Volume 514 — United States Reports

This is a list of all the United States Supreme Court cases from volume 514 of the United States Reports:

Held: fit within the Cohen collateral order doctrine. 431 U. S., at 662 . But we further held that the Court of Appeals lacked authority to review simultaneously the trial court’s rejection of the defendant’s challenge to the sufficiency of the indictment. Id., at 662-663 .

* Petitioners filed this action in the Federal District Court, alleging that their securities trading account had been mishandled by respondent brokers. Held: The arbitral award should have been enforced as within the scope of the contract between the parties. Pp. __. (a) This case is governed by what the contract has to say about the arbitrability of petitioners' punitive damages claim.

* Petitioner Curtiss-Wright Corp. amended its employee benefit plan to provide that the postretirement health care coverage it had maintained for many years would cease for retirees upon the… Held: Curtiss-Wright's reservation clause sets forth a valid amendment procedure. Pp. __. (a) The clause satisfies the plain text of § 402(b)(3)'s two requirements.

* After the refinancing of its bonded debt resulted in a "defeasance" loss for accounting purposes, respondent health care provider (hereinafter Hospital) determined that it was entitled to Medicare… Held: The Secretary is not required to adhere to GAAP in making provider reimbursement determinations. Pp. __. (a) The Medicare regulations do not require reimbursement according to GAAP.

Held: as a matter of its supervisory power to administer the federal court system, that absent some adverse effect of preappeal flight on the appellate process, “the defendant’s former fugitive status may well lack the kind of connection to the appellate process that would justify an appellate sanction of dismissal.” Id., at 251 . The case was decided almost two years after Branch’s conviction became final.

* The Director of the Labor Department's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs petitioned the Court of Appeals for review of a Benefits Review Board decision that, inter alia, denied Jackie Harcum… Held: The Director is not "adversely affected or aggrieved" under § 921(c). Pp. __. (a) Section 921(c) does not apply to an agency acting as a regulator or administrator under the statute.

* The federal "family filing unit rule," 42 U.S.C. § 602(a)(38), requires that all cohabiting nuclear family members be grouped into a single "assistance unit" (AU) for purposes of eligibility and… Held: Federal law does not prohibit California from grouping into a single AU all needy children living in the same household under the care of one relative. Pp. __.

Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co., Inc., 514 U.S. 159 (1995), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a color could meet the legal requirements for trademark registration under the Lanham Act, provided that it has acquired secondary meaning in the market.

* Respondent Jefferson Lines, Inc., a common carrier, did not collect or remit to Oklahoma the state sales tax on bus tickets sold in Oklahoma for interstate travel originating there, although it did… Held: Oklahoma's tax on the sale of transportation services is consistent with the Commerce Clause. Pp. __.

Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211 (1995), was a landmark case about separation of powers in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that Congress may not retroactively require federal courts to reopen final judgments. Writing for the Court, Justice Scalia asserted that such action amounted to an unauthorized encroachment by Congress upon the powers of the judiciary and, therefore, violated the separation of powers as a constitutional concept.

* Respondents, Margaret Whitecotton and her parents, filed a claim for compensation under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, alleging that Margaret had suffered encephalopathy as a result of… Held: A claimant who shows that she experienced symptoms of an injury after receiving a vaccination does not make out a prima facie case for compensation under the Act where the evidence fails to indicate that she had no symptoms of that injury before the vaccination.

* In separate state common-law suits, respondents alleged that the absence of an antilock braking system (ABS) in tractor-trailers manufactured by petitioners constituted a negligent design defect… Held: Respondents' lawsuits are not expressly pre-empted. Because of Standard 121's suspension, there is simply no "minimum," § 1391(2), "objective," § 1392(a), federal standard addressing stopping distances or vehicle stability for trucks.

* Petitioner Heintz is a lawyer representing a bank that sued respondent Jenkins to recover the balance due on her defaulted car loan. Held: The Act must be read to apply to lawyers engaged in consumer debt-collection litigation for two rather strong reasons.

* The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas entered a judgment in favor of respondents and against petitioner Celotex Corp. To stay execution of the judgment pending appeal,… Held: Respondents must obey the Bankruptcy Court's injunction.

McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that an Ohio statute prohibiting anonymous campaign literature is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects the freedom of speech. In a 7–2 decision authored by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court found that the First Amendment protects the decision of an author to remain anonymous.

* In 1988, an Administrative Law Judge ordered petitioner Stone deported. Held: A timely motion for reconsideration of a BIA decision does not toll the running of § 106(a)(1)'s 90-day period. Pp. __. (a) The parties agree that a deportation order becomes final upon the BIA's dismissal of an appeal and that the 90-day appeal period started to run in this case on July 26, 1991.

Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419 (1995), is a United States Supreme Court case that held that a prosecutor has an affirmative duty to disclose evidence favorable to a defendant pursuant to Brady v. Maryland and United States v. Bagley.

* Because § 5(e)(2) of the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (FAAA or Act) prohibits beer labels from displaying alcohol content, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) rejected… Held: Section 5(e)(2) violates the First Amendment's protection of commercial speech. Pp. __.

* Respondent was sentenced to 15 years to life for the 1980 murder of his wife and became eligible for parole in 1990. Held: The amendment's application to prisoners who committed their crimes before it was enacted does not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. Pp. __. (a) The amendment did not increase the "punishment" attached to respondent's crime.

Held: as a fund subject to the liens and claims of the United States, in the same manner and with the same priority as such liens and claims had with respect to the discharged property.") (emphasis added); 26 CFR § 301.6325-1 (b)(3) (1994) ("A district director [of the Internal Revenue Service] may, in his discretion, issue a certificate of discharge of any part of the property subject to a [tax lien] if such part of the…

United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), is a landmark case of the United States Supreme Court that struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (GFSZA), determining that it was not a valid exercise of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. It was the first case since 1937 in which the Court held that Congress had exceeded its power under the Commerce Clause.

** A New York statute requires hospitals to collect surcharges from patients covered by a commercial insurer but not from patients insured by a Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan, and also subjects… Held: New York's surcharge provisions do not "relate to" employee benefit plans within the meaning of § 514(a) and, thus, are not pre-empted. Pp. ____. (a) Under Shaw, supra, the provisions "relate to" ERISA plans if they have a "connection with," or make "reference to," the plans.

* Kansas and Colorado negotiated the Arkansas River Compact to settle disputes and remove causes of future controversies over the river's waters and to equitably divide and apportion those waters and… Held: The exceptions are overruled. Pp. __. (a) Article IV-D permits development of projects so long as their operation does not result in a material depletion of usable flow to Kansas users.

* Petitioner's falsehoods in unsworn papers filed in Bankruptcy Court prompted his indictment under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which criminalizes false statements and similar misconduct occurring "in any… Held: The judgment is reversed in part. 16 F.3d 694, reversed in part.

* Respondent Oxford House operates a group home in Edmonds, Washington, for 10 to 12 adults recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction in a neighborhood zoned for… Held: Edmonds' zoning code definition of the term "family" is not a maximum occupancy restriction exempt from the FHA under § 3607(b)(1). Pp. __. (a) Congress enacted § 3607(b)(1) against the backdrop of an evident distinction between municipal land use restrictions and maximum occupancy restrictions.

* More than three years after respondent Hyde was in an accident in Ohio with a truck owned by a Pennsylvania company, she filed suit in an Ohio county court against the company and the truck's… Held: The Supremacy Clause bars Ohio from applying its tolling statute to pre- Bendix torts. Pp. __.

U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995), is a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that states cannot impose qualifications for prospective members of the U.S. Congress stricter than those the Constitution specifies. The decision invalidated 23 states' Congressional term limit provisions. The parties to the case were U.S. Term Limits, a nonprofit advocacy group, and Arkansas politician Ray Thornton, among others.

Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927 (1995), is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that the traditional, common-law-derived "knock and announce" rule for executing search warrants must be incorporated into the "reasonableness" analysis of whether the actual execution of the warrant is/was justified under the 4th Amendment. The high court thus ruled that the old "knock and announce" rule while not a hard requirement, was also not a dead letter.

First Options of Chicago, Inc. v. Kaplan, 514 U.S. 938 (1995), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on who decides whether a dispute is subject to arbitration, the courts or an arbitrator.

This litigation began in 1952 when Arizona invoked this Court's original jurisdiction to settle a dispute with California over the extent of each State's right to use water from the Colorado River… Held: In view of the State parties' failure to raise the preclusion argument earlier in the litigation, despite ample opportunity and cause to do so, the claims of the U