SCOTUS NEWS

Court adds three new cases

The Supreme Court on Friday evening added three new cases to its docket for the 2024-25 term. The cases, which involve issues ranging from the constitutionality of appointments to an HHS task force to student loan forgiveness and mootness in tax cases, are likely to be among the final cases argued during the current term.

In Becerra v. Braidwood Management, the justices agreed to take up a challenge to the structure of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a part of the Department of Health and Human Services that issues recommendations for preventive medical services. The Affordable Care Act requires health insurers to cover some of those recommended services at no cost to patients.

Petitions of the week

Justices meet to fill out 2024-25 docket

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

When the justices meet for their next regularly scheduled conference today, they will discuss what might become the final petitions granted for oral argument during the 2024 Term. It is also the next-to-last conference before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. This week, we highlight a number of those petitions the justices are set to consider, seeking review of lower court decisions on student-loan forgiveness, the constitutionality of federal agencies, and more.

If the justices decide to take up any of these cases, the government will presumably be represented in its briefs and at oral argument at the Supreme Court by Trump’s pick for solicitor general, John Sauer. Noel Francisco, solicitor general during the first Trump administration, departed from the longstanding tradition of maintaining the government’s position between Republican and Democratic administrations in several cases before the court. In turn, Biden’s solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, sometimes did the same, veering from Francisco’s stance in disputes over the Affordable Care Act, labor unions, and more. It remains to be seen whether Sauer will return the favor, both in cases already argued before the court and in cases such as the following ones filed by the Biden administration, should the justices decide to hear them this spring.

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Friday, Jan. 10

Last night, the court turned down President-elect Donald Trump’s request to block sentencing in his New York hush money case. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh wrote that they would have granted his request.

The justices will return to the bench this morning for oral arguments in TikTok, Inc. v. Garland, the dispute over a law that would ban TikTok in the United States on national security grounds if its parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t sell the app by Jan. 19. Listen live at 10 a.m. EST. 

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

• TikTok is heading to the Supreme Court to challenge its U.S. ban. Here’s what to know (Bobby Allyn, NPR)
• Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to halt hush-money case sentencing (Kayla Epstein, BBC News)
• A Rebuke to Trump Provides a Telling Portrait of a Divided Supreme Court (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)
• FinCEN Asks Supreme Court to Reinstate Law Requiring Ownership Information (Mengqi Sun, The Wall Street Journal)
• New Mexico Supreme Court rejects local abortion restrictions (Nick Catlin, KOAT)

CASE PREVIEW

Justices to consider ability to renew lawsuit after voluntary dismissal

Next week, when they return from their long holiday break, the justices will have, among other exciting matters, a dispute about the ability of a claimant to renew a lawsuit years after voluntarily dismissing it. The specific legal question, posed in Waetzig v. Halliburton Energy Services, is whether a voluntary dismissal (permitted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)) is the kind of “final judgment, order, or proceeding” that a federal trial court can revisit under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), which in limited circumstances allows trial courts to reopen final judgments.

To understand why this question could matter, consider Gary Waetzig’s predicament. Formerly employed by Halliburton, Waetzig filed suit alleging age discrimination. When Halliburton pointed out that he had agreed to arbitrate such disputes, he voluntarily dismissed his suit under Rule 41. Under the rule, Waetzig was entitled to do that simply by sending notice, which brought the case to an end. The arbitration went forward, and when Waetzig lost in that venue, he returned to the federal trial court where he started to challenge the arbitration award.

The problem Waetzig faced was that by the time the arbitration proceeding was over, the statute of limitations for the alleged age discrimination had expired – so Waetzig couldn’t refile his original age discrimination lawsuit. And he couldn’t file a lawsuit challenging the results of the arbitration directly, because the Supreme Court had recently held that federal courts don’t have free-standing jurisdiction over a suit challenging an arbitration award.

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Thursday, Jan. 9

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

• Trump speaks with Justice Alito amid push to halt criminal sentencing (Katherine Faulders, Jonathan Karl, & Devin Dwyer, ABC News)
• Trump Tests Power With Supreme Court Even Before He’s Sworn In (Greg Stohr, Bloomberg)
• TikTok’s fate arrives at Supreme Court in collision of free speech and national security (Mark Sherman, The Associated Press)
• Abortion Pills Prescribed by Pharmacists Are Newest Effort in Abortion Fight (Pam Belluck, The New York Times)
• Retired US Supreme Court Justice Breyer returns to ‘old home’ to hear appeals (Nate Raymond, Reuters)