Volume 484 — United States Reports

This is a list of all United States Supreme Court cases from volume 484 of the United States Reports:

Section 6103(a) of the Internal Revenue Code provides that tax returns and "return information" shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed except as authorized. "Return information" is defined… Held: The Haskell Amendment does not exempt from § 6103(b)(2)'s definition of confidential "return information" material in IRS files which can be redacted to delete those parts which would identify a particular taxpayer.

Petitioner Winans was coauthor of a Wall Street Journal investment advice column which, because of its perceived quality and integrity, had an impact on the market prices of the stocks… Held: Insofar as it affirmed petitioners' convictions under the securities laws, the judgment below is affirmed by an equally divided Court. P. 24. 2. Petitioners' conspiracy to trade on the Journal's confidential information is within the reach of the mail and wire fraud statutes. Pp. 25-28.

Respondent employer's collective-bargaining agreement with petitioner union authorizes the submission to binding arbitration of any grievance that arises from the interpretation or application of the… Held: The Court of Appeals exceeded the limited authority possessed by a court reviewing an arbitrator's award entered pursuant to a collective-bargaining agreement. Pp. 36-42.

Section 505(a) of the Clean Water Act authorizes private citizens to commence a civil action for injunctive relief and/or the imposition of civil penalties in federal district court against any… Held: Section 505(a) does not confer federal jurisdiction over citizen suits for wholly past violations. Pp. 56-63.

Karcher v. May, 484 U.S. 72 (1987), was a school prayer case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the former presiding officers of the New Jersey legislature did not have Article III standing to appeal a case, as that standing had passed on to their legislative successors.

To finance the purchase of land in Louisiana, petitioners borrowed money from a bank insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation… Held: A condition to payment of a note, including the truth of an express warranty, is part of the "agreement" to which the requirements of § 1823(e) attach. Because the representations alleged by petitioners constituted such a condition and did not meet the statute's requirements, they cannot be asserted as a defense here. Pp. 90-96.

Omni Capital International, Ltd., and Omni Capital Corporation (hereafter petitioners), New York corporations, marketed an investment program involving commodity-futures trades on the London Metals… Held: The District Court lacked personal jurisdiction over respondents in this federal-question litigation under the CEA. Pp. 102-111. (a) The requirement that a federal court have personal jurisdiction flows from the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

National Labor Relations Board regulations implementing the unfair labor practice provisions of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act) provide that, after one of the Board's regional… Held: A postcomplaint, prehearing informal settlement decision by the General Counsel is not subject to judicial review under the NLRA. Pp. 123-130.

Section 203(a) of the Secretary of Labor's "interim regulations" governing black lung benefits claims filed between July 1, 1973, and April 1, 1980, provides that a claimant who engaged… Held: Section 203(a) requires that the claimant establish at least one of the qualifying facts by a preponderance of the evidence. Pp. 146-160. (a) Section 203(a)'s plain language does not mandate that the interim presumption be invoked on the basis of a single item of qualifying evidence.

Under the Parental Kidnaping Prevention Act of 1980 (PKPA or Act), States are required to afford full faith and credit to valid child custody determinations entered by a sister State's courts. Held: The PKPA does not provide an implied cause of action in federal court to determine which of two conflicting state custody decisions is valid.

Held: first, that even if there was a need for abstention on respondents’ claims for equitable relief, the District Court erred in dismissing the damages phase of the case, at least when that remedy may not be had in pending state proceedings. 798 F. 2d 632 , 635 (CA3 1986).

Petitioner was tried in state court on charges of murder and armed robbery stemming from a 1981 store robbery during which his accomplice and the storekeeper's mother were killed in a fight after… Held: As a matter of federal law, petitioner's conviction cannot stand in light of Francis. Pp. 215-218.

Forrester v. White, 484 U.S. 219 (1988), was a case decided on by the United States Supreme Court. The case restricted judicial immunity in certain instances.

Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U.S. 231 (1988), is a United States Supreme Court case. The Court held that the two jury polls and the supplemental charge did not unlawfully pressure the jury to give a death sentence. The Court also stated that the death sentence does not violate the Eighth Amendment. This is simply because the single statutory "aggravating circumstance" found by the jury duplicates an element of the underlying offense of first-degree murder.

Hazelwood School District et al. v. Kuhlmeier et al., 484 U.S. 260 (1988), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which held, in a 5–3 decision, that student speech in a school-sponsored student newspaper at a public high school could be censored by school officials without a violation of First Amendment rights if the school's actions were "reasonably related" to a legitimate pedagogical concern.

Respondents, husband and wife, brought a state-law tort suit in state court alleging that, while working as a federal civilian employee at an Army Depot, the husband received chemical burns when he… Held: Conduct by federal officials must be discretionary in nature, as well as being within the scope of their employment, before the conduct is absolutely immune from state-law tort liability. See Doe v. McMillan, 412 U.S. 306, 93 S.Ct. 2018, 36 L.Ed.2d 912.

Marino v. Ortiz, 484 U.S. 301 (1988), was a United States Supreme Court case which resulted from a lawsuit filed by 350 New York City police officers that pitted the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment against Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In order to assure that States receiving federal financial assistance will provide a "free appropriate public education" for all disabled children, including those with serious emotional… Held: The case is moot as to respondent Doe, who is now 24 years old, since the Act limits eligibility to disabled children between the ages of 3 and 21.

A husband and wife (hereinafter respondents) filed a complaint in a Pennsylvania state court against petitioners, the husband's former employer and his former supervisor, alleging a single… Held: A federal district court has discretion under the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction to remand to state court a removed case upon a proper determination that retaining jurisdiction over the case would be inappropriate.

When a bankruptcy petition is filed, § 362(a) of the Bankruptcy Code provides an automatic stay of actions taken to realize the value of collateral given by the debtor. Held: Undersecured creditors are not entitled to compensation under § 362(d)(1) for the delay caused by the automatic stay in foreclosing on their collateral. Pp. 370-380.

A 1985 amendment to a Virginia statute makes it unlawful for any person "to knowingly display for commercial purposes in a manner whereby juveniles may examine and peruse" certain visual or… Held: Plaintiffs had standing to bring suit. The "injury in fact" standing requirement is met here, since the amendment is aimed directly at plaintiffs, who, if their interpretation is correct, will have to take significant and costly compliance measures or risk criminal prosecution.

Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U.S. 400 (1988), is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that defense witnesses can be prevented from testifying under certain circumstances, even if that hurts the defense's case. Taylor was the first case to hold that there is no absolute bar to blocking the testimony of a surprise witness, even if that is an essential witness for the defendant, a limitation of the broad right to present a defense recognized in Washington v. Texas (1967). Taylor was the first Compulsory Process Clause case since Washington v. Texas to provide a specific limitation on the right of defendants to force their witnesses to testify. In that case, the Court construed a defendant's right very broadly in his ability to present a defense.

In November 1980, the Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) advised respondent, a nonpreference eligible employee in the excepted service, that it intended to dismiss him for a… Held: The CSRA, which affords to nonpreference eligibles in the excepted service no administrative or judicial review of adverse personnel action of the type involved here, precludes judicial review for those employees under the Tucker Act based on the Back Pay Act.

Petitioners hold record title to 42 acres of Mississippi land underlying a bayou and a number of streams, which, although several miles north… Held: Since the States, upon entering the Union, were given ownership over all lands beneath waters subject to the tide's influence—see, e.g., Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 14 S.Ct. 548, 38 L.Ed. 331; Knight v. United States Land Assn., 142 U.S. 161, 12 S.Ct. 258, 35 L.Ed. 974—the lands at issue passed to Mississippi at the time of…

In 1982, petitioner ETSI Pipeline Project entered into a 40-year contract with petitioner Secretary of the Interior to withdraw up to a certain amount of water per year from Lake Oahe, a reservoir… Held: The Secretary of the Interior exceeded the authority Congress delegated to him by the Act. Pp. 505-517.

Title 5 U.S.C., Ch. 75, provides a "two-track" system for undertaking "adverse actions" against certain Government employees. Held: In an appeal pursuant to § 7513, the Board does not have authority to review the substance of an underlying security-clearance determination in the course of reviewing an adverse action. Pp. 526-534.

An employer may have a contractual duty under a collective-bargaining agreement to make contributions to a pension fund during the agreement's term, and may also have a duty under… Held: The remedy provided in §§ 515 and 502(g)(2) of ERISA is limited to contractual, "promised contributions," and does not confer jurisdiction on district courts to determine whether an employer's unilateral decision to refuse to make postcontract contributions violates the NLRA. Pp. 545-553.

As a result of injuries suffered in an attack at a federal prison, correctional counselor John Foster's memory was severely impaired. Held: Neither the Confrontation Clause nor Rule 802 is violated by admission of a prior, out-of-court identification statement of a witness who is unable, because of memory loss, to explain the basis for the identification. Pp. 557-564.