William Weaver was convicted of the first degree murder of a prospective witness in a drug trial. During the penalty phase of the trial, the prosecutor gave a closing statement arguing for a death sentence. In the course of the statement, the prosecutor said: "You've got to think beyond William Weaver [...] This is society's worst nightmare" and "Sometimes killing is not only fair and justified; it's right. Sometimes it's your duty [...] it's right to kill him [Weaver] now." The jury sentenced Weaver to death. Weaver appealed in state court, arguing that the prosecutor's statements had inflamed and prejudiced the jury.
The Missouri state courts denied the appeal, but a federal District Court granted habeas corpus. The District Court overturned the sentence, ruling that the "unfairly inflammatory" closing statement had violated Weaver's right to due process. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. On appeal to the Supreme Court, the state cited the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), which states that federal courts shall not grant a prisoner's habeas petition unless the state court's decision was "contrary to [...] clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." The Eighth Circuit had cited some Supreme Court cases pertaining to prejudicial closing statements in the guilt phase of the trial, but the state argued that the federal courts should not have granted habeas relief, because the Supreme Court had not specifically addressed the issue of closing statements in the penalty phase.

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Unanswered. By a 6-3 vote, the Court dismissed the case as improvidently granted, citing elements of the case's "unusual procedural history." Weaver had filed a habeas petition before AEDPA went into effect, but the district court had ruled that he must abandon his habeas petition if he wanted to petition the Supreme Court for certiorari. The Court made it clear in 2007 that the district court's decision had been incorrect (see Lawrence v. Florida ). After the Court denied his petition for certiorari, Weaver refiled the habeas petition - but by then AEDPA was in effect, with its stricter requirements for habeas petitions. Rather than risk allowing Weaver's fate to hinge on the district court's mistake, the majority decided to dismiss the case. The dissenters argued that these considerations should not prevent the Court from correcting the Eighth Circuit's mistreatment of AEDPA. Justice Scalia suggested in dissent that other Circuit Courts should "do unto the Eighth Circuitís decision just what it did unto AEDPA: ignore it."


Powerex Corp. v. Reliant Energy Services, Inc.

The state of California suffered an energy crisis in 2001. Citizens filed suit against energy company Reliant Energy Services et al (Reliant) for conspiring to fix energy price levels. Reliant filed cross-claims against multiple energy companies and regulatory agencies involved in the price fixing, including the Canadian company Powerex Corporation. PowerEx exported surplus Canadian hydropower on behalf of its owner, the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority (BC Hydro). Since BC Hydro was a governmental corporation and Powerex was its subsidiary, both argued that they were entitled to sovereign immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act of 1976 (FSIA). FSIA defines a foreign sovereign as an "organ of a foreign state" (28 U.S.C. Section 1603(b)). Reliant claimed that the two companies were exempt from FSIA sovereign immunity because their commercial activity had a "direct effect" on California energy markets.
A District Court ruled that BC Hydro was a foreign sovereign, but PowerEx was not. The District Court issued a remand order sending the case back to state court. Powerex appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, claiming that it operated for the "public interest" as an instrumentality of the government. The Ninth Circuit held that PowerEx was not a "foreign sovereign" because BC Hydro, not the Canadian government, owned PowerEx's shares.

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Unanswered and no. In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court ruled 7-2 that the Ninth Circuit lacked jurisdiction to review the District Court's remand order. The Court relied on 28 U.S.C. 1447(d), which precludes appellate review of remands based on lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The District Court remanded the case because it found itself lacking the power to adjudicate the dispute after it determined that Powerex was not a foreign sovereign and thus could not remove the case to federal court. Since "the District Court relied upon a ground that is colorably characterized as subject-matter jurisdiction," the remand could not be reviewed on appeal. The Court ruled that Section 1447(d) clearly applied to FSIA sovereign immunity cases, and rejected the argument that Congress could not have intended to deny review of remand orders in such cases. The Court acknowledged that Section 1447(d) had "undesirable consequences in the FSIA context," but it said a change of the law in the internationally sensitive area of sovereign immunity would have to be left to Congress. Justice Stephen G. Breyer's dissent argued that there is an implicit exception for FSIA in Section 1447(d).


Florida state park officials prohibited T.A. Wyner and George Simon from forming a peace symbol from nude individuals at a public beach. Wyner and Simon petitioned a district court, which issued a preliminary injunction barring the officials' interference and awarded Wyner and Simon their attorney fees in accordance with 42 U.S.C. Section 1988. Later, the district court reversed the injunction because state laws prohibited nudity at the beach. The officials argued that Wyner and Simon did not qualify as a "prevailing party," and therefore should not have their attorney fees refunded.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Wyner and Simon were the "prevailing party" because the district court had decided to issue the preliminary injunction based on merits of the case. The park officials responded that the preliminary injunction was based on a "mistake of the law," because the case was dismissed upon further review. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had previously ruled that a preliminary injunction is not a ruling based on the merits, and therefore does not determine the "prevailing party."

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No. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's opinion for the unanimous Court held that a preliminary injunction that is later reversed or otherwise undone cannot be the basis for "prevailing party" status for purposes of awarding attorney's fees. Though Wyner had been able to perform the nude peace symbol display without interference after her victory at the preliminary hearing, her victory had been "transient," "fleeting," and "ephemeral." Because she eventually lost on the merits of her claim that the government's interference was unconstitutional, she failed to gain the enduring "chang[e] [in] the legal relationship" of the parties that is required for prevailing party status. The Court left open the possibility that a preliminary injunction could be the basis for awarding attorney's fees if it were not later superseded as was Wyner's.


Marrama v. Citizens Bank of Massachusetts

Robert Marrama filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and agreed to turn over all of his non-exempt assets to a trustee for payment of his creditors. Trustees later accused Marrama of acting in bad faith by attempting to conceal two assets: a tax refund and some real estate. Marrama then moved to convert his bankruptcy petition from Chapter 7 to Chapter 13, which would allow him to keep more of his assets. Citizens Bank, one of Marrama's creditors, opposed the conversion. Citizens Bank argued that Marrama should not be able to convert to Chapter 13 due to his initial bad faith Chapter 7 petition. The bankruptcy court agreed and denied the conversion.
The bankruptcy appeals panel affirmed the court's ruling. On appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Marrama argued that the plain language of Section 706(a) of the Bankruptcy Code supported his right to convert to Chapter 13, regardless of the circumstances. Section 706(a) states, "The debtor may convert a case under [Chapter 7] to a case under Chapter 11, 12 or 13 of this title at any time [...]" Citizens Bank countered that the word "may" indicates a privilege rather than a right. It also argued that the bankruptcy system could be abused if debtors were able to convert to Chapter 13 after filing bad faith Chapter 7 petitions. The First Circuit upheld the panel's ruling, denying Marrama his conversion.

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Yes. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that there is a "bad faith" exception to the right of conversion in Section 706(a). The opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens held that although the vast majority of Chapter 7 debtors can convert to Chapter 13, a Chapter 7 debtor who engages in bad faith conduct does not qualify as a "debtor" under Chapter 13 and thus cannot convert his petition. The majority also wrote that courts have the inherent power to deny the motions of litigants who act in bad faith. The Court concluded that "Nothing in the text of [...] 706 [...] limits the authority of the court to take appropriate action in response to fraudulent conduct by the atypical litigant who has demonstrated that he is not entitled to the relief available to the typical debtor."


Victor Rita received a thirty-three month sentence from a trial judge after a jury convicted him of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. Though the sentence fell within the range prescribed by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and under the statutory maximum, Rita appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He argued that the judge should not have sentenced him without explicitly considering factors enumerated in 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) that might justify imposing a lesser sentence. The government argued that the judge could presume the sentence reasonable if it fell within the guidelines, even without an explicit analysis of 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors. The Supreme Court had previously ruled in U.S. v. Booker that sentencing judges could only treat the guidelines as advisory, not as mandatory. The Fourth Circuit accepted the government's arguments and ruled that a presumption of reasonableness for within-Guidelines sentences did not violate Booker.

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Yes and yes. The Court ruled that courts of appeals may apply a nonbinding presumption of reasonableness to within-Guidelines sentences. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the opinion for the 8-1 majority. The Court held that when the sentencing judge and the guidelines established by the Sentencing Commission agree on the proper sentence in a case, the "double determination significantly increases the likelihood that the sentence is a reasonable one." The Court reasoned that since the presumption of reasonableness for within- Guidelines sentences does not forbid any judge from imposing a sentence outside the Guidelines, the presumption is consistent with Booker. This presumption of reasonableness does not imply that courts can apply a presumption of unreasonableness to sentences outside the Guidelines ranges. The Court also found that the District judge had acted reasonably in imposing Rita's within-Guidelines sentence. Though the judge had not undertaken an explicit extended analysis of the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. 3553(a), the Court found his analysis "brief but legally sufficient." It was clear from the context that the judge had considered and rejected each factor that might have justified a lesser sentence, and the Court said, "we cannot read the statute (or our precedent) as insisting upon a full opinion in every case."


Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association v. Brentwood Academy

Brentwood Academy, a private school, was a voluntary member of the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA). After Brentwood's football coach violated TSSAA recruiting rules by contacting some prospective players at other schools, the TSSAA imposed various penalties on Brentwood. Brentwood sued the TSSAA, claiming that its First Amendment and Due Process rights were being violated. The Supreme Court had ruled previously that because the TSSAA was composed primarily of public schools, it was a state actor subject to the limitations of the Constitution (see Brentwood Acad. v. TN Sec. School Ath. Assn. No. 99-901). Accordingly, the District Court faulted the TSSAA for violations of Brentwood's constitutional rights and threw out the TSSAA's penalties.
On appeal, the TSSAA argued that it had not exercised the "police power" of the State, but merely enforced a voluntary contractual agreement with Brentwood. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth circuit rejected this argument, characterizing the TSSAA's actions as those of a "government regulator." The Sixth Circuit held that the state interest in regulating athletic competition was not substantial enough to counter-balance Brentwood's First Amendment rights, and it affirmed the lower court's ruling for Brentwood.

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In a unanimous opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court ruled that "[t]he anti-recruiting rule strikes nowhere near the heart of the First Amendment." Brentwood's speech rights do not extend to potentially coercive one-on-one communications between a coach and potential students, especially after the school voluntarily agreed to the anti-recruiting rule. The Court drew an analogy to the case of Ohralik v. State Bar Assn., in which the justices had ruled that a lawyer's in-person solicitation of clients was not protected speech. In that case as well as Brentwood's, activities with a potential for pressure, misrepresentation, or coercion were found to be outside the First Amendment's scope even though speech was involved. The Court also considered Brentwood's voluntary acceptance of the anti-recruiting rule to be significant. The TSSAA is allowed to impose limited conditions on the free speech of its members as long as these conditions are necessary for its purposes as an athletic league, and "the First Amendment does not excuse Brentwood" from abiding by them. In concurring opinions, a narrow majority of justices disagreed with Justice Stevens's invocation of Ohralik on the ground that it was not meant to extend beyond the attorney-client relationship. Justice Thomas recommended that the Court revisit and overrule its previous holding that TSSAA is a state actor.


United States v. Atlantic Research Corp.

Atlantic Research Corp. (Atlantic) built rocket motors for the United States government at an Arkansas facility. When residue from burnt rocket fuel contaminated the site, Atlantic voluntarily cleaned up the contamination and later sought cost recovery from the government under Section 107(a) and Section 113(f) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). Some Courts of Appeals had interpreted Section 107(a) as implicitly allowing a party responsible for contamination to compel other partly-responsible parties to contribute to the clean-up. The Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 added Section 113(f), which makes explicit the right to sue for contribution.
While Atlantic was negotiating with the government, the Supreme Court ruled in Cooper Industries, Inc. v. Aviall Services, Inc. that a party cannot bring a Section 113(f) claim for contribution unless it is already the subject of a Section 107(a) contamination action. Atlantic filed a new claim for contribution under Section 107(a), but a district court denied the claim. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit had previously ruled that a liable party must use Section 113(f), not Section 107(a), to file a contribution claim. Atlantic argued that failure to meet the requirements of Section 113(f) did not foreclose the implied Section 107(a) right to sue other partly-responsible parties for contribution.

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Yes. The Court ruled unanimously that Section 107(a) of CERCLA allows potentially responsible parties (PRPs) to sue other PRPs for cost recovery. The opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas affirmed the Eighth Circuit and ruled for Atlantic Research. The government had claimed that the phrase "any other person" in Section 107(a) was meant to include only non-PRPs, but the Court, relying on the plain language of the statute, held that "the Governmentís interpretation makes little textual sense." Since almost any party likely to incur clean-up costs could be designated a PRP, the government's interpretation risked rendering Section 107(a) functionless. The Court explained that its interpretation would not result in improper overlap between Section 113(f) and Section 107(a). A party can sue another PRP for contribution under 113(f), but the party can only sue under Section 107(a) for reimbursement of its own clean-up costs. Therefore, parties cannot take advantage of Section 107(a)'s longer limitations period by bringing contribution claims under 107(a).


Genentech held the patent for "Cabilly I", a process for using cell cultures to manufacture human antibodies. MedImmune had a licensing agreement with Genentech under which MedImmune paid royalties to Genentech in return for the use of the patent. Later, Genentech also obtained the patent to "Cabilly II," a continuation of the Cabilly I process. Under the licensing agreement, MedImmune became a licensee for Cabilly II as well. Genentech informed MedImmune that it would have to pay royalties on one of its most lucrative products, Synagis, which uses the Cabilly II process. MedImmune sued Genentech, claiming that the patent was invalid and unenforceable. However, MedImmune kept paying the royalties.
A federal District Court dismissed the suit because it did not present a controversy. Article III of the Constitution limits the jurisdiction of federal courts to "cases or controversies." This is implemented in the Declaratory Judgment Act, which requires that a suit involve an "actual controversy." Genentech argued that since MedImmune was still paying royalties on the patent, there was no controversy. MedImmune countered that though it was indeed still paying royalties on the patent it claimed was invalid, it was paying "under protest." It would be unreasonable, MedImmune argued, for the company to be required to break its contractual obligations by stopping royalty payments before suing. This might jeopardize MedImmune's legal rights to one of its best-selling products.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled for Genentech and upheld the District Court, holding that the suit presented no actual controversy.

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No. In an 8-1 decision authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court reversed the Federal Circuit and ruled for MedImmune. The Court held that MedImmune was not required to break its contract before suing, because "The rule that a plaintiff must [...] risk treble damages and the loss of 80 percent of its business[] before seeking a declaration of its actively contested legal rights finds no support in Article III." The Declaratory Judgment Act only requires that disputes be non-hypothetical and non-abstract. The mere fact that royalties were still being paid, the Court ruled, was not sufficient to remove the courts' jurisdiction under Article III. In a lone dissent, Justice Thomas argued that the Court's expansive approach toward Article III jurisdiction would improperly allow parties to bring premature, theoretical suits.


Rockwell International Corp. v. United States

Stone sued his employer, nuclear weapons plant operator Rockwell International, under the False Claims Act (FCA). He took advantage of the FCA's "qui tam" provision, which allows an individual to sue on behalf of the government. Stone alleged that Rockwell had made false claims about the environmental safety of "pondcrete," a mixture of cement and sludge used for nuclear waste storage. In a qui tam action under the FCA, the person bringing the suit must be the "original source" of the information on which his claim is based. Rockwell argued that Stone was not an original source because he did not have "direct and independent knowledge" of the information at issue in the suit, as required by the FCA.
The District Court ruled that Stone qualified as an original source, and a divided panel of the U.S. Circuit Court for the Tenth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court agreed to resolve the question of how much and what kind of knowledge an FCA qui tam plaintiff must have.

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The Court ruled 6-2 that Stone did not qualify as an "original source" with "direct and independent knowledge of the information on which the allegations are based" for purposes of the False Claims Act. Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion interpreted the word "information" as referring to information on which the relator's (in this case Stone's) claim is based and not to any information underlying publicly disclosed allegations. The Court further pinpointed the meaning of the ambiguous statute by holding that "allegations" means the allegations in the relator's amended complaint and not just those in the original complaint. The Court concluded that "[j]udged according to the principles set forth above, Stone's knowledge falls short." The government's investigation did turn up Rockwell's deceptions concerning the production of defective pondcrete, but the information provided by Stone was not directly related to the government's discoveries. In order for Stone to bring a qui tam action under the False Claims Act, he would have had to be the original source of information that was actually used to prosecute Rockwell. Since the claims involving Stone's information were ultimately dropped in the amended complaint, he could not bring the suit. The government, the Court ruled, would have to continue the action without Stone as co-plaintiff.


Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc.

Leegin Creative Leather Products, a manufacturer of women's accessories, entered into vertical minimum price agreements with its retailers. The agreements required the retailers to charge no less than certain minimum prices for Leegin products. According to Leegin, the price minimums were intended to encourage competition among retailers in customer service and product promotion. When one retailer, PSKS, discounted Leegin products below the minimum, Leegin dropped the retailer. PSKS sued, arguing that Leegin was violating Section 1 of the Sherman Act by engaging in anticompetitive price fixing. Under the Supreme Court's 1911 decision in Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co., mandatory minimum price agreements are per se illegal under the Act - that is, they are automatically illegal regardless of the circumstances.
Leegin argued that this rule was based on outdated economics. It contended that a better legal analysis would be the "rule of reason," under which price minimums would be held illegal only in cases where they could be shown to be anticompetitive. Both the District Court and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected these arguments. The courts felt compelled to follow the Supreme Court's rule in the Dr. Miles case, under which Leegin's practices were illegal regardless of the economic arguments put forward by the company.

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No. The Court ruled 5-4 that " Dr. Miles should be overruled and that vertical price restraints are to be judged by the rule of reason." Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion held that Dr. Miles had erred by treating vertical minimum price agreements between manufacturers and retailers as analogous to horizontal price-fixing agreements between sellers. The Court cited evidence from the economic literature that vertical minimum price agreements are rarely anticompetitive and can often function to increase interbrand competition. The Court acknowledged that in some cases vertical price minimums might facilitate manufacturer cartels, but it held that instances where the price agreements are abused for illegal anticompetitive purposes can be determined on a case-by-case basis under the rule of reason. The mere fact that vertical price minimums may lead to higher prices for goods cannot reflect negatively on its legality under the Sherman Act, because there are many legitimate business decisions that may ultimately result in higher prices. The majority also acknowledged that the principle of stare decisis would weigh against overruling the nearly 100-year-old precedent in Dr. Miles, but it held that the Sherman Act is to be treated as a "common-law statute," which must be allowed to evolve in the courts as economic knowledge and circumstances change. The dissenters, in an opinion authored by Justice Stephen Breyer, saw no change in circumstances that would justify overruling Dr. Miles, and they argued that the reliance of the business community on that decision supported adherence to stare decisis.


After a police officer attempted to pull him over for speeding, Victor Harris fled in his vehicle, initiating a high-speed car chase. Attempting to end the chase, Deputy Timothy Scott rammed Harris's vehicle with his police cruiser. Harris crashed and was rendered a quadriplegic. Harris sued Scott in federal District Court, alleging that Scott had violated his Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force. Scott claimed qualified immunity as a government official acting in his official capacity, but the District Court rejected the claim. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed.
In order to show that a government official is not entitled to qualified immunity, a plaintiff is required to prove that the official violated a clearly established constitutional right. The Eleventh Circuit ruled that Scott's actions constituted an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Because there was no imminent threat - Harris remained in control of his vehicle and the roads were relatively empty - Scott's use of deadly force was unconstitutional. Although no Appellate Court had ruled on the specific question of the use of deadly force in a high-speed chase, the Eleventh Circuit ruled that the limits on deadly force were "clearly established."

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No. The Court ruled 8-1 that Scott's actions were reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia relied heavily on a videotape of the car chase, which it said contradicted the plaintiff's claim that he was driving responsibly even while being pursued by the police. The majority held that "[...] it is clear from the videotape that [Harris] posed an actual and imminent threat to the lives of any pedestrians who might have been present, to other civilian motorists, and to the officers involved in the chase." The opinion weighed the need to prevent the harm Harris could have caused against the high probability that Harris himself would be harmed by Scott's use of force. It also took into account Harris's culpability for starting the chase in the first place. The Court concluded that it is reasonable for a police officer to use deadly force to prevent harm to innocent bystanders, even to the point of putting the fleeing motorist at serious risk of injury or death. Justice Stevens's lone dissent argued that the videotape was not as definitive as the majority made it out to be and that a jury should make the determination on the justifiability of deadly force.


Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations v. City of New York

Foreign countries can own buildings surrounding the United Nations in New York City tax-free if the buildings are used exclusively for diplomatic purposes. The City filed lawsuits against the Indian and Mongolian consulates in a District Court for failing to pay taxes on properties used for non-diplomatic purposes. The two consulates argued that the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA) granted them immunity from suit. The District Court ruled that it had jurisdiction to hear the suit under the FSIA's "immovable property" exception, which removes immunity from foreign countries when "rights in immovable property situated in the United States are in issue." The two countries argued that "rights" denoted a narrow set of property laws and did not extend to tax matters. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed.

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Yes and unanswered. The Court held 7-2 that the "immovable property" exception to sovereign immunity in the FSIA covers disputes over tax liens on the property as well as disputes over ownership and possession. The opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas ruled that a tax lien, by both its dictionary definition and its practical effect, is an interest or right in property. This broad interpretation of the exception was consistent with Congress's purpose in passing FSIA to adopt a much more restrictive theory of sovereign immunity than the previous, virtually absolute one. The Court found some of the evidence from contemporaneous international agreements to be ambiguous and equivocal, but it held that its interpretation was consistent with Congress's intention to codify the state of international law at the time of FSIA's enactment. Justice Stevens's dissent argued that "[s]uch a broad exception to sovereign immunity threatens [...] to swallow the rule."


AT&T owned the patent for certain speech codecs (a type of software code) included in Microsoft's Windows operating system. When Microsoft sent master versions of the software overseas, copied them, and sold the copied software, AT&T sued for patent infringement. A company is guilty of infringement under the Patent Act if it "supplies...from the United States...components of a patented invention...in such manner as to actively induce the combination of such components." Microsoft argued that it was not liable because 1) software code is intangible and cannot not be considered a "component" of an invention and 2) no software had been "supplied" from the U.S. because the copies were made overseas.
The District Court rejected both of Microsoft's arguments, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed. The Federal Circuit ruled that software code could be a component, because the Patent Act was not limited to physical structures. The Circuit Court also held that each overseas copy made of the U.S.-originated software code was "supplied" from the United States.

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No and no. The Court ruled 7-1 that Microsoft was not liable for infringement of AT&T's patent. The opinion by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg held that "software code is an idea without physical embodiment"; it cannot be a component of a patented invention. While leaving open the possibility that intangible things could be components in some cases, the opinion compared software code to a blueprint - something that can precisely describe the combination of the components, but is not itself a component. The majority held that Microsoft's Windows software does not become a component for purposes of AT&T's patent until it is converted into copies that can be read by a computer. The Court acknowledged that the copying from the master versions was an easy step, but it was nonetheless "essential." Since the crucial step occurred outside the United States, the copies were "supplied from the United States" under the meaning of the Patent Act. Instead, each functional copy was produced overseas from the master version of the software code. Justice Stevens's lone dissent disagreed with the Court's comparison of software code to a blueprint. He compared the exported master disk to a "warehouse of components."


Scott Louis Panetti was convicted of the murder of his wife's parents and sentenced to death. He petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in federal District Court, claiming mental illness. The Supreme Court had ruled in Ford v. Wainwright that execution of the mentally ill is barred by the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. A psychiatric evaluation found that Panetti believed that the State was "in league with the forces of evil" and was executing him in order to "prevent him from preaching the Gospel." However, doctors also found Panetti to be aware of his crime, of the fact that he was to be executed, and of the State's stated reason for executing him. The District Court concluded that he was sufficiently sane to be executed.
On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the lower court. The Fifth Circuit rejected Panetti's argument that an inmate cannot be executed if he lacks a rational understanding of the State's motivation for the execution. The Court of Appeals instead relied on Justice Lewis Powell's concurrence in Ford, holding that an inmate need only have an awareness of the State's reason for execution, not necessarily a rational understanding of it.

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Unanswered. In an opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy for a 5-4 majority, the Court held that the Fifth Circuit's analysis was too restrictive under Ford v. Wainwright, because it treated Panetti's mental condition as irrelevant as long as he had in some sense a factual awareness of the state's rationale. The Court rejected the state's arguments that the Court did not have jurisdiction and that the state court was entitled to deference under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). In doing so, the Court held that a prisoner may sometimes bring a habeas petition claiming mental incompetency even if he did not raise the claim in his first petition and that state courts can be held to have unreasonably applied a legal principle even if the principle was addressed to somewhat different facts than those of the case at hand. The state court had unreasonably applied Ford by failing to give Panetti a fair hearing to fully present his psychiatric evidence. The Court also ruled that the Fifth Circuit "rests on a flawed interpretation of Ford," because it failed to consider that Panetti's delusions may have prevented him from understanding the meaning of his punishment even though he professed to be aware of the facts. The Court did not undertake its own analysis of what kind of rational understanding the Eighth Amendment requires a death row inmate to have, saying, "Although we reject the standard followed by the Court of Appeals, we do not attempt to set down a rule governing all competency determinations." The Court expressed the hope that expert psychiatric evidence would shed light on which delusions might distort an inmate's sense of reality so much as to render him incompetent to be executed.


Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Ross-Simmons Hardwood Lumber Co., Inc.

Ross-Simmons Hardwood Lumber Co. (Ross-Simmons) sued Weyerhaeuser, a competing sawmill, for "predatory buying" in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. Specifically, Weyerhaeuser was accused of buying more raw materials than it needed at unnecessarily high prices. Ross-Simmons alleged that Weyerhaeuser's business practices were aimed at monopolizing the market for purchasing unprocessed sawlogs and forcing its competitors out of business. At the jury trial, jurors were instructed to rule against Weyerhaeuser if Ross-Simmons could prove that Weyerhaeuser bought more sawlogs "than it needed" and paid more "than necessary" for them. Weyerhaeuser objected, arguing that the more stringent guidelines in the case of Brooke Group v. Williamson Tobacco Corp. required a ruling in its favor. In Brooke Group, the Court held that in order for a company to be liable for "predatory pricing," a company must be shown to have been operating at a loss, and to have a "dangerous probability" of recouping its losses.
The District Court rejected Weyerhaeuser's motion, ruling that Brooke Group applies only to predatory pricing, where a company prices its products too low in order force competitors out of the market, and not to predatory buying. Under the less stringent guidelines, the jury found Weyerhaeuser to be in violation of the Sherman Act, and awarded Ross-Simmons $78.8 million in damages. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the District Court, ruling that the higher standard of liability for predatory pricing compared to predatory buying is appropriate, because business practices that resemble predatory pricing may result in benefits such as efficiency incentives and lower prices for consumers.

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Yes. The Court unanimously reversed the Ninth Circuit decision and ruled that the Brooke Group standard applies to predatory bidding as well as predatory pricing. The opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas noted the economic similarity between the monopoly conditions created by predatory pricing and the monopsony or "buyer's monopoly" conditions created by predatory bidding. The Court held that the "theoretical and practical similarities of predatory pricing and predatory bidding convince us that our two-pronged Brooke Group test should apply to predatory-bidding claims." Since Ross-Simmons had not met the Court's test, the jury's verdict against Weyerhaeuser was invalid.


Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc.

Wisconsin Right to Life (WRTL), a nonprofit political advocacy corporation, ran three advertisements encouraging viewers to contact two U.S. Senators and tell them to oppose filibusters of judicial nominees. WRTL intended to keep running the ads through the 2004 election, but the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) prohibits corporate funds from being used for certain political advertisements in the 60-day period prior to an election. WRTL sued the Federal Election Commission (FEC), claiming that the BCRA was unconstitutional as applied to the advertisements. In 2006, the Supreme Court let the "as applied" challenge proceed (see Wisconsin Right to Life v. Federal Election Commission, 04-1581). In McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, the Court had upheld Congress's power to regulate "express advocacy" ads that support or oppose political candidates, but WRTL claimed that its ads were "issue ads" rather than express advocacy. WRTL also argued that the government lacked a compelling interest sufficient to override the corporation's First Amendment free speech interest. The FEC countered that WRTL's ads were "sham issue ads," which refrain from explicitly endorsing or opposing a candidate but are intended to affect an election.
A three-judge District Court agreed with WRTL's arguments and ruled the BCRA unconstitutional as applied to the ads. The court refused the FEC's request that it inquire into the intent and likely effect of the ads, because those determinations would be impractical and would have a chilling effect on protected speech. Analyzing only the explicit content of the ads, the court found them to be legitimate issue ads and not express advocacy or sham issue ads. The court also held that the government's justification for banning express advocacy ads by corporations - the need to reduce political corruption and public cynicism - did not apply to ads that do not endorse or oppose a candidate. Therefore, the court ruled that the government lacked a compelling interest to justify the burden on WRTL's First Amendment rights.

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Yes. By a 5-4 vote the Court ruled that BCRA's limitations on political advertising were unconstitutional as they applied to issue ads like WRTL's. Chief Justice John Roberts's majority opinion held that the ads were genuine issue ads, not express political advocacy or its functional equivalent (which Congress can concededly regulate). The Court held that McConnell v. FEC did not establish the test that any ad intended to influence an election and having that effect is express advocacy. Such a test would be open-ended and burdensome, would lead to bizarre results, and would "unquestionably chill a substantial amount of political speech." Instead, the Court adopted the test that "an ad is the functional equivalent of express advocacy only if the ad is susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate." The Court further held that the compelling state interests invoked by the government to regulate advocacy did not apply with equal force to genuine issue ads. Neither the interest in preventing corruption nor the goal of limiting the distorting effects of corporate wealth was sufficient to override the right of a corporation to speak through ads on public issues. This conclusion, the Court held, was necessary in order to "give the benefit of the doubt to speech, not censorship." The dissent by Justice Souter called WRTL's ads indistinguishable from political advocacy ads and accused the majority of implicitly overruling McConnell v. FEC.


Marvin Bockting was accused of sexually assaulting his six year old stepdaughter. The girl told a detective about Bockting's crimes against her, but at the trial she became very upset and refused to testify. The judge declared the witness unavailable and allowed the detective to give hearsay testimony on what Bockting's daughter had told him. Bockting was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without having had a chance to cross-examine the only witness against him.
Bockting's appeals in state court were denied. He filed a petition for habeas corpus in federal court, claiming that his Sixth Amendment right to confront his accuser had been violated. During Bockting's appeals, the Supreme Court ruled in Crawford v. Washington that hearsay testimony given outside the court by an unavailable witness is only admissible if the defendant had an opportunity to cross-examine the witness before trial.
Bockting appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Nith Circuit, arguing that Crawford should apply retroactively to his case. The Circuit Court ruled that Crawford had announced a "new rule" of criminal procedure; new rules are normally not applied to cases that were final before the rule was announced. However, the Ninth Circuit held that the rule on hearsay testimony was a "watershed" rule that was fundamental to a fair trial. Under an exception defined by the Supreme Court in Teague v. Lane, watershed rules are applied retroactively.

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No. The Court ruled unanimously "that Crawford announced a 'new rule' of criminal procedure and that this rule does not fall within the Teague exception for watershed rules." Justice Samuel Alito's opinion called the Crawford ruling "flatly inconsistent" with the prior precedents that it overruled. It was therefore a new rule of criminal procedure. However, the ruling failed to meet the Court's two criteria for a watershed rule. Although Crawford was aimed at increasing the accuracy of criminal convictions, it was not absolutely necessary to prevent an "impermissibly large risk of an inaccurate conviction," as was the archetypal watershed ruling Gideon v. Wainwright. The Court acknowledged that the Crawford's holding was "important," but it was not as "profound," "sweeping," or "central[]" as the Gideon watershed rule, which had been "essential to the fairness" of the judicial system. Since the Crawford ruling did not meet the criteria for a watershed rule, the Court ruled that the decision's restrictions on hearsay testimony did not apply retroactively.


Mathew Musladin was convicted of the murder of Tom Studer. At Musladin's trial, Studer's family wore buttons showing pictures of the victim. Musladin's defense attorney requested that the trial judge tell the family to take off the buttons because they were prejudicial to the defense, but the judge denied the motion. Musladin later appealed his conviction to a state appellate court, and the appellate court affirmed the trial court. The appellate court held that though the buttons were an "impermissible factor" and should be discouraged, they were not so prejudicial that he had been denied his Due Process right to a fair trial. Musladin filed a petition for habeas corpus in federal District Court, but it was denied. However, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted the petition, reversed the appellate court, and sent the case back the District Court.
Under 28 U.S.C. Section 2254(d)(1), a provision of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), a federal court can grant habeas relief to a defendant convicted in state court only if the state court decision was "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." The Ninth Circuit found that this standard had been met, because the state court decision had been "objectively unreasonable." The Ninth Circuit ruled that the state court should have recognized the buttons as inherently prejudicial to the defense. In addition to Supreme Court precedents, the majority of the Circuit Court panel relied on one of the Circuit's own precedents that specifically dealt with buttons in the courtroom. The dissent argued that this reliance contradicted AEDPA's requirement that habeas courts consider the law "as determined by the Supreme Court." The majority considered the use of the Circuit precedent appropriate because it applied general principles set down by the Supreme Court.

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Yes. In a unanimous decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and ruled that the state court's decision was not an unreasonable application of any clearly established Supreme Court precedent. The Court did not explicitly say that Circuit Courts cannot cite their own Circuit precedents when granting habeas relief, but the Court only addressed the Supreme Court precedents cited by the Ninth Circuit. Those precedents only dealt with government-sponsored practices that may prejudice a jury, such as forcing a defendant to appear in court wearing prison clothing. The Court's opinion called the issue of spectator conduct, like the kind at issue in Musladin's trial, an "open question in our jurisprudence." Since there was no clearly established federal law on the issue of spectator conduct, the Court held that the Ninth Circuit was wrong to grant habeas relief and overturn Musladin's conviction.


Burton was convicted of burglary, robbery, and rape. Under the standard state sentencing guidelines, the burglary and robbery alone warranted the maximum sentence for a single criminal event. In order to make sure the rape was punished as well, the trial judge added a consecutive sentence for the rape to the standard sentence.
Burton filed a habeas corpus petition challenging his sentence in federal court. He argued that under Blakely v. Washington, handed down after his conviction, the jury rather than the judge should have decided whether to add the extra sentence. The government argued that the holding in Blakely was a "new rule." Under the Court's decision in Teague v. Lane, new rules of criminal procedure do not apply retroactively. Burton countered that the relevant rule was actually established in Apprendi v. New Jersey, a decision handed down before his conviction became final. Burton also argued that even if Blakely is a new rule, it is essential for a fair trial. New rules that are essential for the fundamental fairness of trials can apply retroactively.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Burton. The Appeals Court held that Blakely was a new rule, so it could not be used by Burton in his appeal.

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Unanswered. In a 9-0 per curiam opinion, the Court ruled that Burton's habeas petition should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Burton had earlier filed a habeas petition challenging his conviction. Four years later, when he filed the habeas petition challenging only his sentence, Burton neglected to obtain the court authorization necessary for a "second or successive" petition. The Ninth Circuit had excused Burton's oversight because his first petition was filed before his sentence became final, but the Court held that Burton's second petition was nevertheless a "second or successive" petition requiring authorization. Since Burton's petition was invalid, the Justices did not address either of the questions presented.


The Department of the Interior (DOI) leases the rights to the mining of natural resources on federal lands to private companies like BP America Production (BP) in return for royalty payments. BP obtained a lease for the mining of coalbed methane gas, a natural gas that requires removal of excess carbon dioxide from the gas in order to make in marketable. In 1996, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) of the DOI issued an administrative order clarifying that the companies themselves must bear the full cost of removing the carbon dioxide. BP had been deducting the removal cost from its royalty payments, so the MMS ordered BP to pay more than $4 million in past royalites. BP cited 28 U.S.C. Section 2415(a), which establishes a six-year statute of limitations for government actions for monetary damages. BP argued that the government could not claim past royalties from more than six years before the 1996 administrative order, because the six-year time limit had expired.
The DOI Assistant Secretary rejected BP's arguments and ruled for the government. A District Court affirmed the decision, ruling that an agency administrative order was not a government action for monetary damages, so the statute of limitations did not apply. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the lower court's ruling. The Circuit Court ruled that the government would have had to file a complaint in court in order for the statute of limitations to take effect; an agency administrative order did not activate the time limit.

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No. The Court ruled 7-0 that "the 6-year statute of limitations in 2415(a) applies only to court actions and not to the administrative proceedings involved in this case." The opinion by Justice Samuel Alito relied on the plain meaning of the language in Section 2415(a). The statute used the terms "action" and "complaint" when referring to the statute of limitations. The Court held that these terms, when used by themselves, refer only to judicial proceedings, not administrative ones. Additionally, the Court noted that statutes of limitations on government actions are normally construed in favor of the government.


Luis Duenas-Alvarez, a Peruvian citizen living in California, was convicted of unlawful driving or taking of a vehicle. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allows for the deportation of aliens who are convicted of an aggravated felony, which includes "theft offenses." The Department of Homeland Security began deportation proceedings against Duenas-Alvarez. An immigration judge ruled in favor of the government and ordered Duenas-Alvarez deported to Peru, and the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed.
On appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Duenas-Alvarez argued that he was not guilty of a theft offense for purposes of the INA because he had only aided and abetted the theft of the car. The California anti-theft law did not distinguish between auto-theft and merely aiding an auto-theft, but the Ninth Circuit had ruled that the INA "theft offense" includes only the person who actually stole and took possession of the car, and not necessarily anyone who aided in the theft. Accordingly, the Circuit Court ruled in favor of Duenas-Alvarez and reversed the lower courts.

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Yes. The Court ruled unanimously that aiding and abetting a theft qualifies as a "theft offense" for purposes of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer held that the common law had done away with all distinctions between "principals" and "aiders and abettors" of theft crimes. Duenas-Alvarez argued that California's theft law was unique in that it included offenses beyond the "generic theft" contemplated by the Immigration and Nationality Act. However, the Court's analysis of California case law led it to the conclusion that California's law, like those of other states, encompassed the generic definition of theft. Because Duenas-Alvarez had not raised the issue in the Questions Presented, the Court refused to consider whether the California theft law included the less severe theft crime of joyriding, which might not fall under "generic theft" for purposes of the INA.


Pat Osborn, an employee of a private contractor for the U.S. Forest Service, sued Barry Haley, an employee of the Forest Service, in state court. Osborn alleged that Haley had influenced her employer to fire her. Under the Westfall Act, federal employees are immune from such lawsuits if the employee acts "within the scope of his employment." If the Attorney General certifies that the employee acted within his scope, the case can be transferred to federal court and the United States can be substituted for the employee as the defendant. The government conceded that if Osborn's version of events were correct, Haley would have been outside his scope. Nevertheless, the government certified that Haley was within his scope, because it denied that Haley had any role in Osborn's firing.
The government brought the case to federal District Court, but the court decided that it lacked the authority to settle the factual dispute at the root of the Attorney General's certification. Instead, the court assumed that Osborn's account was true, ruled that Haley had been outside the scope of his employment by influencing Haley's firing, and sent the case back to state court.
The government appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which reversed the lower court. The Circuit Court ruled that the Westfall Act gives the courts power to settle factual disputes over the incident at issue in a lawsuit, even if the dispute is over whether or not the incident happened at all. The Sixth Circuit also ruled that the District Court should not have sent the case back to state court, because the Westfall Act gives the federal courts jurisdiction over the case even after the federal District Court finds that the Attorney General was wrong to certify the federal employee.
Osborn appealed to the Supreme Court, which instructed the parties to submit briefs on the additional question of whether the Westfall Act gives a Court of Appeals the authority to review a District Court's order remanding a case back to state court.

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Yes to all. In a 7-2 decision, the Court upheld the Sixth Circuit and ruled that "Westfall Act certification is proper when a federal officer charged with misconduct asserts, and the Attorney General concludes, that the incident or episode in suit never occurred." The opinion by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg held that the Act would be ineffective at shielding federal employees from suit if the government were required to accept for immunity purposes the plaintiff's allegation that the event in question occurred. The Court also rejected Osborn's jurisdictional arguments. Relying on the Westfall Act's provision that certification from the Attorney General "shall conclusively establish scope of office or employment for purposes of removal," the Court held that after the Attorney General's certification federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction, even if the federal court eventually finds the certification invalid. In dissent, Justice Scalia argued that 28 U.S.C. 1447(d) removed the Court of Appeals' jurisdiction to review the District Court's order sending the case back to state court. The majority held that 1447(d) did not apply to orders based on findings of invalid certification.


Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy Corp.

A 1977 amendment to the Clean Air Act created the Prevention of Significant Deterioration program (PSD), which requires power companies that want to make emissions-increasing modifications to their facilities to first apply for permits. Between 1988 and 2000, Duke Energy Corporation (Duke) made twenty-nine extensive improvements to its power plants without obtaining PSD permits. When the government, along with Environmental Defense and several other environmental groups, sued Duke, the company pointed to a PSD regulation explicitly defining "modification" for purposes of PSD as any change that increases the hourly rate of emissions from a facility. Duke's improvements increased the number of hours the plants remained open, and therefore also increased the total annual emissions from the plants. But since the improvements left the hourly rate of emissions unchanged, Duke argued that it did not have to obtain PSD permits. The government countered by citing the Environmental Protection Agency's current interpretation of the PSD regulations, which holds that a power company making improvements that increase the hours of operation of its plants does need to obtain a permit in all cases where construction is involved.
The District Court ruled in favor of Duke. The judge refused to rely on the EPA's current interpretation, ruling that it was inconsistent with the wording of the PSD regulations. Environmental Defense appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Circuit Court affirmed the District Court's decision. The Fourth Circuit pointed out that the 1977 PSD amendment had taken its definition of "modification" directly from a 1975 Clean Air Act amendment concerning the New Source Performance Standards program (NSPS). In the 1975 amendment, the term "modification" explicitly excluded improvements that merely increase the hours of operation of a facility. Therefore, the Fourth Circuit held, the EPA did not have statutory authority to interpret "modification" differently for the PSD program. Environmental Defense appealed to the Supreme Court, with the added argument that the Fourth Circuit never should have heard the case, because challenges to Clean Air Act regulations can only be brought in the D.C. Cricuit.

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Unanswered and No. In a unanimous opinion by Justice David Souter, the Court ruled that the EPA need not interpret "modification" in PSD regulations the same way the term is interpreted in NSPS regulations. The Court's opinion acknowledged that two occurrences of the same term - sharing the same definition - are normally given the same meaning. However, the word "modification" and its definition appear in the context of two broad, open-ended grants of regulatory authority to the EPA. The Court held that "EPA's construction need do no more than fall within the limits of what is reasonable, as set by the Act's common definition." The Court concluded that differing circumstances involved in regulating under the PSD provisions as opposed to the NSPS provisions may well necessitate giving a different meaning to the term "modification" as it appears in each.


Harvey Robbins owned a private dude ranch which was intermingled with federal lands. The previous owner had granted the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) right-of-way across the private land, but after Robbins bought the ranch he refused to re-grant it. Robbins alleged that BLM officials harassed him with threats and meritless criminal charges, with the aim of forcing him to grant the government right-of-way. Robbins sued the BLM officials for extortion in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). He also brought a Bivens action (an action seeking monetary damages from a federal agent for a constitutional violation). Robbins argued that the Fifth Amendment protects a "right to exclude" government officials from one's property, and that the BLM agents had retaliated against him for his exercise of this right. The District Court dismissed both claims, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed. On appeal to the Supreme Court, the government argued that the BLM officials, while acting on behalf of the government, had qualified immunity and therefore could not be sued for extortion under RICO. The government also claimed that no Bivens action could be brought, because review of the BLM's actions was already available under the Administrative Procedure Act.

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No, unanswered, and no. The Court ruled 7-2 that "neither Bivens nor RICO gives Robbins a cause of action," so he could not sue the government for retaliation. In an opinion by Justice David Souter, the Court declined to extend the availability of Bivens actions to cases of retaliation for the exercise of the right to exclude the government from one's property. The Court noted that Robbins had other administrative and judicial remedies for the government's various violations, though it acknowledged that these amounted to a difficult-to-use "patchwork." Because of the impossibly of devising a framework to separate constitutional violations from government actions that are merely borderline improper, the Court would not add a Bivens remedy to landowners' toolkit. The government can be expected to engage in some hardball tactics during land negotiations, the majority held, and inviting an "onslaught of Bivens actions" in an effort to counter the occasional overreach would be a "cure [...] worse than the disease." Robbins's RICO claim failed as well, because extortion has not normally been understood to encompass the actions of government officials seeking to obtain property for the government rather than for themselves. The Court called the cases that Robbins cited in favor of his claim obscure and off-point.


Travelers Casualty & Surety Co. of America v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

Prior to declaring bankruptcy, Pacific Gas & Electric company (PG & E) purchased surety bonds from Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of America (Travelers). These bonds obliged Travelers to settle debts PG & E couldn't repay. When PG & E went bankrupt, Travelers hired attorneys to protect its interests. State law mandated that PG & E cover all attorney fees incurred by Travelers during state bankruptcy proceedings. The litigation later moved to federal court. PG & E refused to pay for Travelers's expenditures in federal court, claiming responsibility only for fees incurred during state proceedings.
The Bankruptcy Court denied Travelers's request for reimbursement because the precedents of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that only federal laws could ensure payment for federal litigation. PG & E was only under contractual and legal obligation to pay for state-court attorney fees. The District Court and the Ninth Circuit denied Travelers's claim on the same grounds. Travelers appealed to the Supreme Court, citing inconsistent rulings among the Circuit Courts of Appeals.

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Yes. Justice Samuel Alito issued the unanimous opinion, which found that the Bankruptcy Code did not expressly waive the contractual obligation to reimburse attorney fees even if incurred in federal litigation. Because the Bankruptcy Code "says nothing about unsecured claims for contractual attorney's fees incurred while litigating issues of bankruptcy law," the Court could "presume that claims enforceable under applicable state law will be allowed in bankruptcy unless they are expressly disallowed." Since none of the nine exemptions waiving contractual obligation to reimburse attorney fees set forth in 11 U.S.C. Section 502(b) applied to Travelers, nothing undermined the debtor's contractual or state-law obligation to pay.


Governor Camacho of Guam sought to borrow over $400 million through the issuance of bonds. Guam Attorney General Moylan argued that the bond issuance violated the Guam Organic Act, a federal law governing the Territory of Guam. The Organic Act sets the limit for government borrowing to 10% of the "aggregate tax valuation of the property on Guam." The Governor asked the Supreme Court of Guam for a decision on the disputed text. The Guam legislature had interpreted the phrase "aggregate tax valuation" to mean the assessed value of property on Guam for purposes of taxation. However, the Guam Supreme Court declined to follow the legislature's interpretation and ruled that the "aggregate tax valuation" was equivalent to the full appraised value of property on Guam. Under that interpretation, the debt-limit would be about $1.1 billion.
The Attorney General appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. While the case was pending, Congress passed a law allowing parties to appeal directly from the Guam Supreme Court to the U.S. Supreme Court. When the Ninth Circuit declined to hear the case, Moylan appealed to the Supreme Court. Normally parties must seek Supreme Court review within 90 days of a lower court's decision, but the case had been pending before the Ninth Circuit for two years. The Supreme Court directed the parties to argue the question of whether the time the case was pending before the Ninth Circuit counted toward the time limit.

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Yes and no. The Court agreed unanimously that the time the case was pending in the Ninth Circuit did not count toward the 90-day time limit for Supreme Court appeals, though this ruling was limited to the "unique procedural circumstances" presented by the case. On question of the interpretation of "tax valuation" in the Organic Act of Guam, the Court split 5-4. The majority opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas held that, contrary to the Guam Supreme Court's interpretation, the phrase must mean the assessed value for tax purposes of property on Guam. "The word 'tax' modifies 'valuation,' not 'property,'" the Court reasoned, so "tax valuation" "refers to the type of valuation to be conducted, not the object that is valued." The dissenting Justices argued that deciding the case on the basis of textual analysis and comparison to state debt limitations would amount to a "coin toss." In the dissenters' view, Congress's purpose was to set a "hard cap" on debt, which would indicate that the debt limitation should be based on the full market (appraised) value of property on Guam rather than dependent on the changeable assessment rate.


In 2003, Congress passed and the President signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The controversial concept of partial-birth abortion is defined in the Act as any abortion in which the death of the fetus occurs when "the entire fetal head [...] or [...] any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother." Dr. Leroy Carhart and other physicians who perform late-term abortions sued to stop the Act from going into effect. The plaintiffs argued that the Act could apply to a more common abortion procedure known as "D&E" ("dilation and evacuation"), as well as to the less common "intact D&E," sometimes called D&X ("dilation and extraction"). With this application the Act would ban most late-term abortions and thus be an unconstitutional "undue burden" on the right to an abortion, as defined by the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The plaintiffs also argued that the Act's lack of an exception for abortions necessary to protect the health of the mother rendered it unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's decision in Stenberg v. Carhart, regardless of Congress's finding in the Act that partial-birth abortions are never medically necessary.
A federal District Court agreed and ruled the Act unconstitutional on both grounds. The government appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The government argued that the Act only bans a narrow category of abortion procedures, and that a health exception is not required when Congress determines that a banned abortion procedure is never necessary for the health of the mother. The Eighth Circuit disagreed and upheld the District Court, ruling that a health exception is required for all bans on abortion procedures when "substantial medical authority" supports the necessity of the procedure. The Circuit Court ruled that the ongoing disagreement among medical experts over the necessity of intact D&E abortions was sufficient to establish that the Act was unconstitutional without a health exception. The Circuit Court did not reach the question of whether the Act was so broad as to qualify as an unconstitutional "undue burden."

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No. The Court ruled by a 5-4 vote that Congress's ban on partial-birth abortion was not unconstitutionally vague and did not impose an undue burden on the right to an abortion. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion for the majority. The Court held that, under the most reasonable interpretation, the Act applies only to the intact D&E method (also known as "partial-birth abortion") and not to the more common D&E procedure. The Act's application was limited by provisions that restrict enforcement to cases where the physician intends to perform an intact D&E and delivers the still-living fetus past specific "anatomical landmarks." Because the majority found that the Act applies only to a specific method of abortion, it held that the ban was not unconstitutionally vague, overbroad, or an undue burden on the decision to obtain an abortion. The Court also held that Congress, after finding intact D&E never to be medically necessary, could validly omit a health exception from the ban, even when "some part of the medical community" considers the procedure necessary. To require the exception whenever "medical uncertainty" exists would be "too exacting a standard to impose on the legislative power [...] to regulate the medical profession." The Court left open the possibility that an as-applied challenge could be brought against the Act if it were ever applied in a situation in which an intact D&E was necessary to preserve a woman's health. Justice Ginsburg's dissent disputed the majority's claim that the opinion was consistent with the Casey and Stenberg precedents and said "The Court's hostility to the right Roe and Casey secured is not concealed."
Learn more about the Supreme Court and abortion law in Body Politic, a nonpartisan Oyez resource.


In No. 06-100, Edo, a consumer, sued GEICO General Insurance Company, alleging that GEICO had violated the requirement in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) that insurance companies give consumers notice before raising rates. Edo sought statutory and punitive damages, which the FCRA awards only when a company "willfully" violates the law. Similarly, in 06-84, several consumers sued Safeco for failing to notify them that better credit ratings would have entitled them to better premiums. It was GEICO's policy to notify new applicants only if their credit ratings were worse than a certain "neutral" (average) value, while Safeco as a matter of policy did not give "adverse action" notices to any new applicants. GEICO argued that it was unaware that the FCRA applied to the setting of premiums for new applicants such as Edo, and thus could not be considered to have acted willfully. The District Court ruled for GEICO and Safeco, holding that their actions did not qualify as willful.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that that the concept of willfulness includes "reckless disregard" for the law as well as actual knowledge that the conduct was illegal. The ruling put the Ninth Circuit in conflict with most other circuit courts, but the court argued that its interpretation was more consistent with Supreme Court precedent and the purpose of the FCRA.

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Yes. In a unanimous decision written by Justice David Souter, the Court ruled that insurance companies can be liable for willful violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act if they show "reckless disregard" for the law. The justices held that the meaning of the term "willful" is contextually determined. Under the common law reckless violations are considered willful violations, and the term is given its common meaning unless Congress intended to change it. The Court called the evidence of such an intent "shaky," and it pointed to another section of the statute which indicated that Congress was treating "knowing" and "reckless" violations as subcategories of "willful" violations. Though GEICO and Safeco lost on the issue of the meaning of "willful," the Court held that neither company had acted with reckless disregard. GEICO's policy - giving adverse action notices to new applicants only where they were likely to make a difference - was a correct interpretation of the statute. Though Safeco was in violation, its error was neither reckless nor willful.


Zuni Public School Dist. No. 89 v. Department of Education

The Department of Education certified that the state of New Mexico equalizes educational expenditures among school districts. The certification of equalization allowed New Mexico to offset its funding of districts located on Indian Reservations by a proportion of the federal Impact Aid payments made to those districts. Zuni Public School District objected to the certification, arguing that the Department had not followed the statutory formula for determining that a state's expenditures are equalized. Outlier school districts falling above the 95th or below the 5th percentile in per-pupil expenditures were excluded from consideration when the Department determined equalization. The Department calculated these percentiles based on the total student population, but Zuni argued that 20 U.S.C. Section 7709 had repealed that policy.
An administrative judge dismissed Zuni's complaint, and the Secretary of Education affirmed on the ground that the law was ambiguous. A divided panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld the Secretary's decision as a valid interpretation of the statute. In a rehearing by the entire Circuit Court, the 12 judges split evenly, again upholding the ruling.

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Yes. The Court voted 5-4 in favor of the Department of Education, affirming the lower court. In his majority opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer agreed with the Secretary of Education's argument that 20 U.S.C. 7709 was ambiguous on the specific formula to be used. Since administrative agencies have wide latitude to interpret their governing statutes, the Court gave deference to the Secretary's formula for calculating the 5th and 95th percentiles for the purpose of determining expenditure equalization. The majority concluded that "[...] the history of the statute strongly supports the Secretary." No member of Congress had expressed an opinion on the formula to be used, so the Department would have been free to calculate the percentiles using either formula. In response to Zuni's statutory-language based argument, the Court ruled that the statute's phrasing could encompass the Secretary's method of calculating excluded districts based on per-pupil expenditure percentiles of the total student population. The four dissenting Justices argued that the statute required the Secretary to calculate the percentiles based on a comparison of the per-pupil expenditures of the districts.


The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) contended that Elmer and Dorothy Cullers had established a trust for the purpose of evading taxes. The IRS filed tax liens against the trust, freezing the trustees' assets until the outstanding taxes were paid. The trustees disagreed with the IRS, but opened a bank account to settle the tax dispute. A month later, the IRS collected the outstanding taxes from the bank account. EC Term of Years Trust sued the IRS pursuant to 26 U.S.C. 7426, which entitles trustees to challenge wrongful IRS collections, and 28 U.S.C. 1346(a)(1), which entitles taxpayers to recover erroneously collected taxes. A district court decided that only 26 U.S.C. 7426 allowed third-party tax recoveries, so the court lacked jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1346(a)(1), the general provision for tax recovery. The court dismissed the 26 U.S.C. 7426 claim because the nine-month filing time limit had expired. EC Trust claimed in a second suit that the Supreme Court's opinion in United States v. Williams meant that the possibility of a suit under 26 U.S.C. 7426 did not preclude suits under 28 U.S.C. 1346(a)(1). The District Court rejected the argument, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed.

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No. In a unanimous decision written by Justice David Souter, the Court ruled that "Resisting the force of the better-fitted statute [28 U.S.C. 7426] requires a good countervailing reason, and none appears here." The Court held that Section 7426 is the exclusive legal vehicle for challenging a wrongful tax levy, so after having missed the deadline EC Term of Years Trust could not bring its suit as a tax refund claim under 1346(a)(1). The Court acknowledged that in United States v. Williams it had allowed liens to be challenged under 28 U.S.C. 1346(a)(1), but the Court held that the principle in Williams was limited to cases in which there is no other remedy available. The Justices ruled that it would not make sense to allow claims under 28 U.S.C. 1346(a)(1), which has a 9-month limitations period, to be duplicated under 26 U.S.C. 7426, which has a time limit of four years.


Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company

Over her nineteen-year career at Goodyear Tire, Lilly Ledbetter was consistently given low rankings in annual performance-and-salary reviews and low raises relative to other employees. Ledbetter sued Goodyear for gender discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging that the company had given her a low salary because of her gender. A jury found for Ledbetter and awarded her over $3.5 million, which the district judge later reduced to $360,000.
Goodyear appealed, citing a Title VII provision that requires discrimination complaints to made within 180 days of the employer's discriminatory conduct. The jury had examined Ledbetter's entire career for evidence of discrimination, but Goodyear argued that the jury should only have considered the one annual salary review that had occurred within the 180-day limitations period before Ledbetter's complaint.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed the lower court, but without adopting Goodyear's position entirely. Instead the Circuit Court ruled that the jury could only examine Ledbetter's career for evidence of discrimination as far back as the last annual salary review before the start of the 180-day limitations period. The Circuit Court ruled that the fact that Ledbetter was getting a low salary during the 180 days did not justify the evaluation of Goodyear's decisions over Ledbetter's entire career. Instead, only those annual reviews that could have affected Ledbetter's payment during the 180 days could be evaluated. The Circuit Court found no evidence of discrimination in those reviews, so it reversed the District Court and dismissed Ledbetter's complaint.

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No. By a 5-4 vote the Court ruled that Ledbetter's claim was time-barred by Title VII's limitations period. The opinion by Justice Samuel Alito held that "current effects alone cannot breathe life into prior, uncharged discrimination." For a timely claim, Ledbetter would have needed to file within 180 days of a discriminatory salary decision; the Court did not consider it significant that paychecks she received during the 180 days prior to her claim were affected by the past discrimination. Discriminatory intent is a crucial element of a Title VII disparate-treatment claim, the Court held, but each instance of Goodyear's discriminatory intent fell outside the limitations period. The majority noted that the short time limit was enacted to ensure quick resolution of pay discrimination disputes, which can become more difficult to defend against as time passes. To adopt Ledbetter's argument would be to allow even "discriminatory pay decision[s] made 20 years ago" to be the subject of Title VII claims. In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the majority's ruling out of tune with the realities of wage discrimination and "a cramped interpretation of Title VII, incompatible with the statute's broad remedial purpose." She suggested that "the Legislature may act to correct this Court's parsimonious reading of Title VII."


Congress passed the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) in 1995 in an effort to cut down on frivolous lawsuits by prisoners. Under the PLRA, before bringing a federal civil rights suit a prisoner must go through his prison's internal complaint process. Only after exhausting all of these "administrative remedies" can the prisoner bring the complaint to federal court.
Lorenzo Jones sustained serious injuries in a car accident while in custody. He sued prison officials in federal court, claiming that they were violating his Eighth Amendment rights by making him do arduous work despite his injuries. The officials moved to dismiss the suit, because Jones had not provided any evidence or description of the administrative remedies he claimed to have pursued. The District Court granted the motion and dismissed the suit.
On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. The Circuit Court ruled that in order for Jones to sue, he would have had to provide the court with copies of his grievance forms or at least describe the administrative processes he had exhausted. The Circuit Court further ruled that the PLRA requires "total exhaustion," which means that if a prisoner's suit has multiple claims, administrative remedies must have been exhausted for each and every claim.
The Supreme Court accepted review in order to resolve the conflict between Circuit Courts over which side bears the burden of proving exhaustion of administrative remedies.
In Williams v. Overton, Timothy Williams suffered from a medical condition which caused tumor growth and disfigurement in his arm. He claimed that prison officials were violating his rights by ignoring his medical needs. Williams's complaint had two claims: he needed additional surgery on his arm and a single-occupancy, handicapped-accessible cell. Williams went through the administrative remedial process on both grievances and both claims were denied. Williams then sued in federal court.
The District Court dismissed the suit, because Williams had neglected to name any prison officials as defendants in his medical complaint. Therefore, the court ruled, the administrative remedies for that claim could not be considered to have been exhausted.
On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, ruling that "The prisoner must demonstrate that he has exhausted the administrative remedies with respect to each individual he intends to sue." The Circuit Court also ruled that the PLRA requires "total exhaustion," which meant that Williams's entire suit was dismissed because of his unexhausted medical claim, even though the administrative remedies for his request for a new cell had been exhausted.

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No to all. The Court ruled unanimously that the Sixth Circuit's rules for exhaustion of administrative remedies were not required by the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act. The opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts held that prisoners bring civil rights lawsuits do not need to demonstrate that they have already exhausted all administrative remedies. The Sixth Circuit had assumed that Congress had intended to put the burden on the plaintiff, but the Court ruled that an explicit statement by Congress would have been required. The Justices also held that when a court is presented with a suit with both exhausted and unexhausted claims, the court can let the exhausted claims proceed rather than dismissing the entire suit. The Court rejected the argument that the statute's use of the word "action" instead of "claim" indicated that the entire suit should be dismissed. The opinion explained that Congress was merely using "boilerplate language." Finally, the Court ruled that the PLRA did not require a prisoner to name each defendant in his administrative grievance in order to name the defendant in his subsequent lawsuit. By imposing these extraneous rules, the Sixth Circuit had exceeded its legitimate authority over the management of its docket.


LaRoyce Smith was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In 2004, the Supreme Court overturned his death sentence and sent the case back to state court because of a judge's improper jury instruction. (See Smith v. Texas , No. 04-5323.) Nevertheless, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals re-imposed the sentence, holding that the erroneous instruction had not done any "egregious harm" to the fairness of Smith's sentencing. The Texas court found that the jury had still been able to consider all relevant mitigating evidence, despite the unconstitutional instruction. The Supreme Court agreed to review the case a second time.

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Unanswered and no. The Court ruled 5-4 that the jury instructions did not give meaningful effect to Smith's mitigating evidence, and that a subsequent corrective instruction was not sufficient to correct the error. The Texas court had ruled that because Smith had abandoned his objection to the instructions in the course of the proceedings, he must show that "egregious harm" had been done to his trial. The Court criticized the Fifth Circuit for misreading the record and the Court's instructions: "The requirement that Smith show egregious harm was predicated, [...] on a misunderstanding of the federal right Smith asserts [...]" Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion for the majority.


The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assessed over $20,000 in interest fees for outstanding taxes against John and Pamela Hinck. The Hincks claimed that the interest accrued because of IRS delays and errors. Section 6404(e)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code authorizes the abatement of interest fees that are caused by IRS delays. The IRS rejected the Hincks' interest abatement claim in 2000. In 2003, the United States Court of Federal Claims determined that it had no jurisdiction to hear the case because Section 6404(h) of the Internal Revenue Code granted the United States Tax Court jurisdiction over interest abatement disputes.
The Hincks appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, arguing that the Tucker Act granted subject matter jurisdiction to the Federal Claims Court. The Federal Circuit held that Section 6404(h) grants the Tax Court exclusive jurisdiction over interest abatement disputes. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had previously ruled to the contrary.

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Yes. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for a unanimous court that Section 6404(e)(1) requires that claims challenging a refusal to abate (i.e. forgive) interest be brought exclusively in Tax Court. The Court reasoned that its ruling was consistent with the principle that when Congress enacts a detailed, specific judicial remedy (such as 6404(e)(1)) where there was no remedy before, the new remedy will be regarded as exclusive. The Court insisted on reading the statute as a unified whole, so that all of the procedures outlined by Congress for interest abatement claims applied exclusively to the forum (U.S. Tax Court) that Congress mentioned in the same statute. To do otherwise would be to "disaggregat[e] a statute Congress plainly envisioned as a package deal."


Sorrell, an employee of Norfolk Southern Railway, crashed his company truck while swerving to avoid another company truck. Sorrell suffered injuries and sued Norfolk Southern for damages under the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA). Both Sorrell and the railroad had been negligent in the incident to some extent. Norfolk Southern argued that under the FELA, the "causation standard" - the standard for assigning the blame for an incident - was the same for both the employee and the railroad. According to Norfolk Southern, any damages awarded to Sorrell for the railroad's negligence had to be reduced by the amount of the damages that was attributable to Sorrell's own negligence. (If Sorrell was 60% responsible for the accident, for example, the damages would be reduced by 60%.)
The trial ruled instead that the causation standards were different: the railroad was responsible for any negligence that contributed to the accident, but the employee was only responsible for negligence that directly caused damage. Under this more lenient standard for employee negligence, the trial court awarded Sorrell $1.5 million.
The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed. The Missouri Supreme Court declined to hear the case, but the U.S. Supreme Court granted review.

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No. The Court ruled unanimously that the causation standard for employee negligence is the same as the standard for railroad negligence. The opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts held that "the common law applied the same causation standard to defendant and plaintiff negligence, and FELA did not expressly depart from that approach." In the absence of any explicit indication from the text of FELA, the Court relied on common law principles of negligence. The Court held that Congress had most likely intended for juries to compare each party's contribution under the same standard - a simple "apples to apples" comparison. The Court ruled only that the causation standards were the same; it declined to rule on the question of what the standard of causation should be.


Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd.

Several plaintiffs brought a class action securities fraud lawsuit against Tellabs, Inc., a manufacturer of equipment for fiber optic cable networks. The plaintiffs alleged that Tellabs had misrepresented the strength of its products and earnings in order to conceal the declining value of the company's stock. Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA), plaintiffs bringing securities fraud complaints must allege specific facts that give rise to a "strong inference" that the defendant intended to deceive investors (scienter).
The District Court dismissed the complaints. The court held that the plaintiff's allegations were too vague to establish a "strong inference" of scienter on the part of Tellabs. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed one of the lower court's dismissals. The Seventh Circuit ruled that a plaintiff need only allege "acts from which, if true, a reasonable person could infer that the defendant acted with the required intent." The Court of Appeals decided to consider only the plausibility of the inference of a guilty mental state, and not any competing inferences of an innocent mental state. This decision was due in part to the court's concern that weighing competing inferences was more properly the task of a jury. The Seventh Circuit's ruling conflicted with those of other Courts of Appeals, which required plaintiffs to show that the inference of scienter supported by the alleged facts was more plausible than any competing inference of innocent intent.

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Yes. The Court ruled by a vote of 8-1 that a securities fraud complaint must allege facts establishing an inference of guilty intent that is "cogent and at least as compelling as any opposing inference of nonfraudulent intent." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that opinion for the Court, which held that the Seventh Circuit's more relaxed standard was not strong enough to comport with Congress's intent in PSLRA to limit securities fraud litigation. "The strength of an inference cannot be decided in a vacuum. The inquiry is inherently comparative [...]," the Court ruled. A court must consider each plausible inference of intent, both fraudulent and nonfraudulent, and then decide whether a reasonable person would consider the guilty inference "at least as strong as any opposing inference." The lower court need not have worried about impinging on the jury's prerogatives, because it is the role of judges to decide whether there exists an issue for the jury to hear, and the role a the jury to evaluate the issue. Two concurring Justices, Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., argued that the phrase "strong inference" required that the inference of fraudulent intent be stronger than the competing inferences, while Justice John Paul Stevens's lone dissent argued for a more plaintiff-friendly probable-cause standard.


Brad Hanson worked as State Office Manager for U.S. Senator Mark Dayton. Shortly after Hanson took medical leave for a heart problem, Dayton fired him. Hanson sued under the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, claiming that Dayton had discriminated against him based on a perceived disability. Dayton filed a motion to have the case dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. He argued that he was immunized from the suit by the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution ("for any Speech or Debate in either House, [Senators and Representatives] shall not be questioned in any other Place.") Dayton claimed that because Hanson's duties were directly related to Dayton's legislative functions, the decision to fire him could not be challenged. The District Court denied the motion.
Overturning its own precedent, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the lower court's decision that the Speech or Debate Clause does not bar the suit. The clause can be invoked to exclude evidence that would involve legislative acts, but the D.C. Circuit ruled that it is not a blanket ban on suits involving legislative employees. The employee would simply have to make his case without questioning legislative acts or motivations for legislative acts. Senator Dayton appealed directly to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Accountability Act requires the Court to hear the appeal. He also argued that Hanson's suit should be dismissed because the case had become moot after Dayton retired from the Senate.

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Unanswered, no, and unanswered. The Court ruled that it had no jurisdiction to hear Senator Dayton's appeal and dismissed the case without reaching the merits. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion for the 8-0 Court. The Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 only authorizes direct Supreme Court appeal of rulings "upon the constitutionality" of the statute. The Justices held that the decisions of the lower courts (holding that Hanson's suit should not be dismissed under the Speech or Debate Clause) did not qualify as rulings on the constitutional validity of the Act. They were better characterized as rulings on the Act's scope. Direct appeal was therefore not authorized by the Act, and the Court declined to grant certiorari.


At a school-supervised event, Joseph Frederick held up a banner with the message "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," a slang reference to marijuana smoking. Principal Deborah Morse took away the banner and suspended Frederick for ten days. She justified her actions by citing the school's policy against the display of material that promotes the use of illegal drugs. Frederick sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983, the federal civil rights statute, alleging a violation of his First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The District Court found no constitutional violation and ruled in favor of Morse. The court held that even if there were a violation, the principal had qualified immunity from lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. The Ninth Circuit cited Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District , which extended First Amendment protection to student speech except where the speech would cause a disturbance. Because Frederick was punished for his message rather than for any disturbance, the Circuit Court ruled, the punishment was unconstitutional. Furthermore, the principal had no qualified immunity, because any reasonable principal would have known that Morse's actions were unlawful.

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