U.S. Supreme Court

SCOTUSBlog has an interesting analysis on an oral argument this week in the U.S. Supreme Court on forum selection clauses. The blog predicts that the Fifth Circuit will be reversed in the first forum selection clause case to get to the justices in a quarter-century. The justices also seemed to favor an argument from an amici brief that a "forum-selection clause gives [defendant] Atlantic Marine a complete defense to litigation in any excluded court," SCOTUSBlog reported.

Broadcasters who lost their copyright challenge in the Second Circuit to Aereo's Internet streaming service of free broadcast TV programming are going to seek certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court, Variety reported in an exclusive. Contrary rulings against Aereo rival FilmOn X could set up a circuit split if the Ninth Cicrcuit followed the lead of trial-court rulings.

There was a lot of buzz about the study finding that half of the links in U.S. Supreme Court cases don't work anymore. Moreover, 70 percent of the links in law reviews and other law journals also have rotten away. But what I love about this study is that the scholars behind it are part of an effort to come up with a solution.

Jonathan Zittrain wrotes that "the Harvard Library Innovation Lab has pioneered a project to unite libraries so that link rot can be mitigated.  We are joined by about thirty law libraries around the world to start Perma.cc, which will allow those libraries on direction of authors and journal editors to store permanent caches of otherwise ephemeral links."

Academics are great at revealing problems, but how often do they also figure out a way to solve them?

(Hat tip to Sarah Kiley for sending this post my way.)

The First Amendment Center has this report from Tony Mauro on six First Amendment cases on the U.S. Supreme Court's docket this year, including a case in which media groups are worried that news organizations could be left exposed to defamation lawsuits involving true news reports. That case regards a Colorado Supreme Court decision upholding a defamation judgment against an airline whose report about a "disgruntled employee was largely true."

One case over campaign finance was argued today. The Washington Post has "everything you need to know about McCutcheon vs FEC" and why it could be the next Citizens United:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/10/08/supreme-court-...

Nonprofit Quarterly reports that many American Indian legal practitioners are finding that “'basically any issue headed for the Supreme Court is probably not going to be decided in favor of the tribes.”' Their advice? Avoid going to the U.S. Supreme Court if at all possible. The other strategy is make the cases as strong as possible: the Native American Rights Fund and the National Congress of American Indians have created the Tribal Supreme Court Project to work up cases before going to the highest court in the land.

In December, the Supreme Court will hear a case about the interpretation of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. My prior post on that case: http://www.cultivatedcompendium.com/news/us-supreme-court-set-hear-argum...

While the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled FDA approval of medical devices preempts tort lawsuits over medical-device injuries, plaintiff "Arizonan Richard Stengel says federal law regulating medical devices does not trump his claims under state law because Medtronic Inc failed to alert the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to known risks associated with the pain medication pump and catheter that was implanted in his abdomen," Reuters reports. The high court has asked for input from President Obama's administration before making a decision on granting certiorari on hearing the appeal.

The New York Times' Adam Liptak reports on the U.S. Supreme Court's momentous docket this fall: the "court’s new term, which starts Monday, will feature an extraordinary series of cases on consequential constitutional issues, including campaign contributions, abortion rights, affirmative action, public prayer and presidential power."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, speaking at the University of Alabama School of Law last week, said the nation's highest court is a "'very coastal, urban and elite law school court,' alluding to the Yale and Harvard pedigrees of most of the jurists, who are also predominantly from communities on the East or West coasts. 'That seems kind of crazy to me and not a good thing,' she said," according to The Tuscaloosa News.

Many have suggested that Supreme Court nominees should be graduates of law schools other than Harvard and Yale.

Wired looks at how the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Smith v. Maryland has been used to justify the massive level of surveillance conducted of Americans. That 1979 decision started with a purse-snatcher whose obsession with the victim of his crime led police to use a pen register to track all of his phone calls, including the multitude of times he rang her. "Nobody is more surprised by the long-term ramifications of the case than the prosecutor who won it," Wired reports. "'It was a routine robbery case. The circumstances are radically different today. There wasn’t anything remotely [like] a massive surveillance of citizens’ phone calls or communications,' [Stephen] Sachs says. 'To extend it to what we now know as massive surveillance, in my personal view, is a bridge too far. It certainly wasn’t contemplated by those involved in Smith.”'

Reuters reports that the U.S. Supreme Court did not take action today on a case involving what Argentina owes some bondholders after its default over a dozen years ago. "Based on the court's usual practice, Tuesday's development may mean either that the court will decline to hear the case or that it will ask the Obama administration to weigh in on whether the dispute is worth the court's attention," Reuters reported.

My prior post is here: http://www.cultivatedcompendium.com/news/argentinian-debt-default-heads-...