Live blog of orders and opinions | April 29, 2019
We live-blogged as the Supreme Court released orders from the April 26 conference and its opinion in Thacker v. Tennessee Valley Authority. SCOTUSblog is sponsored by Casetext: A more intelligent way to search the law.
3rd & 7 37yd
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There are no more oral arguments scheduled for the term, so today we are expecting orders from last week's conference and one or more opinions in argued cases, and then that's it for the week. There is no conference scheduled for this week, so we won't actually be back until May 13.
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We're expecting orders at 9:30. Last week the justices finally acted on the cases asking them to weigh in on whether federal employment discrimination laws protect LGBT employees. We are still waiting on Box v. Planned Parenthood, the challenge to the Indiana law barring abortions based on (among other things) sex or disability of the fetus and requiring that fetal remains be cremated or buried. We're also waiting on Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, aka Masterpiece Cakeshop 2 -- the case filed by the Oregon couple who declined to make a cake for a same-sex wedding.
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Turning now to the merits cases, I know that we have gotten some questions about the letter to the Court from Rhode Island in the "peace cross" case. It isn't available electronically, and so I had asked one of the lawyers about it, but he didn't know what it was and then I lost the thread, so to speak. But Andrew reminded me about it again and suggested that it might have something to do with the change in Rhode Island attorneys general -- and he was correct. Long story short, in between when Rhode Island joined an amicus brief supporting the American Legion and the state and when the case was argued, the state got a new attorney general, who decided to withdraw Rhode Island from the brief. Here's a news story:So the mystery is solved.
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Seems like 18-843 Ivan Pena, et al., Petitioners
v.
Martin Horan, Director, California Department of Justice Bureau of Firearms
Has fallen into a black hole with no update since it was distributed for conference 4/12/2019
Any idea on when we can expect an update on the status of this case? -
Just to continue with the big picture, as is almost always the case, we don't know how many opinions we are getting or which ones. There's not a lot of low-hanging fruit left from November or December. I feel like there are a couple of relatively non-controversial ones (Return Mail v. USPS, on whether the government is a "person" for purposes of the America Invents Act, I'm looking at you) in January or February that we should be getting soon.
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ZC, Pena is also in the same holding pattern as Mance v. Barr 18-663. The general speculation I have heard is that they are either waiting for the pending NYSRPA v. NYC case 18-280 to be decided or for Rogers v. Grewal 18-824, the pending NJ "may issue" case to be up for cert. The Court might decide NYSRPA and remand all the pending 2a cases for rehearing.
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Here's the opinion in Thacker v. Tennessee Valley Authority. Gregory Sisk will have our analysis:
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Court holds that the Tennessee Valley Authority, which is a government-owned corporation that supplies electricity to millions of people, has a broad "sue and be sued" clause that waives sovereign immunity from suits challenging any of its commercial activities. "The law thus places the TVA in the same position as a private corporation supplying electricity," Kagan writes. "But," she continues, "the TVA might have immunity from suits contesting one of its governmental activities, of a kind not typically carried out by private parties," so the court sends the case back for determination of whether that kind of limited immunity might apply here.
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A strange technical/procedural question: If someone is nominated to the Supreme Court that has not joined the bar of the court, is there a pro forma process that has the nominee be admitted to the SCOTUS bar after confirmation and before investiture? Wondering if you can sit on a court you can't argue before.
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Okay, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us. We won't know for sure until the end of next week (and by "for sure" I mean that we will know that there is a "possibility of opinions"), but we would expect to be back here on May 13 for the next round of orders and opinions. Have a great week!