| 18-640 |
Acklin v. Alabama |
Whether a criminal defendant is deprived of his Sixth and 14th Amendment right to conflict-free counsel when his lawyer is paid by a third party; the third party threatens to withhold payment unless the lawyer conducts the defense in a manner that serves the third party’s interests; the lawyer does not inform his client or the court of the conflict; and the lawyer in fact conducts the defense in a manner that serves the third-party payer’s interests and sacrifices the client’s interests. |
| 17-1183 |
Airline Service Providers Association v. Los Angeles World Airports |
Whether the “market participant” exception to federal pre-emption allows a state or local government to impose an otherwise pre-empted rule on private companies even if the government is not procuring any good or service from them. |
| 18-447 |
Alabama Department of Revenue v. CSX Transportation Inc. |
Whether, and under what circumstances, a state can justifiably maintain a sales-and-use tax exemption for fuel used by vessels to transport goods interstate without extending the same exemption to rail carriers under 49 U.S.C. § 11501(b)(4). |
| 18-581 |
Argentine Republic v. Petersen Energia Inversora S.A.U. |
Whether the “commercial activity” exception to sovereign immunity in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2), is inapplicable to suits challenging conduct inextricably intertwined with a sovereign act of expropriation. |
| 18-109 |
Ariosa Diagnostics Inc. v. Illumina Inc. |
Whether unclaimed disclosures in a published patent application and an earlier application it relies on for priority enter the public domain and thus become prior art as of the earlier application’s filing date, or, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held, does the prior art date of the disclosures depend on whether the published application also claims subject matter from the earlier application. |
| 17-1498 |
Atlantic Richfield Co. v. Christian |
(1) Whether a common-law claim for restoration seeking cleanup remedies that conflict with remedies the Environmental Protection Agency ordered is a jurisdictionally barred “challenge” to the EPA’s cleanup under 42 U.S.C. § 9613 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act; (2) whether a landowner at a Superfund site is a “potentially responsible party” that must seek EPA approval under 42 U.S.C. § 9622(e)(6) of CERCLA before engaging in remedial action, even if the EPA has never ordered the landowner to pay for a cleanup; and (3) whether CERCLA pre-empts state common-law claims for restoration that seek cleanup remedies that conflict with EPA-ordered remedies. |
| 17-1530 |
Banca UBAE, S.p.A. v. Peterson |
Whether a federal appellate court is required to decide personal jurisdiction over a defendant when the record in the trial court and on appeal is complete, the parties briefed the issue in the trial court and on appeal, but the appellate court ignored the question. |
| 17-1534 |
Bank Markazi v. Peterson |
Whether a foreign sovereign’s property outside of the United States is entitled to sovereign immunity. |
| 18-472 |
Behr Dayton Thermal Products, LLC v. Martin |
Whether plaintiffs, having failed to demonstrate that common issues predominate over individual issues as to their cause of action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), may nevertheless obtain certification of issue classes for that cause of action under Rule 23(c)(4). |
| 18-234 |
Campos v. U.S. |
Whether, and to what extent, the discretionary-function exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a), restricts the FTCA’s law enforcement proviso, which waives the United States’ sovereign immunity for “[a]ny claim” arising out of an enumerated list of intentional common-law torts committed by federal law-enforcement officers. |
| 17-1529 |
Clearstream Banking S.A. v. Peterson |
Whether foreign sovereign property held by a foreign financial intermediary in a foreign country may, under any circumstances, be subject to execution in United States courts. |
| 18-530 |
Congregation Jeshuat Israel v. Congregation Shearith Israel |
(1) Whether, in ordinary trust and property disputes, the establishment clause precludes courts from considering secular evidence that is relevant and admissible under governing state law merely because the litigants are religious parties; (2) whether, in ordinary trust and property disputes, excluding secular evidence that is relevant and admissible under state law merely because the litigants are religious parties violates the free exercise clause by treating religious parties differently from—and, here, less favorably than—secular parties; and (3) whether, in ordinary trust and property disputes, federal courts sitting in diversity may disregard governing state substantive law and fashion federal common law merely because the litigants are religious parties. |
| 18-260 |
County of Maui, Hawaii v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund |
(1) Whether the Clean Water Act requires a permit when pollutants originate from a point source but are conveyed to navigable waters by a nonpoint source, such as groundwater; and (2) whether the County of Maui had fair notice that a Clean Water Act permit was required for its underground injection control wells that operated without such a permit for nearly 40 years. CVSG: 01/03/2018. |
| 18-612 |
CSX Transportation Inc. v. Alabama Department of Revenue |
Whether, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit held, Alabama’s imposition of a motor-fuels tax on the fuel used by interstate motor carriers sufficiently justifies Alabama’s imposition of a facially discriminatory sales-and-use tax on railroad diesel fuel, notwithstanding decisions of the Supreme Court and at least one state supreme court. |
| 18-658 |
Doe v. Boyertown Area School District |
(1) Whether, given students’ constitutionally protected privacy interest in their partially clothed bodies, a public school has a compelling interest in authorizing students who believe themselves to be members of the opposite sex to use locker rooms and restrooms reserved exclusively for the opposite sex, and whether such a policy is narrowly tailored; and (2) whether the Boyertown policy constructively denies access to locker room and restroom facilities under Title IX “on the basis of sex,” 20 U.S.C. § 1681. |
| 18-164 |
First Solar Inc. v. Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme |
Whether a private securities-fraud plaintiff may establish the critical element of loss causation based on a decline in the market price of a security where the event or disclosure that triggered the decline did not reveal the fraud on which the plaintiff’s claim is based. |
| 18-546 |
Frosh v. Association for Accessible Medicines |
Whether the commerce clause prohibits a state from protecting consumer access to essential off-patent and generic prescription drugs by requiring manufacturers to refrain from unconscionably raising the price of those drugs sold in the state. |
| 18-679 |
Hall v. Idaho |
(1) Whether certain of the “aggravating circumstances” used by Idaho to determine whether a defendant may be sentenced to death—those that ask whether the crime was especially “heinous, atrocious or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity”; whether the defendant exhibited “utter disregard for human life”; and whether the defendant “has exhibited a propensity to commit murder”—fail to provide sentencing juries with constitutionally adequate guidance; and (2) whether Idaho’s felony-murder aggravating circumstance, which substantially duplicates Idaho’s felony-murder statute, violates the constitutional requirement that Idaho sufficiently narrow the class of persons subject to the death penalty. |
| 17-1678 |
Hernandez v. Mesa |
(1) Whether, when the plaintiffs plausibly allege that a rogue federal law enforcement officer violated clearly established Fourth and Fifth amendment rights for which there is no alternative legal remedy, the federal courts can and should recognize a damages claim under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics; and (2) whether, if the federal courts do not recognize such a claim, the Westfall Act violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment insofar as it pre-empts state-law torts suits for damages against rogue federal law enforcement officers acting within the scope of their employment for which there is no alternative legal remedy. |
| 18-415 |
HP Inc. v. Berkheimer |
Whether patent eligibility 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 the art at the time of the patent. |
| 18-505 |
In re U.S. |
(1) Whether this suit is justiciable under article III; (2) whether this suit should be dismissed for failure to comply with the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 551, et seq.; and (3) whether this suit should be dismissed because there is no right to “a climate system capable of sustaining human life” under the due process clause or a public-trust doctrine. |
| 18-192 |
J. B. R. v. U.S. |
Whether the due process clause forbids the government from prosecuting an individual who was a juvenile at the time of the crime under a statute that provides no punishment that can constitutionally be applied to that individual. |
| 17-6943 |
Jones v. Oklahoma |
(1) Whether a complex statistical study that indicates a risk that racial considerations enter into Oklahoma’s capital-sentencing determinations proves that the petitioner’s death sentence is unconstitutional under the Sixth, Eighth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution; and (2) whether Oklahoma’s capital post-conviction statute, Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 22 § 1089(D)(8)(b), and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals’ application of the statute in this case, denies the petitioner an adequate corrective process for the hearing and determination of his newly available federal constitutional claim in violation of his rights under the 14th Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses. |
| 18-6135 |
Kahler v. Kansas |
Whether the Eighth and 14th Amendments permit a state to abolish the insanity defense. |
| 17-834 |
Kansas v. Garcia |
(1) Whether the Immigration Reform and Control Act expressly pre-empts the states from using any information entered on or appended to a federal Form I-9, including common information such as name, date of birth, and social security number, in a prosecution of any person (citizen or alien) when that same, commonly used information also appears in non-IRCA documents, such as state tax forms, leases, and credit applications; and (2) if IRCA bars the states from using all such information for any purpose, whether Congress has the constitutional power to so broadly pre-empt the states from exercising their traditional police powers to prosecute state law crimes. CVSG: 12/04/2018. |
| 18-556 |
Kansas v. Glover |
Whether, for purposes of an investigative stop under the Fourth Amendment, it is reasonable for an officer to suspect that the registered owner of a vehicle is the one driving the vehicle absent any information to the contrary. |
| 18-268 |
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. v. Upstate Forever |
(1) Whether the Clean Water Act’s permitting requirement is confined to discharges from a point source to navigable waters, or whether it also applies to discharges into soil or groundwater whenever there is a “direct hydrological connection” between the groundwater and nearby navigable waters; and (2) whether an “ongoing violation” of the Clean Water Act exists for purposes of the act’s citizen-suit provision when a point source has permanently ceased discharging pollutants, but some of the pollutants are still reaching navigable water through groundwater. CVSG: 01/03/2019. |
| 18-306 |
Larrabee v. U.S. |
(1) Whether the Constitution permits the court-martial of a retired military service member; and (2) whether, if so, the Constitution limits the jurisdiction of courts-martial in such cases to offenses that are related to the retiree’s military status. |
| 17-1542 |
McKee v. Cosby |
Whether a victim of sexual misconduct who merely publicly states that she was victimized (i.e., #metoo) has thrust herself to the forefront of a public debate in an attempt to influence the outcome, thereby becoming a limited-purpose public figure who loses her right to recover for defamation absent a showing of actual malice by clear and convincing evidence. |
| 18-285 |
Missouri v. Douglass |
(1) Whether severance is the default remedy when part of a warrant is valid, or whether the Fourth Amendment requires that the valid sections make up “the greater part of the warrant”; (2) whether the particularity clause—which requires a warrant to describe “the place to be search[ed]” and “the things to be seized” with sufficient particularity— also requires a warrant to state its probable-cause findings with particularity; and (3) whether the exclusionary rule applies when the issuing judge signs off on the officer’s legal mistake in filling out a warrant form. |
| 18-580 |
Nu Image Inc. v. Int'l Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees |
Whether federal courts have subject-matter jurisdiction pursuant to Section 301(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185(a), over a complaint for intentional and negligent misrepresentation and declaratory relief, when the lawsuit seeks relief from claims that the plaintiff violated the parties’ collective-bargaining agreement. |
| 17-1268 |
Opati v. Republic of Sudan |
(1) Whether a party who knowingly and intentionally twice defaults; acts to delay, and not in good faith; and affirmatively elects not to contest a nonjurisdictional legal issue before judgment may nevertheless demonstrate “extraordinary” and “exceptional” circumstances warranting appellate review of the forfeited nonjurisdictional legal issue post-judgment; and (2) whether, consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in Republic of Austria v. Altmann, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act applies retroactively, thereby permitting recovery of punitive damages 28 U.S.C. § 1605A(c) against foreign states for terrorist activities occurring prior to the passage of the current version of the statute. |
| 18-349 |
Patterson v. Walgreen Co. |
(1) Whether an accommodation that merely lessens or has the potential to eliminate the conflict between work and religious practice is “reasonable” per se, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 1st, 4th and 11th Circuits hold; does it instead create a jury question, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 8th and 10th Circuits hold; or must an accommodation fully eliminate the conflict in order to be “reasonable” as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd, 7th and 9th Circuits hold; (2) whether speculation about possible future burdens is sufficient to meet the employer’s burden in establishing “undue hardship,” as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 5th, 6th and 11th Circuits hold, or must the employer demonstrate an actual burden, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th, 8th, 9th and 10th Circuits hold; and (3) whether the portion of TWA v. Hardison opining that “undue hardship” simply means something more than a “de minimis cost” should be disavowed or overruled. |
| 18-560 |
Peaje Investments LLC v. The Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico |
Whether the Supreme Court should resolve a conflict among the courts of appeals over the correct legal standard for determining whether a lien is a “statutory lien” under the Bankruptcy Code. |
| 17-1175 |
Poarch Band of Creek Indians v. Wilkes |
Whether an Indian tribe is immune from civil liability for tort claims asserted by nonmembers. |
| 17-1406 |
Republic of Sudan v. Opati |
(1) Whether the term “extrajudicial killing” means a summary execution by state actors, as is consistent with international law and the statutory text, context and purpose of 28 U.S.C. § 1605A(a); (2) whether foreign sovereign immunity may be withdrawn for emotional distress claims brought by family members of victims under 28 U.S.C. § 1605A(a)(2)(A)(ii); (3) whether 28 U.S.C. § 1605A(c) provides the exclusive remedy for actions brought under 28 U.S.C. § 1605A(a), and forecloses state substantive causes of action previously asserted through the “pass-through” provision of 28 U.S.C. § 1606; (4) whether the statute of limitations contained in 28 U.S.C. § 1605A(b) is jurisdictional in nature and, if it is not, whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit should nonetheless have heard Sudan’s limitations defense asserted through its timely, direct appeal; and (5) whether the undisputed fact of civil war, internal strife and partitioning of Sudan into two counties constitutes excusable neglect or extraordinary circumstances for vacatur under Rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. |
| 17-1686 |
RPX Corp. v. ChanBond LLC |
Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit can refuse to hear an appeal by a petitioner from an adverse final decision in a Patent Office inter partes review on the basis of lack of a patent-inflicted injury-in-fact when Congress has (i) statutorily created the right to have the Director of the Patent Office cancel patent claims when the petitioner has met its burden to show unpatentability of those claims, (ii) statutorily created the right for parties dissatisfied with a final decision of the Patent Office to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and (iii) statutorily created an estoppel prohibiting the petitioner from again challenging the patent claims. |
| 18-540 |
Rutledge v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Association |
Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit erred in holding that Arkansas’ statute regulating pharmacy benefit managers’ drug-reimbursement rates, which is similar to laws enacted by a substantial majority of states, is pre-empted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, in contravention of the Supreme Court’s precedent that ERISA does not pre-empt rate regulation. |
| 18-682 |
Santana v. U.S. |
Whether the use of a name, without more, constitutes the use of a “means of identification of another person” under 18 U.S.C. § 1028A. |
| 17-1236 |
Sudan v. Owens |
(1) Whether plaintiffs suing a foreign state bear a “lighter burden” in establishing the facts necessary for jurisdiction than in proving a case on the merits despite the Supreme Court’s holding to the contrary — at the urging of the Solicitor General and the Department of State — in Venezuela v. Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co.; (2) whether plaintiffs suing a foreign state can establish facts necessary for jurisdiction “based solely upon” the opinion testimony of so-called “terrorism experts,” when the record lacks admissible factual evidence sufficient to establish jurisdiction; and (3) whether plaintiffs’ failure to prove a foreign state “either specifically intended or directly advanced” a terrorist attack is “irrelevant to proximate cause and jurisdictional causation,” when (i) the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s “terrorism exception” establishes jurisdiction over a foreign state only when the foreign state provided material support “for” a specified act of terrorism, and (ii) proximate causation requires a “direct relationship” between the defendant’s conduct and the resultant injury. |
| 18-309 |
Swartz v. Rodriguez |
(1) Whether the panel’s decision to create an implied remedy for damages under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in the new context of a cross-border shooting misapplies Supreme Court precedent and violates the separation-of-powers principles, when foreign relations, border security and the extraterritorial application of the Fourth Amendment are some of the special factors that counsel hesitation against such an extension; and (2) whether, if the above “antecedent” question is answered in the negative, Agent Swartz is entitled to qualified immunity because there is no clearly established law applying the Fourth Amendment to protect a Mexican citizen, with no significant connection to the United States, who is injured in Mexico by a federal agent’s cross-border shooting. |
| 18-600 |
Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions Inc. v. Renesas Electronics America Inc. |
Whether, under the Patent Act, an “offer[] to sell” occurs when the offer is actually made or when the offer contemplates that the proposed sale will take place. |
| 18-500 |
The First Presbyterian Church U.S.A. of Tulsa, Oklahoma v. Doe |
(1) Whether the religious-autonomy doctrine derives from the First Amendment or rather is a consent-based doctrine applicable only to disputes between a church and one of its own members; and (2) whether the religious-autonomy doctrine is a threshold jurisdictional issue or an affirmative defense. |
| 17-1712 |
Thole v. U.S. Bank, N.A. |
(1) Whether an ERISA plan participant or beneficiary may seek injunctive relief against fiduciary misconduct under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(3) without demonstrating individual financial loss or the imminent risk thereof; and (2) whether an ERISA plan participant or beneficiary may seek restoration of plan losses caused by fiduciary breach under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(2) without demonstrating individual financial loss or the imminent risk thereof. |
| 17-1189 |
Torrez v. U.S. |
(1) Whether the categorical approach set forth in Taylor v. United States and its progeny applies to determine whether a defendant has “previously been convicted” of a relevant offense; (2) whether prior-conviction aggravators can be satisfied by convictions for conduct that occurred after the capital offense; and (3) whether the warrantless seizure and search of historical cell-site location information, revealing a cell-phone user’s location and movement over a prolonged period of time, violates the Fourth Amendment. |
| 18-486 |
Toshiba Corp. v. Automotive Industries Pension Trust Fund |
Whether the Securities Exchange Act applies, without exception, whenever a claim is based on a domestic transaction, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held below, or whether in certain circumstances the Exchange Act does not apply, despite the claim being based on a domestic transaction, because other aspects of the claim make it impermissibly extraterritorial, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has held. |
| 18-106 |
Turner v. U.S. |
(1) Whether the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches when the prosecutor conducts plea negotiations before the filing of a formal charge; and (2) whether the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches when a federal prosecutor conducts plea negotiations before the filing of a formal charge in federal court when the defendant has already been charged with the same offense in state court. |
| 18-420 |
U.S. v. Wheeler |
Whether a prisoner whose 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion challenging the applicability of a statutory minimum was denied based on circuit precedent may later seek habeas relief on the ground that the circuit’s interpretation of the relevant statutes has changed. |
| 17-6891 |
Wood v. Oklahoma |
(1) Whether a complex statistical study that indicates a risk that racial considerations enter into Oklahoma’s capital-sentencing determinations proves that the petitioner’s death sentence is unconstitutional under the Sixth, Eighth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution; and (2) whether Oklahoma’s capital post-conviction statute, Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 22 § 1089(D)(8)(b), and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals’ application of the statute in this case, denies the petitioner an adequate corrective process for the hearing and determination of his newly available federal constitutional claim in violation of his rights under the 14th Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses. |
| 18-410 |
Yates v. U.S. |
Whether, to establish a violation of Brady v. Maryland, a defendant must show that he did not know of the evidence suppressed by the government and could not have obtained it with reasonable diligence. |
| 18-575 |
YPF S.A. v. Petersen Energia Inversora S.A.U. |
Whether the “commercial activity” exception to sovereign immunity in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2), is inapplicable to suits challenging conduct inextricably intertwined with a sovereign act of expropriation. |
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