Good morning and welcome to our live blog.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our live blog, sponsored by Casetext. There are no oral arguments this morning, so we have a two-fer for you. We are expecting orders from last week's conference momentarily, followed by opinions in argued cases at 10 am.
We've been waiting on a number of high-profile cases that the justices have considered at various conferences recently, but the best bet for a grant may be a recent relist, Iancu v. NantKwest, in which the federal government has asked the court to weigh in on the meaning of a procedural provision of patent law.
Headed in to wait for orders now. Back soon.
Yes, there is one grant today, in Iancu v. NantKwest, the case I mentioned before I went into the press office.
The expanded question is whether the phrase "all of the expenses of the proceeding" includes the expenses for personnel of the US Patent and Trademark Office when an unsuccessful patent applicant appeals to a federal district court.
The court has denied review in two cases involving the state's exclusion of churches from funds for historic preservation. Justice Kavanaugh wrote a statement regarding the denial of review, which was joined by Justices Alito and Gorsuch.
In his statement in the historic preservation cases, Justice Kavanaugh says that, in his view, the NJ Supreme Court's decision that the state's exclusion of the churches from the historic preservation program does not violate the First Amendment "is in serious tension with this Court's religious equality precedents."
"At some point," Kavanaugh writes, "this Court will need to decide whether governments that distribute historic preservation funds may deny funds to religious organizations simply because the organizations are religious." But right now, Kavanaugh continues, it is appropriate for the justices to deny review because it isn't clear "what kinds of buildings can be funded under the Morris County program," which "could hamper our analysis of petitioners' religious discrimination claim."
Also, Kavanaugh adds, the Supreme Court's decision in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, involving the use of state funds for a church playground, is relatively recent, "and there is not yet a robust post-Trinity Lutheran body of case law in the lower courts on the question whether governments may exclude religious organizations from general historic preservation grants programs."
"In my view," Kavanaugh concludes, "prohibiting historic preservation grants to religious organizations simply because the organizations are religious would raise serious questions under this Court's precedents and the Constitution's fundamental guarantee of equality."
Two boxes this morning, folks.
Very exciting. For those of you who are new or new-ish here, the number of boxes is a rough proxy for the number of opinions we might get.
It's relatively quiet here today, although it appeared that there was a huge crowd of lawyers being sworn in upstairs this morning.
Also, one of the many cases on which the justices did not act today was the Klein case, involving very similar facts to Masterpiece Cakeshop. It was up for conference last week for the first time.
Headed in to wait for opinions now. Back soon.
We have our first opinion, from Justice Kavanaugh in Rimini Street v. Oracle. The decision of the Ninth Circuit is reversed in part and remanded, and it is unanimous.
The question in the case is whether the Copyright Act's reference to "full costs" authorizes a court to award litigation expenses beyond the six categories of costs specified by Congress in the general costs statute. The answer is no.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Ronald Mann is covering this for us.
Justice Kavanaugh is still reading from his opinion summary. Heading back in for more.
We are going to get two opinions from Justice Ginsburg. The first is BNSF Railway v. Loos. The Eighth Circuit is reversed and remanded.
Ginsburg's opinion is joined by Roberts, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Kavanaugh.
Gorsuch dissents, joined by Thomas.
The court holds that a railroad's payment to an employee for working time lost due to an on-the-job injury is taxable "compensation" under the Railroad Retirement Tax Act.
Ginsburg is still reading from her first opinion, but am heading back in to wait for more.
We have the third and final opinion, also from Ginsburg. It is in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall Street.Com. The decision of the Eleventh Circuit is affirmed. The vote is unanimous.
The Supreme Court holds that registration of copyright claims occurs, and a copyright claimant may start a suit for infringement of a copyright, when the Copyright Office registers a copyright, as opposed to when the copyright claimant applies for registration.
However, the court also holds, once the copyright is registered, a copyright owner can recover for infringement that occurred both before and after registration.
Ginsburg has finished reading from the second opinion, and the court has moved on to bar admissions.
Okay, I think that's all for the day. Thanks so much for joining us. There is no conference this week, and I do not expect opinions next week, because the justices are not scheduled to take the bench. So I would expect the next set of regular orders to come on Monday, March 18. And although there's no guarantee, we're likely to get opinions on either Tuesday, March 19, and/or Wednesday, March 20. Hope to see you back here then. Until then, take care, and stay warm!
Thanks all for joining us! We'll have Amy covering the orders and analyses in today's three opinions. We'll also be starting an online symposium today on June Medical Services v. Gee. See you next time!
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