555 U. S., PART 2

Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson Cty., 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R016; No. 06-1595; 1/26/09. The protection of 42 U. S. C. §2000e–3(a), the antiretaliation provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, extends to an employee who speaks out about discrimination not on her own initiative, but in answering questions during an employer’s internal investigation.

Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for DuPont Sav. and Investment Plan, 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R017; No. 07-636; 1/26/09. Although the decedent’s ex-wife’s waiver of her interest in his pension plan was not an assignment or alienation nullified by 29 U. S. C. §1056(d)(1), the plan administrator did its duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 by paying the benefits to her in conformity with the plan documents.

United States v. Eurodif S. A., 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R018; No. 07-1059; 01/26/09. Where a domestic buyer’s cash and an untracked, fungible commodity are exchanged with a foreign contractor for a substantially transformed version of the same commodity, the Commerce Department may reasonably treat the transaction as the sale of a good rather than a service for purposes of the Tariff Act of 1930, which calls for “antidumping” duties on “foreign merchandise” sold in this country at “less than its fair value,” 19 U. S. C. §1673, but does not touch international sales of services.

Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R019; No. 07-1122; 1/26/09. A police officer’s frisk of respondent during a traffic stop did not violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Van de Kamp v. Goldstein, 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R020; No. 07-854; 1/26/09. Petitioners, supervisory prosecutors, are entitled to absolute immunity from 42 U. S. C. §1983 liability in respect to respondent’s claims that the prosecution failed to disclose impeachment material to the defense because petitioners’ supervision, training, or information-system management was constitutionally inadequate.

Nelson v. United States, 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009) (per curiam)

R021; No. 08-5657; 1/26/09. The Fourth Circuit erred in upholding petitioner’s federal sentence where the District Court impermissibly applied a presumption of reasonableness to the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range in violation of this Court’s cases.

Ysursa v. Pocatello Ed. Assn., 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R022; No. 07-869; 2/24/09. The Idaho Right to Work Act's ban on payroll deductions for union political activities, as applied to local governmental units, does not infringe unions' First Amendment rights.

Carcieri v. Salazar, 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R023; No. 07-526; 2/24/09. Because the term "now under federal jurisdiction" in 25 U. S. C. §479 unambiguously refers to those tribes that were under federal jurisdiction when the Indian Reorganization Act was enacted in 1934, and because the Narragansett Tribe was not then under such jurisdiction, the Secretary of the Interior does not have the authority to take a 31-acre parcel of tribal land into trust "for the purpose of providing land for Indians," §465.

United States v. Hayes, 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R024; No. 07-608; 2/24/09. A domestic relationship - although it must be established beyond a reasonable doubt in a prosecution for possession of a firearm by a person convicted of "a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence," 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(9) - need not be a defining element of the predicate misdemeanor offense.

Pacific Bell Telephone Co. v. linkLine Communications, Inc., 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R025; No. 07-512; 2/25/09. A price-squeeze claim--here, that petitioners had squeezed respondents' profit margin by setting a high price for wholesale "DSL" transport service petitioners sell and a low retail price for petitioners' own DSL service--may not be brought under Sherman Act §2 when the defendant has no antitrust duty to deal with the plaintiff at wholesale.

Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R026; No. 07-665; 2/25/09. The placement of a permanent monument in a public park is a form of government speech and is therefore not subject to scrutiny under the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause.

Summers v. Earth Island Institute, 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R027; No. 07-463; 3/3/09. Respondent environmentalist groups lack standing to challenge Forest Service regulations absent a live dispute over a concrete application of those regulations.

Negusie v. Holder, 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R028; No. 07-499; 3/3/09. The Board of Immigration Appeals and the Fifth Circuit misapplied Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U. S. 490, as mandating that whether an alien is compelled to assist in persecution is immaterial for purposes of the “prosecutor bar” set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act, which prohibits an alien from obtaining refugee status in this country if he “assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” 8 U. S. C. §1101(a)(42). The BIA must interpret the statute, free from this mistaken legal premise, in the first instance.

Wyeth v. Levine, 555 U. S. 2 ___ (2009)

R029; No. 06-1249; 3/4/09. Federal law does not pre-empt Levine’s state-law tort claim that the drug Phenergan’s label did not contain an adequate warning about the dangers of using the “IV-push” method of administering that drug.