Court issues five rulings
on May 21, 2007 at 10:07 am
UPDATE 12:35 p.m.
The Supreme Court, in the first of five final decisions, ruled on Monday that claims of parallel business conduct are not sufficient to prove an antitrust conspiracy under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. The 7-2 decision came in the case of Bell Atlantic v. Twombly (05-1126).
In the second ruling of the day, the Court decided that parents of a disabled child have an independent right to enforce the federal law that assures a free public education for children with disabilities. They may proceed without a lawyer, the Court added. The rights of the parents, the Court found, are independent of those of their child. Seven Justices joined fully in the ruling, and two partially dissented, in Winkelman v. Parma School District (05-983).
The Court, in the third decision, found it did not have jurisdiction to decide whether members of Congress are immune from lawsuits by employees claiming violation of their workplace rights. The decision in Office of Senator Dayton v. Hanson (06-618) was unanimous, although Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., did not take part. The Court initially said it did not have the authority under a grant of mandatory jurisdiction to rule on the constitutionality of the law giving congressional employees rights in the workplace, because no lower court had called that law into question. The Court went on to conclude that, using its discretion to hear the case as if it were a petition for review instead of an appeal, the case did not justify review because there was no conflict with other lower court rulings. The Court stressed that it was not ruling on the merits of the former Senate employee’s claims, nor on whether those claims were moot, now that the sued lawmaker — Sen. Mark Dayton, Minnesota Democrat, has left Congress.
The fourth ruling found that the U.S. Tax Court has exclusive jurisdiction to hear claims by federal taxpayers seeking relief from an IRS assessment of interest on taxes due. The unanimous decision came in Hinck v. U.S. (06-376).
In the final ruling of the day, the Court dismissed a case testing whether federal appeals courts have authority to overturn a state death sentence because the prosecutor used inflammatory remarks in closing argument urging that the accused be executed. The Court said circumstances of the case had changed. The vote was 6-3 in Roper v. Weaver (06-313). The Court said it had found that two other cases similar to this one had been decided in favor of the challenging prisoner, so there was no need for the three to be treated differently.
