Month: May 2019

The U.S. Supreme Court recently made waves in a relatively nondescript case. In Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, 587 U.S. ____ (2019), a divided Court overturned Nevada v. Hall, 440 U.S. 410 (1979), holding that states retain their sovere...

In Hazelwood School District v Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988), the U.S. Supreme Court held that school officials don’t violate the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the content of student speech, so long as their actions are "re...

In Dawson v Steager, 586 U. S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that by taxing the federal pension benefits of U.S. Marshals Service retiree James Dawson, while exempting from taxation the pension benefits of certain state and local law enfo...

In Thacker v Tennessee Valley Authority, 587 U. S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that 16 U.S.C. §831c(b), which serves to waive the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) sovereign immunity from suit, is not subject to a discretionary func...

By a vote of 5-4, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Lamps Plus Inc v Varela that an ambiguous agreement cannot provide the necessary contractual basis for concluding that the parties agreed to submit to class arbitration. The majority relied on the Fed...