United States Supreme Court

Opinions Filed in November 2011

Credit Suisse Securities v. Simmonds

Whether the two year statute of limitations in section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 is subject to tolling, and if so, when does tolling begin.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Civil Procedure

Hall v. United States

Whether a debtor must pay federal income tax on capital gains from the sale of their farm during bankruptcy proceedings.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Bankruptcy Law

First American Financial Corp. v. Edwards

Whether a private purchaser of real estate settlement services has Article III standing to sue for a RESPA violation when that violation does not affect the price or the quality of the services provided.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Standing

Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC

Whether Congress divested federal district courts of federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 with respect to private actions brought under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Civil Procedure

Vasquez v. United States

Whether it is reversible error in a criminal case for a trial court to admit recordings of a conversation for the truth of the matter where the witness admits the point on which the government seeks to establish bias, where a logical inference is necessary to establish an inconsistent statement, and where the statements otherwise constitute inadmissible hearsay.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Evidence

Kurns v. Railroad Friction Products Corp

Whether the Locomotive Inspection Act (“LIA”), which regulates the “use” of a locomotive on a railroad line 49 U.S.C. § 20701, preempts the field of state common-law product liability claims by workers injured in railroad maintenance facilities.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Preemption

Nat’l Meat Ass’n v. Harris

PREEMPTION (Whether federal regulations authorized by the Federal Meat Inspection Act (21 U.S.C. § 601, et seq.) that require slaughterhouses to hold nonambulatory animals for observation for evidence of disease preempts a state law that requires such animals be immediately killed.)

Area(s) of Law:
  • Preemption

Greene v. Fisher

(For the purpose of adjudicating a state prisoner’s petition for federal habeas relief, the temporal cutoff for whether a decision from the Supreme Court qualifies as “clearly established Federal law” is the time of the relevant state-court adjudication on the merits.)

Area(s) of Law:
  • Habeas Corpus

Smith v. Cain

Whether Louisiana state courts erred when they rejected petitioner's Brady v. Maryland claims that the district attorney failed to produce evidence favorable to the accused and thus violated his due process rights.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Criminal Procedure

U.S. v. Jones

Whether the government violated respondent’s Fourth Amendment rights by attaching a GPS tracking device to his vehicle and monitoring his movements on public streets without a valid warrant and without his consent.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Criminal Procedure

Bobby v. Dixon

Antiterrrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) provides that a state prisoner seeking a writ of habeas corpus from a federal court “must show that the state court’s ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.”

Area(s) of Law:
  • Criminal Procedure

Jackson v. Hobbs

Whether sentencing a fourteen year old to life imprisonment without possibility of parole after being convicted of aggravated murder constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Criminal Law

Kawashima v. Holder

Whether petitioners' convictions for tax crimes constituted aggravated felonies under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(M)(i), and thus subjected them to deportation under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii).

Area(s) of Law:
  • Immigration

KPMG LLP v. Robert Cocchi et al.

When a complaint contains both arbitrable and nonarbitrable claims, the Federal Arbitration Act requires courts to compel arbitration of the arbitrable claims.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Alternative Dispute Resolution

Magner v. Gallagher

Discrimination: (Whether a disparate impact claim may be brought under the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and, if so, what approach should the Court use to analyze such a claim.)

Area(s) of Law:
  • Criminal Law

Miller v. Alabama

Whether a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is cruel and usual punishment under the Eighth Amendment when the offender was fourteen years old at the time of the criminal action.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Criminal Law

Zivotofsky v. Clinton

(1) Whether a suit requiring a federal court to order the State Department to adhere to a Congressional statute requiring official government documents identify Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a justiciable issue, (2) Whether Section 214 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003, impermissibly infringes the President's power to recognize foreign sovereigns.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Constitutional Law

Gonzalez v. Thaler

Whether the AEDPA’s one-year statute of limitations for an application for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 should be calculated based on “the date on which the judgment became final” as held by the 8th Circuit or “the expiration of the time for seeking such review” as held by the 5th Circuit.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Habeas Corpus

Perry v. New Hampshire

Whether a defendant may exclude eyewitness identification stemming from impermissibly suggestive circumstances, regardless of improper state conduct related to that identification, based on the protections of due process.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Evidence

Minneci v. Pollard

Bivens Actions: Whether a federal inmate who has adequate remedies under state law may bring a Bivens action against employees of a private corrections company that contracts with the federal government for prison services.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Constitutional Law

Rehberg v. Paulk

Whether a government official is entitled to absolutely immunity from a section 1983 claim for damages when their false testimony to a grand jury caused the prosecution of an innocent individual.

Area(s) of Law:
  • Civil Procedure

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