On March 28, 2025, a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that President Donald Trump likely has the authority to remove National Labor Relations Board...more
3/31/2025
/ Appeals ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Employee Rights ,
Government Agencies ,
Judicial Authority ,
Labor Relations ,
NLRB ,
Presidential Appointments ,
Quorum ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
Trump Administration
The Supreme Court decided two cases today, continuing the release of opinions on which the Court is not deeply divided. The tougher ones are yet to come....more
The U.S. Supreme Court resolved more textual battles yesterday, one in a fully argued case, the other on procedural motions. The combinations of Justices continue to defy stereotypes, and at least one of those combinations,...more
3/6/2025
/ Administrative Agencies ,
Appeals ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Department of Veterans Affairs ,
Executive Orders ,
Foreign Aid ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
SCOTUS ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
Supreme Court Justices ,
Veterans
Only a few readers of SCOTUS Today are lawyers who are professionally occupied with environmental matters. However, almost all of my readers are constantly occupied with administrative law matters, governed in the...more
Yesterday was a day of unanimity at the U.S. Supreme Court, and what the Justices were unanimous about was a textually literal approach to applying dictionary definitions to resolve statutory disputes....more
2/27/2025
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ,
Lanham Act ,
Reverse Discrimination ,
SCOTUS ,
Title VII ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademarks
The U.S. Supreme Court decided two cases yesterday, one of which, Lackey v. Stinnie, involved an action brought pursuant to 42 U. S. C. §1983 and should be of particular interest to the many readers of this blog who practice...more
2/26/2025
/ 42 U.S.C. §1983 ,
Attorney's Fees ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Criminal Procedure ,
Due Process ,
Equal Protection ,
Evidence ,
False Evidence ,
False Testimony ,
Jurisdiction ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Prevailing Party ,
Remand ,
SCOTUS
President Donald Trump has made several significant and sudden changes at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC” or “the Commission”), the agency responsible for enforcing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of...more
2/12/2025
/ Affirmative Action ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
NLRB ,
Title VII ,
Trump Administration
On January 21, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” (the “EO”), which aims to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies...more
In one of his first acts as President in his second term in office, Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 21, 2025, entitled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” (“Order”)....more
1/29/2025
/ Affirmative Action ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Contractors ,
OFCCP ,
Trump Administration
The U.S. Supreme Court has stayed the nationwide injunction that had been blocking the enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) while the merits of the CTA are pending a decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for...more
As the snow has fallen on Washington, DC’s First Street over the past few days, the Supreme Court has begun to issue opinions in the current term....more
In its first decision on the merits in the current term, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court (per Jackson, J.) has held in Bouarfa v. Mayorkas that revocation of an approved visa petition under 8 U.S.C. §1155, based on a...more
This week, we’re examining how recent employer-initiated challenges to the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) structure have arisen due to the agency’s broad interpretation of its enforcement authority, leading to...more
In an action brought by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, commonly known as SpaceX, a U.S. District Court Judge in the Western District of Texas, Waco Division, has declared that the structure of the National Labor...more
It goes without saying that the actions of federal regulatory agencies greatly affect many essential aspects of our daily lives, among them the delivery of medical services, medicines, and therapeutic devices and the...more
In a recent landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the Chevron doctrine in the case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.
This ruling has significant implications for employers and other entities in the...more
On what was the next-to-last day of the term, a 6-3 Supreme Court delivered a very lengthy opinion written by the Chief Justice, overruling 40 years of jurisprudence embodied in the Chevron doctrine that had been the bedrock...more
The Supreme Court’s day started with the specter of yet another leak of a reproductive rights decision having occurred....more
6/27/2024
/ Abortion ,
Air Pollution ,
Chapter 11 ,
Clean Air Act ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
EMTALA ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Federal Implementation Plans (FIP) ,
Harrington v Purdue Pharma L P ,
Idaho v United States ,
Moyle v United States ,
Ohio v Environmental Protection Agency ,
Opioid ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Pollution Control ,
Preemption ,
Purdue Pharma ,
Reproductive Healthcare Issues ,
SCOTUS ,
SEC v Jarkesy ,
Standing
The Supreme Court started yesterday with 14 decisions yet to deliver and only reduced the number by two—neither of them the Trump immunity case nor the Loper case concerning the future of the agency deference doctrine of...more
6/27/2024
/ Article III ,
Bribery ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Misleading Statements ,
Murthy v Missouri ,
Public Officials ,
SCOTUS ,
Snyder v United States ,
Social Media ,
Standing
With the current term of the Supreme Court soon to end, the run of decisions in which the Justices have been unanimous or close to it is being displaced by the “tougher” ones, in which there is substantial disagreement....more
6/24/2024
/ Confrontation Clause ,
Consent Decrees ,
Due Process ,
Expert Testimony ,
Expert Witness ,
Firearms ,
Immigrants ,
Non-Citizens ,
Rio Grande Compact ,
SCOTUS ,
Second Amendment ,
Spouses ,
Supreme Court Justices ,
Texas v New Mexico and Colorado ,
United States v Rahimi ,
US Department of State ,
Visas ,
Water Rights
With a significant mass of cases left to decide and only a few weeks to issue the opinions, the U.S. Supreme Court has reduced the backlog by four yesterday. None of them, however, resolves the future of Chevron deference or...more
6/21/2024
/ City Councils ,
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ,
Drug Trafficking ,
Expert Testimony ,
Federal Rules of Evidence ,
Foreign Corporations ,
Fourth Amendment ,
Internal Revenue Code (IRC) ,
Malicious Prosecution ,
Misdemeanors ,
Moore v US ,
Probable Cause ,
Retaliation ,
Retaliatory Arrests ,
SCOTUS ,
Shareholders ,
Summary Judgment
Splitting along predictable philosophical lines, the Supreme Court held last week in Garland v. Cargill that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a rule...more
Of the Supreme Court opinions issued today, the one that will draw the greatest public attention is Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, unanimously holding that the pro-life organizational...more
6/14/2024
/ Abortion ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
First Amendment ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
NLRB ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Reproductive Healthcare Issues ,
SCOTUS ,
Starbucks ,
Starbucks Corp. v McKinney ,
Trademarks ,
Unions ,
USPTO ,
Vidal v Elster
Another Three-for Thursday at the Supreme Court, with none of the decisions a landmark but each of utmost relevance to legal specialists and technicians in the fields of bankruptcy, estate taxation, and Indian affairs....more
6/6/2024
/ Asbestos ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Becerra v San Carlos Apache Tribe ,
Business Assets ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Commercial Insurance Policies ,
Connelly v United States ,
Creditors ,
Debtors ,
Estate Tax ,
Healthcare ,
Indian Health Service (IHS) ,
Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA) ,
Medical Reimbursement ,
Native American Issues ,
Reorganizations ,
SCOTUS ,
Truck Insurance Exchange v Kaiser Gypsum Co Inc
Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down three decisions on a Thursday, each of them substantively important to the individuals involved, but all of them essentially involving the Supreme Court’s instructing lower...more
5/31/2024
/ Bank of America ,
Cantero v Bank of America NA ,
Criminal Convictions ,
Death Penalty ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Evidence ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Firearms ,
First Amendment ,
Liability Insurance ,
Murder ,
National Bank Act ,
NRA ,
Preemption ,
SCOTUS ,
Supreme Court Justices