Petitions of the week

This week we highlight petitions pending before the Supreme Court that address, among other things, whether the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel includes the right to a plea offer that was never made; whether a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to subpoena service providers and force them to turn over the contents of their account-holders’ communications; and whether the “motivating factor” standard is most consistent with the plain language and purposes of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which forbids discrimination “on the basis of” disability but does not specifically set forth the standard to be applied in determining causation.

The petitions of the week are below the jump:

Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc.
19-963
Issue: Whether a provision in an arbitration agreement that exempts certain claims from arbitration negates an otherwise clear and unmistakable delegation of questions of arbitrability to an arbitrator.

Skipper v. Byrd
19-992
Issue: Whether the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel includes the right to a plea offer that was never made.

Murray v. Mayo Clinic
19-995
Issue: Whether the “motivating factor” standard is most consistent with the plain language and purposes of the statute, and congressional intent, and therefore the appropriate standard to be applied under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which forbids discrimination “on the basis of” disability, but does not specifically set forth the standard to be applied in determining causation.

Facebook Inc. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco County
19-1006
Issue: Whether a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to subpoena service providers and force them to turn over the contents of their account-holders’ communications, notwithstanding the Stored Communications Act’s express prohibition on such disclosures, and whether a service provider can be held in contempt for refusing to violate the SCA in response to such a subpoena.

Altera Corp. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue
19-1009
Issues: (1) Whether the Treasury Department’s regulation requiring related companies (such as parents and subsidiaries) to share the cost of stock-based employee compensation is arbitrary and capricious and thus invalid under the Administrative Procedure Act; (2) whether, under Securities and Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corp., the regulation may be upheld on a rationale that the agency never advanced during rulemaking; and (3) whether a procedurally defective regulation may be upheld under Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council Inc. on the ground that the agency has offered a “permissible” interpretation of the statute in litigation.

General Electric Co. v. United Technologies Corp.
19-1012
Issue: Whether competitive harm alone suffices to confer Article III standing to appeal an inter partes review determination, or whether an appellant must also show concrete plans for future activity that creates a substantial risk of a future patent infringement action.

Matthews v. Barr
19-1022
Issue: Whether a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act—that noncitizens may be removed and are ineligible for many forms of discretionary relief if “convicted of … a crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment”—encompasses a crime of “child endangerment,” a different child-related offense that criminalizes an individual act—like leaving a child briefly unattended—that creates some risk of potential harm to a child, even if no harm results.

Ford Motor Co. v. United States
19-1026
Issues: (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit erred in holding, contrary to Supreme Court precedent, that a product’s post-importation modification and use can determine its classification under a tariff heading that is not statutorily “controlled by use”; and (2) whether the Federal Circuit erred in holding, in conflict with the decisions of the other 12 circuits, that an appellee must brief issues not decided by the trial court or raised by the appellant to preserve them for remand.

Bun v. United States
19-1037
Issue: Whether a defendant is “unable to stand trial” within the meaning of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers when he or she has a motion pending before the trial court.

Archer and White Sales Inc. v. Henry Schein Inc.
19-1080
Issues: (1) Whether an arbitration agreement that identifies a set of arbitration rules to apply if there is arbitration clearly and unmistakably delegates to the arbitrator disputes about whether the parties agreed to arbitrate in the first place; and (2) whether an arbitrator or a court decides whether a nonsignatory to an arbitration agreement can enforce the arbitration agreement through equitable estoppel.