SCOTUScast

On February 22, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Bartenwerfer v. Buckley. At issue was whether a debtor is liable for a debt incurred by her partner’s fraud and if she can discharge that debt in bankruptcy, regardless of her own culpability; the Court held that she could not discharge that debt.

Join us to hear Prof. Plank break down the decision and offer his criticism of the Court's reasoning and ruling.

Featuring:
Thomas Plank, Professor Emeritus, University of Tennessee College of Law

On April 25, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Yegiazaryan v. Smagin. At issue is whether a foreign plaintiff states a cognizable civil claim under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act when it suffers an injury to intangible property.

Join us to hear Prof. Aaron Simowitz break down the background of the case and oral argument.

Featuring:
Aaron Simowitz, Associate Professor of Law, Willamette University College of Law

On April 18, the Court heard oral argument in Groff v. Dejoy and is set to address two issues concerning the protections provided employees who seek to practice their religious beliefs in the context of the workplace. The Court is considering whether to overrule the “more-than-de-minimis-cost” test for refusing religious accommodations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 established in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison. Also at issue is whether burdens on employees are sufficient to constitute “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business” for the employer under Title VII.

Gerald Groff, a Christian who due to his religious convictions treated Sundays as a sabbath and thus did not work on those days, worked for the U.S. Postal Service in Pennsylvania. Although his sabbath-taking was not a problem at the beginning of his tenure with the USPS, following a 2013 agreement with Amazon, USPS began to provide service on Sundays and holidays. This meant that postal workers now had to work Sundays. Initially, Groff was able to avoid working Sundays by trading shifts with co-workers, but that eventually became untenable as co-workers were not willing or available to trade, resulting in Groff being scheduled for Sunday shifts he could not work due to his convictions. Following disciplinary action for missed shifts, and facing termination, Groff chose to resign. He sued USPS for refusing to accommodate his religious beliefs and practices as required by Title VII. The Third Circuit, following Hardison, ruled in favor of USPS, citing as sufficient to constitute the “undue hardship” test the burden placed on Groff’s coworkers who had to take more Sunday shifts and lessened workplace morale.

Join us to hear a breakdown of the oral argument!

Featuring:
Hiram Sasser, Executive General Counsel, First Liberty Institute

On May 11, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Percoco v. United States.

Justice Scalia once commented “[t]hough it consists of only 28 words, the [honest services] statute has been invoked to impose criminal penalties upon a staggeringly broad swath of behavior.”

In this case, the Court is asked to decide if a private citizen who holds no elective office or government employment owes a fiduciary duty to the general public sufficient to be convicted of honest-services fraud if they have informal “influence” over government decisions.

Join us to hear from Gary Lawkowski, who is counsel of record for an amicus brief submitted on behalf of Citizens United, Citizens United Foundation, and the Presidential Coalition in Percoco v. United States, and who will break down the decision's reasoning and implications.

Featuring:
Gary Lawkowski, Counsel at Dhillon Law Group

On March 29, 2023, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Samia v. United States. The Court considered whether the admission of a codefendant’s redacted out-of-court confession that incriminates the defendant due to its content violates the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment.

Join us as we break down and analyze how oral argument went before the Court.

Featuring:
Robert McBride, Partner-in-Charge, Northern Kentucky, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP

On March 27, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in United States v. Hansen. At issue in Hansen is whether 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) and (B)(i), a federal criminal statute that prohibits encouraging or inducing unlawful immigration for commercial or financial benefit sometimes termed “the encouragement provision,” violates the First Amendment.

Helamen Hansen operated an advising service for undocumented immigrants who wanted to pursue U.S. citizenship. Under the encouragement provision, Hansen was convicted of two counts of encouraging or inducing illegal immigration for financial gain (along with other federal crimes). He challenged those convictions, contending the law is facially overbroad. The Ninth Circuit agreed, vacating his convictions on those counts.

Hansen follows on the heels of another case with similar questions. Back in 2020, in United States v. Sinening-Smith, the Supreme Court reversed a Ninth Circuit decision that attempted to strike down the encouragement provision on the grounds the decision attempted to address an issue that was outside of the issue before the court. Hansen now brings those same constitutional issues to the fore.

Please join us to hear the oral argument broken down and analysed.

Featuring:
Brian Fish, Special Assistant, United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland

In Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, the Supreme Court is considering "Whether humorous use of another’s trademark as one’s own on a commercial product is subject to the Lanham Act’s traditional likelihood-of-confusion analysis, or instead receives heightened First Amendment protection from trademark-infringement claims; and (2) whether humorous use of another’s mark as one’s own on a commercial product is “noncommercial” and thus bars as a matter of law a claim of dilution by tarnishment under the Trademark Dilution Revision Act."

IP expert Adam Mathews joined us to break down the case and oral argument.

Featuring:
Adam Mathews, State Representative, Ohio, and Attorney, Ashbrook Byrne Kresge

On May 18, 2023, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Polselli v. Internal Revenue Service. At issue was how much authority the IRS has (balanced against privacy rights) to seek records from third-party recordkeepers when it thinks such documents would help it collect a delinquent taxpayer’s payment.

Join us to hear a discussion of the decision's reasoning and implications.

Featuring:
David Schizer, Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law and Economics and Dean Emeritus, Columbia Law School

On November 4, 2022, the Supreme Court granted cert in Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi, a patent infringement case that involves the application of the statutory enablement requirement of Section 112 of the patent laws to what is referred to as a "genus claim" as it applies in the context of pharmaceutical applications. The two patents in dispute relate to antibody drugs that reduce low-density lipoprotein (“LDL”) cholesterol.

The Court heard oral arguments in the case on March 27. Specifically at issue is "whether enablement is governed by the statutory requirement that the specifications teach those skilled in the art to 'make and use' the claimed invention, or whether it must instead enable those skilled in the art 'to reach the full scope of claimed embodiments' without undue experimentation—i.e., to cumulatively identify and make all or nearly all embodiments of the invention without substantial 'time and effort.'"

Robert Rando, an intellectual property attorney who filed an amicus brief in the case, joined us to break down the arguments.

Featuring:
Robert J. Rando, Partner, Greenspoon Marder LLP

On April 14, 2023, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Axon Enterprise, Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission. At issue was whether Congress stripped federal district courts of jurisdiction over constitutional challenges to the FTC by granting the courts of appeals jurisdiction over FTC cease-and-desist orders.

Join us to hear Ronald Cass and Henry Su unpack the decision's reasoning and discuss its impacts going forward.

Featuring:
Ronald Cass, President, Cass & Associates, PC
Henry Su, trial lawyer specializing in antitrust (worked for the FTC from 2011-2017)