marshall also held that while the states retained the power of taxation, the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof are supreme and cannot be controlled by the states.


Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward

In 1816, the New Hampshire legislature attempted to change Dartmouth College-- a privately funded institution--into a state university. The legislature changed the school's corporate charter by transferring the control of trustee appointments to the governor. In an attempt to regain authority over the resources of Dartmouth College, the old trustees filed suit against William H. Woodward, who sided with the new appointees.

The Contract Clause (Art 1, Section 10, Clause 1) prohibits states from violating contracts with private or public corporations. In a 5-to-1 decision, the Court concluded that the Contract Clause applies to private as well as public corporations. The Court held that the College's corporate charter qualified as a contract between private parties, with which the legislature could not interfere. The fact that the government had commissioned the charter did not transform the school into a civil institution. Chief Justice Marshall's opinion emphasized that the term "contract" referred to transactions involving individual property rights, not to "the political relations between the government and its citizens."


An act of Congress authorized the operation of a lottery in the District of Columbia. The Cohen brothers proceeded to sell D.C. lottery tickets in the state of Virginia, violating state law. State authorities tried and convicted the Cohens, and then declared themselves to be the final arbiters of disputes between the states and the national government.

In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the Supreme Court had jurisdiction to review state criminal proceedings. Chief Justice Marshall wrote that the Court was bound to hear all cases that involved constitutional questions, and that this jurisdiction was not dependent on the identity of the parties in the cases. Marshall argued that state laws and constitutions, when repugnant to the Constitution and federal laws, were "absolutely void." After establishing the Court's jurisdiction, Marshall declared the lottery ordinance a local matter and concluded that the Virginia court was correct to fine the Cohens brothers for violating Virginia law.


In September 1831, Samuel A. Worcester and others, all non-Native Americans, were indicted in the supreme court for the county of Gwinnett in the state of Georgia for "residing within the limits of the Cherokee nation without a license" and "without having taken the oath to support and defend the constitution and laws of the state of Georgia." They were indicted under an 1830 act of the Georgia legislature entitled "an act to prevent the exercise of assumed and arbitrary power by all persons, under pretext of authority from the Cherokee Indians." Among other things, Worcester argued that the state could not maintain the prosecution because the statute violated the Constitution, treaties between the United States and the Cherokee nation, and an act of Congress entitled "an act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes." Worcester was convicted and sentenced to "hard labour in the penitentiary for four years." The U.S. Supreme Court received the case on a writ of error.

No. In an opinion delivered by Chief Justice John Marshall, the Court held that the Georgia act, under which Worcester was prosecuted, violated the Constitution, treaties, and laws of the United States. Noting that the "treaties and laws of the United States contemplate the Indian territory as completely separated from that of the states; and provide that all intercourse with them shall be carried on exclusively by the government of the union," Chief Justice Marshall argued, "The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory in which the laws of Georgia can have no force. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States." The Georgia act thus interfered with the federal government's authority and was unconstitutional. Justice Henry Baldwin dissented for procedural reasons and on the merits.


Barron ex rel. Tiernan v. Mayor of Baltimore

Baltimore wharf owner John Barron alleged that construction by the city had diverted water flow in the harbor area. He argued that sand accumulations in the harbor deprived Barron of deep waters, which reduced his profits. He sued the city to recover a portion of his financial losses. The trial court awarded him $4,500 in damages, which the state appellate court struck down.

Writing for the unanimous Court, Chief Justice Marshall found that the limitations on government articulated in the Fifth Amendment were specifically intended to limit the powers of the national government. Citing the intent of the framers and the development of the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments) as an exclusive check on the federal government, Marshall reasoned that the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction in this case since the Fifth Amendment was not applicable to the states. This meant that Barron was not entitled to damages for his property loss from the city under the Fifth Amendment provision on just compensation for a government taking.


Proprietors of Charles River Bridge v. Proprietors of Warren Bridge

Warren Dutton
Daniel Webster
Simon Greenleaf
John Davis

In 1785, the Massachusetts legislature incorporated the Charles River Bridge Company to construct a bridge and collect tolls. In 1828, the legislature established the Warren Bridge Company to build a free bridge nearby. Unsurprisingly, the new bridge deprived the old one of traffic and tolls. The Charles River Bridge Company filed suit, claiming the legislature had defaulted on its initial contract.

In a 5-to-2 decision, the Court held that the state had not entered a contract that prohibited the construction of another bridge on the river at a later date. The Court held that the legislature neither gave exclusive control over the waters of the river nor invaded corporate privilege by interfering with the company's profit-making ability. In balancing the rights of private property against the need for economic development, the Court found that the community interest in creating new channels of travel and trade had priority.


Montgomery Blair
George Ticknor Curtis
Henry S. Geyer

Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri. From 1833 to 1843, he resided in Illinois (a free state) and in the Louisiana Territory, where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. After returning to Missouri, Scott filed suit in Missouri court for his freedom, claiming that his residence in free territory made him a free man. After losing, Scott brought a new suit in federal court. Scott's master maintained that no “negro” or descendant of slaves could be a citizen in the sense of Article III of the Constitution.

The majority held that “a negro, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves,” whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore did not have standing to sue in federal court. Because the Court lacked jurisdiction, Taney dismissed the case on procedural grounds.

Taney further held that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional and foreclose Congress from freeing slaves within Federal territories. The opinion showed deference to the Missouri courts, which held that moving to a free state did not render Scott emancipated. Finally, Taney ruled that slaves were property under the Fifth Amendment, and that any law that would deprive a slave owner of that property was unconstitutional.

In dissent, Benjamin Robbins Curtis criticized Taney for addressing the claim’s substance after finding the Court lacked jurisdiction. He pointed out that invalidating the Missouri Compromise was not necessary to resolve the case, and cast doubt on Taney’s position that the Founders categorically opposed anti-slavery laws.

John McLean echoed Curtis, finding the majority improperly reviewed the claim’s substance when its holding should have been limited to procedure. He also argued that men of African descent could be citizens because they already had the right to vote in five states.


Jeremiah S. Black
David Dudley Field
James A. Garfield
Benjamin F. Butler

Lambden P. Milligan was sentenced to death by a military commission in Indiana during the Civil War for engaging in acts of disloyalty. Milligan sought release through habeas corpus from a federal court.

Writing for the Court, Justice David Davis held that trials of civilians by presidentially created military commissions are unconstitutional. Specifically, it is unconstitutional to try civilians by military tribunals unless there is no civilian court available. The military commission therefore did not have jurisdiction to try and sentence Milligan, and he was entitled to discharge.


John A. Campbell
J. Q. A. Fellows
M. H. Carpenter
J. S. Black
T. J. Durant

Louisiana passed a law that restricted slaughterhouse operations in New Orleans to a single corporation. Pursuant to the law, the Crescent City Live-stock Landing and Slaughter-House Company received a charter to run a slaughterhouse downstream from the city. No other areas around the city were permitted for slaughtering animals over the next 25 years, and existing slaughterhouses would be closed. A group of butchers argued that they would lose their right to practice their trade and earn a livelihood under the monopoly. Specifically, they argued the monopoly created involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment, and abridged privileges or immunities, denied equal protection of the laws, and deprived them of liberty and property without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Court held that the monopoly violated neither the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Amendments, reasoning that these amendments were passed with the narrow intent to grant full equality to former slaves. Thus, to the Court, the Fourteenth Amendment only banned the states from depriving blacks of equal rights; it did not guarantee that all citizens, regardless of race, should receive equal economic privileges by the state. Any rights guaranteed by the Privileges or Immunities Clause were limited to areas controlled by the federal government, such as access to ports and waterways, the right to run for federal office, and certain rights affecting safety on the seas. Moreover, the Court held that the butchers bringing suit were not deprived of their property without due process of law because they could still earn a legal living in the area by slaughtering on the Crescent City Company grounds. Thus, the Court concluded that the Louisiana law was constitutional.

Justice Stephen Johnson Field’s dissent argued that the Fourteenth Amendment could not be construed as only protecting former slaves. Rather, he believed that it incorporated strands of common-law doctrine and needed to be interpreted outside the Civil War context. This position would later become widely accepted.


W. C. Goudy I.
John N. Jewett
James K. Edsall

Illinois regulated grain warehouse and elevator rates by establishing maximum rates for their use.

No on both counts. Waite, for the Court, took a broad view of the state's police power. He argued that the states may regulate the use of private property "when such regulation becomes necessary for the public good." Waite resurrected an ancient legal doctrine to support his view: "When property is affected with a public interest, it ceases to be juris privati only."


George W. Biddle
Ben Sheeks
Charles Devens
Samuel Field Phillips

George Reynolds, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was charged with bigamy under the federal Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act after marrying a woman while still married to his previous wife. Reynolds argued that the law was unconstitutional. He reasoned that his religion required him to marry multiple women and the law therefore violated his First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

The Court upheld Reynolds's conviction and Congress’s power to prohibit polygamy. The Court held that while Congress could not outlaw a belief in the correctness of polygamy, it could outlaw the practice thereof. The majority reasoned that while marriage is a “sacred obligation,” it is nevertheless “usually regulated by law” in “most civilized nations.” Finally, the Court held that people cannot avoid a law due to their religion.


Samuel Field Phillips
William M. Randolph
William Y. C. Humes
David Posten

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 affirmed the equality of all persons in the enjoyment of transportation facilities, in hotels and inns, and in theaters and places of public amusement. Though privately owned, these businesses were like public utilities, exercising public functions for the benefit of the public and, thus, subject to public regulation. In five separate cases, a black person was denied the same accommodations as a white person in violation of the 1875 Act.

Differentiating between state and private action, the majority ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment did not permit the federal government to prohibit discriminatory behavior by private parties. Thus, Sections 1 and 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 were unconstitutional because they exceeded Congress's authority under the Fourteenth Amendment by purporting to regulate the conduct of private individuals. The Court held the Act likewise exceeded Congress’s authority under the Thirteenth Amendment, which bars involuntary servitude and is restricted to prohibiting ownership of slaves, not other forms of discriminatory conduct.

Justice Harlan advocated for a broader interpretation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. He pointed to the public function that these private places of accommodation serve. Harlan argued the line between state and private action is often blurred, such as how private railroads provide the government function of facilitating travel. He suggested that restrictions on the right to travel might violate the Thirteenth Amendment prohibition against involuntary servitude, and argued that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment may also be implicated.


Laurence Maxwell, Jr.
Samuel Field Phillips
John G. Johnson

The Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890 as a response to the public concern in the growth of giant corporations controlling transportation, industry, and commerce. The Act aimed to stop the concentration of wealth and economic power in the hands of the few. It outlawed "every contract, combination...or conspiracy, in restraint of trade" or interstate commerce, and it declared every attempt to monopolize any part of trade or commerce to be illegal. The E.C. Knight Company was such a combination controlling over 98 percent of the sugar-refining business in the United States.

The Act was constitutional but it did not apply to manufacturing. Manufacturing was not commerce, declared Fuller for the majority; the law did not reach the admitted monopolization of manufacturing (in this case, refining sugar). Although American Sugar had monopolized manufacturing, the Court found no violation of the Sherman Act because the acquisition of the Philadelphia refineries involved intrastate commerce. The trust did not lead to control of interstate commerce and so "affects it only incidentally and indirectly."


A. W. Tourgee
Samuel Field Phillips
Alexander Porter Morse

Louisiana enacted the Separate Car Act, which required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Plessy – who was seven-eighths Caucasian – agreed to participate in a test to challenge the Act. He was solicited by the Comite des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens), a group of New Orleans residents who sought to repeal the Act. They asked Plessy, who was technically black under Louisiana law, to sit in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train.

The railroad cooperated because it thought the Act imposed unnecessary costs via the purchase of additional railroad cars. When Plessy was told to vacate the whites-only car, he refused and was arrested.

At trial, Plessy’s lawyers argued that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The judge found that Louisiana could enforce this law insofar as it affected railroads within its boundaries. Plessy was convicted.

The Court held that the state law was constitutional. In an opinion authored by Justice Henry Billings Brown, the majority upheld state-imposed racial segregation. Justice Brown conceded that the 14th Amendment intended to establish absolute equality for the races before the law, but held that separate treatment did not imply the inferiority of African Americans.

In short, segregation did not in itself constitute unlawful discrimination.

In dissent, John Marshall Harlan argued that the Constitution was color-blind and that the United States had no class system. Accordingly, all citizens should have equal access to civil rights.