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Bold Justice: April 16, 2018

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Bold Justice: April arguments begin

The court is back for the last month of arguments this term, and we’re ready! Tune in for argument previews, updates, and news on a Ballotpedia webinar you can join to learn about one of the high-profile cases of the term.

A case you oughta know (and webinar you oughta join)

For the first time in almost 30 years, the U.S. Supreme Court will review what it means to be an officer of the United States. Join our 30-minute webinar on Thursday, April 19 to learn more about Lucia v. SEC, a case exploring the procedures around hiring Securities and Exchange Commission administrative law judges. Sign up here! Raymond J. Lucia and Raymond J. Lucia Companies (referred to collectively as Lucia) were party to an administrative proceeding before an SEC administrative law judge (ALJ). After an adverse ruling from the ALJ, Lucia appealed to the SEC for review. Lucia argued that the administrative proceeding had been unconstitutional because the ALJ had not been properly appointed. Lucia argued that the ALJ was an Officer of the United States within the meaning of the Appointments Clause; therefore, Lucia claimed, the ALJ's appointment had to have been directly ratified by the SEC. At the time, SEC staff appointed ALJs and they were not directly ratified by the commissioners themselves. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that ALJs did not qualify as officers under the Appointments Clause, and Lucia appealed to the Supreme Court. Learn more by joining our webinar on Thursday!

We #SCOTUS, so you don’t have to

This coming week, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in six cases:

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Wisconsin Central Ltd. v. United States and Westerngeco LLC. v. Ion Geophysical Corp. In Wisconsin Central, the court will hear an appeal over taxable benefits under the Railroad Retirement Act. Subsidiaries of the Canadian National Railway Company filed suit against the U.S. government, arguing that the stock options they gave to their employees were not money remunerations and should not be taxed under the Railroad Retirement Tax Act. The district court disagreed, and the railroad appealed. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit upheld the district court's decision, ruling that stock options were money remunerations within the meaning of the Tax Act, meaning that the subsidiaries are required to pay taxes on them. In Westerngeco LLC, the court will consider what types of lost profits a company can recover when it is the victim of patent infringement. Generally, U.S. laws only apply inside the United States. In this case, the court will decide whether U.S. law allows a company to recover foreign lost profits that resulted from domestic patent infringement. Westerngeco LLC sued Ion Geophysical Corp. for patent infringement. A jury concluded that Ion had infringed on Westerngeco's patents and awarded Westerngeco damages, including lost profits. On appeal, the United States Court for the Federal Circuit reversed the lost profits award, ruling that Westerngeco could not recover lost profits that were based on Ion's business outside the United States.

On Tuesday, the court will hear arguments in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. and Lamar, Archer & Cofrin, LLP v. Appling. Wayfair, which deals with sales taxes on out-of-state internet retailers, is one of the high-profile cases of the term]]. In Wayfair, the court will consider South Dakota’s request to overturn earlier Supreme Court opinions that prohibited states from imposing a sales tax on out-of-state internet retailers. In 2016, the South Dakota Legislature passed a law requiring sellers who had no physical presence in the state but did business with South Dakota resident to pay sales taxes to South Dakota. The tax requirement applied to companies that met minimum gross revenue requirements. Some out-of-state sellers refused to pay, arguing that earlier Supreme Court decisions barred the tax. South Dakota filed suit against those sellers, seeking a declaratory judgment that they were required to pay the tax and challenging the Supreme Court’s earlier decisions. In Lamar, the court will consider the interpretation of a provision of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Under the Bankruptcy Code, an individual who files for bankruptcy may be able to discharge some of his debts, meaning he does not have to repay them. A debt is dischargeable if it can be wiped away through bankruptcy. A debt is nondischargeable if it cannot be wiped away through bankruptcy--in other words, if you will still owe the debt despite filing for bankruptcy. In this case, an individual filed for bankruptcy and sought to discharge his debt to a law firm. The law firm argued that the debt was nondischargeable because the debtor had obtained the debt through a false statement about one of his assets. The debtor argued that his statement fell within an exception in the Bankruptcy Code that allows a fraudulently-obtained debt to be discharged if the fraudulent statement at issue was a statement respecting the debtor's financial condition.The issue is whether the debtor’s fraudulent statement in this case counted as a statement respecting his financial condition.

Finally, on Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Washington v. United States and Lagos v. United States. In Washington, the court will consider the interpretation of the Stevens Treaties, a set of treaties between American Indian tribes and U.S. federal and state governments. In long-running litigation, American Indian tribes in Washington state argued that Washington was in violation of the Steven Treaties, which guaranteed certain fishing rights to the tribes. The tribes sought an injunction ordering Washington to remove or correct state-owned culvert barriers that the tribes argued were harming the supply of fish. Washington argued that the treaties did not obligate it to protect the fish supply and further argued that the United States should be required to fix federal government-owned culverts before Washington was required to fix state-owned culverts. A U.S. district court and the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit concluded that the treaties did require Washington to protect the supply of fish, and Washington appealed. In Lagos, the court will consider what types of restitution are required under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA). Sergio Fernando Lagos pleaded guilty to wire fraud of General Electric Capital Corporation (GECC). The district court ordered Lagos to pay GECC restitution under the MVRA, including restitution to cover the legal and expert costs GECC incurred during its investigation of the fraud. Lagos challenged that order, arguing that the MVRA was not intended to cover consequential damages like the GECC’s legal and expert costs. The court is expected to release new orders and could release new opinions.

The remaining unscheduled cases of the term have been moved to next term’s docket, leaving the court with 69 scheduled cases this term. Of those 69 cases, the court has heard argument in 56.

Wondering where the cases came from this term? Check out this chart showing the number of appeals from each lower court:

SCOTUS cases 4.16.18.png

SCOTUS trivia

This week’s question is about Article III of the U.S. Constitution. Which federal courts are expressly established by Article III (as opposed to created by Congress in accordance with Article III)?

Choose an answer to find out!


Federal court action

Confirmations

The United States Senate confirmed three new nominees this week. In total, the Senate has confirmed 32 of President Trump's nominees to courts tracked in Ballotpedia's Federal Vacancy Count. There are an additional 73 nominees awaiting a Senate confirmation vote. These are the newly-confirmed nominees:

  • Rebecca Grady Jennings, confirmed to a seat on the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.
  • John Broomes, confirmed to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Kansas.
  • Claria Horn Boom, confirmed to a shared seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky and the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.

Nominations

President Trump announced 20 new nominees this week:

Vacancies

There are currently 149 vacancies in the federal judiciary. Of those 149 vacancies, 80 have no nominee as of yet during President Trump’s administration. According to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts and other outlets, an additional 31 judges have announced their intention to leave active judicial status during Trump’s first term. There are 73 pending nominations to seats tracked by Ballotpedia’s Federal Vacancy Count. Check out the chart below to see vacancies of four years or more:

Longest judicial vacancies 4.16.18.png


Committee action

The Senate Judiciary Committee met on April 11 to hear testimony from five nominees:

  • Mark Jeremy Bennett, nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
  • Nancy E. Brasel, nominee to the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota.
  • Robert Summerhays, nominee to the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
  • Eric C. Tostrud, nominee to the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota.
  • Wendy Vitter, nominee to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.


The Committee also met to report nominees to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. The Committee voted to advance one nominee:

  • Jill Aiko Otake, to be United States District Judge for the District of Hawaii

The Committee is scheduled to on April 19 to consider reporting additional nominees for a full confirmation vote in the Senate.

Love judicial nomination, confirmation, and vacancies information? We figured. Our monthly Federal Vacancy Count, which is published on the last Wednesday of every month, monitors all of the faces, places, and spaces moving in, moving out, and moving on in the federal judiciary.

Need a daily fix? Our Federal Vacancy Warning System’s got you covered with continuing updates on the status of all federal judicial nominees.

Or, if you prefer, we maintain a list of individuals nominated by President Trump.

A judge you oughta know

Every week, we at Ballotpedia want to highlight a federal judge or judicial nominee. We’re in our review of President Donald Trump’s list of 25 individuals from which he indicated he would choose nominees to fill Supreme Court vacancies. This week, let’s get to know Diane Sykes, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and a judge you oughta know. She joined the court in 2004 after being nominated by President George W. Bush. Sykes graduated from Northwestern University with her bachelor’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism in 1980. She received her J.D. from Marquette University Law School in 1984. Between college and law school, she worked as a reporter for The Milwaukee Journal.

Looking ahead

Here’s what we’re looking ahead to this week:

  • We expect the U.S. Supreme Court to hear arguments in six cases.
  • We expect the Supreme Court to issue orders and possibly opinions.
  • We expect the Judiciary Committee to meet to consider additional nominees.

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Why Bold Justice?

Well, there’s a story behind it, and we’re happy to credit Justice Samuel Alito for the inspiration. Back in October of 2014, Justice Alito joined his fellow Supreme Court Yale Law alumni, Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, for a panel as part of the law school’s alumni weekend (video below). During the discussion, the moderator asked the audience if they could guess which of the three justices on the panel served as the inspiration for a coffee house to name one of their blends of coffee, Bold Justice. Justice Alito responded, “Obviously, it’s me.”

He went on to tell the story of how, during his days as a Third Circuit judge, his law clerks participated in a Newark, New Jersey, coffee shop’s year-long promotion wherein if customers sampled every blend for one year, the customers could then create and name a blend of coffee. Justice Alito described Bold Justice as a blend that was “designed for about three o’clock in the afternoon if you’re working and you’re starting to fall asleep, if you have this, it will jolt you awake.” A blend of courts and coffee: sounds perfect to us!

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