United States Supreme Court (3 summaries)
Dep't of Homeland Sec. v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal.
Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) decision to terminate Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was arbitrary and capricious because there were no reasons offered for terminating the forbearance policy, DHS did not consider alternatives within the ambit of the existing forbearance policy, and it did not address whether there was legitimate reliance on the prior DACA memorandum.
Area(s) of Law:- Administrative Law
Thole v. U. S. Bank N. A.
Plaintiffs lack standing under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) if they would receive the benefit of fixed payments regardless of the outcome on their claims.
Area(s) of Law:- Standing
Opati v. Republic of Sudan
Federal causes of action under section 1605A(c) can seek punitive damages because Congress expressly authorized them when it amended the statute.
Area(s) of Law:- Tort Law
United States Supreme Court Certiorari Granted (4 summaries)
City of San Antonio v. Hotels.com, L.P.
Whether, as the Fifth Circuit alone has held, district courts “lack[] discretion to deny or reduce” appellate costs deemed “taxable” in district court under Fed. R. App. P. 39(e).
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Procedure
Greer v. United States
Whether when applying plain-error review based upon an intervening United States Supreme Court decision, a circuit court of appeals may review matters outside the trial record to determine whether the error affected a defendant’s substantial rights or impacted the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the trial?
Area(s) of Law:- Appellate Procedure
HollyFrontier Cheyenne Ref. v. Renewable Fuels Ass'n
In order to qualify for a hardship exemption under § 7545(o)(9)(B)(i) of the Renewable Fuel Standards, does a small refinery need to receive uninterrupted, continuous hardship exemptions for every year since 2011.
Area(s) of Law:- Administrative Law
CIC Servs., LLC v. IRS
Whether the Anti-Injunction Act’s bar on lawsuits for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of taxes also bars challenges to unlawful regulatory mandates issued by administrative agencies that are not taxes.
Area(s) of Law:- Administrative Law
Oregon Court of Appeals (8 summaries)
State v. Burris
“ORS 166.270(4) states an affirmative defense to the felony offense described in ORS 166.270. That affirmative defense explicitly applies only to the felony offense described in ORS 166.270(1), and there is no similar provision with respect to the misdemeanor offense of unlawful possession of a weapon set forth in ORS 166.250.”
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Procedure
Thompson v. Portland Adventist Medical Center
“[T]o toll the limitations period, a plaintiff’s mental condition ‘must have been such as to have actually barred her from knowing that [the defendant] had harmed her.’” Gaspar v. Village Missions, 154 Or App 286, 292 (1998) (emphasis in original). The severity of a plaintiff’s mental condition to qualify for such a bar is a factual question. Roberts v. Drew, 105 Or App 251, 255 (1991).
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Procedure
State v. Almahmood
Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution, is not a limit on officer authority to approach individuals and request cooperation or information, as long as officer conduct would not “be reasonably perceived as coercive in the sense that it would cause [that individual] to reasonably believe that the officer is intentionally restraining the [individual’s] liberty or freedom of movement in a significant way—that is, in a way that exceeds the bounds of ordinary social encounters between private citizens.” State v. Backstrand, 354 Or 392, 400 (2013).
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Procedure
State v. Goguen
Under the officer safety exception, objectively reasonable is determined by evaluating “‘any of the circumstances confronted by the officer either individually or collectively . . . that the defendant posed an immediate threat to’” the officer or others. State v. Thomas, 276 Or App 334, 337 (2016) (quoting State v. Bates, 304 Or 519, 525 (1987)). For reasonable suspicion of criminal acts, “the officer must have a subjective belief that the person stopped has committed, or is about to commit, a crime, and that belief must be objectively reasonable under the totality of the circumstances.” State v. Kreis, 365 Or 659, 665 (2019).
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Procedure
State v. Smith
It was an error for the trial court to join cases where separate incidents involved different victims, different locations, and more than one month between. The misjoinder was reversible error in one conviction, but harmless in the other conviction had the cases been tried separately.
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Procedure
State v. McCray
“If an officer threatens only to do something that the officer is legally permitted to do, the coercion caused by the threat is not constitutionally objectionable.” State v. Hirsch, 267 Or 613, 622, (1974). “In determining whether a defendant was involuntarily induced to give consent by a promise of leniency, the court considers whether the defendant reasonably understood that a promise of leniency was made and reasonably relied on the promise of leniency to give consent. State v. Marshall, 254 Or App 419, 432-33 (2013).”
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Law
Pike v. Cain
“[T]he issue was the constitutional adequacy of counsel’s investigation to support his strategy choice at the petitioner’s sentencing, at which the state would urge the court to sentence the petitioner as a dangerous offender.” See Richardson v. Belleque, 362 Or 236, 258 (2017).
Area(s) of Law:- Post-Conviction Relief