2025
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Seven County Coalition v. Eagle County Colorado
Decided May 29, 2025 The National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies that are considering applications for their official approval of development projects to prepare and publish an Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) regarding the proposed project. 42 U.S.C. §4332(2)(C). In this case, the Court held 8-0 (Justice Gorsuch abstained) that the adequacy of an agency’s Continue reading
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Kousisis v. United States
decided May 22, 2025 Under 18 U.S.C. §1343, efforts to commit fraud over federally regulated transmission lines or by other means of electronic communications are felonies (i.e., “wire” frauds) punishable by up to twenty years in prison. In this case, the Court ruled that a fraudulent effort to merely induce another party to sign (or Continue reading
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Feliciano v. Dept. of Transportation
Decided April 30,2025 Two federal statutes, 5 U.S.C. §5538(a) and 10 U.S.C. §101(a)(13)(B), together require federal agencies that employ military reservists in civilian occupations to make up the difference between the reservist’s civilian pay and his or her reduced military pay when the reservist is called up for active military duty “during a national emergency.” Continue reading
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Advocate Christ Medical Center v. Kennedy
decided April 29, 2025 The lengthy statute that governs the federal Medicare program contains an obscure formula for calculating enhanced Medicare payments to hospitals for treating a “disproportionate” number of patients who receive “income benefits” under the federal government’s separate Supplemental Security Income {“SSI”) program. See 42 U.S.C. §1395ww(d)(5)(F)(vi)(I). The enhancement formula requires, among other Continue reading
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Velazquez v. Bondi
decided April 22, 2025 The federally enacted Illegal Immigration Reform and Im¬migrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) allows certain undocumented immigrants to voluntarily depart from the United States without incurring the costs and penalties of a forced removal ordered by the Justice Department, but only the condition the eligible “alien” does in fact voluntarily depart Continue reading
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Cunningham v. Cornell University
decided April 17, 2025 The federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 1001 et. seq. (“ERISA”) regulates employee pension plans and other types of employee-group benefit plans. Because ERISA imposes fiduciary obligations on plan administrators, the statute prohibits transactions between a plan and a plan service provider unless certain conditions are met. Specifically, Continue reading
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Noem v. Garcia
decided April 10, 2025 On March 15, 2025, federal officials forcibly removed Mr. Garcia, who was an American resident, from the United States into El Salvador, where he was immediately moved into a Salvadoran prison. In a court proceeding to obtain his release from that prison, and to obtain his return to the United States, Continue reading
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Trump v. J.G.G.
decided April 7, 2025 The Alien Enemies Act, now codified at 50 U.S.C. §§ 21-24, allows the President of the United States to unilaterally deport citizens of a foreign country who are both in the United States, and who are engaged in some fashion in a declared or undeclared war against the United States, all Continue reading
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Department of Education v. California
decided April 4, 2025 In this case, the Court halted the operation of a federal “District” court’s preliminary injunction that implicitly ordered the federal government to resume certain payments under certain federal grants to the plaintiffs that the government had abruptly stopped paying. The Court explained that the federal “District Court” in which the lawsuit Continue reading
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FDA v. Wages and White Lion Investments
decided April 2, 2025 The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, codified at 21 U.S.C. §§ 387 through 387v, effectively require producers and sellers of electronic cigarettes (i.e.,“e-vape cigarettes”) to apply for permission from the federal Food and Drug Administration (the “FDA”) before marketing e-vape cigarettes in “interstate commerce.” 21 U.S.C. §387j(a)(2) Continue reading
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Medical Marijuana v. Horn
decided April 2, 2025 The federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-1968, (the federal “RICO” statute), authorizes civil lawsuits for damages by a “person” who is “injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of” section 1962 [of RICO, listing its “Prohibited Activities”]. See 18 U.S.C. §1964(c). In Continue reading
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United States v. Miller
decided March 26, 2025 A provision of the federal Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. §106(a)(1), waives the federal government’s “sovereign immunity” from lawsuits that can be brought against it under the Bankruptcy Code, including lawsuits brought against the government under 11 U.S.C. §544. A subsection of Section 544 reads as follows: [T]he trustee may avoid any Continue reading
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Bondi v. Vanderstok
decided March 26, 2025 The federal Gun Control Act of 1968, codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 921-934, prohibits, among other things, the commercial sale of certain kinds of firearms, and certain kinds of firearm parts, that do not bear identification numbers that allow for their tracking by police authorities. In 2022, the Bureau of Alcohol, Continue reading
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Thompson v. United States
decided March 21, 2025 A federal statute that governs dealings with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the “FDIC”) prohibits the making of a “false statement” to the FDIC for the purpose of influencing its actions. 18 U.S.C. §1014. In this case, the Court unanimously ruled that the statute does not prohibit the making of “misleading” Continue reading
RECENT RULINGS 