Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that purchase mortgages, buy and sell mortgage-backed securities, and guarantee many of the mortgages in the United States. In 2005 and 2006, as the housing market was reaching its peak, Fannie and Freddie over-invested in risky mortgages in an attempt to compete with large investment banks and mortgage lenders. In the aftermath of the 2008 housing crisis, during which Fannie and Freddie required billions of dollars in federal bailouts, Congress created the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), an independent agency to oversee the two GSEs. FHFA was to be led by a single director who could be fired by the President “for cause.”
Upon its creation, FHFA placed Fannie and Freddie in a conservatorship with itself as the conservator and negotiated agreements with the Department of Treasury. Under the agreements, the Treasury would invest billions of dollars in the GSEs in return for compensation consisting in part of fixed dividends. For several years, the GSEs’ dividend obligations exceeded their total earnings, requiring them to draw even more money from the Treasury. FHFA and Treasury negotiated and came up with the “Third Amendment,” which replaced the fixed dividend with a variable quarterly dividend equal to the GSEs’ net worth minus a specified capital reserve.
Collins and others are shareholders in Fannie and Freddie. They filed a lawsuit challenging the actions of FHFA, claiming the agency had destroyed the value of their ownership interests. The shareholders argued that FHFA had exceeded its authority under two federal statutes and that the structure of FHFA violated the constitutional principle of separation of powers. The district court dismissed the statutory claims and granted the government’s motion for summary judgment on the constitutional claim. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the statutory claims but reversed the judgment as to the constitutional claim, finding that the structure of FHFA was unconstitutional but the remedy was to invalidate the provision addressing removal of FHFA’s director. In a deeply divided opinion, the Fifth Circuit, rehearing the case en banc, affirmed as to one statutory claim, reversed as to the other statutory claim, held that FHFA’s structure violated the Constitution, and held that the appropriate remedy was to declare unconstitutional the removal provision, not to invalidate the Third Amendment.

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1. Because the FHFA did not exceed its authority under the Recovery Act as a conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the anti-injunction provisions of the Recovery Act bar the statutory claim brought by shareholders of those entities.
2. The structure of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which restricts the President’s power to remove the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director, violates the separation of powers.
3. It is unnecessary to set aside the entire Third Amendment, but the case is remanded for the lower court to determine the proper remedy based on the harms suffered.
Justice Samuel Alito authored the majority opinion of the Court.
The Court first considered whether the shareholders were barred from bringing their statutory claim. The Recovery Act contains a provision known as the anti-injunction provision, stating that unless review is specifically authorized by a provision or requested by the Director, “no court may take any action to restrain or affect the exercise of powers or functions of the Agency as a conservator or a receiver.” This provision applies only when the FHFA exercised its “powers or functions” “as a conservator or a receiver,” and not when it exceeds those powers or functions. When the FHFA agreed to the Third Amendment, it was acting in the best interests of the regulated entity or the Agency, as required by statute, and thus it was exercising authority granted to it by the Recovery Act. As such, the shareholders are barred from bringing their statutory claim.
The Court then considered the shareholders’ constitutional claim—that the Recovery Act violated the separation of powers by restricting the President’s power to remove the Director. As a threshold matter, the Court determined that the shareholders had standing to bring their claim and that their claim is not moot. Turning to the merits, the Court noted that its decision in Seila Law is “all but dispositive”; there, the Court held Congress could not limit the President’s power to remove the single director of an independent agency (the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in that case). Just as the CFPB was in Seila Law, the FHFA is led by a single director, so Congress similarly cannot limit the President’s power to remove the director of the FHFA.
Finally, the Court considered the relief to which shareholders were entitled based on the success of their constitutional claim. Because the head of the FHFA apparently had the authority to carry out the functions of the office, the Court declined to hold that the Third Amendment must be completely undone and differentiated directors unconstitutionally appointed from those unconstitutionally insulated from removal. The parties disputed whether the unconstitutional restriction caused harm, so the Court remanded the issue for the lower courts to resolve.
Justice Clarence Thomas joined the majority opinion in full but authored a concurring opinion to clarify that “the government does not necessarily act unlawfully even if a removal restriction is unlawful in the abstract.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the majority opinion except as to the question of retrospective relief. In his concurring opinion, Justice Gorsuch argued that the Court should vacate the judgment below with instructions requiring the appellate court to set aside the Director’s ultra vires actions as “contrary to constitutional right” and criticized the Court’s attempt to differentiate unconstitutionally appointed directors from those unconstitutionally insulated.
Justice Elena Kagan authored an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, joined by Justice Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Kagan agreed with the majority that the FHFA acted within its statutory authority but argued that the Court could have reached the conclusion that the FHFA’s for-cause removal provision violates the Constitution on stare decisis alone, rather than using “faulty theoretical premises” that go “further than it needs to.”
Justice Sotomayor authored an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, which Justice Breyer joined. Justice Sotomayor pointed out that the Court’s decision in Seila Law expressly distinguished the FHFA from the CFPB on the ground that the FHFA does not possess “regulatory or enforcement authority remotely comparable to that exercised by the CFPB.” As such, Seila Law should not determine the outcome in this case.


AMG Capital Management, LLC v. Federal Trade Commission

Scott Tucker owned several companies that provided high-interest, short-term loans via several websites. The loans allegedly required customers to agree to terms that were obscured in several long, cross-referenced agreements. In April 2012, the Federal Trade Commission (“Commission”) filed a lawsuit against Tucker and his businesses in federal court in Nevada. The Commission alleged that Tucker’s loan business violated § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (“FTC Act”)’s prohibition against “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.” The Commission asked the court to enjoin Tucker from engaging in consumer lending and to order him to disgorge his profits from the scheme.
The court granted the Commission’s requested relief, enjoined Tucker from providing loans, and ordered him to pay approximately $1.27 billion in equitable monetary relief to the Commission. The court instructed the Commission to direct “as much money as practicable” to “direct redress to consumers,” then to “other equitable relief” related to the practices described in the Commission’s complaint, and finally to the U.S. Treasury as disgorgement. Tucker appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. In relevant part, the Ninth Circuit rejected Tucker’s argument that the FTC Act authorizes district courts only to enter “injunctions,” and that the district court’s order to pay “equitable monetary relief” is not an injunction. The Ninth Circuit noted that its precedent squarely holds that § 13 of the FTC Act “empowers district courts to grant any ancillary relief necessary to accomplish complete justice.”

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Section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act does not authorize the Commission to seek, or a court to award, equitable monetary relief such as restitution or disgorgement. Justice Stephen Breyer authored the unanimous opinion of the Court.
Congress established the Federal Trade Commission in 1914 to enforce the Act’s prohibitions on “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” by initiating administrative proceedings under Section 5 of the Act. Section 13(b) of the Act, which Congress added in 1973, authorizes the Commission to obtain “in proper cases” a permanent injunction in federal court against “any person, partnership, or corporation” that the Commission believes “is violating, or is about to violate, any provision of law” that the Commission enforces. In the late 1970s, the Commission began using Section 13(b) to obtain court orders in consumer protection cases without the prior use of the administrative proceedings in Section 5 of the Act, and in the 1990s, it extended that practice to seek monetary awards in antitrust cases. Today, the Commission frequently uses Section 13(b) to seek equitable monetary relief directly in court.
The Court concluded that the Commission’s practice effectively bypasses the process set forth in Section 5 and was not the intent of the Congress that enacted Section 13(b). The provision does not explicitly authorize the Commission to obtain court-ordered monetary relief, and such relief is foreclosed by the structure and history of the Act.


Noah Duguid brought this lawsuit because Facebook sent him numerous automatic text messages without his consent. Duguid did not use Facebook, yet for approximately ten months, the social media company repeatedly alerted him by text message that someone was attempting to access his (nonexistent) Facebook account.
Duguid sued Facebook for violating a provision of the Telephone and Consumer Protection Act of 1991 that forbids calls placed using an automated telephone dialing system (“ATDS”), or autodialer. Facebook moved to dismiss Duguid’s claims for two alternate reasons. Of relevance here, Facebook argued that the equipment it used to send text messages to Duguid is not an ATDS within the meaning of the statute. The district court dismissed the claim, and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, finding Facebook’s equipment plausibly falls within the definition of an ATDS. TCPA defines an ATDS as a device with the capacity “to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator.” Ninth Circuit precedent further clarifies that an ATDS “need not be able to use a random or sequential generator to store numbers,” only that it “have the capacity to store numbers to be called and to dial such numbers automatically.”

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Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, to qualify as an “automatic telephone dialing system,” a device must have the capacity either to store or to produce a telephone number using a random or sequential number generator. Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored the opinion of the Court.
Section 227(a)(1) defines an autodialer as “equipment which has the capacity...to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and to dial such numbers.” Contrary to Duguid’s contention, the clause “using a random or sequential number generator” modifies both verbs to “store” and to “produce” telephone numbers. Because Facebook’s notification system neither stores nor produces numbers “using a random or sequential number generator,” it is not an autodialer.
Justice Samuel Alito filed an opinion concurring in the judgment to caution about the majority’s overreliance on a canon of statutory construction, that “when there is a straightforward, parallel construction that involves all nouns or verbs in a series,’ a modifier at the end of the list ‘normally applies to the entire series.’”


In July 2016, Chike Uzuegbunam, a student at Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC), began distributing religious literature in an outdoor plaza on GGC’s campus. The campus police stopped him, however, citing GGC’s “Freedom of Expression Policy,” which stated that students were generally permitted to engage in expressive activities only in two designated speech zones, and only after reserving them.
Later, Uzuegbunam reserved one of the designated speech zones to speak to students about his religious beliefs, and campus police again stopped him. According to the police, he was exceeding the scope of his reservation by speaking in addition to handing out literature. After this incident, neither Uzuegbunam nor Joseph Bradford—another GGC student who wishes to speak publicly on campus about his religious beliefs—have attempted to speak publicly or distribute literature on campus.
Uzuegbunam and Bradford filed a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that the school’s policies, both facially and as-applied, violate their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. They also sought nominal damages for the violation of these rights. GGC filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, and while that motion was pending, GGC revised its “Freedom of Expression Policy” to allow students to speak anywhere on campus without having to obtain a permit, except in limited circumstances. It also removed the portion of its student code of conduct that Uzuegbunam and Bradford had challenged. After making these changes, the school filed a motion to dismiss the case as moot.
The district court dismissed the case as moot, concluding that the claims for nominal damages could not save otherwise moot constitutional challenges. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed.

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A constitutional challenge to a school policy that seeks nominal damages is not rendered moot if the constitutional policy is revised during litigation because an award of nominal damages can redress the past injury. Justice Clarence Thomas authored the opinion for the 8-1 majority.
To satisfy the Article III standing, a plaintiff must establish that: (1) they suffered an injury in fact, (2) that the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct, and (3) that the remedy sought from the Court would redress the injury. The parties did not dispute that Uzuegbunam had established the first two elements, leaving only the question whether the remedy he sought—nominal damages—can redress the constitutional violation that Uzuegbunam alleged occurred.
Common law demonstrates that while early English courts required a plaintiff to prove monetary damages, they later “reasoned that every legal injury necessarily causes damage,” so courts award nominal damages even if there is no evidence of other damages. At the time of the Constitution’s ratification, courts were already following the latter approach. Thus, an award of nominal damages does redress any legal injury.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the majority in full but wrote separately to note his agreement with the Chief Justice and the U.S. Solicitor General that “a defendant should be able to accept the entry of a judgment for nominal damages against it and thereby end the litigation without a resolution of the merits.”
Chief Justice John Roberts authored a dissenting opinion, in which he argued that the case is moot because the plaintiffs are no longer students, the challenged restrictions no longer exist, and the plaintiffs have not alleged actual damages. The Chief Justice noted that if nominal damages can preserve a live controversy to establish Article III standing, future plaintiffs have every incentive to “tack[] on a request for a dollar” to ensure that federal courts resolve their disputes.


In 1929, just weeks before the October 1929 global stock market crash, several Jewish art dealers in Germany purchased a collection of medieval reliquaries. During the ensuing global depression, the dealers sold about half the pieces and stored the remainder in the Netherlands. Nazi leaders negotiated with the dealers to buy the remaining pieces; the parties dispute whether this negotiation was made under coercive circumstances. After World War II, the collection was transferred to Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (“SPK”), a German governmental institution that holds the cultural artifacts of former Prussia, and has been on display in a German museum nearly continuously since then.
In 2014, heirs of the Jewish art dealers—respondents in this case—participated in a non-binding mediation process before the Advisory Commission for the Return of Cultural Property Seized as a Result of Nazi Persecution, Especially Jewish Property (the “Advisory Commission”). In what the heirs describe as a “predetermined conclusion, and against the evidence,” the Advisory Commission recommended against restitution of the collection.
The respondents filed a lawsuit in federal court in the District of Columbia, invoking the expropriation exception of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which abrogates foreign sovereign immunity when “rights in property taken in violation of international law are in issue,” as the jurisdictional basis for their claims. Germany and SPK moved to dismiss, and the district court largely denied the motion, holding the claims fell within the scope of the expropriation exception. Germany and SPK appealed, and the U.S. Appeals Court for D.C. affirmed as to jurisdiction, reiterating its holding in a prior case that a genocidal taking is a violation of international law and rejecting Germany’s and SPK’s argument based on principles of international comity.

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The expropriation exception of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(3), incorporates the domestic takings rule, which recognizes that a foreign sovereign’s taking of its own nationals’ property is not a violation of international law. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion for a unanimous Court.
FSIA immunizes foreign sovereigns from the jurisdiction of United States courts, subject to several specific exceptions, including the so-called expropriation exception, which abrogates immunity in any case “in which rights in property taken in violation of international law are in issue.” 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(3). The taking of property by a foreign sovereign from its own nationals, at issue in this case, does not violate international law because it does not interfere with relations among states. Known as the domestic takings rule, this principle has endured, notwithstanding developments in other areas of international human rights law. The text of FSIA’s expropriation exception supports this interpretation, as do other provisions of FSIA. Because Germany took property from its own citizens, that act did not violate international law and thus cannot be the basis for an exemption to sovereign immunity under the FSIA’s expropriation exemption.


The plaintiff/respondents in this case are former enslaved children who were kidnapped and forced to work on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast for up to fourteen hours without pay. They filed a class-action lawsuit against large manufacturers, purchasers, processors, and retail sellers of cocoa beans, including petitioner Nestle USA (and Cargill Inc., petitioner in a consolidated case).
Nestle USA, Inc., and Cargill, Inc., both domestic corporations, effectively control cocoa production in the Ivory Coast and operate “with the unilateral goal of finding the cheapest source of cocoa in the Ivory Coast,” resulting in a “system built on child slavery to depress labor costs.” The respondents allege that the defendants are aware that child slave labor is a problem in the Ivory Coast yet continue to provide financial support and technical farming aid to farmers who use forced child labor.
The children filed a proposed class action in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging that the defendant companies were liable under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) for aiding and abetting child slavery in the Ivory Coast. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss based on its conclusion that corporations cannot be sued under the ATS, and that even if they could, the plaintiffs failed to allege the elements of a claim for aiding and abetting slave labor. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that corporations are liable for aiding and abetting slavery, in part because it found that norms that are “universal and absolute” can provide the basis for an ATS claim against a corporation, and the prohibition of slavery is “universal.” It did not address the defendants’ argument that the complaint sought an extraterritorial application of the ATS, which the U.S. Supreme Court had recently proscribed in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U.S. 108 (2013). On remand, the district court dismissed the claims alleging aiding and abetting slave labor under the ATS, finding that the complaint sought an impermissible extraterritorial application of the ATS.
In the interim, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, 584 U.S. __ (2018), holding that foreign corporations cannot be sued under the ATS. Again the Ninth Circuit reversed, finding that the holding in Jesner does not disturb its prior holding as to the domestic defendants, Nestle USA, Inc., and Cargill, Inc., and that the specific domestic conduct alleged by the plaintiffs falls within the focus of the ATS and does not require extraterritorial application of that statute.

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To plead facts sufficient to support a domestic application of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, plaintiffs must allege more domestic conduct than general corporate activity; the Ninth Circuit’s contrary holding is reversed, and the case is remanded. Justice Clarence Thomas authored an opinion in which a majority of the Court concluded that the respondents here improperly seek extraterritorial application of the ATS.
The Court’s precedents establish “a two-step framework for analyzing extraterritoriality issues.” First, a court must presume that a statute applies only domestically and ask “whether the statute gives a clear, affirmative indication” that rebuts this presumption. Second, where the statute does not apply extraterritorially, plaintiffs must establish that “the conduct relevant to the statute’s focus occurred in the United States.” The ATS does not rebut the presumption, so the question is whether the relevant conduct occurred in the United States.
Nearly all the conduct that the respondents describe as aiding and abetting forced labor—providing training, fertilizer, tools, and cash to overseas farms—occurred in Ivory Coast. As the Court made clear in Kiobel, “mere corporate presence” and activity are not sufficient to support domestic application of the ATS. As such, the respondents did not plead sufficient facts to support domestic application of the ATS.
Joined only by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Thomas wrote that the respondents’ suit fails for a separate reason: the Court cannot create a cause of action—only Congress may do that.
Justice Gorsuch authored a concurring opinion, which Justices Alito and Justice Kavanaugh joined in (different) parts. Justice Gorsuch, joined only by Justice Alito, argued that nothing in the ATS supports the notion that corporations are immune from suit. Then, joined only by Justice Kavanaugh, Justice Gorsuch argued that courts lack discretion to create new causes of action under the ATS and should stop doing so.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, which Justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer joined. Justice Sotomayor argued that Justice Thomas’s interpretation of ATS as limited to the three international law torts that were recognized in 1789 contravenes the Court’s express holding in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004), as well as the text and history of the ATS.
Justice Alito wrote a dissenting opinion arguing that if a particular claim may be brought under the ATS against a natural person who is a United States citizen, a similar claim may be brought against a domestic corporation.


Rosalie Simon and other respondents in this case are Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Hungary. They sued the Republic of Hungary and other defendants in federal court in the United States seeking class certification and class-wide damages for property taken from them during World War II. Importantly, they did not first file a lawsuit in Hungary. Rather, they invoked the expropriation exemption of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in claiming the federal court had jurisdiction, though their substantive claims arose from federal and D.C. common law.
The district court dismissed the suit, holding that FSIA's treaty exception grants the Hungarian defendants immunity, that the 1947 Peace Treaty between the Allied Powers and Hungary set forth an exclusive mechanism for Hungarian Holocaust victims to obtain recovery for their property losses, and that permitting the plaintiffs' lawsuit to proceed under FSIA would conflict with the peace treaty's terms. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal as to the non-property claims and reversed as to the property-based claims. The court remanded the case for the district court to determine whether, as a matter of international comity, it should refrain from exercising jurisdiction over those claims until the plaintiffs exhaust domestic remedies in Hungary.
On remand, the district court again dismissed the case, holding that international comity required that the plaintiffs first exhaust their claims in Hungary. Again, the D.C. Circuit reversed, noting that its intervening decision in Philipp v. Federal Republic of Germany (2018) “squarely rejected” the comity-based ground for declining to exercise jurisdiction.

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The Court vacated the judgment below and remanded the case to the D.C. Circuit for further proceedings consistent with Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp, 592 U.S. ___ (2021).


Texas and New Mexico entered into the Pecos River Compact to resolve disputes about the Pecos River, which traverses both states. A River Master performs annual calculations of New Mexico's water delivery to ensure it complies with its Compact obligations. A party may seek the Supreme Court's review of the River Master's calculations within 30 days of its final determination.
In 2014 and 2015, after heavy rainfall, a federally owned reservoir in New Mexico retained large amounts of flood waters in the Pecos Basin. When the reservoir's authority to hold the water expired, it began to release the water. Texas could not use the released water, so it also released the water to make room for water flowing from New Mexico.
When the River Master calculated and reported New Mexico's obligations for 2014 and 2015, it did not reduce Texas's rights to delivery based on the evaporation of water stored in the federal reservoir in New Mexico that Texas could not use. The 30-day review period lapsed, and New Mexico filed no objection. However, in 2018, New Mexico filed a motion challenging the River Master's calculations. Rather than dismiss the untimely objection, the River Master modified the governing manual to allow retroactive changes to final reports, gave that modification retroactive effect, and amended the 2015 report to credit New Mexico for the evaporative loss.

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Texas’s motion to review the Pecos River Master’s determination is denied. Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the majority opinion of the Court.
New Mexico’s motion for credit for the evaporated water was not untimely. As Texas and New Mexico agreed to postpone the River Master’s resolution of the evaporated water issue, neither party may now object to the negotiation procedure the River Master outlined for resolving the dispute. Additionally, Texas’s request that Net Mexico store water at a facility in New Mexico was based on Texas’s understanding that the water belonged to Texas.
Justice Samuel Alito filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part. He agreed with the Court’s rejection of Texas’s argument that New Mexico forfeited any objection to the River Master’s 2014 report because it did not file an objection by the deadline imposed by the amended decree. However, he would vacate and remand the case for the River Master to redo his analysis in accordance with the relevant terms of the amended decree and the manual.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.


Ming Dai, a native and citizen of China, sought asylum in the United States. An immigration judge denied his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture, although it did not expressly state that Dai’s testimony lacked credibility. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) upheld the immigration judge’s decision. Dai appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which overturned the BIA and the immigration judge's ruling, holding that Dai was entitled to withholding of removal proceedings. The appellate court specifically noted that absent a finding that Dai was not credible, he was entitled to a presumption of credibility.
This case was consolidated with Garland v. Alcaraz-Enriquez, No. 19-1156.

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A court of appeals cannot presume that an immigrant’s testimony is true or credible simply based on an absence of an explicit adverse credibility determination. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the unanimous opinion of the Court.
The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires that a court reviewing a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) accept “administrative findings” of fact as “conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary.” Coupled with the established principle that a reviewing court is “generally not free to impose” additional judge-made procedural requirements on agencies, this requirement means that so long as the record contains “contrary evidence” that a reasonable factfinder could find sufficient, a reviewing court may not overturn the agency’s factual determination.
Although another provision of the INA does describe a presumption of credibility on appeal, it notes that outside the appeal, there is no such presumption of credibility. However, a court’s review of decisions by the BIA is not an appeal in this context. The only “appeal” is from the immigration judge (IJ) to the BIA. Subsequent judicial review is not an appeal but a “petition for review”; as such, there is no presumption of credibility at that stage of review.


BP P.L.C. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore

In July 2018, the Mayor and City of Baltimore filed suit in Maryland state court against 26 oil and gas companies that Maryland says are partly responsible for climate change. The complaint asserted eight causes of action, all founded on Maryland law, and sought monetary damages, civil penalties, and equitable relief. Two of the defendants removed the case to federal court, asserting eight grounds for removal. Baltimore then moved to remand the case back to state court. The district court rejected all eight grounds for removal and granted Baltimore’s motion for remand back to state court.
The defendants appealed the remand order, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the lower court, finding that 28 U.S.C. § 1442 does not provide a proper basis for removal of the suit.

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A federal appellate court has jurisdiction to consider all of a defendant’s grounds for removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d). Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the 7-1 majority opinion of the Court.
Section 1447(d) provides that “an order remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise, except that an order remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed pursuant to section 1442 or 1443 of this title shall be reviewable by appeal or otherwise.” In this case, the defendants had relied on the federal officer removal statute in § 1442, which is precisely one of the situations in which § 1447(d) permits an appeal. While the Fourth Circuit interpreted the provision as authorizing only the part of the district court’s order discussing § 1442, the ordinary meaning of § 1442—particularly the use of the word “order”—does not support that interpretation. Rather, § 1447(d) permits appellate review of the district court’s remand order without qualification. This conclusion is consistent with the Court’s most analogous precedent, Yamaha Motor Corp., U.S.A., v. Calhoun, 516 U.S. 199 (1996), in which it held that another provision, 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), which allows a district court to certify “an order,” is not tied to the particular question formulated by the district court. Finally, the Court found Baltimore’s policy arguments “cannot overcome a clear statutory directive.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored a dissenting opinion, arguing that the Court’s holding allows defendants to “sidestep” § 1447(d)’s bar on appellate review simply by “shoehorning a § 1442 or § 1443 argument into their case for removal.” This, Justice Sotomayor argued, “lets the exception swallow the rule.”
Justice Samuel Alito took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.


The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) maintains a collection of rules governing ownership of broadcast media, intended to promote “competition, diversity, and localism.” In 1996, in response to sentiment that the rules were overly restrictive, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act, of which Section 202(h) required the Commission to review the broadcast ownership rules on a regular basis. The FCC’s performance of its duties under that section has been the subject of extensive litigation.
In 2017, the FCC issued an order eliminating altogether newspaper/broadcast and television/radio cross-ownership rules, and making other substantial changes. It also announced its intention to adopt an incubator program, calling for comment on various aspects of the program. In August 2018, the FCC established a radio incubator program. Numerous parties filed petitions for review challenging various aspects of the FCC’s order. Among them, Petitioner Prometheus Radio Project argued that the FCC did not adequately consider the effect its rule changes would have on ownership of broadcast media by women and racial minorities.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found that although the FCC did “ostensibly” consider this issue, its analysis was “so insubstantial” that it cannot provide a “reliable foundation” for the FCC’s conclusions. As such, the Third Circuit vacated the bulk of the agency’s actions over the past three years as arbitrary and capricious, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s 2017 decision to repeal or modify three of its media ownership rules was not arbitrary or capricious for purposes of the Administrative Procedure Act. Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the majority opinion on behalf of a unanimous Court.
The FCC has broad authority to regulate broadcast media “as public convenience, interest, or necessity requires.” In considering whether to repeal or modify its existing ownership rules, the agency considered evidence in the record and reasonably concluded that the three ownership rules at issue were no longer necessary to serve the agency’s public interest goals of competition, localism, and viewpoint diversity, and that the rule changes were not likely to harm minority and female ownership. The FCC acknowledged the gaps in data on which it relied and noted that despite requesting data supporting the contention that harm would result to minority- and female-owned media companies, it received no such data. Because its decision was based on the record and was reasonable, its decision to repeal or modify three of its rules was not arbitrary or capricious.
Justice Clarence Thomas authored a concurring opinion to argue that the Third Circuit improperly imposed nonstatutory procedural requirements on the FCC by forcing it to consider ownership diversity in the first place.


Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee

Arizona offers two methods of voting: (1) in-person voting at a precinct or vote center either on election day or during an early-vote period, or (2) “early voting” whereby the voter receives the ballot by mail and either mails back the voted ballot or delivers the ballot to a designated drop-off location.
Arizona law permits each county to choose a vote center or a precinct-based system for in-person voting. In counties using the vote-center system, registered voters may vote at any polling location in the county. In counties using the precinct-based system, registered voters may vote only at the designated polling place in their precinct. About 90% of Arizona’s population lives in counties using the precinct-based system. If a voter arrives at a polling place and is not listed on the voter rolls for that precinct, the voter may cast a provisional ballot. After election day, election officials review all provisional ballots to determine the voter’s identity and address. If officials determine the voter voted out of precinct (OOP), the county discards the ballot in its entirety, even if (as is the case in most instances), the OOP voter properly voted (i.e., was eligible to vote) in most of the races on the ballot. The Democratic National Committee challenged this OOP policy as violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it adversely and disparately affects Arizona’s Native American, Hispanic, and African American citizens.
Arizona law has permitted early voting for over 25 years, allowing voters to request an early vote-by-mail ballot either on a per-election basis or on a permanent basis. Some counties permit voters to drop their early ballots in special drop boxes, but all counties permit the return of early ballots by mail, or in person at a polling place, vote center, or authorized election official’s office. Many voters (particularly minorities) who vote early use third parties to collect and drop off voted ballots, which, until 2016, was permissible. Despite “no evidence of any fraud in the long history of third-party ballot collection in Arizona,” Republican legislators in 2016 passed H.B. 2023, which criminalized the collection and delivery of another person’s ballot. The DNC challenged H.B. 2023 as violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the Fifteenth Amendment because it was enacted with discriminatory intent.
After a ten-day bench trial, the district court found in favor of Arizona on all claims. The DNC appealed, and a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. A majority of the full Ninth Circuit agreed to rehear the case en banc, and the court reversed, finding the district court “clearly erred.”

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Neither Arizona’s out-of-precinct policy nor H.B. 2023 violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), and H.B. 2023 was not enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the 6-3 majority opinion of the Court.
As a threshold matter, the petitioner, Arizona Attorney General Brnovich, has standing to appeal the decision below because he is an authorized representative of the state. Additionally, the Court declined to establish a test to govern all VRA § 2 challenges; its decision applies only to the facts of the cases below.
This is the first time the Court has considered how Section 2 of the VRA applies to time, place, or manner voting rules. The text of that provision prohibits a state from abridging the right to vote on account of race or color. Although the statute requires equal openness and equal opportunity to vote, they are not separate requirements; equal openness is the “core.” This openness is assessed using the “totality of the circumstances.”
Neither Arizona’s out-of-precinct policy nor H.B. 2023, the ballot-collection law, violates Section 2 of the VRA. Neither imposes burdens on voters that exceed the “usual burdens of voting,” and any racial disparity in burdens is “small in absolute terms.” The state has legitimate and important interests in ensuring even distribution of voters among polling places and preserving the integrity of election procedures. Finally, the Court accepted the district court’s finding that H.B. 2023 was not enacted with a discriminatory purpose.
Justice Neil Gorsuch concurred with the majority opinion in full but wrote a concurring opinion, which Justice Clarence Thomas joined, to note that the parties did not raise the question (and therefore the Court did not decide) whether the VRA provides an implied cause of action under Section 2.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Kagan argued that the majority’s decision narrowly reads the language of Section 2 of the VRA in a way that undermines its essential purpose to guarantee that members of every racial group have equal voting opportunities.


The Patent Trial and Appeal Board consists of a Director, a Deputy Director, a Commissioner for Patents, a Commissioner for Trademarks, and administrative patent judges. Under 35 U.S.C. § 6(a), the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), appoints Administrative Patent Judges (APJs) to the Board. Among other responsibilities, APJs decide questions of patentability in inter partes review, a “hybrid proceeding” with “adjudicatory characteristics similar to court proceedings.”
Arthrex owns a patent that was subject to inter partes review, and a three-judge panel consisting of three APJs issued a final written decision finding the claims unpatentable. Arthrex appealed to the U.S. Circuit Court for the Federal Circuit, claiming that the appointment of APJs violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Federal Circuit agreed, finding that the statute as currently constructed makes APJs principal officers, who must be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The court severed the portion of the Patent Act restricting removal of the APJs in order to render them inferior officers and thus remedy the constitutional appointment problem.

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The unreviewable authority wielded by APJs during inter partes review is incompatible with their appointment by the Secretary to an inferior office. Chief Justice John Roberts authored the opinion of the Court, in which he was joined in that holding by Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Having found a constitutional violation, Chief Justice Roberts cured the defect by requiring that the Director of the USPTO hold the ultimate authority to review the final outcome of inter partes review proceedings--a departure from the statutory scheme passed by Congress. Though only Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined this part of the opinion, a concurring opinion authored by Justice Stephen Breyer and joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan approved of the remedy despite disagreeing with the holding that made it necessary.
Justice Gorsuch filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. While he was part of the majority that held APJs wielded unconstitutional authority, his remedy would have been to invalidate the statutory scheme and send the problem to Congress for a fix that complied with the Constitution.
Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the majority’s approach. He concluded both that the APJs were inferior officers under the Constitution under the statutory scheme approved by Congress, and that the appropriate remedy once the Court held otherwise was to have vacated the decision of the APJs at the heart of the dispute.


A California Highway Patrol officer observed a parked car “playing music very loudly,” and then the driver, Arthur Gregory Lange, honked the horn four or five times despite there being no other vehicles nearby. Finding this behavior unusual, the officer began following Lange, intending to conduct a traffic stop. After following Lange for several blocks, the officer activated his overhead lights, and Lange “failed to yield.” Lange turned into a driveway and drove into a garage. The officer followed and interrupted the closing garage door. When asked whether Lange had noticed the officer, Lange replied that he had not. Based on evidence obtained from this interaction, Lange was charged with two Vehicle Code misdemeanors and an infraction.
Lange moved to suppress the evidence obtained in the garage. At the suppression hearing, the prosecutor argued that Lange committed a misdemeanor when he failed to stop after the officer activated his overhead lights and that the officer had probable cause to arrest Lange for this misdemeanor offense. Based on this probable cause, the prosecutor argued that exigent circumstances justified the officer’s warrantless entry into Lange’s garage. Lange’s attorney argued that a reasonable person in Lange's position would not have thought he was being detained when the officer activated his overhead lights, and the officer should not have entered Lange's garage without a warrant. The court denied Lange’s motion to suppress, and the appellate division affirmed. Lange pled no contest and then appealed the denial of his suppression motion a second time. The appellate division affirmed Lange's judgment of conviction.
In the meantime, Lange filed a civil suit, asking the court to overturn the suspension of his license, and the civil court granted the petition after determining Lange's arrest was unlawful. The court reasoned that the “hot pursuit” doctrine did not justify the warrantless entry because when the officer entered Lange's garage, all the officer knew was that Lange had been playing his music too loudly and had honked his horn unnecessarily, which are infractions, not felonies.
Based on the inconsistent findings of the courts, Lange petitioned for transfer to the California Court of Appeal, which concluded that Lange's arrest was lawful and affirmed the judgment of conviction.

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Pursuit of a fleeing misdemeanor suspect does not categorically qualify as an exigent circumstance justifying a warrantless entry into a home. Justice Elena Kagan authored the majority opinion of the Court.
The Fourth Amendment ordinarily requires a police officer to obtain a warrant to enter a home, but under settled law, an officer may enter a home without a warrant under certain specific circumstances, including exigency. The Court has recognized exigent circumstances when an officer must act to prevent imminent injury, the destruction of evidence, or a felony suspect’s escape.
That a suspect is fleeing does not categorically create exigency. In United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38 (1976), the Court recognized that the “hot pursuit” of a felony suspect created exigency that justified warrantless entry into a home. However, that case did not address hot pursuit of misdemeanor suspects. Rather, the Court’s Fourth Amendment precedents support a case-by-case assessment of the exigencies arising from a particular suspect’s flight.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored a concurring opinion noting that the reasoning of the majority and that of Chief Justice John Roberts in his opinion concurring in the judgment are not so dissimilar as they might seem at first. Rather, cases involving fleeing misdemeanor suspects “will almost always” involve a recognized exigent circumstance” such that warrantless entry into a home is justified.
Justice Clarence Thomas authored an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. Justice Thomas noted that the general case-by-case rule described by the majority is subject to historical, categorical exceptions. Joined by Justice Kavanaugh, Justice Thomas also noted that the federal exclusionary rule does not apply to evidence discovered in the course of pursuing a fleeing suspect.
Chief Justice Roberts authored an opinion concurring in the judgment, which Justice Samuel Alito joined. The Chief Justice argued that it is well established that the flight, not the underlying offense, justifies the “hot pursuit” exception.


Willie Earl Carr sought disability benefits from the Social Security Administration (“SSA”), but an administrative law judge (“ALJ”) denied his claim and the agency’s Appeals Council declined to review the decision. Carr appealed to a federal district court.
While his case in the district court was pending, the U.S. Supreme Court held, in Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission, that Securities and Exchange Commission ALJs are “inferior officers” under the Appointments Clause of Article II of the U.S. Constitution, and as inferior officers, they must be appointed by the President, a court, or the head of the agency.
In response to Lucia, the SSA Commissioner appointed the SSA’s ALJs. After these appointment actions, Carr raised a claim for the first time that the ALJs who had rejected their claims had not been properly appointed under the Appointments Clause.
The district court agreed, vacating the SSA’s decision and remanding the case for new hearings before constitutionally appointed ALJs. By agreeing on the merits, the district court held that Carr had not waived his right to raise an Appointments Clause claim by failing to raise that claim during the administrative proceedings. The SSA Commissioner appealed, arguing that Carr did waive the Appointments Clause challenge by failing to raise it earlier. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit agreed and reversed the lower court.

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Persons seeking disability benefits under the Social Security Act need not argue at the agency level that the administrative law judges hearing their disability claims were unconstitutionally appointed for that argument to be preserved on appeal. Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored the majority opinion.
Generally, administrative review schemes require parties to give the agency an opportunity to address an issue before seeking judicial review of that question, known as “issue exhaustion.” However, if there is not a statute or regulation that imposes an issue-exhaustion requirement, courts decide whether to require issue exhaustion in a manner consistent with “the rule that appellate courts will not consider arguments not raised before trial courts.” In this case, issue exhaustion was not necessary.
First, agency adjudications are not well suited to address structural constitutional challenges because such issues usually fall outside the adjudicators’ areas of technical expertise. Second, issue exhaustion is generally not required when the agency is unable to provide meaningful relief to resolve the issue. As such, the Courts of Appeals erred in imposing an issue-exhaustion requirement on petitioners’ Appointments Clause claims.
Justice Clarence Thomas authored an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, which Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett joined. Justice Thomas agreed with the Court that there was no need for an exhaustion rule based solely on the conclusion that the proceedings bear little resemblance to adversarial litigation.
Justice Stephen Breyer authored an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, noting that in his view, the “nonadversarial nature” of the agency’s procedures is generally irrelevant to whether the ordinary rule requiring issue exhaustion ought to apply.” However, the Appointments Clause challenges at issue fall into the well-established exceptions for constitutional and futile claims.


In 1975, California enacted the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (“ALRA”), which, among other things, created the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (“the Board”). Shortly after Act went into effect and established the Board, the Board promulgated a regulation allowing union organizers access to agricultural employees at employer worksites under specific circumstances.
Cedar Point Nursery, an Oregon corporation, operates a nursery in Dorris, California, that raises strawberry plants for producers. It employs approximately 100 full-time workers and more than 400 seasonal workers at that location. On October 29, 2015, organizers from the United Farm Workers union ("the UFW") entered the nursery, without providing prior written notice of intent to take access as required by the regulation. The UFW allegedly disrupted the workers, and some workers left their work stations to join the protest, while a majority of workers did not.
Sometime later, the UFW served Cedar Point with written notice of intent to take access. Cedar Point filed a charge against the UFW with the Board, alleging that the UFW had violated the access regulation by failing to provide the required written notice before taking access. The UFW likewise filed a countercharge, alleging that Cedar Point had committed an unfair labor practice.
Cedar Point then sued the Board in federal district court alleging that the access regulation, as applied to them, amounted to a taking without compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment, and an illegal seizure, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The district court granted the Board’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, and Cedar Point appealed. Reviewing the district court’s order granting the motion to dismiss de novo, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded that the access regulation does not violate either provision, and it affirmed the lower court.

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The California regulation granting labor organizations a “right to take access” to an agricultural employer’s property to solicit support for unionization constitutes a per se physical taking. Chief Justice John Roberts authored the 6-3 majority opinion of the Court.
The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which applies to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits the government from taking private property for public use “without just compensation.” There are two types of takings: physical appropriations of land and imposition of regulations that restrict the landowner’s ability to use the land. Physical takings must be compensated. Use restrictions are evaluated using a flexible test developed in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104 (1978), which balances factors such as the “economic impact of the regulation, its interference with reasonable investment-backed expectations, and the character of the government action.”
In this case, the California regulation granting labor organizations a “right to take access” to an agricultural employer’s property is a physical taking. The regulation does not restrict the growers’ use of their own property, but instead appropriates the owners’ right to exclude third parties from their land, “one of the most treasured rights” of property ownership. By granting access to third-party union organizers, even for a limited time, the regulation confers a right to physically invade the growers’ property and thus constitutes a physical taking.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored a concurring opinion describing another way the Court could have arrived at the same conclusion, using a different precedent.
Justice Stephen Breyer authored a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined. Justice Breyer argued that the regulation does not physically appropriate growers’ property; rather, it temporarily regulates their right to exclude others and as such should be subject to the “flexible” Penn Central rule.


On July 21, 2020, President Donald Trump announced that the population figures used to determine the apportionment of Congress would, in a reversal of long-standing practice, exclude non-citizens who are not lawfully present in the United States. To implement this new policy, the President ordered the Secretary of Commerce to provide him two sets of numbers for each state. The first number was the total population as determined in the 2020 census and the second, the total population as determined in the 2020 census minus the number of "aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status." The President left it to the Secretary to determine how to calculate the latter figure, but since the 2020 census did not not collect information regarding citizenship status, let alone legal immigration status in this country, it remained unclear how the Secretary would obtain that number.
Immediately after the President filed the memorandum, two sets of plaintiffs—a coalition of 22 States and D.C., 15 cities and counties, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors (the "Governmental Plaintiffs"); and a coalition of non-governmental organizations—challenged the decision to exclude illegal aliens from the apportionment base for Congress on the ground that it violates the Constitution, statutes governing the census and apportionment, and other laws.
The federal district court found for the plaintiffs, concluding that by directing the Secretary to provide two sets of numbers, one derived from the census and one not, and announcing that it is the policy of the United States to use the latter to apportion the House, the memorandum violated the statutory scheme. In addition, the court concluded that the memorandum violated the statute governing apportionment because, so long as they reside in the United States, illegal aliens qualify as “persons in” a “State” as Congress used those words.

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In a per curiam (unsigned) opinion, the Court held that the plaintiffs in this case had not shown standing and that their claims were not ripe for adjudication. As such, the Court vacated the District Court’s judgment and remanded the case with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.
For a federal court to have jurisdiction to hear a case, the plaintiffs must demonstrate they have standing, which requires “an injury that is concrete, particularized, and imminent rather than conjectural or hypothetical. Further, the case must be “ripe”—that is, it must not depend on “contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all.”
Although the President clearly expressed his desire to exclude unlawfully present noncitizens from the apportionment base “to the extent practicable,” it remains mere conjecture whether and how the Executive Branch might eventually implement this general statement of policy. Moreover, the plaintiffs had suffered no concrete harm from the policy itself, because the policy “does not require them ‘to do anything or to refrain from doing anything.’” As such, the courts lack jurisdiction to hear the case because the plaintiffs have not demonstrated Article III standing or that the case is ripe for review.
Justice Stephen Breyer authored a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined. The dissent argued that the plaintiffs did have standing based on its own precedents in census cases, which have recognized standing based on a substantial risk of anticipated apportionment harm. Justice Breyer also argued that the question is ripe for resolution, and as such, that the plaintiffs should prevail on the merits because “the plain meaning of the governing statutes, decades of historical practice, and uniform interpretations from all three branches of Government demonstrate that aliens without lawful status cannot be excluded from the decennial census solely on account of that status.”


Edward Caniglia and his wife Kim got into a heated argument, during which Caniglia displayed a gun and told Kim something to the effect of “shoot me now.” Fearing for her husband’s state of mind, Kim decided to vacate the premises for the night. The next morning, she asked an officer from the Cranston Police Department to accompany her back to the house because she was worried that her husband might have committed suicide or otherwise harmed himself.
Kim and several police officers went to the house, and while the encounter was non-confrontational, the ranking officer on the scene determined that Caniglia was imminently dangerous to himself and others and asked him to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, which Caniglia agreed to. While Caniglia was at the hospital, the ranking officer (with telephone approval from a superior officer) seized two of Caniglia’s guns, despite knowing that Caniglia did not consent to their seizure.
Caniglia was evaluated but not admitted as an inpatient. In October of 2015, after several unsuccessful attempts to retrieve his firearms from the police, Caniglia’s attorney formally requested their return, and they were returned in December. Subsequently he filed a lawsuit under Section 1983 alleging the seizure of his firearms constituted a violation of his rights under the Second and Fourth Amendments. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants, and the Caniglia appealed. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized “community caretaking” as an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in the context of a vehicle search, whether that concept applies in the context of a private home was a matter of first impression within the First Circuit. The appellate court held that the doctrine does apply in the context of a private home and affirmed the lower court’s decision.

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The “community caretaking” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, described in Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433 (1973), does not extend to the home. Justice Clarence Thomas authored the unanimous opinion, holding that police officers’ seizure of the petitioner’s guns from his home violated his Fourth Amendment right against warrantless searches and seizures.
The lower court’s conclusion that the “community caretaking” exception permitted the officers to seize the petitioner’s guns relied on an extension of Cady, which held that a warrantless search of an impounded vehicle for an unsecured firearm did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The Court’s jurisprudence makes clear that vehicle searches are different in kind from home searches, the latter of which are subject to the highest level of protection the Constitution affords. The Court has repeatedly declined to expand the scope or number of exceptions to the warrant requirement to permit warrantless entry into the home, and it declined to do so here.
Chief Justice John Roberts authored a concurring opinion, which Justice Stephen Breyer joined, to clarify that the Court’s decision does not disturb the Court’s holding in Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398 (2006), that a peace officer does not need a warrant to enter a home in situations where there is a “need to assist persons who are seriously injured or threatened with such injury.”
Justice Samuel Alito authored a concurring opinion to note that while he agrees with the Court’s opinion, there are certain related questions the Court did not decide.


Goldman Sachs Group Inc. v. Arkansas Teacher Retirement System

Shareholders of Goldman Sachs Group filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that the company and several of its executives committed securities fraud by misrepresenting the company’s freedom from, or ability to combat, conflicts of interest in its business practices. The district court certified a shareholder class, but in 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated the order because the district court did not apply the “preponderance of the evidence” standard in determining whether Goldman had rebutted the legal presumption that the shareholders relied on Goldman’s alleged misstatements in purchasing its stock at the market price (known as the Basic presumption). On remand, the district court certified the class once more, and this time, the Second Circuit affirmed the district court's order certifying the class. The court concluded that, on remand, the district court had applied the correct legal standard and did not abuse its discretion in rejecting Goldman’s rebuttal evidence to conclude that it had failed to rebut the Basic presumption.

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While a defendant in a securities class action may point to the generic nature of the alleged misrepresentations to show that those statements had no impact on the price of the security in overcoming the Basic presumption, that defendant bears not only the burden of production, but also the burden of persuasion. Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the opinion of the Court, in which she was joined in full by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Brett Kavanaugh. Justice Neil Gorsuch—joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—concurred in part and in the judgment, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor concurred in part but dissented from the judgment.
Justice Barrett wrote, “The parties now agree, as do we, that the generic nature of a misrepresentation often in important evidence of price impact courts should consider at class certification” and not just at the merits phase of securities litigation. Because the Court concluded that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit may not have properly considered the generic nature of the alleged statements, it vacated that court’s judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. As for which party bears the burden of persuasion, the Court held that the Second Circuit properly allocated the burden to the defendant but noted that “the burden of persuasion should rarely be outcome determinative” at the class certification stage.
While concurring in the decision to remand the case because the Court of Appeal did not sufficiently consider the generic nature of the alleged misstatements, Justice Gorsuch disagreed that the defendant should bear the burden of persuasion in overcoming the Basic presumption.
Justice Sotomayor, on the other hand, dissented from the Court’s judgment because she believed the Court of Appeal had, in fact, adequately considered the generic nature of the alleged misstatements before granting class certification. In other words, while she agreed with the entirety of the Court’s analysis of how to proceed, she believed that the Second Circuit had met that standard and would not have vacated its ruling.


In February 2011, Sergio Ramirez went with his wife and father-in-law to purchase a car. When the dealership ran a joint credit check on Ramirez and his wife, it discovered that Ramirez was on a list maintained by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), of people with whom U.S. companies cannot do business (i.e. “a terrorist list”). Ramirez and his wife still bought a car that day, but they purchased it in her name only. TransUnion, the company that had prepared the report, eventually removed the OFAC alert from any future credit reports that might be requested by or for Ramirez.
On behalf of himself and others similarly situated, Ramirez TransUnion in federal court, alleging that the company’s actions violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The district court certified a class of everyone who, during a six-month period, had received a letter from TransUnion stating that their name was a “potential match” for one on the OFAC list, although only a fraction of those class members had their credit reports sent to a third party.
The jury awarded each class member nearly $1,000 for violations of the FCRA and over $6,000 in punitive damages, for a total verdict of over $60 million. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the statutory damages but reduced the punitive damages to approximately $32 million.
TransUnion asked the Supreme Court to resolve two questions, of which the Court agreed to decide only the first.

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Only a plaintiff concretely harmed by a defendant’s violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act has Article III standing to seek damages against that private defendant in federal court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the 5-4 majority opinion.
To have Article III standing to sue in federal court, a plaintiff must show that she suffered concrete injury in fact, that the injury was fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct, and that the injury is likely to be redressed by a favorable ruling by the court. To show a concrete injury, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the asserted harm is similar to a harm traditionally recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit in American courts—i.e., a close historical or common-law analogue for their asserted injury.
Of the 8,185 class members, TransUnion provided third parties with credit reports containing OFAC alerts for only 1,853 individuals; these individuals have standing. The remaining 6,332 class members stipulated that TransUnion did not provide their credit information to any potential creditors during the designated class period and thus have failed to demonstrate concrete harm required for Article III standing. Mere risk of future harm is insufficient to establish standing.
Justice Clarence Thomas authored a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Justice Thomas argued that injury in law to a private right has historically been sufficient to establish “injury in fact” for standing purposes, and each class member in this case has demonstrated violation of their private rights.
Justice Kagan authored a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Breyer and Sotomayor arguing that Congress expressly allowed these plaintiffs to bring their claim of violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, yet the majority disallows them from doing so. Justice Kagan noted her slightly different understanding of the “concrete injury” requirement for Article III standing that Justice Thomas described in his dissent but suggested such a difference would not lead to a different outcome.


National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston

In NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, 468 U.S. 85 (1984), the Supreme Court struck down the NCAA’s television plan as violating antitrust law, but in so doing it held that the rules regarding eligibility standards for college athletes are subject to a different and less stringent analysis than other types of antitrust cases. Because of this lower standard, the NCAA has long argued that antitrust law permits them to restrict athlete compensation to promote competitive equity and to distinguish college athletics from professional sports.
Several Division 1 football and basketball players filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, arguing that its restrictions on “non-cash education-related benefits,” violated antitrust law under the Sherman Act. The district court found for the athletes, holding that the NCAA must allow for certain types of academic benefits, such as “computers, science equipment, musical instruments and other tangible items not included in the cost of attendance calculation but nonetheless related to the pursuit of academic studies.” However, the district court held that the NCAA may still limit cash or cash-equivalent awards for academic purposes. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, recognizing the NCAA’s interest in “preserving amateurism,” but concluding nevertheless that its practices violated antitrust law.

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The NCAA’s rules restricting certain education-related benefits for student-athletes violate federal antitrust laws. Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Neil Gorsuch upheld the trial court’s ruling. The Court affirmed that the traditional “rule of reason” standard was appropriate in this case and rejected the NCAA’s call for a more deferential standard. Because the student-athletes who brought the lawsuit did not appeal the Ninth Circuit’s ruling upholding the NCAA’s rules “untethered to education,” the Court did not pass judgment on that aspect of the case.
In affirming the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, the Court clarified that a prior statement made in the 1984 case NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma noting that the NCAA’s role in maintaining the “revered tradition of amateurism” was “entirely consistent with the goals of the Sherman Act” was not a shield against all challenges to compensation restrictions, as such rules were not even at issue in that case. Instead, there was nothing so unique about the NCAA or amateur sports to alter the traditional method of analysis applied to claims of antitrust violations.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that while other rules limiting student-athlete compensation unrelated to academics remain in place because they were not properly before the Court, this decision makes clear that the same traditional “rule of reason” analysis would apply. He concluded, “there are serious questions whether the NCAA’s remaining compensation rules can pass muster under ordinary rule of reason scrutiny.”


The California Attorney General’s office has a policy requiring charities to provide the state, on a confidential basis, information about their major donors, purportedly to help the state protect consumers from fraud and the misuse of their charitable contributions. Petitioner Americans for Prosperity (and the petitioner in the consolidated case, Thomas More Law Center) either failed to file or filed redacted lists of their major donors with the California Attorney General’s office, despite filing complete lists with the federal Internal Revenue Service, as required by federal law.
In response to demands by the California Attorney General that they file the lists, the organizations filed a lawsuit alleging that the filing requirement unconstitutionally burdened their First Amendment right to free association by deterring individuals from financially supporting them. The organizations provided evidence that although the state is required to keep donor names private, the state’s database was vulnerable to hacking, and many donor names were repeatedly released to the public. Based in part on this finding, the district court granted both organizations’ motions for a preliminary injunction and then ultimately found for them after a trial, holding that the organizations and their donors were entitled to First Amendment protection under the principles established in the Supreme Court’s decision in NAACP v. Alabama. In so holding, the court reasoned that the government’s filing demands were not the “least restrictive means” of obtaining the information and thus did not satisfy “strict scrutiny.”
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, based on its conclusion that “exacting scrutiny” rather than “strict scrutiny” was the appropriate standard, and “exacting scrutiny” requires that the government show that the disclosure and reporting requirements are justified by a compelling government interest and that the legislation is narrowly tailored to serve that interest.
The Ninth Circuit denied the petition for a rehearing en banc.

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California’s disclosure requirement is facially invalid because it burdens donors’ First Amendment rights and is not narrowly tailored to an important government interest. Chief Justice John Roberts authored the opinion of the Court.
Compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy is a type of restraint on freedom of association. Such a restraint is subject to “exacting scrutiny,” which requires “a substantial relation between the disclosure requirement and a sufficiently important governmental interest.” Though the government-mandated disclosure regime need not be the “least restrictive means” of achieving the government’s interest, it must be “narrowly tailored” to achieve it.
California’s disclosure requirement is “dramatically mismatch[ed]” to the state’s interest in preventing charitable fraud and self-dealing, imposing an unjustifiable “widespread burden on donors’ associational rights.”
Justice Clarence Thomas authored an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. Justice Thomas would apply strict scrutiny to the disclosure requirement, leading to the same conclusion that it is facially invalid. However, Justice Thomas took issue with the Court’s opinion that the statute is unconstitutional in all applications.
Justice Samuel Alito authored an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which Justice Neil Gorsuch joined. Justice Alito disagreed with the majority that precedents establish that exacting scrutiny applies in these types of cases. He noted that the outcome is the same under either level of scrutiny, so he would not decide what level of scrutiny applies.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan joined. Justice Sotomayor argued that the majority accepts, without requiring the plaintiffs to show, an actual First Amendment burden. In effect, Justice Sotomayor argued, the majority allows regulated entities to avoid obligations “by vaguely waving toward First Amendment ‘privacy concerns.’”


In 2007, Tracy A. Greer pleaded guilty to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), along with numerous other charges not directly relevant to this case. In the plea agreement, the parties agreed that Greer was “punishable as an Armed Career Criminal” based on his five prior convictions for aggravated burglary under Ohio law. The district court agreed and sentenced Greer to 272 months’ imprisonment.
In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the “residual clause” of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), and in 2016 it made that invalidation retroactive on collateral review. Greer moved to vacate his sentence, but the district court denied his motion, holding that his convictions qualified under the ACCA’s enumerated-offenses clause, not the residual clause. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed.
In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Rehaif v. United States, which held that when a person is charged with possessing a gun while prohibited from doing so under 18 U.S.C. § 922, the prosecution must prove both that the accused knew that they possessed a gun and that they knew they held the relevant status. The Court granted Greer’s petition for writ of certiorari, vacated the judgment affirming his conviction, and remanded for reconsideration in light of Rehaif.
On remand, Greer requested that the Eleventh Circuit vacate his conviction or, in the alternative, grant him a new trial, because the prosecution did not prove, nor was the jury instructed to find, that he knew he was a felon when he possessed the firearm.
The Eleventh Circuit concluded that although Greer had shown plain error, he could not prove that he was prejudiced by the errors or that they affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of his trial. To reach this conclusion, the court looked at the entire trial record and Greer’s previous convictions, not merely the evidence submitted to the jury. Greer again petitioned the Supreme Court for review.

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A federal appellate court reviewing the decision of a lower court for plain error may review matters outside the trial record to determine whether the error affected a defendant’s substantial rights, and an error under Rehaif v. United States, is not a basis for plain-error relief unless the defendant first makes a sufficient argument or representation on appeal that he would have presented evidence at trial that he did not in fact know he was a felon. Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the majority opinion.
Rule 51(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides that a defendant can preserve a claim of error “by informing the court” of the claimed error when the relevant “court ruling or order is made or sought.” Rule 52(b) allows an appellate court to review for “plain error” “even though it was not brought to the court’s attention” if it “affects substantial rights.” Thus, the defendant must show that, if
the district court had correctly instructed the jury on the mental culpability element of a felon-in-possession offense, there is a “reasonable probability” that he would have been acquitted. If the defendant does not dispute the fact of his prior convictions, he has not met this burden. Such is the case here. Further, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that an appellate court conducting plain-error review may consider the entire record—not just the record from the particular proceeding where the error occurred.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Justice Sotomayor noted that the Court’s analysis does not extend to harmless-error review and that the knowledge-of-status element is an element just like any other, which the government must prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, while defendants seeking relief based on Rehaif errors bear must prove only plain error. She joined the majority as to Greer’s case but as to Gary in the consolidated case would vacate the judgment below and remand so the Fourth Circuit below could address the question whether Gary can prove that the error affected his substantial rights.


B.L., a student at Mahanoy Area High School (MAHS), tried out for and failed to make her high school's varsity cheerleading team, making instead only the junior varsity team. Over a weekend and away from school, she posted a picture of herself on Snapchat with the caption “Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything.” The photo was visible to about 250 people, many of whom were MAHS students and some of whom were cheerleaders. Several students who saw the captioned photo approached the coach and expressed concern that the snap was inappropriate. The coaches decided B.L.’s snap violated team and school rules, which B.L. had acknowledged before joining the team, and she was suspended from the junior varsity team for a year.
B.L. sued the school under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging (1) that her suspension from the team violated the First Amendment; (2) that the school and team rules were overbroad and viewpoint discriminatory; and (3) that those rules were unconstitutionally vague. The district court granted summary judgment in B.L.’s favor, ruling that the school had violated her First Amendment rights. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed.

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The First Amendment limits but does not entirely prohibit regulation of off-campus student speech by public school officials, and, in this case, the school district’s decision to suspend B.L. from the cheerleading team for posting to social media vulgar language and gestures critical of the school violates the First Amendment. Justice Stephen Breyer authored the 8-1 majority opinion of the Court.
Although public schools may regulate student speech and conduct on campus, the Court’s precedents make clear that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression” when they enter campus. The Court has also recognized that schools may regulate student speech in three circumstances: (1) indecent, lewd, or vulgar speech on school grounds, (2) speech promoting illicit drug use during a class trip, and (3) speech that others may reasonably perceive as “bear[ing] the imprimatur of the school,” such as that appearing in a school-sponsored newspaper. Moreover, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), the Court held that schools may also regulate speech that “materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.”
The school’s interests in regulating these types of student speech do not disappear when the speaker is off campus. Three features of off-campus speech diminish the need for First Amendment leeway: (1) off-campus speech normally falls within the zone of parental responsibility, rather than school responsibility, (2) off-campus speech regulations coupled with on-campus speech regulations would mean a student cannot engage in the regulated type of speech at all, and (3) the school itself has an interest in protecting a student’s unpopular off-campus expression because the free marketplace of ideas is a cornerstone of our representative democracy.
In this case, B.L. spoke in circumstances where her parents, not the school, had responsibility, and her speech did not cause “substantial disruption” or threaten harm to the rights of others. Thus, her off-campus speech was protected by the First Amendment, and the school’s decision to suspend her violated her First Amendment rights.
Justice Samuel Alito authored a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, explaining his understanding of the Court’s decision. Justice Alito argued that a key takeaway of the Court’s decision is that “the regulation of many types of off-premises student speech raises serious First Amendment concerns, and school officials should proceed cautiously before venturing into this territory.”
Justice Clarence Thomas authored a dissenting opinion, arguing that schools have historically had the authority to regulate speech when it occurs off campus, so long as it has a proximate tendency to harm the school, its faculty or students, or its programs. Justice Thomas viewed the facts of this case as falling squarely within that rule and thus would have held that the school could properly suspend B.L. for her speech.


Petitioners Jose Sanchez and his wife were citizens of El Salvador who entered the United States without inspection or admission in 1997 and again in 1998. Following a series of earthquakes in El Salvador in 2001, they applied for and received temporary protected status (TPS) and were subsequently permitted to remain in the United States due to periodic extensions of TPS eligibility for El Salvadoran nationals by the Attorney General.
In 2014, Sanchez and his wife applied to become lawful permanent residents under 8 U.S.C. § 1255. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) denied their applications, finding that Sanchez was “statutorily ineligible” for adjustment of status because he had not been admitted into the United States. They challenged the denial in federal district court, and the district court granted their motion for summary judgment, holding a grant of TPS meets § 1255(a)’s requirement that an alien must be “inspected and admitted or paroled” to be eligible for adjustment of status. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed, finding no support in the text, context, structure, or purpose of the statutes for the claim that a grant of TPS may serve as an admission for those who entered the United States illegally.

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The conferral of Temporary Protected Status under 8 U.S.C. § 1254a does not constitute an “admission” into the United States under 8 U.S.C. § 1255, so recipients of such status are not eligible to become lawful permanent residents. Justice Elena Kagan authored the unanimous opinion of the Court.
Section 1255 provides a way for a “nonimmigrant”—that is, a foreign national who is lawfully present in the United States for a designated, temporary basis—to become a lawful permanent resident (LPR). One requirement for eligibility is an “admission” into the country, and “admission” is defined as “the lawful entry of the alien into the United States after inspection and authorization by an immigration officer.”
Entering the country via a provision of humanitarian law that bypasses the inspection and authorization procedure does not meet the requirement for “admission,” so those who are present in the country by that means are not eligible to become lawful permanent residents.


In 2006, the City of San Antonio, Texas, filed a class-action lawsuit against various online travel companies (OTCs), such as Hotels.com, Hotwire, Orbitz, and Travelocity, alleging that the service fees those companies charged constitute the “cost of occupancy” and therefore are subject to municipal hotel tax ordinances. After extensive litigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the OTCs, reasoning that the hotel occupancy tax applied only to the discounted room rate paid by the OTC to the hotel.
Toward the end of litigation, the OTCs moved for "an order entering Final Judgment in favor of the OTCs, releasing all supersedeas bonds, and awarding costs to the OTCs as the prevailing parties." The OTCs’ proposed order stated that "costs shall be taxed against the Cities in favor of the OTCs pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1920, Fed. R. Civ. P. 54, and Fed. R. App. P. 39." San Antonio did not object, so the district court entered the OTC’s proposed order.
Then the OTCs filed a bill of costs in the district court seeking over $2.3 million, which included over $2 million for “post-judgment interest” and “premiums paid for the supersedeas bonds.” San Antonio objected and asked the district court to refuse to tax, or to substantially reduce, the appeal bond premiums sought by the OTCs. The district court concluded that it lacked the discretion to reduce taxation of the bond premiums. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, despite that every other circuit confronting the question has held the opposite.

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Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 39 does not permit a district court to alter a court of appeals’ allocation of the costs listed in subdivision (e) of that Rule. Justice Samuel Alito authored the unanimous opinion of the Court.
Rule 39 gives the courts of appeals discretion over the allocation of appellate costs, setting default rules that apply unless the court “orders otherwise.” These default rules and the language and structure of Rule 39 suggest that the appeals court makes all determinations as to the costs. This comprehensive scheme leaves no room for the district court to modify the appeals court’s allocation of costs, and indeed to read the Rule as giving the district court such power would undermine the authority of the appeals court to make the determination in the first place.


The United States captured the island of Guam from Spain in 1898, during the Spanish-American War. From 1903, the United States maintained military rule until the passage of the Guam Organic Act in 1950, which formally transferred power from the United States to Guam’s newly formed civilian government. Guam remains an “unincorporated territory of the United States.”
In the 1940s, the Navy constructed and operated the Ordot Dump for the disposal of municipal and military waste, allegedly including munitions and chemicals such as DDT and Agent Orange, and continued to use the landfill throughout the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The Ordot Dump lacked basic environmental safeguards, and as a result, contaminants were released into the Lonfit River, which ultimately flows into the Pacific Ocean.
In 1983, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) added the Ordot Dump to its National Priorities List, and in 1988, it designated the Navy as a potentially responsible party. However, because the Navy had relinquished sovereignty over the island, Guam remained the owner and operator of the Ordot Dump. As such, the EPA repeatedly ordered Guam to propose plans for containing and disposing of waste at the landfill.
In 2002, the EPA sued Guam under the Clean Water Act, asking the court to require Guam to comply with the Act, in part by submitting plans and a compliance schedule for a cover system of the Ordot Dump, and by completing construction of the cover system. The EPA and Guam agreed that Guam would pay a civil penalty, close the Ordot Dump, and design a cover system. Guam closed the Ordot Dump in 2011.
In 2017, Guam sued the United States, alleging that the Navy was responsible for the Ordot Dump’s contamination and was thus responsible for the costs of closing and remediating the landfill. Guam’s claims rested on two provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). Section 107 allows for a “cost-recovery” action and Section 113(f) allows for a “contribution” action. The statute of limitations for the former action is six years, compared to only three for the latter. The district court concluded that Guam’s agreement with the EPA did not trigger section 113, so Guam could maintain its section 107 claim against the United States. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed.

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Guam can pursue its lawsuit against the federal government over the cleaning costs associated with the Ordot Dump. Justice Clarence Thomas authored the unanimous opinion of the Court.
Subsection 113(f) allows a party to seek contribution “from any other person who is liable or potentially liable under section 107(a) of CERCLA” and provides that “a person who has resolved its liability to the United States . . . may seek contribution from any person who is not party to a settlement referred to in § 113(F)(2).” The language and structure of this statute support the interpretation that the right of contribution is predicated on CERCLA liability. Because the statutory language is best understood only in reference to CERCLA, the most natural reading of the provision is that a party may seek contribution under CERCLA only after settling a CERCLA-specific liability, not resolving environmental liability under some other law. Thus, the agreement between the EPA and Guam did not trigger the statute of limitations for seeking contribution.


Hologic, Inc. and another company sued Minerva Surgical, Inc. for patent infringement (U.S. Patent Nos. 6,872,183 and 9,095,348). The patents relate to procedures and devices for endometrial ablation, which is a treatment involving the destruction of the lining of the uterus in order to treat menorrhagia, or abnormally heavy menstrual bleeding.
Both of the patents at issue list as an inventor Csaba Truckai, who assigned his interests in both patents to NovaCept, Inc., a company he co-founded. NovaCept was subsequently acquired by another company, and Hologic acquired that company. Hologic is the current assignee of both patents and sells the resulting NovaSure system throughout the United States.
Truckai left NovaCept and, in 2008, founded the accused infringer in this case, Minerva Surgical. Truckai and others at Minerva developed the Endometrial Ablation System (EAS), which received FDA approval in 2015 for the same indication as Hologic’s NovaSure system.
In 2015, Hologic sued Minerva alleging that Minerva’s EAS infringed certain claims of its patents. Minerva asserted that the patents were invalid based on lack of enablement and failure to provide an adequate written description, and moreover were not patentable due to prior art. Hologic moved for summary judgment based on the doctrine of assignor estoppel, which bars a patent’s seller from attacking the patent’s validity in subsequent patent infringement litigation. The court granted the motion as to both patents, based on the relationship between the inventor Truckai and his company Minerva. The court of appeals affirmed as to the infringement.

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