Oral Arguments Underline Importance of Supreme Court’s Chevron Cases
Even especially attentive Supreme Court watchers might underestimate the importance of a pair of cases the Court subjected to three and a half hours of argument on January 17. In a term full of cases pitting gun rights against domestic violence victims, determining access to medical abortion, and injecting the justices into presidential election politics, [...]
US Supreme Court hears oral arguments in 2 cases seeking to limit executive agency powers
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in two cases involving a requirement for herring fisheries to pay for the observers the government used to monitor overfishing. At the heart of the two cases was a debate over the court’s current deference to executive branch agencies in interpreting ambiguous language in federal laws. The [...]
US Supreme Court takes up major case on powers of federal government
The US Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider a case challenging the authority of federal agencies to create regulations. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, concerns a group of herring fishermen who are being required by the National Marine Fisheries Service to pay the salaries of monitors who are required to ride along on fishing boats. [...]
The US Supreme Court Monday declined to hear five appeals from fossil fuel companies requesting to have their cases moved from state to federal courts. All five petitions concern whether federal common law, which is law developed over time by courts, or state law applies to lawsuits over greenhouse-gas emissions that cross state lines. Each [...]
The US Supreme Court Launches a Human Rights Counterrevolution
“You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.” ― Thomas Jefferson A recent series of radically partisan judicial decisions by the United States Supreme Court heralds the first rollback of fundamental human rights [...]
US Supreme Court rules in favor of hospitals in Medicare reimbursement dispute
The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) may not cut Medicare drug reimbursement for a specific group of hospitals without a survey of hospitals’ pharmaceutical acquisition costs. The American Hospital Association (AHS) sued HHS over HHS’s plan to reduce reimbursement rates for “340b hospitals,” which serve [...]
US appeals court sends fossil fuel cases back to state court
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Tuesday sent lawsuits by six California cities and counties accusing ExxonMobil, Chevron Corp and other energy giants of fueling climate change back to state court after the US Supreme Court required the court reexamine the cases. After the suits were filed in their respective state courts, [...]
The Senate recently confirmed antitrust attorney Jonathan Kanter to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. Google, which has a history of anti-competitive conduct running afoul of state, federal, and international regulators, promptly demanded that Kanter recuse himself from the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation of and litigation against Google, based [...]
Biden Administration's OSHA Vaccine Mandate: Judge Sutton's Dissent
The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on December 17 in a bipartisan, 2-1 decision upheld OSHA’s vaccine-or-test requirements for the American workplace and lifted a stay previously put in place by the Fifth Circuit. Judge Jane Stranch, an Obama appointee, joined by Judge Julia Gibbons, appointed by George W. Bush, wrote that [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed a government ban on firearm accessories known as bump stocks, a device that modifies semi-automatic rifles to fire more rapidly, in Gun Owners of Am., Inc. v. Garland Friday. The Trump Administration outlawed bump stocks after a 2017 shooting in Las Vegas where the rapid-fire [...]
