Volume 535 — United States Reports

This is a list of all the United States Supreme Court cases from volume 535 of the United States Reports:

Held: Section 507(a)(8)(A)(i)'s lookback period is tolled during the pendency of a prior bankruptcy petition. Pp. 46-54. (a) The lookback period is a limitations period subject to traditional equitable tolling principles. It prescribes a period in which certain rights may be enforced, encouraging the IRS to protect its rights before three years have elapsed.

Held: A defendant who lets Rule 11 error pass without objection in the trial court must satisfy Rule 52(b)'s plain-error rule. Pp. 62-74.

Ragsdale v. Wolverine World Wide, Inc., 535 U.S. 81 (2002), is a U.S. labor law case, concerning the scope of federal preemption against state law for labor rights.

Held: The EEOC's relation-back regulation is an unassailable interpretation of § 706. Pp. 112-119. (a) There is nothing plain in reading "charge" to require an oath by definition. Title VII nowhere defines "charge." Section 706(b) merely requires that a charge be verified, without saying when; § 706(e)(1) provides that a charge must be filed within a given period, without indicating whether it must be verified when filed.

HUD v. Rucker, 535 U.S. 125 (2002), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held Congress's authorization of evictions of tenants from public housing where a tenant's invitee into the housing engaged in drug-related activity and the tenant did not know about it was constitutional.

Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 535 U.S. 137 (2002), is a United States labor law decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States denied an award of back pay to an undocumented worker, José Castro, who had been laid off for participating in a union organizing campaign at Hoffman Plastics Compounds plant, along with several other employees. The case was originally filed against Hoffman by Dionisio Gonzalez, an organizer with the United Steelworkers. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found that the layoff of Castro had violated National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) section 8(a)(3) on the unlawful firing of union supporters. Castro used another person's identity (a friend's birth certificate) to gain employment at Hoffman Plastics.

Held: In order to demonstrate a Sixth Amendment violation where the trial court fails to inquire into a potential conflict of interest about which it knew or reasonably should have known, a defendant must establish that a conflict of interest adversely affected his counsel's performance. Pp. 166-176.

Held: The Agency's interpretations of the statute fall within its lawful interpretative authority. Pp. 217-225. (a) The Agency's reading of the term "inability" is reasonable. The statute requires both an "inability" to engage in any substantial gainful activity and an "impairment" providing "reason" for the "inability," adding that the "impairment" must last or be expected to last not less than 12 months.

Held: The Fifth Circuit's decision is inconsistent with Liljeberg v. Health Services Acquisition Corp., 486 U. S. 847, which stated that § 455(a) requires judicial recusal "if a reasonable person, knowing all the circumstances, would expect that the judge would have actual knowledge" of his interest or bias in the case, id., at 861 (internal quotation marks omitted and emphasis added).

Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002), is a U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down two overbroad provisions of the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 because they abridged "the freedom to engage in a substantial amount of lawful speech". The case was brought against the U.S. government by the Free Speech Coalition, a "California trade association for the adult-entertainment industry", along with Bold Type, Inc., a "publisher of a book advocating the nudist lifestyle"; Jim Gingerich, who paints nudes; and Ron Raffaelli, a photographer who specialized in erotic images. By striking down these two provisions, the Court rejected an invitation to increase the amount of speech that would be categorically outside the protection of the First Amendment.

United States v. Craft, 535 U.S. 274 (2002) is a United States Supreme Court ruling that held a spouse in a tenancy by the entirety possesses an individual right in their own estate to the level to constitute "rights to property" for the purpose of a lien.

Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535 U.S. 302 (2002), is one of the United States Supreme Court's more recent interpretations of the Takings Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The case dealt with the question of whether a moratorium on construction of individual homes imposed by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency fell under the Takings Clause of the United States Constitution and whether the landowners therefore should receive just compensation as required by that clause. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency was represented by future Chief Justice John Roberts. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion of the Court, finding that the moratorium did not constitute a taking.

Held: The FDAMA's prohibitions on soliciting prescriptions for, and advertising, compounded drugs amount to unconstitutional restrictions on commercial speech. Pp. 366-377.

US Airways, Inc. v. Barnett, (2002), was a case in the United States Supreme Court that dealt with issues related to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and reasonable accommodations in the workplace. The Court held that even requests for accommodation that might seem reasonable on their face, such as a transfer to a different position, can be rendered unreasonable if they would require a violation of the company's seniority system.

Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc., 535 U.S. 425 (2002), was a United States Supreme Court case on the controversial issue of adult bookstore zoning in the city of Los Angeles. Zoning laws dictated that no adult bookstores could be within five hundred feet of a public park, or religious establishment, or within 1000 feet of another adult establishment. However, Alameda Books, Inc. and Highland Books, Inc. were two adult stores that operated under one roof. They sued Los Angeles, stating the ordinance violated the First Amendment.

Verizon Communications Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission, 535 U.S. 467 (2002), is a United States Supreme Court case in which Verizon Communications argued that the FCC had an unreasonable way for setting rates for leasing network elements. It held that the FCC can require state commissions to set the rates charged by incumbents for leased elements on a forward-looking basis untied to the incumbents' investment and that the FCC can require incumbents to combine elements of their networks at the request of entrants.

Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U.S. 564 (2002), followed by 542 U.S. 656 (2004), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court, ruling that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was unconstitutional as a violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.

Lapides v. Board of Regents of University System of Georgia, 535 U.S. 613 (2002), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that a state voluntarily waives at least part of its Eleventh Amendment immunity when it invokes a federal court's removal jurisdiction. There has subsequently been a "circuit split" in federal courts regarding whether a state waives immunity from liability or only a federal forum.

United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625 (2002), is a United States Supreme Court case that held the omission of a fact in a federal indictment that would enhance the maximum sentence is not a jurisdictional error and thus is not justification for a vacation of the sentence.

Held: Section 1331 provides a basis for jurisdiction over Verizon's claim that the Commission's order requiring reciprocal compensation for ISP-bound calls is pre-empted by federal law.

Alabama v. Shelton, 535 U.S. 654 (2002), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling that counsel (a lawyer) must be provided for the accused in order to impose a suspended prison sentence.

Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685 (2002), was a Supreme Court of the United States case that upheld a death sentence despite the defendant's argument that he should not be sentenced to death because he was suffering from drug-induced psychosis when he committed the crimes. Cone also argued that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to present sufficient mitigating evidence during the sentencing phase of his trial and that his attorney inappropriately waived his final argument during the sentencing phase. In an 8–1 opinion written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the United States Supreme Court denied Cone's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

Festo Corp. v Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co., 535 U.S. 722 (2002), was a United States Supreme Court decision in the area of patent law that examined the relationship between the doctrine of equivalents (which holds that a patent can be infringed by something that is not literally falling within the scope of the claims because a somewhat insubstantial feature or element has been substituted) and the doctrine of prosecution history estoppel (which holds that a party who makes a change to a patent application to accommodate the requirements of patent law cannot claim infringement by equivalents of an element that was narrowed by that change).

Held: State sovereign immunity bars the FMC from adjudicating a private party's complaint against a nonconsenting State. Pp. 751-769. (a) Dual sovereignty is a defining feature of the Nation's constitutional blueprint, and an integral component of the sovereignty retained by the States when they entered the Union is their immunity from private suits.

Held: Section 406(b) does not displace contingent-fee agreements within the statutory ceiling; instead, § 406(b) instructs courts to review for reasonableness fees yielded by those agreements. Pp. 799-809.

Held: Assuming that the complaint's allegations are true, respondent's conduct was "in connection with the purchase or sale of any security." Among Congress' objectives in passing the Act was to ensure honest securities markets and thereby promote investor confidence after the 1929 market crash.

Holmes Group, Inc. v. Vornado Air Circulation Systems, Inc., 535 U.S. 826 (2002), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that patent issues raised in a counterclaim do not give rise to Federal Circuit jurisdiction.

Held: in effect, that there is no way in which Congress can assure prospective judges that the purchasing power of their promised salary will be maintained: Any commitment by one Congress (even one accompanied by a reduction in judges' permissible outside income) can be repudiated by a later Congress, no matter how serious the inflation-produced erosion of real compensation.