The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled in favor of Germany in a lawsuit brought by the heirs of several Jewish art dealers who are seeking compensation for what they describe as the forced sale of medieval Christian relics under the Nazi regime. In Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp, the justices unanimously vacated a lower-court… Read More

The Supreme Court on Monday morning released orders from the justices’ private conference on Friday, Jan. 22. The justices once again did not act on several high-profile petitions for review, including the challenge to Nevada’s limits on religious gatherings, the challenge to the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after the 15th… Read More

In a speech at Harvard Law School in 2015, Justice Elena Kagan told the audience that “we’re all textualists now” – that is, that any effort to interpret a statute begins (and often ends) with the language of the statute. That principle may ultimately prove dispositive in BP v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore,… Read More

The Supreme Court issued orders on Tuesday morning from the justices’ private conference last Friday, Jan. 15. The order list was most notable for what the justices did not do: Not only did they not grant any new cases, but they did not act at all on any of the high-profile cases that they considered… Read More

The Supreme Court on Monday morning issued more orders from the justices’ private conference last week. After adding 14 new cases to their docket for the term on Friday afternoon, the justices were not expected to grant review in additional cases on Monday – and they did not. Monday’s order list was nonetheless noteworthy because… Read More

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Tuesday in a case questioning whether a lawsuit seeking only symbolic damages can go forward after the government changes the unconstitutional policy being challenged, or whether the case is instead moot – that is, no longer a live controversy. The issue comes to the justices in Uzuegbunam… Read More

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that it was too early to resolve the legality of the Trump administration’s plan to exclude people who are in the country illegally from the state-by-state breakdown used to allocate seats in the House of Representatives. The decision puts at least a temporary end to the litigation challenging the… Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday tossed out a pair of lower-court rulings that had permitted states to enforce COVID-related restrictions at worship services. The two brief orders from the justices instruct the lower courts to take another look at religious groups’ challenges to restrictions in Colorado and New Jersey – and this time, the justices… Read More

The Supreme Court issued orders on Monday from the justices’ private conference last week. The justices had already granted one case, involving class certification in a securities-fraud case, from that conference on Friday, so it was no surprise that they did not add any new cases to their merits docket for this term. The justices… Read More

Four states – Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – urged the Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon to reject Texas’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Using strong language rarely seen in Supreme Court filings, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told the justices that they should “not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and… Read More