Petitions of the week

North Carolina seeks to enforce undercover workplace-recording ban against PETA

The Petitions of the Week column highlights a selection of cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals conducts investigations around the country as part of its efforts to combat the mistreatment of animals. To accomplish these exposés, PETA’s members occasionally pose as employees of other businesses and secretly record workplace operations taking place in private areas. This week, we highlight cert petitions that ask the court to consider, among other things, PETA’s First Amendment challenge to a North Carolina law that imposes monetary damages on undercover workplace recording.

OPINION ANALYSIS

Justices rule lower courts must put trial proceedings on hold during arbitration appeal

Friday’s decision in Coinbase v. Bielski has a familiar ring to it: A narrow majority of the justices reversed a ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California that had rejected a party’s efforts to force a putative class action out of court and into arbitration. The result of the Supreme Court’s decision here is that the proceedings in the federal district court will come to a halt until the appellate court finally decides if arbitration is required.

The case comes from a dispute between Coinbase (a leading cryptocurrency platform) and a group of its customers. Coinbase thinks that its user agreement forces the customers into arbitration, but the district court disagreed. The question for the justices was whether the district court had to halt – or “stay” — the pre-trial proceedings while the appellate court considered that ruling. The court of appeals allowed the district court to move forward. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion for a narrow majority of five justices reverses that ruling.

OPINION ANALYSIS

Justices rule Russian citizen alleged domestic injury in international racketeering dispute

The Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday in Yegiazaryan v. Smagin adopts a “context-specific inquiry” to determine whether a plaintiff in a private lawsuit brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act has alleged “a domestic injury to its business or property” sufficient to state a civil claim for damages under Section 1964(c) of the federal RICO statute. The decision is an important step in clarifying the scope of the court’s 2016 decision in RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, which held that a civil RICO plaintiff must both allege and prove a domestic injury to business or property.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s opinion for a six-justice majority affirmed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that employed a context-specific interpretive doctrine to decide that Vitaly Smagin, a Russian citizen and resident, “had pleaded a domestic injury” by alleging that Ashot Yegiazaryan, another Russian citizen who moved to California more than a decade ago, and other defendants had obstructed his efforts to enforce a California judgment against Yegiazaryan by engaging in a pattern of racketeering activity “that largely ‘occurred in, or was targeted at, California.'”

RELIST WATCH

The constitutionality of wealth taxes; plus, educational benefits for veterans

The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here.

The Supreme Court will be considering a whopping 191 petitions and applications at this week’s conference. It will be considering only two of them for the second time.

This week’s conference is a noteworthy one: it’s the last regularly scheduled conference of October Term 2022. But if the court’s past practice is any indication, it won’t be the very last conference of the term. For many years, before the justices leave town, they hold one last impromptu conference to dispose of all the cases still hanging around after their last scheduled conference, which usually means the unresolved relists. In recent years, that mop-up conference has overwhelmingly happened on the last Monday of June; the resulting order list is usually released the following day.

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Friday, June 23

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

• Supreme Court rules against Navajo Nation in water rights dispute (Lawrence Hurley, NBC News)
• Supreme Court limits federal prisoners’ ability to bring some post-conviction challenges (Ariane de Vogue & Devan Cole, CNN) 
• How the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action may change the future of college (Bianca Quilantan, Politico)
• The Supreme Court’s latest opinion means innocent people must remain in prison (Ian Millhiser, Vox)
• ‘We need the water’, US Supreme Court denies Diné water rights (Kianna Joe, Navajo Times)