The Oyez Project: Judicial Power Issues - Personal Injury

Allen v. Wright

In an effort to curb racially discriminatory practices in private schools, the Internal Revenue Code denies tax-exempt status to schools which promote such practices. The Code also prohibits individuals from making tax-deductible donations to private schools which racially discriminate. Inez Wright and others filed a nationwide class action suit arguing that the IRS had not fulfilled its obligations in enforcing these provisions of the Code, and thus, that government was subsidizing and encouraging the expansion of segregated education in private schools. This case was decided together with Reagan v. Wright.

Automobile Workers v. Brock

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Barlow v. Collins

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Craig v. Boren

An Oklahoma law prohibited the sale of "nonintoxicating" 3.2 percent beer to males under the age of 21 and to females under the age of 18. Curtis Craig, a male then between the ages of 18 and 21, and a licensed vendor challenged the law as discriminatory.

Data Processing Service v. Camp

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Diamond v. Charles

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Eisenstadt v. Baird

William Baird gave away Emko Vaginal Foam to a woman following his Boston University lecture on birth control and over-population. Massachusetts charged Baird with a felony, to distribute contraceptives to unmarried men or women. Under the law, only married couples could obtain contraceptives; only registered doctors or pharmacists could provide them. Baird was not an authorized distributor of contraceptives.

Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow

Michael Newdow's daughter attended public school in the Elk Grove Unified School District in California. Elk Grove teachers began school days by leading students in a voluntary recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, including the words "under God" added by a 1954 Congressional act. Newdow sued in federal district court in California, arguing that making students listen - even if they choose not to participate - to the words "under God" violates the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

The district court dismissed Newdow's complaint for lack of standing, because he and the mother of his daughter are divorced and he does not have custody. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Newdow did have standing "to challenge a practice that interferes with his right to direct the religious education of his daughter." The Ninth Circuit ruled that Congress's 1954 act adding the words "under God" to the Pledge and the school district policy requiring it be recited both violated the First Amendment's establishment clause.

Griswold v. Connecticut

Griswold was the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Both she and the Medical Director for the League gave information, instruction, and other medical advice to married couples concerning birth control. Griswold and her colleague were convicted under a Connecticut law which criminalized the provision of counselling, and other medical treatment, to married persons for purposes of preventing conception.

Investment Co. Institute v. Camp

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Karcher v. May

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Kowalski v. Tesmer

A 1994 amendment to the Michigan constitution said criminal defendants who pled guilty had no right to appeal and could appeal only with the permission of a state appellate court. Michigan then enacted a law that said in most cases judges could not appoint appellate lawyers for indigent defendants who pled guilty. Two criminal attorneys and three indigent defendants who were denied appointed appellate lawyers filed a single suit alleging the state law violated the 14th Amendment's due process and equal protection clauses. The district court ruled that the indigents had standing to sue and that the lawyers who sued with them had the right to sue as third-party representatives of the rights of indigents. A federal appellate court agreed the statute was unconstitutional, but based this only on the lawyers' claims. The court said the U.S. Supreme Court's 1971 decision in Younger v. Harris required it to abstain from hearing the indigents' claims because the indigents were involved in related proceedings in state court.

Los Angeles v. Lyons

In 1976, police officers of the City of Los Angeles stopped Adolph Lyons for a traffic code violation. Although Lyons offered no resistance, the officers, without provocation, seized Lyons and applied a chokehold. The hold rendered Lyons unconscious and damaged his larynx. Along with damages against the officers, Lyons sought an injunction against the City barring the use of such control holds.

Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) challenged 1,250 land-use designations made by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM). NWF filed suit under section 10(e) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), claiming that the actions were "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law." NWF argued that it had standing to sue because two of its members used public lands "in the vicinity" of lands affected by the BLM's decisions (four other members submitted affidavits claiming that they, too, used lands close to affected areas, but the District Court ruled that the affidavits had been submitted too late).

The BLM challenged the NWF's right to sue, and the District Court agreed. It found that the two affidavits filed in a timely manner did not show that the members had been sufficiently affected to have standing to sue. Furthermore, the court ruled that even if they had had standing to challenge those specific BLM decisions, they would not have had standing to challenge all 1,250.

On appeal, however, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the initial two affidavits were enough to give them standing to challenge all 1,250 decisions. Moreover, the Court ruled that the District Court had abused its discretion by refusing to consider the additional four affidavits.

Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis

K. Leroy Irvis, a black man who was a guest of a white member of the Moose Lodge No. 107, was refused service at the club's dining room because of his race. The bylaws of the Lodge limited membership to white male Caucasians. Irvis challenged the club's refusal to serve him, arguing that the action of the Pennsylvania liquor board issuing the Lodge a license made the club's discrimination "state action."

NAACP v. Alabama

As part of its strategy to enjoin the NAACP from operating, Alabama required it to reveal to the State's Attorney General the names and addresses of all the NAACP's members and agents in the state.

O'shea v. Littleton

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Railroad Trans. Service v. Chicago

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Raines v. Byrd

Several individual members of the 104th Congress, who voted against the passage of the Line Item Veto Act (Act) giving the President authority to veto individual tax and spending measures after having signed them into law, sued to challenge the Act's constitutionality. After granting them standing, the District Court ruled in the congressmen's favor as it found the Act unconstitutional. Direct appeal was granted to the Supreme Court.

Singleton v. Wulff

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Sinkfield v. Kelley

With the acknowledged purpose of maximizing the number of majority-minority districts -- i.e., districts in which a majority of voters belong to a minority group -- Alabama implemented a redistricting plan for its state legislative districts. White Alabama voters, who are residents of various majority-white districts (the appellees), brought suit in District Court challenging their own districts as the products of racial gerrymandering in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Ultimately, a three-judge court held that seven of the challenged majority-white districts were the product of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering and enjoined their use in any election. The judicial panel found that the group had standing on the ground that injury-in-fact could be conclusively presumed from the mere fact of residence in a gerrymandered district, independent of the plaintiff's subjective assessment of harm, because of the bizarre shapes of their districts. On direct appeal, Alabama state officials and a group of African-American voters argued that the appellees lacked standing to maintain the suit.

United States v. Hays

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Whitmore v. Arkansas

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Wyoming v. Oklahoma

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