[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
In the absence of evidence that having preschool-age children is demonstrably more relevant to female job performance than to male job performance, refusal to hire women with preschool-age children violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In a per curiam opinion, the Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 required that persons with similar qualifications be given equal employment opportunities regardless of their sex. Because there was inadequate evidence to determine whether having preschool-age children was actually relevant to the business qualifications of the female candidates, the Court held that summary judgment was inappropriate in this case.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires uniform minimum qualifications for both male and female candidates. The exception for qualifications that may be different based on actual business necessity was only intended to apply to jobs that require specific physical characteristics; it was not intended to justify stereotypical characterizations of traditional gender roles.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) issued an order increasing freight rates on several commodities, including bituminous coal. The increases were issued at the request of several railroads because of a need for revenue to offset increased operating costs. Seven public utilities, who use large amounts of bituminous coal, sued to enjoin and set aside the order, claiming that the rates were unreasonable and the ICC’s order deprived them of due process of law. Several state departments of agriculture intervened as parties plaintiff, and several railroads intervened in support of the ICC. The district court granted the ICC’s motion to dismiss, holding that the utilities failed to exhaust the administrative remedies available under the Interstate Commerce Act. This case was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on direct appeal.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
In a per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court affirmed by an equally divided Court. Justice William O. Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Board No. 47, Louisville, Kentucky, denied the application of Cassius Clay, also known as Muhammad Ali, for classification as a conscientious objector. Clay then took an administrative appeal to the Kentucky Appeal Board, which tentatively classified him I-A, or eligible for unrestricted military service, and referred his file to the Justice Department for an advisory recommendation. The Justice Department concluded, contrary to a hearing officer's recommendation, that Clay's claim should be denied. The Department wrote that Clay did not meet any of the three basic tests for conscientious objector status; that he is conscientiously opposed to war in any form, that this opposition is based upon religious training and belief, and that this objection is sincere. Subsequently, the Appeal Board denied Clay's claim, but without stating its reasons. When Clay refused to report for induction, he was tried and convicted of willful refusal to submit to induction. The Court of Appeals affirmed.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes. In a per curiam opinion, the Court held that since the Appeal Board gave no reason for the denial of a conscientious objector exemption to Clay, and that it was impossible to determine on which of the three grounds offered in the Justice Department's letter that board relied, Clay's conviction must be reversed. The Court reasoned that Clay satisfied the first two tests of conscientious objection. Regarding the third test, the Court concluded that whether or not Clay met the test of conscientious objection to war in any form, it was not clear that the Appeal Board relied on some legitimate ground in denying the claim, and therefore the conviction could not stand. In separate opinions, Justices William O. Douglas and John M. Harlan concurred. Justice Thurgood Marshall did not participate.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Stella Connell applied for a teaching position with the Orange County school system, where James Higginbotham was the superintendent of the Board of Public Instruction. Connell was employed as a substitute teacher, and later dismissed from her position for refusing to sign the loyalty oath required of all Florida public employees. The oath stated that the employees “will support the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Florida” and “do not believe in the overthrow of the government of the United States or of the State of Florida by force or violence.” The district court held that the provision of the oath that employees will support the Constitution is valid, but the provision not to overthrow the government is unconstitutional. Connell appealed directly to the Supreme Court.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No, yes. In a per curiam opinion, the Court held that requiring all employee applicants to pledge to support the federal Constitution and that of the state was valid because it demands no more than what is required of all state and federal employees. However, the Court held the dismissal from public employment for refusing to sign the oath without hearing or inquiry violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote a concurring opinion in which he stated the “overthrow” clause of the oath was invalid because the state could not show that an applicant believed in an overthrow. Justice William O. Douglas and Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. joined in the concurrence. Justice Potter Stewart wrote an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part in which he agreed the with the validity of the section of the oath that required support of the federal and state Constitutions. However, Justice Stewart would remand the case to discover the state’s meaning behind the “overthrow” clause.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
After refusing to renew a patent licensing agreement, Zenith Radio Corp., a radio and television manufacturer, was sued by Hazeltine Research, Inc., for patent infringement in United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Zenith counterclaimed, alleging anti-trust violations, misuse of patents, and a conspiracy to restrain trade in Canada, England, and Australia. Zenith asked for treble damages and injunctive relief. Zenith contended that Hazeltine's license forced them to pay for use of unpatented products and that Hazeltine had illegally conspired with foreign patent pools to prevent Zenith from expanding into those markets.
Before trial, Zenith had stipulated that Hazeltine and its parent corporation were one entity for the purposes of litigation. The District Court entered judgment against Hazeltine and its parent corporation, awarding Zenith treble damages and injunctive relief. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the damages award, but otherwise reversed the District Court's judgment. The Court of Appeals vacated all judgments against Hazeltine's parent corporation because Zenith's pretrial stipulation did not properly designate the parent corporation as a party to the litigation.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No, Yes as to Canada. In a 7-1 decision Justice Byron R. White delivered the opinion of the court, affirming the Court of Appeals decision to vacate the judgments against Hazeltine's parent corporation. The Supreme Court also held that damages were only proper with respect to the Canadian market because it was the only market in which Zenith had sustained injury. The Supreme Court reinstated the District Court's injunction against Hazeltine's conspiracy to restrict trade in foreign markets. The Supreme Court remanded the case to the Court of Appeals to determine whether Hazeltine conditioned the grant of its licenses on the payment of royalties for unpatented products.
Justice John M. Harlan concurred in part and dissented in part, objecting to the majority's apparent double standard that royalties provisions that measure royalties by a percentage of the licensees sales is lawful if included for the convenience of both parties, but unlawful if insisted on by the patentee.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
These are two consolidated cases. In 81, Clarence Williams was arrested in his house in 1967. Police searched the house for an hour and 45 minutes, discovering heroin on a shelf in a bedroom. The heroin was admitted at trial and Williams was convicted of concealing illegally imported heroin. Williams appealed, arguing that the search of his house was illegal under Chimel v. California, a case decided on June 23, 1969 that narrowed the permissible scope of searches incidental to an arrest. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that Chimel did not apply retroactively, and the search was valid under pre-Chimel standards.
In 82, Joseph Elkanich was convicted on three counts of selling narcotics in 1962. At trial, evidence included marked bills planted by a federal narcotics agent. The bills were seized during a search of Elkanich’s apartment after his arrest. The arrest and search were upheld at trial and on appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari. Elkanich then unsuccessfully applied for post-conviction relief in the district court. While the appeal of that decision was pending, Chimel was decided. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No. Though not agreeing on an opinion, six members of the Supreme Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit in both cases. Justice Byron R. White delivered the judgment of the Court, holding that Chimel did not apply retroactively whether a conviction is challenged on direct review, as in 81, or in collateral proceedings, as in 82. Justice Potter Stewart concurred, writing that he would affirm 82 because the question presented was not permitted in post-conviction relief proceedings. Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. concurred in the result, agreeing that Chimel did not apply to searches conducted before June 23, 1969 following the three-factor analysis from Stoval v. Denno. Justice Hugo L. Black, concurred in the result, stating that Chimel was wrongly decided.
Justice John. M. Harlan concurred in part and dissented in part, writing that he would affirm the conviction on 82, but would reverse on 81 because Chimel could apply retroactively to a direct review. Justice Thurgood Marshall also concurred in part and dissented in part. Justice William O. Douglas did not participate.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
The District of Columbia had an abortion statute that prohibits abortion unless “necessary for the preservation of the mother’s life or health.” Milan Vuitch, a licensed physician, was indicted in federal district court for performing abortions that violated this statute. The district court held the abortion statute was unconstitutionally vague. The United States appealed directly to the Supreme Court.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes, no. Justice Hugo L. Black delivered the opinion of the 5-4 majority. The Court held that the Supreme Court had jurisdiction to determine if the District of Columbia’s abortion statute is unconstitutionally vague because, although the law only applies to the District of Columbia, the law was enacted by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by the President. The Court also held that the word “health” in the statute refers to the state of being in body or mind and includes psychological wellbeing; therefore, the abortion law is not unconstitutionally vague.
Justice William O. Douglas wrote an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part in which he argued that the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over the case. However the statute leaves the physician too much discretion to determine what is necessary for the preservation for the mother’s health. Justice John M. Harlan wrote a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in par in which he argued that the Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction over this case because the statute only applies to the District of Columbia. Justice William J. Brennan Jr., Justice Thurgood Marshall, and Justice Harry A. Blackmun joined in the partial concurrence and partial dissent. In his separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, Justice Potter Stewart agreed that the Supreme Court had jurisdiction but argued that the physicians who performed abortions should be wholly immune from being charged with criminal offenses under this law if they performed abortions in order to preserve the mother’s life or health.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Both Pennsylvania and Rhode Island adopted statutes that provided for the state to pay for aspects of non-secular, non-public education. The Pennsylvania statute was passed in 1968 and provided funding for non-public elementary and secondary school teachers’ salaries, textbooks, and instructional materials for secular subjects. Rhode Island’s statute was passed in 1969 and provided state financial support for non-public elementary schools in the form of supplementing 15% of teachers’ annual salaries.
The appellants in the Pennsylvania case represented citizens and taxpayers in Pennsylvania who believed that the statute violated the separation of church and state described in the First Amendment. Appellant Lemon also had a child in Pennsylvania public school. The district court granted the state officials’ motion to dismiss the case. In the Rhode Island case, the appellees were citizens and tax payers of Rhode Island who sued to have the statute in question declared unconstitutional by arguing that it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The district court found in favor of the appellees and held that the statute violated the First Amendment.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger delivered the opinion for the 8-0 majority as to the Pennsylvania statute and 8-1 as to the Rhode Island statute. The Court held that a statute must pass a three-pronged test in order to avoid violating the Establishment Clause. The statute must have a secular legislative purpose, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither promotes nor inhibits religion, and it must not foster “excessive government entanglement with religion.” The Court held that both the state statutes in question had secular legislative purposes because they reflected the desire of the states to ensure minimum secular education requirements were being met in the non-public schools. The Court did not reach a holding regarding the second prong of the test, but it did find that the statutes constituted an excessive government entanglement with religion. In the Rhode Island program, the amount of oversight of teachers and curricula required to ensure that there is no unnecessary injection of religion into secular topics would require the government to become excessively involved in the nuances of religious education. The same danger holds true for the Pennsylvania statute, which additionally provides state funding directly to a church-related organization. Government financial involvement in such institutions inevitably leads to “an intimate and continuing relationship” between church and state. The Court also noted the potential political implications of public funding, as there is a risk of religious issues becoming politically divisive.
In his concurring opinion, Justice William O. Douglas wrote that the intrusion of the government into the running of non-public schools through grants and other funding creates the entanglement that the Establishment Clause prohibits. He also argued that non-secular schools are so thoroughly governed by religious ideologies that any amount of public funding supports those doctrines, which the Framers of the Constitution dictated the government must not do. Justice Hugo L. Black joined in the concurrence, and Justice Thurgood Marshall joined in the parts relating to case numbers 569 and 570. Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. wrote a separate concurrence in which he argued that the danger was not only that religion would infiltrate the government, but also that the government would push secularization onto religious creeds. An analysis of the statutes in question shows that they impermissible involve the government in “essentially religious activities,” which the Establishment Clause is meant to prevent. In his opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, Justice Byron R. White wrote that the majority opinion goes too far and, in restricting the use of state funds in non-secular schools, creates an obstacle to the use of public funds for secular education. He argued that there was no proof that religion would invade secular education or that the government oversight of the use of public funds would be so extensive as to constitute entanglement.
Justice Thurgood Marshall did not participate in the discussion or decision of case number 89.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Spokeo, Inc. (Spokeo) operated a website that provided information about individuals such as contact data, marital status, age, occupation, and certain types of economic information. Thomas Robins sued Spokeo and claimed that the company willfully violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by publishing false information about him on the website. However, Robins was unable to allege any “actual or imminent harm,” so the district court granted Spokeo’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and Robins’ lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Robins then filed an amended complaint in which he alleged that he suffered actual harm to his employment prospects due to the website falsely claiming that he was wealthy. The district court originally denied Spokeo’s motion to dismiss but later reconsidered its order and dismissed the complaint for failure to state an injury in fact. Robins appealed and argued that the district court could not reconsider its previous decision and that he had sufficiently alleged an injury in fact to qualify for Article III standing. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and held that, although the district court could reconsider its ruling, the allegation of a violation of a statutory right is sufficient injury to qualify for standing.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit did not properly address whether all the elements of standing were met, the Court vacated the case for reconsideration of whether the plaintiff alleged an injury in fact that was “concrete and particularized.” Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. delivered the opinion for the 6-2 majority, which held that, in order to have standing under Article III, a plaintiff must show that he has suffered an injury in fact that is fairly traceable to the defendant’s challenged conduct and is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision in court. The injury-in-fact element is met when the plaintiff shows that he suffered an invasion of a legally protected interest and that the injury was concrete and particularized as well as actual or imminent. The Court held that the standing principles of Article III mean that a plaintiff cannot bring a claim that alleges a bare procedural violation, but in determining whether the plaintiff proved that an injury in fact existed, the lower court must examine the elements of injury-in-fact analysis. Because the appellate court in this case failed to do so, the Court remanded the case for further consideration.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the standing doctrine applies to both private citizens seeking to vindicate private rights as well as those who alleged violations of public rights. These limitations stem from how the common-law courts traditionally handled the two different types of claims. Therefore, Congress cannot create a new private right of action for the enforcement of public rights without such suits being subject to standing doctrine analysis.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent in which she argued that it was not necessary to remand the case because the evidence presented was sufficient to prove that the injury at issue was concrete, and the particularity requirement does not need to be considered separately. In this case, the plaintiff was not alleging a general harm but rather an injury that he suffered individually, so because it meets the concreteness requirement, it does not need to meet a separate particularity one, and there is nothing for the lower court to consider on remand. Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined in the dissent.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Marvin Green began working for the United States Postal Service in 1973. In 2002, he became the postmaster at the Englewood, Colorado, post office. In 2008, a postmaster position opened in Boulder, and Green applied but did not receive the position. He filed a formal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) charge regarding the denial of his application, and the charge was settled. In 2009, Green filed an informal EEO charge and alleged that his supervisor and supervisor’s replacement had been retaliating against him for his prior EEO activity. Throughout that year, Green was subject to internal Postal Service investigations including a threat of criminal prosecution. He ultimately signed an agreement that he would immediately give up his position and either retire or accept a much lower paying position. Green chose to retire and filed subsequent charges with the EEO Office, which dismissed his claim. Green then sued in district court and alleged, among other claims, that he had been constructively discharged. The district court held that Green’s constructive discharge claim was barred because he did not contact an EEO counselor within 45 days of signing the agreement, which was the last allegedly discriminatory act, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Under federal employment discrimination law, the filing period for a constructive discharge claim begins to run only after the employee resigns. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion for the 7-1 majority. The Court held that the statutory language of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act clearly states that the 45-day statutory limitation period begins to run on the “date of the matter alleged to be discriminatory.” Although the text does not clearly define the “matter alleged to be discriminatory,” the default rule that a limitations period begins when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action applies here. To state a complete and present claim for constructive discharge, a plaintiff must prove both that his employer discriminated against him to the point where a reasonable person would feel compelled to resign and that he actually resigned. Because resignation is part of a complete and present cause of action of a constructive discharge claim, the 45-day period should begin when the employee resigns.
In his opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote that judicial precedent establishes that Title VII claims require that the statutory discrimination period begin with the employer’s discriminatory act. In the case of a constructive discharge claim, if the employer intended for the employee to resign, then the employee’s resignation is tantamount to an intentional termination by the employer and gives rise a a new limitations period. Justice Alito also expressed the concern that the rule the majority opinion announced would disincentivize reporting of potential Title VII violations at the earliest possible opportunity based on the underlying acts of discrimination.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in which he argued that only an employer’s discriminatory action can constitute a “matter alleged to be discriminatory” under the meaning of Title VII. If the employer’s actions took place more than 45 days before the plaintiff contacted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the claim must be considered untimely. The majority’s opinion expanded the constructive discharge doctrine by allowing it to have a different limitation period than other Title VII claims.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
On May 11, 2006, Jose Gomez received an unsolicited text message advertising the U.S. Navy. The text message was the result of a partnership between the Navy and the Campbell-Ewald Company, a marketing consultant that the Navy hired to help with a recruiting campaign. The compilation of the list of targeted phone numbers and the actual sending of the message was outsourced to a company called Mindmatics.
Gomez sued and argued that that Campbell-Ewald violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by instructing or allowing a third-party vendor to send unsolicited text messages on the behalf of a client. After Campbell-Ewald’s motion to dismiss was denied, the company offered Gomez a settlement, which Gomez rejected. Campbell-Ewald again moved to dismiss the case and argued that Gomez’s rejection of the settlement offer made the claim moot. The district court denied the motion, and Campbell-Ewald moved for summary judgment based on the argument that the company had derivative sovereign immunity because it was acting on behalf of the government. The district court granted the motion for summary judgment. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and held that Campbell-Ewald was not entitled to the derivative sovereign immunity defense because the defense had only ever been applied in the context of property damage resulting from public works projects.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
An unaccepted settlement offer does not make a plaintiff’s claim moot, and a federal contractor does not have derivative sovereign liability from a suit under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion for the 5-4 majority. The Court held that, pursuant to Rule 68 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, an unaccepted settlement offer has no force and does not affect whether the case presents an actual case or controversy over which a court has jurisdiction under Article III of the Constitution. Like unaccepted offers in other areas of law, such as contracts, an offer has no force and creates no obligation if it is not accepted. As long as the parties continue to have a concrete interest in the outcome of the litigation at hand, the case is not moot. The Court also held that government contractors only obtain immunity for actions they take pursuant to their contractual undertakings. When a contractor violates both federal law and the government’s express instructions, as occurred in this case, there is no immunity. In his concurrence in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that, because the common law of tendering offers dictates that an unaccepted offer, without more, is not binding and Rule 68 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure stemmed from this common law history, the majority opinion did not need to examine contract law to reach this conclusion.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote a dissent in which he argued that, once relief for the plaintiffs’ claims is available, the plaintiffs no longer have a personal stake in the outcome of the litigation, and there is no longer an actual case or controversy for the federal courts to adjudicate. Justice Roberts also argued that there was Supreme Court precedent establishing that the plaintiff’s acceptance of the offer was not required to moot the case. The fact that failure to accept an offer makes the offer null in contract law has no bearing on the analysis of whether the case remains an actual case or controversy under Article III. Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined in the dissent. Justice Alito also wrote a separate dissent in which he argued that a case is moot when there is no dispute as to whether the defendant would “make good” on the settlement offer if the case were dismissed. Because there was no such dispute in this case, the case was moot.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
The Texas Constitution requires that the state legislature reapportion its senate districts during the first regular session after every federal census. After the 2010 census, the legislature created a redistricting plan that was signed into law. However, a three-judge panel of the federal district court found that there was a substantial claim that this redistricting plan violated the Voting Rights Act and issued an interim plan for the 2012 primary elections that was subsequently adopted and signed into law.
Plaintiffs Sue Evenwel and Edward Pfenniger are registered Texas voters who sued and claimed that the interim plan that was adopted and signed into law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They argued that the new districts do not adhere to the 'one person, one vote' principle, which the Supreme Court had previously held exists in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because they were apportioned based on total population rather than registered voter population, and while the new districts are relatively equal in terms of total population, they vary wildly in relation to total voter population. The district court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss and held that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim based on Equal Protection Clause jurisprudence, which allows total population to be the basis for district apportionment. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction on the appeal.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
The “one person, one vote” principle of the Equal Protection Clause allows a state to design its legislative districts based on total population. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the unanimous decision and the opinion for the six-justice majority. The Court held that constitutional history, judicial precedent, and consistent state practice all demonstrate that apportioning legislative districts based on total population is permissible under the Equal Protection Clause. Based on the wording of the Fourteenth Amendment and the legislative debates surrounding its adoption, the legislature at the time clearly intended for representation to be apportioned in the House based on total population, and it would be illogical to prohibit the states from doing the same within their own legislatures. In cases in which the Court has evaluated whether districting maps violate the Equal Protection Clause, the Court has consistently looked at total population figures to determine whether the maps impermissibly deviate from perfect population equality. Additionally, the total population approach has been used by all states and many local jurisdictions, and there is no reason to upset this accepted practice.
In his opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Court’s Equal Protection Clause jurisprudence has not established a single theory for how states should uphold the “one person, one vote” principle. Similarly, Justice Thomas argued that the Constitution does not prescribe a theory for states to use when apportioning representation. Although there is some preference for majoritarian rule, the Constitution also reflects concern about the tyranny of the majority by including counter-democratic checks. Given these conflicting theories present in the Constitution and the fact that the Constitution lets the states determine their own methods of apportioning representation, the Court should not impose a singular theory on the states. Because the total population method is a permissible method for states to use in creating legislative districts, Justice Thomas agreed with the majority, but noted that this was not the only permissible method. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote a separate opinion concurring in the judgment in which he argued that neither the text nor the legislative history of constitutional apportionment for legislative districts endorses one theory over another. Therefore, while the total population theory is permissible, it is not the only one. Justice Thomas joined in the concurrence in the judgment.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Plain Dealer Publishing challenged the constitutionality of a Lakewood city ordinance that authorized its mayor to grant or deny applications, made by publishers, seeking permission to place newsracks on public property. The ordinance merely required Lakewood's mayor to provide an explanation, in the event of a permit denial, while empowering him to subject all permit approvals to whatever "terms and conditions" which he "deemed necessary and reasonable." On appeal from a district court ruling that found the ordinance constitutional, the Court of Appeals reversed. The Supreme Court granted Lakewood's request for certiorari.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes. The Court held that the licensing ordinance was facially invalid since it gave Lakewood's mayor unbridled discretion to discriminate against permit seekers, based on the content of their publications and viewpoints. This, in turn, promoted self-censorship by publishers and other speakers who sought to curry favor with the mayor's officer in order to secure the approval of their licensing requests. The Court added that while cities may require the periodic licensing of newsracks on public property, even subjecting such procedures to reasonable restrictions, they may not use language which is so open-ended as to give city officials unlimited subjective discretion over permit approvals.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
A lead story in the November 1983 issue of Hustler Magazine featured a "parody" of an advertisement, modeled after an actual ad campaign, claiming that Falwell, a Fundamentalist minister and political leader, had a drunken incestuous relationship with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued to recover damages for libel, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Falwell won a jury verdict on the emotional distress claim and was awarded a total of $150,000 in damages. Hustler Magazine appealed.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes. In a unanimous opinion the Court held that public figures, such as Jerry Falwell, may not recover for the intentional infliction of emotional distress without showing that the offending publication contained a false statement of fact which was made with "actual malice." The Court added that the interest of protecting free speech, under the First Amendment, surpassed the state's interest in protecting public figures from patently offensive speech, so long as such speech could not reasonably be construed to state actual facts about its subject.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
On December 19, 1984, Michael Mose Chesternut saw a police car approach him while one a routine patrol, so he ran. After the police caught up with him and drove alongside him for a short distance, they observed him discarding a number of packets. Assuming the packets contained cocaine, the police arrested Chesternut and, after a search of his person, discovered heroin and a hypodermic needle. Chesternut was charged with possession of controlled substances in violation of Michigan law. The trial court dismissed the charge and concluded that Chesternut was unlawfully seized during the police pursuit preceding his disposal of the packets. The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed and held that Chesternut’s freedom was restricted as soon as the officers began their pursuit. Michigan appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No. Justice Harry A. Blackmun delivered the unanimous opinion of the Court, which held the officers’ pursuit of Chesternut did not constitute a seizure prohibited by the Fourth Amendment; therefore the charges against him were improperly dropped. The test of whether a seizure violates the Fourth Amendment is based off whether a reasonable man would have concluded that the police had restrained his liberty so that he was not free to leave. Under the reasonable man standard, Chesternut was not seized before he discarded the drugs because a reasonable person would not conclude the police attempted to chase Chesternut simply by accelerating to catch up with him, followed by a short drive alongside him.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Basic, Inc. (Basic) was a publicly-traded company engaged in manufacturing related to the steel industry. Combustion, Inc. (Combustion), a similar company, had expressed interest in merging with Basic but had not done so because of antitrust concerns. Beginning in 1976, Combustion representatives had conversations with Basic representatives regarding the possibility of a merger. Throughout 1977 and 1978, Basic made several public statements denying rumors that these conversations were taking place. On December 18, 1978, Basic asked the New York Stock Exchange to suspend trading of its stocks because it had been approached about a merger, and on December 19 Basic’s board approved the offer from Combustion.
The respondents in this case are former Basic stockholders who sold their stock after Basic’s first denial of merger conversations. They sued Basic and its director for making false or misleading statements in violation of Section 10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, which has to do with material facts relating to the purchase or sale of stocks. The plaintiffs argued that these statements artificially depressed the market for Basic’s stock, which injured the sellers. The district court certified the plaintiffs as a class and granted summary judgment for the company. The court held that the statements were immaterial because the conversations were not necessarily destined to become a merger agreement. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed and held that a company cannot disclose misleading information and that the conversations, although they might not have been material on their own, became so because they made the company’s statements untrue.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes, yes. Justice Harry A. Blackmun delivered the opinion of the 4-2 plurality. The Supreme Court held that there was no reason to artificially exclude merger conversations from the definition of materiality simply because they do not include specific prices. Instead, the materiality of a fact depends on its significance to “the reasonable investor.” The Court also held that it was impractical to require individuals to show a specific reliance on misleading information within an impersonal market. Therefore, it is reasonable for courts to use a presumption of reliance for the purpose of adjudicating such cases, though the presumption can be rebutted.
Justice Byron R. White wrote an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part in which he argued that the majority opinion’s support for the presumption of reliance, or “fraud-on-the-market” theory, represented the Court taking a stance on economic policies that were beyond its purview. He also argued that, because Congress has not addressed the issue, the majority opinion should have refrained from doing so. Additionally, the facts of the case in question make it a poor candidate for such analysis because they indicate that the plaintiffs did not believe the supposedly misleading statements. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor joined in the opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Justice Anthony Kennedy did not participate in the discussion or decision of the case.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
R. Foster Winans wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) entitled Heard on the Street (Heard) in which he reported on up-and-coming stocks. In 1983, Winans entered into a scheme that entailed him sending information about the stocks to be featured in Heard to two friends who worked at a brokerage firm. When Heard featured a stock, it generally affected the actual price and quantity of the stock in the market. Over a four-month period, the brokers used Winans’ information regarding stocks yet to be featured in Heard to make trades that resulted in profits of around $690,000. When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began an investigation, Winans and his co-conspirator Carpenter confessed.
The district court found that Winans had breached the duty of confidentiality he owed the WSJ and found him and his co-conspirators guilty of mail and wire fraud as well as securities violations. The petitioners appealed and argued that, because the WSJ—the only alleged victim of the mail and wire fraud charges—had no interest in the stocks being traded, the conviction should be overturned. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the petitioners’ misappropriation of the upcoming publication schedule was sufficient to establish a case for mail and wire fraud. The Circuit court reasoned that the use of mail and wire services had a sufficient nexus to Winans' knowing breach of his duty of confidentiality he owed the WSJ and that this breach harmed the WSJ.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes, yes. Justice Byron R. White delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court was evenly divided as to whether or not the Wall Street Journal’s lack of interest in the securities traded cleared petitioners of the charged crimes, and because of that split, the Court deferred to the appellate court’s judgment. The Court unanimously rejected petitioners’ arguments that they did not obtain any money or property from the WSJ and therefore that the state did not prove the required elements of the mail and wire fraud statutes. The Court held that the publication schedule and the contents of the column while being intangible, were still property sufficient to warrant a conviction. In addition, the Court rejected petitioners’ arguments that Winans’ actions were simply a violation of workplace rules and could amount to defrauding. The Court determined that the dissemination of the column via mail and wire was an essential part of petitioners’ scheme, which satisfied the final element of the mail and wire fraud statute.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
North Dakota was a sparsely populated state, and as late as the mid-20th century some children were educated in crowded one-room schools. Since 1947, the legislature encouraged thinly populated school districts to reorganize themselves into larger districts; once reorganized, districts could only charge for transportation provisions with voter approval. Dickinson Public Schools chose not to participate in the reorganization. In 1973, the district began charging a fee for door-to-door bus service; about thirteen percent of students rode the bus, and the district charged their parents ninety-seven dollars a year for one child or one hundred fifty dollars a year for two children. In 1979, North Dakota enacted legislation expressly indicating that non-reorganized school districts could charge fees for transporting students.
Sarita Kadrmas, her mother Paula, and the rest of her family lived about sixteen miles from Sarita’s school. In September 1985, the family’s annual income was at or near the poverty level. Until 1985, the Kadrmas family agreed each year to pay the busing fee for Sarita, but they refused to sign a contract for the 1985 school year and the bus no longer stopped for Sarita. The Kadrmas family then used private transportation, but the costs exceeded $1,000 per school year.
In September 1985, Paula Kadrmas and other parents in the district filed an action in state court seeking to enjoin the Dickinson Public Schools and various school district officials from collecting any bus service fees. The district court rejected their action on the merits. On appeal to the Supreme Court of North Dakota, rejected Kadrmas’ argument that the busing fee violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It characterized the statute as purely economic legislation, concluding that the charges authorized by the statute were rationally related to the legitimate government objective of allocating limited resources. In the spring of 1987, while her appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States was pending, the Kadrmas family signed a busing contract for the remainder of the 1986 school year and paid part of the fee. They also signed a contract for the 1987 school year.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No, no, and no. In a 5-4 decision written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the Court held that North Dakota’s statute allowing non-reorganized schools to charge busing fees did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice O’Connor first rejected the district’s contention that Kadrmas’ was barred from appeal because her daughter was enjoying the benefits of the district’s bus service. She noted that the legislature authorized bus service through a different statute, and characterized the fee as a burden to Kadrmas, not a benefit. She also held that the case was not moot, in part because a decision in Kadrmas’ favor would relieve them from future assessments for bus service.
Justice O’Connor interpreted Kadrmas’ argument to mean that the busing fee unconstitutionally placed a greater obstacle to education on poorer families. Justice O’Connor disagreed that the Court must subject the statute to heightened scrutiny, in part because the government did not penalize Sarita for her parents’ conduct. Justice O’Connor also rejected Kadrmas’ argument that North Dakota was constitutionally barred from withholding bus services from those unable to pay because those services were especially important. Unlike court access and court remedies, North Dakota did not maintain a legal or practical monopoly on the means of transporting children to school. Moreover, the Kadrmas family could and did find a private alternative to the public school bus service.
Justice O’Connor also held that the statute did not violate equal protection by only allowing fees for bus service in non-reorganized schools. She wrote that Kadrmas failed to demonstrate that the statute was both arbitrary and irrational. The purpose of the statute was to encourage reorganization through the expansion of districts’ tax bases, and the fees existed to encourage voters to approve school district reorganization. She noted that voters in reorganized districts could approve bus service fees as well.
Justice Thurgood Marshall dissented, joined by Justice William Brennan. He characterized the majority’s ruling as a retreat from the promise of equal education opportunity. He argued that North Dakota’s actions placed a special burden on poor families in their pursuit of education and discriminated on the basis of economic status.
Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, joined by Justice Harry Blackmun. He argued that once voters in a district decided whether or not to reorganize, there was no longer a rational basis for denying free bus transportation to students in that particular district.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
A provision in the District of Columbia Code prohibited the display of signs within 500 feet of a foreign embassy which tended to "bring that government into public odium or public disrepute." Congregations of three or more persons within the 500 feet limit were prohibited as well. Boos and others were denied permission to display signs criticizing the Soviet Union in front of that country's embassy.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
The Court found that the Code's restriction on sign displays violated the First Amendment while the ban on congregations did not. First, Justice O'Connor argued that the prohibition on signs failed to meet the high standards that the Court uses when evaluating the content-based regulation of political speech in a public forum. The "dignity" standard that the Code used was similar to the "outrageousness" standard which the Court found unconstitutional in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988) because it was too subjective. Second, O'Connor reasoned that since the language of the ban on congregations was narrowly drawn and could only be acted upon by the police in situations where a threat to security or peace were present, it did not prohibit peaceful gatherings.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Richard Shapero submitted a client solicitation letter to the Kentucky Attorneys Advertising Commission for approval. Shapero directed the letter at individuals who were about to lose their houses to foreclosure. The Commission found nothing false or misleading with the letter, but denied approval under a Kentucky Supreme Court rule, which prohibited direct mail advertisements “precipitated by a specific event” such as foreclosure. Shapero then sought an advisory opinion from the Kentucky Bar Association’s Committee on Legal Ethics. The committee upheld the Advertising Commission’s ruling. On review, the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes. In a 6-3 decision, Justice William J. Brennan wrote the majority opinion, holding the Kentucky Supreme Court rule unconstitutional. The Supreme Court did not decide whether Shapero’s letter required First Amendment protections. The Court remanded the case for further consideration of that issue. Justice Byron R. White wrote a concurrence, stating that the question of whether Shapero’s letter required First Amendment protections should be left to state courts.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Sandra Schultz and Robert Braun both strongly opposed abortion and gathered like-minded citizens together to picket in front of the home of a local doctor who performed abortions. In response, the city of Brookfield, Wisconsin passed a law against all picketing in front of residential homes except for labor disputes. Following the advice of the town attorney, the city amended the law to ban labor picketing as well. The stated purpose of the law was "the protection and preservation of the home." When enacted, Schultz and Braun stopped picketing and filed suit in federal district court, claiming that the law violated the First Amendment. The court declared it would issue a permanent injunction against the law unless it was narrowed in scope. The United States Court of Appeals of the Seventh Circuit affirmed that the law violated the First Amendment.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor delivered the opinion for a 6-3 court. The Court held that since the street constituted a traditional public forum, the ban must satisfy strict standards in order to remain. Since the ban is "content neutral," "leaves open ample alternative channels of communication," and serves a "significant government interest," the Court ruled that it passed the strict standards and could remain. The city government had a legitimate purpose in protecting the homes of its residents, and did so without favoring one idea over another or eliminating the ability to communicate an idea.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
On April 16, 1985, Ronald William Roberson was arrested at the scene of a burglary. The arresting officer read him his Miranda rights, and Roberson asked to see an attorney before answering any questions. On April 19, while Roberson was still in custody on the burglary charge, a different officer, who was unaware that Roberson had requested counsel, interrogated him regarding a robbery that happened on April 15. During this questioning, Roberson gave an incriminating statement. At trial, the trial court suppressed the statement and held that his interrogation without his attorney present after he had requested one violated his Fifth Amendment right to counsel. The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed, and the Arizona Supreme Court denied the petition for review.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes. Justice John Paul Stevens delivered the opinion for the 6-2 majority. The Supreme Court held that, once a suspect has requested counsel, police cannot interrogate him unless he initiates the contact. The Fifth Amendment and the Supreme Court’s previous rulings on it are meant to serve as a bright-line rule for police officers. The Court also held that Roberson’s request for counsel was because of his discomfort with answering the police’s questions, and there is no reason to assume that discomfort would be case-specific.
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy argued that a suspect does not need to be made aware of his Miranda rights more than once. When he has been told that he has the right to an attorney, he can choose whether or not to invoke that right in any investigation. Justice Kennedy argued that the majority created an unnecessary dichotomy between always allowing such statements or always excluding them, when in fact there should be a balance that depends on the situations in each case. This approach would protect law enforcement’s ability to investigate and the suspect’s rights. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist joined in the dissent.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor did not participate in the discussion or decision of this case.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Myrna Friedman, a resident of Maryland, was hired at a law firm located in the state of Virginia. Virginia law made permanent residency a requirement for admission to the Virginia bar without taking the bar examination. After Friedman's appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court was turned down, her claim was upheld in federal district court.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
In a 7-to-2 decision, the Court held that Virginia's residency requirement was unconstitutional. The Court held that "'one of the privileges which the Clause guarantees to citizens of State A is that of doing business in State B on terms of substantial equality with the citizens of that State,'" and that the practice of law was sufficiently basic to the economy to be deemed a privilege protected by the Clause. The Court found that the regulation discriminated among otherwise equally qualified applicants solely on the basis of residency, failing to bear a close relation to a substantial state interest.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
A Pennsylvania law required illegitimate children to prove paternity before seeking support from their fathers. The statute of limitations on suits seeking to establish paternity was six years from the birth of the illegitimate child. However, the state allowed legitimate children to seek support from their parents at any time. Cherlyn Clark sought child support from Gene Jeter, whom she claimed was the father of her daughter, Tiffany. Blood tests indicated that there was a 99.3% probability that Jeter indeed was Tiffany's father. A state court dismissed Clark's suit because it was initiated after the statute of limitations had expired.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
The Court found that the statute violated the Constitution. Citing the test which the Court developed in Mills v. Habluetzel (1982) to evaluate equal protection challenges to statutes of limitations in paternity suits, Justice O'Connor held that the Pennsylvania law did not "provide a reasonable opportunity to assert a claim on behalf of an illegitimate child." Furthermore, since, in some circumstances, Pennsylvania permitted paternity suits involving illegitimate children to be initiated after six years, there was no reason why the law in question was necessary to deter the litigation of "stale or fraudulent claims," a legitimate state interest.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Between April 11 and April 15, 1985, a trailer containing 32,000 blank videocassette tapes was stolen from an Overnight Express yard in South Holland, Illinois. On April 17, 1985, Guy Rufus Huddleston contacted a business owner in Michigan and offered to sell her a large number of blank videocassette tapes for significantly under market value. Huddleston was later charged with possessing and selling stolen videocassette tapes across state lines. At trial, the government presented evidence that Huddleston had previously trafficked in stolen goods. In response, Huddleston argued that he had not known any of the goods were stolen. The district court then instructed the jury that the evidence of prior bad acts could only be used to establish Huddleston’s knowledge, not to prove his character. The jury convicted Huddleston for possession of stolen goods.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit initially reversed the conviction and held that the government failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the goods in the prior instances were in fact stolen. The Court of Appeals granted a rehearing and subsequently affirmed the conviction, holding that the government only needs to meet a preponderance of the evidence standard.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist delivered the opinion for the unanimous court. The Supreme Court held that requiring the trial court to make a preliminary ruling before admitting character evidence is contrary to Article IV of the Federal Rules of Evidence. Character evidence must meet the relevancy requirements of Rules 401-403. To add additional limitations would unnecessarily increase the burden on the prosecution and conflict with the legislative intent behind the rule.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
An Indiana law gave a tax credit against the Ohio motor vehicle fuel sales tax for each gallon of ethanol sold by fuel dealers, provided that the ethanol was produced in Ohio or in a state that grants similar tax advantages as the Ohio scheme.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes. The unanimous Court held that the law's primary purpose was to confer favorable tax treatment on Ohio-produced ethanol which imposed "an economic disadvantage upon out-of-state sellers." Ohio was unable to advance a legitimate local purpose for the law


[Unknown Act > Facts]
In 1982, Congress passed the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA). The statute removed the federal income tax exemption for interest earned on publicly offered long-term bonds issued by state and local governments unless they were issued in registered form. South Carolina declared that both bearer and registered bonds issued by states and municipalities had been free from taxation since Pollock v. Farmer's Loan and Trust Co (1895). The federal government claimed that the Act did not eliminate the state's power to issue bonds free from taxation; rather it regulated the types of bonds to be exempt.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
The Court found that its subsequent decisions overruled Pollock so that state bond interest is not immune from a nondiscriminatory federal tax. Therefore, the owners of state bonds have no constitutional authority to exempt taxes on the earned income. TEFRA imposes no direct tax on the states; it is only collected from bondholders. The Act is nondiscriminatory because the regulations are imposed on the federal government as well as the state governments.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
On January 5, 2004, Stephen Law filed for bankruptcy. He claimed that there were two liens on his property consuming all of the property's value beyond a homestead exemption. A homestead exemption protects equity in a house when filing for bankruptcy. One of these liens turned out to be a fictional construction involving a woman in China. Alfred Siegel (the Trustee) claimed that, in exposing the false lien, he incurred $465,000 in attorney fees. Because these costs resulted from Law's misconduct and misrepresentation, the Bankruptcy Court added a surcharge equal to the full amount of Law's homestead exemption to offset the Trustee's costs.
Law appealed the decision to the Appellate Panel for the Ninth Circuit (BAP). Under the Bankruptcy Act of 1978, federal appeals courts may create panels of judges to hear appeals from Bankruptcy Court. The BAP affirmed the order and held that the surcharge was necessary to protect the Bankruptcy Court's integrity. Law appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which affirmed the BAP decision.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Supreme Court held that, while a Bankruptcy Court has the authority to issue any order, process, or judgment necessary to carry out the provisions of the Bankruptcy Code, it may not contravene specific statutory provisions. In this case, the Bankruptcy Court exceeded the limits of its authority by awarding the Law’s homestead exemption to Siegel. Although the statute does not require a debtor to establish a homestead exemption, once he has done so the Bankruptcy Court may not refuse to honor that exemption. Even in the case that a debtor is dishonest, the Bankruptcy Court may not impose sanctions that would violate the terms of the Bankruptcy Code, such as the debtor’s ability to establish a homestead exemption.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Pom Wonderful, LLC (Pom Wonderful), a California-based beverage company, sold various types of juice, including a pomegranate blueberry juice blend. In 2007, Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) announced its own version of a pomegranate blueberry juice. In 2008, Pom Wonderful sued Coca-Cola in federal district court and argued that Coca-Cola misled consumers into believing that Coca-Cola's product contained pomegranate and blueberry juices when it actually contained 99% apple and grape juices and only 0.5% pomegranate and blueberry juice. Specifically, Pom Wonderful claimed that Coca-Cola violated provisions of the Lanham Act, a federal law prohibiting false advertising, as well as California's false advertising and unfair competition laws. The lawsuit challenged the name, labeling, marketing, and advertising of Coca-Cola's product.
The district court held that Pom Wonderful's claims regarding the name and label of the juice were barred by a separate law, the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act (FDCA). The FDCA allows the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate the labels on, among other items, juices. Because the FDA has exclusive authority to file claims for violations of the FDCA, the court feared that a decision under the Lanham Act would undercut the FDA's authority to regulate juice labels. After both parties gathered evidence, the court granted summary judgment in favor of Coca-Cola on the name and label issues. Although the court gave Pom Wonderful the opportunity to proceed to trial on the remaining issues, Pom Wonderful conceded that it could not win without the name and label issues. Pom Wonderful appealed.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court's decision to bar Pom Wonderful's claim with respect to the name and labeling of Coca-Cola's juice. It vacated the lower court's ruling in favor of Coca-Cola, instead allowing Pom Wonderful's case to proceed on the remaining claims.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 8-0 majority. The Court held that, while it is the duty of the courts to harmonize statutes, the best way to do that in this case does not entail barring POM Wonderful's Lanham Act claims. Neither the Lanham Act nor the FDCA explicitly forbids or limits Lanham Act claims on labels that the FDCA regulates. The Court held that, because the Lanham Act and the FDCA have coexisted since the passage of the Lanham Act in 1946 without Congress addressing the issue, Congress has evidently not seen a problem with their potential interferences. Therefore, holding that the FDCA precludes the operation of the Lanham Act would represent a disregard for the legislative intent of having the two statutes complement one another.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer did not take part in the discussion or decision of this case.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
In the late 1990s, two professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tom Leighton and Daniel Lewin, began to research techniques to provide stable internet services during periods of high traffic. These men eventually founded Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Akamai) to capitalize on this research. Akamai is an internet content delivery company that owns and maintains thousands of servers around the United States and contracts with internet service providers. By contracting with these companies, Akamai can deliver stable, fast internet to far-reaching customers with less danger of internet slowdown or failure. On July 14, 1998, the two men filed a patent through MIT for a method designed to alleviate Internet congestion by delivering content from multiple available servers. MIT then licensed this patent to Akamai.
Shortly thereafter, several other internet companies filed patent applications for internet content delivery systems. This led to a series of litigations that spanned from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s. In 2004, in the midst of these court battles, Akamai entered into negotiations to purchase Limelight Networks, Inc. (Limelight). In 2006, however, Limelight informed Akamai that it no longer wished to be purchased. Akamai subsequently sued Limelight in district court for violating 35 U.S.C. § 271(a) and § 271(b), federal laws prohibiting patent infringement. Specifically, § 271(a) prohibits general patent infringement and § 271(b) prohibits inducing patent infringement.
The case proceeded to trial and a jury awarded Akamai a $41.5 million verdict based on lost profit, lost royalties, interest, and price erosion damages. After a series of post-trial motions, the district court ultimately ruled in favor of Limelight and held that, although Akamai's patent was violated, much of the violation occurred when Limelight's customers took the key steps to violate the patent. Although Limelight allowed these steps to occur, it did not control its customers' actions and therefore was not liable. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed and held that an entity accused of patent infringement must either perform all of the steps of the claimed method, either personally or through its direct control.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that liability for inducement can only be found when there is direct patent infringement. Because patent rights extend only to the claimed combination of steps, there is no direct patent infringement unless all the steps are carried out. The Court also held that conduct that would be infringing in altered circumstances cannot be the basis of liability for inducement. The Court declined to rule on the merits of the Federal Circuit's rule for direct patent infringement, which states that a single party must perform or exercise "control or direction" over each step of the patented process.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
During an economic crisis in 2001, the Republic of Argentina (Argentina) failed to make payments on bonds owned by foreign investors. One such bondholder, NML Capital, Ltd. (NML), later prevailed in several actions it filed against Argentina in federal district court, which entered judgments totaling more than US$2 billion in NML's favor. In order to execute the judgments against Argentina, NML served subpoenas on two banks requesting information about Argentina's assets held worldwide. Argentina moved to quash the subpoenas and argued that they violate the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) by requiring the disclosure of assets that are immune from collection by NML. The district court ordered the banks to comply with the subpoena requests. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, reasoning that the FSIA did not apply to the subpoena because it was a discovery order directed at commercial entities that did not have a claim to sovereign immunity.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion for the 7-1 majority. The Court held that, under the FSIA, property held within the United States by foreign nations cannot be attached to a civil claim except under a narrow exemption, which requires the property to be used for a commercial activity as well as satisfying one additional condition such as the foreign nation waiving its immunity from attachment. However, the fact that some property may be immune from attachment does not mean the property is also immune from discovery. While NML and Argentina may disagree as to whether property within the United States is covered by the FSIA's immunity, the level of immunity given to a foreign nation's property held outside the United States may be different in non-U.S. jurisdictions. Because the FSIA only grants immunity to property held within the United States, NML may be able to find foreign property held outside the United States that is attachable under the law of the foreign jurisdiction but that would be immune from attachment if held in the United States.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent in which she argued that the majority should not assume that foreign jurisdictions may allow the attachment of property which could not be attached under United States law. Therefore, based on the FSIA, Justice Ginsburg wrote that the discovery request should have been limited to property used in connection with commercial activity, which is a necessary requirement under U.S. law for attachment.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor took no part in the decision of this case.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Benjamin Robers was involved in a mortgage fraud scheme. His role was to pose as a legitimate buyer of houses, make fraudulent loan applications⎯by misrepresenting his income and his intention to live in the house and repay the mortgage⎯then allow the loan to default by not paying it. Eventually, the bank foreclosed on the houses and then sold them to pay back the lenders. Robers was able to secure two houses under this guise.
After government officials discovered the scheme but prior to indictment, Robers pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud because the funds for the fraudulent loans were disbursed electronically (wired) by lenders. A federal district court sentenced him to three years of probation and ordered him to pay restitution pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA) in the amount of $218,952.18 for both incidents. The amount was calculated by finding the difference between each loan and the resale amount of each house that was foreclosed (the offset value). Robers appealed the restitution award and argued that the wrong offset value was used in the calculation; instead, the fair market price at the time of foreclosure should have been used. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court's holding in part, vacated attorney fees and "other expenses" from the restitution sum, and remanded the case back to the district court to draw a new order with the corrected sum.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No. Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court. The Court held that the word “property” in the MVRA refers to the money lent by the banks and not to the houses the banks received as collateral for the fraudulent loans. Therefore, the district court properly calculated the restitution amount because the property (money) was not returned to the banks until the date on which the homes were actually sold.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a concurring opinion in which she emphasized that, in her view, the Court’s ruling applied only to cases in which the victim intended to sell the collateral but encountered a reasonable delay in doing so. She noted that, in other cases, a defendant might be able to show that a victim intended to hold onto the collateral as an investment rather than reduce it to cash right away and should consequently bear the loss of any decline in value. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the concurring opinion.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
David Leon Riley belonged to the Lincoln Park gang of San Diego, California. On August 2, 2009, he and others opened fire on a rival gang member driving past them. The shooters then got into Riley's Oldsmobile and drove away. On August 22, 2009, the police pulled Riley over driving a different car; he was driving on expired license registration tags. Because Riley's driver's license was suspended, police policy required that the car be impounded. Before a car is impounded, police are required to perform an inventory search to confirm that the vehicle has all its components at the time of seizure, to protect against liability claims in the future, and to discover hidden contraband. During the search, police located two guns and subsequently arrested Riley for possession of the firearms. Riley had his cell phone in his pocket when he was arrested, so a gang unit detective analyzed videos and photographs of Riley making gang signs and other gang indicia that were stored on the phone to determine whether Riley was gang affiliated. Riley was subsequently tied to the shooting on August 2 via ballistics tests, and separate charges were brought to include shooting at an occupied vehicle, attempted murder, and assault with a semi-automatic firearm.
Before trial, Riley moved to suppress the evidence regarding his gang affiliation that had been acquired through his cell phone. His motion was denied. At trial, a gang expert testified to Riley's membership in the Lincoln Park gang, the rivalry between the gangs involved, and why the shooting could have been gang-related. The jury convicted Riley on all three counts and sentenced to fifteen years to life in prison. The California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 1, affirmed.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that the warrantless search exception following an arrest exists for the purposes of protecting officer safety and preserving evidence, neither of which is at issue in the search of digital data. The digital data cannot be used as a weapon to harm an arresting officer, and police officers have the ability to preserve evidence while awaiting a warrant by disconnecting the phone from the network and placing the phone in a "Faraday bag." The Court characterized cell phones as minicomputers filled with massive amounts of private information, which distinguished them from the traditional items that can be seized from an arrestee's person, such as a wallet. The Court also held that information accessible via the phone but stored using "cloud computing" is not even "on the arrestee's person." Nonetheless, the Court held that some warrantless searches of cell phones might be permitted in an emergency: when the government's interests are so compelling that a search would be reasonable.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. wrote an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment in which he expressed doubt that the warrantless search exception following an arrest exists for the sole or primary purposes of protecting officer safety and preserving evidence. In light of the privacy interests at stake, however, he agreed that the majority's conclusion was the best solution. Justice Alito also suggested that the legislature enact laws that draw reasonable distinctions regarding when and what information within a phone can be reasonably searched following an arrest.
Learn more about the Roberts Court and the Fourth Amendment in Shifting Scales, a nonpartisan Oyez resource.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Prior to the 2010 general election, Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), a nonprofit, pro-life organization, announced that it intended to put up a billboard in the district of then-Congressman Steven Driehaus. The planned billboard would have asserted that Driehaus's vote in favor of the Affordable Care Act amounted to a vote in favor of taxpayer-funded abortion. Citing threats of legal action by Driehaus's counsel, the company that owned the billboard space refused to put up the ad. Driehaus filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission alleging that SBA List violated Ohio's campaign laws by making false statements about his voting record. SBA List filed an action in federal district court arguing that the Ohio statutes infringed upon its rights to free speech and association under the First Amendment. Driehaus withdrew his complaint upon losing his bid for re-election and subsequently moved to Swaziland for an assignment with the Peace Corps. The district court dismissed the suit by SBA List for lack of standing and ripeness. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
Yes. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that pre-enforcement challenges are justiciable when circumstances indicate that threatened enforcement of the statute is sufficiently imminent. If the threatened enforcement is sufficiently imminent, the petitioners have alleged sufficient injury for Article III standing and justiciability. In this case, the petitioners' political speech focused on the issue of support for the Affordable Care Act, not simply on Driehaus, and thus was likely to continue despite Driehaus' departure. The Court determined that there was a threat of future enforcement even though petitioners maintained their statements were true. Moreover, because the respondents did not disavow enforcement if petitioners carried out their speech in the future, the Court held that the prospect of enforcement was not "imaginary or speculative" and that petitioners had shown sufficient injury for pre-enforcement review. The Court also held that the petitioners' suit was prudentially ripe because their challenge was purely legal, the issue would not be clarified by future factual development, and denying prompt judicial review would force them to choose between refraining from political speech or risking burdensome Commission proceedings and criminal prosecution.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
Alice Corporation (Alice) is an Australian company that owns the '479, '510, '720, and '375 patents, all of which have to do with a computerized trading platform that deals with financial transactions in which a third party settles obligations between two others so as to settlement eliminate risk. Settlement risk is the risk to each party in an exchange that only one party will pay its obligation. Alice's patents address that risk by using the third party as the guarantor.
On May 24, 2007, CLS Bank International (CLS) sued Alice and sought a declaratory judgment of non-infringement and invalidity of the '479, '510, and '720 patents. Alice countersued and claimed infringement. CLS moved for summary judgment by arguing that any possible infringement could not have occurred in the United States and that Alice's claims were drawn from ineligible subject matter. Alice filed crossmotions, and the district court denied both motions. In the meantime, the '375 patent processed, and Alice amended its complaint to include this patent. Both parties renewed their crossmotions. For the purposes of these motions, the district court assumed that all asserted patent claims required electronic implementation and granted summary judgment in favor of CLS. The district court held that Alice's patents were invalid because they were directed at an abstract idea and that those claims could preempt the use of the abstract concept of a neutral intermediary to facilitate exchange and eliminate risk. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that patent law should not restrain abstract ideas that are the "building blocks of human ingenuity" and held all of Alice's claims ineligible for patent protection. Because using a third party to eliminate settlement risk is a fundamental and prevalent practice, it is essentially a building block of the modern economy. The Court held that Alice's claims did no more than require a generic computer to implement this abstract idea of intermediated settlement by performing generic computer functions, which is not enough to transform an abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.
Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor wrote a concurring opinion in which she argued that any claim that merely describes a method of doing business should not be patentable. In this case, Justice Sotomayor agreed that the method claims at issue pertained to an abstract idea. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Stephen G. Breyer joined the concurrence.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
In 2001, Heidi Heffron-Clark inherited a $300,000 individual retirement account (IRA) from her mother's estate. The U.S. tax code provides special rules for IRAs that are inherited by someone other than the spouse of the deceased. These rules prohibit additional contributions to the inherited account and require the beneficiary to withdraw, and pay taxes on, a minimum amount from the account each year. Heidi and her husband (the "Clarks"), filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and claimed the inherited IRA was exempt from creditor claims. A bankruptcy judge ruled that retirement funds must be held for the current owner's retirement in order to qualify as an exempt retirement fund under Section 522 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Because the Clarks were required to withdraw money from the inherited IRA before their retirement, the judge held that the account was subject to creditor claims in the bankruptcy proceeding. The federal district court reversed and held that Heidi's inheritance of the IRA did not change its status as a protected retirement fund. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that an inherited IRA account did not qualify as a retirement fund for the purposes of exemption under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Since the Bankruptcy Code does not explicitly define the term "retirement fund," the Court held that it should retain its ordinary meaning—a fund that is set aside for an individual's retirement. Inherited IRAs do not fit this definition because the individual cannot invest more money in the account and is required to draw money from the account regardless of how far the individual is from retirement. The Court held that allowing an inherited IRA to be exempt from creditor claims would undermine the purpose of the Bankruptcy Code.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) served five summonses to top officers of the Dynamo Holdings Limited Partnership (Dynamo) during its investigation into the company's tax liabilities. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted enforcement of the summonses. Dynamo opposed the summonses by arguing that it was entitled to a hearing to determine whether the summonses were proper. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated the decision that allowed the summonses to be enforced and remanded the case back to the district court for a hearing on whether the investigation was launched under an improper purpose, which would render enforcement of the summonses unlawful.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
No. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion for the unanimous Court. The Court held that a simple allegation of improper purpose was not sufficient to entitle a taxpayer to examine IRS officials; however, the taxpayer does have the right to such an examination if the taxpayer can point to specific facts or circumstances that could plausibly result from bad faith on the part of the IRS. Because the summons stage is necessarily a preliminary one, the taxpayer does not need to present a fully fleshed-out case, but neither should a summons dispute turn into a search for wrongdoing.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
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.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
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.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
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.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
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.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
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.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
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.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
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.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
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.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
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.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
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.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
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.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
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.


[Unknown Act > Facts]
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.


[Unknown Act > Conclusion]
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.