Last Month at the Supreme Court | March 2024

The March 2024 edition of Last Month at the Supreme Court covers the Court’s recent unanimous decisions involving the Trump Colorado Ballot dispute, Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower protections, choice-of-law provisions in maritime disputes, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

This edition also delves into recent cases heard by the Court, tackling issues such as the machinegun ban, emissions reduction, arbitration exemptions and delegation clauses, presidential immunity, and social media platforms’ rights under the First Amendment.

This edition further features several procedural issues before the Court, including the discovery rule’s applicability to Copyright Act cases, the timing of criminal forfeiture, and the statute of limitations under the APA.

Decision Alert: Supreme Court Unanimously Rules a State May Not Disqualify Trump From Presidential Primary Ballot

On March 4, 2024, a day before the fifteen-state Presidential run known as Super Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Trump v. Anderson that a state may not disqualify former President Donald Trump from the presidential primary ballot, reversing the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove him from the ballot. The decision settles the legal challenges regarding Trump’s eligibility to run for president in California, Illinois, Maine, New York, and Wisconsin. Read the full synopsis here.  

Decision Alert: Supreme Court Unanimously Rules In Favor of Sarbanes-Oxley Whistleblower Protections

On February 8, 2024, the Supreme Court unanimously held in Murray v. UBS Sec., LLC that an employee seeking whistleblower protection under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) anti-retaliation provision must prove that his protected activity was a contributing factor in the employer’s adverse personnel action, but need not prove the employer acted with “retaliatory intent.” The opinion, authored by Justice Sotomayor, reasoned that the word “discriminate” found in the section did not necessitate a finding of “retaliatory intent” and that such a finding otherwise would ignore the statute’s mandatory burden-shifting framework. Read the full synopsis here.

Decision Alert: Supreme Court Unanimously Holds Choice-of-Law in Maritime Contracts Presumptively Enforceable

On February 21, 2024, the Supreme Court unanimously held in Great Lakes Insurance SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Co., LLC that choice-of-law provisions in maritime contracts are presumptively enforceable under federal maritime law and that the exceptions were too narrow to apply. Read the full synopsis here.

Decision Alert: Supreme Court Unanimously Paves the Way for FCRA Suits Against Federal Agencies

On February 8, 2024, the Court unanimously held that a consumer may sue a federal agency under 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681n and 1681o for defying the terms of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) in Department of Agriculture v. Kirtz. The opinion, authored by Justice Gorsuch, reasoned that the FCRA waived the federal government’s sovereign immunity. Read the full synopsis here.

Supreme Court to Determine Whether Bump Stock Device is a “Machinegun”

In Garland, Attorney General v. Cargill, the Court considers whether a bump stock device is a “machinegun,” as defined in 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b). The key statutory language defines a machinegun as a weapon that fires “automatically more than one shot . . . by a single function of the trigger.” The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has maintained that bump stocks are not machineguns under the statute and has issued many interpretation letters confirming that position. After a shooter used bump stocks in a shooting in Las Vegas in 2017, public support for a ban on bump stocks surged. Proposed federal legislation was drafted, but before Congress acted, the ATF, in response to the tragedy, reversed its position and reclassified bump stocks as machineguns in 2018. This exposed owners of bump stock devices to criminal liability. Read the full synopsis here.

Supreme Court Takes on Emissions Case and Good Neighbor Rule

In the four consolidated EPA cases (Ohio; Kinder Morgan, Inc.; American Forest & Paper Assn.; U.S. Steel Corp. v. EPA), the Supreme Court assesses the “good neighbor” rule, a federal emission reductions rule. Specifically, the Court considers whether the emissions controls imposed by the rule are reasonable regardless of the number of states subject to the rule. Read the full synopsis here.

Supreme Court Hears Arguments on the Copyright Act’s Statute of Limitations

In Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy, the Supreme Court addresses whether, under the discovery accrual rule applied by the circuit courts and the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations for civil actions, 17 U.S.C. §507(b), a copyright plaintiff can recover damages for acts that allegedly occurred more than three years before filing the lawsuit. Read the full synopsis here.

Supreme Court Agrees To Review Trump’s Criminal Immunity Claims In Trump v. United States

On February 28, 2024, the Supreme Court agreed to review former President Trump’s criminal immunity claim in Trump v. United States. Trump claims that he is immune from federal charges related to interference with the 2020 election, and the Court set the argument date for late April. Read the full synopsis here.

Supreme Court Determines Statute of Limitations Accrual for Administrative Procedure Act

In Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors Of The Federal Rsrv. Sys., the Supreme Court will decide when a claim first accrues under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Read the full synopsis here.

Supreme Court Weighs Exemption from Arbitration for Commercial Truck Drivers

In Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., the Supreme Court will decide whether a class of workers engaged in interstate transportation must also be employed specifically by a company in the transportation industry to be exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). Read the full synopsis here.

Supreme Court Examines Criminal Forfeiture Timing

In McIntosh v. U.S., the Supreme Court will decide whether a district court can enter a preliminary forfeiture order outside the time limitation set forth in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.2(b)(2)(B). Read the full synopsis here.

Supreme Court Skeptical of Laws Reining in Rights of Social Media Platforms

In Moody v. Netchoice, the Court considers whether Florida S.B. 7072’s content-moderation restrictions and its individualized-explanation requirements comply with the First Amendment. Read the full synopsis here.

Supreme Court Continues Examination of the Intersection Between Editorializing and Censorship

In Netchoice v. Paxton, a companion case to Moody, the Supreme Court considers whether the First Amendment prohibits viewpoint-, content-, or speaker-based laws (1) restricting select websites from engaging in editorial choices about whether and how to publish and disseminate speech or (2) burdening those editorial choices through onerous operational and disclosure requirements. Read the full synopsis here.

Supreme Court Appears Hesitant to Take Away Contract Law Decisions from States

In Coinbase Inc. v. Suski, the Supreme Court considers an arbitration issue arising when parties enter into an arbitration agreement with a delegation clause and a later contract that is silent as to arbitration and delegation. The issue is whether an arbitrator or a court should decide if the arbitration agreement was is narrowed by the later contract. Read the full synopsis here.

For more information, please contact Chantel Febus, James Azadian, Cory Webster, Christopher Sakauye, McKenna Crisp, Monika Harris, or Puja Valera.