Petitions of the week

Issues: (1) Whether, in the absence of a Federal Communications Commission decision classifying Voice over Internet Protocol service as an information service, FCC policy can conflict with and pre-empt state regulation of VoIP service; and (2) whether VoIP service is a telecommunications service or an information service, under the appropriate functional test for classification determinations from Brand X.

Issue: Whether an employee protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act must always allege wage violations averaged across a specific seven-day workweek, or whether an employee may plead a cause of action with alternative context-specific allegations to meet the plausibility requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 and Ashcroft v. Iqbal.

Issue: Whether an application to a trial court by the press, as a surrogate for the public, in exercising its constitutionally required ability to be heard in opposition to a denial of the presumptive First Amendment right of access to voir dire questionnaires used to select the jury in a controversial murder prosecution may be denied by the failure of state criminal procedural rules to authorize standing for that purpose.

Issue: Whether a state violates a biological parent’s rights under the 14th Amendment’s due process clause when it strips the parent of custody in favor of a former partner who is not the child’s biological or adoptive parent, and without affording a presumption that the parent is acting in the best interests of the child.