The Oyez Project: 1979 Term Decisions

Aaron v. SEC (No. 79-66)

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Adams v. Texas (No. 79-5175)

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Agins v. Tiburon (No. 79-602)

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American Export Lines, Inc. v. Alvez (No. 79-1)

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Andrus v. Allard (No. 78-740)

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Andrus v. Glover Construction Co. (No. 79-48)

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Andrus v. Idaho (No. 79-260)

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Andrus v. Shell Oil Co. (No. 78-1815)

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Andrus v. Utah (No. 78-1522)

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Baldasar v. Illinois (No. 77-6219)

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Beck v. Alabama (No. 78-6621)

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Bifulco v. United States (No. 79-5010)

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Bloomer v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. (No. 78-1418)

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Board Of Education, New York City v. Harris (No. 78-873)

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Board Of Regents v. Tomanio (No. 79-424)

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Boeing Co. v. Van Gemert (No. 78-1327)

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Branti v. Finkel (No. 78-1654)

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Brown v. Glines (No. 78-1006)

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Brown v. Louisiana (No. 79-5364)

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Bryant v. Yellen (No. 79-421)

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Busic v. United States (No. 78-6020)

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California Brewers Assn. v. Bryant (No. 78-1548)

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California Liquor Dealers v. Midcal Aluminum (No. 79-97)

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California v. Nevada (No. 73 ORIG)

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Carbon Fuel Co. v. Mine Workers (No. 78-1183)

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Carey v. Brown (No. 79-703)

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Carlson, v. Green (No. 78-1261)

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Central Hudson Gas & Elec. v. Public Ser v. Comm'n (No. 79-565)

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Central Machinery Co. v. Arizona Tax Comm'n (No. 78-1604)

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Chiarella v. United States (No. 78-1202)

Did Chiarella violate Section 10(b) of the 1934 Act by failing to disclose the impending takeover before trading in the target company's securities?

No. A duty to disclose information arises if there is a relationship of trust and confidence between parties to the transaction. Chiarella had no such duty. He was not a corporate insider in the acquiring corporation and he did not receive confidential information from the target company. He also had no fiduciary relationship with the shareholders of the target company: he was not their agent; they placed no trust or confidence in him; indeed, they had no prior dealings with him. A duty to disclose under Section 10(b) does not arise from the mere possession of nonpublic market information.

City Of Rome v. United States (No. 78-1840)

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Coffy v. Republic Steel Corp. (No. 79-81)

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Committee For Public Education v. Regan (No. 78-1369)

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Consolidated Edison Co. v. Public Ser v. Comm'n (No. 79-134)

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Consumer Product Safety Comm'n v. Gte Sylvania (No. 79-521)

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Costle v. Pacific Legal Foundation (No. 78-1472)

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Crown Simpson Pulp Co. v. Costle (No. 79-797)

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Curtiss-Wright Corp. v. General Electric Co. (No. 79-105)

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Cuyler v. Sullivan (No. 78-1832)

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Dawson Chemical Co. v. Rohm & Haas Co. (No. 79-669)

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Deposit Guaranty Nat. Bank v. Roper (No. 78-904)

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Diamond v. Chakrabarty (No. 79-136)

Is the creation of a live, human-made organism patentable under Title 35 U.S.C. Section 101?

Yes. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court explained that while natural laws, physical phenomena, abstract ideas, or newly discovered minerals are not patentable, a live artificially-engineered microorganism is. The creation of a bacterium that is not found anywhere in nature, constitutes a patentable "manufacture" or "composition of matter" under Section 101. Moreover, the bacterium's man-made ability to break down crude oil makes it very useful.

Estes v. Metropolitan Branches, Dallas NAACP (No. 78-253)

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Exxon Corp. v. Wisconsin Dept. Of Revenue (No. 79-509)

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Ferri v. Ackerman (No. 78-5981)

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Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Milhollin (No. 78-1487)

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Forsham v. Harris (No. 78-1118)

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Fullilove v. Klutznick (No. 78-1007)

Did the provision of the statute for minority business enterprises violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

No. The Court held that the minority set-aside program was a legitimate exercise of congressional power. The Court found that Congress could pursue the objectives of the minority business enterprise program under the Spending Power. The plurality opinion noted that Congress could have regulated the practices of contractors on federally funded projects under the Commerce Clause as well. The Court further held that in the remedial context, Congress did not have to act "in a wholly 'color-blind' fashion."

General Telephone Co. v. EEOC (No. 79-488)

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Godfrey v. Georgia (No. 78-6899)

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Goldwater v. Carter (No. 79-856)

Did Congress have a constitutional role to play in the termination of the treaty?

Without oral argument ,the divided justices found that the case was not justiciable. Rehnquist led a group of four others who believed that the issue involved a political question, namely, how the President and Congress would conduct the nation's foreign affairs. Justice Powell did not find the case ripe for judicial review. He reasoned that since Congress had not formally challenged Carter's authority, technically there was no conflict for the Court to resolve. The dissenters were prepared to hear the case.

Gomez v. Toledo (No. 79-5601)

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Gte Sylvania, Inc. v. Consumers Union (No. 78-1248)

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Harris v. McRae (No. 79-1268)

Did the Hyde Amendment violate the right to privacy, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, or the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment?

No. The Court held that states participating in the Medicaid program were not obligated to fund medically necessary abortions under Title XIX. The Court found that a woman's freedom of choice did not carry with it "a constitutional entitlement to the financial resources to avail herself of the full range of protected choices." The Court ruled that because the Equal Protection Clause was not a source of substantive rights and because poverty did not qualify as a "suspect classification," the Hyde Amendment did not violate the Fifth Amendment. Finally, the Court held that the coincidence of the funding restrictions of the statute with tenets of the Roman Catholic Church did not constitute an establishment of religion.

Harrison v. Ppg Industries, Inc. (No. 78-1918)

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Hatzlachh Supply Co. v. United States (No. 78-1175)

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Hicks v. Oklahoma (No. 78-6885)

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Idaho Ex Rel. Evans v. Oregon (No. 67 ORIG)

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Illinois v. Vitale (No. 78-1845)

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Industrial Union Dept. v. Amer. Petroleum Inst. (No. 78-911)

Did the Secretary exceed his authority to set standards?

Yes. The Court agreed with the Court of Appeals that the Secretary had acted without knowledge that the new standard was necessary to "provide safe and healthful employment" as mandated by the Act. Nothing in OSHA's administrative record indicated that exposure to benzene at 10 ppm would cause leukemia and that exposure to one ppm would not. Since the Secretary had not made a threshold finding that exposure to 10 ppm posed significant health risks, he was powerless to promulgate the new standard.

Jenkins v. Anderson (No. 78-6809)

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Kaiser Aetna v. United States (No. 78-738)

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Kissinger v. Reporters Committee (No. 78-1088)

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Lewis v. Bt Investment Managers, Inc. (No. 79-45)

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Lewis v. United States (No. 78-1595)

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Maher v. Gagne (No. 78-1888)

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Maine v. Thiboutot (No. 79-838)

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Marshall v. Jerrico, Inc. (No. 79-253)

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Martinez v. California (No. 78-1268)

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Massachusetts v. Meehan (No. 78-1874)

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Mclain v. Real Estate Bd. Of New Orleans (No. 78-1501)

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Mobil Oil Corp. v. Commissioner Of Taxes (No. 78-1201)

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Mohasco Corp. v. Silver (No. 79-616)

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Nachman Corp. v. Pension Benefit Guar. Corp. (No. 78-1557)

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Navarro Savings Assn. v. Lee (No. 79-465)

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New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey (No. 79-192)

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NLRB v. Longshoremen (No. 79-1082)

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NLRB v. Retail Store Employees (No. 79-672)

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NLRB v. Yeshiva University (No. 78-857)

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Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Liepelt (No. 78-1323)

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O'bannon v. Town Court Nursing Center (No. 78-1318)

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Ohio v. Kentucky (No. 27 ORIG)

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Ohio v. Roberts (No. 78-756)

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Owen v. City Of Independence (No. 78-1779)

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Perrin v. United States (No. 78-959)

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PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins (No. 79-289)

Did PruneYard's regulations violate the students' free speech rights?

Yes. Since the California Constitution protected "speech and petitioning, reasonably exercised, in shopping centers even when the shopping centers are privately owned," PruneYard could not prevent the students from soliciting on its property. The Court argued that it was within California's power to guarantee this expansive free speech right since it did not unreasonably intrude on the rights of private property owners.

Rawlings v. Kentucky (No. 79-5146)

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Reeves Inc. v. Stake (No. 79-677)

Did South Dakota's preferential system violate the Commerce Clause?

In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court reaffirmed its holding in Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp. and found that "'[n]othing in the purposes animating the Commerce Clause prohibits a State, in the absence of congressional action, from participating in the market and exercising the right to favor its own citizens over others.'" The Court found that South Dakota was acting as a "market participant" rather than a "market regulator," and was capable of withdrawing from the interstate market if an in-state shortage arose. The Court rejected arguments that cement was a "natural resource" to which South Dakota had sought to limit outside access.

Rhode Island v. Innis (No. 78-1076)

Did the police "interrogation" en route to the station violate Innis's Miranda rights?

No. In a 6-to-3 decision, the Court held that the Miranda safeguards came into play "whenever a person in custody is subjected to either express questioning or its functional equivalent," noting that the term "interrogation" under Miranda included "any words or actions on the part of the police (other than those normally attendant to arrest and custody) that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the subject." The Court then found that the officers' conversation did not qualify as words or actions that they should have known were reasonably likely to elicit such a response from Innis.

Richmond Newspapers Inc. v. Virginia (No. 79-243)

Did the closure of the trial to the press and public violate the First Amendment or the Sixth Amendment?

In a 7-to-1 decision, the Court held that the right to attend criminal trials was "implicit in the guarantees of the First Amendment." The Court held that the First Amendment encompassed not only the right to speak but also the freedom to listen and to receive information and ideas. The Court also noted that the First Amendment guaranteed the right of assembly in public places such as courthouses. The Court emphasized that "certain unarticulated rights" were implicit in enumerated guarantees and were often "indispensable to the enjoyment of rights explicitly defined."

Roadway Express, Inc. v. Piper (No. 79-701)

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Robert Michael Fungaroli v. Judith Diane Fungaroli (No. 79-492)

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Roberts v. United States (No. 78-1793)

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Rummel v. Estelle (No. 78-6386)

Did Rummel's life sentence under the Texas recidivist law constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment?

In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court held that the life sentence imposed by Texas law did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court held that Texas had a significant interest in dealing "in a harsher manner with those who by repeated criminal acts have shown that they are simply incapable of conforming to the norms of society." The Court also noted that Texas had "a relatively liberal policy of granting 'good time' credits to its prisoners," indicating that there was a possibility that Rummel would not be imprisoned for the rest of his life.

Rush v. Savchuk (No. 78-952)

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Schaumburg v. Citizens For Better Environ. (No. 78-1335)

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Sears, Roebuck and Co. v. County of Los Angeles and City of Compton (No. 78-1577)

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Seatrain Shipbuilding Corp. v. Shell Oil Co (No. 78-1651)

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Secretary Of Navy v. Huff (No. 78-599)

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Snepp v. United States (No. 78-1871)

Were Snepp's First Amendment rights violated?

No. The Court upheld the lower court's ruling and agreed that Snepp had breached the "constructive trust" between him and the government. That was especially significant in this case since this type of violation by a former agent "impairs the CIA's ability to perform its statutory duties" and potentially jeopardizes the safety of current government operatives and Snepp himself. The Court reached this decision without hearing oral argument by the parties.

Standefer v. United States (No. 79-383)

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Sun Ship, Inc. v. Pennsylvania (No. 79-343)

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Supreme Court Of Va. v. Consumers Union (No. 79-198)

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Texas v. New Mexico (No. 65 ORIG)

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Thomas v. Washington Gas Light Co. (No. 79-116)

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Trammel v. United States (No. 78-5705)

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United States Parole Comm'n v. Geraghty (No. 78-572)

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United States v. Apfelbaum (No. 78-972)

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United States v. Bailey (No. 78-990)

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United States v. California (No. 5 ORIG)

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United States v. Clark (No. 78-1513)

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United States v. Clarke (No. 78-1693)

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United States v. Crews (No. 78-777)

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United States v. Euge (No. 78-1453)

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United States v. Gillock (No. 78-1455)

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United States v. Havens (No. 79-305)

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United States v. Henry (No. 79-121)

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United States v. Kubrick (No. 78-1014)

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United States v. Louisiana (No. 9 ORIG)

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United States v. Mendenhall (No. 78-1821)

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United States v. Mitchell (No. 78-1756)

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United States v. Payner (No. 78-1729)

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United States v. Raddatz (No. 79-8)

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United States v. Salvucci (No. 79-244)

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United States v. Sioux Nation Of Indians (No. 79-639)

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United States v. Ward (No. 79-394)

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Vance v. Terrazas (No. 78-1143)

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Vance v. Universal Amusement Co. (No. 78-1588)

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Vaughn v. Vermilion Corp. (No. 77-1819)

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Vitek v. Jones (No. 78-1155)

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Walker v. Armco Steel Corp. (No. 78-1862)

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Walter v. United States (No. 79-67)

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Washington v. Confederated Tribes (No. 78-630)

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Wengler v. Druggists Mutual Ins. Co. (No. 79-381)

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Whalen v. United States (No. 78-5471)

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Whirlpool Corp. v. Marshall (No. 78-1870)

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White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker (No. 78-1177)

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Williams v. Zbaraz (No. 79-4)

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World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson (No. 78-1078)

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Ybarra v. Illinois (No. 78-5937)

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