#certiorari

The Supreme Court’s Final Word The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal filed by Alan Dershowitz in his defamation lawsuit against CNN. This decision, announced on June 29, 2026, marks the effective conclusion of a legal battle that originated from CNN’s coverage of the 2020 impeachment trial of then-President Donald Trump. The nation’s highest court did not provide a reason for its…

Cert. Petition Seeks Overturning of Obergefell Decision

A petition for certiorari (full text) was filed with the Supreme Court last week in Davis v. Ermold, (Sup. Ct., cert filed 7/24/2025). In the case, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a $100,000 damage award to a same-sex couple who were refused a marriage license by Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis who had religious objections to same-sex marriage. (See prior posting.) The petition for review asks the Court to decide whether she, as a public official, has a First Amendment free exercise defense to a claim for damages for emotional distress stemming from her refusal. More broadly, it asks the Court to overrule Obergefell v. Hodges which gave constitutional protection to same-sex marriage. Liberty Counsel issued a press release announcing the filing of the petition.

"Liberty" Counsel has asked the SCOTUS to accept a case and potentially outlaw same-sex marriage or at least throw it back to the States to decide.

The Supreme Court now has the opportunity to define “willfulness” under the federal criminal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS). In a declined qui tam case filed against McKesson Corporation, a pharmaceutical wholesaler, the relator, Adam Hart, a former McKesson employee, filed a petition for certiorari seeking Supreme Court review of a Second Circuit decision that upheld the dismissal of relator’s…

Divorce by Mutual Consent Petitioners : Divya Ganesh Nallur & Ganesh Nallur Shivu W P No. 24429/2022 Decided on 08.06.2023 by Hon'ble Mr. Justice Krishna S Dixit

A Writ Petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India was filed by the Petitioners (Husband & Wife) before the Hon'ble Karnataka High Court at Bengaluru seeking quashing of the order passed by the Additional Principal Judge Family Court Bangalore refusing to grant decree of Divorce by mutual Consent on the ground that the spouses seeking divorce are living under the same roof.

The High Court issued Writ of Certiorari quashing the order of Add. Principal Judge Family Court and remanded the matter before the Family court requesting him to pass judgement and decree of divorce in terms of the Compromise entered between the parties and the mediation report.

The petition for certiorari was filed against the Second Circuit’s decision in Association for Accessible Medicines v. James, 974 F.3d 216 (2nd Cir. 2020), wherein the court held that the opioid stewardship payment is a tax.

Court of Appeal decides Taman Rimba Kiara development order is null and void

PETALING JAYA The Court of Appeal decided unanimously on Wednesday (Jan 27) that the development order (DO) granted for the Taman Rimba Kiara project is null and void. The decision was made via an online Zoom session by a three-judge Court of Appeal panel In a statement, the Taman Tun Dr Ismail Residents Association (TTDIRA) said that the Court of Appeal issued a certiorari order quashing the DO,…

Drilling into the Court's questions for the term with a post looking at word and phrase frequencies

This short post contains data about the questions the Supreme Court seeks to resolve this term. It contains a chart of the most frequent words in the questions after common English words like “the,” “and,” and “of” and words with two or fewer characters were eliminated. Next is a chart of the top two or three word phrases with the same caveats. Below these charts is a list of the cases with the…