The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in two cases today:
First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin, No. 24-781: This case concerns the appropriate forum for raising constitutional defenses against a subpoena issued by a state attorney general. In this case, a faith-based non-profit providing counseling for unplanned pregnancies claimed a subpoena issued under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act would chill its First Amendment rights. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the non-profit’s declaratory judgment challenge as unripe, noting that the constitutional claims could be first raised in the state court litigation enforcing the subpoena. The question presented is: Where the subject of a state investigatory demand has established a reasonably objective chill of its First Amendment rights, is a federal court in a first-filed action deprived of jurisdiction because those rights must be adjudicated in state court?
Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, No. 24-813: This case addresses a circuit court split on the standard a party must meet to remove a state court case to federal court under the federal-officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1). The questions presented are: (1) Whether a causal-nexus or contractual-direction test survives the 2011 amendment to the federal-officer removal statute, which provides federal jurisdiction over civil actions against “any person acting under [an] officer” of the United States “for or relating to any act under color of such office;” and (2) whether a federal contractor can remove to federal court when sued for oil-production activities undertaken to fulfill a federal oil-refinement contract.