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| Mistretta v. United States, No. 87-7028,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, January 18, 1989, * Decided *Together with No. 87-1904, United States v. Mistretta, also on certiorari before judgment to the same court.
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Overview: Petitioner and respondent both requested certiorari before judgment was rendered to consider the constitutionality of the Sentencing Guidelines promulgated by the United States Sentencing Commission. The Commission was created under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (Act), 18 U.S.C.S. § 3551 et seq. (1982 ed., Supp. IV) and 28 U.S.C.S. §§ 991-998 (1982 ed., Supp. IV). The trial court rejected petitioner's contention that the Act was unconstitutional. On appeal, petitioner's first contention was that Congress had granted the Commission excessive legislative discretion. The Supreme Court did not agree. The Court found that Congress had provided guidelines under which the Commission was to operate and that it had not delegated excessive legislative power to another branch of government. The Court also found that Congress had not upset the constitutionally mandated balance of powers among the branches of government. The Court concluded that the Act was constitutional and therefore affirmed the trial court's decision.
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| Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., No. 87-998,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, January 23, 1989, Decided
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Overview: Appellant city council adopted a plan that required prime contractors to whom the city awarded construction contracts to subcontract at least 30 percent of the dollar amount of the contract to one or more Minority Business Enterprises. The purpose of the plan was to promote wider participation by minority business enterprises in the construction of public projects. Appellee contractor brought an action under 42 U.S.C.S. § 1983, arguing that the ordinance was unconstitutional on its face. The appellate court found the ordinance to be unconstitutional. The Court affirmed that decision. Applying the two prongs of the strict scrutiny standard, the Court found that the evidence did not point to any identified discrimination in the construction industry. Appellant had failed to demonstrate a compelling governmental interest in apportioning public contracting opportunities on the basis of race or that its remedy had been narrowly tailored to the achievement of that interest. The Court found the ordinance to be unconstitutional.
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| Bonito Boats v. Thunder Craft Boats, No. 87-1346,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, February 21, 1989, Decided
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Overview: Petitioner developed and marketed a fiberglass boat hull. No patent application was filed to protect the utilitarian or design aspects of the hull. The hull was successful and an interstate market developed for the hull's trade. Six years after the hull had been made publicly available, Fla. Stat. § 559.94 (1987) was enacted, which made it unlawful for anyone to duplicate for the purpose of sale the process used by another hull manufacturer without written permission from that person. Petitioner sued respondent alleging that respondent violated the statute by using the same molding process petitioner used to manufacture respondent's hull. In a divided opinion, the state supreme court concluded that the statute impermissibly interfered with federal patent law and dismissed petitioner's complaint. Petitioner appealed. The court held that by offering patent-like protection for ideas deemed unprotected under the federal scheme, the statute conflicted with the federal policy favoring free competition in ideas which did not merit patent protection. As a result, the statute was preempted by the Eleventh Amendment, and the judgment in favor of respondent was affirmed.
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| Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch, No. 87-1054,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, February 21, 1989, Decided
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Overview: The court affirmed the appellate court's holding that where an employer was the fiduciary and administrator of an unfunded benefit plan covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, its decision to deny benefits was subject to de novo review. The court held that a denial of benefits challenged under § 1132(a)(1)(B) of the Act was reviewed under a de novo standard unless the plan gave the administrator or fiduciary discretionary authority to determine eligibility for benefits or to construe the plan's terms. The court rejected the arbitrary and capricious standard finding no support for it in the plan's language and noting that trust law principles pointed to de novo review. Further, de novo review comported with ERISA's purpose to promote the interests of employees and their beneficiaries in benefit plans. The court reversed the appellate court's holding as to the definition of "participant" under the Act explaining that "participant" meant either employees in, or reasonably expected to be in, currently covered employment or former employees with a reasonable expectation of returning to covered employment or with a colorable claim to vested benefits.
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| Deshaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Social Services, No. 87-154,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, February 22, 1989, Decided
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Overview: The child's father beat him to the point where he was deemed to be profoundly retarded. The child, by his guardian ad litem, alleged that respondents knew or should have known about the risk posed by his father. The district court granted respondents' motion for summary judgment, and the appellate court affirmed. The appellate court found that the child had not made out an actionable § 1983 claim. On appeal, the Supreme Court found that the actions of the father were reprehensible. However, the Court determined that the Fourteenth Amendment did not require a state or local governmental agency to protect its citizens from private violence or other mishaps not attributable to the conducts of its employees. Therefore, the Court affirmed the lower courts' decisions.
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| Teague v. Lane, No. 87-5259,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, February 22, 1989, Decided
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Overview: The Court took the opportunity to clarify how the question of retroactivity should be resolved for cases on collateral review. The Court held that the decision of retroactivity should be addressed at the time of the new rule decision. New constitutional rules of criminal procedure were not retroactively applicable to cases that became final before the decision was announced unless one of two exceptions applied. A new rule would be applied retroactively if it placed certain kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the criminal law-making authority to proscribe, or if it required the observance of those bedrock procedural elements that were absolutely prerequisite to fundamental fairness implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. Habeas corpus could not be used as a vehicle to create new constitutional rules of criminal procedure unless those rules would be applied retroactively through one of these two exceptions. Because a decision extending the fair cross-section requirement to the petit jury would not be applied retroactively to cases on collateral review under this approach, the Court refused to address the prisoner's claim.
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| City of Canton v. Harris, No. 86-1088,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, February 28, 1989, Decided
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Overview: Respondent detainee filed suit seeking to hold petitioner city liable under 42 U.S.C.S. § 1983 for the alleged violation of her right, under the Due Process Clause of U.S. Const. amend. XIV, to medical care while in police custody. Evidence was presented at trial indicating that a municipal regulation gave shift commanders sole discretion to determine whether a detainee required medical care and that shift commanders were not provided any special training to make such determinations. The jury ruled in favor of respondent's § 1983 claim. The court of appeals held that a city could be held liable for failure to train its police force where it was proven that the city acted recklessly, intentionally, or with gross negligence but reversed and remanded on grounds that the district court's instructions might have led the jury to believe it could find against petitioner on a mere respondeat superior theory. On certiorari, the Court vacated and remanded, holding that the inadequacy of police training could serve as the basis for § 1983 liability only where the failure to train amounted to deliberate indifference to the rights of persons with whom the police came into contact.
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| Volt Info. Scis. v. Bd. of Trs., No. 87-1318,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, March 6, 1989, Decided
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Overview: Appellant and appellee entered into a construction contract. The contract contained an agreement to arbitrate all disputes between the parties "arising out of or relating to this contract or the breach thereof." It also contained a choice-of-law clause providing that the contract shall be governed by the law of the place where the project was located. A dispute developed, and appellee sued appellant and others in state court. Appellant sought a stay of the proceedings and to compel arbitration. The court refused to stay the proceedings and stayed the arbitration pursuant to Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 1281.2(c) because third parties were involved who were not bound by the arbitration agreement. The state appellate court affirmed. The Court had jurisdiction because the validity of the statute was at issue. The Court affirmed the state court and held that, while the Federal Arbitration Act enforced arbitration agreements in interstate commerce matters, it was not preemptive of state law where the parties agreed in their contract to be bound thereby.
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| Skinner v. Ry. Labor Executives' Ass'n, No. 87-1555,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, March 21, 1989, Decided
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Overview: The Supreme Court reversed a judgment that found petitioner Federal Railroad Administration's promulgation of regulations 49 C.F.R. § 219.101- 219.301(c)(2) (1987), under the Federal Railroad Safety Act (Act), 45 U.S.C.S. § 431(a), violated the U.S. Const. amend. IV rights of employees covered by the Hours of Service Act, 45 U.S.C.S. § 61 et seq. The court found the alcohol and drug tests under Subparts C and D of petitioner's regulations were reasonable within the meaning of U.S. Const. amend. IV and no warrants or reasonable suspicion were required before any testing. The court held that railroad employers had limited discretion under the regulations and there was a strong governmental interest to regulate railroad employees' conduct to ensure public safety. The tests were not considered intrusive because there was a diminished expectation of privacy on the information relating to the physical condition of covered employees and to reasonable means of procuring the information because the industry was highly regulated for safety. The court found that most railroads required periodic physical exams for certain employees.
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| United States DOJ v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of Press, No. 87-1379,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, March 22, 1989, Decided
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Overview: The court addressed whether disclosure of the rap sheet constituted an unwarranted invasion of privacy within the meaning of 5 U.S.C.S. § 552(b)(7)(C). The court held that the fact that an event was not wholly "private" did not mean that an individual had no interest in limiting its disclosure. The privacy interest in a rap sheet was substantial. Whether an invasion of privacy was warranted had to turn on the nature of the requested document and its relationship to the basic purpose of the FOIA, which focused on the citizen's right to be informed about the government's actions. The news groups in this case did not intend to discover anything about the conduct of the agency, and response to the request would not shed any light on the agency's conduct. Thus, the public interest in release of a rap sheet was not the type of interest protected by the FOIA. The court held, as a categorical matter under § 552(b)(7)(C), that a third party's request for law enforcement records about a private citizen could reasonably be expected to invade that citizen's privacy, and that when the request sought no official information about the government, the privacy invasion was unwarranted.
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