Sturgeon v. Frost

Sturgeon v. Frost

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Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
14-1209	9th Cir.	Jan 20, 2016 Tr.Aud.	Mar 22, 2016	8-0	Roberts	OT 2015

Holding: The Ninth Circuit's interpretation of Section 103(c) of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which addresses the scope of the National Park Service’s authority over lands within the boundaries of conservation system units in Alaska, to ban hovercrafts on state-owned waters flowing through federally managed preservation areas, is inconsistent with both the act’s text and context.

Judgment: Vacated and remanded, 8-0, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts on March 22, 2016.

Opinion analysis: A rebuke of the Ninth Circuit, and nothing more (Todd Henderson)
Argument analysis: Are rivers an important part of the national parks? (Todd Henderson)
Argument preview: A broken-down hovercraft tees up federal land-management policies in the West for the Supreme Court (Todd Henderson)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Feb 18 2015	Application (14A862) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from March 16, 2015 to April 30, 2015, submitted to Justice Kennedy.
Feb 20 2015	Application (14A862) granted by Justice Kennedy extending the time to file until March 31, 2015.
Mar 31 2015	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due May 4, 2015)
Apr 6 2015	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received form counsel for petitioner.
Apr 29 2015	Brief amici curiae of Ahtna Incorporated, et al. filed.
Apr 30 2015	Order extending time to file response to petition to and including June 3, 2015.
May 4 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Artic Slope Regional Corporation
May 4 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Safari Club International filed.
May 4 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Alaska filed.
Jun 3 2015	Order further extending time to file response to petition to and including July 6, 2015.
Jul 1 2015	Order further extending time to file response to petition to and including August 5, 2015.
Aug 5 2015	Brief of respondents Sue Masica, in Her Official Capacity as Alaska Regional Director of the National Park Service, et al. in opposition filed.
Aug 19 2015	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of September 28, 2015.
Aug 21 2015	Reply of petitioner John Sturgeon filed. (Distributed)
Oct 1 2015	Petition GRANTED.
Oct 22 2015	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for the petitioner.
Nov 13 2015	Motion to dispense with printing the joint appendix filed by petitioner John Sturgeon.
Nov 16 2015	Brief of petitioner John Sturgeon filed.
Nov 20 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Pacific Legal Foundation filed.
Nov 20 2015	Motion of Alaska for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument filed.
Nov 23 2015	Brief amici curiae of United States Senators Sullivan and Murkowski, and Representative Young filed.
Nov 23 2015	Brief amici curiae of Doyon, et al. filed.
Nov 23 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Safari Club International filed.
Nov 23 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Southeastern Legal Foundation filed.
Nov 23 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Alaska filed.
Nov 23 2015	Brief amici curiae of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, et al. filed.
Nov 23 2015	Brief amici curiae of Alaska Miners Association, Inc., et al. filed.
Nov 24 2015	SET FOR ARGUMENT on Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Dec 4 2015	Record requested from U.S.C.A. 9th Circuit.
Dec 14 2015	Motion to dispense with printing the joint appendix filed by petitioner GRANTED.
Dec 14 2015	Motion of Alaska for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument GRANTED.
Dec 15 2015	CIRCULATED.
Dec 15 2015	Record received from the U.S.D.C. Dist. of Alaska. 1 Envelope.
Dec 16 2015	Brief of respondents Bert Frost, in His Official Capacity as Alaska Regional Director of the National Park Service, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Dec 23 2015	Brief amici curiae of National Parks Conservation Association, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Dec 23 2015	Brief amici curiae of Alaska Native Subsistence Users filed. (Distributed)
Jan 13 2016	Reply of petitioner John Sturgeon filed. (Distributed)
Jan 20 2016	Argued. For petitioner: Matthew T. Findley, Anchorage, Alaska; and Ruth Botstein, Assistant Attorney General, Anchorage, Alaska (for Alaska, as amicus curiae). For respondents: Rachel P. Kovner, Assistant to the Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C.
Mar 22 2016	Judgment VACATED and case REMANDED. Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Apr 25 2016	JUDGMENT ISSUED

Featured Posts

Academic highlight: Hyatt is latest example of textualist-originalist justices’ willingness to overturn precedent – Anita Krishnakumar

Relist Watch – John Elwood

Opinion analysis: Justices narrow bankrupts’ power to rescind contracts in bankruptcy – Ronald Mann
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This Week at the Court
The Supreme Court released orders from the May 16 conference on Monday; the justices granted Ritzen Group Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLC.
On Monday, the justices released their opinions in Mission Product Holdings Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC, Herrera v. Wyoming and Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht.
On Thursday, the justices met for their May 23 conference; John Elwood's Relist Watch compiles the petitions that were 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
- Herrera v. Wyoming Wyoming’s statehood did not abrogate the Crow Tribe’s 1868 federal treaty right to hunt on the “unoccupied lands of the United States”; the lands of the Bighorn National Forest did not become categorically “occupied” when the forest was created.
- Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht “Clear evidence” that the Food and Drug Administration would not have approved a change to a drug’s label – thus pre-empting a state-law failure-to-warn claim – is evidence showing that the drug manufacturer fully informed the FDA of the justifications for the warning required by state law and that the FDA, in turn, informed the drug manufacturer that the FDA would not approve a change to the drug’s label to include that warning; the question of agency disapproval is primarily one of law for a judge to decide.
- Mission Product Holdings Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC A bankruptcy debtor’s rejection of an executory contract under 11 U.S.C. §365 has the same effect as a breach of that contract outside bankruptcy; such an act thus cannot rescind rights that the contract previously granted.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- al-Alwi v. Trump (1) Whether the government’s statutory authority to detain Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi has unraveled; (2) whether, alternatively, the government’s statutory authority to detain al-Alwi has expired because the conflict in which he was captured has ended; and (3) whether the Authorization for Use of Military Force authorizes, and the Constitution permits, detention of an individual who was not “engaged in an armed conflict against the United States” in Afghanistan prior to his capture.
- 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.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. Whether a state, consistent with the 14th Amendment, may require an ultrasound as part of informed consent at least 18 hours before an abortion.
More Petitions »
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Cases argued 70

Cases decided 32

Summary reversals 4

Merits cases granted to date 73

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

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