Category: Current

In Return Mail Inc v United States Postal Service, 587 U. S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the federal government is not a “person” capable of petitioning the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to institute patent review proceedings u...

In Mont v United States, 587 U. S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that pretrial detention tolls a term of federal supervised release if a court credits that period of pretrial detention toward a sentence for a new conviction. Justice Ruth ...

In Box v Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc., 587 U. S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that Indiana’s law relating to the disposition of fetal remains by abortion providers passes constitutional scrutiny. However, it denied c...

In Herrera v Wyoming, 587 U.S. ____ (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held that Wyoming’s statehood did not abrogate the Crow Tribe’s 1868 federal treaty right to hunt on the “unoccupied lands of the United States.” The five-member majority fur...

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 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...

The U.S. Supreme Court had a busy week, with oral arguments in seven cases. These will be last cases the justices will hear this term, with the remainder of their time largely devoted to deciding cases and issuing opinions. The most closely-watch...

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in six cases this week. One of the most closely-watched cases was Iancu v. Brunetti, which will determine whether the Lanham Act’s prohibition on the federal registration of “immoral” or “scandalou...