Case at a Glance

Twenty-three hundred civil actions were transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from federal trial courts around the country. These cases allege private rights of action against AcroMed Corporation and Buckman Company, Inc., a consultant to AcroMed, for having allegedly defrauded the FDA. The Supreme Court now must decide whether such suits against medical device manufacturers that claim fraud on the FDA are preempted by the 1976 Medical Device Amendments.

• Previewed by Elliott B. Pollack, a member of the adjunct faculty of the University of Connecticut School of Law and co-chair of the Health Care Section in the Hartford office of the Connecticut law firm Pullman & Comley, LLC.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Gail Atwater was handcuffed and taken into custody by a Lago Vista, Texas, police officer who had observed her driving without a seat belt. Atwater's two young children also were not wearing seat belts. The maximum penalty for violating the Texas seatbelt law is a $50 fine. The Supreme Court is asked to decide whether the Fourth Amendment rules regarding searches and seizures prohibit the police from making a custodial arrest of a person for an offense that carries only a fine upon conviction.

• Previewed by Alan Raphael, an associate professor of law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and the author of a recently published casebook, Criminal Procedure (Lupus 1999).

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

A federal court dismissed a diversity case as untimely under the California statute of limitations. The case was dismissed “on the merits.” Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b), this precludes further actions. But under an 1874 Supreme Court decision, preclusion of a diversity judgment is a matter of state law, and under California law, limitations dismissals ordinarily have no preclusive effect. A Maryland court dismissed a subsequent action under Rule 41(b). The Court must decide whether Rule 41(b) or its 1874 opinion controls preclusion and, if it is Rule 41(b), whether state preclusion law instead applies in subsequent state actions.

• Previewed by Mary Phelan D’Isa, a professor of law at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Wiretapping laws prohibit the interception of private conversations, and impose criminal and civil penalties. This lawsuit was brought under a federal statute against two radio stations, their reporter, and the individual who turned over a tape recording that the stations broadcast of a confidential cell phone conversation between two union officials during heated labor negotiations. None of the defendants were responsible for making the recording, but all that matters under the statute is that the defendants knew or had reason to know that the conversation had been illegally recorded.

• Previewed by Thomas E. Baker, the James Madison Chair in Constitutional Law and the Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Note: The Supreme Court also heard arguments in the presidential election cases (Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, et al. and George W. Bush, et al. v. Albert Gore, Jr., et al.)