Court to hear seven cases

Friday, January 05, 2007

Court to hear seven cases

Posted by Lyle Denniston at 07:00 PM

The Supreme Court on Friday added seven new cases to its decision docket for the current Term, including a significant dispute on the duty of federal agencies to avoid actions that harm endangered species even if doing so would override their own controlling law. The outcome of the coming ruling in a pair of consolidated cases will determine the primacy of the Endangered Species Act. The cases are National Association of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife (06-340) and EPA v. Defenders of Wildlife (05-549; petition, BIO, reply).

The Court ordered expedited briefing in only two of the seven cases it agreed to hear. In those two, the briefing presumably will be completed in time for the cases to be heard in the March session, which begins March 19. The other cases presumably will go over to the April sitting, beginning April 16. Today's orders list can be found here.

The endangered species case grows out of a move by the state of Arizona to take over from EPA the program of regulating permits for discharge of pollutants under the Clean Water Act. The Court granted both cases, and added to the review the question of whether the EPA decision to transfer this permitting authority was wrongly based upon inconsistent views of the Endangered Species Act and, if so, whether the case should have been sent back to EPA for further review.

Among the newly granted cases is a Texas death row case, testing whether it is unconstitutional to execute an individual who is factually aware of the reason he faces execution, but because of mental illness has a delusion about the state's actual reason for putting him to death. It is Panetti v. Quarterman (06-6407). Doctors who examined Scott Louis Panetti found him to have a mental disorder, although they concluded that he knew he was to be executed after killing his wife's parents. But the doctors concluded that Panetti had a personal belief that he was going to be put to death by the state because he was "preaching the gospel" and that the "forces of evil" were set against him. His lawyers claim that he is too mentally unstable to be executed without violating the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The appeal is supported by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. It and Panetti's petition argue that the lower court decision in his case runs against the Supreme Court's 1986 decision in Ford v. Wainwright barring the execution of the mentally ill.

The Court agreed to hear a novel case on whether private prep schools have a constitutional right to talk to prospective student athletes to recruit them, when that violates a no-recruiting rule those schools have voluntarily agreed to obey as members of a state sport competition organization. The case has been before the Court once before. It is Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association v. Brentwood Academy (06-427; petition, BIO, reply).

Added to the list for review also was a case on whether inferences of innocence may be considered at all by a court in deciding whether someone who has been sued for federal securities violations had a guilty state of mind. The case is Tellabs Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights (06-484; petiton, BIO, reply). It involves interpretation of the requirement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that a private lawsuit claiming securities fraud must be dismissed if there is no strong inference of a mental state intent on violating the law. This is one of the two cases in which expedited briefing was ordered.

The Court indicated it would resolve the question of whether, under federal job bias law, an employer may be held liable for the alleged bias of a subordinate worker, if that worker did not actually make the employment decision at issue. The case of BCI Coca-Cola Co. of Los Angeles v. EEOC (06-341; petition) involves the so-called "cat's paw" theory of liability under Title VII job bias law. The Court agreed to hear the case even though the Solicitor General argued that this particular case was a poor vehicle for facing an issue that has divided the lower courts widely.

In another labor-related case, the Court granted review of a case it had seen before, on the rights of home care workers to overtime pay. The issue is whether overtime pay is due those who are employed by outside agencies, not directly by families, to provide care for the aged or infirm. The Supreme Court had sent the case of Long Island Care at Home v. Coke back to the Second Circuit a year ago to examine a new Labor Department document on the issue. The Second Circuit reaffirmed its view that such home care workers were entitled to overtime pay. The case returned to the Supreme Court as docket 06-593 (petition).

The Court also said it would sort out the scope of federal law on liability for lost or damaged freight, when the goods move by multimodal transport and the whole journey is covered by a single "through" bill of lading, and not a separate bill for the inland leg during which the cargo was stolen. The case is Altadis USA v. Sea Star Line (06-606, petition). It is a sequel to the Court's ruling in 2004 in Southern Railway v. Kirby dealing with bills of lading in ocean and land transport. This is the second case in which expedited briefing was ordered.