Enter your email address to subscribe to updates to this case (by doing so, you are accepting the terms in our privacy policy):

Department of Commerce v. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

Docket No.	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
18-557	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	OT 2018

Issue: Whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker—including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking Executive Branch officials—when there is no evidence that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis.

SCOTUSblog Coverage

Government asks justices to resolve census citizenship case this term (Amy Howe)
Challengers urge justices to dismiss census case after district court ruling (Updated) (Amy Howe)
In a letter, government "suggests" hold for trial in census citizenship dispute (Amy Howe)
Justices to weigh in on evidence in census citizenship-question dispute (Amy Howe)
Federal government returns in census deposition dispute (Amy Howe)
Justices block Ross deposition in census dispute (Amy Howe)
Ginsburg puts census depositions on hold (Amy Howe)
Federal government asks justices to intervene in census dispute (Updated) (Amy Howe)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Oct 03 2018	Application (18A350) for a stay, submitted to Justice Ginsburg.
Oct 05 2018	Application (18A350) denied by Justice Ginsburg. The application is denied without prejudice, provided that the Court of Appeals will afford sufficient time for either party to seek relief in this Court before the depositions in question are taken.
Oct 09 2018	Application (18A375) for a stay, submitted to Justice Ginsburg.
Oct 09 2018	UPON CONSIDERATION of the application of counsel for the applicants, IT IS ORDERED that the orders of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, dated July 3, 2018, August 17, 2018, and September 21, 2018, are stayed pending receipt of a response, due on or before October 11, 2018, by 4 p.m., and further order of Justice Ginsburg or of the Court.
Oct 10 2018	Letter of applicants received.
Oct 11 2018	Response to application from respondent New York, et al. filed.
Oct 11 2018	Response to application from respondent New York Immigration Coalition, et al. filed.
Oct 12 2018	Reply of applicants United States Department of Commerce, et al. filed.
Oct 12 2018	Motion for leave to file amicus brief and motion for leave to file brief in compliance with Rule 33.2 filed by Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund.
Oct 17 2018	Motion for leave to file amicus brief filed by California.
Oct 22 2018	Application (18A375) referred to the Court.
Oct 22 2018	The application for stay (18A375) presented to JUSTICE GINSBURG and by her referred to the Court is granted in part and denied in part. The application is granted as to the order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York dated September 21, 2018, which is stayed through October 29, 2018 at 4 p.m. The application is denied as to the orders of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York dated July 3,2018 and August 17, 2018. If the applicants file a petition for a writ of certiorari or a petition for a writ of mandamus with respect to the stayed order by or before October 29, 2018 at 4 p.m., the stay will remain in effect until disposition of such petition by this Court. Should the petition be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court. The denial of the stay with respect to the remaining orders does not preclude the applicants from making arguments with respect to those orders. Justice Gorsuch, with whom Justice Thomas joins, concurs in part and dissents in part. (Detached opinion)
Oct 29 2018	Petition for a writ of mandamus filed. (Response due November 28, 2018)
Oct 29 2018	Application (18A455) for a stay, submitted to Justice Ginsburg.
Nov 02 2018	Application (18A455) referred to the Court.
Nov 02 2018	Application (18A455) denied by the Court. Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, and Justice Gorsuch would grant the application.
Nov 06 2018	The respondents are directed to file a response to the petition on or before 5 p.m., Tuesday, November 13, 2018. Petitioners may file a reply brief on or before 2 p.m., Thursday, November 15, 2018. Amicus curiae briefs may be filed on or before 5 p.m., Tuesday, November 13, 2018.
Nov 13 2018	Brief amicus curiae of State of California filed.
Nov 13 2018	Brief amicus curiae of Public Interest Legal Foundation filed.
Nov 13 2018	Brief of respondents New York Immigration Coalition, et al. in opposition filed.
Nov 13 2018	Brief of respondents State of New York, et al. and Other Government Plaintiffs in opposition filed.
Nov 15 2018	Reply of petitioners Department of Commerce, et al. filed.
Nov 16 2018	The petition for a writ of mandamus is treated as a petition for a writ of certiorari. The petition for certiorari is GRANTED. Petitioners' brief on the merits is to be filed on or before Monday, December 17, 2018. Respondents' brief on the merits is to be filed on or before Thursday, January 17, 2019. The reply brief is to be filed on or before Monday, February 4, 2019. The case is set for oral argument on Tuesday, February 19, 2019.
Nov 26 2018	Letter of petitioners filed.
Dec 12 2018	Motion of petitioners for an extension of time to file the joint appendix filed.
Dec 14 2018	Motion to extend the time to file the joint appendix is granted and the time is extended to and including January 4, 2019.
Dec 17 2018	Brief of petitioners Department of Commerce, et al. filed.
Dec 20 2018	Brief amicus curiae of Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund filed.
Dec 21 2018	SET FOR ARGUMENT on Tuesday, February 19, 2019.
Dec 21 2018	Brief amici curiae of State of Oklahoma, et al. filed.
Dec 24 2018	Brief amicus curiae of Public Interest Legal Foundation filed.
Jan 04 2019	Joint appendix filed.
Jan 11 2019	Record requested from the U.S.C.A. 2nd Circuit.
Jan 14 2019	Record request from the U.S.C.A. 2nd Circuit is electronic.
Jan 15 2019	CIRCULATED
Jan 17 2019	Brief of respondents New York Immigration Coalition, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Jan 17 2019	Joint motion of respondents to dismiss as improvidently granted filed. (Distributed)
Jan 17 2019	Brief of respondents State of New York, et al. filed (with 1 vol. appendix). (Distributed)
Jan 18 2019	This case is REMOVED FROM THE ARGUMENT CALENDAR for Tuesday, February 19, 2019. The briefing schedule is suspended pending further order of the Court.
Jan 22 2019	Petitioners' response to motion to dismiss as improvidently granted filed. (Distributed)
Jan 29 2019	Reply of respondents to response to motion to dismiss as improvidently granted filed. (Distributed)
Jan 30 2019	Motion DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/15/2019.

Featured Posts

Justices allow Texas execution to go forward – Amy Howe

Reschedule Watch Returns – John Elwood

Argument analysis: Court leaning toward requiring the government to prove that a felon in possession knew he was a felon – Evan Lee
Sponsored by Casetext
SCOTUStalk see all
Email Digest Sign-Up
Receive a daily email digest from Feedburner by entering your email.
Merits Case Pages and Archives

Archives

or

This Week at the Court
The Supreme Court released orders from the April 18 conference on Monday; the justices agreed to decide Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, consolidated with Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, CITGO Asphalt Refining Co. v. Frescati Shipping Co., Ltd., and Barton v. Barr. The justices also called for the views of the U.S. solicitor general in Putnam Investments, LLC v. Brotherston.
On Tuesday, the justices dismissed Emulex Corp. v. Varjabedian as improvidently granted.
On Wednesday, the justices released their opinion in Lamps Plus Inc. v. Varela.
On Monday, the justices heard oral argument in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media and Fort Bend County, Texas v. Davis.
On Tuesday morning, the justices heard oral argument in Department of Commerce v. New York. On Tuesday afternoon, they heard argument in Mitchell v. Wisconsin and Rehaif v. United States.
On Wednesday, the justices heard oral argument in Quarles v. United States and Taggart v. Lorenzen.
On Friday, the justices meet for their April 26 conference; John Elwood compiles the petitions relisted for this conference.
Major Cases
- Department of Commerce v. New York
  (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Decisions
- Lamps Plus Inc. v. Varela Under the Federal Arbitration Act, an ambiguous agreement cannot provide the necessary contractual basis for concluding that the parties agreed to submit to class arbitration.
- Biestek v. Berryhill A vocational expert’s refusal to provide private market-survey data during a Social Security disability benefits hearing upon the applicant’s request does not categorically preclude the testimony from counting as “substantial evidence” in federal court under 42 U. S. C. §405(g).
- Bucklew v. Precythe Baze v. Rees and Glossip v. Gross govern all Eighth Amendment challenges alleging that a method of execution inflicts unconstitutionally cruel pain; Russell Bucklew’s as-applied challenge to Missouri’s single-drug execution protocol -- that it would cause him severe pain because of his particular medical condition -- fails to satisfy the Baze-Glossip test.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether a state may require health-care facilities to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner as other human remains, i.e., by burial or cremation; and (2) whether a state may prohibit abortions motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus and require abortion doctors to inform patients of the prohibition.
- City of Newport Beach, California v. Vos (1) Whether Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires law enforcement officers to provide accommodations to an armed, violent and mentally ill suspect in the course of bringing the suspect into custody; (2) whether, under the Fourth Amendment “totality of the circumstances” analysis for assessing the reasonableness of force used against a suspect who attacks law enforcement officers, a court must take into account allegedly unreasonable police conduct that took place before the use of force, but foreseeably created the need to use that force; and (3) whether, under the Fourth Amendment’s analysis for use of force, a law enforcement officer’s interest in using deadly force against a suspect threatening an officer’s life is diminished if the assailant is mentally ill.
- Dahne v. Richey Whether prison inmates have a First Amendment right to include threatening, abusive and irrelevant language in grievances.
More Petitions »
Recent Special Features
Statistical Snapshot

Cases argued 70

Cases decided 32

Summary reversals 4

Merits cases granted to date 73

see all »
Live Blog Archives
See all
Twitter Feed

Tweets by @SCOTUSblog

Full Calendar Submit Event

Apr. 2019

Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
	1 Orders Opinions	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12 Conference	13
14	15 Orders IANCU V. BRUNETTI (18-302) EMULEX CORP. V. VARJABEDIAN (18-459)	16 PARKER DRILLING MANAGEMENT SERVICES V. NEWTON (18-389) NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE V. KAESTNER FAMILY TRUST (18-457)	17 UNITED STATES V. DAVIS (18-431) MCDONOUGH V. SMITH (18-485)	18 Conference	19	20
21	22 Orders FOOD MARKETING INSTITUTE V. ARGUS LEADER MEDIA (18-481) FORT BEND COUNTY, TEXAS V. DAVIS (18-525)	23 MITCHELL V. WISCONSIN (18-6210) REHAIF V. UNITED STATES (17-9560) DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE V. NEW YORK (18-966) Opinions	24 QUARLES V. UNITED STATES (17-778) TAGGART V. LORENZEN (18-489) Opinions	25	26 Conference	27
28	29 Orders	30

Orders/Opinions
Arguments
Conferences

Events
Holidays
Multiple

Download our App in the Apple Store
Videos see all

Justice Thomas at Pepperdine Law School

On March 30, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke with former clerk Brittney Lane Kubisch and Pepperdine University President-elect James Gash at Pepperdine University School of Law. Thomas told the audience that he had no plans to retire from the Supreme Court.

Peabody Award
Awarded the Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media.
Sigma Delta Chi
Awarded the Sigma Delta Chi deadline reporting award for online coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
National Press Club Award
Awarded the National Press Club's Breaking News Award for coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
Silver Gavel Award
Awarded the Silver Gavel Award by the American Bar Association for fostering the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system.
American Gavel Award
Awarded the American Gavel Award for Distinguished Reporting About the Judiciary to recognize the highest standards of reporting about courts and the justice system.
Webby Award
Awarded the Webby Award for excellence on the internet.

Cases argued	70
Cases decided	32
Summary reversals	4
Merits cases granted to date	73

Department of Commerce v. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

SCOTUSblog Coverage

Featured Posts

Justices allow Texas execution to go forward – Amy Howe

Reschedule Watch Returns – John Elwood

Argument analysis: Court leaning toward requiring the government to prove that a felon in possession knew he was a felon – Evan Lee

Sponsored by Casetext

SCOTUStalk see all

Email Digest Sign-Up

Merits Case Pages and Archives

Major Cases

Recent Decisions

Current Relists

Conference of April 26, 2019

Recent Special Features

Live Blog Archives

Apr. 2019

Download our App in the Apple Store

Videos see all

Peabody Award

Sigma Delta Chi

National Press Club Award

Silver Gavel Award

American Gavel Award

Webby Award