Supreme Court of the United States

QUESTION PRESENTED:

Whether an order denying a motion for relief from the automatic stay is a final order under 28 U.S.C. § 158(a) (1). In diverting from this Court's prior precedent, and in conflict with the First and Third Circuit Courts of Appeal, the Sixth Circuit ruled that an order denying relief from the automatic stay is per se final.

Argument Transcript: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-938_k536.pdf

QUESTION PRESENTED:

Entertainment Studios Networks ("ESN") owns several television networks that it sought to have carried on Comcast's cable system. Comcast and ESN met multiple times to discuss a potential deal, but Comcast ultimately declined to carry ESN's networks. ESN's response was to sue Comcast, claiming that Comcast's decision was based on an outlandish racist conspiracy between Comcast, the NAACP, and other civilrights groups and leaders to disadvantage wholly African American-owned networks in violation of 42U.S.C. § 1981. 

The district court dismissed ESN's complaint three times, but the Ninth Circuit reversed. The court first ruled that Section 1981 does not require but-for causation, thereby exacerbating a conflict with the decisions of five other courts of appeals. It then held that ESN's claim was plausible despite the alternative explanations for Comcast's conduct on the face of the complaint, and the complaint's failure to allege facts showing that the other companies with which Comcast contracted were similarly situated to ESN.

The questions presented are: 

Argument Transcript:  https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-1171_ljgm.pdf

QUESTION PRESENTED:

Argument Transcript: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/17-1678_21p3.pdf

QUESTION PRESENTED:

This dispute concerns the policy of immigration enforcement discretion known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). In 2016, this Court affirmed, by an equally divided Court, a decision of the Fifth Circuit holding that two related Department of Homeland Security (DHS) discretionary enforcement policies, including an expansion of the DACA policy, were likely unlawful and should be enjoined. See United States v. Texas, 136 S. Ct. 2271 (per curiam). In September 2017, DHS determined that the original DACA policy was unlawful and would likely be struck down by the courts on the same grounds as the related policies. DHS thus instituted an orderly wind-down of the DACA policy. 

The questions presented are as follows:

Argument Transcript: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-587_1bn2.pdf

QUESTION PRESENTED:

In Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer, this Court unanimously held that to state a claim under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA''), 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq., for breach of the fiduciary duty of prudence based on inside information, a plaintiff must "plausibly allege[] that a prudent fiduciary in the defendant's position could not have concluded that [an alternative action] would do more harm than good to the fund." 573 U.S. 409, 429-30 (2014); accord Amgen Inc. v. Harris, 136 S. Ct. 758 (2016). The Court designed this "context specific" standard to deter the kind of meritless suits lower courts had eliminated through a presumption of prudence (which the Court rejected) and to "readily divide the plausible sheep from the meritless goats" at the pleading stage. 573 U.S. at 425.

In the decision below, the Court of Appeals subverted that pleading standard and opened a circuit split by relying on boilerplate allegations that the harm of an eventual disclosure of an alleged fraud typically increases the longer the fraud continues. Those allegations "always" can be, and routinely are, pleaded in support of a Fifth Third claim. Other courts of appeals have rejected the same allegations as insufficient as a matter of law, in order to avoid undermining the pleading standard imposed by Fifth Third and Amgen and to deter meritless ERISA suits. 

The question presented is:

QUESTION PRESENTED:

A Kansas officer ran a registration check on a pickup truck and learned that the registered owner's license had been revoked. Suspecting that the owner was unlawfully driving, the officer stopped the truck, confirmed that the owner was driving, and issued the owner a citation for being a habitual violator of Kansas traffic laws. The Kansas Supreme Court, breaking with 12 state supreme courts and 4 federal circuits, held the stop violated the Fourth Amendment. 

The question presented is whether, for purposes of an investigative stop under the Fourth Amendment, it is reasonable for an officer to suspect that the registered owner of a vehicle is the one driving the vehicle absent any information to the contrary.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-556_bqmd.pdf

QUESTION PRESENTED:

Whether under federal maritime law a safe berth clause in a voyage charter contract is a guarantee of a ship's safety, as the Third Circuit below and the Second Circuit have held, or a duty of due diligence, as the Fifth Circuit has held.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-565_aplc.pdf

QUESTION PRESENTED:

Whether Congress validly abrogated state sovereign immunity via the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act, Pub. L. No. 101-553, 104 Stat. 2749 (1990), in providing remedies for authors of original expression whose federal copyrights are infringed by States.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-877_6jfm.pdf

QUESTION PRESENTED:

In the Clean Water Act (CWA), Congress differentiated between point source and nonpoint source pollution in controlling pollution of navigable waters. The CWA regulates point source pollution through permits, while nonpoint source pollution is controlled through federal oversight of state management programs and other non-CWA programs. 

This Court and several courts of appeals have read the CWA's line dividing point source and nonpoint source pollution to turn on whether pollutants are delivered to navigable waters by a point source. 

Parting with those cases, the Ninth Circuit concluded that point source pollution also includes pollutants that reach navigable waters by nonpoint sources so long as the pollutants can be "traced" in more than "de minimis" amounts to a point source. This holding expands CWA permitting to millions of sources previously regulated as nonpoint source pollution.

The questions presented are: 

https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-260_8mjp.pdf

QUESTION PRESENTED:

Whether a lawfully admitted permanent resident who is not seeking admission to the United States can be "render[ed] ... inadmissible" for the purposes of the stop-time rule, 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(d)(l).

https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2019/18-725_g314.pdf