October Term 2015

The October Term 2015 consists of the cases to be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court beginning early October 2015 and concluding around the last week of June 2016. In recent years the Court has considered and decided a total of about 75 cases.^[1]

As of August 7, 2015, there have been roughly 35 grants by the Supreme Court of certiorari, of which about a dozen have been scheduled already for oral argument. Put another way, about half of the Term has been filled, with the other half completed by grants of cert. that occur from around Oct. 1 through early 2016.

Here is an overview of the 35 cases:

• Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, No. 14-915 - the biggest case of the Term by far, this will consider invalidating mandatory union dues for public employees under the First Amendment. This could overrule Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.

From the Questions Presented:

Twice in the past three years this Court has recognized that agency-shop provisions - which compel public employees to financially subsidize public--sector unions' efforts to extract union-preferred policies from local officials - impose a "significant impingement" on employees' First Amendment rights. Knox v. Serv. Emps. Int'l Union, 132 S. Ct. 2277, 2289 (2012); see also Harris v. Quinn, 134 S. Ct. 2618 (2014). California law requires every teacher working in most of its public schools to financially contribute to the local teachers' union and that union's state and national affiliates in order to subsidize expenses the union claims are germane to collective bargaining. California law also requires public--school teachers to subsidize expenditures unrelated to collective bargaining unless a teacher affirmatively objects and then renews his or her opposition in writing every year.

The questions presented are therefore:

1. Whether Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U.S. 209 (1977), should be overruled and public-sector "agency shop" arrangements invalidated under the First Amendment.

2. Whether it violates the First Amendment to require that public employees affirmatively object to subsidizing nonchargeable speech by public-sector unions, rather than requiring that employees affirmatively consent to subsidizing such speech.

• Eighth Amendment (capital punishment) - 4 cases, three of which will be argued together
• affirmative action case, on its second trip to the Supreme Court, in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, No. 14-981
• two voting rights cases, relating to the concept of "one man, one vote." Evenwel v. Abbott, No. 14-940, and Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, No. 14-981.
• Gobeille v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., No. 14-181, which concerns the validity of a Vermont statute that forces health insurance companies to turn over confidential patient records to the State so that it can build a massive database about health care claims.

From the Question Presented:

Vermont, like many other States, requires health care providers and health care payers to provide claims data and related information to the State's health care database. The law applies to all public and private entities that pay for health care services, including insurers, government programs, and third-party administrators. The State relies on the database to inform health care policy. The question presented is:

Did the Second Circuit -in a 2-1 panel decision that disregarded the considered opinion advanced by the United States as amicus - err in holding that ERISA preempts Vermont's health care database law as applied to the third-party administrator for a self-funded ERISA plan?

• Spokeo v. Robins, No. 13-1339, to address whether Congress may create Article III standing for plaintiffs who do not suffer any concrete and thus who could not otherwise attain standing in federal court, by authorizing a private right of action based on a violation of a federal statute without any injury.

Perhaps surprisingly, there are no Fourth Amendment cases among the 35.

References[edit]

1. ↑ Statistics on October Term 2014 - 68 full decisions and 8 summary reversals