Opinion [0] explicitly calls for overruling New York Times v. Sullivan and related cases for lacking constitutional grounding; [10] prioritizes Constitution over statutory precedent. Dershowitz v. Cable News Network… ↗ Louisiana v. Callais ↗
Deference to government powerSkepticism of government power
Opinion [4] refuses broad preemption of state claims absent explicit federal directive, and [2] insists on mandatory jurisdiction over state defendants. Florida v. California ↗ Hencely v. Fluor Corp. ↗
Clarence Thomas
Judge, Supreme Court of the United States · Born 1948 · Savannah, GA
Alan Dershowitz sued Cable News Network for defamation after its reporting about him. As a public figure, he was required under New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and later cases to prove not only ordinary defamation elements but also that the network acted with “actual malice.” Dershowitz lost in the lower courts and asked the Supreme Court to overrule the actual-malice requirement for public figures. The Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari. In a dissent, Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, argued that the standard has no grounding in the Constitution’s text, history, or structure and that the Court should have taken the case to reconsider it.
The Supreme Court case concerned whether the Immigration and Nationality Act requires border officers to possess clear and convincing evidence that a lawful permanent resident has committed a crime involving moral turpitude before treating the resident as an applicant for admission rather than as already admitted. Respondent Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese citizen admitted as a lawful permanent resident in 2007, faced a 2012 New Jersey trademark counterfeiting charge; after briefly leaving the country, a border officer paroled him upon return, and after his guilty plea the government initiated removal proceedings charging him as inadmissible. The Court held that the INA imposes no such evidentiary requirement on border officers, vacated the Second Circuit’s judgment, and remanded for further proceedings. The statute permits the government to regard a lawful permanent resident as seeking admission upon commission of an offense listed in 8 U.S.C. §1182(a)(2), with conviction needed only later to establish inadmissibility; any clear-and-convincing-evidence obligation arises only at the removal hearing itself, not at the border.
The Supreme Court denied Florida’s motion for leave to file a complaint against California and Washington. Florida sought to sue the two states for allegedly violating federal commercial driver’s license standards by issuing CDLs to non-English-speaking illegal immigrants, which Florida claimed created a public nuisance and contributed to fatal truck accidents, including one on the Florida Turnpike. The Court provided no explanation for the denial. In dissent, Justice Thomas argued that Article III and 28 U.S.C. §1251(a) give the Court exclusive original jurisdiction over suits between states, that the Court lacks discretion to refuse such cases, and that Florida’s claims met the Court’s discretionary criteria because they involved serious interstate interests with no alternative forum available.
In 1996, Congress enacted Title III of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act to impose liability on entities that knowingly traffic in property confiscated by the Cuban government after 1959, creating a private right of action for U.S. nationals holding claims to such property. Havana Docks Corporation sued four cruise lines (Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Carnival, and MSC) after they used docks in Havana—built and operated by Havana Docks under a concession expiring in 2004—that the Cuban government seized without compensation in 1960; the cruise lines had transported nearly a million passengers using those docks between 2016 and 2019. The district court granted summary judgment to Havana Docks and awarded over $100 million against each defendant, but a divided Eleventh Circuit panel reversed, holding that liability required showing the cruise lines would have interfered with Havana Docks’ property interest in a counterfactual scenario without the confiscation. The Supreme Court vacated that decision, ruling that Title III liability attaches when defendants use the physical confiscated property itself (here, the docks) to which the plaintiff owns a certified claim, without needing to prove interference with the original time-limited interest. The Court reasoned that the Act’s plain text defines “property which was confiscated” to include both physical assets and interests therein, treating confiscated property as tainted and imposing liability on unauthorized commercial use to support the Cuban regime.
The Supreme Court case involved Winston Hencely, a U.S. soldier injured while stopping a suicide bombing at a U.S. base in Afghanistan by Ahmad Nayeb, an Afghan employee hired by military contractor Fluor Corp. under the Army’s “Afghan First” program. Hencely sued Fluor in federal court under South Carolina tort law for negligent supervision, entrustment, and retention, based on an Army investigation that found Fluor primarily at fault for failing to follow base procedures. The district court granted summary judgment to Fluor, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed on the ground that state-law claims against contractors arising from combatant activities are preempted. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the claims are not preempted because the government neither ordered nor authorized the specific conduct at issue. The Court reasoned that neither the Constitution, any federal statute (including the FTCA’s combatant-activities exception), nor the principles of Boyle v. United Technologies Corp. support displacing state law absent a significant conflict with an identifiable federal policy or a government-directed action.
In Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana parishes sued oil companies in state court under a 1978 coastal resources law, alleging that certain pre-1980 crude oil production activities in the coastal zone, including Chevron’s wartime operations, lacked required permits and caused environmental harm. Chevron removed the case to federal court under the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. §1442(a)(1), arguing that the suit related to its wartime contracts to refine crude oil into aviation gasoline for the U.S. military. The district court and Fifth Circuit ordered remand, finding that while Chevron acted under federal authority as a military contractor, the challenged production activities were not sufficiently connected to those refining duties. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that Chevron had plausibly shown a close, non-tenuous relationship because its crude oil production supplied essential feedstock for the avgas contracts, the government had directed increased output, and the specific production methods at issue (such as vertical drilling and earthen pits) were used to meet wartime demands and conserve materials. The Court concluded that this connection satisfied the statute’s broad “relating to” requirement for removal.
