Supreme Court schedules three significant cases for March
Mostly likely, an eight-person Supreme Court will hear three closely watched cases during March, including a dispute about transgender bathroom use, as the Court released its latest hearing calendar on Friday.
The facade of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.
It is not expected that Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch would be available to join the Court for arguments in March if his nomination is approved by the Senate unless the Senate expedites the traditional nomination process.
Missing from the hearing schedule for March is Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Pauley, one of the last cases considered by the late Justice Antonin Scalia. The Court decided to hear arguments in the case on January 15, 2016, and it has been in scheduling limbo since. (The last brief in the Trinity Lutheran case was filed in August 2016.)
The Trinity Lutheran case centers on a dispute about a church being denied a public government grant for recycled rubber material to use for safety purposes at its playground, which it shares with its local community.
The transgender bathroom case is Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., which will be heard on March 28. The Justices will consider the appeal of a county school board in Virginia, challenging a federal appeals court ruling that gave a 17-year-old transgender boy a right to use the school restroom that conforms to his gender identity.
A second significant case is Murr v. Wisconsin, which will be held on March 20. The Murr family has owned two riverfront lots since the 1960s; one of the lots contained a vacation cottage; the other lot wasn’t developed. A zoning law established in 1975 barred family members from selling the empty lot separate from the cottage. Two landmark Fifth Amendment takings cases will be in play here: Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992), the Penn Central v. New York City case (1978).
And in Microsoft v. Baker, a group of consumers in Washington State sued Microsoft, complaining that its Xbox 360 device had a defect. The group sued as a class, since their individual claims would have been for small amounts, and pursuing them individually wasn’t feasible. The group then lost the lawsuit in a trial court but they also used a legal option called a voluntary dismissal of a claim with prejudice to keep the case alive. The court accepted the Microsoft appeal to clear up a conflict among lower courts on the legality of the dismiss-then-appeal question.
Two other cases on the March calendar also will attract attention.
In Los Angeles County v. Mendez, the case to be heard on March 22 centers on a legal rule that one federal appeals court has adopted, but others refuse to follow. It takes away the legal immunity of police officers for the use of “excessive force” – here, the shooting two homeless people in the shed they occupied – if the officers’ actions provoked a violent response. The response at issue, in this case, was that one of the individuals who was shot and wounded raised a BB gun and pointed it at officers after they had broken into the shed without a search warrant.
And TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods is a highly significant case on March 27 involving patent law, the Court agreed to decide where lawsuits claiming infringement of a patent can be filed. In recent years, so-called “patent trolls,” who buy patents just to try to turn them into money-makers by suing others for infringement damages, have been concentrating the filling of their cases in just a few federal courts where they believe their claim will get a friendly reception. The issue of the proper location for infringement lawsuits will be decided in this case.
Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.
