United States Reports

The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nine per curiam opinions during its 2021 term, which began October 4, 2021 and concluded October 2, 2022.

Mississippi v. Tennessee, 595 U.S. 15 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the waters of the Middle Claiborne Aquifer are subject to the judicial remedy of equitable apportionment.

Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson, 595 U.S. 30 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case brought by Texas abortion providers and abortion rights advocates that challenged the constitutionality of the Texas Heartbeat Act, a law that outlaws abortions after six weeks. The Texas Heartbeat Act prohibits state officials from enforcing the ban but authorizes private individuals to enforce the law by suing anyone who performs, aids, or abets an abortion after six weeks. The law was structured this way to evade pre-enforcement judicial review because lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of state statutes are typically brought against state officials who are charged with enforcing the law, as the state itself cannot be sued under the doctrine of sovereign immunity.

United States v. Texas, 595 U.S. 74 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case that involved the Texas Heartbeat Act, also known as Senate Bill 8 or SB8, a state law that bans abortion once a "fetal heartbeat" is detected, typically six weeks into pregnancy. A unique feature of the Act, and challenges to it, is the delegation of enforcement to any and all private individuals who are authorized by the Act to file civil actions against abortion providers who violate it, and aiders and abetters, while state and local officials are prohibited from doing so. Opponents stated that the Act went against the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v.

National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston, 594 U.S. 69 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the compensation of collegiate athletes within the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It followed from a previous case, O'Bannon v. NCAA, in which it was found that the NCAA was profiting from the namesake and likenesses of college athletes. The case dealt with the NCAA's restrictions on providing college athletes with non-cash compensation for academic-related purposes, such as computers and internships, which the NCAA maintained was to prevent the appearance that the student athletes were being paid to play or treated as professional athletes.

Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, 594 U.S. 139 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case involving eminent domain and labor relations. In its decision, the Court held that a regulation made pursuant to the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act that required agricultural employers to allow labor organizers to regularly access their property for the purposes of union recruitment constituted a per se taking under the Fifth Amendment. Consequently, the regulation may not be enforced unless “just compensation” is provided to the employers.

Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., 594 U.S. 180 (2021) was a United States Supreme Court case involving the ability of schools to regulate student speech made off-campus, including speech made on social media. The case challenged past interpretations of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District and Bethel School District v. Fraser (previous Supreme Court decisions related to student speech which may be disruptive to the educational environment) in light of online communications. The case centered on Brandi Levy (initially identified as B.L. in pleadings), a student at Mahanoy Area High School in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, who posted an angry, profane Snapchat message from an off-campus location after she failed to make the school's varsity cheerleading squad.

Lange v. California, 594 U.S. 295 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the exigent circumstances requirement related to the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled unanimously that the warrantless entry into a home by police in pursuit of a misdemeanant is not unequivocally justified.

Yellen v. Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, 594 U.S. 338 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the classification of Alaska Native corporations (ANCs) for purposes of receiving funds set-aside for tribal governments under the CARES Act. In a 6–3 decision issued in June 2021, the Court ruled that ANCs were considered to be "Indian tribes" and were eligible to receive the set-aside funds.

HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refining, LLC v. Renewable Fuels Association, 594 U.S. 382 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with exemptions from blending requirements for small refineries set by the Renewable Fuel Standard program. The case dealt with the statutory interpretation of the congressional language for extending the exemption, if this allowed a lapse in the exemption or not. In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that by the majority's interpretation of the law, the congressional law did allow for refineries to seek extensions after their exemption period had lapsed.

TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021), was a United States Court case dealing with standing in federal cases under Article III of the Constitution related to class-action suits against private defendants. In a 5–4 decision, the Court ruled that only those that can show concrete harm have standing to seek damages against private defendants in federal court.

Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, 594 U.S. 647 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case related to voting rights established by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), and specifically the applicability of Section 2's general provision barring discrimination against minorities in state and local election laws in the wake of the 2013 Supreme Court decision Shelby County v. Holder, which removed the preclearance requirements for election laws for certain states that had been set by Sections 4(b) and 5. Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee involves two of Arizona's election policies: one outlawing ballot collection and another banning out-of-precinct voting.

Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., 593 U.S. 1 (2021), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States related to the nature of computer code and copyright law. The dispute centered on the use of parts of the Java programming language's application programming interfaces (APIs) in Google's Android operating system and unlicenced use of source code that implemented some of these APIs in early versions of Android. Google contested both claims on grounds of fair use. Oracle initiated the suit arguing that the APIs were copyrightable, seeking US$8.8 billion in damages from Google's sales and licensing of the earlier infringing versions of Android.

Tandon v. Newsom, 593 U.S. 61 (2021), was the last major decision of the U.S. Supreme Court addressing religious-liberty challenges to restrictions on public gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision significantly transformed existing religious-liberty doctrine by adopting the "most favored nation" approach, holding that "government regulations are not neutral and generally applicable, and therefore trigger strict scrutiny under the Free Exercise Clause, whenever they treat any comparable secular activity more favorably than religious exercise." During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government of California limited all gatherings inside homes to three households, regardless of the purpose of meeting.

Jones v. Mississippi, 593 U.S. 98 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the imposition of life sentences for juveniles. The Supreme Court had previously ruled in Miller v. Alabama in 2012 that mandatory life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders was considered cruel and unusual punishment outside of extreme cases of permanent incorrigibility, and made this decision retroactive in Montgomery v. Louisiana in 2016. In Jones, a juvenile offender who was 15 at the time of his offense, challenged his life sentence following Montgomery but was denied by the state.

Niz-Chavez v. Garland, 593 U.S. 155 (2021), was an immigration decision by the United States Supreme Court. In a 6–3 decision authored by Neil Gorsuch, the Court ruled against the federal government, holding that deportation hearing notices need to be in a single document. Although a highly technical case, the decision received attention for being predicated on the single-letter word a.

Caniglia v. Strom, 593 U.S. 194 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution's "community caretaking" exception.

Edwards v. Vannoy, 593 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the Court's prior decision in Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), which had ruled that jury verdicts in criminal trials must be unanimous under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that Ramos did not apply retroactively to earlier cases prior to their verdict in Ramos.

Van Buren v. United States, 593 U.S. 374 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and its definition of "exceeds authorized access" in relation to one intentionally accessing a computer system they have authorization to access. In June 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6–3 opinion that one "exceeds authorized access" by accessing off-limit files and other information on a computer system they were otherwise authorized to access. The CFAA's language had long created a 4–3 circuit split in case law that led to the failed introduction of Aaron's Law, and this decision narrowed the applicability of CFAA in prosecuting cybersecurity and computer crime.

Borden v. United States, 593 U.S. 420 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the classification of prior convictions for "violent felony" in application of Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA); the ACCA provides for enhanced sentencing for convicted criminals with three or more such felonies in their history. In a 5–4 decision in June 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that crimes resulting from reckless conduct should not be considered as a "violent felony" for the purposes of the ACCA.

Greer v. United States, 593 U.S. 503 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that an unobjected-to failure to instruct the jury that the defendant must have known they were a felon is not structural error requiring reversal. Moreover, it would be difficult to show plain error because "convicted felons ordinarily know that they are convicted felons." The case was consolidated with United States v. Gary; Sotomayor dissented to the court's assessment of Gary.

Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 593 U.S. 522 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania violated First Amendment rights of a Catholic foster care agency by refusing to renew the agency's contract unless it agreed to certify married same-sex couples as foster parents.

Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe, 593 U. S. 628 (2021), is a United States Supreme Court decision regarding the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which provides federal courts jurisdiction over claims brought by foreign nationals for violations of international law. Consolidated with Cargill, Inc. v. Doe, the case concerned a class-action lawsuit against Nestlé USA and Cargill for aiding and abetting child slavery in Côte d’Ivoire by purchasing from cocoa producers that utilize child slave labor from Mali. The plaintiffs, who were former slave laborers in the cocoa farms, brought their claim in U.S. district court under the ATS. The U.S.

California v. Texas, 593 U.S. 659 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case that dealt with the constitutionality of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), colloquially known as Obamacare. It was the third such challenge to the ACA seen by the Supreme Court since its enactment. The case in California followed after the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and the change to the tax penalty amount for Americans without required insurance that reduced the "individual mandate" (26 U.S.C. § 5000A) to zero, effective for months after December 31, 2018.

Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp, 592 U.S. 169 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case that dealt with the applicability of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) for heirs of victims of the Holocaust to sue Germany in the United States court systems for compensation for items that were taken by the Nazi Party during World War II. At issue in the case was whether claims fell within the FSIA's exception to sovereign immunity for "property taken in violation of international law", 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(3), given that the sovereign here was alleged to have engaged in a taking of its own nationals' property; and whether courts can invoke the doctrine of international comity under the FSIA to abstain from exercising jurisdiction based on prudential considerations.

Brownback v. King, 592 U.S. 209 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a dismissal for failure to state a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) is a judgment on the merits that triggers the FTCA's judgment bar on future actions.

United States Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, Inc., 592 U.S. 261 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case involving whether the use of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request can be used to access documents from a U.S. agency that are protected under the deliberative process privilege exemption, in this specific case, draft biological opinions made and reviewed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) prior to a final rulemaking decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) related to impacts on endangered aquatic species, requested by the Sierra Club.

Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, 592 U.S. 279 (2021), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, dealing with nominal damages to be awarded to individuals whose right to freedom of speech has been suppressed by an entity but subsequently rendered moot due to intervening circumstances. In an 8–1 decision, the Court held that such nominal damages satisfy the Article Three requirement of redressability, when awarded for a past violation of a legal rights.

Torres v. Madrid, 592 U.S. 306 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case based on what constitutes a "seizure" in the context of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, in the immediate case, in the situation where law enforcement had attempted to use physical force to stop a suspect but failed to do so. The Court ruled in a 5–3 decision that the use of physical force with the intent to restrain a person, even if that fails to restrain the person, is considered a seizure.

Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District, 592 U.S. 351 (2021), was a U.S. Supreme Court case involving personal jurisdiction of a state court in product liability lawsuits against an out-of-state manufacturer. The case, consolidated with Ford Motor Co. v. Bandemer, involved two product liability lawsuits brought against the Ford Motor Company at the state level related to two drivers' injuries in separate accidents involving Ford's vehicles in Montana and Minnesota. Ford challenged the lawsuits as the vehicles in question were designed, manufactured, and sold in other states, and therefore Ford contended that the states in which the accidents actually occurred did not have specific personal jurisdiction over its allegedly tortious conduct.

Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 592 U.S. 395 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the definition and function of auto dialers under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) to send unsolicited text messages. In a unanimous decision based on statutory interpretation of the TCPA, the Supreme Court ruled that auto dialers are defined by their function to either store or produce telephone numbers from a random or sequential number generator.

Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC, 592 US 414 (2021), is the general title of a series of cases heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 2003 to 2019 and finalized by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021. A media activist group, Prometheus Radio Project, challenged new media ownership rules put forth by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2002. In the first court challenge in 2004, the Third Circuit overruled an attempt by the FCC to raise the limits of media ownership within markets and relax cross-ownership (radio, television, and newspaper) prohibitions, and determined that a diversity index used by the FCC had been formulated inconsistently.

The Supreme Court of the United States handed down fourteen per curiam opinions during its 2020 term, which began October 5, 2020, and concluded October 3, 2021.

Taylor v. Riojas, 592 U.S. 7 (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with qualified immunity. It was the first case in which the Supreme Court relied on the obviousness of a constitutional violation to overturn a lower court's decision to grant qualified immunity.

Tanzin v. Tanvir, 592 U.S. 43 (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving legal remedies that could be sought by litigants against federal officials for violations of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. In a unanimous decision issued December 10, 2020, the court ruled that the Act allowed for litigants to seek not only injunctive relief but also monetary damages.

Trump v. New York, 592 U.S. 125 (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the 2020 United States census. It centered on the validity of a July 2020 executive memorandum from President Donald Trump to the Department of Commerce, which conducts and reports the census. The memo ordered the department to report the estimated counts of illegal immigrants in each state, allowing the president to exclude them for purposes of congressional apportionment. The memo was challenged by a coalition of U.S. states led by New York along with several cities and other organizations suing to block action on the memo.

Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, 591 U.S. 1 (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held by a 5–4 vote that a 2017 U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) order to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration program was "arbitrary and capricious" under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and reversed the order.

Liu v. Securities and Exchange Commission, 591 U.S. 71 (2020), is a US Supreme Court case related to disgorgement awards sought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for fraudulent activities. The Court ruled in an 8–1 decision that such disgorgement awards can be awarded by the courts as equitable relief under the Securities Act of 1933, 15 U.S.C. § 78u(d)(5), but they are limited to the wrongdoer's net profits and must be awarded for victims.

Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, 591 U.S. 103 (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving whether the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which limits habeas corpus judicial review of the decisions of immigration officers, violates the Suspension Clause of Article One of the U.S. Constitution. In the 7–2 opinion, the Court ruled that the law does not violate the Suspension Clause.

Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U.S. 197 (2020) was a U.S. Supreme Court decision which held that the 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 principle in the U.S. Constitution. Handed down on June 29, 2020, the Court's 5–4 decision created a new test to determine when Congress may limit the power of the President of the United States to remove an officer of the United States from office. The Court recognized that the President may generally remove officers at will. However, the Court stated that there were two exceptions to this rule.

Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, 591 U.S. 464 (2020), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision that a state-based scholarship program that provides public funds to allow students to attend private schools cannot discriminate against religious schools under the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution.

Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U.S. 578 (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case on the issue of "faithless electors" in the Electoral College stemming from the 2016 United States presidential election. The Court ruled unanimously, by a vote of 9–0, that states have the ability to enforce an elector's pledge in presidential elections. Chiafalo deals with electors who received US$1,000 fines for not voting for the nominees of their party in the state of Washington. The case was originally consolidated with Colorado Department of State v. Baca, 591 U.S.

Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, 591 U.S. 732 (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the ministerial exception of federal employment discrimination laws. The case extends from the Supreme Court's prior decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which created the ministerial exception based on the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the United States Constitution, asserting that federal discrimination laws cannot be applied to leaders of religious organizations. The case, along with the consolidated St. James School v.

Trump v. Vance, 591 U.S. 786 (2020), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case arising from a subpoena issued in August 2019 by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. against Mazars, then-President Donald Trump's accounting firm, for Trump's tax records and related documents, as part of his ongoing investigation into the Stormy Daniels scandal. Trump commenced legal proceedings to prevent their release.

McGirt v. Oklahoma, 591 U.S. 894 (2020), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case which held that the domain reserved for the Muscogee Nation by Congress in the 19th century has never been disestablished and constitutes Indian country for the purposes of the Major Crimes Act, meaning that the state of Oklahoma has no right to prosecute American Indians for crimes allegedly committed therein. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals applied the McGirt rationale to rule nine other Indigenous nations had not been disestablished. As a result, almost the entirety of the eastern half of what is now the state of Oklahoma remains Indian country, meaning that criminal prosecutions of Native Americans for offenses therein falls outside the jurisdiction of Oklahoma’s court system.

Sharp v. Murphy, 591 U.S. 977 (2020), was a Supreme Court of the United States case of whether Congress disestablished the Muscogee (Creek) Nation reservation. After holding the case from the 2018 term, the case was decided on July 9, 2020, in a per curiam decision following McGirt v. Oklahoma that, for the purposes of the Major Crimes Act, the reservations were never disestablished and remain Indian country.

Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. 83 (2020), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires that guilty verdicts be unanimous in criminal trials. The decision also incorporated the Sixth Amendment requirement for unanimous jury criminal convictions against the states, and thereby overturned the Court's previous decision from the 1972 cases Apodaca v. Oregon and Johnson v. Louisiana. At the time of the decision, only Oregon and Louisiana allowed non-unanimous jury convictions, while all other states had incorporated the unanimous requirement.

Barton v. Barr, 590 U.S. 222 (2020) is a Supreme Court of the United States ruling which upheld a decision by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals that permanent residents (green card holders) rendered "inadmissible" for some crimes committed under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2) within the initial seven years of continuous residence were ineligible for 8 U.S.C. § 1229b cancellation of removal relief.

Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., No. 18-1150, 590 U.S. 255 (2020), is a United States Supreme Court case regarding "whether the government edicts doctrine extends to—and thus renders uncopyrightable—works that lack the force of law, such as the annotations in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated" (OCGA). On April 27, 2020, the Court ruled 5–4 that the OCGA cannot be copyrighted because the OCGA's annotations were "authored by an arm of the legislature in the course of its legislative duties"; thus the Court found that the annotations fall under the government edicts doctrine and are ineligible for copyright. Litigation began in 2013 after Carl Malamud published the OCGA on Public.Resource.Org (PRO). The state of Georgia filed a lawsuit in 2015.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. City of New York, New York, 590 U.S. 336 (2020), abbreviated NYSRPA v. NYC and also known as NYSRPA I to distinguish it from the subsequent case, was a case addressing whether the gun ownership laws of New York City, which restrict the transport of a licensed firearm out of one's home, violated the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause, and the right to travel. It was the first major gun-related case that the Supreme Court had accepted for review in nearly ten years, after District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010).