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Skinny on SCOTUS - June 20, 2025 Edition

AP Photo/J. David Ake

We'll file this one under "Better late than never"...maybe? Yes, the Supreme Court has been officially done with its 2024 term since June 30, but they were busy there at the end, so...it's taken me a bit to get through the wave of decisions and get to the crux of what each means. 

In this installment, we meet the six decisions handed down on June 20, only one of which was unanimous. Then we had an 8-1 decision, three 7-2 decisions (with varying alignments), and one 6-3. The decisions range from holding terrorist entities civilly liable to unwelcome faxes, with some agency interpretations and e-cigarettes sprinkled into the mix. 

Here we go: 

June 20, 2025 Decisions

Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization

Date: June 20, 2025

Author: Roberts

Split: 9-0

Dissent: N/A

Appeal From: 2nd Circuit

Basic Facts:

Before the Court are two separate lawsuits filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York under the Antiterrorism Act of 1990 (ATA). The ATA creates a federal civil damages action for U. S. nationals injured or killed “by reason of an act of international terrorism.” 18 U. S. C. §2333(a); see also §2333(d)(2) (permitting aiding and abetting liability). Respondents (defendants below)are the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Palestinian Authority (PA)—entities responsible for carrying out governmental functions for parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The question presented is whether the exercise of personal jurisdiction over respondents under the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA) violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The PSJVTA names the PA and PLO specifically and provides that they “shall be deemed to have consented to personal jurisdiction” in ATA cases under two circumstances.§§2334(e)(1), (5). The first jurisdictional predicate relates to respondents’ practice of paying salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons and to families of deceased terrorists—conduct Congress has condemned as “an incentive to commit acts of terror.” 132 Stat. 1143. The second ties jurisdiction to respondents’ activities on U. S. soil. §2334(e)(1)(B).

Petitioners alleged that respondents engaged in conduct triggering both jurisdictional predicates. The Second Circuit held that the PSJVTA could not, consistent with constitutional due process, establish personal jurisdiction over the PLO or PA.

Issue:

Whether the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act violates the Fifth Amendment.

Holding: Reversed and remanded.

The PSJVTA’s personal jurisdiction provision does not violate the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause because the statute reasonably ties the assertion of jurisdiction over the PLO and PA to conduct involving the United States and implicating sensitive foreign policy matters within the prerogative of the political branches.

Skinny: Terrorists get sued. 


Stanley v. City of Sanford

Date: June 20, 2025

Author: Gorsuch

Split: 8-1

Dissent: Jackson

Appeal From: 11th Circuit

Basic Facts:

Karyn Stanley worked as a firefighter for the City of Sanford, Florida, starting in 1999. When Ms. Stanley was hired, the City offered health insurance until age 65 for two categories of retirees: those with 25 years of service and those who retired earlier due to disability. In 2003, the City changed its policy to provide health insurance up to age 65 only for retirees with 25 years of service, while those who retired earlier due to disability would receive just 24 months of coverage. Ms.Stanley later developed a disability that forced her to retire in 2018, entitling her to only 24 months of health insurance under the revised policy. 

Ms. Stanley sued, claiming the City violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by providing different health-insurance benefits to those who retire with 25 years of service and those who retire due to disability. The district court dismissed her ADA claim, reasoning that the alleged discrimination occurred after she retired, when she was not a “qualified individual” under Title I of the ADA, 42 U. S. C. §12112(a), because she no longer held or sought a job with the defendant. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed.

Issue:

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, does a former employee-who was qualified to perform her job and who earned post-employment benefits while employed-lose her right to sue over discrimination with respect to those benefits solely because she no longer holds her job?

Holding: Affirmed.

To prevail under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a plaintiff must plead and prove that she held or desired a job, and could perform its essential functions with or without reasonable accommodation, at the time of an employer’s alleged act of disability-based discrimination.

Skinny: You can't claim your (former) employer is discriminating against you if you're not still working for them.


Diamond Alternative Energy, LLC v. EPA

Date: June 20, 2025

Author: Kavanaugh

Split: 7-2

Dissent: Sotomayor, Jackson

Appeal From: D.C. Circuit

Basic Facts:

Under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved California regulations that require automakers to manufacture more electric vehicles and fewer gasoline-powered vehicles with a goal of decreasing emissions from liquid fuels. The regulations require automakers to limit average greenhouse-gas emissions across their vehicle fleets and manufacture a certain percentage of electric vehicles. Several producers of fuels such as gasoline and ethanol sued EPA in the D. C. Circuit, arguing that EPA lacked authority to approve the California regulations because they target global climate change rather than local California air quality problems as required by the Clean Air Act. They submitted standing declarations explaining that California’s regulations depress demand for liquid fuel by requiring vehicles that use less or no liquid fuel, causing the fuel producers monetary injury. California’s own estimates indicated the regulations would cause substantial reductions in demand for gasoline exceeding $1 billion beginning in 2020 and increasing to over $10 billion in 2030.

EPA did not challenge the fuel producers’ standing in the D. C. Circuit. California, as well as other States adopting California’s regulations, intervened to defend EPA’s approval. California argued that the fuel producers lacked standing because automobile manufacturers would not change course if EPA’s decision were vacated given the “surging consumer demand” for electric vehicles. The D. C. Circuit held that the fuel producers lacked Article III standing, finding they failed to establish that automakers would likely respond to invalidation of the regulations by producing fewer electric vehicles and more gasoline-powered vehicles.

Issue:

  1. Whether a party may establish the redressability component of Article III standing by relying on the coercive and predictable effects of regulation on third parties.
  2. Whether EPA's preemption waiver for California's greenhouse-gas emission standards and zero-emission vehicle mandate is unlawful.

Holding: Reversed and remanded.

The fuel producers have Article III standing to challenge EPA’s approval of the California regulations.

Skinny: Fuel producers bleed when they're cut just like anyone (and if they do, they have standing to sue). 

Added Explainer: I thought this explanation from Kavanaugh's conclusion summed it up well:

The government generally may not target a business or industry through stringent and allegedly unlawful regulation, and then evade the resulting lawsuits by claiming that the targets of its regulation should be locked out of court as unaffected bystanders


McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. McKesson Corp. 

Date: June 20, 2025

Author: Kavanaugh

Split: 6-3

Dissent: Kagan, Sotomayor, Jackson

Appeal From: 9th Circuit

Basic Facts:

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) protects businesses and consumers from intrusive telemarketing by prohibiting unsolicited fax advertisements to “telephone facsimile machines” absent an opt-out notice informing recipients that they can choose not to receive future faxes. 47 U. S. C. §227. The Act provides a private right of action with statutory minimum damages of $500 per violation.

McKesson Corporation, a healthcare company, sent unsolicited fax advertisements through a subsidiary in 2009 and 2010 to medical practices, including McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates. McLaughlin sued McKesson in the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of California in 2014 for damages and an injunction, alleging TCPA violations for faxing unsolicited advertisements without the required opt-out notices. McLaughlin also sought to represent a class of fax recipients who received the advertisements either on traditional fax machines or through online fax services. The District Court certified the class without distinguishing between those two methods of receipt.

While McLaughlin’s lawsuit was pending, a company petitioned the Federal Communications Commission for a declaratory ruling about whether the TCPA applies to faxes received through online fax services. Months after class certification, the FCC issued the Amerifactors order, interpreting “telephone facsimile machine” in the TCPA to exclude online fax services. Following Ninth Circuit precedent that FCC final orders are reviewable exclusively in the courts of appeals under the Hobbs Act, the District Court deemed the Amerifactors order binding and granted summary judgment to McKesson on claims involving online fax services. The court then decertified the class, leaving McLaughlin with claims for only 12 faxes received on a traditional machine and damages of $6,000. The Ninth Circuit affirmed

Issue:

Whether the Hobbs Act required the district court in this case to accept the FCC's legal interpretation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Holding: Reversed and remanded.

The Hobbs Act does not bind district courts in civil enforcement proceedings to an agency’s interpretation of a statute. District courts must independently determine the law’s meaning under ordinary principles of statutory interpretation while affording appropriate respect to the agency’s interpretation.

Skinny: Okay, this one's a bit tricky to skinnify, but basically, when a party faces a potential penalty, it's up to the courts to interpret the applicable law, not an agency. 


Esteras v. United States

Date: June 20, 2025

Author: Barrett

Split: 7-2

Dissent: Alito, Gorsuch

Appeal From: 6th Circuit

Basic Facts:

Edgardo Esteras pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute heroin, and the District Court sentenced him to 12 months in prison followed by a 6-year term of supervised release. While on supervised release, Esteras was arrested and charged with domestic violence and other crimes. The District Court revoked Esteras’s supervised release and ordered 24 months of reimprisonment, explaining that Esteras’s earlier sentence had been “rather lenient” and that his revocation sentence must “promote respect for the law,” a consideration enumerated in 18 U. S. C. §3553(a)(2)(A). The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that a district court may consider §3553(a)(2)(A) when revoking supervised release.

Issue:

Even though Congress excluded section 3553(a)(2)(A) from section 3583(e)'s list of factors to consider when revoking supervised release, may a district court rely on the section 3553(a)(2)(A) factors when revoking supervised release?

Holding: Vacated and remanded.

A district court considering whether to revoke a defendant’s term of supervised release may not consider §3553(a)(2)(A), which covers retribution vis-à-vis the defendant’s underlying criminal offense.

Skinny: Courts have to follow what the statute actually provides (and not what it doesn't).

Added Explainer (from the syllabus of the majority decision):

District courts cannot consider §3553(a)(2)(A) when revoking supervised release. That conclusion follows from the well-established canon of statutory interpretation—“expressio unius est exclusio alterius”—which means that expressing one item of an associated group excludes another item not mentioned. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Echazabal, 536 U. S. 73, 80. While Congress elsewhere set forth ten factors that must generally inform a district court’s sentencing decisions, it provided in §3583(e)—the provision governing the revocation of supervised release—that courts must consider only eight of those ten factors. The natural implication is that Congress did not intend courts to consider the other two factors, including §3553(a)(2)(A).


FDA v. R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co.

Date: June 20, 2025

Author: Barrett

Split: 7-2

Dissent: Jackson, Sotomayor

Appeal From: 5th Circuit

Basic Facts:

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (TCA) requires manufacturers to apply for and receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before marketing any “new tobacco product.” 21 U. S. C. §387j. In 2016, the FDA decided that e-cigarettes and related products were new tobacco products subject to the TCA. Given the size of the existing e-cigarette market, the FDA announced that it would defer enforcement of the TCA against e-cigarette manufacturers and retailers while the manufacturers sought FDA approval. R. J.Reynolds Vapor Co. (RJR Vapor)—a manufacturer of e-cigarettes—sought FDA approval to continue marketing its popular Vuse Altoproducts. The FDA denied the applications, finding that RJR Vapor had failed to demonstrate that marketing Vuse Alto products would be“appropriate for the protection of the public health” as required by the TCA. §387j(c)(2)(A). The FDA’s order sounded the death knell for a significant portion of the e-cigarette market, and RJR Vapor sought to challenge it.

The TCA provides that “any person adversely affected” by an FDA denial order can petition for judicial review in either the D. C. Circuit or “the circuit in which such person resides or has their principal place of business.” §387l(a)(1). Had RJR Vapor sought judicial review on its own, it could have filed a petition in the D. C. Circuit (the statutory default) or the Fourth Circuit (which includes North Carolina, RJR Vapor’s state of incorporation and principal place of business). RJR Vapor instead combined forces with a Texas-based retailer and a Mississippi-based trade association of retailers to challenge the FDA’s denial order in the Fifth Circuit (which includes both Texas and Mississippi). In response, the FDA asked the court to either dismiss the joint petition for lack of venue or transfer it to the D. C. Circuit or Fourth Circuit. The FDA argued that only a disappointed applicant—in this case, RJR Vapor—is “adversely affected” by an FDA denial order within the meaning of the TCA. Because the retailers had no right to seek review, the FDA argued, the petition had no basis for being in the Fifth Circuit. A divided Fifth Circuit panel concluded venue was proper and denied the FDA’s motion.

Issue

Whether a manufacturer may file a petition for review in a circuit (other than the D.C.Circuit) where it neither resides nor has its principal place of business, if the petition is joined by a seller of the manufacturer's products that is located within that circuit.

Holding: Affirmed and remanded.

Retailers who would sell a new tobacco product if not for the FDA’s denial order may seek judicial review of that order under §387l(a)(1).

Skinny: It isn't just manufacturers who have a say in challenging an FDA order — retailers adversely affected by an order may challenge it, too. And if they team up with a manufacturer to do so, venue is proper in the circuit where either resides. 


You can check out prior installments of The Skinny on SCOTUS series here.

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