SCOTUS NEWS
by Amy Howe
on 13 January 2025
at 18:56
The justices issued the orders from their private conference as scheduled Monday morning. (Katie Barlow)
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to Maryland’s gun licensing scheme, as well as a pair of cases seeking to hold oil and gas companies liable for damages caused by climate change. The announcement came as part of a list of orders released from the justices’ private conference Friday. The justices granted three cases from that conference Friday afternoon, and they did not add any additional cases to their docket for the 2024-25 term Monday.
The judges refused review i Maryland Shall Issue v. Moorewhere gun rights groups and gun owners challenged Maryland’s requirement that most residents obtain a license before purchasing a gun. They argued that because state law already requires them to undergo a background check to buy a gun, the licensing requirement (which includes another background check and a gun safety course) places too much of a burden on their right to bear arms.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld the law last year. It pointed to Judge Clarence Thomas’s statement before the court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. The bridgein which he indicated that laws requiring gun owners to undergo background checks or complete gun safety courses would generally be constitutional under that decision’s new Second Amendment test.
The justices did not act on a petition seeking review of a ruling by the same appeals court that upheld Maryland’s ban on assault rifles. The court will consider the application in Snoop v. Brown again on Friday 17 January.
The judges also refused review in Sunoco vs. Honolulu and Shell v. Honolulua pair of cases seeking to hold oil and gas companies accountable for their role in increasing fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, which led to climate change-related property damage in Honolulu.
In June, the justices asked the Biden administration to rule on whether federal law preempts oil and gas companies’ state claims; in a brief filed in December, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar urged the courts to deny review. Prelogar told the justices that (among other things) at this point, the Supreme Court lacks the authority to review the Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision allowing the lawsuit to proceed.
Justice Samuel Alito did not participate in the Honolulu proceedings. Although he did not explain the reason for his refusal, the financial disclosure forms Alito filed in 2023 indicated that at the time Alito owned stock in three of the energy companies involved in the cases.
The court asked the federal government for its views in four new cases:
- Fiehler v. Mecklenburga dispute over ownership of land in Alaska that hinges on whether a state court has jurisdiction to correct a federal surveyor’s location of a water boundary.
- Borochov against Iranin which the justices have been asked to decide whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s “terrorism exception” to the general rule of immunity for foreign governments in US courts gives US courts jurisdiction to hear claims arising out of material support of a foreign state to a terrorist attack that injures or incapacitates, but does not kill, its victims.
- FS Credit Corp. v. Saba Capital Master Fund, involves whether section 47(b) of the Investment Company Act, which regulates investment companies such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, creates a private right of action.
- Port of Tacoma v. Puget Soundkeeper Alliancewhere the justices have been asked to decide whether a provision of the Clean Water Act allows private citizens to go to federal courts to enforce state-issued permits to discharge pollutants that impose stricter standards than the law requires.
This article was originally published on Howe on the Court.