In a long-awaited decision of this term, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the plaintiffs in Gill v. Whitford, the legal challenge to Wisconsin Republicans’ 2010 redistricting map, lack standing to challenge the statewide map. The Court remanded the case to district court, giving the plaintiffs another opportunity to demonstrate concrete injuries to their individual votes. The opinion was unanimous, with Chief Justice Roberts writing the lead opinion, and each justice writing or joining a concurring opinion.

The plaintiffs, all Democratic voters from Wisconsin, argued that the map violated their rights to association and equal protection because it unfairly diminished their chances to achieve a majority and resultant legislative outcomes. The map, they said, unfairly gave Republicans a better chance of “translating their votes into seats.”

In defense, the state of Wisconsin argued the plaintiffs lack standing to challenge the entire map. The Court agreed that plaintiffs can only challenge their own voting districts and thus lacked standing for their statewide gerrymandering claim.

Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor agreed that the plaintiffs did not have standing, and suggested the plaintiffs expand on the theory that the redistricting infringed upon their First Amendment rights of association. Kagan also suggested if enough plaintiffs allege the map diluted their votes in their individual districts, the aggregate claims could force the statewide map to be redrawn.

Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, agreed the plaintiffs lacked standing, but did not agree with the Court’s decision to remand the case to district court because remanding is not the standard practice of the Supreme Court in such cases.

In a 4-3 decision, the Court held that an outdoor advertising company is not entitled to compensation from the City of Madison after the City constructed a bridge blocking visibility of a billboard. Justice Walsh Bradley wrote the decision, joined by Justices Abrahamson, Gableman, and Ziegler.

The City of Madison constructed a pedestrian bridge that blocked visibility from the Beltline Highway of the west-facing side of Adams Outdoor Advertising’s billboard. The billboard is nonconforming to a Madison City Ordinance stating that new outdoor advertising signs are prohibited, so Adams may keep but not modify the billboard.

Adams argued they were entitled to just compensation for private property taken for public use, under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Art. 1 § 3 of the Wisconsin Constitution. According to Adams, the property interest in this case is the right to the legal nonconforming use of its property, which was taken when the bridge diminished the property’s sole use – visibility. The Court said that Adams still retains the right to legal nonconforming use of the billboard, despite the bridge placement, because the City did not physically alter Adams’ property.

The Court agreed with the City that the property interest in this case is Adams’ right to visibility of his property from a public road, which is not a recognized property right. Thus, a property interest does not exist for the purpose of just compensation under the U.S. and Wisconsin Constitutions. Since Adams failed to demonstrate a recognized property interest, the Court affirmed the summary judgement in favor of the City of Madison.

Justices R. Bradley, Kelly, and Chief Justice Roggensack dissented, writing that an unconstitutional taking occurs when government denies all economically viable use of a person’s property. In contrast to the majority, the dissent defined the property interest as the billboard permit. The dissent determined that the value of the property was in the permit for nonconforming use and the visibility of the billboard for advertisers wishing to rent space. Because the bridge eliminated the entire value of the permit for the west-facing side of the billboard, the bridge construction was a compensable taking.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson has announced she will not run for re-election when her fourth term is up in 2019.

Abrahamson was appointed by Democratic Gov. Patrick Lucey in 1976 as the state’s first woman Supreme Court Justice. She served as Chief Justice from 1996 to 2015. Abrahamson is the longest serving Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin history.

So far, District Attorney Susan Happ, Appeals Court Chief Judge Lisa Neubauer, Waukesha County Judge Maria Lazar, and Second District Appeals Court Judge Brian Hagedorn have expressed interest in running for Abrahamson’s seat.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision this week in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, holding that individualized arbitration contracts between employers and employees that waive class actions are enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act.

Previously, courts and the National Labor Relations Board have held that individualized arbitration agreements are enforceable. However, a 2012 NLRB decision ruled otherwise, and subsequent executive and solicitor general opinions have been conflicting. The SCOTUS decision clarifies the legal uncertainty for employers in these cases.

The Court combined the Epic case with two similar disputes: Ernst & Young LLP et al. v. Morris et al. and National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc., et al. In each of the cases, the employers and employees entered into contracts requiring individualized arbitration proceedings for employment disputes. However, the employees sought to litigate claims in class actions.

The plaintiffs in this case argued that the contracts were invalid because the “saving clause” of the Federal Arbitration Act says that arbitration agreements need not be enforced if they violate another federal law. The plaintiffs held that their contracts violated the National Labor Relations Act’s (NLRA) provision that ensures employees the right to “concerted activities.” Further, they argued the Court should give Chevron deference to the NLRB’s recent decision that employees have a right to class actions outside of the enforceability of arbitration agreements. Chevron deference is a judicially created doctrine that requires courts to defer automatically to agency interpretations of statutes.

The Court ruled in favor of the employers, holding that, since NLRA focuses on collective bargaining and there is no clear reference to employees’ rights to class actions, NLRA does not displace the Federal Arbitration Act. The opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, emphasizes that under constitutional separation of powers, courts should not pick and choose between statutes when there is no overwhelming congressional intention implying the statutes are not harmonious.

The Court also held that Chevron deference to agencies does not apply here because Congress has statutorily given NLRB authority to administer the NLRA but not the Federal Arbitration Act. Furthermore, Chevron deference is due only when traditional tools for statutory construction leave ambiguity. The Court held that the statutes are clear enough in this case to dismiss Chevron deference to NLRA.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas added that, under the Federal Arbitration Act’s “saving clause,” courts may revoke contracts under the grounds of improper formation but cannot refuse to enforce contracts for public policy reasons. The concurring opinion states the contracts in this case were not formed improperly, so they must be enforced.

In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argues that collective proceedings do fall under the scope of the “concerted activities” provision of the NLRA and that the NLRA’s specificity prevails over the more general Federal Arbitration Act. The dissent argues that employees should always have the right to address disputes with their employers collectively instead of on an individual basis.