Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. This case concerns the Board of Immigration Appeals' (BIA or Board) policy for deciding when resident aliens may apply to the Attorney General for relief from deportation under a now-repealed provision of the immigration laws. We hold that the BIA's approach is arbitrary and capricious. The legal background of this case is complex, but the principle guiding our decision is anything but. When an administrative agency sets policy, it must...
Justice SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), a federal court may not grant habeas relief to a state prisoner with respect to any claim that has been "adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings" unless the state-court adjudication "resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States."...
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. This case concerns the jurisdiction of state courts over corporations organized and operating abroad. We address, in particular, this question: Are foreign subsidiaries of a United States parent corporation amenable to suit in state court on claims unrelated to any activity of the subsidiaries in the forum State A bus accident outside Paris that took the lives of two 13-year-old boys from North Carolina gave rise to the litigation we here...
Chief Justice ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court. Under Arizona law, candidates for state office who accept public financing can receive additional money from the State in direct response to the campaign activities of privately financed candidates and independent expenditure groups. Once a set spending limit is exceeded, a publicly financed candidate receives roughly one dollar for every dollar spent by an opposing privately financed candidate. The publicly financed candidate also...
Justice KENNEDY announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Justice SCALIA, and Justice THOMAS join. Whether a person or entity is subject to the jurisdiction of a state court despite not having been present in the State either at the time of suit or at the time of the alleged injury, and despite not having consented to the exercise of jurisdiction, is a question that arises with great frequency in the routine course of litigation. The rules and...
Justice SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court. We consider whether a California law imposing restrictions on violent video games comports with the First Amendment. I California Assembly Bill 1179 (2005), Cal. Civ.Code Ann. 1746-1746.5 (West 2009) (Act), prohibits the sale or rental of "violent video games" to minors, and requires their packaging to be labeled "18." The Act covers games "in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or...
Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court. Vermont law restricts the sale, disclosure, and use of pharmacy records that reveal the prescribing practices of individual doctors. Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 18, 4631 (Supp.2010). Subject to certain exceptions, the information may not be sold, disclosed by pharmacies for marketing purposes, or used for marketing by pharmaceutical manufacturers. Vermont argues that its prohibitions safeguard medical privacy and diminish the likelihood that...
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part III-A. * This case concerns the standard of causation applicable in cases arising under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), 45 U.S.C. 51 et seq. FELA renders railroads liable for employees' injuries or deaths "resulting in whole or in part from [carrier] negligence." 51. In accord with the text and purpose of the Act, this Court's decision in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500 , 77 S.Ct. 443,...
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court. This "suit has, in course of time, become so complicated, that ... no two ... lawyers can talk about it for five minutes, without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause: innumerable young people have married into it;" and, sadly, the original parties "have died out of it." A "long procession of [judges] has come in and gone out" during that time, and still the suit "...
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part III-B-2. * These consolidated lawsuits involve state tort-law claims based on certain drug manufacturers' alleged failure to provide adequate warning labels for generic metoclopramide. The question presented is whether federal drug regulations applicable to generic drug manufacturers directly conflict with, and thus pre-empt, these state-law claims. We hold that they do. I Metoclopramide is a drug designed to speed the...
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part IV and footnote 6. * In Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 2527 , 174 L.Ed.2d 314 (2009), this Court held that a forensic laboratory report stating that a suspect substance was cocaine ranked as testimonial for purposes of the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause. The report had been created specifically to serve as evidence in a criminal proceeding. Absent stipulation, the Court ruled, the...
Justice SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court. We are presented with one of the most expansive class actions ever. The District Court and the Court of Appeals approved the certification of a class comprising about one and a half million plaintiffs, current and former female employees of petitioner Wal-Mart who allege that the discretion exercised by their local supervisors over pay and promotion matters violates Title VII by discriminating against women. In addition to injunctive and...
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. We address in this opinion the question whether the plaintiffs (several States, the city of New York, and three private land trusts) can maintain federal common law public nuisance claims against carbon-dioxide emitters (four private power companies and the federal Tennessee Valley Authority). As relief, the plaintiffs ask for a decree setting carbon-dioxide emissions for each defendant at an initial cap, to be further reduced annually. The...
Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court. South Carolina's Family Court enforces its child support orders by threatening with incarceration for civil contempt those who are (1) subject to a child support order, (2) able to comply with that order, but (3) fail to do so. We must decide whether the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause requires the State to provide counsel (at a civil contempt hearing) to an indigent person potentially faced with such incarceration. We conclude...
Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the court. Among other rights essential to freedom, the First Amendment protects "the right of the people . . . to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." U.S. Const., Amdt. 1. This case concerns the extent of the protection, if any, that the Petition Clause grants public employees in routine disputes with government employers. Petitions are a form of expression, and employees who invoke the Petition Clause in most cases could invoke as...
Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents the question whether a person indicted for violating a federal statute has standing to challenge its validity on grounds that, by enacting it, Congress exceeded its powers under the Constitution, thus intruding upon the sovereignty and authority of the States. The indicted defendant, petitioner here, sought to argue the invalidity of the statute. She relied on the Tenth Amendment, and, by extension, on the premise that...
Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. * In this case, a Federal District Court enjoined a state court from considering a plaintiff's request to approve a class action. The District Court did so because it had earlier denied a motion to certify a class in a related case, brought by a different plaintiff against the same defendant alleging similar claims. The federal court thought its injunction appropriate to prevent relitigation of the issue it had decided. We hold to the...
Justice SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court. The Nevada Supreme Court invalidated a recusal provision of the State's Ethics in Government Law as unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. We consider whether legislators have a personal, First Amendment right to vote on any given matter. I Nevada's Ethics in Government Law provides that "a public officer shall not vote upon or advocate the passage or failure of, but may otherwise participate in the consideration...
PER CURIAM. The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court. Justice KAGAN took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Justice THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This case requires us to determine whether Janus Capital Management LLC (JCM), a mutual fund investment adviser, can be held liable in a private action under Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 10b-5 for false statements included in its client mutual funds' prospectuses. Rule 10b-5 prohibits "mak[ing] any untrue statement of a material fact" in connection with the purchase or sale of securities. 17 CFR 240.10b-5 (2010). We...
