United States Supreme Court
October 2025 Term in Review

9-0: Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the Court; Justice Jackson delivered an opinion concurring in the judgment.

When a plaintiff files a state-law claim in a federal court, “the federal court faces a choice-of-law problem: whether to apply state or federal law.” This choice of law problem works differently across different contexts. But “when a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure is on point,” and that rule is valid, it “displaces contrary state law” that might otherwise apply.

Berk involved a medical malpractice plaintiff who had injured his leg while falling out of bed, and who alleged that hospital employees made his injury worse with their insufficient care. The question was whether a Delaware state law that required the plaintiff to file a medical professional’s affidavit of merit accompanying his complaint was displaced by a valid Federal Rule of Civil Procedure. The district court held that the Delaware law applied and dismissed the suit, and the Third Circuit affirmed.

The Court held that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 displaced the Delaware law. Rule 8 “prescribes the information a plaintiff must present about the merits of his claim at the outset of litigation: ‘a short and plain statement of the claim showing that [he] is entitled to relief.’” This implies, the Court held, “that evidence of the claim is not required.” The Court reasoned that “Rule 12 reinforces the point. It provides only one ground for dismissal based on the merits: ‘failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.’” The Court then concluded that “Delaware’s affidavit requirement is at odds with Rule 8 because it demands more . . . Under Rule 8, factual allegations are sufficient, but under the Delaware law, the plaintiff needs evidence too.” Finally, the Court held that Rule 8 is a “valid” procedural rule because it “really regulates procedure.”

Concurring in the judgment, Justice Jackson reasoned that Delaware’s law conflicted with Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 3 and 12, not 8. In her view, the Delaware law was best understood as a docketing requirement, but Rule 3 declares that “a civil action is commenced by filing a complaint with the court.” “Thus,” she maintained, Delaware law and Rule 3 “conflict regarding the requirements to ‘commence’ a medical malpractice action.” As for Rule 12, Justice Jackson observed that it “prohibits courts from considering ‘matters outside the pleadings’” when determining whether to dismiss a lawsuit for failure to state a claim, but the affidavit required by Delaware law would be “outside the pleadings.”

• Berk makes clear that federal procedural requirements govern pleading in federal court, even if state law imposes additional or different requirements to cases brought in state court.
• The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized cases may look very different in federal and state court, even if brought under the same substantive law. In Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates PC v. Allstate Ins. Co., 559 U.S. 393 (2010), for example, the Court held that Rule 23 permits federal class actions to proceed even where state law precludes a class action on the same claim.
• This decision highlights the importance of forum selection for potential litigation—the outcome of a case may well turn on the forum in which it is litigated.

8-0: Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court; Justice Jackson filed an opinion concurring in the judgment; Justice Alito took no part in the decision.

The federal officer removal statute authorizes a “person acting under” a federal officer to remove state-court suits “for or relating to any act under color of such office.” No party disputed that Chevron “acted under” federal officers when it refined crude oil into avgas for the military during the Second World War. The question was whether a Louisiana parish’s environmental suit challenging Chevron’s wartime crude-oil production “related to” that refining.

The Court held that “relating to” sweeps broadly, meaning “to stand in some relation; to have bearing or concern; to pertain; refer; to bring into association with or connection with.” One thing can relate to another even if the connection is “indirect,” even if it was “not specifically designed to affect” it, and even without a “strict causal relationship.” Accordingly, a removing defendant need not show that his federal duties specifically required or strictly caused the challenged conduct. However, “relating to” is not “so broad that it is meaningless”; it requires a connection that is not “tenuous, remote, or peripheral.”

Applying this standard, the Court found a close connection between Chevron’s challenged crude-oil production and its federal avgas refining duties. The Court rejected the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning that the refining contract had to expressly direct crude-oil production for that conduct to “relate to” avgas refining—“relating to” simply does not require that federal duties specifically invited the challenged conduct. The Court also rejected the argument that the government’s allocation of crude oil to refineries severed the connection, holding that an act can relate to its consequences even when the causal chain includes actions by intermediaries. Finally, the Court rejected Louisiana’s argument that the statute requires the defendant to have been “acting under” a federal officer in taking the specific actions challenged in the suit, holding that this reading would leave “relating to” with no independent function, impermissibly conflating the “acting under” and “for or relating to” elements of the removal test.

Concurring in the judgment, Justice Jackson agreed that Chevron satisfied the statute but disagreed with the majority’s standard, arguing that the statute demands a “causal nexus” between the targeted conduct and the federal duties, not merely an indirect relationship. In her view, the statutory and legislative history showed that the “or relating to” addition was a “conforming amendment” aimed at clarifying that pre-suit discovery proceedings were removable—not a substantive change to the underlying causal-nexus test. Nevertheless, she concluded that Chevron satisfied even the causal-nexus test because Chevron produced crude oil, at least in part, to meet the demands of its federal contracts.

• Federal officer removal under 28 U.S.C. §1442(a)(1) can be a powerful tool for those acting under the direction of a federal officer or person. That can include federal contractors as well as those fulfilling government functions, such as self-regulatory organizations.
• In addition to a basis for removal, § 1442(a)(1) is relatively unique among removal statutes in providing a right to appellate review of any remand decision.
• By holding that “relating to” does not require the removing defendant to show that federal duties specifically required or strictly caused the challenged conduct—and that even indirect connections suffice—the decision gives clients with government-contractor or similar federal relationships a materially stronger basis for removing state-court suits to federal court.
• The Court’s reasoning also establishes that the federal contract need not expressly direct the challenged conduct, that intermediate steps in the causal chain do not sever the “relating to” connection, and that a defendant need not have been “acting under” a federal officer in taking the specific actions challenged in the suit—so long as the suit itself “relates to” acts done under color of office. These holdings are directly relevant to clients evaluating colorable removal arguments in complex contractual or supply-chain arrangements involving the federal government.

9-0: Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the Court; Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion.

Under 28 U.S.C. §1332(a), federal courts may exercise diversity jurisdiction only when no plaintiff shares state citizenship with any defendant and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000. When a defendant removes a case to federal court under diversity jurisdiction, a federal appellate court that later finds the district court lacked jurisdiction at the time of removal must typically vacate any judgment on the merits—unless the jurisdictional defect was “cured” before final judgment.

Hain Celestial arose from a product-liability suit brought by the Palmquists in Texas state court on behalf of their young son, E.P., who was diagnosed with serious developmental disorders that some doctors attributed to heavy-metal poisoning from baby food manufactured by Hain Celestial Group. The Palmquists sued both Hain (a Delaware corporation with a principal place of business in New York) and Whole Foods (a Texas-headquartered company), asserting state-law product liability, negligence, and breach-of-warranty claims. Hain removed the case to federal court based on diversity of citizenship, but faced an obvious problem: Whole Foods and the Palmquists were all Texas citizens, destroying complete diversity. Hain argued in its notice of removal that Whole Foods had been “improperly joined” and should be dismissed, which would leave only completely diverse parties. The district court agreed, dismissed Whole Foods, denied the Palmquists’ motion to remand, and the case proceeded to trial against Hain alone, where Hain prevailed on a motion for judgment as a matter of law based on the Palmquists’ failure to prove causation.

On appeal, the Fifth Circuit reversed the improper-joinder decision, concluded that Whole Foods should not have been dismissed, and held that because the jurisdictional defect was never properly cured, the district court’s judgment had to be vacated and the case remanded to state court.

The Supreme Court affirmed. The Court’s analysis turned on its earlier decision in Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U.S. 61 (1996), which held that a jurisdictional defect can be excused if it is properly “cured” before final judgment—but that if the defect “lingered through judgment,” vacatur is required. Unlike in Caterpillar, where the nondiverse defendant was voluntarily dismissed with the parties’ consent through a Rule 54(b) partial final judgment, here the dismissal of Whole Foods was erroneous and interlocutory—it did not finally dispose of Whole Foods’ involvement in the case. When the Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s error, it restored Whole Foods to the case and destroyed complete diversity, meaning the jurisdictional defect “lingered through judgment” uncured and the judgment “must be vacated.”

The Court rejected Hain’s efficiency arguments, holding that the “considerations of finality, efficiency, and economy” recognized in Caterpillar were relevant only to excusing noncompliance with removal requirements after a jurisdictional defect has been properly and finally cured—not to saving judgments entered without jurisdiction. The Court also rejected Hain’s argument that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 21 could be used to dismiss Whole Foods and preserve jurisdiction. Citing Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U.S. 826 (1989), the Court observed that although Rule 21 permits a court to “add or drop a party,” the plaintiff is “the master of the complaint” and generally has the right to choose whether to proceed in federal or state court. The Palmquists had exercised their forum-selection right by purposefully joining a nondiverse defendant and promptly moving to remand, and Rule 21 does not permit a court or a defendant to override that choice in these circumstances.

In a separate concurrence, Justice Thomas joined the opinion in full but wrote separately to express “skepticism of the doctrine of ‘improper joinder’” itself, observing that the doctrine “appears to allow federal courts to enlarge their jurisdiction by assessing the merits of claims over which they lack jurisdiction.” He noted that federal courts sitting in diversity “likely cannot dismiss nondiverse parties based on their view of the merits of the claims against those parties,” and urged the Court to consider the propriety of the improper-joinder doctrine in a future case where the issue is squarely presented.

• Under Hain Celestial, if a defendant establishes diversity jurisdiction by arguing that a non-diverse defendant was improperly joined, that decision remains vulnerable to a successful challenge on appeal.
• If a case is removed on diversity jurisdiction grounds, and the court of appeals later rules that diversity did not exist, the district court will have acted without jurisdiction.
• The Court’s treatment of Rule 21 is significant for removal strategy. A defendant cannot use Rule 21 to drop a properly joined, nondiverse co-defendant over the plaintiff’s objection in order to manufacture diversity jurisdiction. This reinforces the plaintiff’s role as “master of the complaint” and makes clear that forum-selection rights cannot be overridden by a co-defendant’s procedural maneuvering. From a defendant-side perspective, once a properly joined nondiverse party is in the case, removal based on diversity will likely fail.
• From a plaintiff-side perspective, the decision validates a well-known litigation tactic: joining a local, nondiverse defendant (such as a retailer or distributor) to defeat diversity removal. Companies that frequently face product-liability or tort litigation should anticipate that plaintiffs will rely on Hain Celestial to argue that even a marginal joinder of a nondiverse party locks the case in state court—and that any attempt to remove will risk the very outcome Hain experienced here: years of federal litigation culminating in vacatur.

5-4: Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justices Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Jackson joined; Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion. Justice Barrett delivered a dissenting opinion, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kagan and Gorsuch joined.

The Rooker-Feldman doctrine dictates that federal district courts lack jurisdiction over “cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments.”

Here, petitioner T.M. and her parents filed state court lawsuits to secure her release from involuntary psychiatric commitment. T.M. reached a settlement with the defendants in state court, which secured her release from commitment but required her to undergo continued treatment. The settlement was entered as a consent order in state court. Following the consent order—but, importantly, before T.M. exhausted the state appellate process—T.M. and her parents sued the same defendants in federal court alleging that the consent order violated T.M.’s due process rights. The district court dismissed the lawsuit under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed.

The Supreme Court affirmed the Fourth Circuit. The Court reasoned that Rooker-Feldman doctrine is “built on two closely related premises”: first, when plaintiffs ask district courts to review and reverse state-court judgments, they are asking district courts to exercise appellate jurisdiction. And second, only the Supreme Court possesses appellate jurisdiction to reverse or modify state-court judgments. District courts may exercise only original jurisdiction, not appellate jurisdiction. The Court held that T.M.’s attempt to challenge the state court order fell within this doctrine—regardless of whether T.M. exhausted the state court appellate process.

The Court rejected T.M.’s (and the dissent’s) argument that an original federal action challenging a state-court judgment is not properly considered an exercise of appellate jurisdiction at all. The Court held that this view was inconsistent with its prior precedent applying Rooker-Feldman. It also held that limiting Rooker-Feldman to apply only to post-appeal final judgments would undermine federalism and produce arbitrary results. And the Court held that T.M. and the dissent’s rule would overcomplicate the analysis of when to apply Rooker-Feldman, because it is not always clear when state court proceedings have ended.

Justice Thomas wrote a concurring opinion, observing that original history supports the majority’s understanding of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

Justice Barrett dissented. As previewed, the dissent contended that Rooker-Feldman should be limited to situations in which plaintiffs seek review of post-appeal state court final judgments. Justice Barrett argued this rule had emerged as a “negative inference” from the fact that Congress granted the Supreme Court with jurisdiction to review such judgments, meaning district courts impliedly lacked jurisdiction over them. She rejected the majority’s theory that district courts generally cannot review state court judgments because they lack appellate jurisdiction, as she disagreed that an original collateral attack on a state court judgment is the same thing as an appeal. Justice Barrett also observed that various preclusion and abstention doctrines could protect the federalism interests underlying Rooker-Feldman doctrine without its “shaky” conceptual foundation.

• The Rooker-Feldman doctrine frequently comes up when litigation involves parallel state and federal cases. Federal courts (other than the Supreme Court) generally cannot hear appeals from state court decisions.
• T.M. makes clear that the doctrine precludes federal courts from deciding issues once they have been ruled on by state courts, even if the state court ruling remains subject to appellate review. That is so even where the issue decided by the state court is one of federal law. Where parallel state and federal litigation raises questions under federal law, and review through the federal appellate system is desired, the decision makes clear the importance of obtaining a decision in federal court first.
• Although the majority arguably expanded Rooker-Feldman, it was careful to describe the doctrine as “narrow.” This was likely a signal to the lower federal courts not to further expand Rooker-Feldman to limit the availability of a federal forum in other procedural contexts.

9-0: Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the Court.

Section 3 of the FAA directs federal courts to stay federal proceedings that are “referable to arbitration.” Then, after an arbitral award issues, federal courts may confirm, vacate, or modify the award under Sections 9, 10, and 11 of the FAA. Specifically, Section 9 directs courts to confirm an award “unless the award is vacated, modified, or corrected as prescribed in sections 10 and 11.”

Here, plaintiff Adrian Jules sued his former employer in federal court, alleging unlawful discrimination under federal and state law. Jules had signed an arbitration agreement, however, and the district court stayed the federal proceedings pending arbitration. The arbitrator issued a final award ruling against Jules and awarding his former employer $34,500 in sanctions.

Returning to the district court, the employer moved to confirm the award under FAA Section 9. Jules opposed the motion, arguing that the district court lacked jurisdiction over the employer’s motion. As he highlighted, in a case called Badgerow v. Walters, the Supreme Court had held that district courts do not have jurisdiction over stand-alone Section 9 motions not attached to a pre-existing federal lawsuit when such motions present “no federal question on their face,” and the parties are non-diverse. The district court held that it did have jurisdiction notwithstanding Badgerow, and the Second Circuit affirmed.

The Supreme Court agreed: “A federal court with pre-existing jurisdiction over claims that it stayed pending arbitration under § 3 can adjudicate a § 9 or § 10 motion even if that motion does not present, on its face, an independent basis for federal jurisdiction.” The Court reasoned that “the [d]istrict [c]ourt had original jurisdiction” because Jules brought “federal claims.” And “nothing in the FAA eliminated that jurisdiction while the parties arbitrated.” “So when the parties returned to court after arbitration,” “the court had the same jurisdiction to decide the case,” and any motions within the case, “that it possessed from the start.” This preexisting basis for jurisdiction meant that Badgerow did not control.

• Two terms ago, the Supreme Court held that the FAA requires a court presented with a motion to enforce an arbitration agreement to stay, rather than dismiss, a pending federal court case if that is requested by a party. Smith v. Spizzirri, 601 U.S. 421 (2024).
• Jules makes clear that, having stayed a case, the federal court does not lose jurisdiction over enforcing an arbitral award if it had jurisdiction at the outset of litigation. Jules ensures a more streamlined process for enforcing arbitral awards and reduces the risk of parallel enforcement proceedings.
• Jules also gives a plaintiff some agency to choose the forum in which an arbitral award may be enforced, even if the case will ultimately be decided on the merits in arbitration, by first filing in a forum of its choosing.

9-0: Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the Court; Justice Sotomayor filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60 permits a court to “relieve a party . . . from a final judgment, order, or proceeding,” and subdivision (b)(4) specifically permits a court to grant relief from a “void” judgment. Rule 60(c)(1) then provides that a “motion under Rule 60(b) must be made within a reasonable time.”

In this case, Vista-Pro Automotive had entered bankruptcy in 2014 and initiated adversarial proceedings against Coney Island Auto Parts to collect allegedly unpaid invoices. Vista-Pro purportedly failed to properly serve Coney Island. Coney Island then did not file an answer, and the bankruptcy court entered a default judgment against it. In 2016, Vista-Pro’s bankruptcy trustee sent a demand letter to Coney Island’s CEO, which lower courts determined constituted notice of the judgment. In 2021, a marshal seized funds from Coney Island’s bank account in satisfaction of the judgment. Coney Island filed a motion to vacate the judgment under Rule 60, arguing that the defective service had rendered it void. The bankruptcy court, district court, and Sixth Circuit denied relief, holding that Coney Island failed to act within a “reasonable time” under Rule 60(c)(1)’s requirement.

The Supreme Court affirmed, agreeing that Rule 60’s reasonable-time requirement applies to motions to grant relief from “void” judgments. The Court focused on plain text: Rule 60(c)(1)’s time limit refers to a “motion under Rule 60(b),” and a motion for relief from an allegedly void judgment is a “motion under Rule 60(b).” The Court also concluded that “[w]hen Rule 60 modifies the default reasonable-time limit, it does so expressly,” citing other parts of the rule. Addressing the counterargument that “the passage of time cannot cure voidness,” the Court reasoned that “the same principle holds true for most legal errors,” but “statutes and rules routinely limit the time during which a party can seek relief from a judgment infected by error.” The Court also noted that “the historical record is not so clear” on when litigants could find relief from void judgments. And the Court reasoned that any party that truly needed a significant period of time to bring a motion under Rule 60(b)(4) would be protected by the “reasonable”-time requirement. But the Court did not address whether Coney Island’s motion complied with this requirement because Coney Island did not argue that it did.

Notably, the Court observed, Coney Island also disclaimed the argument that the Due Process Clause gave it the right to allege voidness at any time. Yet the Court still noted that “we cannot divine any principle requiring courts to keep their doors perpetually open to allegations of voidness.”

Concurring in the judgment, Justice Sotomayor agreed with the Court’s analysis of Rule 60’s text and structure. She concurred in the judgment “because the majority unnecessarily opines on the potential validity of a constitutional challenge to the ‘reasonable time’ limit under the Due Process Clause.”

• Most directly, Coney Island reminds sophisticated entities to be diligent about monitoring new litigation against them. If a defendant sits on its hands after discovering an unfavorable default judgment—even one entered without proper jurisdiction or service of process—delay can be fatal to a future challenge.
• Rule 60(c)’s time requirement is linked to “reasonableness,” not a concrete amount of time, so the key is to develop responsible processes for discovering and addressing litigation. If corporate officials take those processes seriously, then the processes can provide an argument for reasonable delay even in the unfortunate event that they fail. (Here, Coney Island made the apparent mistake of failing to even argue that it complied with the “reasonable-time” requirement, so the Court did not provide guidance on how to apply that requirement.)
• More broadly, Coney Island reflects the Supreme Court’s continued preference for textualist reasoning. Rule 60’s textual demand was the overwhelming focus in Coney Island, with alternative considerations addressed only on the periphery. When describing authorities that had interpreted Rule 60 differently, the Court specifically observed that “[t]hese authorities acknowledge that their interpretation clashes with Rule 60’s text.”

9-0: Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the Court.

Under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(1), a defendant sued in state court who prefers to proceed in federal court generally has 30 days after receiving notice of the state court action to remove the lawsuit to federal court. The question in Enbridge was whether that deadline is subject to equitable tolling, that is, whether a court may excuse a late removal filing based on equitable considerations.

The case arose from a 2019 lawsuit filed by Michigan’s Attorney General in state court, seeking to halt Enbridge’s operation of a petroleum pipeline that traverses the Straits of Mackinac. Enbridge was served with the complaint on July 12, 2019, but did not remove the case to federal court within the 30-day window. Instead, on December 15, 2021 (887 days after service), Enbridge filed its notice of removal. The Sixth Circuit held that the removal was untimely, and the Supreme Court affirmed.

The Court held that § 1446(b)(1)’s 30-day deadline cannot be equitably tolled. Although the deadline is non-jurisdictional, “[t]he mere fact that a time limit lacks jurisdictional force . . . does not render it malleable in every respect.” The Court declined to decide whether the presumption of equitable tolling even applies to § 1446(b)(1), reasoning that even if it does, the presumption is rebutted here.

Three features of the statute drove the Court’s conclusion. First, § 1446(b)(1) speaks in “strict, mandatory terms,” requiring that a notice of removal “shall be filed within 30 days.” Second, the statute’s structure is “decisive.” Congress created detailed, specific exceptions to the 30-day deadline, including the “ascertainment” rule in § 1446(b)(3), the “bad faith” exception in § 1446(c)(1), and provisions outside § 1446 that allow the deadline to be “enlarged . . . for cause shown” in cases involving foreign states (§ 1441(d)), certain intellectual-property disputes (§ 1454(b)(2)), and mass fatal accidents (§ 1441(e)(1)). This “explicit listing of exceptions” that already “reflect equitable considerations” strongly indicates “that Congress did not intend courts to read other unmentioned, open-ended, ‘equitable’ exceptions into the statute.” Third, “the nature of the subject matter” confirmed the point: the removal statutes have an “obvious concern with efficiency” and a “general interest in avoiding prolonged litigation on threshold non-merits questions.” Allowing equitable tolling would undermine Congress’s interest in resolving forum questions “early and conclusively,” creating a “cloud of uncertainty” over cases and “risking significant waste of resources.”

• The 30-day limit for removal of cases from state to federal court is an unforgiving deadline. Enbridge resolves a prior circuit split and establishes a bright-line rule that corporate defendants must remove within 30 days of service, with no equitable safety valve. Companies should make the remove-or-not decision immediately upon service, even when the basis for federal jurisdiction is uncertain or the strategic landscape is evolving.
• Although equitable tolling is off the table, the Court expressly reserved whether waiver, forfeiture, and estoppel may excuse an untimely removal and left the door open for defendants to argue that a plaintiff’s own conduct should preclude remand.

9-0: Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court.

Section 1519 of 18 U.S.C. makes it a crime to knowingly “falsif[y]” a “record [or] document” “with the intent to impede [or] obstruct” an ongoing or contemplated federal investigation. While employed at Twitter’s San Francisco office, Ahmad Abouammo provided confidential information about Saudi dissidents to a Saudi official. After relocating to Seattle, Abouammo was interviewed by San Francisco-based FBI agents investigating the disclosure. He denied wrongdoing and, when asked for documentation, created a fake invoice and emailed it to one of the agents, while in Seattle. He was indicted in the Northern District of California for falsifying a record under § 1519. The district court denied his motion to dismiss for improper venue, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed, reasoning that § 1519’s intent requirement made the “contemplated effects” of the falsification part of the offense’s essential conduct.

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed, holding that venue for a § 1519 offense lies only where the defendant falsified the document. Because falsification is the only proscribed conduct, and a person can violate § 1519 simply by falsifying a document with the requisite intent, venue must be where the falsification occurred. The Court rejected arguments that the statute’s intent requirement or its “inchoate” nature warranted broader venue, emphasizing that mens rea elements have never figured into the venue analysis.

• Abouammo establishes that § 1519 venue lies only where the falsification occurred, limiting prosecution of various obstruction-related statutes to the district where the underlying acts occurred rather than the targeted investigation resided.
• The Court’s categorical statement that mens rea elements are irrelevant to venue provides a powerful tool for venue challenges under federal statutes requiring specific intent. Defense counsel should invoke Abouammo whenever the government bases venue on where a defendant’s intended effects were felt rather than where the prohibited acts occurred.
• One potential negative ramification for criminal defendants is the Court’s reasoning that “a § 1519 offense is relatively easy to prove,” as it “prohibits only one act.” That reasoning benefitted the defendant in this case on venue grounds, but the government may use it to its advantage in future cases to defeat arguments that § 1519 requires some kind of sophisticated conduct or a certain quantum of evidence.

9-0: Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court; Justice Sotomayor delivered an opinion concurring in the judgment in which Justice Jackson joined.

The Copyright Act does not expressly impose secondary liability, that is, liability for the infringement of another, but the Supreme Court has recognized two categories of such liability: “contributory” liability and “vicarious” liability. The question in Cox was whether an internet service provider is contributorily liable for its subscribers’ copyright infringement when it continues to provide service to subscribers it knows are infringing, without terminating their access.

The case arose from a lawsuit brought by Sony Music Entertainment and other major copyright owners against Cox Communications, an ISP serving approximately six million subscribers. During the roughly two-year claim period, an anti-piracy company acting on Sony’s behalf sent Cox over 163,000 notices identifying IP addresses associated with infringement. Cox had a graduated response system culminating in termination after 13 notices, but terminated only 32 subscribers for infringement during the claim period, even as it terminated hundreds of thousands for nonpayment. The jury found Cox liable for both contributory and vicarious infringement, found the infringement willful, and awarded $1 billion in statutory damages. The Fourth Circuit affirmed on contributory liability, reasoning that “supplying a product with knowledge that the recipient will use it to infringe copyrights is exactly the sort of culpable conduct sufficient for contributory infringement.”

The Court reversed. It held that contributory liability requires proof that the provider intended its service to be used for infringement, which can be shown in only two ways: (1) the provider affirmatively induced the infringement, or (2) the provider sold a service tailored to infringement (i.e., one “not capable of ‘substantial’ or ‘commercially significant’ noninfringing uses”). These two bases track patent law’s inducement and contributory-infringement provisions, 35 U.S.C. §§271(b) and (c). The Court emphasized that “mere knowledge that a service will be used to infringe is insufficient to establish the required intent to infringe.” Cox neither induced infringement nor provided a tailored service. On the contrary, it discouraged infringement through warnings, suspensions, and terminations, and its internet service was plainly capable of substantial noninfringing uses. The Court also rejected Sony’s argument that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbor implies ISPs must be liable for serving known infringers, noting that the DMCA “merely creates new defenses from liability” and does not impose liability on providers who fail to qualify.

The Court did not reach the second question presented regarding willfulness, as its holding that Cox was not contributorily liable rendered the question moot.

Concurring in the judgment, Justice Sotomayor agreed that Cox was not liable but disagreed with the majority’s reasoning. She maintained that the majority “unnecessarily limits secondary liability” by refusing to consider other common-law theories like aiding and abetting. Applying an aiding-and-abetting framework, she concluded that Cox still was not liable because it lacked specific knowledge of who was committing infringement, knowing only which IP addresses were involved, not which individual users were responsible. She also warned that the majority’s rule “dismantl[es] the statutory incentive structure that Congress created” in the DMCA, arguing that ISPs now face no realistic prospect of secondary liability and thus have no economic incentive to maintain repeat-infringer policies.

• Knowledge that users are using a service to infringe copyrights is not sufficient to create liability. After Cox, a service provider cannot face contributory copyright liability simply for knowing about and failing to stop its users’ infringement. Contributory liability requires proof that the provider intended its service to be used for infringement, which is shown by inducing infringement or providing a service tailored to it.
• The door remains open for more culpable conduct. Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence preserves an aiding-and-abetting theory that future plaintiffs may press against providers who do more than passively serve known infringers, such as providers who affirmatively assist or have specific knowledge of individual wrongdoers.
• The DMCA safe harbor’s practical significance is watered down. Because ISPs are unlikely to face contributory liability for simply providing service to infringers, the incentive to maintain robust repeat-infringer policies in order to qualify for the safe harbor is substantially reduced.

8-1: Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justices Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson joined; Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion.

The Communications Act of 1934, as amended, authorizes the FCC to investigate regulated parties for suspected violations of the communications laws and to seek monetary forfeitures. Under 47 U.S.C. § 503(b)(4), the Commission may issue a notice of apparent liability, review the recipient’s response, and then issue an order determining liability and assessing a penalty. The recipient may seek review in the court of appeals under the Hobbs Act, or it may decline to pay, in which case the penalty “shall be recoverable . . . in a civil suit in the name of the United States” that “shall be a trial de novo.” § 504(a). Absent a successful enforcement suit, the statute provides no mechanism for the Commission to collect the forfeiture, and § 504(c) prohibits the Commission from using unresolved forfeiture proceedings to a regulated party’s prejudice in subsequent Commission proceedings.

The FCC investigated AT&T and Verizon regarding their sale of customer location data through intermediaries to location-based service providers. After security breaches came to light, the Commission concluded the carriers had violated laws requiring reasonable steps to keep location data confidential, and assessed penalties of roughly $57 million against AT&T and $47 million against Verizon. The carriers paid and filed petitions for review, arguing the absence of a jury trial violated the Seventh Amendment. The Fifth Circuit agreed with AT&T and vacated the order; the Second Circuit disagreed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict.

The Court held that the FCC’s forfeiture proceedings do not violate the Seventh Amendment. The Amendment does not “prescribe at what stage” a jury trial must be had; it requires only that a party have the chance to insist on a jury’s “ultimate determination of issues of fact” before legal obligations are conclusively settled. The forfeiture orders did not create an obligation to pay—the Commission has no authority to execute on them, no penalties accrue for nonpayment, interest does not run, and § 504(c) prevents the Commission from holding an order against a regulated party. Nor were the Commission’s factual findings conclusive, because forfeitures under § 503(b)(4) are recoverable exclusively in a “trial de novo” in which “the whole case is gone into as if no trial whatever had been had.” The Court distinguished SEC v. Jarkesy, 603 U.S. 109 (2024), where the SEC’s penalties were immediately enforceable and no jury was available in judicial enforcement proceedings. It rejected the carriers’ arguments that forfeiture orders’ “legal effect” in enabling a § 504 suit triggers the Amendment, holding that a forfeiture order is merely a “prerequisite[] to suit” analogous to a right-to-sue letter. The Court also rejected the carriers’ reputational-harm theory as “hard to square with the text of the Seventh Amendment.”

The Court further rejected the carriers’ unconstitutional conditions argument. The Seventh Amendment applies only to “[s]uits,” and the only suit in the statutory scheme is a § 504 enforcement action; if the carriers decline to pay and the government never sues, the jury right does not attach. Section 504(c) adequately protects carriers from prejudice during the interim, and the uncertain prospect of reputational harm does not impermissibly burden the right.

Justice Thomas dissented, arguing that the carriers paid under protest in good-faith reliance on the Commission’s representations that its orders were binding, and that the Court should have given the parties an opportunity to proceed under a correct understanding of the law rather than accepting the government’s post hoc characterization of its orders as nonbinding.

• FCC v. AT&T establishes that an agency may issue orders imposing a penalty without a jury so long as the orders do not create a binding obligation to pay and the government must prove its case to a jury in a subsequent trial de novo. Companies facing administrative penalty proceedings should examine whether the governing statute provides for de novo jury review, as the presence or absence of that feature is now the key determinant of the proceeding’s constitutionality.
• The Court’s distinction of Jarkesy is critical: Jarkesy remains good law where an agency’s penalties are immediately enforceable or where no jury trial is available in a subsequent judicial enforcement proceeding. Companies subject to agencies whose penalty orders are self-executing should continue to assert Seventh Amendment defenses under Jarkesy.
• Justice Thomas’s dissent highlights a practical tension: the holding rests on the premise that FCC forfeiture orders are nonbinding, yet the Commission’s regulations and order language have historically treated them as mandatory. Going forward, forfeiture orders cannot compel payment, accrue interest, or be held against a regulated party. Companies receiving FCC forfeiture orders should evaluate whether to pay voluntarily or await a § 504 enforcement action, recognizing that nonpayment carries no legal penalty and the government bears the full burden of proof in any subsequent trial de novo.

9-0: Justice Jackson delivered the opinion of the Court.

Under ERISA, an employer that withdraws from an underfunded Multiemployer Pension Plan must pay “withdrawal liability,” which is its share of the plan’s unfunded vested benefits (UVBs), calculated “as of” the last day of the plan year preceding withdrawal (the measurement date). Calculating UVBs requires both hard data and actuarial assumptions, including the discount rate used to convert future benefit payments to present value.

Petitioners withdrew from the IAM National Pension Fund in 2018. The Fund calculated their liability “as of” December 31, 2017, but applied a 6.50% discount rate adopted in January 2018 to replace the prior 7.50% rate, which dramatically increased liability from $1.8 million to $6.2 million for M&K. Arbitrators held the Fund must use assumptions “in effect” on the measurement date. The D.C. Circuit disagreed.

The Court affirmed. It held that §1391 of ERISA’s “as of” language requires hard data to be fixed on the measurement date but imposes no deadline on actuarial assumptions. As to §1393, the Court observed that it contains no deadline for selecting assumptions, requiring only that they be “reasonable” and reflect the actuary’s “best estimate.” The omission was significant given that Congress included a temporal limit for assumptions in a different provision (§1399). The Court rejected petitioners’ arguments based on § 1394’s antiretroactivity rule and policy concerns about manipulation, noting that “policy concerns cannot trump the best interpretation of the statutory text” and that employers retain the ability to challenge unreasonable assumptions in arbitration.

• MPP withdrawals are harder to price. Resolving a circuit split, the Court held that plans can adopt new assumptions after the measurement date, so employers cannot reliably size exposure based on assumptions currently in effect. M&A diligence on MPP-contributing targets should model a range of assumption scenarios.
• Plans have increased leverage. Actuaries may select assumptions with the benefit of hindsight, meaning assessed liability can substantially exceed figures from the plan’s most recent valuation.
• Arbitration is the only real check. The Court identified ERISA’s reasonableness standard, not any temporal deadline, as the constraint on manipulative assumptions. Companies facing large assessments should engage actuarial experts early to challenge assumptions that fail the “best estimate” standard.

6-3: Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jackson joined; Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh joined.

Former army specialist Winston Hencely was seriously injured in a suicide bombing at a military base in Afghanistan. The perpetrator had worked at the base for a subcontractor of Fluor. Fluor’s contract with the military had required it to oversee its personnel and to comply with base security policies, but an Army investigation found Fluor primarily responsible for the attack because of its “complacency and its lack of reasonable supervision of its personnel.”

Hencely filed state law claims against Fluor for negligent supervision, negligent entrustment of tools, and negligent retention of an employee. The district court granted summary judgment to Fluor and the Fourth Circuit affirmed on the basis of federal preemption. Preemption doctrine reflects the fact that, under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, federal law governs over state law when the two conflict. The Fourth Circuit reasoned that “where a private service contractor is integrated into combatant activities over which the military retains command authority, a tort claim arising out of the contractor’s engagement in such activities shall be preempted.”

The Supreme Court vacated the decision below. It first emphasized that no constitutional provision or federal statute directly preempted the state law suit. It next reasoned that a relevant precedent, Boyle v. United Technologies Corp., 487 U.S. 500 (1988), did not govern. Boyle held that a state law suit against a military contractor is preempted when the military had directed the contractor to perform the action that is the subject of the state law claim. But here, “Hencely sued Fluor for conduct that [allegedly] was not authorized by, but was even contrary to, federal instructions.” The Court reasoned that protecting a contractor that did not comply with military instructions would not protect the military’s decision-making. The Court next concluded that the Constitution did not implicitly preempt all war-related suits, as “barring other statutory or constitutional considerations, plaintiffs have been able to enforce their legal rights even when they are violated during war.” And finally, the Court noted that states can often regulate federal contractors.

Justice Alito dissented. He reasoned that “[a]pplying state (or foreign) tort law in this case would substantially interfere with the government’s ability to wage war and, in particular, with its ability to implement its preferred security policies at [its bases].” For instance, Justice Alito noted that “adjudication of Fluor’s defense is very likely to entail an evaluation of the way the federal government assessed the risks and benefits of [the perpetrator’s] employment, and this would impermissibly intrude on the federal government’s exclusive war powers.” He therefore considered it to fall within a line of cases “recogniz[ing] that the Constitution itself may demand preemption when a state law intrudes upon an area of exclusive federal authority.”

• Military contractors are not immune from state law suits for any operations that conflict with their obligations to the federal government. Contractors and those working with contractors should be aware of this legal liability and consider internal compliance programs to meet the specific obligations set out in their government contracts.
• Fluor also counsels military contractors to diligently document government direction and authorization, and to seek express authorization for projects wherever possible. Documented authorization will help protect a preemption argument in the event of a state-law challenge to a contractor’s conduct.

9-0: Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Sotomayor, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson joined, and in which Justice Thomas joined as to Parts I and III; Justice Thomas filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment; Justice Alito filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.

Under 28 U.S.C. §1291, federal courts of appeals generally have jurisdiction only over “final decisions” of the district courts—meaning orders that resolve the entire case. Under the collateral-order doctrine established in Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949), a narrow class of non-terminal orders may be immediately appealed if they (1) conclusively determine a disputed question, (2) resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits, and (3) are effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.

GEO Group arose from a class action filed by Alejandro Menocal, a former detainee at a private immigration detention facility in Aurora, Colorado, operated by GEO Group under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The suit challenged two GEO labor policies: a “Sanitation Policy” requiring detainees to clean common areas without pay, with sanctions up to solitary confinement for non-compliance, and a “Voluntary Work Program” offering $1 per day for other labor such as food preparation and laundry. Menocal alleged these policies violated a federal bar on forced labor and Colorado’s prohibition on unjust enrichment.

GEO moved to dismiss under Yearsley, arguing that ICE had “authorized and directed” it to carry out the challenged policies. The district court disagreed, finding that nothing in GEO’s government contract instructed GEO to adopt those work rules; rather, in “independently develop[ing] and implement[ing]” those rules, GEO “far exceeded its contractual obligations.” GEO immediately appealed, but the Tenth Circuit dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, holding that an order denying Yearsley protection does not qualify for interlocutory review under Cohen.

The Supreme Court affirmed. The Court’s analysis focused on Cohen’s third condition—whether a Yearsley denial is “effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.” The answer to that question, the Court explained, turns on whether Yearsley provides a merits defense or an immunity from suit. A party asserting a merits defense argues that his conduct was lawful and he should not be found liable; a party asserting an immunity need not challenge the merits at all, because the immunity applies regardless of his conduct’s legality. This distinction matters because an immunity is in its “essence” an “entitlement not to stand trial”—a right that is “irretrievably lost” once trial occurs. A merits defense, by contrast, leads only to a finding of non-liability, which “can be effectively vindicated after a trial has occurred, through the reversal of an adverse final judgment.”

The Court held that Yearsley provides a defense to liability, not an immunity from suit. Yearsley protects a contractor only when it has received a lawful governmental authorization and acted within the scope of that authorization—meaning when it has complied with the law. Conversely, Yearsley’s protection “runs out” when the contractor may have violated the law—when it either acted under an illegal authorization or exceeded the scope of a legal one. Because Yearsley thus ensures that “it will never shield unlawful conduct, in the way that all immunities do,” it operates as a defense on the merits.

The Court further held that GEO’s characterization of Yearsley as conferring “derivative sovereign immunity” conflicted with the longstanding rule that sovereign immunity is not transferrable to government agents. The Court cited repeated precedents holding that the government’s immunity from suit “does not extend to those that act[] in its name,” including by “reason of a contract” with the government.

Justice Thomas concurred in part and in the judgment, agreeing that Yearsley is a defense rather than an immunity but declining to join Part II of the opinion (the majority’s application of the Cohen framework). Justice Thomas reiterated his view that the Cohen collateral-order doctrine should not be expanded beyond orders already held to be immediately appealable, because judge-made exceptions to the final-judgment rule conflict with Congress’s authority over appellate jurisdiction.

Justice Alito also concurred in the judgment, agreeing that Yearsley is not an immunity from suit but proposing a different analytical framework. In his view, the dispositive question is not simply whether a defense “turns on the defendant’s conduct’s legality” (as the majority framed it), but whether “postponing appellate review” of the defense “would undermine important constitutional or policy interests.” Justice Alito concluded that deferring review of Yearsley denials until final judgment would not create significant separation-of-powers problems or sovereign-dignity concerns, and that qualified immunity (which is immediately appealable) already vindicates the public interest in preventing overdeterrence and distraction among government contractors.

• GEO Group definitively establishes that the Yearsley doctrine is a merits defense, not an immunity from suit. For companies that contract with the federal government, this means that a Yearsley defense—even a strong one—will not insulate the company from the burdens of full litigation through trial. A district court’s rejection of a Yearsley argument cannot be immediately appealed; the contractor must proceed through trial and raise the defense again on appeal from a final judgment. This has direct cost and strategy implications: companies cannot rely on Yearsley as an early off-ramp from expensive class-action or mass-tort litigation.
• The Court’s holding that sovereign immunity is non-transferrable to government agents—including by contract—forecloses the “derivative sovereign immunity” theory that several government contractors had advanced in lower courts. Parties should not assume that a government contract, no matter how closely the contractor follows federal directives, confers any form of immunity from suit. The contractor’s protection under Yearsley is limited to a defense against liability; it does not shield against the litigation process itself.

9-0: Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the Court.

Under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, states are generally entitled to immunity from suit in another state’s courts without their consent. This immunity extends to so-called “arms” of the state, but not to legally independent entities that the state creates.

Underlying Galette were two accidents in which New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) buses injured people, one in New York and one in Pennsylvania. Both of the injured parties sued NJ Transit for negligence in their home states. NJ Transit moved to dismiss the lawsuits, arguing that it is an arm of New Jersey and entitled to the state’s sovereign immunity. The New York Court of Appeals held that NJ Transit is not an arm of New Jersey, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that NJ Transit is an arm of New Jersey.

The Supreme Court consolidated the cases and held that NJ Transit is not an arm of the state. The Court first reviewed its prior cases considering the “arm-of-the-state” issue and concluded that “[a]lthough the Court’s . . . cases have accounted for various considerations over time, those precedents have consistently, and predominantly, examined whether the State structured the entity as a legally separate entity liable for its own judgments.” It further explained that “[t]he clearest evidence that a State has created a legally separate entity is that it created a corporation with the traditional corporate powers to sue and be sued, hold property, make contracts, and incur debt,” while also noting “other aspects of state law may indicate legal separateness as well.” The Court held that “an entity’s practical financial relationship with the State” has “less relevance” in this analysis, and it noted that “control” is a possible factor but is “not especially probative.”

The Court then held that, under these principles, NJ Transit cannot be an arm of the state. “New Jersey structured NJ Transit as a legally separate entity,” defining it as a “body corporate and politic with corporate succession.” Further, “NJ Transit possesses typical corporate powers,” such as the power to sue and be sued, enter into contracts, and purchase real or personal property, among others. The Court also emphasized that “the state is not formally liable for any of NJ Transit’s debts or liabilities.”

The Court also responded to counterarguments. Among other things, it emphasized again that “control” and “practical realities of state funding” are not dispositive, and it explained that the analysis does not focus on “whether the entity serves public functions.”

• Galette clarifies the test for when an entity related to a state is protected by sovereign immunity—focusing on such an entity’s formal separateness from the state. Parties that may pursue relief against, or that do business with, state-related entities should take note of this focus when evaluating those entities’ potential legal exposure.
• States should likewise focus on Galette when considering how to structure or re-structure their instrumentalities. To the extent states wish to protect those instrumentalities from suit, they should maximize formal entanglements between the instrumentalities and the state. Informal control and financial reliance are less significant.

6-3: Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II-A-1, and II-B in which Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Barrett, and Justice Jackson joined; the Chief Justice delivered an opinion with respect to Parts II-A-2 and III in which Justice Gorsuch and Justice Barrett joined; Justice Gorsuch and Justice Barrett each filed concurring opinions; Justice Kagan filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment in which Justice Sotomayor and Justice Jackson joined; Justice Jackson filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment; Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion; Justice Kavanaugh filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Thomas and Justice Alito joined.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution specifies that “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.” The power to impose tariffs is “very clear[ly] . . . a branch of the taxing power,” and the Framers expected that the government would for “a long time depend . . . chiefly on” tariffs for revenue. The question in Learning Resources was whether Congress delegated this power to the President through IEEPA, a 1977 statute that gives the President economic tools to address significant foreign threats during declared national emergencies.

Shortly after taking office, President Trump declared two national emergencies: one concerning the influx of illegal drugs from Canada, Mexico, and China, and the other addressing “large and persistent” trade deficits. Invoking IEEPA, the President imposed a 25% duty on most Canadian and Mexican imports and a 10% duty on most Chinese imports to address drug trafficking, and imposed a duty “on all imports from all trading partners” of at least 10%—with dozens of nations facing higher rates—to address trade deficits. Two sets of plaintiffs (small businesses and States) challenged the tariffs in separate courts. The district court granted a preliminary injunction, and the federal circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed the Court of International Trade’s grant of summary judgment for the plaintiffs, concluding that IEEPA’s authority to “regulate . . . importation” did not authorize the challenged tariffs.

The Supreme Court held that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. A six-Justice majority agreed on the core statutory analysis. IEEPA authorizes the President to “investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit” certain transactions involving foreign property, including “importation or exportation.” Absent from this lengthy list of specific powers is any mention of tariffs or duties. The Court held that the power to “regulate . . . importation” does not encompass the power to tax. “Regulate,” as ordinarily used, means to “fix, establish, or control; to adjust by rule, method, or established mode; to direct by rule or restriction; to subject to governing principles or laws”—a definition that places “in stark relief what ‘regulate’ is not usually thought to include: taxation.” The government could not identify any statute in which the power to “regulate” includes the power to tax. When Congress grants the power to impose tariffs, it does so “clearly and with careful constraints”—capping the amount and duration of tariffs and imposing demanding procedural prerequisites—none of which appear in IEEPA.

A three-Justice plurality (Chief Justice Roberts, in which Justice Gorsuch and Justice Barrett joined) also invoked the major questions doctrine, holding that because tariffs are of vast economic and political significance—and because the power to tax was the Framers’ most jealously guarded legislative prerogative—the President must “point to clear congressional authorization” to justify his extraordinary assertion of the tariff power, and IEEPA supplies none. The plurality rejected arguments that the major questions doctrine should not apply to emergency statutes or to statutes implicating foreign affairs.

Justice Kagan concurred in the result, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, but declined to invoke the major questions doctrine, concluding that “the ordinary tools of statutory interpretation amply support today’s result.” In their view, the meaning of “regulate” in common parlance and as Congress uses the word simply “does not encompass taxing”—hundreds of provisions in the U.S. Code grant agencies the authority to “regulate,” yet the government could not identify a single one understood to grant taxing power. Justice Jackson separately wrote to emphasize the relevance of legislative history, noting that the Senate and House Reports accompanying IEEPA described the statute’s purpose as granting the President the power “to control or freeze property transactions where a foreign interest is involved”—not to impose tariffs.

Justice Kavanaugh filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Thomas and Alito joined. The dissent argued that “statutory text, history, and precedent demonstrate that the answer is clearly yes: Like quotas and embargoes, tariffs are a traditional and common tool to regulate importation.” The dissent emphasized that in 1971, President Nixon imposed 10% tariffs on virtually all foreign imports under IEEPA’s predecessor statute (TWEA), which contained the same “regulate . . . importation” language, and that those tariffs were upheld in court. The dissent further argued that the Court’s 1976 decision in Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc., 426 U.S. 548, which unanimously held that substantially similar statutory language (“adjust the imports”) authorized monetary exactions, should control. The dissent also contended that the major questions doctrine should not apply in foreign affairs cases. Justice Thomas wrote separately to argue that the nondelegation doctrine poses no obstacle, because Congress has “frequently, from the organization of the government to the present time,” delegated broad powers over foreign trade to the President.

On jurisdiction, the Court agreed with the Federal Circuit that the Court of International Trade had exclusive jurisdiction over challenges arising out of modifications to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, and accordingly vacated the D.C. district court’s judgment in Learning Resources for lack of jurisdiction while affirming the Federal Circuit’s judgment in the companion case, V.O.S. Selections.

• Learning Resources is a landmark separation-of-powers decision holding that IEEPA does not authorize unilateral presidential tariffs. The immediate practical consequence is that any IEEPA-based tariffs currently in effect lack statutory authorization. Companies that have been paying IEEPA tariffs, adjusting supply chains to accommodate them, or building them into pricing models should assess the impact on their operations and evaluate potential refund or recovery claims.
• The decision does not eliminate all presidential tariff authority. The Court expressly declined to address whether the President could impose the same tariffs under other statutes, such as Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, or other Title 19 authorities—each of which contains its own procedural prerequisites, caps, and durational limits. Companies should anticipate that the Administration may attempt to reimpose tariffs under these alternative statutory authorities, and should monitor whether such actions satisfy the more demanding procedural and substantive requirements those statutes impose.
• The three-Justice dissent’s observation that the President may be able to impose “most if not all” of these tariffs under alternative statutory authorities warrants close attention. If the Administration pursues that course, companies should expect a new round of litigation over the procedural and substantive requirements of those statutes—including whether the requisite agency investigations, findings, and durational limits have been satisfied. Companies should prepare for continued tariff uncertainty and build flexibility into supply-chain and procurement contracts accordingly.

5-4: Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court in which Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Jackson joined; Justices Kavanaugh and Jackson filed separate concurring opinions; Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined; Justices Thomas and Barrett filed separate dissents.

In August 2025, the Federal Housing Finance Agency Director (a Trump appointee) publicly accused Lisa Cook, a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, of committing mortgage fraud. President Trump quickly demanded Cook’s resignation, and three days later purported to fire her for cause, citing his lack of “confidence in [her] integrity” considering her “deceitful and potentially criminal conduct.” Cook promptly filed suit, alleging that the removal did not meet the “for cause” and notice and opportunity to respond requirements of the statute. The district court issued a preliminary injunction preventing her removal, and the D.C. Circuit declined to stay the injunction.

The Supreme Court denied the government’s stay application, holding that the government had not shown it was likely to prevail. First, the Court held that the President’s determination of “cause” is judicially reviewable. Second, the Court rejected both the government’s position that “cause” under the Federal Reserve Act sets a very low bar (encompassing any concern about “conduct, ability, fitness, or competence”) and Cook’s position that it sets a very high bar (limited to “inefficiency, neglect of duty, malfeasance, and ineligibility”). Instead, the Court held that “cause” must “reflect the Federal Reserve’s unique historical status and role.” The Court emphasized that both “the fact of independence” and “the appearance of independence” are key to the Federal Reserve’s design, which “counsels a substantial threshold for ‘cause.’” The key issue is whether “[t]he cause assigned” truly “impl[ies] an unfitness for the place,” or whether it simply represents an effort to secure a “more congenial” replacement.

Third, the Court held that a “for cause” removal provision carrying a fixed term of years implicitly requires notice and opportunity to respond before removal. At minimum, Cook was entitled to “some explanation of the evidence at issue, some avenue for a response, and a deadline by which a response would be due.” Because Cook did not receive such process, her removal was “erroneous and void.”

Finally, the Court held that the Federal Reserve’s for-cause removal protection was constitutional notwithstanding Trump v. Slaughter, which held that Congress may not insulate officers exercising executive power from at-will presidential removal. The Federal Reserve has a distinct status in the Nation’s “long tradition” of independent central banking, the Court reasoned. The Court ultimately declined to “sow doubt as to the status of one of the Nation’s (and the world’s) most important financial institutions.”

Justice Kavanaugh concurred, emphasizing that the President may ultimately remove Cook for cause, and that “the Court confirms the longstanding historical practice that the Federal Reserve is an independent agency whose Governors enjoy for-cause removal protection” consistent with the Constitution.

Justice Jackson wrote separately to emphasize that equities did not support issuing a stay.

Justice Alito dissented, joined by Justice Gorsuch, arguing that the Court should not have issued a comprehensive opinion on an underdeveloped record. Justice Alito contended that the district court erred in holding that “cause” incorporates only in-office conduct, and that Cook lacks a private property interest in her seat on the Board of Governors.

Justice Thomas dissented. He wrote that Cook’s office was not her “property” under the Due Process Clause, mortgage fraud constitutes “cause” for removal, the statute’s text does not require notice and a hearing, and the for-cause provision itself is unconstitutional. He further contended that federal courts lack equitable authority to enjoin the President’s removal of an executive officer, and that Cook lacked a cause of action to sue.

Justice Barrett dissented. She objected to what she viewed as the Court raising and settling the constitutional question of the Federal Reserve’s independence based on a “conclusory analogy.” She also noted disagreement with how the majority understood the scope of the district court’s injunction.

• Cook establishes that the Federal Reserve’s for-cause removal protection remains constitutional post-Slaughter. The Court explicitly refused to extend Slaughter’s logic to the Federal Reserve, grounding its distinct treatment in the “special arrangement sanctioned by history.”
• The decision creates a new framework for removal. Substantively, the Court held that “cause” is a substantial bar. Procedurally, the Court held the President must provide notice, an explanation of the evidence, an avenue for response, and a deadline for that response before removal takes effect.
• The Federal Reserve will retain significant independence from presidential control in setting monetary policy. Uncertainty remains in the scope of the “for cause” provision, which may receive further explanation if President Trump attempts to fire Cook or another governor again.

6-3: Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined; Justice Thomas joined all but Part III-B. Justice Gorsuch filed a concurring opinion; Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Kagan and Jackson joined.

The FTC enforces and administers approximately 80 statutes covering almost every facet of the nation’s economy. Under the FTC Act, commissioners may be removed by the President only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” In January 2025, when President Trump began his second term, the FTC was led by two Republicans and three Democrats. He fired the two Democratic commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, without citing any statutory cause, stating only that their continued service was “inconsistent with [his] Administration’s priorities.”

Slaughter filed suit, arguing her removal violated the FTC Act’s for-cause provision, upheld in Humphrey’s Executor, 295 U.S. 602 (1935). The district court granted summary judgment in her favor and ordered reinstatement. A divided D.C. Circuit denied the government’s motion for a stay, holding the issue had been settled by Humphrey’s Executor. The Supreme Court stayed the district court’s order and granted certiorari before judgment.

The Supreme Court reversed. The Court held that “text, history, and structure” show that the President “may remove his subordinates at will.” The Court reasoned that the Constitution vests the entire “executive” power in the President, that the Founders intended to have a strong executive given their experience with ineffectual executives in the states, and that the Founders understood the President to have authority to remove executive officers. Finally, the Court emphasized that Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926) had endorsed a similar view. The Court therefore expressly overruled Humphrey’s Executor, which had upheld the FTC’s “for-cause” removal protection. The Court held that Humphrey’s “framework . . . has not withstood the test of time.”

The Court then observed that the FTC exercises executive power, promulgating substantive rules carrying the force of law, investigating businesses, enforcing statutes through in-house adjudications, and filing civil suits on behalf of the United States. It therefore held that the “FTC’s for-cause removal provision violates the separation of powers.”

Justice Gorsuch concurred, focusing on the growth of the administrative state. He asked “would Congress have gone so far down this road, delegating so much legislative and judicial power to agencies, without Humphrey’s assurance that their leaders would enjoy protection against at-will presidential removal?” Justice Gorsuch expressed that the law should “restore legislative and judicial powers to where they belong: in Congress and the courts.”

Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Kagan and Jackson joined. The dissent argued that the majority’s understanding of the Constitution’s text and history is incorrect, and that it is particularly wrong to brush aside the legal settlement that has long built around Humphrey’s being good law. Justice Sotomayor warned that the decision fundamentally reshapes the balance of governmental power, granting the President authority “that neither the People, nor Congress, nor the Constitution bestowed upon him.”

• The Court held that Congress cannot limit the President’s removal authority over agency heads that exercise executive power, marking a victory for the “unitary executive” theory.
• Companies and individuals that interact with executive agencies should expect agency leadership and policy to more closely track White House priorities. Changes in presidential administrations may now produce more immediate and dramatic shifts in enforcement priorities and regulatory philosophy.
• The Federal Reserve marks an exception to this general rule, as decided in Trump v. Cook. Slaughter also expressly declined to address tenure protections for non-article III judges, such as those on the Tax Court.
• The Court's decision will lead to further litigation about whether various federal agencies are properly constituted at all and the validity of their official acts, including their ability to conduct adjudications.

5-4: Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court in which Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson joined; Justice Jackson filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Sotomayor joined in part; Justice Kavanaugh filed an opinion concurring in the judgment and dissenting in part; Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined; Justice Alito and Justice Gorsuch each filed separate dissenting opinions.

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.” On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order No. 14160, declaring that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and thus do not qualify for citizenship. The district court preliminarily enjoined the Order. The Court granted certiorari before judgment.

The Supreme Court affirmed. Under the common law, children born within a sovereign’s dominions owed natural allegiance and were “natural-born subject[s].” The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted to repudiate Dred Scott and permanently enshrine this rule. The Clause’s key phrase—“subject to the jurisdiction”—refers to the power of the United States to govern those within its territory.

The Court confirmed that its analysis was consistent with United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which held that the Fourteenth Amendment was “declaratory” of the common-law rule, excluding only children of ambassadors and those born in Indian tribes. The Court rejected arguments that “allegiance” required domicile.

Justice Jackson concurred, and argued that the Citizenship Clause vindicated a universalist vision of birthright citizenship and to respond to arguments made in Justice Thomas’s dissent. Justice Kavanaugh concurred in the judgment but would have held the Order unlawful only under 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a) and not the Constitution. Justice Thomas dissented, joined by Justice Gorsuch, arguing that the Clause guaranteed citizenship only to persons born and domiciled in the United States joined. Justice Alito dissented separately, arguing citizenship requires sole allegiance to the United States. Justice Gorsuch also filed a separate dissent, emphasizing the domicile test and the high bar the challengers should have faced in bringing a facial challenge, as opposed to an as-applied one.

• Barbara is the most significant Citizenship Clause decision since Wong Kim Ark, definitively affirming birthright citizenship for all persons born in the United States.
• The 5-4 margin and the four dissenting opinions signal that the scope of birthright citizenship remains contested.
• The Court's decision is likely to prompt the current administration to look for alternative means of restricting immigration, including legal immigration, which may create challenges for companies seeking to recruit from abroad.

6-3: Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett joined; Justice Kagan filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Sotomayor and Jackson joined.

In 1960, after Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba, the Cuban government confiscated many foreign-owned assets, including Exxon’s oil refinery, terminals, packaging plants, and more than a hundred service stations. Since then, two Cuban government-owned companies, Unión Cuba-Petróleo (CUPET) and Corporación CIMEX S.A. (Cuba), have operated and profited from Exxon’s confiscated property. In 1996, Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act, which created a private right of action for U.S. nationals whose property was unlawfully confiscated: they may sue Cuban agencies and instrumentalities that possess, use, or otherwise traffic in the confiscated property. Every President from 1996 until 2019 suspended the right to bring lawsuits under Title III of the Act.

On May 2, 2019, President Trump ended the suspension, and that same day, Exxon sued CUPET, CIMEX, and later CIMEX’s Panamanian alter ego under the Helms-Burton Act in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking more than $1 billion in damages. The Cuban government-owned companies moved to dismiss, asserting immunity under the generally applicable Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). The district court sided with the Cuban government defendants, and a divided panel of the D.C. Circuit affirmed in relevant part, concluding that the Helms-Burton Act “harmoniously coexists with the FSIA.”

The Supreme Court reversed. The Court held that the Helms-Burton Act itself abrogates the sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities, and plaintiffs who sue Cuban agencies or instrumentalities under the Act need not also satisfy one of FSIA’s enumerated exceptions to foreign sovereign immunity. The majority emphasized that “one Congress cannot bind another—meaning that a later Congress always may repeal or modify an old law, or enact a new law that is exempt from the old law.” In 1996, when Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act, Congress was “free to directly abrogate the foreign sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities, thereby overriding the FSIA.”

The Court pointed to four considerations. First, the Act’s cause of action “expressly applies against Cuban agencies and instrumentalities.” Second, the Act explicitly contemplated that the cause of action would “supply a meaningful remedy.” Third, the Act provides that subject-matter jurisdiction for its cause of action lies under the federal question statute (28 U.S.C. §1331), not the FSIA. Fourth, the Act gives the President plenary power to suspend suits under the Act based on current national security and foreign policy assessments—a regime analogous to the pre-FSIA scheme under which decisions about immunity were “the province of the Executive Branch.” As Justice Kavanaugh observed: “It is not plausible to conclude that Congress, in the Helms-Burton Act, in essence reinstated the pre-FSIA immunity regime while simultaneously subjecting suits under the Act to the FSIA.”

The Court rejected the canon of statutory interpretation against implied repeal, reasoning that the Helms-Burton Act “contains many express indications that the Act is a standalone statutory exception to foreign sovereign immunity.” The Court further explained that “[s]tacking an FSIA requirement on top of the Helms-Burton Act would thwart Congress’s design and directly contravene the President’s foreign policy judgments.”

Justice Kagan filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Sotomayor and Jackson joined. The dissent argued that “[n]othing in the text or ‘architecture’ of the Helms-Burton Act suggests that Congress abrogated the sovereign immunity of these defendants—much less that it did so with the requisite unmistakable clarity.” Justice Kagan emphasized that the bar for finding that Congress has repealed the general presumption of immunity in the FSIA “is high,” as “Congress must make its intent to abrogate ‘unmistakably clear in the language of the statute.’” She also noted that, contrary to the majority’s suggestion that plaintiffs could never satisfy an FSIA exception, the district court had found that one of the FSIA exceptions did apply, and the D.C. Circuit had remanded for further factfinding on that question. The dissent concluded that Exxon’s “suit can proceed if, but only if, it can show an FSIA exception is satisfied.”

• Exxon Mobil significantly lowers the barrier to suing Cuban agencies and instrumentalities under the Helms-Burton Act by eliminating the need to satisfy an independent FSIA exception. U.S. nationals with certified claims for property confiscated by the Cuban government can now pursue Title III litigation without demonstrating that the defendant’s trafficking activity falls within the FSIA’s enumerated exceptions. Companies with legacy expropriation claims against Cuba should reassess the viability of Helms-Burton litigation in light of this decision.
• The decision also has implications beyond Cuban confiscation claims. It confirms that Congress may create a standalone statutory exception to foreign sovereign immunity without amending the FSIA itself.
• Companies currently doing business involving property confiscated by the Cuban government, including through joint ventures, tourism operations, or commercial arrangements with Cuban state-owned entities, should evaluate their potential exposure under the Helms-Burton Act’s “trafficking” provisions. The Court’s holding that Cuban agencies and instrumentalities enjoy no independent sovereign immunity defense in Title III suits increases the risk that trafficking claims can proceed to the merits.

8-1: Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court; Justice Sotomayor filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Kavanaugh joined; Justice Kagan filed a dissenting opinion.

Under Title III of the LIBERTAD Act, any entity that “traffics in property which was confiscated by the Cuban government on or after January 1, 1959, shall be liable to any United States national who owns the claim to such property.” In 1928, Havana Docks Corporation acquired a property interest that allowed it to operate dock facilities at the state-owned Port of Havana, set to expire in 2004. After Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, the Cuban government confiscated all of Havana Docks’ assets. From 2016 to 2019, four cruise lines transported passengers to Cuba, using the confiscated docks.

Havana Docks sued the cruise lines under Title III. The cruise lines argued they could not be liable because Havana Docks’ property interest would have expired in 2004. The district court rejected that argument. The Eleventh Circuit reversed, holding that courts must determine whether the alleged trafficking involved the Plaintiff’s specific property interest as if there had been no expropriation.

The Supreme Court vacated and remanded. The Court held that confiscated property is “tainted—off limits—such that anyone who uses the property can be liable to those who had an interest in the tainted property.” Havana Docks need not establish that the cruise lines used its specific property interest. The Court also rejected the Eleventh Circuit’s counterfactual approach as “difficult to understand and apply” and one that would foreclose liability in cases where the text demands it.

Justice Sotomayor concurred in the result, but warned that the majority’s reading of the LIBERTAD Act could allow potentially unlimited recovery and raised due process concerns about holding the cruise lines liable for conduct the government had previously deemed lawful. Justice Kagan dissented, arguing that the Court misconstrued the Act to allow recovery for trafficking in property that was not the plaintiff’s, because Havana Docks owned only a time limited interest, not the docks themselves.

• Havana Docks establishes a broad “taint” theory: once the Cuban government confiscates property, that property is permanently off limits, and anyone who knowingly and intentionally uses it can be liable to the U.S. national who holds a claim related to that property, regardless of whether the claimant’s original interest would have expired by the time of the knowing and intentional use. Companies with any commercial operations involving property confiscated from U.S. nationals after 1959 face significantly expanded exposure.
• Companies doing business in Cuba should assess whether any Cuban property they use, access, or commercially benefit from is the subject of a certified confiscation claim. The cruise lines in this case each faced liability exceeding $100 million.

6-3 as to the first question presented; 8-1 as to the second question presented: Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh joined; Justice Jackson filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which Justice Kagan joined; Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Kagan and Jackson joined in part.

The ATS grants federal courts jurisdiction to hear cases involving violations of the law of nations. The TVPA provides a cause of action against someone who “subjects” another to torture.

Here, practitioners of the Falun Gong religious movement alleged that the Chinese government persecuted them, and alleged that Cisco Systems enabled that persecution. Plaintiffs therefore alleged that Cisco and its executives aided and abetted violations of international law, including, torture, forced labor, prolonged and arbitrary detention, and crimes against humanity. The district court dismissed Plaintiffs’ complaint, and the Ninth Circuit reversed in part, holding that aiding and abetting liability was available under the ATS and TVPA.

The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit. It first held that the ATS does not permit any new judicially implied causes of action. Echoing an earlier case, Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004), the Court emphasized that the ATS is only “a jurisdictional statute,” and it does not bestow “power to mold substantive law.” Yet, the Court observed, Sosa had left open the narrow possibility that the ATS could “allow[] for the possibility of new, judicially created causes of action to enforce norms of international law” in certain circumstances. The Court proceeded to hold that this holding was incorrect, and that courts can never find implied causes of action in the ATS context. The Court observed that the gap Sosa left open was “narrow at the outset,” that ATS cases necessarily “implicate foreign policy,” and that “the power to create causes of action belongs to Congress” for separation of powers and practical reasons. The Court also observed that its recent precedent disfavored judicially implied causes of action.

The Court further observed that closing the gap left open by Sosa would not upset any reliance interests and would promote stability in the law. And the Court noted that it was not ruling on whether the ATS implies a cause of action for torts related to the “Blackstone three,” which are three law-of-nation offenses discussed by William Blackstone’s legal treatise: violation of safe conducts, infringement of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy. Turning back to this case, then, the Court held that Plaintiffs’ ATS claims must be dismissed because “[c]ourts cannot create new rights of action to remedy violations of international law, so there is necessarily no liability for aiding and abetting such violations.”

Finally, the Court held that the TVPA—which provides a cause of action against someone who “subjects” another to torture—does not permit aiding and abetting liability because it “nowhere mentions aiding-and-abetting liability,” which “settle[d] the issue” under prior precedent. The Court held that the plain meaning of “subjects” is not broad enough to permit aiding and abetting liability.

Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Kagan, concurred in the Court’s judgment as to the TVPA but joined Justice Sotomayor’s dissent as to the ATS. Regarding the TVPA, however, Justice Jackson agreed only with the majority’s textual analysis and not its imposition of a “magic words” requirement to create aiding and abetting liability.

Justice Sotomayor dissented as to both the ATS and TVPA. She observed that Congress intended the ATS “to have practical effect,” as demonstrated by historical evidence and the ATS’s creation of a cause of action for the “Blackstone three.” She also reasoned that recognizing aiding and abetting liability here would enforce only specific, universal norms, and would not impair U.S. foreign policy interests. Justice Sotomayor went on to challenge the majority for abrogating Sosa without any “special justification.” And in any event, she argued, there is no “special justification” to discard precedent here. Finally, Justice Sotomayor disagreed with the majority’s interpretation of the TVPA, reasoning that the word “subjects” is compatible with aiding and abetting liability and that the majority was wrong to impose a “magic words” test for aiding and abetting liability.

• The ATS cannot provide the basis for novel theories of liability not recognized in other statutes or in the Blackstone three, and the TVPA’s use of the term “subject” is relatively narrow.
• Cisco does not eliminate all human rights-related liability. The Court leaves open the possibility that other branches may provide redress for victims and that plaintiffs may bring claims under the “Blackstone three” causes of action: violation of safe conducts, infringement of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy. And the lack of a cause of action under the ATS does not mean no plaintiffs will have a cause of action in similar contexts (e.g., through the TVPA, if the defendant “subjects” the plaintiff to torture).
• Cisco also reflects the Court’s increasingly firm stance against judicially implied causes of action, which has implications across substantive areas.

7-2: Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Barrett joined; Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion; Justice Jackson filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined.

FIFRA establishes a comprehensive federal regime for pesticide registration and labeling administered by the EPA. To register a pesticide, the EPA must conclude that the product will not cause unreasonable adverse effects on human health and that its label contains all warnings “necessary and . . . adequate to protect health and the environment.” Once the EPA approves a label, the manufacturer must use it and may not alter it without the EPA’s permission, on pain of civil and criminal penalties. FIFRA’s preemption clause, entitled “Uniformity,” prohibits States from imposing “any requirements for labeling or packaging in addition to or different from those required under” FIFRA.

John Durnell sued Monsanto in Missouri state court, alleging that he developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after approximately 20 years of using Roundup, and that Monsanto should have included a cancer warning on the product’s label. A jury awarded Durnell more than $1 million on a failure-to-warn theory. The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed, reasoning that Missouri failure-to-warn claims are “fully consistent with” FIFRA’s misbranding provisions. Federal appeals and state courts had divided over whether FIFRA preempts Roundup failure-to-warn claims.

The Supreme Court reversed, holding that FIFRA’s preemption clause expressly preempts Durnell’s claim. The EPA must approve a pesticide’s label at registration by determining it contains all warnings “necessary and adequate to protect health and the environment” and is not “false or misleading.” After approval, manufacturers are legally required to use the EPA approved label unless the EPA approves or requires a change; unilateral changes expose the manufacturer to civil and criminal penalties. Because the EPA has repeatedly approved Roundup’s label without a cancer warning, Durnell’s state tort claim would impose a requirement “in addition to” and “different from” the federal labeling obligations.

The Court rejected Durnell’s contention that Missouri’s failure-to-warn claim parallels FIFRA’s own misbranding prohibition, holding that this argument “disregards the central and comprehensive role that the EPA performs in making labeling determinations.” The Court rejected Durnell’s challenge to the EPA’s statutory authority, holding that FIFRA empowers the EPA to “prescribe regulations to carry out the provisions of” FIFRA and expressly directs the EPA to register pesticides and determine that labeling complies with FIFRA’s requirements.

The Court also rejected Durnell’s argument based on § 136a(f)(2)—which provides that registration shall not be “construed as a defense for the commission of any offense under” FIFRA—holding that this provision does not apply to state tort suits and that Monsanto was not invoking the EPA’s specific determination that cancer warnings were not required. The Court addressed concerns about regulatory lag, holding that FIFRA and the EPA’s implementing regulations establish extensive processes to respond to new safety information.

Justice Thomas concurred, joining the opinion in full but writing separately to question whether FIFRA exceeds Congress’s Commerce Clause authority, to flag concerns about Congress’s delegation of core legislative power to the EPA, and to raise questions about the extent to which federal agency action can preempt state law under the Supremacy Clause.

Justice Jackson filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined, arguing that Durnell’s failure-to-warn claim was equivalent to FIFRA’s misbranding prohibition and that the EPA’s registration of pesticides does not create a labeling “requirement” under §136v(b) joined.

• Monsanto resolves a deep split among federal and state courts over whether FIFRA preempts Roundup failure-to-warn claims. The decision effectively ends the wave of state court Roundup cancer warning verdicts on preemption grounds, reversing the near unanimous prior view of lower courts that such claims survived preemption.
• The holding extends well beyond pesticides. The Court emphasized that “several other federal statutes across a range of industries” contain similar or identical labeling preemption provisions, including statutes governing medical devices, meat products, and other consumer products. Companies in other consumer product sectors should assess whether their EPA or FDA approved labels now provide a preemption defense to state failure-to-warn claims.
• The decision reinforces the principle that agency approval of a label creates federal “requirements” with preemptive force. Manufacturers whose labels have undergone rigorous agency safety review are in the strongest position to assert preemption.
• The Court’s framework distinguishes between safety claims, where the EPA conducts thorough review at registration and which are now preempted, and efficacy claims, which the EPA does not review and which remain subject to state tort liability.

9-0: Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the Court; Justice Kavanaugh filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Alito joined.

The FAAAA, enacted in 1994 and extended to freight brokers in 1995, expressly preempts state laws “related to a price, route, or service” of any motor carrier or broker “with respect to the transportation of property.” The statute contains an exception providing that the preemption provision “shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles.”

Petitioner Shawn Montgomery was severely injured when his truck was struck by a vehicle driven by an employee of Caribe Transport II, LLC. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, a freight broker, had arranged the shipment. Montgomery sued, alleging that C.H. Robinson negligently hired Caribe Transport despite its “conditional” federal safety rating. The district court dismissed the claim as preempted under the FAAAA, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed.

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed. The Court focused on the statutory text, observing that it covers laws “related to a price, route, or service” of motor carriers or brokers, while the safety exception preserves state authority to regulate safety “with respect to motor vehicles.” Interpreting “with respect to” to mean “concerns” or “regards,” the Court held that a negligent hiring claim directly concerns motor vehicles—the very purpose of hiring a carrier is to put trucks on the road—and therefore falls within the FAAAA’s safety exception. The Court reasoned that the safety exception does not swallow the preemption provision because it saves only the subset of preempted claims involving motor vehicle safety.

Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence, in which Justice Alito joined, noted the case was “closer than the Court’s opinion perhaps might suggest.” Nonetheless, he agreed that it would be anomalous to expose trucking companies to tort liability while immunizing brokers who select them. He stressed that the decision does not impose strict liability (brokers who exercise reasonable care can avoid liability) and that holding brokers accountable for selecting unsafe carriers incentivizes them to do business only with safe and reliable motor carriers.

• Montgomery ends the freight brokerage industry’s federal preemption defense for negligent carrier selection claims. Brokers can no longer invoke the FAAAA to defeat such claims when the claim sounds in safety—i.e., when a plaintiff alleges the broker selected a carrier with a documented safety deficiency that proximately caused the plaintiff’s injuries. Companies in the freight transportation industry should reassess their exposure and expect increased litigation.
• The decision elevates carrier selection from a purely commercial function to a core safety function for which brokers may be held accountable under state tort law. Freight brokers, third-party logistics providers, and digital freight platforms should review and enhance their carrier-vetting practices. Robust safety compliance programs and documented carrier selection processes will be essential to defending against negligent-selection claims.
• The Court assumed without deciding that a negligent hiring claim is “related to” a broker’s services within the meaning of the preemption provision, leaving room for defendants to argue that some claims do not trigger preemption at all. Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence indicates that brokers who exercise reasonable care should not face liability. Companies should document compliance with industry standards, federal regulatory requirements, and internal due diligence protocols.

9-0: Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion.

When Congress created the SEC in the 1930s, it did not authorize the Commission to seek monetary awards for securities law violations. In the 1970s, lower courts began ordering disgorgement as “ancillary” equitable relief, and eventually the SEC routinely sought and obtained disgorgement awards. In 2020, the Court held that disgorgement must adhere to traditional equitable principles—limited to net profits and “awarded for victims.” See Liu v. SEC, 591 U. S. 71 (2020). Congress then enacted §78u(d)(7), expressly authorizing the SEC to seek disgorgement of “any unjust enrichment” from securities violations.

Sripetch engaged in fraudulent “pump and dump” schemes involving at least 20 penny-stock companies. After consenting to judgment, he objected to the SEC’s $4.1 million disgorgement demand, arguing that Liu required proof that investors suffered financial losses. The Ninth Circuit rejected this argument, deepening a circuit split on the issue.

The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that traditional equitable principles do not require proof of pecuniary loss before a court may order disgorgement. Unlike damages, which are measured by the plaintiff’s loss, disgorgement is measured by the defendant’s wrongful gain. A victim need only show “an interference with protected interests” to be entitled to restitution of the defendant’s profits, even absent any measurable financial loss.

Justice Thomas concurred but wrote separately to argue that disgorgement is now a legal remedy following Congress’s passage of §78u(d)(7). He noted that the SEC obtained $6.1 billion in disgorgement in 2024 while returning only $345 million to victims, and urged the Court to address in a future case whether the Seventh Amendment requires a jury trial when the SEC seeks disgorgement.

• Sripetch confirms that the SEC may obtain disgorgement without proving investor losses, needing only to show the defendant’s conduct invaded investors’ “legally protected interests.” This lowers the bar for enforcement and expands disgorgement exposure for companies and individuals.
• Justice Thomas’s concurrence signals that the jury trial question is likely to return. If the Court ultimately holds that disgorgement requires a jury trial, it would fundamentally alter the SEC’s enforcement model. Companies facing large disgorgement exposure should monitor this issue closely.

6-3: Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh joined; Justice Kagan filed a dissenting opinion. Justice Jackson filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Sotomayor joined, and in which Justice Kagan joined as to Parts I and II.

The ICA designates the SEC as the ICA’s primary enforcer. Section 47(b) addresses rescission of contracts that violate the Act, providing that if such a contract “has been performed, a court may not deny rescission at the instance of any party.” The question was whether this language created an implied private right of action.

Petitioners were closed-end investment funds that adopted control-share provisions limiting large shareholders’ voting power. Saba Capital, an activist hedge fund, challenged these provisions as violating the ICA’s equal-voting-rights requirement and sought rescission under Section 47(b). The district court held that Section 47(b) created an implied private right of action; the Second Circuit affirmed.

The Supreme Court reversed. The Court reiterated that “Congress, not the Judiciary, decides who may enforce the law.” To create a private right of action, the Court noted, a statute generally must contain “rights-creating language” that protects a particular class. Applying these principles, the Court concluded that Section 47(b) does not create a private cause of action. Section 47(b)’s wording “presupposes that parties are already before the court and directs the court’s use of its remedial authority,” but says nothing about individual rights. Rescission is a remedy, not a cause of action. The statutory structure reinforced this conclusion: the ICA’s comprehensive SEC enforcement scheme, combined with Congress’s express creation of private rights of action in two other provisions, indicated that no additional right was intended.

Justice Jackson dissented, joined by Justice Sotomayor and joined in part by Justice Kagan. The dissent argued that text, structure, and statutory history support a private right of action. Justice Kagan filed a separate dissent agreeing on text and structure but declining to join in Justice Jackson’s reliance on legislative history.

• FS Credit Opportunities held that Section 47(b) of the ICA does not empower private parties to sue for rescission. This insulates closed-end funds and other registered investment companies from a broad category of private litigation challenging fund governance decisions and capital structure choices.
• The decision curtails activist hedge funds’ ability to use Section 47(b) to challenge fund governance structures, including control-share provisions. Investment companies that have adopted or are considering such provisions should take comfort that enforcement of the ICA’s voting-rights provisions rests primarily with the SEC.

9-0: Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court.

Section 1 of the FAA provides that the FAA cannot be used to compel arbitration in disputes involving “contracts of employment” of “workers engaged in . . . interstate commerce.”

This case involved a dispute between Flowers Foods, the maker of Wonder Bread and other packaged baked goods, and a franchisee distributor named Angelo Brock. Brock “picks up Flowers’s products from a warehouse in Colorado and delivers them to local stores, all without leaving the State.” Brock sued Flowers in federal court alleging that the company underpaid him and other distributors. Flowers moved the court to send the dispute to arbitration. The district court denied Flowers’s motion, and the Tenth Circuit affirmed, reasoning that Brock was a worker engaged in interstate commerce under Section 1 of the FAA.

The Supreme Court affirmed. As it explained, “Flowers’s sole theory is that, to be engaged in interstate commerce for purposes of § 1, a worker must either cross state lines or interact with a vehicle that does.” The Court began with the statutory text: “Section 1’s exemption applies to ‘workers engaged in . . . interstate commerce,’” and “[n]othing in those terms requires an individual to cross state lines or interact with a vehicle that does.” As a hypothetical, the Court reasoned, a driver is certainly engaged in interstate commerce if he drives goods that will travel in interstate commerce up to the state line, gives them to another delivery truck, and then drives away. Such a driver “played a direct, active, and necessary part in ensuring” the goods traveled interstate. The Court further explained that, in other historical legal contexts, it has held that individuals were engaged in interstate commerce even if they never crossed state lines.

Finally, the Court confirmed that its holding was limited to the question presented. The Court was rejecting “a bright-line rule that an individual can never qualify for § 1’s exemption unless he crosses state lines or interacts with vehicles that do,” but did not decide “other limits § 1 may or may not contain.”

• Claims involving workers who carry goods that travel in interstate commerce may fall outside the scope of the FAA.
• Brock’s rule is relevant to any employer that relies on intrastate distributors, delivery drivers, or last-mile workers to move goods that originated out of state. Under Brock, these employers may not be able to use the FAA to compel arbitration in disputes with such workers, even if the workers never leave a single state.
• Brock also leaves open many questions about the scope of § 1’s exemption, including what exactly qualifies as a “contract of employment,” and whether the analysis changes if a worker takes title to goods traveling in interstate commerce before delivering them to a later destination.

9-0: Justice Jackson delivered the opinion of the Court.

Federal law permits generic manufacturers to market generic versions of FDA approved brand name drugs using a “skinny label” that carves out patented indications. However, a generic manufacturer may still be liable under 35 U.S.C. §271(b) if it “actively induce[s] infringement of a patent.”

Amarin Pharma manufactures the brand-name drug Vascepa (icosapent ethyl), which is FDA approved for severe hypertriglyceridemia (SH indication) and reducing cardiovascular risk (CV indication). Hikma Pharmaceuticals, a generic drug manufacturer, submitted a drug application for generic icosapent ethyl and pursued a “skinny label” limited to the unpatented SH indication, carving out the patented CV indication.

Shortly after Hikma began marketing its generic version, Amarin sued, alleging that Hikma had actively induced infringement of Amarin’s CV indication patents. Amarin relied on the totality of Hikma’s statements across its “skinny label,” information leaflet, website, and press releases to argue that Hikma took “active steps” to encourage infringement. The district court granted Hikma’s motion to dismiss. The Federal Circuit reversed, finding it “at least plausible that a physician could read” the relevant statements “as an instruction or encouragement to” infringe.

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed. The Court clarified that the central question is “whether [Amarin] plausibly alleged that Hikma actively encouraged infringing uses, not merely whether doctors could plausibly read the alleged statements as instructions to infringe.” An induced infringement claim requires: (1) direct infringement by a third party; (2) the inducer’s knowledge that the induced acts constitute patent infringement; and (3) “active steps . . . to encourage direct infringement.” The Court emphasized that induced infringement requires “purposeful, culpable expression and conduct”—affirmative actions designed to bring about infringement. Inducement may be implicit or explicit, but “must be clear to the relevant audience and affirmative.”

Applying these standards, the Court concluded that Amarin failed to allege “more than a sheer possibility” that Hikma actively induced infringement. Hikma’s statements were either required by law, consistent with standard industry practice, or too vague and attenuated to constitute active steps toward infringement. Critically, a failure to affirmatively disclaim an infringing use is not itself inducement, and “mere omissions, inactions, or nonfeasance” cannot support an inducement claim.

• Hikma clarifies the pleading standard for induced infringement claims involving “skinny label” products. Generic manufacturers that comply with the FDA’s skinny label framework will be better positioned to defeat inducement claims at the motion to dismiss stage. Routine marketing statements describing a generic as equivalent to the brand name drug, without more, do not constitute inducement.
• Brand name companies that have invested in post-approval clinical trials to secure expanded indications may find it harder to protect those investments through induced infringement litigation. Innovators should monitor generic manufacturers’ promotional activities and explore alternative strategies for protecting method-of-use patents.
• The Court preserved inducement liability as a meaningful protection for innovators, providing implicit encouragement can give rise to liability when it is “clear” and “affirmative.” Method-of-use patents remain fully enforceable, and brand manufacturers retain the ability to pursue inducement claims where the generic manufacturer’s conduct crosses into active encouragement.

9-0: Justice Jackson delivered the opinion of the Court; Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined; Justice Sotomayor filed a concurring opinion.

The Bankruptcy Code requires debtors to file schedules listing their property, including claims against third parties, and to swear under penalty of perjury that the information is true and correct. Some lower courts apply judicial estoppel to bar lawsuits by debtors who fail to disclose claims in bankruptcy, viewing the omission as an implicit representation that the claim does not exist. The Supreme Court had previously suggested that judicial estoppel may be inapposite where the inconsistent position resulted from “inadvertence or mistake.”

Keathley and his wife filed a Chapter 13 petition in December 2019; the bankruptcy court confirmed a plan providing for interest-free repayment of 100% of creditors’ claims over five years. In August 2021, while the case remained open, Keathley was injured in a car accident with a driver employed by Buddy Ayers Construction. He retained a personal injury attorney and informed his bankruptcy counsel, but neither disclosed the potential claim to the bankruptcy court. Keathley filed suit in December 2021. When Buddy Ayers Construction moved for summary judgment on judicial estoppel grounds, Keathley amended his schedules and submitted affidavits explaining the omission was inadvertent. Applying Fifth Circuit precedent, the district court held that because Keathley knew the underlying facts and had a hypothetical motive to conceal, the omission was not inadvertent, and entered summary judgment. The Fifth Circuit affirmed.

The Supreme Court vacated and remanded. Assuming without deciding that judicial estoppel applies in the bankruptcy context and that “inadvertence or mistake” functions as an exception, the Court held the Fifth Circuit’s rule was both too rigid and too broad. Judicial estoppel is an equitable doctrine, and equity “eschews mechanical rules; it depends on flexibility.” The Fifth Circuit permitted courts to consider only two factors, knowledge of the underlying facts and potential motive to conceal, foreclosing any other evidence of inadvertence. The rule was also overly broad because those two factors will almost always be satisfied, making the exception effectively unavailable. A near-dispositive criterion is a poor fit for a fair inquiry into whether an omission actually resulted from inadvertence or mistake.

Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined, questioning the foundation of judicial estoppel, observing that it entered the federal mainstream only in recent decades, lacks clear authority in any statute, rule, or traditional inherent power, and should be reexamined in a future case.

Justice Sotomayor concurred separately, arguing that applying judicial estoppel during pending bankruptcy proceedings hurts creditors by “vaporiz[ing] assets” while giving the tort defendant a windfall, and that bankruptcy courts can better address belated disclosures through sanctions, plan modifications, or conversion to Chapter 7.

• Keathley requires courts to examine the totality of the circumstances when assessing whether a debtor’s omission was “inadvertent or mistaken” for judicial estoppel purposes, displacing the rigid two-factor tests in the Fifth and Tenth Circuits and aligning them with the holistic approach in the Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits. Parties facing judicial estoppel defenses should be prepared to present—or contest—a full evidentiary record, including evidence of good-faith reliance on counsel, local bankruptcy practice, post-discovery conduct, and absence of actual prejudice to creditors.
• The Court expressly declined to decide whether judicial estoppel applies in bankruptcy at all, whether bad faith is required, or whether the doctrine has a sound foundation in federal law. Justice Thomas’s concurrence questioning the doctrine’s legitimacy and Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence questioning its utility in pending bankruptcies signal receptivity to further challenges. Litigants should monitor whether lower courts narrow or decline to apply judicial estoppel in bankruptcy cases, particularly where the bankruptcy court retains jurisdiction to address harm from belated disclosures.
• The decision underscores the importance of timely disclosure of all claims, including contingent and unliquidated claims, in bankruptcy schedules. Although the holding makes it easier for debtors to argue inadvertence, the risk of judicial estoppel remains real. Companies and individuals in bankruptcy should ensure that bankruptcy counsel is promptly notified of any potential claims arising during the case and that amended schedules are filed without delay.

8-1: Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined; Justice Kagan filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Sotomayor joined; Justice Jackson filed a dissenting opinion.

The First Amendment protects the “inalienable right of every individual to decide for himself ‘how best to speak,’” and laws that regulate speech based on its content are “presumptively unconstitutional” and trigger strict scrutiny. Laws that go further and discriminate based on viewpoint—dictating what “opinion or perspective” individuals may express—represent an even “more blatant” violation of the First Amendment.

Colorado enacted a law prohibiting licensed counselors from engaging in “conversion therapy” with minors, which is defined to include any attempt, including through speech, to change a client’s “sexual orientation or gender identity,” including efforts to change “behaviors,” “gender expressions,” or “romantic attraction[s].” The law permits counselors to express acceptance and support for clients exploring their identity or undergoing gender transition, but forbids speech attempting to change those attributes in the other direction. Kaley Chiles, a licensed mental-health counselor in Colorado who provides talk therapy on a wide variety of issues, including sexuality and gender identity, brought a pre-enforcement First Amendment challenge, arguing that some of her clients—including minors—wish to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions or change sexual behaviors. Both the district court and the Tenth Circuit denied her request for a preliminary injunction, concluding that the law regulated “professional conduct” only incidentally affecting speech, and thus warranted only rational basis review.

The Supreme Court reversed. The Court held that as applied to Chiles’s talk therapy, Colorado’s law regulates the content of her speech and goes further to discriminate on the basis of viewpoint: it permits her to speak in favor of clients accepting their orientation or transitioning, but forbids her from speaking in favor of clients who wish to change. The Court rejected the lower courts’ characterization of the law as regulating “conduct” rather than “speech,” holding that speech does not become “conduct” merely because a government labels it a “treatment” or “therapeutic modality.” The Court emphasized that “the exercise of constitutional rights” cannot be “circumscribed by mere labels.”

The Court further held that the fact that the State’s viewpoint regulation falls only on licensed health care professionals does not change the analysis. The First Amendment’s protections “extend to licensed professionals much as they do everyone else.” Because the law discriminates based on viewpoint, it warrants strict scrutiny, which is far more demanding than the rational-basis review or intermediate scrutiny that lower courts had applied in similar cases.

The Court also rejected the argument that the law regulates speech only “incident to conduct” under established exceptions for speech integrally related to unlawful conduct or expressive conduct regulated for non-content reasons. Here, the clients’ underlying conduct, seeking to change their own behaviors, expressions, or attractions, is itself lawful; Colorado does not prohibit clients from pursuing those changes, only counselors from speaking to help them do so.

Justice Kagan filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Sotomayor joined. She agreed that the Colorado law as applied here is viewpoint-based and violates the First Amendment, but wrote separately to note that a viewpoint-neutral content-based law regulating health providers’ speech “would raise a different and more difficult question” for another day.

Justice Jackson dissented. She argued that the law is a permissible exercise of the State’s traditional police power to regulate the practice of medicine, and that prohibiting a particular treatment modality for minors—even one delivered through speech—does not target “speech as speech” but rather regulates professional conduct with only incidental effects on expression.

• Chiles holds that when a state restricts what a licensed professional may say, and does so based on the viewpoint expressed, the restriction is subject to strict scrutiny, regardless of whether the state characterizes it as regulating “professional conduct.” The principle extends well beyond conversion therapy bans to any regulatory regime that permits professionals to express one perspective to clients while forbidding the opposite. This has direct implications for industries in which licensed professionals deliver services primarily through speech, including healthcare, financial services, law, and consulting, and for any company subject to state-level mandates or restrictions on what its licensed workforce may communicate to clients or customers.
• The Court’s holding that licensed professionals enjoy First Amendment protections “much as . . . everyone else” reinforces National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, 585 U.S. 755 (2018), and further limits the government’s ability to impose speech restrictions under the banner of “professional regulation.” Any state law that dictates what a professional may or may not say to clients, including mandatory counseling scripts, informed-consent mandates that compel particular messaging, restrictions on recommending disfavored strategies or treatments, or prohibitions on discussing certain options, must now be evaluated through the lens of whether it discriminates based on viewpoint. Companies should evaluate whether state-imposed speech requirements on their licensed workforce may be vulnerable to First Amendment challenge under Chiles.
• The decision also creates tension between state-mandated coverage, referral, or disclosure requirements and the First Amendment rights of individual providers. Organizations that exclude professionals from networks or platforms based on the content of their client-facing speech (rather than evidence of harm) should review those criteria for viewpoint neutrality.