Argument Analysis: Justices Grapple With Preclusion and “Occupation” in Crow Tribe Treaty Case

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard argument in its latest foray into Indian treaty interpretation, Herrera v. Wyoming. The case concerns the persistence of the Crow Tribe’s hunting right in the 1868 Second Treaty of Fort Laramie. In an occasionally meandering argument, the Supreme Court repeatedly circled the three issues at the core of the case: issue preclusion, the implications of the court’s holding in its 1999 decision in Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, and the meaning of the treaty term “unoccupied.”

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Opinion Analysis: Kavanaugh’s First Opinion Rejects Vague Exception Limiting Enforcement of Arbitration Agreements

The justices’ first opinion day of 2019 brought the first opinion from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for a unanimous court in Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer & White Sales Inc. The case is the most recent in a decade-long string of opinions under the Federal Arbitration Act, in which the Supreme Court consistently has reversed lower-court decisions refusing to enforce arbitration agreements.

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The Chief Justice’s 2018 Year-End Report: The Federal Judiciary and #MeToo

Chief Justice John Roberts released his annual report on the federal judiciary today, focusing on the judiciary’s response to allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace. Roberts had discussed this issue in his 2017 report, after several female law clerks accused Judge Alex Kozinski – then a prominent judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit – of inappropriate sexual conduct.

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Supreme Court of Nevada Cites Contracts 2d and Liability Insurance

The Supreme Court of Nevada recently issued a decision in which it cited two ALI publications: the Restatement (Second) of Contracts and the Restatement of the Law, Liability Insurance (Proposed Final Draft No. 2, approved May 2018).  The court looked to these Restatements to guide its analysis of a question of liability-insurance law under the law of Nevada.

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The Mountaintop Cemeteries Surrounded by Coal Mines

A recent article for Atlas Obscura explores the interesting and often confusing legality surrounding property law in relation to grave sites. Coal mining pursuits in West Virginia have stretched up into the mountains and on occasion require navigation around generations old grave sites and remnants of forgotten mining towns.

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