Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. To remove a case from a state court to a federal court, a defendant must file in the federal forum a notice of removal "containing a short and plain statement of the grounds for removal." 28 U.S.C. 1446(a). When removal is based on diversity of citizenship, an amount-in-controversy requirement must be met. Ordinarily, "the matter in controversy [must] excee[d] the sum or value of $75,000." 1332(a). In class actions for which the...
Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court. Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b) provides that certain juror testimony regarding what occurred in a jury room is inadmissible "[d]uring an inquiry into the validity of a verdict." The question presented in this case is whether Rule 606(b) precludes a party seeking a new trial from using one juror's affidavit of what another juror said in deliberations to demonstrate the other juror's dishonesty during voir dire. We hold that it does....
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court. The employer in this case required its employees, warehouse workers who retrieved inventory and packaged it for shipment, to undergo an antitheft security screening before leaving the warehouse each day. The question presented is whether the employees' time spent waiting to undergo and undergoing those security screenings is compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., as amended by the Portal-...
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. We must decide in these cases whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 107 Stat. 1488, 42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq., permits the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to demand that three closely held corporations provide health-insurance coverage for methods of contraception that violate the sincerely held religious beliefs of the companies' owners. We hold that the regulations that impose this...
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents the question whether the First Amendment permits a State to compel personal care providers to subsidize speech on matters of public concern by a union that they do not wish to join or support. We hold that it does not, and we therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. I A Millions of Americans, due to age, illness, or injury, are unable to live in their own homes without assistance and are unable to afford the...
Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court. Ordinarily the President must obtain "the Advice and Consent of the Senate" before appointing an "Office[r] of the United States." U.S. Const., Art. II, 2, cl. 2. But the Recess Appointments Clause creates an exception. It gives the President alone the power "to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session." Art. II, 2, cl. 3. We here...
Chief Justice ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court. A Massachusetts statute makes it a crime to knowingly stand on a "public way or sidewalk" within 35 feet of an entrance or driveway to any place, other than a hospital, where abortions are performed. Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 266, 120E (a), (b) (West 2012). Petitioners are individuals who approach and talk to women outside such facilities, attempting to dissuade them from having abortions. The statute prevents petitioners from doing so...
Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court. The Copyright Act of 1976 gives a copyright owner the "exclusive righ[t]" to "perform the copyrighted work publicly." 17 U.S.C. 106(4). The Act's Transmit Clause defines that exclusive right as including the right to "transmit or otherwise communicate a performance ... of the [copyrighted] work ... to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance ... receive it in the...
Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 829, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq., requires the fiduciary of a pension plan to act prudently in managing the plan's assets. 1104(a)(1)(B). This case focuses upon that duty of prudence as applied to the fiduciary of an "employee stock ownership plan" (ESOP), a type of pension plan that invests primarily in the stock of the company that employs the plan...
Chief Justice ROBERTS, delivered the opinion of the Court. Investors can recover damages in a private securities fraud action only if they prove that they relied on the defendant's misrepresentation in deciding to buy or sell a company's stock. In Basic Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224 , 108 S.Ct. 978, 99 L.Ed.2d 194 (1988), we held that investors could satisfy this reliance requirement by invoking a presumption that the price of stock traded in an efficient market reflects all public,...
Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. A provision of the federal bank fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. 1344(2), makes criminal a knowing scheme to obtain property owned by, or in the custody of, a bank "by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises." The question presented is whether the Government must prove that a defendant charged with violating that provision intended to defraud a bank. We hold that the Government need not make that showing. I Petitioner...
Justice SCALIA announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II. Acting pursuant to the Clean Air Act, 69 Stat. 322, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 7401-7671q, the Environmental Protection Agency recently set standards for emissions of "greenhouse gases" (substances it believes contribute to "global climate change") from new motor vehicles. We must decide whether it was permissible for EPA to determine that its motor-vehicle greenhouse-gas...
Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court. Almost 50 years ago, this Court declared that citizens do not surrender their First Amendment rights by accepting public employment. Rather, the First Amendment protection of a public employee's speech depends on a careful balance "between the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs...
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court. The patents at issue in this case disclose a computer-implemented scheme for mitigating "settlement risk" ( i.e., the risk that only one party to a financial transaction will pay what it owes) by using a third-party intermediary. The question presented is whether these claims are patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. 101, or are instead drawn to a patent-ineligible abstract idea. We hold that the claims at issue are drawn to the abstract idea...
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioners in this case seek to challenge an Ohio statute that prohibits certain "false statements" during the course of a political campaign. The question in this case is whether their preenforcement challenge to that law is justiciable — and in particular, whether they have alleged a sufficiently imminent injury for the purposes of Article III. We conclude that they have. I The Ohio statute at issue prohibits certain "false statement[s]" "...
Justice SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court. We must decide whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA or Act), 28 U.S.C. 1330, 1602 et seq., limits the scope of discovery available to a judgment creditor in a federal postjudgment execution proceeding against a foreign sovereign. I. Background In 2001, petitioner, Republic of Argentina, defaulted on its external debt. In 2005 and 2010, it restructured most of that debt by offering creditors new securities (with...
Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. Before a federally licensed firearms dealer may sell a gun, the would-be purchaser must provide certain personal information, show photo identification, and pass a background check. To ensure the accuracy of those submissions, a federal statute imposes criminal penalties on any person who, in connection with a firearm's acquisition, makes false statements about "any fact material to the lawfulness of the sale." 18 U.S.C. 922(a)(6). In this...
Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court. When an individual files for bankruptcy, she may exempt particular categories of assets from the bankruptcy estate. One such category includes certain "retirement funds." 11 U.S.C. 522(b)(3)(C). The question presented is whether funds contained in an inherited individual retirement account (IRA) qualify as "retirement funds" within the meaning of this bankruptcy exemption. We hold that they do not. I A When an individual debtor files a...
Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court. POM Wonderful LLC makes and sells pomegranate juice products, including a pomegranate-blueberry juice blend. App. 23a. One of POM's competitors is the Coca-Cola Company. Coca-Cola's Minute Maid Division makes a juice blend sold with a label that, in describing the contents, displays the words "pomegranate blueberry" with far more prominence than other words on the label that show the juice to be a blend of five juices. In truth, the Coca-Cola...
Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part II-D. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), 94 Stat. 2767, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 9601 et seq., contains a provision that by its terms pre-empts statutes of limitations applicable to state-law tort actions in certain circumstances. 9658. Section 9658 applies to statutes of limitations governing actions for personal injury or property damage arising from the release...
