This short post contains data about the questions the Supreme Court seeks to resolve this term. It contains a chart of the most frequent words in the questions after common English words like “the,” “and,” and “of” and words with two or fewer characters were eliminated. Next is a chart of the top two or three word phrases with the same caveats. Below these charts is a list of the cases with the full questions before the Court.
The top words all relate to the Court’s normal agenda reviewing statutes decisions from the federal courts of appeal under the Constitution and Constitutional Amendments. A few words that uniquely define this term include “financial,” “discrimination,” protection,” and “obligation.”
Some of the two phrases of note include”forum contacts,” “title vii,” “private financial,” “political party,” “judges affiliated,” “final rules,” and “employment discrimination.”
Case | Question | |
Ramos v. Louisiana | Whether the 14th Amendment fully incorporates the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a unanimous verdict. | |
Peter v. NantKwest Inc. | Whether the phrase “[a]ll the expenses of the proceedings” in 35 U.S.C. 145 encompasses the personnel expenses the USPTO incurs when its employees, including attorneys, defend the agency in Section 145 litigation | |
Kahler v. Kansas | Whether the Eighth and 14th Amendments permit a state to abolish the insanity defense. | |
R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission | Whether Title VII prohibits discrimination against transgender people based on (1) their status as transgender or (2) sex stereotyping under Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. | |
Bostock v. Clayton County | Whether discrimination against an employee because of sexual orientation constitutes prohibited employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” within the meaning of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2. | |
Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda | Whether the prohibition in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1), against employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” encompasses discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation. | |
UTIER v. Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico | Whether the de facto officer doctrine allows for unconstitutionally appointed principal Officers of the United States to continue acting, leaving the party that challenges their appointment with an ongoing injury and without an appropriate relief. | |
Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico v. Aurelius Investment | Whether the appointments clause governs the appointment of members of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico. | |
U.S. v. Aurelius Investment | Whether members of Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico are “Officers of the United States” within the meaning of the appointments clause of the United States Constitution, Art. II, § 2, Cl. 2. | |
Aurelius Investment v. Puerto Rico | Whether the de facto officer doctrine allows courts to deny meaningful relief to successful separation-of-powers challengers who are suffering ongoing injury at the hands of unconstitutionally appointed principal officers. | |
Official Committee of Debtors v. Aurelius Investment | Whether the appointments clause governs the appointment of members of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico. | |
Rotkiske v. Klemm | Whether the “discovery rule” applies to toll the one (1) year statute of limitations under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692, et seq., as the Fourth and Ninth Circuits have held but the Third Circuit (sua sponte en banc) has held contrarily. | |
Mathena v. Malvo | Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit erred in concluding—in direct conflict with Virginia’s highest court and other courts—that a decision of the Supreme Court, Montgomery v. Louisiana, addressing whether a new constitutional rule announced in an earlier decision, Miller v. Alabama, applies retroactively on collateral review may properly be interpreted as modifying and substantively expanding the very rule whose retroactivity was in question. | |
Kansas v. Garcia | (1) Whether the Immigration Reform and Control Act expressly pre-empts the states from using any information entered on or appended to a federal Form I-9, including common information such as name, date of birth, and social security number, in a prosecution of any person (citizen or alien) when that same, commonly used information also appears in non-IRCA documents, such as state tax forms, leases, and credit applications; and (2) whether the Immigration Reform and Control Act impliedly preempts Kansas’ prosecution of respondents. | |
Barton v. Barr | Whether a lawfully admitted permanent resident who is not seeking admission to the United States can be “render[ed] … inadmissible” for the purposes of the stop-time rule, 8 U.S.C. § 1229b(d)(1). | |
Kansas v. Glover | Whether, for purposes of an investigative stop under the Fourth Amendment, it is reasonable for an officer to suspect that the registered owner of a vehicle is the one driving the vehicle absent any information to the contrary. | |
Allen v. Cooper | Whether Congress validly abrogated state sovereign immunity via the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act in providing remedies for authors of original expression whose federal copyrights are infringed by states. | |
CITGO Asphalt Refining Co. v. Frescati Shipping Co. | Whether under federal maritime law a safe-berth clause in a voyage charter contract is a guarantee of a ship’s safety, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd and 3rd Circuits have held, or a duty of due diligence, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has held. | |
County of Maui Hawaii v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund | Whether the Clean Water Act requires a permit when pollutants originate from a point source but are conveyed to navigable waters by a nonpoint source, such as groundwater. | |
Retirement Plans Committee of IBM v. Jander | Whether the Fifth Third’s “more harm than good” pleading standard can be satisfied by generalized allegations that the harm of an inevitable disclosure of an alleged fraud generally increases over time | |
McAleenan v. Vidal | Whether (1) the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy is judicially reviewable; and (2) DHS’s decision to wind down the DACA policy is lawful. | |
Trump v. NAACP | (1) Whether the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy is judicially reviewable; and (2) whether DHS’s decision to wind down the DACA policy is lawful. | |
Hernandez v. Mesa | Whether, when the plaintiffs plausibly allege that a rogue federal law-enforcement officer violated clearly established Fourth and Fifth amendment rights for which there is no alternative legal remedy, the federal courts can and should recognize a damages claim under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. | |
Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California | (1) Whether the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy is judicially reviewable; and (2) whether DHS’s decision to wind down the DACA policy is lawful. | |
Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American-Owned Media | Whether a claim of race discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 fails in the absence of but-for causation. | |
Ritzen Group Inc. v. Jackson Masonry | Whether an order denying a motion for relief from the automatic stay is a final order under 28 U.S.C. § 158(a) (1). In diverting from this Court’s prior precedent, and in conflict with the First and Third Circuit Courts of Appeal, the Sixth Circuit ruled that an order denying relief from the automatic stay is per se final | |
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York | Whether New York City’s ban on transporting a licensed, locked and unloaded handgun to a home or shooting range outside city limits is consistent with the Second Amendment, the commerce clause and the constitutional right to travel. | |
Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org Inc. | 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. | |
Atlantic Richfield Co. v. Christian | (1) Whether a common-law claim for restoration seeking cleanup remedies that conflict with remedies the Environmental Protection Agency ordered is a jurisdictionally barred “challenge” to the EPA’s cleanup under 42 U.S.C. § 9613 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act; (2) whether a landowner at a Superfund site is a “potentially responsible party” that must seek EPA approval under 42 U.S.C. § 9622(e)(6) of CERCLA before engaging in remedial action, even if the EPA has never ordered the landowner to pay for a cleanup; and (3) whether CERCLA pre-empts state common-law claims for restoration that seek cleanup remedies that conflict with EPA-ordered remedies. | |
Rodriguez v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. | Whether courts should determine ownership of a tax refund paid to an affiliated group based on the federal common law “Bob Richards rule,” as three circuits hold, or based on the law of the relevant state, as four circuits hold. | |
Intel Corp. Investment Policy Committee v. Sulyma | Whether the three-year limitations period in Section 413(2) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which runs from “the earliest date on which the plaintiff had actual knowledge of the breach or violation,” bars suit when all the relevant information was disclosed to the plaintiff by the defendants more than three years before the plaintiff filed the complaint, but the plaintiff chose not to read or could not recall having read the information. | |
Banister v. Davis | Whether and under what circumstances a timely Rule 59(e) motion should be recharacterized as a second or successive habeas petition under Gonzalez v. Crosby. | |
Thryv v. Click-To-Call Technologies | Whether 35 U.S.C. § 314(d) permits appeal of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decision to institute an inter partes review upon finding that 35 U.S.C. § 315(b)’s time bar did not apply. | |
Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr | Whether a request for equitable tolling, as it applies to statutory motions to reopen, is judicially reviewable as a “question of law.” | |
Ovalles v. Barr | Whether the criminal alien bar, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(C), tempered by 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(D), prohibits a court from reviewing an agency decision finding that a movant lacked diligence for equitable tolling purposes, notwithstanding the lack of a factual dispute. | |
Moda Health Plan v. U.S. | Whether Congress can evade its unambiguous statutory promise to pay health insurers for losses already incurred simply by enacting appropriations riders restricting the sources of funds available to satisfy the government’s obligation. | |
Maine Community Health Options v. U.S. | (1) Whether—given the “cardinal rule” disfavoring implied repeals, which applies with “especial force” to appropriations acts and requires that repeal not to be found unless the later enactment is “irreconcilable” with the former—an appropriations rider whose text bars the agency’s use of certain funds to pay a statutory obligation, but does not repeal or amend the statutory obligation, and is thus not inconsistent with it, can nonetheless be held to impliedly repeal the obligation by elevating the perceived “intent” of the rider (drawn from unilluminating legislative history) above its text, and the text of the underlying statute; and (2) whether—when the federal government has an unambiguous statutory payment obligation, under a program involving reciprocal commitments by the government and a private company participating in the program—the presumption against retroactivity applies to the interpretation of an appropriations rider that is claimed to have impliedly repealed the government’s obligation. | |
Holguin-Hernandez v. U.S. | Whether a formal objection after pronouncement of sentence is necessary to invoke appellate reasonableness review of the length of a defendant’s sentence. | |
Land of Lincoln Mutual Health Insurance Co. v. U.S. | Whether a temporary cap on appropriations availability from certain specified funding sources may be construed, based on its legislative history, to abrogate retroactively the government’s payment obligations under a money-mandating statute, for parties that have already performed their part of the bargain under the statute. | |
McKinney v. Arizona | (1) Whether the Arizona Supreme Court was required to apply current law when weighing mitigating and aggravating evidence to determine whether a death sentence is warranted; and (2) whether the correction of error under Eddings v. Oklahoma requires resentencing. | |
Monasky v. Taglieri | (1) Whether a district court’s determination of habitual residence under the Hague Convention should be reviewed de novo, as seven circuits have held, under a deferential version of de novo review, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit has held, or under clear-error review, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th and 6th Circuits have held; and (2) whether, when an infant is too young to acclimate to her surroundings, a subjective agreement between the infant‘s parents is necessary to establish her habitual residence under the Hague Convention. | |
Lucky Brand Dungarees Inc. v. Marcel Fashion Group Inc. | Whether, when a plaintiff asserts new claims, federal preclusion principles can bar a defendant from raising defenses that were not actually litigated and resolved in any prior case between the parties. | |
Thole v. U.S. Bank | (1) Whether an ERISA plan participant or beneficiary may seek injunctive relief against fiduciary misconduct under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(3) without demonstrating individual financial loss or the imminent risk thereof; (2) whether an ERISA plan participant or beneficiary may seek restoration of plan losses caused by fiduciary breach under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(2) without demonstrating individual financial loss or the imminent risk thereof; and (3) whether petitioners have demonstrated Article III standing. | |
Romag Fasteners Inc. v. Fossil Inc. | Whether, under Section 35 of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1117(a), willful infringement is a prerequisite for an award of an infringer’s profits for a violation of Section 43(a), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a). | |
Kelly v. U.S. | Whether a public official “defraud[s]” the government of its property by advancing a “public policy reason” for an official decision that is not her subjective “real reason” for making the decision. | |
Babb v. Wilkie | Whether the federal-sector provision of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which provides that personnel actions affecting agency employees aged 40 years or older shall be made free from any “discrimination based on age,” 29 U.S.C. §633a(a), requires a plaintiff to prove that age was a but-for cause of the challenged personnel action. | |
Shular v. U.S. | Whether the determination of a “serious drug offense” under the Armed Career Criminal Act requires the same categorical approach used in the determination of a “violent felony” under the act. | |
GE Energy Power Conversion France SAS v. Outokumpu Stainless USA LLC | Whether the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards permits a nonsignatory to an arbitration agreement to compel arbitration based on the doctrine of equitable estoppel. | |
Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue | Whether it violates the religion clauses or the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution to invalidate a generally available and religiously neutral student-aid program simply because the program affords students the choice of attending religious schools. | |
U.S. Forest Service v. Cowpasture River Preservation Association | Whether the United States Forest Service has the authority to grant rights-of-way under the Mineral Leasing Act through lands traversed by the Appalachian Trail within national forests. | |
Opati v. Republic of Sudan | Whether, consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in Republic of Austria v. Altmann, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act applies retroactively, thereby permitting recovery of punitive damages under 28 U.S.C. § 1605A(c) against foreign states for terrorist activities occurring prior to the passage of the current version of the statute. | |
Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC v. Cowpasture River Preservation Association | Whether the United States Forest Service has the authority under the Mineral Leasing Act and National Trails System Act to grant rights-of-way through national-forest lands that the Appalachian Trail traverses. | |
U.S. v. Sineneng-Smith | Whether the federal criminal prohibition against encouraging or inducing illegal immigration for commercial advantage or private financial gain, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) and (B)(i), is facially unconstitutional. | |
Lomax v. Ortiz-Marquez | Whether a dismissal without prejudice for failure to state a claim counts as a strike under 28 U.S.C. 1915(g). | |
Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam | Whether, as applied to the respondent, 8 U.S.C. § 1252(e)(2) is unconstitutional under the suspension clause. | |
Nasrallah v. Barr | Whether, notwithstanding 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(C), the courts of appeals possess jurisdiction to review factual findings underlying denials of withholding (and deferral) of removal relief. | |
Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau | (1) Whether the vesting of substantial executive authority in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent agency led by a single director, violates the separation of powers; and (2) whether, if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is found unconstitutional on the basis of the separation of powers, 12 U.S.C. §5491(c)(3) can be severed from the Dodd-Frank Act. | |
Liu v. Securities and Exchange Commission | Whether the Securities and Exchange Commission may seek and obtain disgorgement from a court as “equitable relief” for a securities law violation even though the Supreme Court has determined that such disgorgement is a penalty. | |
Russo v. June Medical Services LLC | (1) Whether abortion providers can be presumed to have third-party standing to challenge health and safety regulations on behalf of their patients absent a “close” relationship with their patients and a “hindrance” to their patients’ ability to sue on their own behalf; and (2) whether objections to prudential standing are waivable – per the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th, 10th and Federal Circuits – or non-waivable per the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the D.C., 2nd, and 6th Circuits. | |
June Medical Services LLC v. Russo | Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit’s decision upholding Louisiana’s law requiring physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital conflicts with the Supreme Court’s binding precedent in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. | |
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B.V. | Whether, when the Lanham Act states generic terms may not be registered as trademarks, the addition by an online business of a generic top-level domain (“.com”) to an otherwise generic term can create a protectable trademark. | |
U.S. v. Collins | Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces erred in concluding – contrary to its own longstanding precedent – that the Uniform Code of Military Justice allows prosecution of a rape that occurred between 1986 and 2006 only if it was discovered and charged within five years. | |
U.S. v. Briggs | Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces erred in concluding – contrary to its own longstanding precedent – that the Uniform Code of Military Justice allows prosecution of a rape that occurred between 1986 and 2006 only if it was discovered and charged within five years. | |
Tanzin v. Tanvir | Whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb, permits suits seeking money damages against individual federal employees. | |
Google LLC v. Oracle America Inc. | (1) Whether copyright protection extends to a software interface; and (2) whether, as the jury found, the petitioner’s use of a software interface in the context of creating a new computer program constitutes fair use. | |
Carney v. Adams | (1) Whether the First Amendment invalidates a longstanding state constitutional provision that limits judges affiliated with any one political party to no more than a “bare majority” on the state’s three highest courts, with the other seats reserved for judges affiliated with the “other major political party”; (2) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit erred in holding that a provision of the Delaware Constitution requiring that no more than a “bare majority” of three of the state courts may be made up of judges affiliated with any one political party is not severable from a provision that judges who are not members of the majority party on those courts must be members of the other “major political party,” when the former requirement existed for more than 50 years without the latter, and the former requirement, without the latter, continues to govern appointments to two other courts; and (3) whether the respondent, James Adams, has demonstrated Article III standing. | |
U.S. Agency for Int’l Development v. Alliance for Open Society Int’l | Whether – when in Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International Inc., the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment bars enforcement of Congress’ directive, which required respondents, United States-based organizations that receive federal funds to fight HIV/AIDS abroad, to “have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking” as a condition of accepting those funds – the First Amendment further bars enforcement of that directive with respect to legally distinct foreign entities operating overseas that are affiliated with respondents. | |
Torres v. Madrid | Whether an unsuccessful attempt to detain a suspect by use of physical force is a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 8th, 9th and 11th Circuits and the New Mexico Supreme Court hold, or whether physical force must be successful in detaining a suspect to constitute a “seizure,” as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals hold. | |
Pereida v. Barr | Whether a criminal conviction bars a noncitizen from applying for relief from removal when the record of conviction is merely ambiguous as to whether it corresponds to an offense listed in the Immigration and Nationality Act. | |
Trump v. Vance | Whether a grand-jury subpoena served on a custodian of the president’s personal records, demanding production of nearly 10 years’ worth of the president’s financial papers and his tax returns, violates Article II and the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. | |
Trump v. Mazars USA | Whether the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives has the constitutional and statutory authority to issue a subpoena to the accountant for President Trump and several of his business entities demanding private financial records belonging to the president. | |
Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG | Whether the Committee on Financial Services and the Intelligence Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives have the constitutional and statutory authority to issue a subpoena to creditors for President Donald Trump and several of his business entities demanding private financial records belonging to the president. | |
Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru | Whether the First Amendment’s religion clauses prevent civil courts from adjudicating employment-discrimination claims brought by an employee against her religious employer, when the employee carried out important religious functions. | |
St. James School v. Biel | Whether the First Amendment’s religion clauses prevent civil courts from adjudicating employment-discrimination claims brought by an employee against her religious employer, when the employee carried out important religious functions. | |
Rutledge v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Association | Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit erred in holding that Arkansas’ statute regulating pharmacy benefit managers’ drug-reimbursement rates, which is similar to laws enacted by a substantial majority of states, is pre-empted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, in contravention of the Supreme Court’s precedent that ERISA does not pre-empt rate regulation. | |
McGirt v. Oklahoma | Whether the prosecution of an enrolled member of the Creek Tribe for crimes committed within the historical Creek boundaries is subject to exclusive federal jurisdiction. | |
Salinas v. U.S. Railroad Retirement Board | Whether, under Section 5(f) of the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act and Section 8 of the Railroad Retirement Act, the Railroad Retirement Board’s denial of a request to reopen a prior benefits determination is a “final decision” subject to judicial review. | |
City of Chicago, Illinois v. Fulton, | Whether an entity that is passively retaining possession of property in which a bankruptcy estate has an interest has an affirmative obligation under the Bankruptcy Code’s automatic stay, 11 U.S.C § 362, to return that property to the debtor or trustee immediately upon the filing of the bankruptcy petition. | |
Ford Motor Company v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court | Whether the “arise out of or relate to” requirement for a state court to exercise specific personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant under Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz is met when none of the defendant’s forum contacts caused the plaintiff’s claims, such that the plaintiff’s claims would be the same even if the defendant had no forum contacts. | |
Ford Motor Company v. Bandemer | Whether the “arise out of or relate to” requirement of the 14th Amendment’s due process clause is met when none of the defendant’s forum contacts caused the plaintiff’s claims, such that the plaintiff’s claims would be the same even if the defendant had no forum contacts. | |
Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania | (1) Whether a litigant who is directly protected by an administrative rule and has been allowed to intervene to defend it lacks standing to appeal a decision invalidating the rule if the litigant is also protected by an injunction from a different court; and (2) whether the federal government lawfully exempted religious objectors from the regulatory requirement to provide health plans that include contraceptive coverage. | |
Trump v. Pennsylvania | (1) Whether the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury had statutory authority under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 to expand the conscience exemption to the contraceptive-coverage mandate; (2) whether the agencies’ decision to forgo notice and opportunity for public comment before issuing the interim final rules rendered the final rules – which were issued after notice and comment – invalid under the Administrative Procedure Act; and (3) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules. | |
Chiafalo v. Washington | Whether enforcement of a Washington state law that threatens a fine for presidential electors who vote contrary to how the law directs is unconstitutional because a state has no power to legally enforce how a presidential elector casts his or her ballot and a state penalizing an elector for exercising his or her constitutional discretion to vote violates the First Amendment. | |
Colorado Department of State v. Baca | (1) Whether a presidential elector who is prevented by their appointing state from casting an electoral-college ballot that violates state law lacks standing to sue their appointing state because they hold no constitutionally protected right to exercise discretion; and (2) whether Article II or the 12th Amendment forbids a state from requiring its presidential electors to follow the state’s popular vote when casting their electoral-college ballots. | |
Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants Inc. | Whether the government-debt exception to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991’s automated-call restriction violates the First Amendment, and whether the proper remedy for any constitutional violation is to sever the exception from the remainder of the statute. |
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