Volume 451 — United States Reports

This is a list of all the United States Supreme Court cases from volume 451 of the United States Reports:

After respondent employee had been discharged by petitioner employer for alleged dishonest acts, respondent requested his union to file a grievance contesting the discharge. The collective-bargaining agreement provided a grievance and arbitration procedure for the resolution of covered disputes. Respondent was represented by the union at an arbitration hearing which resulted in a decision upholding the discharge.

In a class action brought against petitioner airline by a female cabin attendant employee, petitioner was held liable to the class of such female employees for backpay because wage differentials between male and female cabin attendants collectively bargained with respondent unions were found to violate the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The city of Memphis decided to close the north end of a street (West Drive) that traverses a white residential community (Hein Park), the area to the north of which is predominantly black. West Drive is one of three streets that enter Hein Park from the north.

Respondent longshoreman, an employee of respondent stevedore who was engaged by petitioner shipowner to load its vessel, was injured while working in the ship's hold when he was struck by cargo that fell from a pallet being held in suspension by a winch that was part of the ship's gear and was being operated by another longshoreman.

Petitioner, who is of Mexican descent, was tried in Federal District Court for his participation in a plan by which Mexican aliens were smuggled into the country. Another participant in the plan, one Bowling, was apparently a Caucasian with whose daughter petitioner had been living. Prior to his trial, petitioner requested that the judge, in his voir dire examination of prospective jurors, ask a question as to possible prejudice toward Mexicans.

Steagald v. United States, 451 U.S. 204 (1981), is a United States Supreme Court case which it was held that, based on the Fourth Amendment, a police officer may not conduct a warrantless search of a third party's home in an attempt to apprehend the subject of an arrest warrant, absent consent or exigent circumstances.

Respondent was indicted in an Arizona state court for the commission of a state crime. Because the charge arose from an act committed while he was on duty as a federal Border Patrol Agent, respondent, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1), removed the case to Federal District Court. After a jury trial, a guilty verdict was returned, but ultimately the District Court sua sponte concluded that respondent had a valid immunity defense and entered a judgment of acquittal.

The Kenai National Moose Range was created in 1941 as a national wildlife refuge by withdrawing acreage from public lands in Alaska. Held: Revenues generated by oil and gas leases on federal wildlife refuges consisting of reserved public lands, as here, must be distributed according to the formula provided in § 35 of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920.

Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899 (Act) prohibits "[t]he creation of any obstruction not affirmatively authorized by Congress,… Held: inter alia , that respondents could avail themselves of a "private cause of action" to enforce § 10, and the Court of Appeals agreed, concluding that the Act was designed for the especial benefit of private parties who may suffer "special injury" caused by unauthorized obstruction to a navigable waterway. Held: 1.

In original proceedings brought by respondent State of Illinois, alleging that petitioners—the city of Milwaukee, its Sewerage Commission, and Milwaukee County's Metropolitan Sewerage Commission—and… Held: Federal common law in an area of national concern is resorted to in the absence of an applicable Act of Congress and because the Court is compelled to consider federal questions which cannot be answered from federal statutes alone.

The Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District (District), a governmental entity, stores and delivers untreated water to the owners of 236,000 acres of land in central Arizona, and, to subsidize its water operations, sells electricity to hundreds of thousands of people in an area including a large part of metropolitan Phoenix.

Respondent, a deaf graduate student">student at petitioner University, filed a complaint in Federal District Court, alleging that the University had violated § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 by discriminatorily refusing to pay for a sign-language interpreter for respondent, and declaratory and injunctive relief was sought.

Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Reis, 451 U.S. 401 (1981), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that Section 301 of Taft-Hartley Act did not create liability for damages for unionists for breach of no-strike clauses.

Held: and the jury was presented both a choice between two alternatives and standards to guide the making of that choice. Nor did the prosecution simply recommend what it felt to be an appropriate punishment. It undertook the burden of establishing certain facts beyond a reasonable doubt in its quest to obtain the harsher of the two alternative verdicts.

Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454 (1981), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that, per Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the state may not force a defendant to submit to a psychiatric examination solely for the purposes of sentencing. Any such examination violates the defendant's Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination as well as the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, and is therefore inadmissible at sentencing.

Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477 (1981), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that once a defendant invokes his Fifth Amendment right to counsel, police must cease custodial interrogation. Re-interrogation is only permissible once defendant's counsel has been made available to him, or he himself initiates further communication, exchanges, or conversations with the police. Statements obtained in violation of this rule are a violation of a defendant's Fifth Amendment rights. This bright-line rule has been praised by legal scholars with some scholars stating it was a mistake to move from this standard to that of Davis v. United States which stipulates that the right to counsel can only be legally asserted by an "unambiguous or unequivocal request for counsel."

This case involves a custody dispute between the mother (petitioner) and father (respondent) of a minor child. Held: Where the record discloses that petitioner failed to raise her federal claim in the Georgia courts and that the Georgia Supreme Court failed to rule on a federal issue, this Court is without jurisdiction to decide that issue, and accordingly the writ of certiorari is dismissed. Pp. 494-502. Certiorari dismissed.

In two suits initiated in New Jersey state court, retired employees who had received workers' compensation awards subsequent to retirement challenged the validity of provisions in their employers' pension plans reducing a retiree's pension benefits by an amount equal to a workers' compensation award for which the retiree is eligible. These private pension plans are subject to federal regulation under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).

Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527 (1981), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, in which the court considered the applicability of Due Process to a claim brought under Section 1983.

Petitioner, a former automobile dealer, brought suit against respondent automobile manufacturer in Federal District Court, alleging that respondent's "sales incentive" programs over a certain period… Held: Petitioner's contention that once it has proved a price discrimination in violation of § 2(a) it is entitled at a minimum to so-called "automatic damages" in the amount of the price discrimination is without merit.

Held: The "percentage depletion" allowance under §§ 611 and 613 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954—whereby the owner of an economic… Held: The "percentage depletion" allowance under §§ 611 and 613 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954—whereby the owner of an economic interest in a mineral deposit is allowed a special deduction from taxable income measured by a percentage of his gross income derived from exhaustion of the mineral—may not be denied to respondent lessees of…

Section 33(b) of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act provides that a longshoreman's acceptance, pursuant to an award in a compensation order, of compensation from his employer for injuries incurred in the course of employment "shall operate as an assignment to the employer of all right of the person entitled to compensation to recover damages against [a person other than the employer] unless [the longshoreman] shall commence an action against such third…

Petitioner and respondents manufacture and sell ready-mix concrete. A purchaser of concrete from petitioner filed a civil action against petitioner in Federal District Court, alleging that petitioner and certain unnamed firms had conspired to raise concrete prices in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act, and seeking treble damages under § 4 of the Clayton Act.

California, in addition to imposing a premiums tax on both foreign and domestic insurance companies doing business in the State, imposes a "retaliatory" tax on such a foreign insurer when the… Held: The retaliatory tax does not violate the Commerce Clause. The McCarran-Ferguson Act, which leaves the regulation and taxation of insurance companies to the States, removes entirely any Commerce Clause restriction upon California's power to tax the insurance business.

After being discharged for violation of his employer's plant rule prohibiting defined misbehavior, an employee, pursuant to the grievance and arbitration procedure mandated by the collective-bargaining agreement between the employer and respondent union, asked his union representative to file a grievance on his behalf on the ground that his dismissal was not for just cause.

Respondent union, which represents most of the stage actors and actresses in the United States, has entered into collective-bargaining agreements with virtually all major theatrical producers throughout the country, fixing minimum (scale) wages and other conditions of employment for those represented by the union.

Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U.S. 725 (1981), is a U.S. Supreme Court case in which Maryland challenged a Louisiana law that prevented any tax on natural gas that would be extracted within the state. Maryland argued that it broke the Commerce Clause, and the Court rules in its favor.

Petitioner Church, located in South Dakota, is a member of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. It operates an elementary Christian day school that is not a separate legal entity from the Church, but is financed by the Church's congregation and controlled by a Board elected from the congregation. Petitioner Academy is a secondary school in South Dakota owned, supported, and controlled by the Synod, and it also is not separately incorporated.

Held: however, that " Godfrey is not germane to or controlling of Petitioner's case," because petitioner's death sentence was based not only on § (b)(7) but also on the other two aggravating circumstances. App. to Pet. for Cert. B-5. Thus, the court simply assumed that the jury would still have sentenced petitioner to death even if it had found only the two unchallenged aggravating circumstances.