This post is always the speculative part of the term preview.  The Supreme Court only grants review on about 1% of the applications that it receives.  Our legal system is based on the principle that courts are always open to anybody with a legitimate case.  In practical terms, that means that anybody can file a case and that courts sort out the clearly meritless cases after they are filed.  And the Supreme Court certainly gets a significant number of applications from people who “want to take their case all the way to the Supreme Court” even though the lower courts clearly applied current law correctly and there is no good argument for Supreme Court review.  But even eliminating those cases, there are still a large number of applications that raise issues that deserve to be decided by the Supreme Court.

In practical terms, the Supreme Court is looking for the “right” case to present an issue.  The Supreme Court has, in recent years, gotten better at screening out cases that have procedural issues that might prevent the Supreme Court from reaching the “merits” of the issue raised by the “questions presented” part of the application for review.  The application process means that (at least after the early October conferences) the Supreme Court considers accepting review of cases approximately 5-8 months after the decision by the lower appellate court.  That means that the cases to be heard this year involve lower court decisions that have already been made.

Among the cases that we should learn about in October are a pair of cases involving Uber and Lyft.  Both companies have agreements with their drivers requiring arbitration of disputes.  Under the Federal Arbitration Act, those contracts are valid and enforceable.  California, like many states, have laws that give the state government the power to enforce minimum wage and overtime laws.  The issue presented in those case is whether those state laws allowing the government to take action to enforce the employees right to additional compensation is a valid way to get around the arbitration requirments. Continue Reading...