Supreme Court Notebook

Court considers jurisdiction for MSPB appeals BOSTON (Daily Record Newswire) -- The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the Federal Circuit or district courts have jurisdiction to hear the appeal of a Merit Systems Protection Board decision that contains disputed termination and unlawful discrimination claims. The case involves a plaintiff who left her work as a senior investigator for a local Department of Labor Employee Benefits Security Administration office and filed a complaint with the DOL alleging unlawful discrimination, and also filed a complaint with the EEOC alleging hostile work environment and discrimination based on gender and age. About three years later, the Secretary of Labor issued a final agency action rejecting the plaintiff's claims of unlawful discrimination. She appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears appeals by federal employees regarding certain adverse actions, such as dismissals. The MSPB dismissed her appeal as untimely. The plaintiff then filed an action in federal district court on the discrimination claim and appealed the Board's dismissal, but the district court dismissed on the ground that the Federal Circuit had exclusive subject matter jurisdiction. She appealed again, arguing that the Federal Circuit does not have exclusive jurisdiction over such "mixed cases" where the MSPB claim was not considered on the merits. But the 8th Circuit affirmed the ruling. The court held that the plaintiff "could appeal to the MSPB or file a civil action in federal district court, but she could not do both." "[B]ecause in this case the MSPB did not reach the merits of [the plaintiffs'] discrimination claims in dismissing her mixed case appeal as untimely, the district court properly ruled that the Federal Circuit had exclusive jurisdiction to review the MSPB's dismissal," the court said. Court ruling revives habeas claim in death row case BOSTON (Daily Record Newswire) -- A habeas petitioner who was effectively "abandoned" by his lawyers demonstrated sufficient cause to excuse his failure to meet a state deadline for appealing the denial of postconviction relief, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a 7-2 decision. The decision reverses a ruling by the 11th Circuit. Generally, a federal court may not entertain a state prisoner's habeas claims when a state court has refused to address those claims because the prisoner failed to meet a state proce?dural requirement. The bar to federal review may be lifted if the prisoner can demonstrate cause for the procedural default in state court. In this case, the petitioner was convicted in Alabama state court for the murder of two individuals. After being sentenced to death and losing his bid for postconviction relief in state court, the petitioner sought habeas relief in federal court. The federal court denied the habeas claim on the basis that the petitioner had forfeited his right to proceed in state court by failing to file an appeal from a denial of postconviction relief within the 42-day period established by state law. But the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the petitioner could show the requisite cause to excuse his procedural default in state court by the fact that his pro bono attorneys had unilaterally stopped representing him in the midst of the postconviction proceedings, without making any provision for new counsel. "Through no fault of his own, [the petitioner] lacked the assistance of any authorized attorney during the 42 days Alabama allows for noticing an appeal from a trial court's denial of postconviction relief. ... [H]e had no reason to suspect that, in reality, he had been reduced to pro se status. [The petitioner] was disarmed by extraordinary circumstances quite beyond his control. He has shown ample cause, we hold, to excuse the procedural default into which he was trapped when counsel of record abandoned him without a word of warning," the Court said. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion. Justice Samuel Alito filed a concurring opinion. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissent in which Justice Clarence Thomas joined. Court says federal courts can hear suits over 'robo-calls' BOSTON (Daily Record Newswire) -- The Telephone Consumer Protection Act's grant of permissive jurisdiction to state courts did not deprive a federal court of jurisdiction to hear the lawsuit of a plaintiff who claimed he was victimized by a debt collector's use of an automated dialing system to place collection calls, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a unanimous decision. The ruling reverses a decision by the 11th Circuit. The plaintiff sued in federal court, alleging that the defendant committed multiple violations of the TCPA by using an automated telephone dialing system to repeatedly call him about a debt. The defendant argued that the plaintiff's private claims for damages could only be brought in state court because the TCPA provides that a private person may seek redress for violations of the Act "in an appropriate court of [a] State" if such an action is "otherwise permitted by the laws or rules of court of [that] State." But the Court decided that the TCPA's provision for private actions to enforce the TCPA did not make state court the exclusive forum for such actions. To the contrary, the Court held that federal question jurisdiction existed in the plaintiff's case under 28 U. S. C. §1331's recognition of a federal court's authority to adjudicate claims "arising under" the laws of the U.S. "Nothing in the text, structure, purpose, or legislative history of the TCPA calls for displacement of the federal? question jurisdiction U.S. district courts ordinarily have under 28 U. S. C. §1331. In the absence of direction from Congress stronger than any [the defendant] has advanced, we apply the familiar default rule: Federal courts have §1331 juris?diction over claims that arise under federal law," the Court said. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. Court to decide if government immune in Fair Credit Act case BOSTON (Daily Record Newswire) -- The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the federal government has waived its sovereign immunity with respect to a claim for damages under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The Court will review a Federal Circuit decision that said that the Little Tucker Act waives the sovereign immunity of the United States with respect to damages actions for violations of the FCRA. The plaintiff in the case is a lawyer who filed a class action alleging that the government violated the FCRA by displaying the expiration date of his credit card on a confirmation webpage that appeared when he paid the fee for filing a lawsuit via a federal court's online document system. The government argued that the FCRA did not waive its sovereign immunity and that the lawsuit must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. But the Federal Circuit concluded that the FCRA is a "money-mandating" statute that supports jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(2), commonly referred to as the Little Tucker Act. "The Little Tucker Act gives the district courts jurisdiction, concurrent with the Court of Federal Claims, over 'any other [than tax refund] civil action or claim against the United States, not exceeding $10,000 in amount, founded ... upon any Act of Congress.' The Little Tucker Act is therefore a jurisdictional provision that also operates 'to waive sovereign immunity for claims premised on other sources of law, (e.g., statutes or contracts),'" the court said. A decision from the Supreme Court is expected later this term. Published: Fri, Jan 20, 2012