SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK

States' climate change lawsuit blocked By Mark Sherman Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court unanimously ruled out a federal lawsuit Monday by states and conservation groups trying to force cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The court said that the authority to seek reductions in emissions rests with the Environmental Protection Agency, not the courts. EPA said in December that it will issue new regulations by next year to reduce power plants' emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas. The Obama administration has already started controlling heat-trapping pollution from automobiles and from some of the largest, and most polluting, industrial plants. But the administration's actions have come under criticism in Congress, where the Republican-controlled House has passed a bill to strip the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate global warming gases. The measure failed in the Senate, but a majority there indicated they would back reining in EPA in some way. In pushing to curtail EPA's work, Republicans have accused the administration of acting unilaterally after failing to get a bill passed to deal with the problem. The administration has said the overwhelming scientific evidence has compelled them to act under existing law. Still, in this case, the administration sided with the power companies. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the court, said the Clean Air Act gives the EPA authority to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. The landmark environmental law leaves no room for what Ginsburg described as a parallel track, "control of greenhouse gas emissions by federal judges." On the other hand, Ginsburg said, that the states and conservation groups can go to federal court under the Clean Air Act if they object to EPA's eventual decision. California Attorney General Kamala Harris said her state, one of those that sued, would be watching the EPA closely. The "decision reaffirms the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's responsibility to regulate dangerous carbon pollution," Harris said. David Doniger, the Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer who represented the conservation groups, called on EPA to impose new regulations "without delay." The agency has said it will act by May 2012, although the government's brief said it is possible EPA ultimately could find "imposition of such standards inappropriate." The decision reversed a ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not take part because she sat on the appeals court panel that heard the case. The decision is the second time the court has weighed in on the issue of climate change, and the role of government to do something about it. The ruling on Monday underscores the court's earlier conclusion that existing federal law can be used to reduce the pollution blamed for global warming at a time when the administration is under attack for exercising that authority. The situation was very different when eight states banded together to sue in 2004. At that time, a lawsuit looked like the only way to force action on global warming. The Bush administration and the Republicans in charge of Congress doubted the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases. The eight states were California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. New Jersey and Wisconsin withdrew this year after Republicans replaced Democrats in their governor's offices The private defendants in the suit are American Electric Power Co. of Ohio, Cinergy Co., now part of Duke Energy Corp. of North Carolina; Southern Co. Inc. of Georgia, and Xcel Energy Inc. of Minnesota. The high court did not rule on some potential state-law claims. Ginsburg said those are best addressed by lower courts. The case is American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, 10-174. ---------- Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello contributed to this report. Gov't employees' speech rights limited WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has limited the First Amendment right of government employees, saying a police chief cannot sue over employer retaliation that came after he spoke out on a pay matter. The high court on Monday overturned a ruling for former Duryea, Pa., police chief Charles Guarnieri. After Guarnieri successfully won a union grievance, city officials denied his request for overtime pay. Guarnieri contended the denial was retaliation for his union grievance, and the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld his victory. But the high court overturned that decision. The justices ruled 8-1 that government employers can take adverse actions against employees who speak out on private matters. The case now goes back to the lower courts. The case is the city of Duryea, Pa. v. Guarnieri, 09-1476. Court bars mass sex bias case vs. Wal-Mart By Mark Sherman Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court blocked the largest sex-discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history on Monday, siding with Wal-Mart and against up to 1.6 million female workers in a decision that makes it harder to mount large-scale bias claims against the nation's other huge companies, too. The justices all agreed that the lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. could not proceed as a class action in its current form, reversing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. By a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, the court also said there were too many women in too many jobs at Wal-Mart to wrap into one lawsuit. A class action is a form of lawsuit in which a group of people collectively bring a claim to court. "Because respondents provide no convincing proof of a companywide discriminatory pay and promotion policy, we have concluded that they have not established the existence of any common question," Justice Antonin Scalia said in his majority opinion. Theodore Boutrous Jr., Wal-Mart's lawyer, said the decision also would affect pending class-action claims against Costco and others. Companies as varied as the big Wall Street firm Goldman-Sachs & Co., electronics giant Toshiba America Inc., and Cigna Healthcare Inc. also face class-action claims from women they employ. "This is an extremely important victory not just for Wal-Mart, but for all companies that do business in the United States," Boutrous said. The assessment was similar on the other side of the issue. Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, said, "The court has told employers that they can rest easy, knowing that the bigger and more powerful they are, the less likely their employees will be able to join together to secure their rights." With 2.1 million workers in more than 8,000 stores worldwide, Wal-Mart could have faced billions of dollars in damages if it had had to answer claims by the huge group of women. Now, the handful of employees who brought the case may pursue their claims on their own, with much less money at stake and less pressure on Wal-Mart to settle. Two of the named plaintiffs, Christine Kwapnoski and Betty Dukes, vowed to continue their fight, even as they expressed disappointment about the ruling. "We still are determined to go forward to present our case in court. We believe we will prevail there," said Dukes. "All I have to say is when I go back to work tomorrow, I'm going to let them know we are still fighting," said Kwapnoski. Both women spoke on a conference call with reporters. The women's lawyers said they were considering filing thousands of discrimination claims against Wal-Mart, but they acknowledged the court had dealt a fatal blow to their initial plan. In a statement, Wal-Mart said, "The court today unanimously rejected class certification and, as the majority made clear, the plaintiffs' claims were worlds away from showing a companywide discriminatory pay and promotion policy." The high court's majority agreed with Wal-Mart's argument that being forced to defend the treatment of female employees regardless of the jobs they hold or where they work is unfair. Scalia said there needed to be common elements tying together "literally millions of employment decisions at once." He said that in the lawsuit against the largest private U.S employer, "That is entirely absent here." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the court's four liberal justices, said there was more than enough to unite the claims. "Wal-Mart's delegation of discretion over pay and promotions is a policy uniform throughout all stores," Ginsburg said. The other women on the court, Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Stephen Breyer joined Ginsburg's opinion. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and other congressional Democrats criticized the ruling and called on Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act to reduce wage disparities between men and women. "Today's ruling underscores the need to act boldly and strongly on behalf of women's rights," Pelosi said. Business interests, including nearly two dozen large companies, lined up with Wal-Mart, while civil rights, women's and consumer groups sided with the women plaintiffs. Both sides painted the case as extremely consequential. The business community said that a ruling for the women would lead to a flood of class-action lawsuits based on vague evidence. Supporters of the women suggested a decision in favor of Wal-Mart could remove a valuable weapon for fighting all sorts of discrimination. Said Greenberger: "The women of Wal-Mart, together with women everywhere, will now face a far steeper road to challenge and correct pay and other forms of discrimination in the workplace." The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the court had set a high bar in ruling that "mega-class actions such as this one are completely inconsistent with federal law." ---------- Associated Press writer Anne D'Innocenzio in New York contributed to this report. Court refuses to hear dispute over Sioux land WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has refused to get involved in a long-running dispute on the continued existence of the Yankton Sioux Tribe and the extent of its lands in South Dakota. The justices on Monday let stand several rulings involving the tribe, including an appeals court decision saying the reservation covers more than 30,000 acres, which is mostly land the federal government holds in trust for the tribe and individual tribal members. The high court also rejected an appeal from the tribe to block the transfer of two federal recreation areas along the Missouri River to the state of South Dakota. The cases are Daugaard v. Yankton Sioux Tribe, 10-929; Southern Missouri Recycling v. Yankton Sioux Tribe, 10-931; Hein v. Yankton Sioux Tribe, 10-932; and Yankton Sioux Tribe v. Daugaard, 10-1058. Public lawyers not required in civil cases By Jesse J. Holland Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday refused to require states to provide lawyers for poor people in civil cases involving incarceration but did order state officials to ensure that those hearings are "fundamentally fair" to the person facing possible detention. The justices voted 5-4 along ideological lines to uphold the appeal of Michael Turner, a South Carolina man sent to jail for up to 12 months after he insisted he could not afford his child support payments. Turner had no lawyer, and claimed all people facing jail time have a constitutional right to an attorney. Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the opinion for the court's four liberal-leaning justices and Justice Anthony Kennedy, would not go that far, saying "the Due Process Clause does not always require the provision of counsel in civil proceedings where incarceration is threatened." But Breyer said Turner was never told his ability to pay was the crucial question at his civil contempt hearing, no one provided him with a form that would helped him disclose his financial information, and the state court never even officially determined whether Turner had the ability to pay the child support he owed. "Under these circumstances, Turner's incarceration violated the Due Process Clause," Breyer said. The court's four conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented. Thomas said he agreed that there was no constitutional right to a lawyer for people facing jail time in a civil case, but would not have ruled that the South Carolina courts treated Turner unfairly because that issue was not before the court. "Although the court agrees that appointed counsel was not required in this case, it nevertheless vacates the judgment of the South Carolina Supreme Court on a different ground, which the parties never raised," Thomas said in the dissent. Prompted by arguments from the Justice Department in front of the justices, "the majority decides that Turner's contempt proceedings violated due process because it did not include 'alternative procedural safeguards,'" Thomas said. "Consistent with this court's long-standing practice, I would not reach that question." The case now goes back to the South Carolina state courts. Turner had already been held in contempt five times for not paying his child support payments of $51.73 a week. After being released from jail and told that he owed $5,728.76 in back child support, Turner, who has worked various jobs in auto repair and construction, told a judge that drug addiction and a broken back helped explain why he had fallen behind. Unmoved, the judge gave him to up to 12 months in jail, although Turner could get out the minute he paid Rebecca Rogers, the mother of his child, what he owed her. Turner had no lawyer at the court hearing, but neither did Rogers. "A requirement that the state provide counsel to the noncustodial parent in these cases could create an asymmetry of representation that would 'alter significantly the nature of the proceeding,'" Breyer said. "And perhaps more important for present purposes, doing so could make the proceedings less fair overall, increasing the risks of a decision that would erroneously deprive a family of the support it is entitled to receive." But, even though states don't have to provide lawyers, "the state must nonetheless have in place alternative procedures that assure a fundamentally fair determination of the critical incarceration question," Breyer said. The case is Turner v. Rogers, 10-10. Justices won't hear ACORN lawsuit over gov't funding WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from ACORN, the activist group driven to ruin by scandal and financial woes, over being banned from getting federal funds. The high court on Monday refused to review a federal court's decision to uphold Congress's ban on federal funds for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Congress cut off ACORN's federal funding last year in response to allegations the group engaged in voter registration fraud and embezzlement and violated the tax-exempt status of some of its affiliates by engaging in partisan political activities. ACORN sued, but the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City upheld the action. The high court refused to hear its appeal. The case is ACORN v. United States, 10-1068. Published: Wed, Jun 22, 2011