U.S. Courts News Reporter
You can hit your snooze button a little later on Tuesdays. Effective January 1, 2025, the Court of Appeals’ scheduled filing days for opinions will be the first and third Wednesday of the month, Since the Court will be issuing a big batch of opinions on New Year’s Eve (and no one wants to read opinions on New Year’s Day), January 15 will be January 2025’s only opinion release date. The rest of the year will follow the new schedule.… Read the rest
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The Supreme Court on Monday morning declined to take up several hot-button issues, including a challenge by parents to a school district’s plan to provide support for transgender and non-binary students, a dispute over the admissions policy used during the 2021-22 school year for three of Boston’s elite public high schools, and the case of a Hawaii man prosecuted for carrying a handgun without a license.
The announcement came in a list of orders released from the justices’ private … Read the rest
The Federal Court recently refused to order a defendant to produce samples of cell culture because there was no “reasonable possibility” that testing the samples would yield evidence of patent infringement. In pharmaceutical patent cases, testing samples of a defendant’s product – or samples from a defendant’s process – can lead to crucial evidence of infringement for trial. However, as seen in the Court’s recent decision, a defendant can resist producing samples where the plaintiff only proposes “speculative undefined tests”. … Read the rest
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The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Monday in a dispute over the Food and Drug Administration’s rejection of two companies’ applications to sell flavored liquids for use in e-cigarettes. A federal appeals court in Louisiana set aside the FDA’s orders denying applications by Triton Distribution and Vapetasia, complaining that the agency had sent those companies and other makers of e-cigarette products “on a wild goose chase.”
The stakes in the case are high: Medical groups, including the … Read the rest
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When someone makes a payment to a creditor shortly before filing for bankruptcy, the Bankruptcy Code requires the creditor to return the funds. But whether those same obligations apply to the Internal Revenue Service is less clear. On Monday, the justices will consider whether the IRS is protected by sovereign immuinity from the requirement to return funds from insolvent debtors that private creditors face.
The case, United States v. Miller, involves Section 544(b) of the Bankruptcy Code, which … Read the rest
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The Supreme Court declined on Monday morning to hear the case of a Texas woman seeking compensation for damage to her home inflicted by a SWAT team pursuing a fugitive. The denial of review in Baker v. McKinney came on a list of orders from the justices’ private conference on Friday.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, issued a statement regarding the court’s decision not to take up the case. She noted that the woman’s case presented … Read the rest
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The justices on Friday created the prospect of another major ruling on the role of administrative agencies and Congress’s ability to delegate power to those agencies. At the Biden administration’s request, the court agreed to review a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that invalidated parts of a program by the Federal Communications Commission to improve internet and phone services in underserved areas.
The court of appeals said that the program violated the Constitution … Read the rest
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The Petitions of the Week column highlights some of the cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here.
Federal law limits the government’s ability to place a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion. Yet as long as Congress does not intentionally discriminate against a particular faith, the Supreme Court has permitted the legislative branch to manage internal government operations — for example, by allowing private development … Read the rest