Greetings Court fans!
In its first Conference of the New Year, held earlier today, the Court granted cert in 9 cases, thereby making significant progress in filling its calendar for the Term. Ordinarily, the Court does not release its order list until the Monday after Conference, but to expedite briefing schedules, if only by a few days, the Court issued its “grant” list today. The Court did not release its regular order list, however, so we’ll have to wait until Monday to find out which cases it denied.
On to the grants:
1. Black & Decker Disab. Plan v. Nord (02-469): This is an ERISA case with the following question presented: Did the Ninth Circuit err in holding that plan administrator’s determination of disability is subject to “treating physician rule” and, therefore, plan administrator is required to accept treating physician’s opinion of disability as controlling unles plan administrator rebuts that opinion in writing based upon substantial evidence in the record?
2. Green Tree Fin. Corp. v. Bazzle (02-634): This case is the Court’s third Federal Arbitration Act case this Term. The Supreme Court of South Carolina held that a court may order “class-wide” arbitration even when the parties’ arbitration agreement is silent regarding arbitration of class actions. With this decision, the South Carolina court contributed to a significant split of authority on whether the FAA permits class-action procedures to be engrafted onto an arbitration agreement that does not, by its terms, provide for class-action arbitration.
3. Desert Palace v. Costa (02-679): This is another cert petition that begins with the question “did the Ninth Circuit err,” but this one involves employment discrimination: (1) Did the Ninth Circuit err in holding that Title VII does not require direct evidence to trigger application of the “mixed-motive” analysis set out in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins? (2) What are appropriate standards for lower courts to follow in making direct evidence determinations in mixed-motive cases under Title VII?
4. Hillside Dairy v. Lyons (01-950) and Ponderosa Dairy v. Lyons (01-1018): I don’t have much information about these cases yet, except that the cert petitions were filed over a year ago in December 2001. In terms of substance, all I know is that they’re about state regulation of the dairy industry.
5. Breuer v. Jim’s Concrete of Brevard (02-337): In this case, the Court will decide whether actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act may be removed to federal court. The FLSA provides that actions may be “maintained” in either state or federal court and the 11th Circuit held that this language does not preclude removal to federal court of actions originally filed in state court. Other courts have held to the contrary.
6. Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film (02-428): This is a Lanham Act case involving allegations that Dastar copied the Twentieth Century Fox television series Crusade in Europe. The questions presented are (1) Does the Lanham Act protect creative works from uncredited copying, even without likelihood of consumer confusion? (2) May court applying Lanham Act award twice defendant’s profits for purely deterrent purposes?
7. Jones v. Vincent (02-524): In this habeas case, the defendant claimed that the state trial judge’s comments amounted to a directed verdict of acquittal on a first-degree murder charge, and thus that the subsequent submission of the first-degree murder charge to the jury violated Double Jeopardy. The Court will decide (1) whether the state supreme court’s conclusion that the trial judge’s comments did not amount to a directed verdict is a factual finding entitled to deference on federal habeas review, and (2) whether the trial court’s actions violated the Double Jeopardy clause.
8. Nike v. Kasky (02-575): This is a First Amendment case, and if measured solely by the number of amicus briefs that the Court has allowed to be filed (9), it is a significant one. Nike attempted to defend itself against charges of unfair labor practices in Southeast Asia by placing ads and writing letters to newspaper editors. As a result of some factual inaccuracies in this public relations campaign, it was sued for violations of California’s unfair business practice laws. The California Supreme Court held that Nike’s speech was “commercial speech” and thus it was subject to regulation under those laws consistent with the First Amendment. The Supreme Court will review those conclusions.
9. American Ins. Assn. v. Low (02-722): Again, I don’t have much information yet. This is a challenge to California’s Holocaust Victim Insurance Relief Act. I’ll pass along more information on this case and the dairy cases as soon as I get it.