Lawyers USA Your Business Partner

Parent’s years of residency not imputed to alien child

The Board of Immigration Appeals’ determination that a parent’s years of residency are not imputed to a child is a permissible construction of federal law, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled.

Top Story

Posthumously conceived kids not entitled to benefits

The Social Security Administration reasonably interpreted federal law in determining that only children supported by a deceased wage earner in his or her lifetime are entitled to Social Security benefits, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.

Other stories

Party can’t recover cost of translating documents

Farm sale income tax not dischargeable in bankruptcy

Supreme Court tackles Arizona immigration law

Justices to decide whether ‘Padilla’ duty is retroactive

Schumer: Congress will act if Supremes uphold Ariz. immigration law

Supreme Court considers cocaine sentencing law

Private lawyer is immune from suit under §1983

Supreme Court OKs strip searches for lesser offenses

Witness isn’t liable for false grand jury testimony

Fate of health care law is anyone’s guess

Read more Lawyers USA coverage

DC Dicta

Grants of Certiorari

Supreme Court Decisions

50

The percentage of cases that have been decided unanimously so far this term. So far, only 8 of the 54 decisions issued so far have been by a 5-4 vote, though decisions released close to the end of the term in June are more likely to be divided, which means more split decisions are expected.

Click here to read past notable numbers.

“Tragic circumstances – Robert Capato’s death before he and his wife could raise a family – gave rise to this case. But the law Congress enacted calls for resolution of Karen Capato’s application for child’s insurance benefits by reference to state intestacy law. We cannot replace that reference by creating a uniform federal rule the statute’s text scarcely supports.”

-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writing for a unanimous Court in Astrue v. Capato denying Social Security benefits to twins born via in vitro fertilization years after the death of the insured father.

Click here to read past quotations.

The Funniest Justice

And the Funniest Justice is…

He’s made cracks about bad dictionaries, deadpanned about deporting babies to China, and quipped that a justice’s job could at times violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

By making the audience and other justices of the Supreme Court laugh during oral arguments more than five dozen times, Justice Antonin G. Scalia sailed to an easy victory as this term’s Funniest Justice. Since DC Dicta began keeping count, Scalia is undefeated.

Click here to see previous tallies.

Links

Supreme Court of the United States

SCOTUSblog