The Supreme Court on Thursday turned down a request from a Christian school in Kentucky and the state’s attorney general to allow in-person classes at faith-based schools, stressing that most schools in Kentucky will close for the winter holidays on Friday, Dec. 18, and are slated to reopen on Jan. 4. The justices left open the possibility that the school could return to seek relief again if the state’s governor issues a new school-closing order after the holidays. Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the four-paragraph ruling.
The request came from Danville Christian Academy, a private K-12 school near Lexington, and Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican. They challenged a Nov. 18 order in which the state’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, amid a surge in COVID-19 cases in Kentucky, banned in-person classes through the end of the calendar year at all “public and private elementary, middle, and high schools in the state.” Later the same day, Beshear issued a second order that allowed other in-person activities, such as theaters, bowling alleys and wedding venues, to stay open, subject to limits on attendance and capacity. Continue reading »
The Supreme Court decided Texas v. New Mexico on Monday, ruling in New Mexico’s favor in an interstate water dispute over the Pecos River. Texas filed the case directly in the Supreme Court, invoking the court’s original jurisdiction in cases where one state sues another … just as it did on Dec. 8 when it sued four “swing” states over how they conducted the presidential election. Although both cases ended badly for Texas within days of each other, the Supreme Court – which has decided many interstate water cases – at least reached the merits of the Pecos litigation.
In a 7-1 decision (with Justice Amy Coney Barrett not participating because she joined the court after the case was argued), the court upheld a determination of the Pecos River Master, who was appointed by the court itself to oversee implementation of its decree issued in 1988 after previous rounds in this long-running litigation. This is the first case in which the court has reviewed a decision of an appointed river master; there are only two such officials in the nation, and the court has declined to appoint new ones. Because the arrangements are nearly unique to the Pecos, the court’s latest decision is unlikely to establish important precedent for other interstate water disputes – but it does uphold the river master’s determination that Texas should bear most of the losses after nearly 7 billion gallons evaporated from a reservoir in New Mexico, where water was held for several months at Texas’ request. Continue reading »
Here’s a round-up of Supreme Court-related news and commentary from around the web:
We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion, please send it to roundup@scotusblog.com. Thank you!
The justices on Wednesday added three new cases, for a total of two hours of argument time, to their list of cases slated for oral argument this term. The announcement that the justices would tackle significant issues relating to antitrust protection for the National Collegiate Athletic Association and class-action lawsuits came just two days after the justices released their second set of orders from their private conference on Dec. 11. The move resembled a similar set of orders at this time last year, allowing the justices to continue fill out their docket for the second half of the term without having to wait for their next regularly scheduled conference on Jan. 8.
The Supreme Court agreed to wade into the controversial issue of compensation for college athletes, granting National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston and American Athletic Conference v. Alston. Over 35 years ago, the Supreme Court indicated in NCAA v. Board of Regents that rules regarding eligibility standards for college athletes are subject to a different and less stringent analysis than most antitrust cases. But earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled, in a case brought by Division 1 football and basketball players, that the NCAA’s limits on providing education-related benefits – such as computers, science equipment, post-graduate scholarships and internships – violate federal antitrust laws. Continue reading »
The Supreme Court on Wednesday morning added three new cases to its merits docket, agreeing to hear arguments in a pair of consolidated cases in which the justices will decide whether colleges should be able to provide greater compensation to student-athletes, as well as an appeal from the credit-reporting giant TransUnion, which is challenging a class action lawsuit against it.
Meanwhile, the court’s unofficial coronavirus docket continues to be busy. On Tuesday, the court issued two orders that will bolster religious organizations’ challenges to COVID-related gathering restrictions in Colorado and New Jersey. And the Trump administration came to the court to renew its request that the justices undo a lower-court ruling that has allowed an abortion-inducing drug to be received in the mail — rather than solely in person at a medical office, as required under a federal regulation — during the pandemic. The Supreme Court declined to lift the lower-court ruling in October, but the Trump administration filed a new brief Tuesday arguing that the in-person requirement should be reinstated. Continue reading »
The Supreme Court on Tuesday tossed out a pair of lower-court rulings that had permitted states to enforce COVID-related restrictions at worship services. The two brief orders from the justices instruct the lower courts to take another look at religious groups’ challenges to restrictions in Colorado and New Jersey – and this time, the justices indicated, the lower courts should decide the challenges in light of the Supreme Court’s Nov. 25 ruling that lifted New York’s COVID-related limits on attendance at worship services.
Tuesday’s orders are further evidence of the broader impact of the New York ruling, which the justices have now invoked three times in three weeks to tell lower courts around the country that they should be more solicitous of religious groups seeking to worship without restrictions during the pandemic. Continue reading »
Here’s a round-up of Supreme Court-related news and commentary from around the web:
We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion, please send it to roundup@scotusblog.com. Thank you!
The Supreme Court issued orders on Monday from the justices’ private conference last week. The justices had already granted one case, involving class certification in a securities-fraud case, from that conference on Friday, so it was no surprise that they did not add any new cases to their merits docket for this term. The justices denied review in two high-profile cases, involving LGBTQ rights and a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voting, and issued a summary opinion that vacated a ruling by a federal appeals court in favor of an Arizona death-row inmate.
The summary opinion came in the case of George Kayer, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1994 shooting death of Delbert Haas. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit threw out Kayer’s death sentence, holding that his lawyers’ investigation and presentation of mitigating evidence at the sentencing phase of his trial violated his Sixth Amendment right to have an effective lawyer. The state came to the Supreme Court in the spring, arguing that under the federal laws governing post-conviction proceedings the 9th Circuit should have been more deferential to the state court’s ruling rejecting Kayer’s claim for post-conviction relief. Continue reading »
After issuing the term’s first four opinions in argued cases last Thursday — all of which were unanimous — the Supreme Court may release more opinions on Monday at 10 a.m. EST. A list of all the cases that have been argued so far this term is available here. Prior to the expected opinion release, the court will release orders from Friday’s private conference at 9:30. Continue reading »
The Supreme Court’s opinion Thursday in Rutledge v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Association firmly rejected an attack on state statutes that protect pharmacies from the prescription-reimbursement intermediaries that health-insurance providers use to administer their prescription-drug programs.
The case involves pharmacy benefit managers like Caremark and Express Scripts, which have come to be the exclusive avenue through which most of us purchase prescriptions covered by our health insurance. PBMs have come under attack in recent years, as pharmacies argue that the standardized prices PBMs pay to pharmacies when pharmacies fill prescriptions often are set at levels below the costs pharmacies pay to buy the drugs from wholesalers. When that happens, pharmacies actually lose money on those prescriptions. Whatever the truth of those attacks (PBMs and their amici dispute them heatedly), more than 40 states have passed statutes in recent years designed to prop up the prices that PBMs pay, hoping to sustain the profitability of pharmacies (especially the independent pharmacies that are common in rural areas). Continue reading »
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