Supreme Court of the United States Commons^™

Greenhat’S Greenlight To The Cftc: The Case For A Jurisdictional Shift Of Financial Transmission Rights From The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission To The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Timothy K. Shaw Ii

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System Operators are a relatively new platform to buy and sell wholesale electricity and transmission service of that electricity. These groundbreaking organizations have been around since 1996 after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) issued Order 888. FERC regulates the physical electricity wholesale sale and transmission service market managed by a Regional Transmission Organization (“RTO”) or Independent System Operator (“ISO”),through its Federal Power Act mandate. Many RTOs and ISOs offer a product called a Financial Transmission Right (“FTR”). Traditionally, FTRs assist the holder by providing price certainty, or a hedge, in the capacity market. This …

Choosing The Best Entity For Investments Trading After Understanding The Tax Limitations And Restrictions, Ray A. Knight, Joseph Lakatos

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

The trading of various securities is subject to market rules. However, when securities trading is completed within a business entity, the entity is subject to tax limitations and restrictions. The tax benefits cannot be the dominant purpose for the entity structure; economic substance including profit motive and business purpose for each transaction must be able to be shown.

The trading of investment securities must be housed in the right entity to gain the best economic results as well as to minimize the tax burden. The entity selection process must first consider the characteristics and nature of the securities (e.g., currencies, …

Volume 23 - Front Matter

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Separation-Of-Powers Lochnerism, Andrea Scoseria Katz

Fordham Law Review

One hundred and twenty years ago, in 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered one of the single most notorious opinions in history, striking down a New York labor law for violating the right to contract—a right found nowhere in the text of the Constitution. Though the era of Lochner v. New York is well past us, the judicial impulses that gave rise to the case remain. With a new champion in the Roberts Court, Lochnerism is alive and well, deployed in a new context to redefine the relationships between the president, Congress, federal agencies, and the courts.

Bringing together two …

The Equal Pay Act’S Hidden Loophole: Eliminating Prior Compensation As A “Factor Other Than Sex”, Madeleine Bol

Fordham Law Review

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA or the “Act”) prohibits employers from engaging in sex-based wage discrimination. The Act includes four exceptions that allow an employer to circumvent liability, the last of which allows for pay disparities when the “differential [is] based on any other factor other than sex.” The language of this exceedingly broad exception raises questions among courts on what “other than sex” entails—specifically, whether a court can rely on an employee’s prior compensation to justify a pay disparity between employees of the opposite sex. This Note examines how federal circuit courts have interpreted this catchall exception. …

United States V. Skrmetti: L’Identité De Genre Dans Le Droit Et La Politique De L’Égale Protection, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

French Abstract: L’article analyse l’arrêt United States v. Skrmetti, dans lequel la Cour suprême américaine juge que l’interdiction, par le Tennessee, des bloqueurs de puberté pour les mineurs trans ne viole pas la clause constitutionnelle d’égalité, dite clause « d’égale protection ». Refusant de considérer qu’il s’agit d’une discrimination fondée sur le sexe, la Cour applique le contrôle le plus déférent (base rationnelle) et accepte l’argument de l’État selon lequel il protège les mineur·es de risques médicaux incertains. L’auteure montre ici que cette approche s’inscrit dans un contexte plus large de lois et de décrets fédéraux visant les personnes …

Opioids And Oblivion: Corporate Bankruptcy And The Erosion Of Accountability In Big Pharma, Ying Yuan

Washington Law Review

In June 2024, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma that nonconsensual releases for nondebtors are unconstitutional. The decision marked a key development in mass tort litigation involving Purdue Pharma, the company at the center of the opioid crisis. The Sackler family sought to use Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings to shield themselves from liability, but the Court’s ruling invalidated the use of nondebtor releases to protect third parties from claims without the full consent of affected parties. While the ruling strengthens creditor protections, it creates uncertainty regarding how mass tort bankruptcies can efficiently compensate victims, particularly in …

From The Bench To The Feed: Conflict Between Public Official Accounts And The First Amendment, Betty Yu

Washington Law Review

Imagine one day waking up, opening Facebook, and discovering that the official White House account blocked you because you left a comment expressing a viewpoint. In this case, your First Amendment right to free speech would most likely be violated. However, what happens if your local official blocks you or deletes your comments? Are your First Amendment rights violated? Well, it depends.

Historically, public officials have used public forums such as town halls to meet with citizens and answer questions. However, as social media platforms like X and Facebook have become increasingly crucial tools for communication, the distinction between personal …

A Dangerous Challenge To The Constitutionality Of The Felon-In-Possession Statute: United States V. Bullock, Matthew Matherne

MC Law Review

In United States v. Bullock, Judge Carlton Reeves held that the federal felon-in-possession statute was unconstitutional as applied to Mr. Bullock. Although Mr. Bullock had been previously convicted of multiple violent felonies involving a firearm, including one that resulted in the death of an individual, Judge Reeves dismissed the charges because the government failed to establish a historical tradition of prohibiting felons from possessing firearms. Judge Reeves’ determination that § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional as applied to Mr. Bullock is a decision that is not only “dangerous” to society, but it contradicts the historical tradition of firearm regulation in America. …

Rethinking The Key Role Of Private Antitrust Enforcement, Filippo Lancieri

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article focuses on the institutional design of American competition policy. It argues that any long-term effective revival of U.S. antitrust policy requires a better acknowledgement of the key and irreplaceable role played by private litigation and proposes a rethink of private anti-trust enforcement policy.

To unpack the nuanced interconnection between public and private competition enforcement, the Article begins by tracing the rise and fall of private antitrust. It builds on a novel, hand-coded, and comprehensive analysis of the entire Supreme Court antitrust track record—all 474 decisions over 130 years—to outline how an ideologically …

A True Fact Should Not Be Controversial: Analyzing The Zauderer Standard And Defining “Uncontroversial”, Edina Hartstein

Fordham Law Review

In Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized an exception to the compelled speech doctrine that allowed the government to regulate commercial speech if it was “purely factual and uncontroversial.” However, the Court failed to define what it meant for a disclosure to be “purely factual” or what it meant to be “uncontroversial.” This lack of clarity led to lower courts inconsistently applying the Zauderer standard. In 2018, the Supreme Court decided National Institute for Family Life & Advocates v. Becerra (NIFLA), which held that the Zauderer standard cannot apply when the disclosure …

Red, White-, And Blue-Collar Crime: Federal Sentencing Practices Among White-Collar And Blue-Collar Offenders, Henna Judge

Fordham Law Review

Under the current federal sentencing regime, district courts exercise immense amounts of discretion when sentencing. Though strict adherence to the U.S. Sentencing Commission Guidelines (the “Guidelines”) was once mandatory, courts must now use these Guidelines as an advisory starting point and make a series of fact-specific determinations when sentencing a defendant. Though judicial discretion in this realm aids in preventing undue reliance on Guidelines-range recommendations that can lack nuance, it also invites bias.

In recent years, scholars and courts alike have called attention to a potential disparity in the way blue-collar and white-collar offenders are sentenced. This Note examines relevant …

Turbulence In The Courts: Jetblue Suffers From Faulty Antitrust Actions, Rudolph Veiga

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Recently, the Department of Justice has become the leading force behind antitrust challenges against airline alliances and mergers. Unfortunately, it is difficult for someone to determine when the department will challenge an airline joint venture because the department has not consistently challenged all alliances or mergers over the last few years. JetBlue Airways defended itself against two different antitrust challenges by the department—one against the Northeast Alliance with American Airlines, and one against the acquisition of Spirit Airlines—and JetBlue lost both. The Department of Justice did not challenge the merger of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, which was finalized just …

The Heteronormative Language Of Law: The Win In Bostock And The Loss For Title Ix, Negar Khalaf

Journal of Law and Policy

The struggle for equality in education begins with language. Legal categories like “sex” and “gender identity” shape who is protected and who is left behind. When the Supreme Court decided Bostock v. Clayton County, it extended protection to LGBTQ+ workers but offered no definition robust enough to secure similar rights for students under Title IX. Subsequent efforts by the Department of Education to bridge that gap—culminating in Tennessee v. Cardona and constrained by Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—reveal the limits of agency action in a post-Chevron era. This Note calls for a legislative solution: an amended Equality Act Bill (“EAB”) …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Professors Of Constitutional And Criminal Law In Support Of Petitioner (Whitton V. Dixon - 25-580), Ira P. Robbins, Jeffrey Fagan, Michael Cassidy, Barbara O'Brien, Catherine Grosso, William W. Berry Iii, Ellen C. Yaroshefsky

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

Brief in support of Petitioner.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT: This Court has “consistently held that a conviction obtained by the knowing use of perjured testimony is fundamentally unfair” because it “involve[s] a corruption of the truth-seeking function of the trial process.” United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 103–04 (1976). Here, the Eleventh Circuit acknowledged that the state committed a Giglio violation when it permitted a jailhouse informant to falsely testify at trial that he lacked a violent criminal record despite prosecutors knowing that he did. The Eleventh Circuit deemed this violation harmless, however, based on its erroneous consideration of …

Local Government Standing As State Standing, Katharine Cooney, Katherine Mims Crocker

Faculty Scholarship

It is increasingly common, and controversial, for local governments to bring lawsuits as plaintiffs in federal court. Many questions about this practice raise matters that sound in policy. But some, including the issue of standing to sue, also raise issues of constitutional law. How local governments fit into standing rules should reflect how they fit into the U.S. constitutional system more broadly. As the Supreme Court put it in the famous (and infamous) 1907 case Hunter v. City of Pittsburgh, "[m]unicipal corporations are political subdivisions of the State, created as convenient agencies for exercising such of the governmental powers of …

Judicial Ethics, The Supreme Court, And The Rule Of Law, Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Essay begins with a short history of judicial ethics regulation in the United States, ending with the adoption of codes of conduct by every state and federal judicial system except the Supreme Court of the United States. It then turns to a series of ethics controversies encircling the Supreme Court and its justices, which culminated in the Supreme Court adopting a Code of Conduct in 2023. Tapping into the social science literature, it argues that for codes to improve the ethical climate of an institution they must encourage psychological ownership of and “buy-in” to a code by those subject …

"The Terms And Spirit": Preserving The Purpose Of The Fair Labor Standards Act By Applying The Clear And Convincing Evidence Standard In Flsa Exemption Cases, Bridget Mccourt

Cleveland State Law Review

In 2023, the Fourth Circuit in Carrera v. E.M.D. Sales split from its sister courts by requiring employers to prove by clear and convincing evidence that an employee is exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit’s decision, resolving the split by holding that the preponderance of the evidence is the correct standard. This Note argues that the Fourth Circuit, despite failing to provide a justification for its heightened standard, was correct because it preserves the terms and spirit of the FLSA. Congress enacted the FLSA as a remedial statute aimed to alleviate …

A Rendezvous With Destiny: The President's Ftc Removals And The Rule Of Law, George Sakkopoulos

Cleveland State Law Review

In March 2025, the President removed two commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”). The removed commissioners called the removals unlawful and challenged them in court, citing the FTC Act’s for-cause removal protection and the Supreme Court’s decision in Humphrey’s. After President Roosevelt removed an FTC commissioner, the Supreme Court in Humphrey’s in 1935 upheld the constitutionality of the FTC Act’s removal limitation based on the FTC being expert, nonpartisan/independent, quasi-judicial, and quasi-legislative. The Court in Seila in 2020 held that the President has “unrestricted removal power” as to the executive branch unless the Humphrey’s exception for “multimember expert …

Unfollowing Censorship: A Policy-Oriented Analysis Of Government Pressure On Social Media Content Management, William C. Morgan

Cleveland State Law Review

The introduction of social media has facilitated communications and connectivity globally. However, in recent years, social media companies have started to adopt content moderation practices that are directly influenced by government pressure to comply with their requests to arrange information. Typically, these newly adopted practices often aim to censor or diminish the exposure of certain views, comments, and/or posts that the U.S. government, through its actors, dislike or find threatening to national security. This paper examines how informal government outreach to indirectly monitor, and control social media companies’ content moderation practices undermine the platforms’ constitutionally protected editorial autonomy. Consequently, this …