October Term 2019

Holding: Due process does not require Kansas to adopt an insanity test that turns on a defendant’s ability to recognize that his crime was morally wrong.

Holding: The Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, as incorporated against the states, requires a unanimous verdict to convict a defendant of a serious offense.

Holding: The PTO cannot recover the salaries of its legal personnel under Section 145 of the Patent Act.

Holding: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Holding: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Holding: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Holding: The Constitution's appointments clause does not restrict the appointment or selection of members of Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board, who are appointed by the president without the Senate’s advice and consent.

Holding: The Constitution's appointments clause does not restrict the appointment or selection of members of Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board, who are appointed by the president without the Senate’s advice and consent.

Holding: The Constitution's appointments clause does not restrict the appointment or selection of members of Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board, who are appointed by the president without the Senate’s advice and consent.

Holding: The Constitution's appointments clause does not restrict the appointment or selection of members of Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board, who are appointed by the president without the Senate’s advice and consent.

Holding: The Constitution's appointments clause does not restrict the appointment or selection of members of Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board, who are appointed by the president without the Senate’s advice and consent.

Holding: Absent the application of an equitable doctrine, the statute of limitations in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §1692k(d), begins to run when the alleged FDCPA violation occurs, not when the violation is discovered.

Holding: The Kansas statutes under which respondents, three unauthorized aliens, were convicted—for fraudulently using another person’s Social Security number on state and federal tax-withholding forms submitted to their employers—are not expressly preempted by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986; and respondent’s argument that those law are preempted by implication is rejected.

Holding: In determining eligibility for cancellation of removal of a lawful permanent resident who commits a serious crime, an offense listed in 8 U. S. C. § 1182(a)(2) committed during the initial seven years of residence need not be one of the offenses of removal.

Holding: When a police officer lacks information negating an inference that a person driving is the vehicle’s owner, an investigative traffic stop made after running the vehicle’s license plate and learning that the registered owner’s driver’s license has been revoked is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

Holding: Congress lacked authority to abrogate the states’ sovereign immunity from copyright infringement suits in the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990.

Holding: The plain language of the safe-berth clause in the parties’ subcharter agreement—requiring the petitioners to designate a safe berth for a vessel to load and discharge cargo—establishes a warranty of safety.

Holding: This case, about whether plaintiffs can state a claim against retirement-plan fiduciaries for breach of duty of prudence by alleging that the costs of undisclosed fraud grow over time, is vacated and remanded to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit for a determination on whether to consider two arguments raised in the briefs at the Supreme Court but not in the lower courts.

Holding: The Clean Water Act, which forbids “any addition” of any pollutant from “any point source” to “navigable waters” without the appropriate Environmental Protection Agency permit, requires a permit when there is a direct discharge from a point source into navigable waters or when there is the functional equivalent of a direct discharge.

Holding: The Department of Homeland Security’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Holding: The Department of Homeland Security’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Holding: The Department of Homeland Security’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Holding: The holding in Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents does not extend to claims based on a cross-border shooting.

Holding: A plaintiff who sues for racial discrimination in contracting under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 bears the burden of showing that race was a but-for cause of the plaintiff’s injury, and that burden remains constant over the life of the lawsuit.

Holding: A bankruptcy court’s order unreservedly denying relief from the automatic stay constitutes a final, immediately appealable order under 28 U.S.C. § 158(a).

Holding: Under the government edicts doctrine, the annotations beneath the statutory provisions in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated are ineligible for copyright protection.

Holding: Petitioners’ claim for declaratory and injunctive relief with respect to the City’s old rule on transporting firearms is moot, and any claim for damages with respect to that rule may be addressed in the first instance by the court of appeals and the district court on remand.

Holding: The rule of In re Bob Richards Chrysler-Plymouth Corp., which specifies how federal tax refund proceeds should be allocated among members of an affiliated group of corporations that file a consolidated return, is not a legitimate exercise of federal common lawmaking.

Holding: The Montana Supreme Court erred by holding that respondent landowners were not potentially responsible parties under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act and thus did not need the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval to take remedial action.

Holding: A Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) motion to alter or amend a habeas court’s judgment is not a second or successive habeas petition under 28 U. S. C. § 2244(b).

Holding: Under the requirement in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 that plaintiffs with “actual knowledge” of an alleged fiduciary breach must 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.

Holding: Because the phrase “questions of law” in the Immigration and Nationality Act’s Limited Review Provision, 8 U. S. C. § 1252(a)(2)(D), includes the application of a legal standard to undisputed or established facts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit erred in holding that it had no jurisdiction to consider the petitioners’ “factual” due diligence claims for equitable tolling purposes.

Holding: Federal patent law does not allow an appeal of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decision to institute a procedure for challenging the validity of a patent after finding that a one-year time bar does not apply.

Holding: Because the phrase “questions of law” in the Immigration and Nationality Act’s Limited Review Provision, 8 U. S. C. § 1252(a)(2)(D), includes the application of a legal standard to undisputed or established facts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit erred in holding that it had no jurisdiction to consider the petitioners’ “factual” due diligence claims for equitable tolling purposes.

Holding: Holguin-Hernandez's district-court argument for a specific sentence (nothing or less than 12 months) preserved his claim on appeal that the sentence imposed was unreasonably long.

Holding: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s now expired “Risk Corridors” statute—which set a formula for calculating payments to healthcare insurers for unexpectedly unprofitable plans during the first three years of online insurance marketplaces—created a government obligation to pay insurers the full amount of their computed losses; and the petitioners properly relied on the Tucker Act to sue for damages in the Court of Federal Claims.

Holding: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s now expired “Risk Corridors” statute—which set a formula for calculating payments to healthcare insurers for unexpectedly unprofitable plans during the first three years of online insurance marketplaces—created a government obligation to pay insurers the full amount of their computed losses; and the petitioners properly relied on the Tucker Act to sue for damages in the Court of Federal Claims.

Holding: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s now expired “Risk Corridors” statute—which set a formula for calculating payments to healthcare insurers for unexpectedly unprofitable plans during the first three years of online insurance marketplaces—created a government obligation to pay insurers the full amount of their computed losses; and the petitioners properly relied on the Tucker Act to sue for damages in the Court of Federal Claims.

Holding: When a capital sentencing error under Eddings v. Oklahoma is found on collateral review, a state appellate court may conduct the reweighing of aggravating and mitigating ecidence, as permitted by Clemons v. Mississippi.

Holding: A child’s habitual residence under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction depends on the totality of the circumstances specific to the case, not on categorical requirements such as an actual agreement between the parents.

Holding: Because the trademark action at issue challenged different conduct—and raised different claims—from an earlier action between the parties, Marcel cannot preclude Lucky Brand from raising new defenses, including a defense that Lucky Brand failed to press fully in the earlier suit.

Holding: Participants in a defined-benefit retirement plan who are guaranteed a fixed payment each month regardless of the plan’s value or its fiduciaries’ investment decisions lack Article III standing to bring a lawsuit against the fiduciaries under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

Holding: A plaintiff in a trademark infringement suit is not required to show that a defendant willfully infringed the plaintiff’s trademark as a precondition to an award of profits.

Holding: Because the scheme to reduce the number of George Washington Bridge toll lanes dedicated to Fort Lee, New Jersey, morning commuters as political retribution against Fort Lee’s mayor did not aim to obtain money or property from the federal Port Authority, William Baroni and Bridget Kelly could not have violated the federal-program fraud or wire fraud laws.

Holding: The plain meaning of 29 U. S. C. § 633a(a), the federal-sector provision of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, demands that personnel actions be untainted by any consideration of age, but but-for causation is important in determining the appropriate remedy that may be obtained.

Holding: The definition of in “serious drug offense” in 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii) requires only that the state offense involve the conduct specified in the statute; it does not require that the state offense match certain generic offenses.

Holding: The Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards does not conflict with domestic equitable estoppel doctrines that permit the enforcement of arbitration agreements by nonsignatories to those agreements.

Holding: The application of the Montana Constitution’s “no-aid” provision to a state program providing tuition assistance to parents who send their children to private schools discriminated against religious schools and the families whose children attend or hope to attend them in violation of the free exercise clause.

Holding: Because the Department of the Interior’s decision to assign responsibility over the Appalachian Trail to the National Park Service did not transform the land over which the Trail passes into land within the National Park System, the Forest Service had the authority to issue the special use permit.

Holding: Because the Department of the Interior’s decision to assign responsibility over the Appalachian Trail to the National Park Service did not transform the land over which the Trail passes into land within the National Park System, the Forest Service had the authority to issue the special use permit.

Holding: Plaintiffs in a suit against a foreign state for personal injury or death caused by acts of terrorism under 28 U. S. C. § 1605A(c) may seek punitive damages for preenactment conduct.

Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit panel’s drastic departure from the principle of party presentation constituted an abuse of discretion when the court reached out to decide a question never raised by the respondent, namely, whether 8 U. S. C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) is unconstitutionally overbroad.

Holding: A Prison Litigation Reform Act provision that generally prevents a prisoner from bringing suit in forma pauperis — that is, without first paying the filing fee — if he has had three or more prior suits “dismissed on the ground[ ] that [they] ... fail[ed] to state a claim upon which relief may be granted,” refers to any dismissal for failure to state a claim, whether with prejudice or without.

Holding: As applied in this case, 8 U. S. C. § 1252(e)(2)—which limits the habeas review obtainable by a noncitizen detained for expedited removal—does not violate the suspension or due process clauses.

Holding: Title 8 U. S. C. §§ 1252(a)(2)(C) and (D) do not preclude judicial review of a removable noncitizen’s factual challenges to an order denying relief under the international Convention Against Torture, which protects noncitizens from removal to a country where they would likely face torture.

Holding: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s leadership by a single director removable only for inefficiency, neglect or malfeasance violates the separation of powers.

Holding: In a Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement action, a disgorgement award that does not exceed a wrongdoer’s net profits and is awarded for victims is equitable relief permissible under 15 U.S.C. § 78u(d)(5).

Holding: Louisiana's Unsafe Abortion Protection Act, requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, is unconstitutional.

Holding: Louisiana's Unsafe Abortion Protection Act, requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, is unconstitutional.

Holding: A term styled “generic.com” is a generic name for a class of goods or services—and thus ineligible for federal trademark protection—only if the term has that meaning to consumers.

Holding: Because the foreign affiliates of American NGOs possess no First Amendment rights, the requirement for funding under the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act that organizations have “a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking,” as applied those foreign affiliates, does not violate the Constitution.

Holding: The exception for calls to collect government debt from a federal ban on robocalls to cellphones violates the First Amendment, but the exception is severable from the rest of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991.

Holding: The Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury had authority under the Affordable Care Act to promulgate rules exempting employers with religious or moral objections from providing contraceptive coverage to their employees.

Holding: The Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury had authority under the Affordable Care Act to promulgate rules exempting employers with religious or moral objections from providing contraceptive coverage to their employees.

Holding: The "ministerial exception" under the religion clauses of the First Amendment forecloses the adjudication of employment-discrimination claims of Catholic school teachers in these cases.

Holding: The "ministerial exception" under the religion clauses of the First Amendment forecloses the adjudication of employment-discrimination claims of Catholic school teachers in these cases.

Holding: For purposes of the Major Crimes Act, land throughout much of eastern Oklahoma reserved for the Creek Nation since the 19th century remains a Native American territory.

Holding: Although congressional subpoenas for the president’s information may be enforceable, the court below in this case did not take adequate account of the significant separation of powers concerns implicated by subpoenas from the House of Representatives seeking President Donald Trump's financial records.

Holding: Although congressional subpoenas for the president’s information may be enforceable, the court below in this case did not take adequate account of the significant separation of powers concerns implicated by subpoenas from the House of Representatives seeking President Donald Trump's financial records.

Holding: Article II and the supremacy clause of the Constitution do not categorically preclude, or require a heightened standard for, the issuance of a state criminal subpoena to a sitting president.

Holding: The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit is reversed for the reasons stated in Chiafalo v. Washington.

Holding: A state may enforce an elector’s pledge to support their party’s nominee – and the state voters’ choice – for president in the Electoral College.