WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Wednesday, Dec. 11

We expect one or more opinions from the court again this morning, beginning at 10 a.m. EST. Follow us on Bluesky and TikTok for live coverage. The justices will then hear oral arguments in Dewberry Group, Inc. v. Dewberry Engineers, Inc. The case is a dispute over damages for trademark infringement. The lower court held the Dewberry Group liable for damages based on profits earned by affiliated entities not involved in the lawsuit on the theory that they could be regarded as a single collective enterprise. The question is whether the damages should be limited to profits earned by the defendants that were joined as parties in the litigation.

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Wednesday morning read:

• Supreme Court divided over government contracting fraud conviction (Ann E. Marimow, The Washington Post)
• Supreme Court Poised to Curb Scope of Environmental Reviews (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)
• Biden admin tells Supreme Court to stay out of climate lawsuits (Lesley Clark, E&E News)
• Parental Rights May Be Only Path to Save Gender-Affirming Care (Hila Keren, Bloomberg Law)
• Joe Manchin’s support for Supreme Court reform is a sign (Ryan Teague Beckwith, MSNBC)

CASE PREVIEW

Federal trademark law and doctrines of corporate identity

In a long-running trademark dispute between two companies marketing real-estate development services, and both using the name Dewberry, a trial court held that Dewberry Group entities infringed the “Dewberry” marks of Dewberry Engineers. The problem is that when the time came for assessing damages, the court ordered Dewberry Group to pay as damages $43 million in profits earned by several affiliates that were not parties to the litigation, reasoning that all of them were, as a practical matter, a “single corporate entity.” When the court of appeals accepted that line of reasoning, the Supreme Court agreed to review the matter.

The basic problem before the court on Wednesday is that there is a Supreme Court case pretty closely on point – United States v. Bestfoods – in which the justices rejected the government’s argument that the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act was such an important statute that it should create an exception to traditional state-law doctrines that require a high (indeed, all but insuperable) bar for actions seeking to ignore corporate identities and, in the common phrase, “pierce the corporate veil.” As the court explained there, Congress must speak “directly” to the point if it wishes to create a special, less rigorous doctrine on something so traditionally left to state law. (These were the days before Elon Musk’s tiff with a Delaware judge raised the prospect of the federalization of corporate law.)

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Tuesday, Dec. 10

The Supreme Court will issue one or more opinions from the current term this morning at 10 a.m. EST, followed by oral arguments in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado. Follow along for our live coverage. In Seven County, backers of a proposed train linking Utah oilfields to refineries on the Gulf Coast ask the justices to overturn a lower court decision blocking the project and narrow the scope of what environmental impacts the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act requires agencies to review. 

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Tuesday morning read:

• US supreme court hears oil railway case with environmental protections at stake (Nina Lakhani, The Guardian)
• Supreme Court weighs environmental dispute over Utah oil railway (Lawrence Hurley, NBC News)
• Supreme Court Turns Down Cases on Admissions, Gender Identity and Guns (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)
• Supreme Court turns away Wisconsin parents who say schools are hiding transgender support plans as Alito dissents (John Fritze, CNN)
• Supreme Court rejects challenge to Hawaii gun licensing rules — for now (Nina Totenberg, NPR)

Coming up: On Wednesday, Dec. 11, the court expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term. 

SCOTUS NEWS

Court turns down challenges to school admissions, gender support plans, and gun licensing

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 conference last Friday. The court on Friday afternoon added three new cases to its docket for the 2024-25 term; as expected, it did not grant review in any additional cases on Monday morning.

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Monday, Dec. 9

The court will meet for oral arguments this morning in Kousisis v. U.S., a question about what constitutes wire fraud, and Feliciano v. Department of Transportation on differential pay for federal civilian employees called to active military duty during a national emergency. 

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Monday morning read:

• TikTok Asks To Pause Ban While It Appeals To Supreme Court (Alison Durkee, Forbes)
• 5 takeaways from the Biden carbon rule’s big day at the DC Circuit (Niina H. Farah & Lesley Clark, E&E News)
• How billionaire Charles Koch’s network won a 40-year war to curb regulation (Justin Jouvenal, Jon Swaine, & Ann E. Marimow, The Washington Post)
• A Century-Old Law’s Aftershocks Are Still Felt at the Supreme Court (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)
• Supreme Court Term Limits? Senators Push for Constitutional Change (Adeola Adeosun, Newsweek)

Coming up: On Tuesday, Dec. 10, the court expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term.