Argument preview: Finding the proper Article III forum
Howard M. Wasserman is a Professor of Law at FIU College of Law. At next week’s oral argument in Kloeckner v. Solis, the Court will consider which Article III court – the U.S. Court of Appeals for the...
View ArticleArgument recap: When is “an action subject to judicial review” not a...
The following recap is written by Howard M. Wasserman, Professor of Law, FIU College of Law Sometimes everyone – attorneys and justices – has trouble keeping up with a detailed oral argument on a...
View ArticleArgument preview: Attorney’s fees and the final judgment rule
The Roberts Court enjoys digging at the fine details of federal jurisdiction. The latest case in this effort is Ray Haluch Gravel Co. v. Central Pension Fund, in which the Court will consider whether a...
View ArticleArgument recap: Finding simple rules is not always so simple
Litigants and attorneys have taken to heart the Court’s admonitions that jurisdictional rules should be “simple, clear, and certain,” based on uniform, bright lines, and capable of easy administration....
View ArticleOpinion analysis: Operational consistency and predictability prevail in...
Scholars, Court-watchers, and the Justices themselves regularly insist that divisive constitutional cases decided by five-to-four margins and discussed on cable news and the State of the Union address...
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Argument preview: Finality, consolidation, and multi-district litigation
Gelboim v. Bank of America presents a routine question in a highly complex procedural context: When a district court dismisses all claims in one civil action that has been consolidated with other cases...
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Argument preview: Jurisdictionality, timeliness, and the Federal Tort Claims Act
In United States v. June and United States v. Wong, the Court will revisit a recurring theme for the Roberts Court – identifying “jurisdictional rules,” as distinct from non-jurisdictional...
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Argument analysis: Finality and a tale of two rules
Lawyers for both parties faced skeptical questioning in Tuesday’s arguments in Gelboim v. Bank of America. Tasked with deciding the appealability of a decision dismissing all claims in an action that...
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Argument analysis: A living Federal Tort Claims Act?
On Wednesday, a subdued Court spent two hours hearing oral arguments in United States v. Wong and United States v. June, considering whether the limitations periods under the Federal Tort Claims Act...
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Opinion analysis: Finality, appealability, and single-claim actions
Two things stand a good chance of happening when the Supreme Court resolves cases dealing with procedure and jurisdiction. One is that the Court will be unanimous or close to unanimous in its decision....
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Opinion analysis: Clear statements, sovereign immunity, and timeliness
In United States v. Wong, decided together with United States v. June, the Court concluded, yet again, that a statute of limitations is a “claim-processing rule” and subject to equitable tolling,...
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Argument preview: Is a three-judge court “not required” when a pleading fails...
Congress created the three-judge district court in 1910; the procedure directly responded to the Supreme Court’s decision in Ex Parte Young, which allowed a federal district court, presided over by a...
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Argument analysis: “Wow . . . That’s my comment” – a passive Court and a...
Lawyers for both sides in yesterday’s argument in Shapiro v. McManus encountered an unusually subdued Court. In a case considering whether a single district judge can dismiss, for failure to state a...
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Opinion analysis: Removing discretion in convening three-judge district courts
The outcome in Shapiro v. McManus, considering when a case must be referred for a three-judge district court, seemed preordained from oral argument. The Justices asked fewer questions than usual, but...
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Argument preview: The First Amendment, public employment, and misperceived...
The First Amendment limits, although does not preclude, patronage in public employment. A public employer cannot take adverse action against a non-political, non-policy-making employee — one holding a...
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Argument analysis: The First Amendment, political inactivity, and improper...
In Tuesday’s argument in Heffernan v. City of Paterson, the Justices considered a case that Justice Samuel Alito called a law school hypothetical — whether a public employee can show a violation of his...
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Opinion analysis: Improper motive can violate the First Amendment, even with...
Heffernan v. City of Paterson reduces to a simple question: is “[d]emoting a dutiful son who aids his elderly, bedridden mother” merely callous? Or, when based on an erroneous factual belief about what...
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Argument preview: Bad-faith discovery sanctions, inherent authority and...
In Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Haeger, to be argued on January 10, the court will consider whether an award of attorney’s fees and costs, imposed under a district court’s inherent authority as a...
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Argument analysis: “The train jumped the track and it went in an entirely...
Locomotively questionable train analogies and a bench skeptical of the petitioner’s position marked Tuesday’s argument in Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Haeger, in which the court considered the...
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Argument preview: Revisiting the proper forum for civil service review in...
Courtesy of Anthony Perry When the Supreme Court resolves a legal issue, lower federal courts must determine the scope of that resolution, square it with existing lower-court precedent, and apply both...
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