United States Supreme Court (21 summaries)
Packingham v. North Carolina
Under the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, North Carolina’s law making it a felony for a registered sex offender to access commonplace social media websites is unconstitutionally invalid because it suppresses lawful speech as a mean to suppress unlawful speech.
Area(s) of Law:- Constitutional Law
Zigler v. Abbasi
Under the Bivens decision, a federal official cannot be sued for damages as to detention policy claims. Further, under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), a federal official is entitled to qualified immunity if a reasonable official in the same situation would not know their conduct constituted an unlawful conspiracy.
Area(s) of Law:- Qualified Immunity
Honeycutt v. United States
Under 21 U.S.C. §853, “a defendant may not be held jointly and severally liable for property that his co-conspirator derived from a crime but that the defendant did not himself acquire.”
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Law
County of Los Angeles v. Mendez
Under the Fourth Amendment, there exists no “provocation rule” where a law enforcement officer may also be held liable for injuries caused by their reasonable force during an unreasonable “seizure” as a separate constitutional violation.
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Procedure
Cooper v. Harris
Under the Fourteenth Amendment, the State lacks a compelling reason for redrawing its congressional districts making those peoples of voting age predominantly black and violates the Equal Protection Clause even if it claims compliance with the Voting Rights Act.
Area(s) of Law:- Constitutional Law
Bank of America Corp. v. Miami
Under the FHA § 3602(i), a City constitutes an “aggrieved person” and may bring suit under that section. Further in an action under the FHA, a plaintiff must prove a direct relation in order to show “proximate cause,” which requires more than mere foreseeability.
Area(s) of Law:- Tort Law
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, et al., v. Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co., et al.
Any claim brought forward under the expropriation exception of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) now requires a heightened argument standard when attempting to establish ownership rights.
Area(s) of Law:- Sovereign Immunity
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Haegar
The power of a federal district court to sanction a litigant by ordering payment of the other side’s attorney’s fees for bad-faith conduct is limited to those fees the innocent party incurred as a result of the misconduct.
Area(s) of Law:- Attorney Fees
McLane Co. v. EEOC
A court of appeals should review a district court’s decision to enforce or quash an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission subpoena for an abuse of discretion.
Area(s) of Law:- Employment Law
Rippo v. Baker
In disqualification proceedings, the court must determine whether, objectively speaking, the risk of bias is too high to be constitutionally tolerable.
Area(s) of Law:- Constitutional Law
Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections
The District Court erred by applying an incorrect legal standard to find that race was not predominate in the Virginia Legislature’s redrawing of 11 of 12 legislative districts, but the District Court’s analysis of District 75 was consistent with the narrowly tailoring analysis set forth in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama.
Area(s) of Law:- Election Law
Life Technologies Corp. v. Promega Corp.
A single component is insufficient to constitute a substantial proportion of the components for the purposes of liability under § 271(f)(1) because the phrase holds a quantitative, not qualitative meaning.
Area(s) of Law:- Patents
White v. Pauly
Whether an officer, who arrives late to an ongoing police action and, after having witnessed shots being fired at fellow officers, shoots and kills the armed assailant without first issuing a warning violates the fourth amendment thereby disqualifying him from immunity from liability?
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Procedure
Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corporation
Whether a bankruptcy court may authorize the distribution of settlement proceeds in a manner that violates the statutory priority scheme?
Area(s) of Law:- Bankruptcy Law
Birchfield v. North Dakota
Under the Fourth Amendment, “implied consent laws” that require breath tests are constitutional because they are “reasonable searches” incident to arrest, which do not require a warrant.
Area(s) of Law:- Constitutional Law
Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee
Under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, 35 U.S.C. § 314(d) does bar judicial review and 35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(4) authorizes the Patent Office to regulate when it is reasonable and within their authority to do so.
Area(s) of Law:- Patents
Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States
Under 38 U.S.C. § 8127(d), the Department of Veteran Affairs is required to employ the Rule of Two in awarding contracts, even though the Department will otherwise meet its annual contracting objectives.
Area(s) of Law:- Contract Law
Ross v. Blake
Under the Prison Litigation Reformation Act of 1995 (PRLA), there is no “special circumstances” exception that allows prisoners to bring a lawsuit without having first exhausted all administrative remedies available.
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Procedure
Foster v. Chatman
The Constitution prohibits exercising preemptory strikes during voir dire used to remove potential jurors for discriminatory purposes and the three part Batson test is used to determine whether a strike was discriminatory.
Area(s) of Law:- Constitutional Law
Luna Torres v. Lynch
State crimes constitute "aggravated felonies" for purposes of the Immigration and Nationality Act if the state crime has all of the elements of a corresponding federal statute except the federal jurisdictional element.
Area(s) of Law:- Immigration
Husky Int’l Electronics, Inc. v. Ritz
"'Actual fraud' encompasses other traditional forms of fraud and can be accomplished without a false representation, such as a fraudulent conveyance of property made to evade payment to creditors."
Area(s) of Law:- Bankruptcy Law
United States Supreme Court Certiorari Granted (5 summaries)
SAS Institute, Inc. v. Lee
“Whether 35 U.S.C. § 318(a), which provides that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in an inter partes review “shall issue a final written decision with respect to the patentability of any patent claim challenged by the petitioner,” requires that Board to issue a final written decision as to every claim challenged by the petitioner, or whether it allows that Board to issue a final written decision with respect to the patentability of only some of the patent claims challenged by the petitioner.”
Area(s) of Law:- Patents
Merit Management Group, LP v. FTI Consulting, Inc.
“Whether the safe harbor of Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code prohibits avoidance of a transfer made by or to a financial institution, without regard to whether the institution has a beneficial interest in the property transferred.”
Area(s) of Law:- Bankruptcy Law
Patchak v. Zinke
“Whether a statute directing the federal courts to ‘promptly dismiss’ a pending lawsuit following substantive determinations by the courts (including this court's determination that the ‘suit may proceed’) – without amending the underlying substantive or procedural laws – violates the Constitution's separation of powers principles.”
Area(s) of Law:- Constitutional Law
Beckles v. United States
Whether Johnson: (1) applies retroactively to collateral cases challenging federal sentences enhanced under the residual clause in U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(2), (2) renders the Guidelines’s residual clause void for vagueness, and (3) makes a federal sentence enhanced for mere possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that offense is listed as a crime of violence in the Guidelines commentary?
Area(s) of Law:- Sentencing
SCA Hygiene Prods. Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Prods., LLC
“Whether and to what extent the defense of laches may bar a claim for patent infringement brought within the Patent Act’s six-year statutory limitations period, 35 U.S.C. § 286?”
Area(s) of Law:- Patents
Land Use Board of Appeals (1 summary)
Housing Land Advocates v. City of Happy Valley
MC 3.07.120 allows a city to reduce the minimum zoned capacity of a single lot or parcel only if it demonstrates that the reduction, when compared to the city’s overall minimum zoned residential capacity, is negligible.
Area(s) of Law:- Land Use