Source: https://www.dorsey.com/newsresources/publications/client-alerts/2016/06/the-supreme-court-june-13-2016
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 17:42:50+00:00

Document:
Puerto Rico v. Franklin Cal. Tax-Free Trust, No. 15-233: Under the Federal Bankruptcy Code, state bankruptcy laws that enable insolvent municipalities to restructure their debts over the objections of creditors are pre-empted. 11 U.S.C. §903(1). Here the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico enacted a law in response to its fiscal crisis that would allow Puerto Rico’s public utility corporations to restructure their debt. Respondent investment funds and utility bondholders brought an action to enjoin that law, contending that it was pre-empted by the Bankruptcy Code’s pre-emption provision. The District Court agreed the law was pre-empted, and the First Circuit affirmed. Today, the Court affirmed, holding that Puerto Rico’s narrow exclusion from the definition of “State” “for the purpose of defining who may be a debtor under chapter 9,” 11 U.S.C. §101(52), meant that Puerto Rico remains a “State” for other purposes related to Chapter 9, including that chapter’s pre-emption provision, which bars Puerto Rico from enacting its own municipal bankruptcy scheme to restructure the debt of its insolvent public utility companies.
Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., No. 14-1513: Section 284 of the Patent Act provides that, in a case of infringement, courts “may increase the damages up to three times the amount found or assessed.” 35 U.S.C. §284. Petitioners in two separate actions, who were both denied these increased damages, petitioned the Court, challenging the test the Federal Circuit established in In re Seagate Technology, LLC, 497 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (en banc), for assessing such damages. Under Seagate, in order for a district court to increase damages under Section 284, the patent owner was first required to “show by clear and convincing evidence that the infringer acted despite an objectively high likelihood that its actions constituted infringement of a valid patent.” Second, the patentee must demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the risk of infringement “was either known or so obvious that it should have been known to the accused infringer.” The Court today vacated and remanded, holding that this test was inconsistent with Section 284 because it was unduly rigid, and impermissibly encumbers the statutory grant of discretion to district courts, particularly in that it can have the effect of insulating some of the worst patent infringers from any liability for enhanced damages.
United States v. Bryant, No. 15-420: Respondent Michael Bryant, Jr. had multiple tribal-court convictions for domestic assault in which he was sentenced to terms of imprisonment, but all for less than one year. He was indigent at the time of those convictions and was not appointed counsel. Based on two later domestic assaults, Bryant was federally indicted on counts of domestic assault by a habitual offender under 18 U.S.C. §117(a). This law was enacted in response to high domestic violence rates against Native American women, and imposes sentences that can include imprisonment of up to five years for someone who commits domestic assault within Indian country and has two prior domestic violence convictions in Federal, State, or Indian tribal-court. Bryant argued that because he was not represented by counsel for his prior convictions, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel precluded the use of his tribal-court convictions as predicate offenses. The District Court rejected this argument, but the Ninth Circuit reversed. The Ninth Circuit recognized that the tribal-court convictions were valid when entered because the Sixth Amendment does not apply to tribal-courts and the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 (“ICRA”) only provides a right to counsel for tribal-court sentences exceeding one year, but concluded they could not be used as predicate offenses. The Court today reversed, holding that Bryan’s tribal-court convictions did not violate the Sixth Amendment when obtained, and they retain their validity when invoked in a Section 117(a) prosecution.

References: v. 
 §903
 §101
 v. 
 §284
 v. 
 §117