The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is headed by a single director, who is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve a five-year term. Once that director is in office, she can only be removed by the president for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” This morning both a California… Read More

This morning the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference last week. The court granted four petitions for review, including two consolidated cases (discussed in a separate post) involving the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. All the cases granted today are expected to be argued next fall, with a decision… Read More

Just as it did almost eight years ago, the Supreme Court will once again weigh in on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. The justices announced today that they had granted two petitions involving the ACA – one by California and a group of states, the other by Texas and a different… Read More

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction requires that a child who is abducted from her “habitual residence” be returned to that country, so that the courts there can resolve any custody issues between the child’s parents. As a result of this “automatic return” rule, the determination of the child’s “habitual… Read More

It has been 10 years since 15-year-old Sergio Hernandez was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Jesus Mesa, while Hernandez was playing on the Mexican side of the border. The Hernandez family filed a lawsuit in federal court, seeking to hold Mesa responsible for their son’s death, but today the Supreme Court,… Read More

The congressional commission that investigated the 2008 financial crisis concluded that the United States’ consumer-protection system was “too fragmented to be effective.” In response to that finding, in 2010 Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as part of the Dodd-Frank Act. The CFPB – whose website describes the bureau as a “U.S. government agency… Read More

The Supreme Court returned from its winter recess today with just one new grant from last week’s private conference, but the newest addition to the court’s merits docket is a significant one. Next term the justices will hear oral argument in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a challenge by several foster parents and Catholic Social… Read More

Today the Supreme Court released the calendar for its April argument session, the final argument session scheduled for this term. During the April session, which begins on April 20 and ends on April 29, the justices will hear eight hours of oral argument over six days. The session will include several high-profile cases, including a… Read More

In August 1998, truck bombs exploded outside the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing more than 200 people and leaving more than a thousand others injured. Next week the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a lawsuit brought by the victims and their family members against Sudan, seeking to recover damages for that… Read More

The congressional commission that investigated the 2008 financial crisis concluded that the United States’ consumer-protection system was “too fragmented to be effective.” In response to that finding, in 2010 Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as part of the Dodd-Frank Act. The CFPB – whose website describes the bureau as a “U.S. government agency… Read More