WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Monday, June 17

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Monday morning read:

• Supreme Court Rules Against Migrants in Dispute Over Deportation Hearing Notices (Abbie VanSickle, The New York Times)
• Supreme Court gun ruling stuns Las Vegas shooting survivors (Kayla Epstein, BBC News)
• Sen. Murphy says Supreme Court is readying to ‘fundamentally rewrite’ Second Amendment after bump stock ruling (Avery Lotz, CNN)
• Abortion rights: Tracking state lawsuits two years after Roe reversal (Brendan Pierson, Reuters)
• Louisiana Republican Garret Graves says he won’t seek re-election after Supreme Court ruling on redistricting (Megan Lebowitz & Sahil Kapur, NBC News)

Coming up: On Thursday, June 20, the court expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term. We’ll be live at 9:45 a.m. EDT.

OPINION ANALYSIS

Justices refuse to force refund of excessive bankruptcy fees

Two years after the court ruled that a disparity in bankrupt debtors’ fees between judicial districts was impermissible, the justices on Friday ruled 6-3 that charging equal fees going forward is an adequate remedy for that disparity. The government will not have to pay back debtors who paid more than they would have in another district.  

In most districts (88 out of the 94 federal judicial districts), Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases are administered by the Office of the United States Trustee, a component of the Department of Justice. For historical reasons involving politics at the time of the Bankruptcy Code’s enactment, six districts in Alabama and North Carolina do not participate in that system; they are administered by the Bankruptcy Administrator Program in the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. By statute, the U.S. Trustee charges user fees that cover its costs, so that taxpayers contribute nothing to run the bankruptcy system.

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Friday, June 14

We’ll be live for another opinion day at 9:45 this morning. Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Friday morning read:

• Supreme Court rejects challenge to abortion drug mifepristone (Holly Honderich, BBC News)
• Supreme Court, in Starbucks Ruling, Curbs Labor Regulator’s Authority (Noam Scheiber & Santul Nerkar, The New York Times)
• Supreme Court rejects attempt to trademark ‘Trump Too Small’ (Justin Jouvenal & Ann E. Marimow, The Washington Post)
• Supreme Court’s Clarence Thomas took additional trips paid for by benefactor, senator says (John Kruzel, Reuters)
• There’s a Time Bomb Hidden In the Supreme Court’s Abortion Pills Decision (Madiba K. Dennie, Balls and Strikes)

Coming up: On Thursday, June 20, the court again expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term. We’ll be live at 9:45 a.m. EDT.

OPINION ANALYSIS

Supreme Court rejects “Trump too small” trademark

The court on Thursday unanimously rejected an attempt to force the Patent and Trademark Office to accept the registration “Trump too small” as a trademark for T-shirts mocking the former president. Steve Elster had argued that the provision of the Lanham Act that directs the PTO to refuse to register any mark that identifies “a particular living individual” violated his First Amendment rights. Although the justices splintered sharply on their reasoning, all agreed that the First Amendment permits the PTO to refuse to register the mark.

All nine justices agreed on the basic framework of analysis, which appears early in the principal opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas. Writing in that part of his opinion for six justices (all but Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson), Thomas explained that the restriction is viewpoint-neutral but not content-neutral. As he observed, the justices “have twice concluded that trademark restrictions that discriminate based on viewpoint violate the First Amendment.” The earlier restrictions were viewpoint based because they “prohibited trademarks based only on one viewpoint, while permitting trademarks based on other viewpoints.” The ban here, by contrast, is viewpoint neutral – Thomas pointed to the PTO’s refusal of trademarks such as “Welcome President Biden,” “I Stump for Trump,” and “Obama Pajama” – rejections that doubtless disappointed a broad range of political viewpoints. Having said that, Thomas explained that the restriction still is content-based, because it implements a ban based on the content of the trademark: “The names clause turns on the content of the proposed trademark — whether it contains a person’s name. If the trademark does contain a person’s name, and the registrant lacks that person’s consent, then the names clause prohibits registration.”

RELIST WATCH

Six cases to look out for

The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here.

With just a few weeks left before the Supreme Court’s summer recess, we’re entering the busiest phase of the year for relists. The court granted review in two cases on Monday: one-time relist Facebook v. Amalgamated Bank, involving what disclosures are required under federal securities law, and two-time relist Advocate Christ Medical Center v. Becerra, involving the calculation of reimbursement rates under the Medicare Act. The rest of the relists are all returning for another week.

There are six newly relisted cases this week, so I’m going to be more summary than usual in describing them. This week’s relists are a real grab bag of issues.