DEVILLIER v. TEXAS CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT Argued Jan. 16, 2024—Decided Apr. 16, 2024  Richard DeVillier and more than 120 other petitioners own property north of U. S. Interstate Highway 10 between Houston and Beaumont, Texas. The dispute here arose after the State of Texas took action to use portions of I–10 as a flood evacuation route, installing a roughly 3- foot-tall barrier along the highway median to act as a dam. When subsequent hurricanes and storms brought heavy rainfall, the median barrier performed as intended, keeping the south ..read more

George Sheetz was required by the County of El Dorado to pay $23,420 George Sheetz tried to get a residential building permit from El Dorado County.  To do so, the County made him pay a $23,420 "traffic impact fee."  The fee was part of the County's "General Plan" -- this plan was intended to address the impact that development has on public services.  This fee was calculated based on a standard schedule, rather than any actual impact resulting from his development.  Sheetz paid the fee under protest.  He sued in state court, claiming that the fee amounted to an "exac ..read more

Macquarie Infrastructure Corporation owns a subsidiary that operates terminals to store bulk liquid commodities, including No. 6 fuel oil, which has almost 3% sulfer. The UN adopted IMO in 2016, which set in in 2020. This regulation capped the sulfur content on fuel oil used in shipping to 0.5%. Macquarie did not discuss this IMO in its public documents, but in February 2018, its stock fell 41% after announcing that it lost contracts in of its subsidiary. Moab partners sued for violating SEC Rule 10b-5(b) - failure to omit material facts about securities. The trial court dismissed the complain ..read more

Flowers makes baked goods that are then distributed across the country.  Bissonnette owned the distribution rights in a certain part of the country.  Their contract subjected them to the F.A.A..  After Bissonnette sued under Labor (wage) laws, Flowers moved to compel arbitration.  Bissonnette said they're exempt because the F.A.A. exempts “contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.”  The District Court dismissed the case, sending it to Arbitration.  The Second City affirmed, findi ..read more

 Respondent Yonas Fikre, a U. S. citizen and Sudanese emigree, brought suit alleging that the government placed him on the No Fly List unlawfully. In his complaint, Mr. Fikre alleged that he traveled from his home in Portland, Oregon to Sudan in 2009 to pursue business opportunities there. At a visit to the U. S. embassy, two FBI agents informed Mr. Fikre that he could not return to the United States because the government had placed him on the No Fly List. The agents questioned him extensively about the Portland mosque he attended, and they offered to take steps to remove him from the No ..read more

O'Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier In 2014, Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T. J. Zane created public Facebook pages to promote their campaigns for election to the Poway Unified School District (PUSD) Board of Trustees. While O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane (whom we will call the Trustees) both had personal Facebook pages that they shared with friends and family, they used their public pages for campaigning and issues related to PUSD. After they won election, the Trustees continued to use their public pages to post PUSD-related content, including board-meeting recaps, application solicitations for board p ..read more

PULSIFER v. UNITED STATES No. 22–340. Argued October 2, 2023—Decided March 15, 2024 After pleading guilty to distributing at least 50 grams of methamphetamine, petitioner Mark Pulsifer faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison. At sentencing, he sought to take advantage of the “safety valve” provision of federal sentencing law, which allows a sentencing court to disregard the statutory minimum if a defendant meets five criteria. Among those is the requirement, set out in Paragraph (f)(1), that the sentencing court find that— (1) the defendant does not have— (A) more than 4 cri ..read more

Trump v. Anderson A group of Colorado voters contends that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits former President Donald J. Trump, who seeks the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party in this year’s election, from becoming President again. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed with that contention. It ordered the Colorado secretary of state to exclude the former President from the Republican primary ballot in the State and to disregard any write-in votes that Colorado voters might cast for him. Former President Trump challenges that decision on several groun ..read more

MCELRATH v. GEORGIA  Damian McElrath was charged with malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault -- all related to the death of his mother.  A jury returned a split verdict.  For the malice-murder charge, finding him “not guilty by reason of insanity” and “guilty but mentally ill” to the other counts.  The Georgia Supreme Court stated that because these findings were inconsistent by finding different mental states, he should be retried under the Georgia "repugnant" doctrine.  McElrath argued he could not be re-tried because of the Fifth Amendment's protectio ..read more

Great Lakes v. Raiders Great Lakes Insurance (organized in Germany and HQ in UK) entered into a maritime insurance contract with Raiders Retreat Realty Company (HQ in PA).  The contract included a provision to apply New York law.  A Raiders vessel had an incident in Florida, Raiders then filed a claim.  Great Lakes filed for declaratory judgment in a Pennsylvania federal court.  Raiders responded in that case.  The PA federal court applied New York law and denied the Raiders claims under Pennsylvania law.  On appeal, the Third Circuit recognized that choice of la ..read more