Case at a Glance

In its 1993 decision in CSX Transportation, Inc. v. Easterwood, the U.S. Supreme Court waded into the debate over when federal law preempts state law with respect to state tort-law claims based on inadequate warning devices at railroad grade crossings. However, since then, the federal appeals courts have issued highly splintered decisions regarding how to determine the preemption question. In Norfolk Southern Railway Company v. Shanklin, the high court is given the chance to clarify its decision in Easterwood.

• Previewed by David L. Hudson, Jr.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Grazing reform has been a consistent goal of President Clinton’s Department of the Interior. In 1993, the Administration proposed, but Congress rejected, amendments to the law governing grazing on the public domain. In 1995, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt issued new grazing regulations designed to accomplish some of the objectives of the defeated legislation. The Court will decide whether the Secretary exceeded his authority in issuing those regulations.

• Previewed by James R. Rasband

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

For at least a generation, trial lawyers have believed that prior convictions or other damaging material about a witness should be disclosed during the direct examination of the witness to "draw the sting" of the potential impeachment. This case asks the Supreme Court to decide whether that time-honored trial tactic waives the litigant's right to appeal a trial court's alleged error in admitting the damaging material in the first place.

• Previewed by L. Timothy Perrin

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Under § 506(c) of the Bankruptcy Code, the trustee administering the debtor’s estate may recover from its assets certain expenses incurred to preserve or dispose of them, even though those assets are already subject to a lien in favor of a secured creditor. This is important because often the estate has no unencumbered assets to pay for necessary goods or services. Even with § 506(c) in effect, however, persons providing necessities do not always receive payment from the trustee. Providers have therefore at times sought to recover on their own behalf from assets subject to a lien. The lower courts disagree on whether § 506(c) supports direct recovery by such parties.

• Previewed by John P. Hennigan, Jr.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Jones v. United States examines the application of a federal arson statute in a case involving -- as the court below admitted -- “pretty slight” connections with interstate commerce. It therefore presents the Supreme Court with an opportunity to revisit the reach of Congress’s commerce clause power and to clarify the reasoning, holding, and implications of the Court's 1995 opinion in United States v. Lopez.

• Previewed by Richard W. Garnett

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

There are two important issues here. The first involves the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and asks whether, in order to withstand a post-verdict judgment as a matter of law, a claimant who has established a prima facie case of age discrimination, has shown that the employer’s proffered nondiscriminatory reason for terminating the claimant was false, and has won a jury verdict, must also present evidence that age was a major factor in the termination decision. The second question asks what evidence a court should consider when deciding whether to grant a post-verdict judgment as a matter of law.

• Previewed by Mary Phelan D’Isa

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Massachusetts has decided not to purchase goods and services from private companies doing business with a repressive military regime in Burma. The companies on this prohibited list argue that the State's attempt to express moral outrage through its acquisition decisions is preempted by federal law and interferes with matters of foreign commerce or foreign affairs exclusively reserved to the federal government. The First Circuit agreed with the companies, but the Supreme Court will have the final say in a case that has prompted a wide variety of groups to file amicus curiae briefs in support of both sides.

• Previewed by Douglas W. Kmiec

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

This case involves a breach of contract action brought by two major oil companies against the federal government. In 1981, Mobil Oil and Marathon Oil paid the United States more than $156 million for oil and gas lease rights in submerged lands off the North Carolina coast. However, in 1990, before they could obtain approval for their plan of exploration, the government passed another law, the Outer Banks Protection Act, which prevented the Secretary of the Interior from approving the Petitioners’ exploration plan. The oil companies claim that the government was therefore unjustly enriched and that they are entitled to the equitable remedies of recission and restitution.

• Previewed by David L. Hudson, Jr.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

In a diversity-of-citizenship action in federal court, the plaintiff’s claim must ordinarily exceed $75,000. In this case, the Supreme Court confronts a question that has sharply split the federal courts. In a class action, must each member of the plaintiff class (perhaps in the thousands or more) individually satisfy that requirement, or may class members with smaller claims be included on the basis of “supplemental jurisdiction”?

• Previewed by John J. Cannon

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision. 

Case at a Glance

The Petitioner in this case was the sole shareholder and president of a corporation that brought and lost an action to enforce a patent. The district court determined that the patent -- for a process the Petitioner had claimed to invent -- had been obtained fraudulently. The question now before the Supreme Court is whether the trial court properly assessed attorneys' fees against the Petitioner without first securing service of process on him and jurisdiction over him. The case thus presents the Court with an opportunity to clarify some basic procedural rights provided by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

• Previewed by Theresa L. Schulz

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision 

Case at a Glance

In its 1993 decision Wisconsin v. Mitchell, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of a hate crime law under which a defendant who commits a crime based on a biased purpose, such as racial bias, can receive an increased sentence. The high Court rejected the defendant’s First Amendment challenge which argued that the law punished offensive thought. Now, the Court faces a different constitutional challenge to another penalty enhancement statute that allows a judge -- rather than a jury -- to increase the defendant's punishment if the court finds by a mere "preponderance of the evidence" that he or she was motivated by racial or other kinds of bias.

• Previewed by David L. Hudson, Jr.

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

Juatassa Sims appealed the denial of her Social Security benefits to the Appeals Council by filling out the proper form, which contained only three lines on which to list her issues and arguments. After the Appeals Council denied her claim, she sued in district court. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit ruled that it could not consider some of her issues because although she had raised them in the district court, she had failed to raise them in the administrative process. The Supreme Court has agreed to review whether federal courts can require Social Security applicants to raise all of their issues in the administrative process.

• Previewed by Cindy Moy

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision

Case at a Glance

A Texas public high school has a formal policy of allowing students, if they wish, to pray or give a nonreligious message relating to sportsmanship or similar ideals before football games. The ACLU and some objecting parents think the policy is out of constitutional bounds, and now the Supreme Court has agreed to tackle the question.

• Previewed by Douglas W. Kmiec

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision
More information about this case is available in Cases of Interest to the School Community.

Case at a Glance

The Supreme Court has asked for re-arguments in this case in order to determine whether a prisoner may include claims in a Section 2254 petition for habeas corpus that were not included in an earlier petition that had been dismissed for failure to exhaust state remedies.

• Previewed by Jay E. Grenig

Supreme Court Decision: Click to read decision