Supreme Court Holds in Mayo Foundation that Medical Residents are Not Students

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-79
Author(s):  
Laura Lee Mannino
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
Medical Residents ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Administrative Authority ◽  
Mayo Foundation ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Treasury Department

ABSTRACT In Mayo Foundation v. U.S., the United States Supreme Court recently ended a dispute as to whether stipends paid to medical residents are subject to FICA. A statutory provision excludes “students” from FICA, and the question was whether medical residents could be considered students, thereby making them eligible for the exclusion. The Treasury Department amended its definition of “student,” as that term is used in the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), following adverse decisions in several circuits. What began as a case of statutory construction turned into one of administrative authority. Ultimately, the Court upheld the regulation, which categorically denies medical residents from being eligible for the student exemption. The Supreme Court's decision reaches far beyond this narrow issue, however, because the underlying analysis applies in all areas of administrative law. The Court made clear that a uniform standard of deference applies not only to the Treasury Department, but to all administrative agencies. That standard, which was announced by the Court in Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. in 1984, states that an agency's rule or interpretation will be upheld as long as Congress was silent or ambiguous with regard to the issue at hand, and the rule or interpretation is a permissible construction of the statute.

II. THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT SETTLES THE NE EXEAT CONTROVERSY IN AMERICA: ABBOTT v ABBOTT

2010 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 1158-1167
Author(s):  
James D Garbolino
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
Hague Convention ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Child Abduction ◽  
First Case ◽  
Bundle Of Rights ◽  
Definition Of

In a 6–3 opinion the United States Supreme Court held, in its first case involving the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction2, that a ne exeat3 order confers a right of custody for a left behind parent, entitling that parent to maintain an action under the Convention. The decision reverses a 5th Circuit opinion4 which followed the rationale of CrollvCroll.5Croll held that a parent with visitation rights, coupled with a ne exeat clause, possessed only part of the ‘bundle of rights’6 which comprise ‘rights of custody’, and that such limited rights were insufficient to compel a return remedy under the 1980 Convention. The Supreme Court's decision settles a conflict among the federal circuits on this issue.7 Following the Croll rationale were Fawcett v. McRoberts,8 and Gonzales v Gutierrez.9 The 11th Circuit, however, in Furnes v. Reeves,10 held that a ne exeat provision in a Norwegian custody agreement conferred a right which would satisfy the Convention's definition of ‘custody rights’.

The United States Supreme Court: Definitions of Obscenity

1972 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-67
Author(s):  
Marc Schnall
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Current Test ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Average Person ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
Definition Of

This article summarizes the activity of the United States Supreme Court in formulating and applying definitions of what constitutes obscenity. For almost ninety years, American courts applied a test of obscenity established by a British court in 1868. In 1957, after lower courts in the United States had expanded the British definition, the Supreme Court, in Roth v. United States, defined as obscene such material which, "to the average person, apply ing contemporary community standards," appealed to prurient interests and lacked redeeming social value. Between 1957 and 1966, the Court added several dimensions to its definition of obscenity. The current test of obscenity was framed in 1966 in Memoirs v. Massachusetts, which reworded the Roth definition and included a third standard—namely, that the material must also be "patently offensive." This article examines not only the Supreme Court's actual definitions of obscenity but also the trends in these definitions and the Court's continual efforts to define and redefine obscenity.

scholarly journals Means And Ends In City Of Arlington v. FCC: Ignoring The Lawyer's Craft to Reshape the Scope of Chevron Deference

2015 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Healy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Administrative Action ◽  
Means And Ends ◽  
Chief Justice

In last year’s term, the United States Supreme Court considered the question of the scope of Chevron deference in City of Arlington v. FCC. This article discusses how the decision is an example of the work of an activist Court. The case should have been resolved by a straight forward determination under the analysis of United States v. Mead that Chevron deference simply did not apply to the Federal Communications Commission’s (“FCC”) legal determination. The Court ignored this restrained approach to the case and instead addressed the question the Justices desired to decide: the reach of Chevron deference. The article discusses and criticizes the approach of Justice Scalia writing for the majority and of Chief Justice Roberts writing for three dissenting Justices.Practitioners and scholars of administrative law can only be confused by the Court’s willingness to apply Chevron in City of Arlington, given the informal administrative action being reviewed and the fact that neither reviewing court actually applied each of the two parts of the Mead test. The Court’s flawed administrative law analysis results from the activist concerns of Justice Scalia and Chief Justice Roberts. Justice Scalia uses the case as a vehicle to undermine Mead, a decision that Justice Scalia loathes. Chief Justice Roberts uses the case as a vehicle to advocate for less judicial deference and less law defining power for increasingly powerful agencies. Neither member of the Court allowed the applicable rules of contemporary administrative law to hinder his efforts to achieve his broader goals. Administrative law would have been better served if a properly restrained Court had considered and applied the previously determined rules for judicial review of administrative agencies. 

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