The Supreme Court will ring in 2019 with a nearly full argument calendar. Today the justices released the calendar for the January 2019 sitting, which begins on January 7. The justices will hear oral argument in five cases (two per day on Monday and Tuesday, followed by one on Wednesday) during the first week of the sitting; during the second week, they will hear oral argument in six cases, two per day from Monday through Wednesday.
One of the last cases of the sitting will be familiar to eight of the nine justices: The justices heard oral argument in Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, in early October, before Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed. Earlier this month, however, the justices announced that the case would be argued again – presumably to allow Kavanaugh to break a 4-4 tie.
A full list of the cases slated for January, along with a brief description of the issues involved in each case, is available below.
Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht (Jan. 7): Whether a plaintiff can bring a state-law claim for failure to warn about the risks from a drug when the Food and Drug Administration rejected the drug manufacturer’s proposal to warn about the risk
Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP (Jan. 7): Whether the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act applies to foreclosure proceedings that do not require the lender to take the borrower to court
Herrera v. Wyoming (Jan. 8): Validity of 1868 treaty giving Crow Tribe of Indians the right to hunt on the “unoccupied lands of the United States”
Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.Com LLC (Jan. 8): Requirements for making “registration of [a] copyright claim”
Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt (Jan. 9): Whether the Supreme Court should overrule its earlier case allowing one state to be sued in another state’s courts without its consent
Thacker v. Tennessee Valley Authority (Jan. 14): Proper test to determine whether a governmental entity is immune from lawsuits
Rimini Street, Inc. v. Oracle USA, Inc. (Jan. 14): Meaning of “full costs” for prevailing party under the Copyright Act
Home Depot USA v. Jackson (Jan. 15): Whether third-party counterclaim defendants can remove claims against them to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act
Azar v. Allina Health Services (Jan. 15): Whether the Department of Health and Human Services must conduct notice-and-comment rulemaking before providing instructions to a Medicare administrative contractor making initial determinations of payments due under Medicare
Knick v. Township of Scott, Pa. (Jan. 16): Whether the court should reconsider the requirement that, before a property owner can file a lawsuit in federal court seeking compensation for the government’s unconstitutional “taking” of property, the owner must pursue all available state-court remedies
Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association v. Blair (Jan. 16): Whether the Constitution’s 21st Amendment gives states the authority to regulate liquor sales by giving liquor licenses only to individuals or companies that have resided in the state for a particular amount of time
This post was also published on SCOTUSblog.