WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court Bought one on Friday series of new cases Ahead of his new term, including a bid by gun companies to avoid a lawsuit filed by the Mexican government and a workplace sex-discrimination dispute involving a woman who claims she was discriminated against because she is straight.
The trial’s new nine-month term officially begins on Monday.
In the gun case, Mexican officials say gun companies should be held accountable for violent crime across the border related to their products.
The case currently involves two companies — Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms — and other manufacturers, including Glock and Colt, and has successfully dismissed the lawsuits against them.
The companies argue that a law called the Protection of Lawful Arms Trade Act, which limits lawsuits against gun manufacturers, would have dismissed the entire lawsuit.
A federal judge ruled for the manufacturers, but the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston reinstated the case, saying the liability shield did not apply to Mexico’s specific claims.
In a sex discrimination lawsuit, Marlene Ames sued the Ohio Department of Youth Services under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace, when a promotion she applied for was given to a lesbian woman. He was later demoted and a gay man took his old position.
Ames has been with the department since 2004. Starting in 2017, he started reporting to a lesbian woman. He turned down the promotion he wanted two years later and was demoted shortly after.
Lower courts, including the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, ruled for the state agency, but Ames later appealed to the Supreme Court. In particular, his lawyers are taking aim at precedent in some lower courts that says people from the “majority group” must go to a higher court to have their cases rise to a higher level than someone from a minority group.
Those courts, including the 6th Circuit, say such plaintiffs must present “substantial circumstances” to show the defendant is an “unusual employer that discriminates against the majority,” Ames’ attorneys said in court filings.
The state countered in its filing that Ames had not shown that it was discriminated against. Among other things, Ames was demoted because new leadership at the agency wanted to restructure its operations to prioritize sexual abuse in the juvenile correctional system. Ames ran an anti-rape program at the prison, but he seemed difficult to work with.
The lawyers of the state pointed out that the officials involved in making these decisions were correct.
One of the 13 cases heard by the court involves a decades-long debate over where to store nuclear waste in a dispute over a proposed Texas facility approved by the federal government.
The court will hear a decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans that faulted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its decision in 2021 to allow a company called Interim Storage Partners to store waste in Andrews County, Texas, for up to 40 years. .
State officials including Gov. Gregg Abbott are among those objecting to the confirmation.
They challenged the NRC’s decision in court, where the appeals court said both they had standing to sue and that the agency lacked the authority to issue a license.
In court documents, Texas officials say the NRC will allow up to 40,000 metric tons of waste to be stored above ground in the Permian Basin, which is a prominent oil field and a water source for surrounding communities.
The NRC claims that under the Atomic Energy Act, it can order spent nuclear fuel to be transported domestically and temporarily stored at a location other than where the fuel was used.
The Texas lawsuit is the latest in a long series of battles over where to store nuclear waste. A similar battle has been raging for decades over plans to build a storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The project was effectively killed during the Obama administration after decades of work.
The court also added a new death penalty case involving Texas inmate Ruben Gutierrez. Justices prevented his execution In July, he showed interest in her claim.
Gutierrez is fighting to get access to DNA testing, which could increase his conviction.
In another case, the court will review the circumstances under which a police officer may be found to have used excessive force under the Constitution’s 4th Amendment. It’s about a fatal shooting during a traffic stop in Texas.
All cases will be argued and decided during the new court term, which will end at the end of June next year.