All Cases
Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp. (2012)
Whether pharmaceutical company sales representatives are entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
CCA Associates v. United States (2009)
Whether Acts of Congress requiring property owners to rent apartments below-market value for longer than the property owner agreed to constitutes a taking under the Fifth Amendment.
California Building Industry Association v. City of San Jose (2016)
Whether a California law mandating that all new housing buildings with 20 or more units reserve fifteen percent of the total units to be sold below market value constitutes a violation of the Takings Clauses of the United States Constitution and California Constitutions.
Boy Scouts of America v. Wyman (2002)
May Connecticut exact a price for abiding by constitutionally protected principles by excluding the Boy Scouts from a generally available government subsidy unless they surrender their principles and abandon policies that express those principles?
Bishop v. Smith (2014)
Whether prohibition on same-sex marriage directly violates the Fourteenth Amendments Privileges and Immunities, Due Process, and Equal Protection Clauses.
Baylor v. U.S. (2008)
Whether the Hobbs Act, which allows for federal prosecution of extortion and robbery that impedes the flow of interstate commerce, has been used unconstitutionally to prosecute extremely minor crimes that have a minuscule effect on interstate commerce.
California Democratic Party v. Jones (2000)
Whether Californias Proposition 198, which forces political parties to allow opposition party members to vote in their primaries, violates the First Amendments guarantee of freedom of association.
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission v. U.S. (2012)
Whether the Federal Government is liable under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment for temporarily flooding property it does not own.
Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. (2013)
Whether the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) preempts voter registration requirements set by states.
Trunk v. City of San Diego (2011)
Whether the existence of a cross on a federally held memorial site violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Szajer v. City of Los Angeles, et al. (2011)
Whether the Los Angeles Police Department conducted an illegal search at a gun shop, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Tuaua v. United States (2015)
Whether individuals born in United States territories, but not in the fifty states, are entitled to birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Hollingsworth v. Perry (2013)
Whether Californias Proposition 8, a voter-enacted ballot initiative that amended the California Constitution to allow only marriage between a man and a woman, violated the rights of same-sex couples to marriage under due process and equal protection provided by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, and whether if California, having previously recognized same-sex marriage, can over-turn the this law through a referendum.
American Civil Liberties Union v. National Security Agency (2007)
Whether the National Security Agency (NSA) Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) of data mining and warrantless interception of international telephone and email communications of persons within the United States violates the free speech and free association clauses of the First Amendment, privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, Administrative Procedures Act (APA), Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and exceeds Executive authority under Article II of the United States Constitution.
Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Association (2015)
Whether a federal agency must engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking before it can significantly alter an interpretive rule that articulates an interpretation of an agency regulation.
United States v. Hatch (2013)
Whether the Thirteenth Amendment grants the Federal Government sweeping power to enact laws that are thought to be able to cure social ills who may or may not be able to trace their genesis to slavery in the early United States.
Vargas v. City of Salinas (2012)
Whether the City of Salinas was illegally involved in the campaign against Measure O. Whether Californias Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) legislation precluded Vargas lawsuit.
Horne v. Department of Agriculture (2015)
Whether the portion of the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 (AMAA) that authorizes the Department of Agriculture to seize portions of raisin harvests to maintain stability in the raisin market is an unconstitutional taking of personal property without just compensation under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Foster v. Vilsack (2016)
Whether federal courts should defer to an agency construction of an interpretive field manual. Additionally, whether the use of a remote comparison site, pre-selected ten years prior and without notice to the petitioners or an opportunity to be heard, as the sole means of determining that their land supports wetland plants, violates their rights to due process of law under the Fifth Amendment.
Arrigoni v. Durham (2015)
Whether Arrigoni Enterprises' private land being denied a permit for development was, in essence, an unconstitutional inverse condemnation of Arrigoni Enterprises' land. Additionally, whether the denial of permit applications violated Arrigoni Enterprises' rights to substantive due process and equal protection under the law.
American Electric Power Company, Inc. v. Connecticut (2011)
Whether fossil-fuel fired power plants can be subjected to lawsuits to cure the "public nuisance of global warming."
Sissel v. United States Department of Health and Human Services (2014)
Whether the individual mandate clause in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, which requires health insurance coverage or a shared responsibility payment, violates the Commerce and Origination Clauses.
Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project (2015)
Whether disparate-impact claimsthose alleging that apparently neutral employment practices nonetheless adversely affect certain protected groupsare cognizable under the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
Morgan v. Plano Independent School District (2009)
Whether prohibitions on student-initiated discussions and distributions of religious materials during non-instructional school hours constitutes a violation of free speech under the First Amendment.
Harmon v. Kimmel (2011)
Whether rent controls and similar regulations placed on landlords qualify as unconstitutional takings and so require just compensation under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Also, whether such rent control schemes violate the Contract Clause of Article I, Section 10, which prohibits states from impairing the obligation of contracts.
Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut (2005)
Whether the Public Use Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits the government from transferring real property from one private owner to another to further economic development.
Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs (2009)
Whether a particular symbolic congressional resolution strips Hawaii of its sovereign authority to sell, exchange, or transfer any state-owned land unless and until it reaches a political settlement with native Hawaiians about the status of that land.
Zubik v. Burwell (2016)
Whether the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) if applied to religious, but non-church, non-profit organiza-tions.
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. (2014)
Whether the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause prohibit the federal government from coercing business owners to provide health insurance that covers contraceptives in violation of their religious beliefs.
Bostic v. Schaefer (2013)
Whether Virginias laws prohibiting same-sex marriage and refusing to recognize out-of-state homosexual marriages violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses.
Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)
Whether the Equal Protection clause prohibits a publicly funded university from using race as a prominent factor in determining student admissions.
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012)
Whether the Commerce Clause or the Taxing and Spending Clause grants the federal government the power to tax or fine individuals who abstain from purchasing health insurance, and whether the federal government violates the Spending Clause or principles of federalism by using leverage against the states to expand state-run Medicaid programs.
Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. (2009)
Whether the Federal Communications Commissions liability proceedings against Fox Television for its broadcasting expletives on public television was an arbitrary or capricious exercise of its statutory authority.
Elmbrook School District v. Doe (2012)
Whether holding a public high school graduation ceremony at a church violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Arizona v. United States (2012)
Whether state governments have the authority to enact immigration policies that enforce federal immigration law. Specifically, whether Arizona Law S.B. 1070, which essentially required state and local police to enforce federal immigration laws, usurped the federal governments constitutional authority to regulate and enforce immigration policy in violation of the Supremacy Clause.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee (2010)
Whether Congresss prohibition on corporate-funded electioneering communication advertisements naming federal candidates 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a general election violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.
Autocam Corporation v. Burwell (2014)
Whether the First Amendments Free Exercise Clause prohibits the government from interfering with the religious practices of owners of privately owned, for-profit companies. Specifically, whether companies must provide employees with health coverage that covers abortions even if doing so violates the owners religious convictions.
Boy Scouts v. Dale (2000)
Whether the First Amendment prohibits state courts from compelling private organizations to place in leadership positions individuals who, by both word and deed, convey messages that are contrary to the moral messages that the organization itself seeks to convey. Specifically, whether the New Jersey courts violated the Boy Scouts First Amendment right to expressive association by requiring it to accept homosexual scoutmasters under its Law Against Discrimination (LAD).
Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn (2011)
Whether the Establishment Clause prohibits states from providing tax breaks for donations to charitable organizations if those donations go to Christian schools.
Harris v. Quinn (2014)
Whether a union requiring a class of home health care workers hired by the disabled person, but paid from state and federal funds to pay union fees despite their abstaining from union membership violates their First Amendment rights of freedom of association, freedom of speech, and to petition the government for redress of grievances, as applied to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Murr v. Wisconsin (2017)
Whether a government regulation restricting the use of the privately owned land constitutes a regulatory taking under the Fifth Amendment. Specifically, whether an ordinance that prohibits the individual development or sale of adjacent, substandard lots under common ownership, unless an individual lot has at least one acre of net project area, violates the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which reads, nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Montana Shooting Sports Association v. Holder (2013)
Whether the intrastate manufacture and sale of firearms is beyond the scope of Congresss power to regulate interstate commerce, including federal manufacturing and licensing requirements.
Kobach v. Election Assistance Commission (2014)
Whether the acting executive director of the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) has the discretionary authority to deny a states request to include state-approved, proof-of-citizenship language on a federal voter-information form.
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004)
Whether the president can indefinitely detain a United States citizen captured overseas as an enemy combatant and hold him without access to judicial due process.
Fyock v. Sunnyvale (2015)
Whether a city ordinance outlawing the possession of firearm magazines having capacities of more than ten rounds violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
Evenwel v. Abbott (2016)
Whether state voting districts based on total populationsrather than total voter populationsviolates the one-person, one-vote principle of the Fourteenth Amendments Equal Protection Clause, especially when those districts have significantly disproportionate numbers of eligible voters.
Amodei v. Nevada State Senate (2004)
Whether a state legislature can pass a tax-increasing budget by a simple majority vote, at the direction of the state supreme court, despite the existence of a state constitutional provision that requires a two-thirds majority to raise taxes.
Latta v. Otter (2014)
Whether three of Idahos laws that variously recognize only marriages between a man and a woman, a second that provides no mechanism for recognizing the validity of out-of-state, same-sex marriages, and a third law banning the legal recognition of same-sex marriages in general, violate the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.
Kitchen v. Herbert (2014)
Whether the three provisions of Utah law prohibiting marriage between members of the same sex and defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman violate individual rights guaranteed under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment. Therefore, whether Utah must issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and recognize out-of-state marriage licenses of same-sex couples.
Hickenlooper v. Kerr (2016)
Whether individual state legislators have standing to challenge a voter-approved initiative that deprives the legislature of their power to raise taxes, placing that power instead directly in the hands of voters. Also, whether claims made under the Republican Guarantee Clause are nonjusticiable political questions to be handled outside of the federal judiciary.Second, whether bypassing state legislators to enact laws directly by the people is a violation of the Republican Guarantee Clause, which reads, The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government ... In short, whether some or all direct democracy, in which the people vote directly on proposed laws, unconstitutionally detracts from the republican form of government, which some contend allows only representative lawmaking.
Peruta v. California (2016)
As interpreted by a particular county, whether a state law that effectively bans the carrying of firearms by ordinary, law-abiding citizens violates their right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.
SBA List v. Driehaus (2014)
Whether states can proscribe political advertisements from non-profit political advocacy groups if they determine that such advertisements are false.
Obergefell v. Hodges
Whether homosexuals have a fundamental right to marry under the 14th Amendment, and thus whether the Supreme Court can order states to issue gay marriage licenses and to recognize out-of-state gay marriage licenses, despite state laws or amendments to the contrary.
Bond v. United States (2014)
On the question of justiciability, whether a person indicted for violating a federal statute has standing to challenge the law on grounds that Congress exceeded its powers under the Constitution, intruding upon the sovereignty and authority of the states in violation of the 10th Amendment. The Supreme Court ruled on this issue in the first Bond case in 2011.On the question of the merits of the case, whether a federal statute, enacted by Congress to implement an international treaty, can be used to charge American citizens with what otherwise would be purely local crimes. In other words, whether the president, in exercising his power to make treaties with the consent of the Senate, can increase Congresss enumerated powers to legislate on domestic matters. The Court ruled on this issue in the second Bond case in 2014.
Gonzales v. Carhart (2007)
Whether Congresss Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is constitutional. Specifically, whether the Act places an undue burden on abortion-seekers, based on holdings from Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002)
Whether Ohios school voucher program offends the Establishment Clause of the Constitution by allowing parents to direct tax money for tuition to private schools that may have a religious affiliation.
Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014)
Whether holding opening prayer at local board meetings violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits Congress and the states from establishing a religion.
McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010)
Whether the Second Amendment is applicable to the states and local governments, and thus whether a citys effective ban on handguns violates the Second Amendment.
Jackson v. City and County of San Francisco (2014)
Whether San Franciscos law requiring homeowners or residents to keep handguns stored in locked containers, or effectively disabled with trigger locks, unless carried on ones person, violates the plaintiffs right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.Secondly, whether San Franciscos law prohibiting the sale of non-sporting, expanding, or fragmenting ammunition violates the plaintiffs right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.
Fisher v. University of Texas (2013, 2016)
Whether race-conscious, affirmative-action admissions programs at colleges and universities are in conflict with the Equal Protection Clause.
