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Decision levers
AI-measured from their own opinions — each lever cites its cases
Deference to government powerSkepticism of government power
Dissents in [9] and [8] criticize government rush to execute and immigration enforcement, favoring individual constitutional protections over state power. Noem v. Doe ↗ Guerrero v. Busby ↗
Willing to revisit precedentStrong stare decisis
Dissent in [11] insists on strict application of National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan to discrete discriminatory acts, faulting lower court for ignoring precedent. Nicholson v. W. L. York, Inc. ↗
In Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction, Inc., a debtor in an ongoing Chapter 13 bankruptcy case failed to disclose a post-petition personal-injury claim arising from a car accident on his required bankruptcy schedules, then sued the defendant company in federal district court; the defendant sought summary judgment on judicial estoppel grounds based on the nondisclosure. The district court and Fifth Circuit applied circuit precedent holding that such an omission could be deemed inadvertent or mistaken (and thus avoid estoppel) only if the debtor lacked knowledge of the claim’s underlying facts or had no hypothetical motive to conceal it, leading to judgment for the defendant. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded, ruling that courts must instead examine the totality of the circumstances surrounding the omission to assess inadvertence or mistake. The Court reasoned that judicial estoppel is an equitable doctrine that requires flexibility and a case-by-case inquiry rather than the Fifth Circuit’s rigid, near-dispositive two-factor test, which improperly excludes other relevant evidence and almost always finds a motive to conceal.
The Supreme Court case involved Amarin Pharma, the maker of brand-name Vascepa (icosapent ethyl), suing generic manufacturer Hikma Pharmaceuticals for actively inducing infringement of Amarin’s method-of-use patents covering the drug’s cardiovascular-risk reduction indication. Hikma had obtained FDA approval for a “skinny label” limited to the unpatented severe hypertriglyceridemia indication, carving out the patented use, and Amarin alleged that the combination of Hikma’s label language, website statements, patient leaflet, and press releases encouraged doctors and pharmacists to prescribe the generic for the patented cardiovascular use in violation of 35 U.S.C. §271(b). The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim, but the Federal Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit and reinstated the dismissal, holding that Amarin had not plausibly alleged the required “active steps” to encourage infringement. The Court reasoned that inducement liability demands affirmative, purposeful conduct beyond ordinary acts of product distribution, statutory label copying, standard industry terminology such as “AB-rated” or “generic equivalent,” mere omissions, or vague statements that physicians might interpret as encouragement; Hikma’s materials had obvious non-infringing explanations and fell short of the plausibility threshold under Twombly and Iqbal.
In this case, four employers who withdrew from an underfunded multiemployer pension plan challenged their withdrawal-liability assessments, which were calculated using a lower discount rate (6.5%) adopted after the statutory measurement date—the last day of the prior plan year. The Supreme Court held that ERISA §§1391 and 1393 do not require actuarial assumptions underlying withdrawal-liability calculations to be selected on or before the measurement date. Section 1391’s “as of” language fixes hard factual data about the plan on that date but does not constrain when actuaries may choose predictive assumptions, which are tools for performing the calculation rather than observable facts. Section 1393 requires only that assumptions be reasonable and reflect the actuary’s best estimate of anticipated experience, without imposing any deadline, and the Court declined to read in a timing limit that Congress omitted from the text.
In Guerrero v. Busby, the case involved an application by the director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to vacate a stay of execution for death-row inmate Edward Lee Busby. The Fifth Circuit had issued the stay on May 8, 2026, in connection with Busby's habeas claims. The Supreme Court granted the application and vacated the stay. Justice Kagan would have denied the application, while Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Sotomayor, dissented on the grounds that experts for both sides had found Busby intellectually disabled, Texas had initially joined efforts to declare him ineligible for execution, and the Fifth Circuit stay was a limited step to permit review of the habeas petition before execution.
The case concerned whether federal courts of appeals must review the Board of Immigration Appeals’ determination that a set of facts does or does not amount to “persecution” under the asylum provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act using the deferential substantial-evidence standard. Petitioners, a family from El Salvador, sought asylum after an immigration judge found their credible testimony insufficient to establish past or future persecution; the BIA and First Circuit upheld the denial. The Supreme Court held that 8 U.S.C. §1252(b)(4)(B) requires courts to apply substantial-evidence review to the agency’s persecution determination, including its application of the statute to undisputed facts. The Court reasoned that this standard, which treats administrative findings as conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to disagree, was codified by Congress after INS v. Elias-Zacarias and encompasses the overall mixed question of refugee eligibility, rather than calling for de novo review. It therefore affirmed the judgment below.
In Villarreal v. Texas, the case concerned whether a trial judge’s order barring a defendant from discussing his ongoing testimony with counsel during a 24-hour overnight recess in his murder trial violated the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. David Villarreal testified, was instructed not to have his testimony “managed” by his lawyers during the break (while remaining free to confer on other topics such as strategy or sentencing), resumed testifying the next day, and was convicted; the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the order. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that a narrowly tailored restriction prohibiting only discussion of testimony for its own sake during such a recess is constitutional. The Court reasoned that, under Geders v. United States and Perry v. Leeke, a defendant has a right to consult counsel on nontestimony matters but assumes the burdens of a witness and has no protected right to shape or rehearse his testimony midstream, allowing trial courts to balance truth-seeking with the right to counsel through content-based limits rather than a total ban on overnight consultation.
