Justia U.S. Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in Business Law
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Mallory worked as a Norfolk mechanic for 20 years in Ohio and Virginia. After leaving the company, Mallory moved to Pennsylvania, then returned to Virginia. He attributed his cancer diagnosis to his work and sued Norfolk under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, in Pennsylvania state court. Norfolk, incorporated and headquartered in Virginia, challenged the court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction. Mallory noted that Norfolk manages over 2,000 miles of track, operates 11 rail yards, runs locomotive repair shops in Pennsylvania, and has registered to do business in Pennsylvania in light of its "regular, systematic, extensive” operations there. Pennsylvania requires out-of-state companies that register to do business to agree to appear in its courts on “any cause of action” against them. 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. 5301(a)(2)(i), (b). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the Pennsylvania law violated the Due Process Clause.The Supreme Court vacated. Pennsylvania law is explicit that qualification as a foreign corporation shall permit state courts to exercise general personal jurisdiction over a registered foreign corporation. Norfolk has complied with this law since 1998 when it registered to do business in Pennsylvania. Norfolk's “Certificate of Authority” from the Commonwealth conferred both the benefits and burdens shared by domestic corporations, including amenability to suit in state court on any claim. For more than two decades, Norfolk has agreed to be found in Pennsylvania and answer any suit there. Suits premised on these grounds do not deny a defendant due process of law. Regardless of whether any other statutory scheme and set of facts would establish consent to suit, this state law and these facts fall within Supreme Court precedent. View "Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co." on Justia Law

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Glacier delivers concrete using trucks with rotating drums that prevent the concrete from hardening. After a collective-bargaining agreement between Glacier and the Union for its drivers expired, the Union called for a work stoppage on a morning it knew the company was mixing substantial amounts of concrete, loading batches into trucks, and making deliveries. The Union directed drivers to ignore Glacier’s instructions to finish deliveries in progress. Several drivers who had already left for deliveries returned with loaded trucks. By initiating emergency maneuvers to offload the concrete, Glacier prevented significant damage to its trucks. All the concrete mixed that day became useless.Glacier sued the Union, alleging common-law conversion and trespass to chattels. The Union argued that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U.S.C. 157, protected the drivers’ conduct. The Washington Supreme Court agreed that the NLRA preempted Glacier’s tort claims.The Supreme Court reversed. The NLRA protects the right to strike but that right is not absolute; it does not shield strikers who fail to take “reasonable precautions” to protect their employer’s property from foreseeable, aggravated, and imminent danger due to the sudden cessation of work. The risk of harm to Glacier’s trucks and concrete was foreseeable and serious; the Union executed the strike in a manner designed to achieve those results. Given the lifespan of wet concrete, Glacier could not batch it until a truck was ready to take it. By reporting for duty and pretending that they would deliver the concrete, the drivers prompted the creation of the perishable product and waited to walk off the job until the concrete was in the trucks. View "Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters" on Justia Law

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The Secretary of Labor, through OSHA, enacted a vaccine mandate, to be enforced by employers. The mandate preempted contrary state laws and covered virtually all employers with at least 100 employees, with exemptions for employees who exclusively work remotely or outdoors. It required that covered workers receive a COVID–19 vaccine or obtain a medical test each week at their own expense, on their own time, and also wear a mask at work. Challenges were consolidated before the Sixth Circuit, which allowed OSHA’s rule to take effect.The Supreme Court stayed the rule. Applicants are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the Secretary lacked the authority to impose the mandate. The rule is “a significant encroachment into the lives—and health—of a vast number of employees,” not plainly authorized by statute; 29 U.S.C. 655(b) empowers the Secretary to set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures. Although COVID–19 is a risk in many workplaces, it is not an occupational hazard in most. COVID–19 spreads everywhere that people gather. Permitting OSHA to regulate the hazards of daily life would significantly expand OSHA’s regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization. The vaccine mandate is unlike typical OSHA workplace regulations. A vaccination “cannot be undone.” Where the virus poses a special danger because of the particular features of an employee’s job or workplace, targeted regulations are permissible but OSHA’s indiscriminate approach fails to distinguish between occupational risk and general risk. The equities do not justify withholding interim relief. States and employers allege that OSHA’s mandate will force them to incur billions of dollars in unrecoverable compliance costs and will cause hundreds of thousands of employees to leave their jobs. View "National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety & Health Administration" on Justia Law

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Six individuals from Mali alleged that they were trafficked into Ivory Coast as child slaves to produce cocoa; they sued U.S.-based companies, Nestlé and Cargill, citing the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which provides federal courts jurisdiction to hear claims brought “by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States,” 28 U.S.C. 1350. The companies do not own or operate cocoa farms in Ivory Coast, but they buy cocoa from farms located there and provide those farms with technical and financial resources. The Ninth Circuit reversed the dismissal of the suit.The Supreme Court reversed and remanded. The plaintiffs improperly sought extraterritorial application of the ATS. Where a statute, like the ATS, does not apply extraterritorially, plaintiffs must establish that “the conduct relevant to the statute’s focus occurred in the United States . . . even if other conduct occurred abroad.” Nearly all the conduct that allegedly aided and abetted forced labor—providing training, equipment, and cash to overseas farmers—occurred in Ivory Coast. Pleading general corporate activity, like “mere corporate presence,” does not draw a sufficient connection between the cause of action and domestic conduct. To plead facts sufficient to support a domestic application of the ATS, plaintiffs must allege more domestic conduct than general corporate activity common to most corporations. View "Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe" on Justia Law

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Ford, incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Michigan, markets, sells, and services its products across the U.S. and overseas and encourages a resale market for its vehicles. Montana and Minnesota courts exercised jurisdiction over Ford in products-liability suits stemming from car accidents that injured state residents. The vehicles were designed and manufactured elsewhere, and originally were sold outside the forum states.The Supreme Court affirmed the rejection of Ford's jurisdictional arguments. The connection between the claims and Ford’s activities in the forum states is close enough to support specific jurisdiction. A state court may exercise general jurisdiction only when a defendant is “essentially at home” in the state. Specific jurisdiction covers defendants less intimately connected with a state if there was “some act by which [defendant] purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State” and the claims “must arise out of or relate to the defendant’s contacts” with the forum.Ford purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities in both states. There is no requirement of a causal link locating jurisdiction only in the state where Ford sold the car in question or the states where Ford designed and manufactured the vehicle. Specific jurisdiction attaches in cases in which a company cultivates a market for a product in the forum state and the product malfunctions there. Ford advertises and markets its vehicles in Montana and Minnesota and fosters ongoing connections to Ford owners. Because Ford systematically served a market in Montana and Minnesota for the very vehicles that the plaintiffs allege malfunctioned and injured them in those states, there is a strong “relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation.” View "Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court" on Justia Law

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The United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003 limited the funding of American and foreign nongovernmental organizations to those with “a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking,” 22 U.S.C. 7631(f). In 2013, that Policy Requirement was held to be an unconstitutional restraint on free speech when applied to American organizations. Those American organizations then challenged the requirement’s constitutionality when applied to their legally distinct foreign affiliates. The Second Circuit affirmed that the government was prohibited from enforcing the requirement against the foreign affiliates.The Supreme Court reversed. The plaintiffs’ foreign affiliates possess no First Amendment rights. Foreign citizens outside U.S. territory do not possess rights under the U. S. Constitution and separately incorporated organizations are separate legal units with distinct legal rights and obligations.The Court rejected an argument that a foreign affiliate’s policy statement may be attributed to the plaintiffs, noting that there is no government compulsion to associate with another entity. Even protecting the free speech rights of only those foreign organizations that are closely identified with American organizations would deviate from the fundamental principle that foreign organizations operating abroad do not possess rights under the U.S. Constitution. The 2013 decision did not facially invalidate the Act’s funding condition, suggest that the First Amendment requires the government to exempt plaintiffs’ foreign affiliates from the Policy Requirement, or purport to override constitutional law and corporate law principles. View "Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc." on Justia Law

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Media filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), seeking the names and addresses of all retail stores that participate in the national Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and each store’s annual SNAP food stamp redemption data from fiscal years 2005-2010. The USDA declined the request, invoking FOIA Exemption 4, which shields from disclosure “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential,” 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(4). The Eighth Circuit affirmed an order requiring disclosure. The USDA declined to appeal. The Food Marketing Institute, a trade association of grocers, was permitted to intervene. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded, first holding that Institute had standing. Where commercial or financial information is customarily and actually treated as private by its owner and provided to the government under an assurance of privacy, the information is “confidential” under Exemption 4. The Institute’s retailers customarily do not disclose store-level SNAP data or make it publicly available; to induce retailers to participate in SNAP and provide store-level information, the government has long promised retailers that it will keep their information private. The Court declined to “arbitrarily constrict Exemption 4 by adding limitations found nowhere in its terms.” View "Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media" on Justia Law

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Apple sells iPhone applications (apps) directly to iPhone owners through its App Store—the only place where iPhone owners may lawfully buy apps. Most apps are created by independent developers under contracts with Apple. Apple charges the developers a $99 annual membership fee, allows them to set the retail price of the apps, and charges a 30% commission on every app sale. Four iPhone owners sued, alleging that Apple has unlawfully monopolized the aftermarket for iPhone apps. The Ninth Circuit reversed the dismissal of the suit concluding that the owners were direct purchasers under the Supreme Court’s “Illinois Brick” precedent.The Supreme Court affirmed. The Clayton Act provides that “any person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws may sue,” 15 U.S.C. 15(a), and readily covers consumers who purchase goods or services at higher-than-competitive prices from an allegedly monopolistic retailer. While indirect purchasers who are two or more steps removed from the violator in a distribution chain may not sue, the iPhone owners are not consumers at the bottom of a vertical distribution chain who are attempting to sue manufacturers at the top of the chain. The absence of an intermediary in the distribution chain between Apple and the consumer is dispositive. The Court rejected an argument that Illinois Brick allows consumers to sue only the party who sets the retail price. Apple’s interpretation would contradict the long-standing goal of effective private enforcement and consumer protection in antitrust cases. Illinois Brick is not a get-out-of-court-free card for monopolistic retailers any time that a damages calculation might be complicated. View "Apple, Inc. v. Pepper" on Justia Law

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The Amex credit card companies use a two-sided transaction platform to serve cardholders and merchants. Unlike traditional markets, two-sided platforms exhibit “indirect network effects,” because the value of the platform to one group depends on how many members of another group participate. Two-sided platforms must take these effects into account before making a change in price on either side, or they risk creating a feedback loop of declining demand. Visa and MasterCard have structural advantages over Amex. Amex focuses on cardholder spending rather than cardholder lending. To encourage cardholder spending, Amex provides better rewards than the other credit-card companies. Amex continually invests in its cardholder rewards program and must charge merchants higher fees than its rivals. To avoid higher fees, merchants sometimes attempt to dissuade cardholders from using Amex cards (steering). Amex places anti-steering provisions in its contracts with merchants.The Supreme Court affirmed the Second Circuit in rejecting claims that Amex violated section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which prohibits "unreasonable restraints” of trade. Applying the "rule of reason" three-step burden-shifting framework, the Court concluded the plaintiffs did not establish that Amex’s anti-steering provisions have a substantial anticompetitive effect that harms consumers in the relevant market. Evidence of a price increase on one side of a two-sided transaction platform cannot, by itself, demonstrate an anticompetitive exercise of market power; plaintiffs must prove that Amex’s anti-steering provisions increased the cost of credit-card transactions above a competitive level, reduced the number of credit-card transactions, or otherwise stifled competition. They offered no evidence that the price of credit-card transactions was higher than the price one would expect in a competitive market. Amex’s increased merchant fees reflect increases in the value of its services and the cost of its transactions, not an ability to charge above a competitive price. The Court noted that Visa and MasterCard’s merchant fees have continued to increase, even where Amex is not accepted. The market actually experienced expanding output and improved quality. View "Ohio v. American Express Co." on Justia Law

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Many states tax the retail sales of goods and services in the state. Sellers are required to collect and remit the tax; if they do not in-state consumers are responsible for paying a use tax at the same rate. Under earlier Supreme Court decisions, states could not require a business that had no physical presence in the state to collect its sales tax. Consumer compliance rates are low; it is estimated that South Dakota lost $48-$58 million annually. South Dakota enacted a law requiring out-of-state sellers to collect and remit sales tax, covering only sellers that annually deliver more than $100,000 of goods or services into the state or engage in 200 or more separate transactions for the delivery of goods or services into the state. State courts found the Act unconstitutional. The Supreme Court vacated, overruling the physical presence rule established by its decisions in Quill (1992), and National Bellas Hess (1967). That rule gave out-of-state sellers an advantage and each year becomes further removed from economic reality and results in significant revenue losses to the states. A business need not have a physical presence in a state to satisfy the demands of due process. The Commerce Clause requires “a sensitive, case-by-case analysis of purposes and effects,” to protect against any undue burden on interstate commerce, taking into consideration the small businesses, startups, or others who engage in commerce across state lines. Without the physical presence test, the first inquiry is whether the tax applies to an activity with a substantial nexus with the taxing state. Here, the nexus is sufficient. Any remaining Commerce Clause concerns may be addressed on remand. View "South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc." on Justia Law