The Supreme Court will return on Monday to hear its first oral arguments of 2023, considering cases that may impact attorney-client privilege, labor rights and the legal immunity of foreign nations.
Justices will hear seven cases during the two-week session, though none involve major Biden administration policies — student debt relief and Title 42 will go to court later this term .
Here are the cases scheduled for oral argument this month:
In re Grand Jury
The court will begin the year on Monday with a case whose background is shrouded in mystery.
The case arose when a tax law firm refused to produce certain documents demanded by a grand jury subpoena issued during a criminal tax investigation of the firm’s unnamed client.
Judges will consider whether the firm can withhold so-called dual purpose communications, i.e. those related to legal and non-legal advice, after lower appeals courts split over whether whether legal advice should be the lawyer’s “primary” or “significant” objective. client privilege to apply.
The firm, backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some attorney groups, says the stricter threshold creates an unpredictable test for tax firms and in-house counsel who routinely mix legal and business advice, eroding the privilege.
The federal government argues that following their argument would radically protect accounting and business development records without compelling justification.
Ohio Adjutant General’s Department v. Federal Labor Relations Authority
Later Monday, judges will consider whether a 1978 law regulating the labor practices of federal agencies extends to technicians in the Ohio National Guard.
The National Guard is organized by individual states, but the federal government can also activate it for a particular mission, launching a legal battle when the Ohio National Guard tried in 2016 to end a collective bargaining agreement with its technicians. civilians.
The Technicians’ Union, in a complaint to the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), which Congress created to oversee the labor relations of employees of executive agencies, alleged that the Guard failed to negotiate sincerity.
The FLRA sided with the union, but the Ohio National Guard maintains that the technicians are not employees of the federal executive agency, so the FLRA has never had authority.
Northwest Glacier Inc. c. International Brotherhood of Teamsters
In late 2017, ready-mixed concrete company Glacier Northwest filed a lawsuit in Washington state against its employees’ union, seeking damages for concrete allegedly destroyed because workers put on strike after the fleet was already loaded.
Judges are due to consider Tuesday whether federal labor laws prevent the lawsuit before the National Labor Relations Board determines whether the union engaged in protected activity.
Glacier Northwest, describing the union’s schedule as “sabotage,” argues that the circumstances meet an exception for business to advance described in San Diego Building Trades v. Garmon decision.
The Teamsters argue that the exception does not apply and that the strike was a protected activity.
Board of Supervisory and Financial Management of Puerto Rico v. Centro de Periodismo Investigativo Inc.
Judges will hear arguments on Wednesday on whether a Congressional Financial Oversight Council created to handle Puerto Rico’s debt crisis enjoys immunity from lawsuit.
States enjoy sovereign immunity from certain lawsuits, but the group researching the records argues the rule does not apply because Puerto Rico is a territory.
Even if that were the case, the group argues that the law establishing the board of directors clearly states that the entity does not enjoy immunity in federal courts.
The council disputes this position, arguing that the law does not provide clear and unequivocal language revoking its sovereign immunity.
Santos-Zacaria c. Garland
The judges will hear their first immigration case of the calendar year on January 1. 17, when they plunge into requiring immigrants to exhaust “all available administrative remedies” before appealing their immigration decisions to the courts.
The case concerns Leon Santos-Zacaria, who said she fled Guatemala after being raped and receiving death threats because she was transgender.
Santos-Zacaria raised her immigration decision in a federal appeals court, but the court ruled that she failed to meet the exhaustion requirement by not filing a motion asking the Commission immigration appeals to reconsider his previous decision.
Santos-Zacaria argues that she did not need to file the motion to satisfy the requirement and that the requirement does not preclude the court’s jurisdiction regardless. The federal government challenges his interpretation.
Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS v. United States
Judges on Jan. 17 are set to hear a challenge to the indictment of Halkbank, a bank almost wholly owned by the Turkish government, alleging that it evaded U.S. sanctions against Iranian funds.
The bank denies the allegations, but rather than consider their merits, it instead urged judges to declare the indictment unlawful based on historical factors and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which in 1976 ruled. established when a sovereign nation is immune from US lawsuits.
The federal government argues that the law does not apply to criminal cases, and even if it did, the case would fall under an exception allowing suits arising from foreign government commercial activity.
Perez c. Sturgis Public Schools
The final court case this month, scheduled for January. 18, came after deaf student Miguel Luna Perez and his parents settled with Sturgis Public Schools in 2018 following Perez’s claims that he was denied a qualified sign language interpreter for 12 years .
They settled those claims under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), but the Supreme Court will consider the validity of Perez’s subsequent lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
A lower appeals court ruled that since Perez settled the earlier claim, he had not exhausted the process, so federal law bars him from bringing a similar case under the ADA.
The school district has asked the judges to uphold that ruling, but Perez argues the settlement qualifies as exhaustion.
Perez further argues that IDEA exhaustion was never necessary to begin with, as his new lawsuit seeks relief that the previous claim could not provide.
The school district argued that the relief sought did not change the requirement.
-Updated at 7:51 a.m.
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