Justia U.S. Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Administrative Patent Judges (APJs) conduct adversarial proceedings for challenging the validity of an existing patent before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), 35 U.S.C. 6(a), (c). The Secretary of Commerce appoints PTAB members, including APJs, except the Director, who is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. APJs concluded that Arthrex’s patent was invalid. The Federal Circuit concluded that the APJs were principal officers who must be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate; their appointment was unconstitutional. To remedy this violation, the court invalidated the APJs’ tenure protections, making them removable at will by the Secretary.The Supreme Court vacated. The unreviewable authority wielded by APJs during patent review is incompatible with their appointment by the Secretary to an inferior office. Inferior officers must be “directed and supervised at some level by others who were appointed by Presidential nomination with the advice and consent of the Senate.” While the Director has administrative oversight, neither he nor any other superior executive officer can directly review APJ decisions. A decision by the APJs under his charge compels the Director to “issue and publish a certificate” canceling or confirming patent claims he previously allowed. Given the insulation of PTAB decisions from executive review, APJs exercise power that conflicts with the Appointments Clause’s purpose “to preserve political accountability.”Four justices concluded that section 6(c) cannot constitutionally be enforced to prevent the Director from reviewing final APJ decisions. The Director may review final PTAB decisions and may issue decisions on behalf of the Board. Section 6(c) otherwise remains operative. Because the source of the constitutional violation is the restraint on the Director’s review authority not the appointment of APJs, Arthrex is not entitled to a hearing before a new panel. View "United States v. Arthrex, Inc." on Justia Law

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act required most Americans to obtain minimum essential health insurance coverage and imposed a monetary penalty upon most individuals who failed to do so; 2017 amendments effectively nullified the penalty. Several states and two individuals sued, claiming that without the penalty, the Act’s minimum essential coverage provision, 26 U.S.C. 5000A(a), is unconstitutional and that the rest of the Act is not severable from section 5000A(a).The Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs lack standing to challenge section 5000A(a) because they have not shown a past or future injury fairly traceable to the defendants’ conduct enforcing that statutory provision. The individual plaintiffs cited past and future payments necessary to carry the minimum essential coverage; that injury is not “fairly traceable” to any “allegedly unlawful conduct” of which they complain, Without a penalty for noncompliance, section 5000A(a) is unenforceable. To find standing to attack an unenforceable statutory provision, seeking only declaratory relief, would allow a federal court to issue an impermissible advisory opinion.The states cited the indirect injury of increased costs to run state-operated medical insurance programs but failed to show how that alleged harm is traceable to the government’s actual or possible enforcement of section 5000A(a). Where a standing theory rests on speculation about the decision of an independent third party (an individual’s decision to enroll in a program like Medicaid), the plaintiff must show at the least “that third parties will likely react in predictable ways.” Nothing suggests that an unenforceable mandate will cause state residents to enroll in benefits programs that they would otherwise forgo. An alleged increase in administrative and related expenses is not imposed by section 5000A(a) but by other provisions of the Act. View "California v. Texas" on Justia Law

The Ordot Dump was constructed on Guam by the Navy in the 1940s. Both the federal government and Guam allegedly deposited waste at Ordot. A 2004 consent decree between the EPA and Guam resolved litigation concerning Clean Water Act violations.About 13 years later, Guam sued the U.S. under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. 9601. A section 107(a) action sought recovery of the costs of a “removal or remedial action” from the government based on its ownership or operation of the site at the time of the disposal of hazardous substances. A section 113(f) action sought "contribution," alleging that Guam “has resolved its liability to the United States…for some or all of a response action or for some or all of the costs of such action in [a] settlement." The D. C. Circuit held that cost recovery was not available if a party could have brought a contribution action and found the contribution claim untimely under a three-year limitations period in light of the 2004 settlement.A unanimous Supreme Court reversed. A settlement of environmental liabilities must resolve a CERCLA-specific liability to give rise to a section 113(f)(3)(B) contribution action. That remedial measures under different environmental statutes might functionally overlap with a CERCLA response action does not justify reinterpreting section 113(f)(3)(B)’s phrase “resolved its liability . . . for some or all of a response action” to instead mean “settled an environmental liability that might have been actionable under CERCLA.” A party may seek CERCLA contribution only after settling CERCLA-specific claims, as opposed to resolving environmental liability under another law. View "Guam v. United States" on Justia Law

The FTC filed a complaint against Tucker alleging deceptive payday lending practices in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act Section 5(a). The district court entered a permanent injunction to prevent Tucker from committing future violations and relied on the same authority to direct Tucker to pay $1.27 billion in restitution and disgorgement. The Ninth Circuit rejected Tucker’s argument that section 13(b) does not authorize the award of equitable monetary relief.The Supreme Court reversed. Section 13(b) does not authorize the Commission to seek, or a court to award, equitable monetary relief such as restitution or disgorgement. The Commission has authority to enforce the Act’s prohibitions on “unfair or deceptive acts or practices,” 15 U.S.C. 45(a)(1)–(2), by commencing administrative proceedings under Section 5. Section 5(l) authorizes the Commission, following completion of the administrative process and the issuance of a final cease and desist order, to seek civil penalties, and permits district courts to “grant mandatory injunctions and such other and further equitable relief.” Section 19 authorizes district courts to grant “such relief as the court finds necessary,” in cases where someone has engaged in unfair or deceptive conduct with respect to which the Commission has issued a final cease and desist order.In Tucker's case, the Commission sought equitable monetary relief directly in district court under Section 13(b)’s authorization to seek a “permanent injunction” without having used the Commission’s traditional administrative proceedings. Section 13(b) does not explicitly authorize the Commission to obtain court-ordered monetary relief, and such relief is foreclosed by the structure and history of the Act. It is unlikely that Congress, without mentioning the matter, would grant the Commission authority to circumvent traditional Section 5 administrative proceedings. In enacting Section 19 two years after Section 13(b), Congress did not create an alternative enforcement path with similar remedies. View "AMG Capital Management, LLC v. Federal Trade Commission" on Justia Law

Petitioners, whose applications for disability benefits were denied by the Social Security Administration (SSA) unsuccessfully challenged their adverse determinations before an SSA administrative law judge (ALJ). The SSA Appeals Council denied discretionary review in each case. Thereafter, the Supreme Court decided Lucia v. SEC, holding that the appointment of Securities and Exchange Commission ALJs by lower-level staff violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. The SSA ALJs were also appointed by lower-level staff. The Courts of Appeals held that the petitioners could not obtain judicial review of their Appointments Clause claims because they failed to raise those challenges in their administrative proceedings. The Supreme Court reversed. The Courts of Appeals erred in imposing an issue-exhaustion requirement on petitioners’ Appointments Clause claims. Administrative review schemes commonly require parties to give the agency an opportunity to address an issue before seeking judicial review of that question. If no statute or regulation imposes an issue-exhaustion requirement, courts decide whether to require issue exhaustion based on “an analogy to the rule that appellate courts will not consider arguments not raised before trial courts.” In the context of petitioners’ Appointments Clause challenges, two considerations tip the scales against imposing an issue-exhaustion requirement: agency adjudications are generally ill-suited to address structural constitutional challenges, which usually fall outside the adjudicators’ areas of technical expertise, and the Supreme Court has consistently recognized a futility exception to exhaustion requirements. Petitioners assert purely constitutional claims about which SSA ALJs have no special expertise and for which they can provide no relief. View "Carr v. Saul" on Justia Law

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ownership rules limit the number of radio stations, television stations, and newspapers that a single entity may own in a given market. Section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 directs the FCC to review its media ownership rules every four years and to repeal or modify rules that no longer serve the public interest. In 2017, the FCC concluded that three ownership rules were no longer necessary to promote competition, localism, or viewpoint diversity and that the record did not suggest that repealing or modifying those rules was likely to harm minority and female ownership. The FCC repealed two ownership rules and modified another. The Third Circuit vacated the order.The Supreme Court reversed. The FCC’s decision to repeal or modify the three ownership rules was not arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA); it considered the record evidence and reasonably concluded that the rules at issue were no longer necessary to serve the agency’s public interest goals of competition, localism, and viewpoint diversity and that the changes were not likely to harm minority and female ownership. The FCC acknowledged the gaps in the data sets it relied on and noted that, despite its repeated requests for additional data, it had received no countervailing evidence suggesting that changing the rules was likely to harm minority and female ownership. The FCC considered two studies that purported to show that past relaxations of the ownership rules had led to decreases in minority and female ownership levels and interpreted them differently. The APA imposes no general obligation on agencies to conduct or commission their own studies. Nothing in the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to conduct such studies before exercising its discretion under Section 202(h). View "Federal Communications Commission v. Prometheus Radio Project" on Justia Law

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a rule in 2011 regarding cooling water intake structures. Because aquatic wildlife can become trapped in intake structures, the Endangered Species Act required the EPA to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service before proceeding. Issuance of a “jeopardy” biological opinion would require the EPA either to implement alternatives, to terminate the action, or to seek an exemption. After consulting with the Services, the EPA changed its proposed rule. Staff members at the Services concluded that the 2013 proposed rule was likely to jeopardize certain species and sent drafts of their opinions to the decision-makers within the Services. Those decision-makers neither approved the drafts nor sent them to the EPA but extended the consultation. In 2014, the EPA produced a revised proposed rule that differed significantly from the 2013 version. The Services issued a final “no jeopardy” biological opinion. The EPA issued its final rule.Sierra Club submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for records related to the consultations. The Services invoked the deliberative process privilege to prevent disclosure of the draft biological opinions analyzing the 2013 proposed rule. The Ninth Circuit held that the draft biological opinions were not privileged.The Supreme Court reversed. The deliberative process privilege protects from FOIA disclosure in-house draft biological opinions that are pre-decisional and deliberative, even if the drafts reflect the agencies’ last views about a proposal. The privilege is intended to encourage candor and blunt the chilling effect of possible disclosure; it distinguishes between pre-decisional, deliberative documents, which are exempt from disclosure, and documents reflecting a final agency decision and the reasons supporting it, which are not. A document does not represent an agency’s final decision solely because nothing follows it; sometimes a proposal “dies on the vine.” The privilege protects the draft biological opinions from disclosure because they reflect a preliminary view, not a final decision, about the proposed 2013 rule. The draft opinions were subject to change and had no direct legal consequences. View "United States Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, Inc." on Justia Law

The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) allows a plaintiff to bring certain state-law tort claims against the United States for torts committed by federal employees acting within the scope of their employment if the plaintiff alleges six statutory elements of an actionable claim, 28 U.S.C. 1346(b). The judgment in an action under section 1346(b) bars “any action by the claimant” involving the same subject matter against the federal employee whose act gave rise to the claim. King sued the government under the FTCA after a violent encounter with federal task force members and sued the officers individually under “Bivens.” The district court dismissed his FTCA claims, holding that the government was immune because the officers were entitled to qualified immunity under Michigan law, then dismissed King’s Bivens claims. The Sixth Circuit found that the dismissal of King’s FTCA claims did not trigger the judgment bar to block his Bivens claims.A unanimous Supreme Court reversed. The dismissal was a judgment on the merits of the FTCA claims that can trigger the judgment bar, similar to common-law claim preclusion. Whether the undisputed facts established all the elements of King’s FTCA claims is a quintessential merits decision. The court also determined that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because, in the unique context of the FTCA, all elements of a meritorious claim are also jurisdictional. Generally, a court may not issue a ruling on the merits when it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction, but when pleading a claim and pleading jurisdiction entirely overlap, a ruling that the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction may simultaneously be a judgment on the merits. View "Brownback v. King" on Justia Law

The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) allows a plaintiff to bring certain state-law tort claims against the United States for torts committed by federal employees acting within the scope of their employment if the plaintiff alleges six statutory elements of an actionable claim, 28 U.S.C. 1346(b). The judgment in an action under section 1346(b) bars “any action by the claimant” involving the same subject matter against the federal employee whose act gave rise to the claim. King sued the government under the FTCA after a violent encounter with federal task force members and sued the officers individually under “Bivens.” The district court dismissed his FTCA claims, holding that the government was immune because the officers were entitled to qualified immunity under Michigan law, then dismissed King’s Bivens claims. The Sixth Circuit found that the dismissal of King’s FTCA claims did not trigger the judgment bar to block his Bivens claims.A unanimous Supreme Court reversed. The dismissal was a judgment on the merits of the FTCA claims that can trigger the judgment bar, similar to common-law claim preclusion. Whether the undisputed facts established all the elements of King’s FTCA claims is a quintessential merits decision. The court also determined that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because, in the unique context of the FTCA, all elements of a meritorious claim are also jurisdictional. Generally, a court may not issue a ruling on the merits when it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction, but when pleading a claim and pleading jurisdiction entirely overlap, a ruling that the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction may simultaneously be a judgment on the merits. View "Brownback v. King" on Justia Law

In 1992, Salinas began seeking disability benefits under the Railroad Retirement Act (RRA) based on serious injuries he suffered during his 15-year railroad career. He was granted benefits after his fourth application in 2013. He timely sought reconsideration of the amount and start date. After reconsideration was denied, he filed an administrative appeal, arguing that his third application, filed in 2006, should be reopened because the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board had not considered certain medical records. The Board affirmed the denial of the request to reopen because it was not made “[w]ithin four years” of the 2006 decision. The Fifth Circuit dismissed an appeal for lack of jurisdiction.The Supreme Court reversed. The Board’s refusal to reopen a prior benefits determination is subject to judicial review as a "final decision of the Board.” The decision was the “terminal event” in the Board’s administrative review process. Salinas’ only remaining recourse was to seek judicial review. A reopening decision is one “by which rights or obligations have been determined, or from which legal consequences will flow.” Any ambiguity in the meaning of “any final decision” must be resolved in Salinas’ favor under the “strong presumption favoring judicial review of administrative action.” The Board could decline to offer reopening but, having chosen to provide it, the Board may not avoid the plain text of 45 U.S.C. 355(f ). View "Salinas v. Railroad Retirement Board" on Justia Law