SCOTUS Allows Education-Related Benefits for Student-Athletes. No Monetary Penalty Imposed for Lacking Health Insurance? Then No Suit

• Author: Oran F. Whiting
• Pages: 11-11

Published in Litigation News Volume 47, Number 1, Fall 2021. © 2021 by the Ameri can Bar Association. Re produced with per mission. All rights re served. This info rmation or any porti on thereof may not be c opied or disseminated in any f orm or

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SCOTUS Allows Education-Related Benef‌itsfor

Student-Athletes

No Monetary Penalty Imposed for Lacking Health

Insurance? Then No Suit

U.S. SUP REME COUR T

Antitrust

TheNCAA may n ot limit education-

related benef‌itsstudent-athletes

can receive for playin g college

sports, a ccording to a unanimous

Supreme Cour t. The Court’s deci-

sion, uphold ing lower court rulings,

keenly focuses o n benef‌its linked

to academics a nd does not address

whether stude nts may be directly

compensated fo r participating in col-

lege athletics . Justice Kavanaugh

concurred the ru ling is “an important

and overdue course correction” on

the NCAA’s amateur mo del and that

the NCAAmo del “would be f‌latly

illegal in almo st any other industry in

America.” NCAA v. Alston, No. 20 -512.

Healthcare

In a 7–2 decision, SCOTUS ru led those

challenging t he Aordable Care Act’s

requirement that most Americans

obtain minimum essential health

insurance coverag e or face a mon-

etary penal ty had no valid basis for

their suit. The C ourt noted the act’s

f‌inancial pe nalty was removed by

Congress in 2017, and a $0 p enalty

meant the chall engers incurred no

harm. Califo rnia v. Texas, No. 19- 840.

Church and State

The Court rul ed a Catholic social ser-

vice agency who se religious views

prevented complian ce with local poli-

cies forbidding discrimination against

same-sex coup les was still entitled to

participate in a g overnment-funde d

foster care program. Philadelphia’s

unlawful susp ension of the Catholic

social servi ce agency violated the

Constitution’s First Amendment guar-

antee of the free exercis e of religion.

Fulton v. Philadelphia, N o. 19-123.

Corporate/Human Rights

U.S.-based food companies Nestlé

and Cargill cannot be sued in

U.S. cour ts under the Alien Tort

Statutefor abuses a llegedly commit-

ted in the Ivory Coa st, where six Mali

citizens accused the co mpanies of

purchasing cocoa from plantations

using child slave lab or. The Alien Tort

Statutegrants fed eral courts jurisdic-

tion to hear claims b rought “by an

alien for a tort on ly, committed in vio -

lation of the law of nation s or a treaty

of the United States .” Nestlé USA, Inc.

v. Doe,N o. 19-416.

Copyrigh t

In a 6–2 decision, t he Court ruled

Google’s Android smartphone oper-

ating system, whic h copied certain

computer code fro m Oracle’s Java

software platform allowing programs

to talk to one anothe r, does not vio-

late U.S. copyri ght law. The justices

opined that Google’s replication

ofthe code constitute d a fair use of

the Java material. G oogle v.Oracle,

No. 18-956.

U.S. DEPAR TMENT OF JUS TICE

Antitrust

The U.S. D epartment of Justice is

seeking to prevent Aon ’s proposed

$30 billion acq uisition of Willis Towers

Watson, which, i n its view, would

eliminate compe tition between two

of the three larges t insurance bro-

kers and create an ins urance broking

colossus. The a cquisition would,

according to the DOJ , eliminate com-

petition in f‌ive market s, raise prices,

and reduce innovation for American

businesses, employers, and unions

that depend on Ao n and Willis Towers

Watson to craft and a dminister health

and retirement benef‌its and manage

complex and evolving r isks.

AND MORE . . . BY HO N. ORAN F. WHITI NG (RET.), LITIGATION NEWS ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Voting/Civil Rights

The DOJ is challe nging Georgia’s

recently passed e lection law, Georgia

Senate Bill 202, fo r civil rights viola-

tions. The DOJ al leges the law is an

attempt to deny Blac k voters equal

access to the ballot . It has commit-

ted to closely review and , if neces-

sary, challeng e laws recently passed

in numerous st ates to restrict voter

access. United States v. Ge orgia, No.

21-cv- 02575.

FOURTH CIRCU IT COURT OF

APPEALS

Abortion

The court of appeals unanimously

declined to restore a b an on most

abortions af ter the 20th week of

pregnancy in th e state of North

Carolina. T he court rejected the argu-

ment that abortion providers lack

legal standi ng to challenge the law

and preserve d a lower-court dec ision

striking down the pro hibition. Bryant,

et al. v. Woodall, et al., No . 19-1685.

U.S. COUR T OF APPEAL S FOR

THE FEDER AL CIRCUIT

Patent

A divided U.S . Court of Appeals

for the Federal Ci rcuit armed a

California district court’s dismissal

of a plainti’s pate nt claim, ruling

the claim titled “ Digital Cameras

Using Multiple Sensors with Multiple

Lenses,” also described as “taking

two pictures an d using one picture

to, in some way, enhance the ot her,”

constituted an abs tract idea. It did

not include an inve ntive concept suf-

f‌icient to transfor m the abstract idea

into a patent-eligible inve ntion under

35 U.S.C . § 101. Yanbin Yu v. Apple

Inc., No. 2020-1760 .

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