Friday round-up

Thursday’s coverage of the Court focused primarily on this weeks oral arguments.

TheEconomistaddresses the issues at stake inKiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, in which the Court is considering whether corporations may be held liable under the Alien Tort Statute for human rights abuses committed outside the United States. TheHuffington Postand TheWall Street Journal(subscription required) have additional commentary.

JURISThas coverage ofWednesdays oral arguments in Johnson v. Williams, in which the Court considered whether a state court’s denial of habeas relief that fails to reference a federal-law basis for the habeas petitioner’s claim constitutes an adjudication “on the merits,” andArkansas Fish & Game Commission v. United States, in which the Court considered whether and when government actions that impose recurrent flooding on private property constitute a taking. Additional coverage of the latter oral argument comes from Damon W. Root at Reason’sHit & Run Blog, Lawrence Hurley atE&E News, Richard Samp at theWashington Legal Foundation, and Marcia Coyle at theNational Law Journal (subscription required).

Other coverage of the Court looks ahead to next Wednesday’s oral argument inFisher v. University of Texas at Austin, in which the Court will consider whether the university’s use of race in undergraduate admissions violates the Constitution. Commentary comes from Thomas Espenshade at TheNew York Times, Al Sharpton at theHuffington Post, and Gerald Walpin at TheWall Street Journal (subscription required). Joe Palazzolo of theWall Street Journal Law Blogsummarizes theamicusbrief filed in the case by the American Bar Association, which discusses “the benefits of diversity in legal education” and urges the Court to uphold the University’s use of race as constitutional. And atBusiness Insider,Erin Fuchs reports on the prediction by veteran advocate Carter Phillips that the Court will not permit the university “to automatically accept the top 10 percent of students from every high schoolandconsider race in admissions.”

Yesterday the Federal Trade Commission filed a petition for certiorari asking the Court to weigh in on the standard that should be used to review the legality of reverse payments made by the manufacturers of brand-name drugs to generic manufacturers in exchange for an agreement by the generic manufacturers to stay out of the market.Reutersand TheWashington Post have coverage of the filing. AtPatent Docs, Kevin Noonan analyzes the amicus brief filed by the Generic Pharmaceutical Association in Merck & Co. v. Louisiana Wholesale Drug Co., a case presenting the same question. [Lyle Denniston covered the filing of the Merck petition for this blog last month. Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys work for or contribute to this blog in various capacities, serves as co-counsel to the respondents in the Merck case.]

Briefly:

• Coverage and discussion of the Court’s decision inNFIB v. Sebelius, in which the Court upheld the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act, continue at the Thomson ReutersNews & Insight Blog, where Susan DiMickele and Tara Aschenbrandexamine the opinion’s implications for employers.
• In a legal scholarship highlight for this blog, Nathaniel Persilydiscusses his recent research on the effect ofthe Courts health care decision on public approval of both the Court and the Affordable Care Act.
• The Wall Street Journal’sMarketWatchexamines the possible implications of Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., in which the Court will consider whether the exhaustion doctrine in copyright law prohibits the importation of authorized copies manufactured abroad.
• Karin Klein of theLos Angeles Timescomments on how the Court might dispose of the pending petition for certiorari in the Proposition 8 case.
• E&E Newsreports on Justice Stevens’s speech earlier this week at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, in which he criticized the approach taken by Justice Scalia in the Court’s 2010 decision in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
• At The Washington Post’sCrime Scene Blog, Del Quentin Wilber interviews Jeffrey Toobin about his new book on the Court.
• ForForbes, Richard Levick previewsAmgen Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds, scheduled for oral argument during the Courts November sitting, in which the Court will consider whatplaintiffs in misrepresentation cases under SEC Rule 10b-5 must prove at the class certification stage when operating under a fraud-on-the-market theory.
• At the Thomson ReutersNews & Insight Blog, Joseph Schuman summarizes John Jenkins’s new biography of Chief Justice Rehnquist.