Federal Reporter, Third Series

Doe v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc., 982 F.3d 1204 (9th Cir. 2020), was a case related to whether the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 provides a disparate impact cause of action for plaintiffs alleging disability discrimination, decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2020. It was appealed to the United States Supreme Court as CVS Pharmacy, Inc. v. Doe (Docket 20–1374), but settled and was dismissed before argument the following year.

Sanchez v. Mayorkas, 593 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the ability for immigrants legally residing under temporary protected status to apply for permanent resident status through a green card. In a unanimous decision, the Court ruled in June 2021 that for immigrants who had entered the U.S. unlawfully, simply having temporary protected status did not make them eligible to apply for permanent resident status.

United States v. Gratkowski, 964 F.3d 307 (5th Cir. 2020), was a case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit involving the Fourth Amendment implications of Bitcoin transactions.

Biden v. Sierra Club (previously captioned Trump v. Sierra Club) was a United States Supreme Court case involving the appropriation of funds used to expand the Mexico–United States border wall under the presidency of Donald Trump. Congress did not grant direct appropriations to fund expansion of the wall, leading Trump to sign the National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States in February 2019 which, citing his powers under the National Emergency Act, took approximately US$8 billion of funds appropriated to military spending towards construction of the wall.

Guam v. United States, 593 U.S. ___ (2021), was a U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with a dispute on fiscal responsibility for environmental and hazardous cleanup of the Ordot Dump created by the United States Navy on the island of Guam in the 1940s, which Guam then ran after becoming a territory in 1950 until the landfill's closure in 2011. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (aka Superfund), Guam had filed its lawsuit to recover a portion of cleanup costs for the landfill from the United States government in a timely manner, allowing their case to proceed.

Blumenthal v. Trump, 949 F.3d 14 (D.C. Cir. 2020), was a U.S. constitutional law and federal civil procedure lawsuit heard by Circuit Judges Henderson, Tatel, and Griffith, of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The case was on appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan granted in part and denied in part the President's motion to dismiss for lack of standing, denied the President's motion to dismiss for failure to state claim, and certified interlocutory appeal.

Mozilla Corp. v. FCC, 940 F. 3d 1 (D.C. Cir., 2019) was a ruling the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2019 related to net neutrality in the United States. The case centered on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s decision in 2017 to rollback its prior 2015 Open Internet Order, reclassifying Internet services as an information service rather than as a common carrier, deregulating principles of net neutrality that had been put in place with the 2015 order. The proposed rollback had been publicly criticized during the open period of discussion, and following the FCC's issuing of the rollback, several states and Internet companies sued the FCC. These cases were consolidated into the one led by the Mozilla Corporation.

Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, 591 U.S. ___ (2020) was a landmark US Supreme Court case involving subpoenas issued by committees of the US House of Representatives to obtain the tax returns of President Donald Trump, who had litigated against his personal accounting firm to prevent this disclosure, although the committees had been cleared by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Mazars was consolidated with Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG (591 U.S. ___, docket 19-760).

Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving ongoing conflicts between the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) over the ACA's contraceptive mandate. The ACA exempts nonprofit religious organizations from complying with the mandate, to which for-profit religious organizations objected.

Barr v. American Ass'n of Political Consultants, Inc., 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the use of robocalls made to cell phones, a practice that had been banned by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA), but which exemptions had been made by a 2015 amendment for government debt collection. The case was brought by the American Association of Political Consultants, an industry trade group, and others that desired to use robocalls to make political ads, challenging the exemption unconstitutionally favored debt collection speech over political speech.

United States v. AT&T, 916 F.3d 1029 (2019), was a ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which prevented the U.S. government from blocking a merger between AT&T and Time Warner, thus creating the WarnerMedia conglomerate. The court found that regulators were unable to prove harm to consumers per the requirements of United States antitrust law.

Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B. V., 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the trademarkability of a generic terms appended with a top-level domain (TLD) specifier (in this case "Booking.com"). The Court ruled that such names can be trademarked unless the existing combination of term and TLD is considered to have a generic meaning to consumers.

Rocky Mountain Farmers Union v. Corey was a long-running legal dispute before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California over the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). The proceeding led to two appeals to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In the most recent of these appeals, the court heard oral argument on September 26, 2018, and issued a decision on January 18, 2019, which upheld the LCFS against a constitutional challenge.

In re Grand Jury Subpoena, No. 18-3071, 912 F.3d 623 (2019), was a United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit case involving an appeal by company owned by a foreign government that was ordered by a federal judge to pay a $50,000 fine per day until it complies with a grand jury's subpoena. The subpoena was conducted by the grand jury empaneled by Robert Mueller in the Special Counsel investigation.

Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc., 591 U.S. ___ (2020), also known as AOSI II (to distinguish it from the 2013 case), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that compelled speech required as a condition for funding on foreign non-governmental affiliates of U.S. non-government organizations does not violate First Amendment rights.

United States Forest Service v. Cowpasture River Preservation Ass'n, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the permitting of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline under the Appalachian Trail in the George Washington National Forest. At issue were conflicting agencies and laws for those agencies. The permit was issued by United States Forest Service (USFS) which has responsibility of the national forest, while the Trail itself is part of the National Park Service (NPS), and which under the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 does not allow any other government agency to issue right of way permits through its lands.

AMG Capital Management, LLC v. Federal Trade Commission, 593 U.S. ___ (2021), was a U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with the ability of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to seek monetary relief for restitution or disgorgement from those that it found in violation of trade practices. The Court ruled unanimously that the FTC had misused its authority granted by the Federal Trade Commission Act under Section 13(b) to obtain monetary relief.

United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a case of the United States Supreme Court, in which the justices considered the constitutionality of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv), a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that criminalizes encouraging or inducing illegal immigration. The case attracted attention from civil liberties groups and immigration advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Immigrant Defense Project, and the National Lawyers Guild. The case at lower courts had dealt with potential fraud committed by consultant Evelyn Sineneng-Smith in preparing paperwork for green card certification that she knew would never be approved.

Kelly v. United States, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the 2013 Fort Lee lane closure scandal, also known as "Bridgegate". The case centered on whether Bridget Anne Kelly, the chief of staff to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who was running for reelection at the time, and Bill Baroni, the Deputy Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, improperly used lane closures on the George Washington Bridge to create traffic jams as a means of retaliation against Mark Sokolich, the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, when he refused to support Christie's reelection campaign.

The Supreme Court of the United States handed down ten per curiam opinions during its 2019 term, which began October 7, 2019 and concluded October 4, 2020.

Intel Corp. Investment Policy Committee v. Sulyma, 589 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case. It decided that, for purposes of the requirement in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 that plaintiffs with “actual knowledge” of an alleged fiduciary breach file suit within three years of gaining that knowledge, a plaintiff does not necessarily have “actual knowledge” of the information contained in disclosures that he receives but does not read or cannot recall reading.

Ritzen Group, Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLC, 589 U.S. ___ (2020) was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2019 term. In a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that "when the bankruptcy court unreservedly grants or denies relief", in this case on a motion for relief from an automatic stay, that decision presents a final order that may be appealed. In a 12-page opinion the Court relied upon its own precedent in Bullard v. Blue Hills Bank to affirm the court below.

McDonough v. Smith, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2018 term. In a 6–3 ruling, the Court held that the 3-year statute of limitations for a fabrication of evidence civil lawsuit under section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act begins to run when the criminal case ends in the plaintiff's favor.

Collins v. Yellen, 594 U.S. 220 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the structure of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). The case follows on the Court's prior ruling in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which found that the establishing structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), with a single director who could only be removed from office "for cause", violated the separation of powers; the FHFA shares a similar structure as the CFPB. The case extends the legal challenge to the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2008.

Pharrell Williams et al. v Bridgeport Music et al., No. 15-56880 (9th Cir. July 11, 2018) is a United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit case concerning copyright infringement of sound recording. In August 2013, Pharrell Williams, Robin Thicke and Clifford Joseph Harris (known by his stage name "T.I.") filed a complaint for declaratory relief against the members of Marvin Gaye's family and Bridgeport Music in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, alleging that the song "Blurred Lines" did not infringe the copyright of defendants in "Got to Give It Up" and "Sexy Ways" respectively. On October 6, 2017, the Circuit Court held oral arguments on the appeal to vacate the district court's judgement.

Maine Community Health Options v. United States, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the expired Risk Corridors program of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), through which the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) mitigated losses of unprofitable healthcare plans through the profits of the profitable plans during the first three years of the program. Congress had passed legislation as riders in appropriations bills, which prevented the government from making payments to the unprofitable plans. Several of the insurers went bankrupt from the lack of payment, and multiple insurers sued the government to recover their funds on the basis the risk corridor was a commitment to be paid. The U.S.

Prison Legal News v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, 890 F.3d 954 (11th Cir. 2018), was a case before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in which the Court held that a prison's ban of the Prison Legal News (PLN) monthly magazine did not violate the First Amendment, but its failure to give notice as required by its own rules violated the Fourteenth Amendment. In doing so, it affirmed the decision of the District Court from which the appeal came. PLN appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on just the First Amendment issue, but the Supreme Court denied their petition for certiorari, declining to hear the case.

Between 2011 and 2018, a series of disputes took place about the copyright status of selfie photographs taken by Celebes crested macaques, using equipment belonging to British wildlife photographer David J. Slater. The disputes involved Wikimedia Commons and the blog Techdirt, which have hosted the images following their publication in newspapers in July 2011 over Slater's objections that he holds the copyright. Additionally, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have argued that the copyright should be assigned to the macaque.

R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case which ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects transgender people from employment discrimination.

International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump, 883 F. 3d 233 (4th Cir. 2018), was a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, upholding an injunction against enforcement of Proclamation No. 9645, titled "Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry Into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats", a presidential proclamation signed by President Donald Trump on September 24, 2017. The proclamation indefinitely suspends the entry into the U.S. of some or all immigrant and non-immigrant travelers from eight countries.

Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, No. 17-1702, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case related to limitations on First Amendment-based free speech placed by private operators. The Court held that a public access station was not considered a state actor for purposes of evaluating free speech issues in a 5–4 ruling split along ideological lines. Prior to the Court's decision, analysts believed that the case had the potential to determine whether limitations on free speech on social media violate First Amendment rights. However, the Court's narrow holding avoided that issue.

County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, No. 18-260, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving pollution discharges under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The case asked whether the Clean Water Act requires a permit when pollutants that originate from a non-point source can be traced to reach navigable waters through mechanisms such as groundwater transport. In a 6–3 decision, the Court ruled that such non-point discharges require a permit when they are the "functional equivalent of a direct discharge", a new test defined by the ruling.

Rimini Street Inc. v. Oracle USA Inc., 586 U.S. ___ (2019), is a 2019 United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Copyright Act's award of "full costs," to a prevailing party in a copyright infringement claim is limited to taxable costs defined by the Fee Act of 1853, rejecting a broader interpretation that permitted fee awards to include litigation expenses outside the statutory schedule of costs.

SCO Group, Inc. v. International Business Machines Corp., commonly abbreviated as SCO v. IBM, was a civil lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah. The SCO Group asserted, without proof, that there were legal uncertainties regarding the use of the Linux operating system due to alleged violations of IBM's Unix licenses in the development of Linux code at IBM. The lawsuit was filed in 2003, and despite dismissal of most of the claims, lingered on through the bankruptcy of SCO Group and the adverse result in SCO v. Novell, and was reopened for continued litigation by order of a new judge on June 14, 2013. Pursuant to the court order reopening the case, an IBM Motion for Summary Judgment was filed based upon the results of the Novell decision.

Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer & White Sales, Inc., 586 U.S. ___ (2019), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on January 8, 2019. The case decided the question of whether a court may disregard a valid delegation of arbitrability—a contract provision stating that an arbitrator should decide whether a dispute is subject to arbitration—when the argument in favor of arbitration is "wholly groundless." In a unanimous (9-0) opinion written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court sided with petitioner Henry Schein, Inc., holding that the "wholly groundless" exception to arbitrability violates the Federal Arbitration Act (9 U.S.C.

Monasky v. Taglieri, 589 U.S. ___ (2020), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that a child's "habitual residence" under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction should be determined based on the totality of the circumstances specific to the case, and should not be based on categorial requirements (e.g. such as an agreement between the parents).

Nikolao v. Lyon, 875 F.3d 310 (6th Cir. 2017), is a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit addressing the scope of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment in the context of religious exemptions to vaccination mandates. The plaintiff, a Catholic, objected to Michigan's procedures for claiming a religious exemption to school vaccination mandates, which required the parent to meet with public officials who unsuccessfully sought to persuade the parent that the official position of the Catholic Church favored vaccination. The district court dismissed the constitutional claims, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal, finding that there was no injury supporting legal standing to sue, since the exemption was ultimately granted.

Garza v. Hargan (Azar v. Garza after Alex Azar's confirmation as United States Secretary of Health and Human Services) was a case before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit regarding a juvenile undocumented immigrant in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who sought to have an abortion.

Lorenzo v. Securities and Exchange Commission, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2018 term.

Frank v. Gaos, 586 U.S. ___ (2019), was a per curiam decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in a case concerning the practice of cy pres settlements in class action lawsuits. Following oral argument, the court asked the parties to submit supplemental briefs addressing whether the parties had Article III standing to pursue the case in federal courts. Supplemental briefing was completed on December 21, 2018. On March 20, 2019, the court remanded the case to the Ninth Circuit to address the plaintiffs’ standing in light of Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins.

United States v. Haymond, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), is a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for certain sex offenses committed by federal supervised releases under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(k) as unconstitutional unless the charges are proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan joined Gorsuch's plurality opinion, while Breyer provided the necessary fifth vote with his narrow concurrence that began by saying he agreed with much of Justice Alito's dissent, which was joined by Justices Roberts, Thomas, and Kavanaugh.

Kisor v. Wilkie, No. 18-15, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), was a US Supreme Court case related to the interpretation by an executive agency of its own ambiguous regulations. The case involved a veteran who had been denied some benefits from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs due to the agency's interpretation of its regulations. The case challenges the "Auer deference" established in the 1997 case Auer v. Robbins, in which the judiciary branch of the government normally defers to an agency's own interpretation of its own regulations in resolving matters of law. Lower courts, including the Federal Appeals Circuit Courts, ruled against the veteran, acknowledging the Auer deference. The case sought to have Auer overturned.

Return Mail Inc. v. United States Postal Service, No. 17–1594, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a case before the United States Supreme Court, related to the separation of powers doctrine. More specifically, it deals with the question whether a government agency (i.e. the executive branch) can act as a "person" to challenge a patent through an administrative (non-judicial) patent review within the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. The Supreme Court, in a 6–3 decision, ruled that within context of Leahy-Smith, the government does not constitute a "person".

Azar v. Allina Health Services, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held the Department of Health and Human Services' new policy to retroactively reduce Medicare payments must be vacated due to the department's failure to uphold its notice-and-comment obligations.

Knick v. Township of Scott, No. 17-647, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), was a case before the Supreme Court of the United States dealing with compensation for private property owners when the use of that property is taken from them by state or local governments, under the Due Process Clause and the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The immediate question asks if private land owners must exhaust all state-offered venues for mediation before seeking action in the federal courts. The case specifically addresses the Court's prior decision from the 1985 case Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v.

Jam v. International Finance Corp., 586 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2018 term. The Supreme Court ruled that international organizations, such as the World Bank Group's financing arm, the International Finance Corporation, can be sued in US federal courts for conduct arising from their commercial activities. It specifically held that international organizations shared the same sovereign immunity as foreign governments. This was a reversal from existing jurisprudence, which held that international organizations (unlike foreign governments) had near-absolute immunity from lawsuits under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and the International Organizations Immunities Act.

Peter v. NantKwest Inc., 589 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2019 term.

New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 586 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the classification of employees hired as contractors in relation to exceptions to arbitration set forth in the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The Court ruled unanimously that the exceptions set forth in the FAA, principally for those involved in foreign and interstate commerce such as truck drivers, do apply to contractors as they would to regular employees.

China Agritech, Inc. v. Resh, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, holding that upon denial of class certification, a putative class member may not, in lieu of promptly joining an existing suit or promptly filing an individual action, commence a class action anew beyond the time allowed by the applicable statute of limitations.

Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), is a landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights case which ruled that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 employees could not be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.