SCOTUSblog

State and federal courts jockey for power in the Roundup case and other mass public harms

Clear Statements is a recurring series by Abbe R. Gluck on civil litigation and the modern regulatory and statutory state. The Supreme Court on Monday heard argument in Monsanto Co. v Durnell, a complex dispute over whether a federal law governing pesticide labeling and registration prevented a Missouri jury from awarding $1.25 million to a volunteer gardener who alleged that Monsanto had failed to warn that its popular weed killer Roundup causes cancer. The preemption arguments – which centered around whether state law could add a warning requirement when the federal agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, has not required any warning – are intricate and have been widely covered elsewhere, except for one aspect involving administrative deference that I will return to at the end of this column. But first, it’s worth zooming out to understand the case’s importance for the bigger picture – not only for the billions of dollars at stake in the more than 60,000 Roundup cases proceeding across the nation, but also for how the case implicates important, and complicated, questions about class actions and other forms of mass litigation. First, the Missouri jury trial involved just one plaintiff, but there are thousands of other lawsuits

After major voting rights ruling, parties dispute whether the Supreme Court should finalize decision immediately to allow changes to Louisiana’s congressional map

On Wednesday evening, the group of “non-African American” voters who prevailed earlier in the day in their challenge to Louisiana’s congressional map asked the Supreme Court to bypass its normal 32-day waiting period and send a copy of its opinion and order to the lower court immediately, making the decision final. The voters told the justices that the Louisiana Legislature “is considering pushing back” the deadlines for the state’s congressional primaries to allow them “to occur under a remedial map.” If it does shift the deadlines, they argued, “[t]hose 32 days could matter,” because of the short timeframe in which the state would need to revise the map. Louisiana on Thursday afternoon confirmed that it would indeed postpone the state’s primary elections for Congress, which had been scheduled for May 16. In a letter to Scott Harris, the Supreme Court’s clerk, Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga attached an executive order signed on Thursday by the state’s governor, Jeff Landry, that “encouraged” the Louisiana Legislature to adopt a new congressional map in the wake of Louisiana v. Callais and schedule primary elections “as soon as practical … in order to conduct the November 3, 2026 election.” Landry asserted that he had

Justices poised to protect generics manufacturers from liability for decisions of pharmacists about prescribing their products

Updated on Apr. 30 at 8:35 p.m. Yesterday’s argument in Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA v Amarin Pharma showed a bench once again dubious about litigation trying to hold a large company responsible for the actions of others that it does not control. The specific dispute here involves a generic pharmaceutical manufacturer, Hikma, whose product can be dispensed for uses that both do and do not infringe on patents. The suit is brought by Amarin, which holds patents on uses of the branded pharmaceutical Vascepa, a medication to reduce heart disease for which Hikma’s product is a substitute. Specifically, Amarin seeks to hold Hikma responsible when pharmacists dispense Hikma’s generic product for uses that infringe on its patents. As in the Cox Communications case decided a few weeks ago, the justices seemed to doubt the propriety of imposing liability for the conduct of other parties. The basic situation here is that the lower court (the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is a specialized court that hears patent cases) upheld the validity of a complaint against Hikma that rests on three statements by it: the label on the product, press releases to potential investors, and statements on its web

Court unanimously sides with faith-based pregnancy centers in litigation dispute with New Jersey

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport that a group of faith-based pregnancy centers can litigate their challenge to New Jersey’s demands for information about the group’s fundraising practices in federal court. In a unanimous decision by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the justices rejected the lower courts’ conclusion that the group, First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, had not shown it had suffered the kind of injury from the subpoena that would give it a legal right to sue, known as standing. Although New Jersey says that it is investigating whether First Choice may have misled women about whether it provides certain reproductive-health services, such as abortions, the court’s ruling focused instead on the more technical – but not insignificant – question of when organizations and advocacy groups can bring lawsuits in federal court. First Choice describes itself as a “faith-based nonprofit” that provides “material support and medical services like ultrasounds and pregnancy tests under the direction of a licensed medical director.” In 2023, Matthew Platkin – who was then New Jersey’s attorney general – issued subpoenas to the group, seeking, among other things, information about its donors. First Choice challenged the subpoena in federal