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Petitions

A petition for certiorari, or cert petition, is a legal brief filed in the Supreme Court asking the justices to review (and ultimately overturn) a lower court ruling. In a typical term, the justices receive over 8,000 cert petitions and grant between 50 and 70 of these. The justices usually decide whether to grant or reject a petition at approximately two dozen private conferences, which generally take place on either Thursday or Friday, depending on the time of year; they then usually release a list of orders from that conference, including an announcement of which petitions for review have been granted or denied, the following Monday. All of the cases which have so far been granted for the October 2025 term can be found here. 

Petitions Relisted for the Next Conference (16)

This category consists of petitions that the justices have considered at at least one conference and decided to consider again at their next conference. We provide these cases first because, for more than a decade, the court has had a general practice of agreeing to hear a case only after it has "relisted" the case at least once. In other words, these petitions may have the strongest chance of being granted.

Docket Case Page Issue(s)
22o162 Florida v. California and Washington Whether the court should bar California and Washington from issuing commercial learner's permits and commercial driver's licenses "to applicants who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents" and from issuing "non-domiciled CDLS to applicants who do not meet the requirements of 49 C.F.R. § 383.71(f)."

Times Relisted: 3
24-1099 Smith v. Scott (1) Whether, viewing the facts from the officers’ perspective at the time, the officers acted reasonably under the Fourth Amendment by using bodyweight pressure to restrain a potentially armed and actively resisting individual only until handcuffing could be accomplished; and (2) whether the panel erred in denying qualified immunity where no case clearly established that pre-handcuffing bodyweight pressure violates the Fourth Amendment.

Times Relisted: 17
25-77 Foote v. Ludlow School Committee Whether a public school violates parents’ constitutional rights when, without parental knowledge or consent, the school encourages a student to transition to a new “gender” or participates in that process.

Times Relisted: 12
25-153 Gator’s Custom Guns v. Washington Whether ammunition feeding devices with the capacity to hold more than 10 rounds are “Arms” presumptively entitled to constitutional protection under the plain text of the Second Amendment.

Times Relisted: 11
25-179 Reinink v. Hart (1) Whether, in the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness-of-a-seizure context, a law enforcement officer’s intended level of force is relevant to determining whether an officer’s use of force should be analyzed under a deadly-use-of-force standard or a general use-of-force standard; and (2) whether, in analyzing an excessive force claim brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, an officer’s mistaken use of force being higher than what he or she intended entitles the officer to qualified immunity, so long as the mistake is reasonable under the circumstances.

Times Relisted: 4
25-198 Duncan v. Bonta (1) Whether a ban on the possession of exceedingly common ammunition feeding devices violates the Second Amendment; and (2) whether a law dispossessing citizens, without compensation, of property that they lawfully acquired and long possessed without incident violates the takings clause.

Times Relisted: 11
25-227 Poore v. U.S. Whether the limits on agency deference announced in Kisor v. Wilkie and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo constrain the deference courts may accord the Sentencing Commission's interpretation of its own rules via commentary.

Times Relisted: 9
25-238 Viramontes v. Cook County Whether the Second and 14th Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.

Times Relisted: 11
25-248 District of Columbia v. R.W. (1) Whether a court assessing the existence of reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment may exclude a fact known to the officer, or instead must assess all the evidence when weighing the totality of the circumstances; and (2) whether, under the totality-of-the-circumstances test, the officer in this case had reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigative stop.

Times Relisted: 9
25-421 National Association for Gun Rights v. Lamont Whether a ban on the possession of AR-15-style rifles and firearm magazines with a capacity in excess of 10 rounds violates the Second Amendment.

Times Relisted: 6
25-538 City of Los Angeles v. Estate of Hernandez (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit disregarded this court’s precedents, including Graham v. Connor and Plumhoff v. Rickard, by artificially parsing a six-second event into discrete segments; (2) whether the 9th Circuit effectively adopted a new and more extreme “moment-of-threat” rule than that articulated by the court in Barnes v. Felix; (3) whether, in denying qualified immunity, the en banc 9th Circuit evaluated whether the right at issue was “clearly established” at an impermissibly high level of generality, contrary to this court in Kisela v. Hughes, City & County of San Francisco v. Sheehan, and Ashcroft v. al-Kidd; and (4) whether this case presents a novel opportunity to clarify Fourth Amendment guidance that while officers should be encouraged to continue to reassess a situation, they must also be judged in light of the rapidly evolving and life-threatening circumstances they confront.

Times Relisted: 3
25-566 Grant v. Higgins Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess semiautomatic rifles that are in common use for lawful purposes, including the AR-15.

Times Relisted: 6
25-580 Whitton v. Dixon (1) Whether in determining if a constitutional error had a prejudicial effect on the outcome of a trial a court must consider only that evidence that was presented to the jury at the trial; and (2) whether the prejudice from the Giglio v. United States violation in this case met the standards for relief under Giglio and Brecht v. Abrahamson.

Times Relisted: 4
25-581 St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy (1) Whether proving a lack of general applicability under Employment Division v. Smith requires showing unfettered discretion or categorical exemptions for identical secular conduct; (2) whether Carson v. Makin displaces the rule of Employment Division v. Smith only when the government explicitly excludes religious people and institutions; and (3) whether Employment Division v. Smith should be overruled.

Times Relisted: 1
25-666 Castro v. Guevara Whether a trial court’s determination that a child is “well settled” with regard to the Hague Convention is subject to de novo review, or whether it is reviewed for clear error.

Times Relisted: 3
25-5343 Beaird v. U.S. (1) Whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) comports with the Second Amendment; (2) whether Stinson v. United States still accurately states the level of deference due to the Commentary of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines; and (3) whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) permits conviction for the possession of any firearm that has ever crossed state lines at any time in the indefinite past, and, if so, if it is facially unconstitutional.

Times Relisted: 5

Petitions We're Watching for the Next Conference (21)

This category consists of petitions that the justices will consider at the next conference that we believe have a decent chance of being granted (usually after being relisted at least once). The factors that we consider in deciding whether to include a petition on this list include the importance and potential impact of the question presented by the petition, whether the courts of appeals appear to be divided on that question, whether the case appears to be a good candidate for the court's review (there are not procedural issues or irregularities), and whether there are "friend of the court" briefs filed in support of the petition.

Docket Case Page Issue(s)
25-966 Department of Labor v. Sun Valley Orchards, LLC Whether Article III of the Constitution precludes Congress from assigning to the Secretary of Labor the initial adjudication of proceedings to collect monetary remedies from employers who violate the terms and conditions of participating in the H–2A visa program.
25-943 Smith v. Kind Whether, when a government official acts in an obviously unconstitutional manner, that is sufficient for the violation to be clearly established, or it is a violation clearly established only if there is binding precedent in a factually indistinguishable case.
25-906 E.D. ex rel. Duell v. Noblesville School District Whether Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier applies (1) whenever student speech might be erroneously attributed to the school; (2) when student speech occurs in the context of an “organized and structured educational activity”; or (3) only when student speech is part of the “curriculum.”
25-874 Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. v. Noohi Whether expert testimony must be admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and the framework enunciated in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., to justify certifying a class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23.
25-848 Alabama v. Powell (1) Whether courts must reverse for Griffin v. California error without examining a prosecutor’s comment in context and without finding prejudice; or (2) whether Griffin should be overruled.
25-847 Alabama v. Sykes (1) Whether courts must reverse for Griffin v. California error without examining a prosecutor’s comment in context and without finding prejudice; or (2) whether Griffin should be overruled.
25-818 Hargrove v. Healy Whether “[t]ime credits,” which can “be applied toward time in prerelease custody or supervised release” under 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(C) may be applied to reduce an individual’s term of supervised release.
25-790 New York Football Giants v. Flores Whether an arbitration agreement governing disputes in a professional sports league is categorically unenforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act because it designates the league commissioner as the default arbitrator and permits the commissioner to develop arbitral procedures.
25-776 Youth 71Five Ministries v. Williams (1) Whether a religious organization can raise the First Amendment right to religious autonomy as an affirmative claim challenging legislative or executive action under 42 U.S.C. 1983, like other constitutional rights, or whether the doctrine may only be asserted as an affirmative defense after a suit has been filed; and (2) whether a state violates the First Amendment by conditioning access to a public grant program on a religious organization waiving its right to employ coreligionists, including for ministerial positions.
25-774 Johnson v. U.S. Whether police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they use a drug detection canine to sniff the door of an apartment home in a multi-unit building to determine whether there is contraband inside.
25-748 McCarthy v. Hernandez (1) Whether the Second Circuit violated the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act by finding a state jury instruction invalid under Missouri v. Seibert; and (2) whether the Second Circuit violated AEDPA by finding that a single response by a state trial judge to a jury note necessarily infected the jury verdict, when the state courts found that there was more than sufficient evidence of the defendant’s guilt that was unaffected by the response.
25-726 Hicks v. Frame Whether 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(B)(ii)’s exception to the exhaustion requirement for “circumstances” that render state proceedings “ineffective” can apply when a state court reanimates inordinately delayed proceedings after a petitioner files in federal court.
25-690 Thornell v. Bieganski Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit failed to apply the correct deferential standard of review, as set out in 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), and also misapplied this court’s precedents, set out in Martin v. Ohio and Patterson v. New York, regarding when an affirmative defense improperly shifts the burden of proof to a criminal defendant, in violation of the due process clause.
25-689 Johns v. Georgia Whether a surrogate’s oral recitation of testimonial hearsay from an unadmitted autopsy report violates the Confrontation Clause.
25-664 Dotson v. Wolfe Whether the “new” evidence required to make an actual-innocence claim under Schlup v. Delo includes only newly discovered evidence that was not available at the time of trial or broadly includes all evidence that was not presented to the factfinder during trial.
25-573 Trump v. Carroll (1) Whether Federal Rule of Evidence 415 overrides Rule 403’s requirement to balance the probative value of temporally remote propensity evidence against its prejudicial effect before such evidence can be admitted?; (2) Whether Federal Rule of Evidence 413(d) authorizes the admission of temporally remote propensity evidence that the defendant committed the “crime” of “sexual assault” when the alleged prior act did not constitute a crime or a sexual assault?; and (3) Whether Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b)(2) permits the admission of “modus operandi” or “corroboration” evidence of prior “bad acts” without establishing a non-propensity purpose of the evidence, such as identity, absence of mistake, or another enumerated exception in Rule 404(b)(2)?
25-362 Griffiths v. Keith (1) Whether a police officer must wait until an armed, fleeing suspect turns and points his gun at the officer before using deadly force where, as here, the suspect refuses to comply with an officer’s commands to drop his weapon, proceeds to flee with the gun in his hand, and could turn and fire upon the officer; and (2) whether the court of appeals violated existing Supreme Court precedent by merely citing the general rule in defining a clearly established right, and by failing to identify any case where an officer acting under similar circumstances was held to have violated the Fourth Amendment.
25-259 Littlejohn v. School Board of Leon County Whether, when a plaintiff alleges that the application of a state policy infringed a fundamental right “‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,’” a court can deny relief because the infringement did not “shock the conscience."
24-920 Pardue v. Hines (1) Whether professional conduct regulations that incidentally burden speech are subject to heightened First Amendment scrutiny; and (2) whether, assuming heightened scrutiny applies, Texas’s physical-examination requirement satisfies it.
24-279 360 Virtual Drone Services LLC v. Ritter Whether, in an as-applied First Amendment challenge to an occupational-licensing law, the standard for determining whether the law regulates speech or regulates conduct is this court"s traditional conduct-versus-speech dichotomy.
24-276 Crownholm v. Moore (1) What standard applies to determine whether an occupational-licensing law's restriction on a person's use, creation, and dissemination of information in drawings is a regulation of his speech or of his conduct that incidentally involves his speech; and (2) what level of constitutional scrutiny applies to speech regulated by an occupational-licensing law.

Featured Petitions (50)

This category consists of petitions which have not (yet) been scheduled to be heard at a particular conference, but which we believe (for the same reasons as the list of "Petitions We're Watching for the Next Conference") have a decent chance of eventually being granted. Please note that we review petitions in the order in which they've been filed. The fact that a petition is not listed does not necessarily mean we will not list it in the future.

Docket Case Page Issue(s)
25-1143 D. A. ex rel. B.A. v. Tri County Area Schools Whether Bethel School District v. Fraser permits schools to censor nondisruptive political speech that is not plainly profane or lewd.
25-1127 U.S. v. Cotter Corp., N.S.L. Whether a downstream purchaser’s liability for mishandling nuclear material that the purchaser obtained for private benefit, but that was originally produced more than a decade earlier under a government contract with another party, is subject to indemnification by the United States under the original government contract because it qualifies as “public liability arising out of or in connection with the contractual activity” under 42 U.S.C. 2210(d).
25-1103 U.S. Doge Service v. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (1) Whether the court of appeals’ order departed from this court’s instructions and the separation-of-powers principles that this court articulated in Cheney v. United States District Court; and (2) whether a court may order broad discovery against an Executive Office advisory body—potentially providing much information sought on the merits of a plaintiff’s FOIA claims—to determine whether FOIA’s disclosure requirements apply in the first place.
25-1079 RMS of Georgia, LLC v. Environmental Protection Agency Whether Congress violated the vesting clause of Article I by giving an executive agency unbounded discretion to choose which private parties are entitled to participate in a multibillion-dollar market.
25-1047 Triumph Foods, LLC v. Campbell (1) Whether the Federal Meat Inspection Act imposes additional or different—even if non-conflicting—requirements on pork producers, and is thus preempted by the FMIA under principles of express or implied preemption; and (2) whether the FMIA violates the dormant commerce clause or the other constitutional doctrines sufficiently pleaded in the complaint.
25-1028 Smith v. Michigan Department of Corrections Whether Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. 794, authorizes a private right of action for retaliation.
25-1018 Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America v. O’Day (1) Whether a government reporting requirement is subject to intermediate First Amendment scrutiny, and satisfies such scrutiny, so long as it aims to correct “information asymmetries” that are “product-specific”; and (2) whether entities that operate in “highly regulated” industries categorically lack reasonable investment-backed expectations in their trade secrets for purposes of the takings clause.
25-1012 HMTX Industries, LLC v. U.S. Whether the U.S. Trade Representative’s streamlined authority under Section 307 of the Trade Act of 1974 to “modify” an existing tariff action confers on the agency essentially unlimited power to expand the scope of that initial action, as reflected in the tenfold expansion challenged here.
25-1008 Aviagames v. Pandolfi (1) Whether the Federal Arbitration Act's equal-treatment requirement is violated by a rule deeming arbitration agreements procedurally unconscionable when they incorporate the American Arbitration Association’s rules because those rules are “subject to change”; and (2) whether California’s arbitration-specific severability doctrine—under which the Ninth Circuit refused to enforce the severance provision in the parties’ arbitration agreement—violates the FAA’s equal-treatment rule.
25-1002 Saadeh v. N.J. State Bar Ass’n Whether the First Amendment overrides antidiscrimination laws when the discrimination furthers the defendant’s views about “diversity,” “equity,” or “inclusion.”
25-999 Miller v. U.S. Whether the public trial clause of the Sixth Amendment requires case-specific determinations of necessity and narrow tailoring before a Military Rule of Evidence (M.R.E.) 412 hearing can be closed to the public.
25-970 Ghanem v. U.S. Whether the Fifth and Sixth Amendments prohibit federal courts from increasing a criminal defendant’s authorized punishment based on conduct—including uncharged, dismissed, or acquitted conduct—that was never admitted by the defendant or proven to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
25-967 Pennsylvania v. Eakin Whether Pennsylvania’s requirement that mail-in voters provide a handwritten date when signing a preprinted declaration on a ballot return envelope violates the First or Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
25-962 Republican National Committee v. Eakin (1) Whether a non-discriminatory rule imposing the usual burdens of voting is constitutional; (2) whether a mail-voting rule is subject only to rational-basis review when the state makes in-person voting available; and (3) where Anderson-Burdick applies, whether a minimally burdensome voting rule is subject only to rational-basis review, and whether a rule’s burden is measured by the cost of compliance or the consequence of noncompliance.
25-960 Oregon v. Maney (1) Whether the Eighth Amendment requires state corrections leadership to implement an overall “reasonable” statewide response to a public-health emergency in the aggregate, across multiple years and facilities; and (2) whether it was clearly established for purposes of qualified immunity that the State of Oregon’s overall response to the COVID-19 pandemic between March 2020 and May 2022 would constitute cruel and unusual punishment, despite a federal judge ruling in June 2020 that the response met constitutional standards.
25-958 Sheetz v. El Dorado, California Whether (1) the Takings Clause’s protection against unconstitutional permit conditions encompass an evidentiary requirement (as opposed to a legislative process) by which the government bears the burden to demonstrate that its development permit exaction complies with Dolan v. City of Tigard's “rough proportionality” standard; and (2) an impact fee can be roughly proportional when imposed on one discrete class of development (residential) for the purpose of addressing impacts caused by another discrete class of development (commercial).
25-939 Broadnax v. Texas (1) Whether the state’s use in a capital sentencing proceeding of rap lyrics composed by a Black defendant to argue to a nearly all-White jury that the Black defendant must be a violent and dangerous person because he wrote the rap lyrics, violates due process, fundamental fairness, and equal protection under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution; and (2) whether the state’s introduction of a state-employed and out-of-court expert’s serology report and findings at trial, via the testimony of another expert who testified to and relied upon the absent expert’s out-of-court statements as a basis of the second expert’s own findings, violates the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution under Smith v. Arizona.
25-927 Lowery v. Mills Whether a public employer’s threats against an employee can suffice to establish a First Amendment retaliation claim, if those threats would dissuade a reasonable employee from speaking on a matter of public importance.
25-923 Yoder v. Bowen Whether the First Amendment protects the means of acquiring or creating speech when the speech is non-political.
25-918 Trevino v. Hobbs (1) Whether a voter who is moved into a new district and a legislator whose district is reconfigured by a court-drawn remedial map have standing to challenge that map or the underlying determination of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act liability that caused the remedial map to be drawn; and (2) whether a map drawn to remedy racial vote dilution is subject to strict scrutiny under the equal protection clause when it is race conscious.
25-916 OCA – Greater Houston v. Paxton Whether Tex. Elec. Code § 86.0105, which makes it a crime “to compensate another person for assisting voters” who vote by mail or to “solicit[], receive[], or accept[] compensation for” doing so, runs afoul of Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, 52 U.S.C. § 10508.
25-909 Meta Platforms v. Vermont Whether a plaintiff may establish specific jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant based on its forum-agnostic “business model,” or whether the plaintiff must allege that the defendant undertook specific, claim-related activities in or directed at the forum.
25-904 La Union del Pueblo Entero v. Paxton Whether Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, 52 U.S.C. § 10508, preempts a state law that prohibits eligible voters from compensating their chosen assisters or from choosing trusted assisters who are compensated.
25-891 Gregg v. Colorado Whether Monge v. California, which addressed the nature of an “offense” under the Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy clause, in the context of a prosecution that sought to apply a recidivism enhancement to the defendant’s sentence, should be overruled.
25-890 Arkansas United v. Thurston (1) Whether private plaintiffs may maintain a suit in equity for declaratory and injunctive relief against state actors to prevent the continued enforcement of a state law preempted by Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, 52 U.S.C. § 10508; and (2) whether Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act is enforceable by private plaintiffs.
25-867 Walters v. Coleman (1) Whether the Fourth Circuit violated the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the party-presentation principle by granting habeas relief based on its de novo review of the state court’s decision; and (2) whether the Fourth Circuit violated AEDPA and the party-presentation principle by granting habeas relief on a state-court judgment that was not before it.
25-853 United Services Automobile Association v.PNC Bank N.A. (1) Whether the Federal Circuit has wrongly extended the prohibition on patenting an “abstract idea” – such as mathematical formulae, fundamental economic practices, or methods of organizing human activity – to also prohibit patenting concrete technological processes; and (2) whether the Federal Circuit has wrongly held that, as a matter of law, a computer-implemented technological invention is patent-eligible only if it claims improvements to computer functionality itself.
25-851 Grayson v. U.S. Whether 18 U.S.C. § 2515's exclusionary rule, which provides that “no part of the contents” of an intercepted communication “and no evidence derived therefrom may be received in evidence in any trial, hearing, or proceeding” before any state or federal court or governmental body “if the disclosure of that information" would violate Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, contains an unwritten clean-hands exception.
25-831 C. S. v. McCrumb Whether post hoc speculation about emotional harm that speech could cause to other students is insufficient to meet Tinker’s “substantial disruption” standard.
25-819 Hedgepeth v. Britton Whether and in what circumstances public employers may discipline employees based on their expression of controversial views while off the job.
25-808 McNair v. Johnson Whether federal courts have the power to issue sanctions under their inherent authority without first finding “bad faith,” and, if they do, whether they have the power to issue sanctions under their inherent authority even for “unintentional or merely negligent conduct.”
25-799 Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals v. Department of Health and Human Services (1) Whether the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, established by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, is immune from scrutiny under the First and Fifth Amendments although it relies on economic coercion to secure participation; and (2) whether the program unconstitutionally conditions Medicare and Medicaid participation on manufacturers giving up their constitutionally protected speech, property, and due process rights.
25-775 Westforth Sports v. City of Chicago Whether the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment allows a state to exercise specific personal jurisdiction over a non-resident retail seller of legal, non-defective, easily transportable products based on the seller’s foreseeability that some such products may – through the agency of third parties – be transported into the forum state without any direction from the seller.
25-767 Margolin v. National Association of Immigration Judges (1) Whether the decision below — in which the court of appeals held, without notice to or briefing by the parties, that the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 does not preclude suit in district court when “a factual record” shows that the CSRA is not “function[ing] as intended” — should be summarily reversed for violating the party-presentation principle; and (2) whether the decision below should be summarily reversed for failing to adhere to this court’s precedents holding that the CSRA generally precludes challenges to federal personnel actions in district court.
25-758 Moreland Properties LLC v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Whether a private party, whose contaminated land clean up is reviewed and approved by a state, likewise enjoys a presumption of substantial compliance with the National Contingency Plan.
25-757 Borges v. U.S. Whether, when alleged bribery rests solely on lawful campaign contributions, the government must prove an explicit, unambiguous quid pro quo conditioning an official act, or a conviction may rest on such ambiguity.
25-756 Householder v. U.S. Whether the requirement of a “quid pro quo” under McCormick v. United States is satisfied when a political candidate accepts a political contribution knowing that the donor believes the candidate will take official action because of the contribution.
25-742 Zhong v. U.S. (1) Whether the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces has statutory authority to hold that a conviction is factually insufficient under 10 U.S.C. § 867(c)(1)(C); and (2) whether military courts of criminal appeals have authority under 10 U.S.C. §§ 860c and 866(d)(2) to correct an unconstitutional firearms ban annotated after entry of judgment.
25-739 Hirsch v. U.S. Tax Court (1) Whether the court of appeals must issue a writ of mandamus when a petitioner is erroneously denied a jury trial, without considering whether the right is clear or unambiguous or the petitioner has other potential avenues of relief; and (2) whether the Internal Revenue Code violates the Seventh Amendment and Article III by authorizing the IRS to order the payment of monetary penalties for fraud without providing the taxpayer a jury trial.
25-729 King v. U.S. Whether a litigant can claim relief from judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6) when a change in settled procedural law retroactively vitiates the litigant’s reasonable reliance on the law.
25-668 Andrews v. U.S. Whether the Second Circuit was correct to uphold Clean Water Act authority over wetlands that are not “as a practical matter indistinguishable” from covered waters.
25-651 Watson v. Bradsher (1) Whether the term “injury” in 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(6) denotes mere “harm” (detriment in fact) or requires the intent to invade a legally protected interest (legal injury), such that a debtor who intentionally causes harm under a genuine but mistaken belief of legal justification has not inflicted a “willful” injury; and (2) whether a debt arising from the intentional tort of false imprisonment is nondischargeable under 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(6) when the debtor held a subjective, genuine belief that confinement would be lawful and justified, or whether a court may obviate that subjective belief by defining the “injury” as the confinement itself and implying malice from the objective “excessiveness” of the debtor’s conduct.
25-627 Macy’s Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board (1) Whether an employer’s practice that has no noted effect on employees’ collective-bargaining rights and is not motivated by anti-union animus is inherently destructive of union rights and violates the National Labor Relations Act; and (2) whether the National Labor Relations Board has the statutory or constitutional authority to order employers to pay “any … direct or foreseeable pecuniary harms” their employees incur “as a result of” an unlawful labor practice.
25-606 Stockton v. Brown (1) Whether a federal court may abstain under Younger v. Harris when a state appellate court has held the same enforcement policy unconstitutional, thereby eliminating any ongoing “important state interest” on which abstention could rest; (2) whether physician-petitioners subject to ongoing state disciplinary proceedings for their public speech satisfy all justiciability requirements and are entitled to federal adjudication when: (a) they face concrete enforcement actions establishing Article III standing, (b) the state’s own courts have declared the challenged enforcement policy unconstitutional, and (c) the only barrier to adjudication was Younger abstention, which the state court’s ruling has eliminated; (3) whether petitioners are entitled to preliminary injunctive relief where: (a) the State Medical Commission’s policy is a content- and viewpoint-based restriction on public speech subject to strict scrutiny, (b) the state’s own appellate court has held the policy unconstitutional, (c) respondents presented no evidence of narrow tailoring or less restrictive alternatives, (d) a continuing First Amendment violation constitutes irreparable injury, and (e) enjoining an unconstitutional policy serves the public interest; (4) whether petitioners satisfy Article III standing and all other justiciability requirements to challenge an enforcement policy that restricts access to protected speech on matters of public concern; and (5) whether this court should grant certiorari to resolve professional speech protections in conjunction with Chiles v. Salazar (therapist–client speech, argued Oct. 7, 2025), and Kory v. Bonta (physician–patient speech, cert. pending), as this case presents the third category: physician public viewpoint speech on matters of public concern.
25-576 Buyer v. U.S. Whether a stock trading on an exchange whose physical headquarters is located in Manhattan suffices to establish venue in the Southern District of New York for insider-trading charges related to that stock.
25-417 Nielsen v. Watanabe Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit erred here in recognizing a Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics cause of action.
25-348 AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP v. Kennedy Whether the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 implicates an interest of pharmaceutical manufacturers that is protected by the Due Process Clause.
25-183 Crowther v. Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia Whether Title IX provides employees of federally funded educational institutions a private right of action to sue for sex discrimination in employment. CVSG: 04/09/2026
24-1001 Cotter Corporation v. Mazzocchio Whether federal nuclear safety regulations preempt state tort standards of care in public liability actions. CVSG: 04/09/2026
24-969 Community Financial Services Association of America, Limited v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Whether, in order to obtain judicial relief, a party challenging governmental action taken by an individual who remained in office against the president’s wishes due to an unconstitutional removal restriction must show that a hypothetical replacement officer would have taken a different action.

Calls for the Views of the Solicitor General (10)

This category consists of petitions that have already been considered at one or more conferences, after which the court asked the federal government for its views on what the court should do with the petition – often because a federal law or interest is involved. This process, during which the petitions effectively remain on hold, can take several months: after the court calls for the solicitor general's views (known as a "CVSG"), the litigants have the chance to meet with lawyers from the U.S. solicitor general's office to try to convince them that the government should support their side. After also consulting with other departments and agencies in the federal government that may have an interest in the case, the solicitor general then files a brief in which it recommends either that the court either grant or deny review. The federal government's recommendation normally carries significant, although not dispositive, weight with the justices.

Docket Case Page Issue(s)
25-590 Aldridge v. Regions Bank (1) Whether, when proceeding under § 502(a)(3) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(3), a beneficiary may seek surcharge, a remedy that this court has described as being “exclusively equitable”; and (2) whether, if surcharge is unavailable under § 1132(a)(3), a beneficiary may pursue state-law claims arising out of a contract that is separate and apart from an ERISA plan and that is not required by the plan, or whether these state-law claims are preempted, thereby leaving the beneficiary without a remedy under either federal or state law.
25-293 General Dynamics Corp. v. Scharpf Whether plaintiffs adequately plead that defendants engaged in fraudulent concealment, for purposes of tolling the 15 U.S.C. § 15b (Clayton Act) statute of limitations, by alleging that defendants maintained an unwritten agreement.
25-257 Wells Pharma of Houston, LLC. v. Zyla Life Sciences, LLC. Whether the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act preempts private state-law unfair competition and consumer protection claims premised on the marketing of compounded drugs without premarket approval.
25-159 Hoffmann v. WBI Energy Transmission Whether in private condemnations under the Natural Gas Act, just compensation should be determined by reference to state law.
25-119 Highland Capital Management, L.P. v. NexPoint Advisors, L.P. (1) Whether a bankruptcy court can act as a gatekeeper to screen noncolorable lawsuits against nondebtor bankruptcy participants; and (2) whether a bankruptcy court can to a limited degree exculpate nondebtor bankruptcy participants from liability for conduct arising from the bankruptcy process.
25-113 Renteria v. New Mexico Office of the Superintendent of Insurance (1) Under Employment Division v. Smith, whether state laws must always be deemed “neutral” unless plaintiffs prove officials acted against them with subjective religious animus and discriminatory motive; (2) under Smith, whether courts determining a law’s “general applicability” must disregard the law’s preference for secular over religious organizations on the grounds that secular and religious organizations are inherently motivated by different purposes and thus incomparable, or alternatively, whether courts must consider the law’s preference for secular over religious organizations so long as their activities pose a similar risk to the government’s asserted interest in the law; (3) whether hostile statements of government actors against religious adherents are sufficient to establish a First Amendment free exercise violation, or whether states may try to justify their hostility by satisfying strict scrutiny; and (4) Whether the Affordable Care Act (ACA)'s exemption for individuals who participate in health care sharing ministries (HCSMs) preempts New Mexico’s determination that those individuals’ HCSMs may not operate in New Mexico until they forfeit their federal statuses as HCSMs under the ACA.
24-1130 Kingdom of Spain v. Blasket Renewable Investments LLC (1) Whether 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(6) allows United States courts to assert jurisdiction over a foreign sovereign without determining whether the sovereign consented to arbitrate differences between itself and the plaintiff; and (2) whether, in suits to confirm foreign arbitral awards, forum non conveniens dismissal is categorically unavailable, unavailable in at least some suits, or depends on the facts of each case.
24-1016 RiseandShine Corporation v. PepsiCo Whether trademark strength is a question of fact in a likelihood-of-confusion analysis under 15 U.S.C. § 1114.
24-1015 Does 1-2 v. Hochul (1) Whether compliance with state laws directly contrary to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s requirement to provide a reasonable accommodation for religious beliefs may serve as an undue hardship justifying an employer’s noncompliance with Title VII; and (2) whether a state law that requires employers to deny without any consideration all requests by employees for a religious accommodation, contrary to Title VII’s religious nondiscrimination provision, is preempted by Title VII and the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
22o161 Nebraska v. Colorado Whether, when one state breaches another's contract and there are "direct, immediate, grave and irreparable injur[ies] to [a state] and its citizens," the court should grant the harmed state leave to file a complaint in an original action.