 |
|
 |
|
|
Access State and Federal Case Law, plus U.S. Supreme Court cases — for free!
Click on any of the case links below to view the full text of that case — for free — through lexisONE®, a legal research and news service from LexisNexis®. Login is required — registration is free!
While viewing the full text of the case, select from upgrade options to Shepardize® or view the fully-featured case on lexis.com including Core Terms, Shepard's® Signals, Case Summaries, Print Options, and more. lexisONE offers access to comprehensive content and flexible services for faster, more efficient legal research. Review our flexible LexisNexis® subscriptions offered through daily, weekly or monthly research packages.
| Cheek v. United States, No. 89-658,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, January 8, 1991, Decided
View this case - free |
|||||
Overview: Petitioner was a tax protester who did not file tax returns or pay taxes for several years because he believed that wages were not a form of taxable income and that the tax laws were unconstitutional. The district court instructed the jury that good faith misunderstanding of the tax laws was not a defense where the asserted beliefs were unreasonable, and the appellate court affirmed. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded, holding that petitioner was entitled to an instruction on good faith misunderstanding of the tax laws as to his belief that wages were not income, whether or not such a belief was objectively reasonable. Knowledge and belief should normally have been questions for the jury. The defense of good faith misunderstanding did not apply to claims of unconstitutionality, however, because such claims arose not from innocent mistakes but from knowledge of the law and disagreement with its provisions.
|
|||||
| Pac. Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, No. 89-1279,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, March 4, 1991, Decided
View this case - free |
|||||
Overview: Petitioner insurer's agent solicited and wrote policies for a municipality and misappropriated premium monies paid. Respondent insureds filed suit for fraud after discovering no health insurance coverage existed. The trial jury was instructed it could award punitive damages if it determined there was liability for fraud. The jury returned verdicts against insurer and agent for both liability and punitive damages. Petitioner appealed. The state supreme court, in a split decision, affirmed the trial court. Petitioner then filed a petition for a writ of certiorari. Certiorari was granted as the court had expressed doubts about the constitutionality of some punitive damages awards. The court determined that petitioner had prior notice of possible frauds by agent, and that state common law allowed corporate liability for compensatory and punitive damages for fraud where its employee, in this case agent, effected fraud within the scope of employment. The court determined the state common law advanced the state's goal and was part of traditional state tort law, hence the punitive damages award was not a due process violation.
|
|||||
| Int'l Union v. Johnson Controls, No. 89-1215,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, March 20, 1991, Decided
View this case - free |
|||||
Overview: Employer implemented a policy that excluded women who were pregnant or capable of bearing children from being placed in jobs involving lead exposure. The court held that employer's fetal-protection policy explicitly discriminated against women on the basis of their sex. The court ruled that this sex-based discrimination was not permissible. Under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 42 U.S.C.S. § 2000e(k), for all Title VII purposes, discrimination based on a woman's pregnancy was on its face discrimination because of her sex. Despite evidence about the debilitating effect of lead exposure on the male reproductive system, employer's policy only addressed female employees. Thus, the policy was not neutral. The absence of a malevolent notice did not convert the facially discriminatory policy into a neutral policy with a discriminatory effect. The court also held that this discrimination could not be justified as a BFOQ. Discrimination under the safety exception to the BFOQ was allowed only in narrow circumstances. Danger to the women did not justify the discrimination.
|
|||||
| Ariz. v. Fulminante, No. 89-839,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, March 26, 1991, Decided
View this case - free |
|||||
Overview: Defendant confessed to the murder of his stepdaughter to a fellow prisoner while he was incarcerated on other charges. The state supreme court ruled that the confession had been coerced and that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments barred its use against defendant. The Court held that the confession was coerced and that the state failed to meet its burden of establishing, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the admission of the confession was harmless error. There was a credible threat of physical violence to defendant unless he confessed. Admission of a coerced confession did not automatically require reversal of a conviction but was subject to harmless error analysis because it involved a trial error that could be assessed in the context of other evidence. Admission of defendant's confession was not harmless error because it was unlikely that he would have been prosecuted at all absent the confession, the admission of the confession led to the admission of other evidence prejudicial to defendant, and the confession influenced the sentencing phase of the trial.
|
|||||
| Feist Publ'ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., No. 89-1909,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, March 27, 1991, Decided
View this case - free |
|||||
Overview: Respondent sued petitioner for copyright infringement because petitioner had used information contained in its white pages in the compilation of its own directory. The court reversed a grant of summary judgment in favor of respondent because the selection, coordination, and arrangement of respondent's white pages did not satisfy the minimum constitutional standards for copyright protection. Specifically, the court found that respondent's white pages, which contained only factual information, i.e., phone numbers, addresses, and names listed in alphabetical order, lacked the requisite originality because respondent had not selected, coordinated, or arranged the uncopyrightable facts in any original way.
|
|||||
| Carnival Cruise Lines v. Shute, No. 89-1647,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, April 17, 1991, Decided
View this case - free |
|||||
Overview: Respondents were residents of the State of Washington, and they boarded petitioner's ship in California. Respondent wife was injured while the ship was in international waters off the coast of Mexico. Respondents filed an action in the U.S. District Court in Washington, which granted petitioner's motion for summary judgment, since the contract between respondents and petitioner provided that all suits were to be brought in Florida. The appellate court reversed the order granting summary judgment. On certiorari, the court held that because respondents had notice of the forum clause, because petitioner's principal place of business was in Florida, and since there was no bad faith motive for the choice of a Florida forum, Florida was not an inconvenient forum. Since the choice of forum did not limit petitioner's liability in any way, petitioner did not violate the Limitation of Vessel Owner's Liability Act, 46 U.S.C.S. App. § 183c. Thus, the choice of forum clause in the contract was valid. The court reversed the decision of the appellate court.
|
|||||
| Cal. v. Hodari D., No. 89-1632,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, April 23, 1991, Decided
View this case - free |
|||||
Overview: The court granted certiorari on the issue of whether defendant had been seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment at the time he dropped the cocaine when he saw an officer running towards him. The state appellate court held that defendant had been seized when he dropped the cocaine and that the evidence had to be suppressed. The state supreme court denied the State's application for review. The Court reversed and remanded the judgment. The Court held that with respect to a show of authority regarding the application of physical force, a seizure did not occur when the subject had not yielded. Defendant's case did not involve the application of any physical force, and he was untouched at the time he discarded the cocaine. The Court found that the test for a show of authority was an objective one and that defendant was not seized until he was tackled. The cocaine abandoned while defendant was running was not the fruit of a seizure and not excludable.
|
|||||
| Stevens v. Dep't of Treasury, No. 89-1821,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, April 24, 1991, Decided
View this case - free |
|||||
Overview: Petitioner employee brought a claim of age discrimination against respondent employer and its secretary. The district court dismissed petitioner's cause of action and the appellate court affirmed. The appellate court disagreed with the district court's statement that petitioner could have gone directly to federal court no later than 180 days from the unlawful action. The appellate court found that petitioner's notice to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as not effective and concluded that although the district court did not state the applicable law correctly, ultimately the correct result was reached as petitioner failed to meet the requirements set forth in 29 U.S.C.S. § 633a(d). On review, the court reversed and remanded the judgment from the appellate court. The court found that petitioner notified the EEOC within 180 days after the alleged discriminatory action, petitioner's transfer and demotion, had occurred, and suit was not filed until more than 30 days after the notice was given. There was no foundation for any conclusion that the suit was not filed within the applicable period of limitations.
|
|||||
| County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, No. 89-1817,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, May 13, 1991, Decided
View this case - free |
|||||
Overview: At issue was the county's policy of combining probable cause determinations with arraignment procedures. Arraignments were conducted within two days of arrest but usually took place on the last day possible. The two-day requirement excluded from computation weekends and holidays resulting in some instances of an individual arrested without a warrant being held for as long as seven days. The district court adopted a rule that the county provide probable cause determinations within 36 hours of arrest except in exigent circumstances. The court of appeals affirmed. The Court vacated the court of appeal's judgment. The Court stated that a jurisdiction providing determinations of probable cause within 48 hours of arrest would comply with the promptness requirement. Thus, the Court concluded that the county was entitled to combine probable cause determinations with arraignments if conducted within 48 hours of an individual's arrest but remanded to the court of appeals and district court to determine whether there were legitimate reasons for the county's practice of conducting arraignments on the last day possible.
|
|||||
| Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., No. 90-18,
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, May 13, 1991, Decided
View this case - free |
|||||
Overview: The decision that a claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 29 U.S.C.S. § 621 et seq., could be subjected to compulsory arbitration pursuant to an arbitration agreement in a securities application was affirmed. Although 9 U.S.C.S. § 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) provided that the FAA did not apply to a contract of employment of any class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce, the court held that this was not applicable to an arbitration clause in a securities application. Having made a bargain to arbitrate, petitioner was held to it unless he showed proof that Congress evinced an intention to preclude a waiver of judicial remedies for the statutory right at issue. The court held that claims under the ADEA were subject to resolution by actions of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission aside from judicial resolution, and therefore, found that Congress did not intend to make the resolution of ADEA claims solely an issue for judicial review. Petitioner failed to prove that the ADEA specifically precluded arbitration of ADEA claims, and therefore, the decision that the petitioner's claim was subject to arbitration was affirmed.
|
|||||
Back to Top
| www.lexisnexis.com | About LexisNexis | Terms & Conditions | Customer Support | Contact Us |
| Copyright® 2009 LexisNexis , a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
