Editor's Note :

At 9:30 a.m. on Monday, May 20 we expect orders from the May 16 Conference. We expect opinions in argued cases at 10 a.m. We will begin live blogging shortly before 9:30.

October Term 2012

View this list sorted by case name.

October Sitting

Argument Docket Case Page Issue(s) or Holding Opinion
10.1.12
Tr.
 11-626 Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, Florida Lozman's floating home is not a "vessel" for purposes of 1 U.S.C. § 3, and therefore federal maritime jurisdiction is not triggered, because -- except for the fact that it floats -- nothing about it suggests that it was intended to transport people or things over water. 1.15.2013
10.1.12
Tr.
Aud.		 10-1491 Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum The presumption against the extraterritorial application of U.S. law applies to claims under the Alien Tort Statute, and nothing in the text, history, or purposes of the statute rebuts that presumption. 4.17.2013
10.2.12
Tr.
Aud.		 11-184 Kloeckner v. Solis A federal employee who claims that an agency action appealable to the Merit Systems Protection Board violates an antidiscrimination statute listed in 5 U.S.C. § 7702(a)(1) should seek judicial review in district court, not the Federal Circuit, regardless whether the Board decided her case on procedural grounds or on the merits. 12.10.2012
10.2.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-192 U.S. v. Bormes The Little Tucker Act does not waive the government’s sovereign immunity with respect to Fair Credit Reporting Act damages actions. 11.13.2012
10.3.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-465 Johnson v. Williams Presumption on federal habeas of state adjudication of federal claims on the merits Holding: For purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), when a state court rules against a defendant in an opinion that rejects some of the defendant’s claims but does not expressly address a federal claim, a federal habeas court must presume, subject to rebuttal, that the federal claim was adjudicated on the merits. 2.20.2013
10.3.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-597 Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. U.S. Recurrent flooding that is induced by the government and temporary in duration is not automatically exempt from liability under the Takings Clause. (Kagan, J., recused.) 12.4.2012
10.9.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 10-930 Ryan v. Gonzales 18 U.S.C. § 3599 does not provide a state prisoner with the right to suspend his federal habeas proceedings when he is adjudged incompetent. 1.8.2013
10.9.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-218 Tibbals v. Carter 18 U.S.C. § 3599 does not provide a state prisoner with the right to suspend his federal habeas proceedings when he is adjudged incompetent. 1.8.2013
10.10.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-345 Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin Whether this Court’s decisions interpreting the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, including Grutter v. Bollinger, permit the University of Texas at Austin’s use of race in undergraduate admissions decisions. (Kagan, J., recused)
10.10.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-702 Moncrieffe v. Holder If a noncitizen’s conviction for a marijuana distribution offense fails to establish that the offense involved either remuneration or more than a small amount of marijuana, it is not an aggravated felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act. 4.23.2013

November Sitting

Argument Docket Case Page Issue(s) or Holding Opinion
10.29.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1025 Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA Respondents lack Article III standing to challenge FISA Amendments Act of 2008, 50 U. S. C. §1881a. 2.26.2013
10.29.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-697 Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons The “first sale” doctrine, which allows the owner of a copyrighted work to sell or otherwise dispose of that copy as he wishes, applies to copies of a copyrighted work lawfully made abroad. 3.19.2013
10.31.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-564 Florida v. Jardines A dog sniff at the front door of a house where the police suspected drugs were being grown constitutes a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. 3.26.2013
10.31.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-817 Florida v. Harris When, subject to challenge by the defendant, the police provide evidence of a drug-sniffing dog’s satisfactory performance in a certification or training program, the dog’s alert can provide probable cause to search a vehicle. 2.19.2013
11.1.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-820 Chaidez v. U.S. The Court’s decision in Padilla v. Kentucky, holding that the Sixth Amendment requires defense attorneys to inform criminal defendants of the deportation risks of guilty pleas, does not apply retroactively to cases already final on direct review. 2.20.2013
11.1.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-770 Bailey v. U.S. The rule in Michigan v. Summers that officers executing a search warrant are permitted “to detain the occupants of the premises while a proper search is conducted,” is limited to the immediate vicinity of the premises to be searched and does not when a recent occupant of the premises was detained at a point beyond any reasonable understanding of the immediate vicinity of the premises in question. 2.19.2013
11.5.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1085 Amgen Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds Proof of materiality is not a prerequisite to certification of a securities-fraud class action seeking money damages for alleged violations of Securities and Exchange Commission Rule §10(b) and Rule 1. 2.27.2013
11.5.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-864 Comcast v. Behrend The class action brought by respondents, subscribers to the cable television services provided by petitioner, was improperly certified under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), which requires a court to find that the “questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members,” because the Third Circuit erred in refusing to decide whether the class’s proposed damages model could show damages on a classwide basis. Under proper standards, the model was inadequate, and the class should not have been certified. 03.27.13
11.6.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-8976 Smith v. U.S. A defendant bears the burden of proving a defense of withdrawal from conspiracy. 1.9.2013
11.6.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1327 Evans v. Michigan The Double Jeopardy Clause bars retrial following a court-directed acquittal, even if the acquittal was erroneous. 2.20.2013
11.7.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1175 Marx v. General Revenue Corp. Under the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d)(1) a prevailing defendant in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act suit may be awarded costs where the lawsuit was not brought in bad faith and for the purpose of harassment. 2.26.2013
11.7.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-982 Already, LLC v. Nike Nike's unconditional and irrevocable covenant not to enforce a trademark against a competitor’s existing products and any future “colorable imitations” moots the competitor’s action to have the trademark declared invalid. 1.9.2012

December Sitting

Argument Docket Case Page Issue(s) or Holding Opinion
11.26.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1160 FTC v. Phoebe Putney Health System Because Georgia has not clearly articulated and affirmatively expressed a policy allowing hospital authorities to make acquisitions that substantially reduce competition, state-action immunity does not apply 2.19.2013
11.26.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-556 Vance v. Ball State University Whether the “supervisor” liability rule established by Faragher v. City of Boca Raton and Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth (i) applies to harassment by those whom the employer vests with authority to direct and oversee their victim’s daily work, or (ii) is limited to those harassers who have the power to “hire, fire, demote, promote, transfer, or discipline” their victim.
11.27.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1285 U.S. Airways v. McCutchen In an action brought under Section 502(a)(3) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which authorizes a civil action “to obtain . . . appropriate equitable relief . . . to enforce . . . the terms of the” ERISA plan, based on an equitable lien by agreement, the terms of the ERISA plan govern. However, when there are gaps in the plan, equitable doctrines may be used to properly construe it. 4.16.2013
11.28.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-9307 Henderson v. U.S. Regardless whether a legal question was settled or unsettled at the time of trial, an error is “plain” within the meaning of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) so long as the error was plain at the time of appellate review. 2.20.2013
12.3.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1059 Genesis HealthCare Corp. v. Symczyk Because respondent had no personal interest in representing putative, unnamed claimants, nor any other continuing interest that would preserve her suit from mootness, her suit was appropriately dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. 4.16.2013
12.3.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-347 Georgia-Pacific West v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center A provision of the Clean Water Act governing challenges to Environmental Protection Agency actions, 33 U.S.C. § 1369(b), is not a jurisdictional bar to this suit, which alleges that the defendants had not obtained National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits before discharging stormwater runoff into two Oregon rivers. That provision is the exclusive vehicle for suits seeking to invalidate certain agency decisions, such as the establishment of effluent standards and the issuance of permits. It does not bar a district court from entertaining a citizen suit, like this one, under Section 1365 when the suit is against an alleged violator and seeks to enforce an obligation imposed by the Act or its regulations. Moreover, the EPA’s recent amendment to the Industrial Stormwater Rule does not make the cases moot. 3.20.2013
12.3.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-338 Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center A provision of the Clean Water Act governing challenges to Environmental Protection Agency actions, 33 U.S.C. § 1369(b), is not a jurisdictional bar to this suit, which alleges that the defendants had not obtained National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits before discharging stormwater runoff into two Oregon rivers. That provision is the exclusive vehicle for suits seeking to invalidate certain agency decisions, such as the establishment of effluent standards and the issuance of permits. It does not bar a district court from entertaining a citizen suit, like this one, under Section 1365 when the suit is against an alleged violator and seeks to enforce an obligation imposed by the Act or its regulations. Moreover, the EPA’s recent amendment to the Industrial Stormwater Rule does not make the cases moot. 3.20.2013
12.4.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1231 Sebelius v. Auburn Regional Medical Center The 180-day statutory time limit for a hospital to appeal a final Medicare reimbursement is not “jurisdictional,” but it is also not subject to equitable tolling. 1.22.2013
12.4.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-460 LA County Flood Control District v. Natural Resources Defense The flow of water from an improved portion of a navigable waterway into an unimproved portion of the same waterway does not qualify as a “discharge of a pollutant” under the Clean Water Act. 1.8.2013
12.5.2012
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1347 Chafin v. Chafin The return of a child to a foreign country pursuant to an order under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction does not render an appeal of that order moot. 2.19.2013

January Sitting

Argument Docket Case Page Issue(s) or Holding Opinion
1.7.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1450 The Standard Fire Insurance Co. v. Knowles A stipulation by a class-action plaintiff that he and the class that he purports to represent will seek damages that are less than the threshold for jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 does not defeat federal jurisdiction under the Act. 3.19.2013
1.7.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-9540 Descamps v. U.S. Whether, in a case under the Armed Career Criminal Act, when a state crime does not require an element of the federal crime of burglary, the federal court may find the existence of that element by examining the record of the state proceedings under the "modified categorical approach.”
1.8.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-98 Wos v. E.M.A. The anti-lien provision of the federal Medicaid statute pre-empts North Carolina’s irrebuttable statutory presumption that one-third of any tort recovery by a Medicaid beneficiary is attributable to medical expenses. 3.20.2013
1.8.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1274 Gabelli v. Securities and Exchange Commission The five-year statute of limitations for the SEC to bring a civil suit seeking penalties for securities fraud against investment advisers begins to tick when the fraud occurs, not when it is discovered. 2.27.2013
1.9.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-25 Maracich v. Spears (1) Whether the Fourth Circuit erred in holding that lawyers who obtain, disclose, or use personal information solely to find clients to represent in an incipient lawsuit – as opposed to evidence for use in existing or potential litigation – may seek solace under the litigation exception of the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA), 18 U.S.C. §§ 2721-2725; and (2) whether the Fourth Circuit erred in reaching the conclusion that a lawyer who files an action that effectively amounts to a “place holder” lawsuit may thereafter use DPPA-protected personal information to solicit plaintiffs for that action through a direct mail advertising campaign on the grounds that such use is “inextricably intertwined” with “use in litigation.”
1.9.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1425 Missouri v. McNeely In drunk-driving investigations, the natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream does not constitute an exigency in every case sufficient to justify conducting a blood test without a warrant. 4.17.2013
1.14.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-9335 Alleyne v. U.S. Whether this Court’s decision in Harris v. United States, holding that the Constitution does not require facts which increase a mandatory minimum sentence to be determined by a jury, should be overruled.
1.14.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-9953 Boyer v. Louisiana Dismissed as improvidently granted. 4.29.2013
1.15.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1351 Levin v. U.S. The Gonzalez Act, 10 U.S.C. § 1089(e), which provides that the intentional tort exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act does not apply to “any cause of action arising out of a negligent or wrongful act or omission in the performance of medical . . . functions” permits a suit against the United States alleging medical batter by a Navy doctor acting within the scope of his employment. 3.4.2013
1.15.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1447 Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District (1) Whether a land-use agency can be held liable for a taking when it refused to issue a land-use permit on the sole basis that the permit applicant did not accede to a permit condition that, if applied, would violate the essential nexus and rough proportionality tests set out in Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987) and Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994) (2) whether the nexus and proportionality tests set out in Nollan and Dolan apply to a land-use exaction that takes the form of a government demand that a permit applicant dedicate money, services, labor, or any other type of personal property to a public use.
1.16.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1545 City of Arlington v. FCC Whether a court should apply Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. NRDC, Inc., to review an agency’s determination of its own jurisdiction.
1.16.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1118 Gunn v. Minton 28 U.S.C. § 1338(a), which provides for exclusive federal jurisdiction over an case “arising under any Act of Congress relating to patents,” does not deprive the state courts of subject matter jurisdiction over a state law claim alleging legal malpractice in a patent case. 2.20.2013
1.16.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1547 Cable, Telecom., and Tech. v. FCC Whether a court should apply Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. NRDC, Inc., to review an agency’s determination of its own jurisdiction.

February Sitting

Argument Docket Case Page Issue(s) or Holding Opinion
2.19.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-10362 Millbrook v. U.S. The law enforcement proviso to the Federal Tort Claims Act applies to all the activities of law enforcement officers within the scope of their employment, not just to their investigative or law enforcement activities. 3.27.2013
2.19.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-796 Bowman v. Monsanto Co. Patent exhaustion does not permit a farmer to reproduce patented seeds through planting and harvesting without the patent holder’s permission. 5.13.2013
2.20.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-43 PPL Corp. and Subsidiaries v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Whether, in determining the creditability of a foreign tax, courts should employ a formalistic approach that looks solely at the form of the foreign tax statute and ignores how the tax actually operates, or should employ a substance-based approach that considers factors such as the practical operation and intended effect of the foreign tax.
2.20.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-17 McBurney v. Young Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act, which grants Virginia citizens access to all public records, but grants no such right to non-Virginians, does not violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause, which protects only those privileges and immunities that are“ fundamental.” The Act also does not violate the dormant Commerce Clause: it neither prohibits access to an interstate market nor imposes burdensome regulation on that market; and in any event, a state does not violate the Clause when, having created a market through a state program, it “limits benefits generated by [that] state program to those who fund the state treasury and whom the State was created to serve.” 4.29.2013
2.25.2013
Tr.
 11-10189 Trevino v. Thaler Whether the Court should vacate the Court of Appeals’ opinion and remand to the Court of Appeals for consideration of Mr. Trevino’s argument under Martinez v. Ryan?
2.25.2013
Tr.
 12-126 McQuiggin v. Perkins Whether, under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, there is an actual-innocence exception to the requirement that a petitioner show an extraordinary circumstance that “prevented timely filing” of a habeas petition, and if so, whether there is an additional actual-innocence exception to the requirement that a petitioner demonstrate that “he has been pursuing his rights diligently.”
2.26.2013
Tr.
 12-62 Peugh v. U.S. Whether a sentencing court violates the Ex Post Facto Clause by using the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines in effect at the time of sentencing rather than the Guidelines in effect at the time of the offense, if the newer Guidelines create a significant risk that the defendant will receive a longer sentence.
2.26.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-207 Maryland v. King Whether the Fourth Amendment allows the states to collect and analyze DNA from people arrested and charged with serious crimes.
2.27.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-96 Shelby County v. Holder Whether Congress’ decision in 2006 to reauthorize Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act under the pre-existing coverage formula of Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act exceeded its authority under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and thus violated the Tenth Amendment and Article IV of the United States Constitution.
2.27.2013
Tr.
 12-133 American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant Whether the Federal Arbitration Act permits courts, invoking the “federal substantive law of arbitrability,” to invalidate arbitration agreements on the ground that they do not permit class arbitration of a federal-law claim. (Sotomayor, J., recused)

March Sitting

Argument Docket Case Page Issue(s) or Holding Opinion
3.18.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-71 Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona (1) Whether the Ninth Circuit erred in creating a new, heightened preemption test under Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution (“the Elections Clause”) that is contrary to the Supreme Court’s authority and conflicts with other circuit court decisions; and (2) whether the Ninth Circuit erred in holding that under that test the National Voter Registration Act preempts an Arizona law that requests persons who are registering to vote to show evidence that they are eligible to vote.
3.18.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1518 Bullock v. BankChampaign, N.A. The term “defalcation” in the Bankruptcy Code includes a culpable state of mind requirement involving knowledge of, or gross recklessness in respect to, the improper nature of the fiduciary behavior. 5.13.2013
3.19.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-236 Sebelius v. Cloer Whether a person whose petition under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is dismissed as untimely may recover from the United States an award of attorneys’ fees and costs.
3.19.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-142 Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett Whether the First Circuit Court of Appeals erred when it created a circuit split and held – in clear conflict with this Court’s decisions in PLIVA v. Mensing, Riegel v. Medtronic, and Cipollone v. Liggett Group – that federal law does not preempt state law design-defect claims targeting generic pharmaceutical products because the conceded conflict between such claims and the federal laws governing generic pharmaceutical design allegedly can be avoided if the makers of generic pharmaceuticals simply stop making their products.
3.20.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-52 Dan’s City Used Cars v. Pelkey Section 14501(c)(1) of the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 does not preempt state-law claims stemming from the storage and disposal of a towed vehicle. 5.13.2013
3.20.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-123 Horne v. Department of Agriculture (1) Whether the Ninth Circuit erred in holding, contrary to the decisions of five other Circuit Courts of Appeals, that a party may not raise the Takings Clause as a defense to a “direct transfer of funds mandated by the Government,” Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, but instead must pay the money and then bring a separate, later claim requesting reimbursement of the money under the Tucker Act in the Court of Federal Claims; and (2) whether the Ninth Circuit erred in holding, contrary to a decision of the Federal Circuit, that it lacked jurisdiction over petitioners’ takings defense, even though petitioners, as “handlers” of raisins under the Raisin Marketing Order, are statutorily required under 7 U.S.C. § 608c(15) to exhaust all claims and defenses in administrative proceedings before the United States Department of Agriculture, with exclusive jurisdiction for review in federal district court.
3.25.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-135 Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter Whether an arbitrator acts within his powers under the Federal Arbitration Act (as the Second and Third Circuits have held) or exceeds those powers (as the Fifth Circuit has held) by determining that parties affirmatively “agreed to authorize class arbitration,” Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. Animalfeeds Int'l Corp., based solely on their use of broad contractual language precluding litigation and requiring arbitration of any dispute arising under their contract.
3.25.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-416 FTC v. Actavis Whether reverse-payment agreements are per se lawful unless the underlying patent litigation was a sham or the patent was obtained by fraud (as the court below held), or instead are presumptively anticompetitive and unlawful (as the Third Circuit has held). (Alito, J., recused)
3.26.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-144 Hollingsworth v. Perry (1) Whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State of California from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman; and (2) whether petitioners have standing under Article III, § 2 of the Constitution in this case.
3.27.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-307 U.S. v. Windsor (1) Whether Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the laws as applied to persons of the same sex who are legally married under the laws of their State; (2) whether the Executive Branch’s agreement with the court below that DOMA is unconstitutional deprives this Court of jurisdiction to decide this case; and (3) whether the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the United States House of Representatives has Article III standing in this case.

April Sitting

Argument Docket Case Page Issue(s) or Holding Opinion
4.15.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-398 Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Whether human genes are patentable.
4.15.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-167 U.S. v. Davila Whether the court of appeals erred in holding that any degree of judicial participation in plea negotiations, in violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1), automatically requires vacatur of a defendant’s guilty plea, irrespective of whether the error prejudiced the defendant.
4.16.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-399 Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl (1) Whether a non-custodial parent can invoke the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA), 25 U.S.C. §§ 1901-63, to block an adoption voluntarily and lawfully initiated by a non-Indian parent under state law; and (2) whether ICWA defines “parent” in 25 U.S.C. § 1903(9) to include an unwed biological father who has not complied with state law rules to attain legal status as a parent.
4.16.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-798 American Trucking Associations v. City of Los Angeles Whether 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1), which provides that “a State [or] political subdivision . . . may not enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier . . . with respect to the transportation of property,” contains an unexpressed “market participant” exception and permits a municipal governmental entity to take action that conflicts with the express preemption clause, occurs in a market in which the municipal entity does not participate, and is unconnected with any interest in the efficient procurement of services.
4.17.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-418 U.S. v. Kebodeaux (1) Whether the court of appeals erred in conducting its constitutional analysis on the premise that respondent was not under a federal registration obligation until the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) was enacted, when pre-SORNA federal law obligated him to register as a sex offender; and (2) whether the court of appeals erred in holding that Congress lacks the Article I authority to provide for criminal penalties under 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a)(2)(A), as applied to a person who was convicted of a sex offense under federal law and completed his criminal sentence before SORNA was enacted.
4.17.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-246 Salinas v. Texas Whether or under what circumstances the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause protects a defendant’s refusal to answer law enforcement questioning before he has been arrested or read his Miranda rights.
4.22.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-10 Agency for Int'l Development v. Alliance for Open Society Int'l Whether the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003, 22 U.S.C. § 7631(f), which requires an organization to have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking in order to receive federal funding to provide HIV and AIDS programs overseas, violates the First Amendment. (Kagan, J., recused.)
4.22.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-1221 Hillman v. Maretta Whether 5 U.S.C. § 8705(a), any other provision of the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance Act of 1954 (FEGLIA), or any regulation promulgated thereunder preempts a state domestic relations equitable remedy which creates a cause of action against the recipient of FEGLI insurance proceeds after they have been distributed.
4.23.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 11-889 Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann (1) Whether Congress’s approval of an interstate water compact that grants the contracting states “equal rights” to certain surface water and – using language present in almost all such compacts— provides that the compact shall not “be deemed . . . to interfere” with each state’s “appropriation, use, and control of water . . . not inconsistent with its obligations under this Compact,” manifests unmistakably clear congressional consent to state laws that expressly burden interstate commerce in water; and (2) whether a provision of a congressionally approved multi-state compact that is designed to ensure an equal share of water among the contracting states preempts protectionist state laws that obstruct other states from accessing the water to which they are entitled by the compact.
4.23.2013
 12-357 Sekhar v. U.S. Whether the "recommendation" of an attorney, who is a salaried employee of a governmental agency, in a single instance, is intangible property that can be the subject of an extortion attempt under 18 U.S.C. § 1951 (a)(the Hobbs Act) and 18 U.S.C. § 875(d).
4.24.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-484 University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar Whether the retaliation provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a), and similarly worded statutes require a plaintiff to prove but-for causation (i.e., that an employer would not have taken an adverse employment action but for an improper motive), or instead require only proof that the employer had a mixed motive (i.e., that an improper motive was one of multiple reasons for the employment action).
4.24.2013
Tr.
Aud.		 12-547 Metrish v. Lancaster (1) Whether the Michigan Supreme Court’s recognition that a state statute abolished the long-maligned diminished-capacity defense was an “unexpected and indefensible” change in a common-law doctrine of criminal law under this Court’s retroactivity jurisprudence, see Rogers v. Tennessee; and (2) whether the Michigan Court of Appeals’ retroactive application of the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision was “so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement” so as to justify habeas relief, see Harrington v. Richter.

Decided without oral argument

Argument Docket Case Page Issue(s) or Holding Opinion
11-1377 Nitro-Lift Technologies, L.L.C. v. Howard The Oklahoma Supreme Court was wrong in preventing arbitration of a dispute over the scope of non-competition agreements in employment contracts. 11.26.2012
12-168 Lefemine v. Wideman In a lawsuit alleging that the conduct of government officials violates the Constitution, a plaintiff who obtains a permanent injunction but no money damages is a “prevailing party” because the injunction ordered the officials to change their behavior in a way that directly benefitted the plaintiff. The plaintiff is therefore entitled to receive his attorney’s fees unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust. 11.5.2012

Cases Not (Yet) Set for Argument

Argument Docket Case Page Issue(s) or Holding Opinion