The Supreme Court's 2009-10 Term

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (5-4 Decision): In Citizens United, the five conservative justices reversed a century of law and opened the floodgates for corporations to spend unlimited money in our elections. In a stunning display of judicial overreach, the conservative justices abruptly broke with long-settled precedent to fundamentally change the rules of the game in favor of big business. The narrow issue originally presented to the Court was whether Citizens United, a non-profit corporation, could use its general treasury funds to pay for broadcasts of its movie lambasting Hillary Clinton during the 30-day period before an election.  In a highly unorthodox move, the Court invited reargument on the broad question of whether to overrule two earlier Supreme Court decisions upholding limits on corporate spending in federal elections.  On this question, the Court announced that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as do ordinary Americans to spend money to influence elections. In his long and stinging dissent, Justice Stevens called out the five Justices for changing the parameters of the case in order to give themselves room to reach a constitutional question and produce the desired result.

Conkright v. Frommert (5-3 Decision): Conkright involved a challenge by Xerox employees to the calculation of their pension benefits by the pension plan administrator. The district court affirmed the administrator’s initial calculation method, but the Second Circuit reversed and remanded, finding the calculation method “clearly erroneous.” As a remedy, the Second Circuit instructed the district court to consider the administrator’s subsequent calculation method under equitable principles without extending any degree of deference to the administrator. However, the Supreme Court’s five conservative Justices reversed, holding that a court may not lessen the degree of deference that it owes to a pension administrator’s calculations, even if that administrator’s previous calculations were deemed “clearly erroneous.” This decision favors corporations because it encourages them to aggressively interpret their own pension plans to the detriment of their employees, knowing that even if their interpretation is rejected by a court as “clearly erroneous,” they will be given a second bite at the apple.   

*McDonald v. Chicago (5-4 Decision): After the City of Chicago enacted a handgun ban, several residents challenged the law as an unconstitutional infringement on their Second Amendment rights.  The ban was upheld by both the district and circuit courts, but the Supreme Court reversed. Using this case to further the conservative, pro-gun agenda, the majority declared that the “right to bear arms” referred to in the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and is applicable to the states.  Consequently, the majority held Chicago’s ban unconstitutional. Citing Palko v. Connecticut (1937), Justice Stevens argued in his dissent that the right to bear arms is not incorporated because that right is not “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” 

Monsanto Co. v. Geerston Seed Farms (7-1 Decision): Monsanto developed a variety of alfalfa seed that could withstand a common herbicide but that was potentially threatening to the environment. It submitted a deregulation request for the seed to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and APHIS granted the request without preparing a full-length impact study, as it was required to under NEPA. When local farmers and environmental groups challenged the measure, the district court ruled against Monsanto, fashioning a remedy that enjoined APHIS from deregulating the seed and that prohibited the future use of the seed until the impact study was complete. Monsanto challenged the injunction but the appellate court affirmed it. However, the corporate-friendly Supreme Court reversed, invalidating an injunction that would have protected the environment and independent farmers.  

New Process Steel v. National Labor Relations Board (5-4 Decision): After the NLRB issued two decisions that sustained unfair labor practices against New Process Steel, the company challenged the voting procedure through which the NLRB made these decisions. The majority decided in favor of New Process Steel because, according to its reading of the relevant statutory provision, the NLRB must have at least three sitting members before it can take a valid act. Because the complained of acts were taken during a period when there were only two sitting members, the Court held that such acts were invalid. Justice Kennedy, writing for the dissent, asserted that the majority’s reading was strained. “By its holding,” he wrote, “the Court rejects a straightforward reading that it acknowledges is ‘textually permissible.’”  

*Perdue v. Kenny A. (5-4 Decision): The Court reviewed the legal question of whether a certain measure for calculating attorney’s fees may be increased due to superior performance only in extraordinary circumstances. Although federal trial courts, not the circuit courts or the Supreme Court, develop and decide the facts of a case, the Supreme Court in Perdue decided questions of fact as to whether the circumstances in this case were exceptional. In dissent, Justice Breyer argued that this factual determination lay outside of the question presented and outside of the institutional capacities of the Supreme Court. The Court, “which is twice removed from the litigation underlying the fee determination,” Justice Breyer wrote, is not “properly suited to resolve the fact intensive-inquiry.” “Nor should we,” he continued, “attempt to second-guess a district judge who is aware of the many intangible matters that the written page cannot reflect.”

Rent-a-Center v. Jackson (5-4 Decision): The Court, in an opinion written by Justice Scalia, reversed the decision of the Ninth Circuit and made it more difficult for workers to challenge mandatory arbitration agreements. At issue was the enforceability of an arbitration agreement that Antonio Jackson signed as a condition of his employment with Rent-a-Center. The arbitration agreement contained a provision stating that any challenge to the enforceability of the agreement would be heard by an arbitrator. Jackson asserted that the arbitration agreement was unenforceable because of a disparity in bargaining power between the parties. The Court, however, found that since Jackson challenged the entire arbitration agreement rather than the specific provision requiring the arbitrator to settle issues of enforceability, Jackson’s challenge would be heard by the arbitrator.  In a forceful dissent, Justice Stevens wrote that the majority based its holding on a “likely erroneous decision.” He also challenged Justice Scalia’s attempt to characterize the arbitration agreement as a stand-alone contract when, in fact, it should have been analyzed as a part of a broader contract for services.  

Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds International Corp. (5-3 Decision): In another split decision, the dissenters accused the five conservative Justices of “prematurely tak[ing] up” an important question and “indulging in de novo review, overturn[ing] the ruling of experienced arbitrators.”  In Stolt-Nielsen, a lower court had dismissed a class action claim because the parties’ transactions were governed by contracts with arbitration clauses. Plaintiffs then filed a demand for class arbitration, and the arbitration panel unanimously decided that the contracts in this case permitted the group of plaintiffs to proceed as a class in arbitration. The Second Circuit affirmed the panel’s decision to allow the class arbitration to proceed, but the five conservative Justices reversed. The majority appeared to be jumping at the chance to shut down the class arbitration. In dissent, Justice Ginsburg wrote that the majority “acts without warrant in allowing Stolt-Nielsen essentially to repudiate its submission” of the arbitration clause to the arbitration panel and “to gain, in place of the arbitrators’ judgment, this Court’s de novo determination.” She continued, “No decision of this Court, until today, has ever approved immediate judicial review of an arbitrator’s decision as preliminary as the ‘partial award’ made in this case.”