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Petitions We’re Watching

You can see all paid petitions we’re following below, organized by petitions relisted for the next conference, those scheduled for initial consideration at the next conference, other featured petitions, and finally, petitions in which the court has called for the views of the solicitor general.

View this list sorted by case name.

Featured Petitions

Docket Case Page Issue(s)
22o156 New York v. New Jersey Whether the Supreme Court should issue declaratory judgment and/or enjoin New Jersey from withdrawing from its Waterfront Commission Compact with New York, which grants the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor broad regulatory and law-enforcement powers over all operations at the Port of New York and New Jersey.
22-138 Counterman v. Colorado Whether, to establish that a statement is a "true threat" unprotected by the First Amendment, the government must show that the speaker subjectively knew or intended the threatening nature of the statement, or whether it is enough to show that an objective "reasonable person" would regard the statement as a threat of violence.
22-136 Brooks v. Abbott (1) Whether the district court erred by importing the racial predominance standard that governs racial gerrymandering claims into its intentional discrimination analysis under Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corporation; (2) whether the district court erred by concluding, without record evidence in support, that the delayed release of Census data fully explained the legislature’s numerous procedural irregularities during the redistricting process; (3) whether the district court erred by dismissing the evidentiary value of plaintiffs’ alternative maps, which showed that a legislature motivated purely by partisanship would have made different districting decisions; (4) whether the district court erred by concluding that a legislature it found to have been untruthful and have acted in bad faith may still be entitled to a presumption of good faith because there was not direct evidence of invidious racial intent; and (5) whether the district court erred in its analysis of the Purcell principle.
22-132 Ruiz v. Massachusetts Whether the Fifth and 14th Amendments forbid judges (or prosecutors) from instructing (or inviting) the jury to take into account a non-testifying criminal defendant’s courtroom demeanor as a basis for finding guilt.
22-130 Tofsrud v. City of Spokane, Washington Whether, following a supervisor’s refusal to act on a credible report of officer misconduct, a city police detective’s complaint to a county attorney, given his access to and past collaboration with the prosecutor, meets the test for private speech.
22-124 Kimberlin v. U.S. Whether a petitioner must show he suffers from a “civil disability”—that is, a collateral consequence that causes a substantial and present harm, is specific to the criminal context, and arises solely from the erroneous conviction— before a court can grant a writ of error coram nobis, or whether a court may instead presume that every conviction has collateral consequences that provide adequate standing to seek relief.
22-123 University of Toledo v. Wamer Whether schools can be held liable under Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972 for sexual harassment that ceased before they were notified that it happened.
22-121 ML Genius Holdings LLC v. Google LLC Whether the Copyright Act’s preemption clause allows a business to invoke traditional state-law contract remedies to enforce a promise not to copy and use its content.
22-118 Shaw v. U.S. (1) Whether the jury clauses of Article III and the Sixth Amendment or the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment bar a court from imposing a more severe criminal sentence on the basis of conduct that a jury necessarily rejected, given its verdicts of acquittal on other counts at the same trial; (2) whether the Supreme Court‘s decision in United States v. Watts should be overruled; and (3) whether, in avoidance of the constitutional question, the rules of issue preclusion, as applied in federal criminal cases, bar imposition of an aggravated sentence on a factual predicate necessarily rejected by the jury at trial in the same case.
22-111 U.S. ex rel. Proctor v. Safeway Whether and when a defendant’s contemporaneous subjective understanding or beliefs about the lawfulness of its conduct are relevant to whether it “knowingly” violated the False Claims Act.
22-105 Coinbase v. Bielski Whether a non-frivolous appeal of the denial of a motion to compel arbitration ousts a district court’s jurisdiction to proceed with litigation pending appeal.
22-100 Fairholme Funds v. U.S. (1) Whether, if the United States causes a company to transfer private shareholders’ rights incident to their ownership of shares in the company to the United States for the public benefit, the private shareholders have a direct, personal interest in a cause of action challenging that taking; and (2) whether the rights to future dividends and other distributions held by petitioners are cognizable property rights protected by the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment.
22-99 Barrett v. U.S. Whether the government’s uncompensated appropriation of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s earnings and net worth effects a taking under the Fifth Amendment.
22-98 Cacciapalle v. U.S. (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit erred in barring as “substantively derivative” the claims of private shareholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the taking of their shareholder rights and the transfer of 100% of their economic interest to the U.S. Treasury, without making a determination as to whether the private shareholders had identified a valid property right that they directly owned and that the government had taken; and (2) whether the rights to future dividends and other distributions held by shareholders are cognizable property rights protected by the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment.
22-97 Owl Creek Asia I, LP v. U.S. Whether, if the United States causes a company to transfer private shareholders’ rights incident to their ownership of shares in the company to the United States for the public benefit, the private shareholders have a direct, personal interest in a cause of action challenging that taking.
22-96 Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico v. Centro de Periodismo Investigativo Whether the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act’s general grant of jurisdiction to the federal courts over claims against the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico and claims otherwise arising under PROMESA abrogate the Board’s sovereign immunity with respect to all federal and territorial claims.
22-92 Banerian v. Benson Whether a state may justify deviations from the standards for apportionment of congressional districts in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution and Wesberry v. Sanders based on a purported desire to maintain "communities of interest."
22-90 NGL Supply Wholesale, LLC v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit erred in deferring to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s “interpretation of its own precedent” in the absence of a reasoned explanation for departing from the standards embodied in those precedents.
22-85 Oregon v. Harris (1) Whether Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 prohibits the “principal prosecuting attorney” of a locality from delegating the authority to apply for a wiretap order to a deputy when state law allows the delegation; and (2) whether Title III requires suppression of the evidence obtained if a wiretap is later held invalid, even if law enforcement officers had an objectively reasonable, good-faith belief that their conduct was lawful.
22-84 Sakkal v. U.S. Whether the Supreme Court should grant, vacate, and remand a judgment sustaining the conviction of a physician under 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) because the jury was given a scienter instruction that is flatly inconsistent with Xiulu Ruan v. United States.
22-81 Lambert v. Louisiana (1) Whether prejudice is required, and if so what prejudice counts, in determining which test applies to excessive sentencing-delay claims under the due process clause; and (2) whether, in a prosecution under a multi-count indictment on a common set of facts, the judgment becomes final for purposes of Griffith v. Kentucky when all counts are resolved, or defendants on direct appeal are instead required to seek certiorari from each count when other counts remain unresolved.
22-80 Napolitano v. Washington (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit improperly denied qualified immunity for an officer's failure to disclose their subjective intent and state of mind in a warrant application in direct contravention of Devenpeck v. Alford; and (2) whether the 2nd Circuit improperly denied qualified immunity for an officer's failing to include each of the defendant’s protestations of innocence, even those they did not deem credible, in a warrant for his arrest.
22-76 Carnes v. U.S. Whether, to establish that a defendant is an “unlawful user” of a controlled substance under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), the government must show the defendant’s regular or habitual drug use or instead may establish that element based on a single incident of drug use on the day of arrest.
22-75 ForwardLine Financial, LLC, v. Ahlmann Whether, in light of Viking River Cruises v. Moriana, the Supreme Court should grant the writ of certiorari, vacate the judgment below, and remand the case for consideration of whether a mutual pre-dispute agreement to arbitrate all claims arising from an employment relationship is enforceable as to an employee’s claims under California’s Private Attorneys General Act alleging Labor Code violations.
22-64 Arrington v. City of Los Angeles, California (1) Whether Heck v. Humphrey applies to a former prisoner who was ineligible to challenge his subsequent conviction through federal habeas while he was incarcerated pending trial or after he was released; and (2) whether Heck bars a plaintiff from recovering damages for false arrest, false imprisonment, and excessive force after entering a plea of “no contest” under a plea agreement that he would be sentenced to time served and released.
22-63 Marshal v. Texas (1) Whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals’ application of the equitable doctrine of laches constitutes an independent and adequate state-law ground that bars review of petitioner’s constitutional claims; (2) whether the court's application of laches violated petitioner's right to due process of law; and (3) whether the prosecution is estopped from relying on the doctrine of laches when its misconduct caused the delay in filing the habeas corpus application.
22-62 Big Horn County Electric Cooperative v. Alden Big Man Whether an Indian tribal court has subject-matter jurisdiction to adjudicate a tribally created claim as an “other means” of regulating a nonmember federally funded and federally regulated electric cooperative tasked with providing electrical service to all customers within its service territory, including tribal members on Indian reservations.
22-56 101 Houseco, LLC v. U.S. Whether a third-party claimant holding title to property that has been ordered forfeited as part of a criminal defendant's punishment must be permitted, as a matter of due process, to challenge the underlying forfeiture order.
22-51 Department of the Interior v. Navajo Nation Whether the federal government owes the Navajo Nation an affirmative, judicially enforceable fiduciary duty to assess and address the Navajo Nation’s need for water from particular sources, in the absence of any substantive source of law that expressly establishes such a duty.
22-49 Lora v. U.S. Whether 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(D)(ii), which provides that “no term of imprisonment imposed … under this subsection shall run concurrently with any other term of imprisonment,” is triggered when a defendant is convicted and sentenced under 18 U.S.C. § 924(j).
22-47 Benninghoff v. 2021 Legislative Reapportionment Commission Whether districts drawn for transparently racial reasons, without a Voting Rights Act justification, satisfy the 14th Amendment merely because the redistricting authority also satisfied traditional districting principles.
22-42 Tiwari v. Friedlander Whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires meaningful review of restrictions on the right to engage in a common occupation.
22-37 Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, v. GlaxoSmithKline, LLC Whether a generic drug manufacturer's FDA-approved label that carves out all of the language the brand manufacturer has identified as covering its patented uses can be held liable on a theory that its label still intentionally encourages infringement of those carved-out uses.
22-30 Ritter v. Migliori Whether the Supreme Court should vacate, under United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit holding that a Pennsylvania requirement for voters to sign and date a declaration when they vote by mail is preempted by the materiality provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
22-25 McCutchen v. U.S. Whether, for purposes of the Fifth Amendment’s taking clause, a delegation of general legislative rulemaking authority to an agency constitutes an inherent restraint on title to any personal property that could be subsequently subjected to a prospective legislative rule, rendering the physical taking of the property non-redressable.
22-18 Cuker Interactive, LLC v. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, LLP Whether a federal court deciding a state-law issue in a bankruptcy case must apply the forum state’s choice-of-law rules or federal choice-of-law rules to determine what substantive law governs.
22-10 Dubin v. U.S. Whether a person commits aggravated identity theft any time they mention or otherwise recite someone else’s name while committing a predicate offense.
22-8 Momphard v. Knibbs (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit erred in finding that a reasonable officer in petitioner’s position would not have perceived a danger that justified lethal force; and (2) whether the 4th Circuit erred in defining respondent’s clearly established constitutional right in a general sense by stretching cases with superficial similarities for purposes of abrogating qualified immunity.
21-1601 Escobar v. Texas Whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals erred in holding that the prosecution’s reliance on admittedly false DNA evidence to secure petitioner’s conviction and death sentence is consistent with the due process clause of the 5th Amendment because there is no reasonable likelihood that the false DNA evidence could have affected the judgment of the jury.
21-1599 Polselli v. Internal Revenue Service Whether the exception in I.R.C. § 7609(c)(2)(D)(i) to the notice requirements for an Internal Revenue Service summons on third-party recordkeepers applies only when the delinquent taxpayer owns or has a legal interest in the summonsed records, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has held, or whether the exception applies to a summons for anyone’s records whenever the IRS thinks that person’s records might somehow help it collect a delinquent taxpayer’s liability, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 6th and 7th Circuits have held.
21-1598 City of Anaheim, California v. Valenzuela Whether under Robertson v. Wegmann a federal court must apply a state law prohibition on hedonic damages to a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 survival claim, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit has held, or whether a limitation on such damages is inconsistent with the purposes of Section 1983, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 7th and 9th Circuits have held.
21-1587 Shoop v. Cunningham (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit erred by granting habeas relief based on an alleged misapplication of its own circuit precedent under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which generally prohibits courts from awarding habeas relief to state prisoners but lifts that prohibition with respect to prisoners in custody because of a state-court ruling that was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States”; and (2) whether, when the requirements for a federal evidentiary hearing are otherwise satisfied but Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b)(1) forbids considering the only evidence supporting an evidentiary hearing, a court must hold the hearing regardless.
21-1576 Smith v. U.S. Whether the proper remedy for the government’s failure to prove venue is an acquittal barring re-prosecution of the offense, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 5th and 8th Circuits have held, or whether instead the government may re-try the defendant for the same offense in a different venue, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 6th, 9th, 10th and 11th Circuits have held.
21-1572 Domino’s Pizza, LLC v. Carmona Whether drivers making solely in-state deliveries of goods ordered by in-state customers from an in-state warehouse are nevertheless a “class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” for purposes of Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act simply because some of those goods crossed state lines before coming to rest at the warehouse.
21-1571 Ragan v. Ragan Whether, after an Employee Retirement Income Security Act plan administrator has fully distributed life insurance plan proceeds, ERISA preempts a claimant’s state-law right to those proceeds.
21-1570 Spade v. Department of Justice Whether federal courts have subject-matter jurisdiction to address what injuries fall within the scope of the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act.
21-1567 Biogen Int'l GmbH v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. Whether 35 U.S.C. § 112’s requirement that a patent specification “contain a written description of the invention” is met when the specification describes the invention, or whether the specification must also disclose data that demonstrates the claimed invention is “effective” and emphasize the claimed invention by singling it out and describing it more than once.
21-1566 Juno Therapeutics v. Kite Pharma Whether the adequacy of the “written description of [an] invention” is measured by the statutory standard of “in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use the same” in 35 U.S.C. § 112(a), or by the Federal Circuit’s test that the “written description of the invention” must demonstrate the inventor’s “possession” of “the full scope of the claimed invention” including all “known and unknown” variations of each component.
21-1565 State Health Plan for Teachers and State Employees v. Lake Whether a state legislature's express reservation of the right to amend a statute providing benefits to government employees bars a claim under the Constitution's contracts clause based on the legislature’s later decision to amend those benefits.
21-1552 Central Specialties v. Large Whether, before proceeding to the qualified immunity analysis, courts must determine that a government official was acting within the scope of his authority.
21-1550 Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. Board of County Commissioners of Boulder County (1) Whether federal common law necessarily and exclusively governs claims seeking redress for injuries allegedly caused by the effect of interstate greenhouse-gas emissions on the global climate; and (2) whether a federal district court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 over claims necessarily and exclusively governed by federal common law but labeled as arising under state law.
21-1545 Whitaker v. District of Columbia Concealed Pistol Licensing Review Board (1) Whether the government can render moot a fully briefed appeal challenging the denial of a license to carry a pistol by granting the license, though not confessing error, when the license must later be renewed under the same assertedly illegal standard; and (2) whether a regulation that disqualifies applicants for gun licenses who have exhibited an undefined “propensity for violence or instability” is unconstitutionally vague.
21-1538 Cleveland County, North Carolina v. Conner (1) Whether the Fair Labor Standards Act allows an employee, who has been paid at least the required minimum wage and overtime pay at a rate that is at least one and one-half times her regular rate, to sue her employer for and recover unpaid straight-time wages earned in weeks when she worked overtime; and (2) whether Skidmore v. Swift & Co. allows courts to independently evaluate an agency’s nonbinding interpretation of a statute.
21-1535 Lowery v. Joffe (1) Whether, or in what circumstances, a cy pres award that provides no direct relief or benefit to class members comports with the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(e) requirement that a settlement binding class members must be “fair, reasonable, and adequate"; and (2) whether Rule 23(b)(3) permits certification of a class where the district court has found that class members cannot be ascertained or even self-identify without an individualized “difficult and expensive” inquiry.
21-1522 Torcivia v. Suffolk County, New York (1) Whether a so-called “special-needs exception” to the Fourth Amendment exists and allows warrantless entry into the home of someone who is not subject to penal control or supervision; and (2) whether the court should overrule the judge-made qualified immunity doctrine as to non-police state actors.
21-1509 Costello v. Carter Whether the elections clause in Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution and 2 U.S.C. § 2a(c) constrain the remedial discretion of courts when they impose congressional maps in response to a constitutional violation or an impasse in the state legislature.
21-1503 Lloyds Banking Group v. The Berkshire Bank Whether a court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant merely because the defendant’s alleged co-conspirator took foreseeable actions in the forum in furtherance of an alleged conspiracy, even though the defendant did not direct, control, or supervise the alleged co-conspirator.
21-1496 Twitter v. Taamneh (1) Whether a defendant that provides generic, widely available services to all its numerous users and “regularly” works to detect and prevent terrorists from using those services “knowingly” provided substantial assistance under 18 U.S.C. § 2333 merely because it allegedly could have taken more “meaningful” or “aggressive” action to prevent such use; and (2) whether a defendant whose generic, widely available services were not used in connection with the specific “act of international terrorism” that injured the plaintiff may be liable for aiding and abetting under Section 2333.
21-1492 Elhady v. Bradley (1) Whether, in an interlocutory appeal from the denial of qualified immunity, a court of appeals always has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 to decide whether a remedy exists under Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents for the claim against which the appellant asserts qualified immunity; and (2) whether Bivens claims are categorically precluded at the border, even when the plaintiff is a U.S. citizen who challenges mistreatment on U.S. soil by federal law-enforcement officers performing traditional law-enforcement duties.
21-1491 City of Kent, Washington v. Jacobo-Hernandez Whether the excessive fines clause of the Eighth Amendment provides a livelihood preservation protection which can prevent the forfeiture of the instrumentality of a felony.
21-1486 Powers v. Alabama Whether the search of a purse in the possession of a visitor present at a residence during the execution of a premises warrant violates the Fourth Amendment.
21-1484 Arizona v. Navajo Nation (1) Whether the opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, allowing the Navajo Nation to proceed with a claim to enjoin the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior to develop a plan to meet the Navajo Nation’s water needs and manage the mainstream of the Colorado River in the Lower Basin so as not to interfere with that plan, infringes upon the Supreme Court’s retained and exclusive jurisdiction over the allocation of water from the LBCR mainstream in Arizona v. California; and (2) whether the Navajo Nation can state a cognizable claim for breach of trust consistent with the Supreme Court’s holding in United States v. Jicarilla Apache Nation based solely on unquantified implied rights to water under the doctrine of Winters v. United States.
21-1466 Johnson v. Winfrey (1) Whether a law enforcement officer violates clearly established law under the Supreme Court’s decision in Franks v. Delaware if the officer does not include information in an affidavit that may be material to probable cause, without regard to whether an objective officer could reasonably believe the submitted affidavit supported probable cause; (2) if not, whether Malley v. Briggs provides the appropriate analytical method for determining an officer’s immunity when information that may be material to probable cause is not included in the affidavit, or whether a different standard applies; and (3) whether setoff or contribution is available in a claim brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as six circuits have held, or whether Section 1983 claims permit a plaintiff to obtain a double recovery, as three circuits have held.
21-1463 Missouri v. Biden (1) Whether the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Nov. 5, 2021, vaccine mandate for workers in most federally funded healthcare facilities violates the Administrative Procedure Act because it is arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful; (2) whether the mandate is unconstitutional under the Constitution's spending clause, the anti-commandeering doctrine, and the 10th Amendment; (3) whether the mandate violates the APA because it was issued without notice and comment; and (4) whether the mandate exceeds CMS’s statutory authority.
21-1455 Northport Health Services of Arkansas, LLC v. Department of Health and Human Services (1) Whether the Federal Arbitration Act is indifferent to rules that penalize parties for using arbitration agreements but leave enforceable any theoretical agreements parties enter into despite those penalties; and (2) whether the Department of Health and Human Services may promulgate a rule that concededly singles out arbitration agreements for disfavored treatment even though Congress has nowhere expressly empowered HHS to override the FAA or its federal policy favoring arbitration.
21-1450 Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. U.S. Whether U.S. district courts may exercise subject-matter jurisdiction over criminal prosecutions against foreign sovereigns and their instrumentalities under 18 U.S.C. § 3231 and in light of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
21-1444 Dolgen California, LLC v. Galarsa Whether the Federal Arbitration Act requires enforcement of a bilateral arbitration agreement providing that an employee cannot assert representative claims, including under the California Private Attorneys General Act.
21-1431 Kerr v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (1) Whether spending-clause statutes ever give rise to privately enforceable rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and if so, what the proper framework is for deciding when they do; and (2) whether, assuming spending-clause statutes ever give rise to privately enforceable rights under Section 1983, the Medicaid Act’s any-qualified-provider provision creates a privately enforceable right to challenge a state’s determination that a provider is not qualified to provide certain medical services.
21-1428 Blankenship v. U.S. Whether, to establish a violation of Brady v. Maryland, a defendant must show that he could not have obtained the suppressed, exculpatory evidence through his own independent efforts of “self-help” or “due diligence” as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and five other circuits have held, or whether the defendant’s failure to uncover the evidence independently is irrelevant, as the remaining six courts of appeals have held.
21-1422 Ferris v. Scism (1) Whether the Fourth Amendment requires a police officer to wait until an armed suspect points the barrel of his handgun in the officer’s direction before the officer can deploy lethal force to protect himself and innocents in the area; (2) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit erred in denying Detective Brett Ferris qualified immunity without even identifying what material facts defined the immunity questions; (3) whether the 2nd Circuit erred in deferring the qualified immunity questions to the “post-verdict” stage of the trial so that immunity would only be addressed in the event a jury issued a verdict against Ferris; and (4) whether the 2nd Circuit’s decision below disregarded the Supreme Court’s repeated holdings that qualified immunity is immunity from suit, not merely immunity from judgment, when it declined to define or decide the immunity questions despite a robust record containing undisputed facts.
21-1418 Santos v. U.S. (1) Whether, if a physician’s good faith is a complete defense to a prosecution for prescribing controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose or outside the usual course of professional practice 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), as the Supreme Court may hold in Ruan v. United States, an expert may provide incorrect legal opinion testimony that the test is purely objective; and (2) whether, at sentencing, district courts may find relevant conduct that has a wag-the-dog effect on the guidelines calculation by using a mere preponderance-of-evidence standard (as four circuits have held), or whether they must instead apply a clear-and-convincing-evidence standard (as one circuit has held).
21-1405 Smith v. Ward (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit erred in applying the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act when it held that Georgia need not grant a religious accommodation offered in 39 other prison systems; (2) whether RLUIPA allows religious accommodations to be denied based on any plausible risk to penological interests, if the government merely asserts that it chooses to take no risks; and (3) whether RLUIPA prohibits courts from granting any religious accommodation short of the full accommodation sought by a plaintiff prisoner.
21-1399 Al-Maqablh v. Heinz Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit’s decision, rejecting Ali Al-Maqablh's claim on the ground that the prosecution terminated in a manner that did not affirmatively indicate his innocence or demonstrate that a conviction had become improbable, should be vacated and remanded for reconsideration in light of Thompson v. Clark, in which the Supreme Court held that, to satisfy the favorable-termination requirement for a malicious-prosecution claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff “need only show that his prosecution ended without a conviction.”
21-1398 Centeno v. Puerto Rico Whether the Supreme Court’s decision in Ramos v. Louisiana bars Puerto Rico from continuing to authorize non-unanimous acquittals.
21-1397 In re Grand Jury Whether a communication involving both legal and non-legal advice is protected by attorney-client privilege when obtaining or providing legal advice was one of the significant purposes behind the communication.
21-1394 Fitisemanu v. U.S. Whether persons born in United States territories are entitled to birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause, including whether the Insular Cases should be overruled.
21-1384 Florida v. U.S. Whether Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which grants any “person alleging discrimination” certain “remedies, procedures, and rights,” authorizes the United States to sue the states in its own name.
21-1368 Old Dominion Electric Cooperative v. PJM Interconnection, LLC Whether state-law claims that allegedly conflict with federally filed tariffs involve a substantial federal question; or whether the filed-rate doctrine merely operates as a federal preemption defense that, under the well-pleaded-complaint rule, does not confer arising-under jurisdiction.
21-1360 Kowall v. Benson (1) Whether state legislative candidate qualifications should be subjected merely to rational-basis review, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit concluded below, or some heightened level of scrutiny, as five other circuits and four state courts of last resort have held; and (2) whether Michigan’s lifetime term limits — the shortest and harshest in the nation — violate candidates’ and voters’ First and 14th Amendment rights.
21-1357 Tyler v. Vannoy (1) Whether, when a capital defendant objected to his attorney’s concession of guilt, the explicit text of the Sixth Amendment and longstanding right-to-counsel jurisprudence circumvent the bar under Teague v. Lane and require the application of McCoy v. Louisiana to cases on collateral review; (2) whether McCoy announced a substantive rule that should be applied retroactively to criminal defendants who were subjected to conviction without being afforded their constitutional right to counsel; and (3) whether the Griffith v. Kentucky rather than Teague standard should apply to determine the retroactive application of McCoy, where initial review collateral claims are not final after direct review.
21-1340 Becker v. Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation (1) Whether a federal court may force a non-consenting, non-Indian plaintiff to exhaust his claims in tribal court when the defendant tribe has expressly consented by contract to federal or state court jurisdiction and waived both sovereign immunity and tribal exhaustion; and (2) whether a state court may adjudicate a contractual dispute between a tribe and a non-Indian when the tribe has provided specific contractual consent to state court jurisdiction; or instead, whether the Constitution or laws of the United States prohibit such exercises of state court jurisdiction unless the state has assumed general civil jurisdiction over tribal territory under Sections 1322 and 1326 of Title 25.
21-1333 Gonzalez v. Google LLC Whether Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act immunizes interactive computer services when they make targeted recommendations of information provided by another information content provider, or only limits the liability of interactive computer services when they engage in traditional editorial functions (such as deciding whether to display or withdraw) with regard to such information.
21-1327 Apple Inc. v. Qualcomm Incorporated Whether a licensee has Article III standing to challenge the validity of a patent covered by a license agreement that covers multiple patents.
21-1326 U.S. ex rel. Schutte v. SuperValu Inc. Whether and when a defendant’s contemporaneous subjective understanding or beliefs about the lawfulness of its conduct are relevant to whether it “knowingly” violated the False Claims Act.
21-1319 Nordlicht v. U.S. Whether district courts have discretion to weigh the evidence, including the credibility of witnesses, when deciding to grant a new trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33, or whether they must defer to the jury’s view of the evidence unless the evidence is patently incredible, defies physical realities, or is similarly flawed.
21-1313 Gottesfeld v. U.S. (1) Whether, under the Speedy Trial Act, if one judge grants an “ends of justice” continuance but fails to explain why, a different judge can make the requisite findings to support the continuance; and (2) whether, when confronted with specific allegations supporting judicial disclosure and disqualification, a district court exceeds its discretion by denying a disqualification motion without any explanation or disclosure necessary to facilitate meaningful appellate review.
21-1307 Santa Ana Healthcare & Wellness Centre, LP v. Mondragon Whether the Federal Arbitration Act requires enforcement of a bilateral arbitration agreement providing that an employee cannot raise representative claims, including under the California Private Attorneys General Act.
21-1292 Jones v. City of Detroit, Michigan Whether a public entity can be vicariously liable under a theory of respondeat superior for its employees’ violations of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Rehabilitation Act.
21-1283 Animal Science Products v. Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (1) Whether, despite the Supreme Court’s “well established” interpretation of the Sherman Act, U.S. courts may reinterpret the same text of that act case by case using a discretionary 10-factor balancing test under the doctrine of prescriptive comity; and (2) whether a court interpreting the meaning of foreign law under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 44.1 is limited to the “face” of written legal materials, as the decision below held, or may also consider evidence as to how foreign law is implemented and enforced that would be relevant to the interpretive inquiry in the foreign legal system.
21-1281 Interactive Wearables, LLC v. Polar Electro Oy (1) What the appropriate standard is for determining whether a patent claim is “directed to” a patent-ineligible concept under step one of the Supreme Court’s two-step framework for determining whether an invention is eligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101; (2) whether patent eligibility (at each step of the Supreme Court’s two-step framework) is a question of law for the court based on the scope of the claims or a question of fact for the jury based on the state of art at the time of the patent; and (3) whether it is proper to apply 35 U.S.C. § 112 considerations to determine whether a patent claims eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
21-1246 Postmates, LLC v. Winns Whether agreements calling for individual arbitration are enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act with respect to claims asserted under the California Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act.
21-1243 City of Oakland, California v. Oakland Raiders Whether a court may deny a plaintiff with an antitrust injury proximately caused by a defendant’s antitrust violation a Clayton Act cause of action based on a multifactor, prudential balancing test of “antitrust standing.”
21-1215 Gun Owners of America v. Garland (1) Whether the definition of “machinegun” found in 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b) is clear and unambiguous, and whether bump stocks meet that definition; (2) whether deference under Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council should be given to agency interpretations of ambiguous criminal statutes, displacing the rule of lenity; and (3) whether courts should give deference to agencies when the government expressly waives Chevron.
21-1210 Scott County, Tennesse v. Brawner Whether the Supreme Court should apply the subjective test for deliberate indifference set forth in Farmer v. Brennan to claims by pretrial detainees of inadequate medical care when the application of the solely objective standard in Kingsley v. Hendrickson to these claims fails to consider the difference between action and inaction, results in the constitutionalization of medical malpractice, and creates the only situation in which a person can be held personally liable for violating the constitutional rights of another without committing any intentional act.
21-1193 Oklahoma v. Wadkins What requirements a criminal defendant must satisfy to qualify as an “Indian” under the Major Crimes Act.
21-1123 Harrington v. Clinton Nurseries (1) Whether Section 1004(a) of the Bankruptcy Judgeship Act of 2017, which amended the schedule of quarterly fees payable to the United States Trustee in certain pending bankruptcy cases, contravened Congress’s constitutional authority to “establish ... uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies” because it was initially applied only in the 88 federal judicial districts that have United States Trustees but not in the 6 districts that have Bankruptcy Administrators; and (2) whether, if Section 1004(a) is found unconstitutional, the appropriate remedy is to require the United States Trustee to refund a portion of the quarterly fees paid by respondents in a United States Trustee district.
21-993 Anthony v. Louisiana (1) Whether the presumption of innocence, the right to confrontation and the right to a fair trial permit a court to allow the grand jury prosecutor to take the stand and offer testimony regarding the prosecutor’s belief about the credibility of the alleged victims, the guilt of the defendant and the strength of the state’s evidence; (2) whether the admission of such prosecutorial testimony constitutes structural error or, instead, is subject to harmless error review; and (3) whether a reviewing court’s conclusion that the evidence at trial supports the defendant’s convictions even excluding the grand jury prosecutor’s testimony meets the state’s burden of proving harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt.
21-975 Idaho v. Howard Whether, when officers lawfully deploy a narcotics-detection dog on the exterior of a vehicle and, without any direction, prompting, or facilitation by officers, the dog briefly touches the vehicle or places its snout through an open window, the dog’s conduct constitutes a Fourth Amendment search by officers.
21-972 Buffington v. McDonough (1) Whether the doctrine of Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. permits courts to defer to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ construction of a statute designed to benefit veterans, without first considering the pro-veteran canon of construction; and (2) whether Chevron should be overruled.
21-462 Johnson v. Bethany Hospice and Palliative Care LLC Whether Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b) requires plaintiffs in False Claims Act cases who plead a fraudulent scheme with particularity to also plead specific details of false claims. CVSG: 5/24/2022
21-444 Thomas v. Lumpkin (1) Whether, under the Supreme Court’s clearly established precedent, Andre Thomas—an African American man who, during a schizophrenic episode, killed his estranged white wife, their son, and her daughter— was denied his constitutional right to be tried by an impartial jury, when three jurors at Thomas’s capital trial expressed opposition to people of different races marrying and having children—writing on their voir dire questionnaires that such relationships are “against God’s will,” that we should “stay with our Blood Line,” and that the children of interracial relationships are denied “a specific race to belong to”—and when the jurors never disclaimed those views or said they could set them aside to consider Thomas’s mental illness and make the individualized sentencing judgment required by the Constitution; and (2) whether Thomas was denied his constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel, when defense counsel did not object to, or seek to strike, any of those three jurors, and failed to ask two of them a single question about their bias.
21-420 Postmates, LLC v. Santana Whether agreements calling for individual arbitration are enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act with respect to claims asserted under the California Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act.
21-159 Aposhian v. Garland (1) Whether courts should defer under Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. to an agency interpretation of federal law when the federal government affirmatively disavows Chevron deference; (2) whether the Chevron framework applies to statutes with criminal-law applications; and (3)whether, if a court determines that a statute with criminal-law applications is ambiguous, the rule of lenity requires the court to construe the statute in favor of the criminal defendant, notwithstanding a contrary federal agency construction.
21-119 Postmates, LLC v. Rimler Whether agreements calling for individual arbitration are enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act with respect to claims asserted under the California Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act.

Calls for the Views of the Solicitor General

Docket Case Page Issue(s)
21-1338 NSO Group Technologies Limited v. WhatsApp Inc. Whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act entirely displaces common-law immunity for entities, such that private entities that act as agents for foreign governments may never under any circumstances seek common-law immunity in U.S. courts.
21-1043 Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic Int'l Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit erred in applying the Lanham Act, which provides civil remedies for infringement of U.S. trademarks, extraterritorially to Abitron Austria GmbH's foreign sales, including purely foreign sales that never reached the United States or confused U.S. consumers.
21-1019 ERISA Industry Committee v. City of Seattle, Washington Whether state and local play-or-pay laws that require employers to make minimum monthly healthcare expenditures for their covered employees relate to ERISA plans and are thus preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.
21-1013 Republic of Turkey v. Usoyan (1) Whether the discretionary function rule within the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act—which preserves foreign sovereign immunity for “any claim based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function regardless of whether the discretion be abused”—applies to claims based upon a presidential security detail’s use of force during an official state visit to the United States, when they are acting within the scope of their employment; (2) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s opinion conflicts with relevant decisions of the Supreme Court interpreting the policy prong of the discretionary function rule by authorizing judges to second-guess whether a visiting presidential security detail’s discretionary use of physical force was “plausibly” related to protecting their president, rather than determining whether a presidential security detail’s decisions to physically engage with encroaching civilians is “susceptible to policy analysis”; and (3) which party bears the burden of proving that the discretionary function rule does not apply.
21-968 Fairfax County School Board v. Doe (1) Whether a recipient of federal funding may be liable in damages in a private action under Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education in cases alleging student-on-student sexual harassment when the recipient’s response to such allegations did not itself cause any harassment actionable under Title IX; and (2) whether the requirement of “actual knowledge” in a private action under Davis is met when a funding recipient lacks a subjective belief that any harassment actionable under Title IX occurred.
21-936 U.S. ex rel. Owsley v. Fazzi Associates Whether Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b) requires plaintiffs in False Claims Act cases who plead a fraudulent scheme with particularity to also plead specific details of false claims.
21-887 Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools (1) Whether, and in what circumstances, courts should excuse further exhaustion of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s administrative proceedings under Section 1415(l) when such proceedings would be futile; and (2) whether Section 1415(l) requires exhaustion of a non-IDEA claim seeking money damages that are not available under the IDEA.
21-867 Midwest Air Traffic Control Service v. Badilla Whether state-law tort claims that arise out of the uniquely federal sphere of the military’s combat operations are preempted by the interests embodied in the Federal Tort Claims Act’s combatant-activities exception.
21-757 Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi (1) Whether enablement for purposes of Section 112 of the Patent Act is “a question of fact to be determined by the jury,” as the Supreme Court has held, or “a question of law that [the court] review[s] without deference,” as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit holds; and (2) whether enablement is governed by the statutory requirement that the specification teach those skilled in the art to “make and use” the claimed invention, or whether it must instead enable those skilled in the art “to reach the full scope of claimed embodiments” without undue experimentation—i.e., to cumulatively identify and make all or nearly all embodiments of the invention without substantial “‘time and effort.’”
21-599 Kinney v. HSBC Bank USA, N.A. Whether a bankruptcy court may deny a motion to dismiss and/or grant a completion discharge when there remains, at the end of that plan term, a shortfall that the debtor is willing and able to cure within a reasonable time, or whether such a payment made after the five-year period of a Chapter 13 plan is not a payment “under the plan” but an impermissible modification after the plan ended.