TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you will be shown a prompt from a judicial decision and multiple holding statements derived from citations following text in a legal decision. Holdings represent the governing legal rule when the law is applied to a particular set of facts. There are five answer choices for each citing text. The correct answer is the holding statement that corresponds to the citing text. The four incorrect answers are other holding statements. You should find the correct option. There is a <HOLDING> token in the position of the citing text prompt where the holding statement was extracted.
PROBLEM: See Lorber 675 F.2d at 1067. The court noted that the classification of the surcharge as a non-tax fee was "a close question," but concluded that because the surcharge was triggered by "voluntary" choice, the surcharge was possessed more of the character of a service fee than that of a tax. See id. The Lorber court also held that extending priority status to the surcharge was contrary to the trend of then-recent amendments to 64 of the old Bankruptcy Act, which tended toward the erosion of the preferred status of taxes. See id., 675 F.2d at 1067-68. The court explained that, following the grant by Congress of priority status to claims for taxes, the federal government and its state and local counterparts began to increase the types and levels of taxation. See id. (citing S. REP. NO. (<HOLDING>). Even courts in the Ninth Circuit, purporting
Holding statements: (A) holding that reimbursement claims were excise taxes under lorber (B) holding that ohios reimbursement claims met the lorber criteria but were not excise taxes because they were not universally applicable to similarly situated entities and in addition disadvantaged private creditors with like claims (C) holding west virginias reimbursement claims were excise taxes under lorber suburban ii and the chateaugay district court decision (D) holding reimbursement claims were excise taxes under the lorber test without addressing the bankruptcy codes central policy of equal distribution (E) holding that michigan reimbursement claims were excise taxes under both lorber and suburban ii

SOLUTION: (E)

PROBLEM: for a mitigating role adjustment pursuant to U.S.S.G. 3B1.2. Section 3B1.2 "authorizes a four-level reduction in offense level if the defendant is deemed a 'minimal' participant in the criminal activity! ] [and] a two-level reduction if he is deemed a 'minor' participant...." United States v. Skinner, 690 F.3d 772, 783 (6th Cir. 2012). The difference between "minimal" and "minor" is "not just semantic," United States v. Lopez, 937 F.2d 716, 728 (2d Cir. 1991), and the standards are not interchangeable. See U.S.S.G. 3B1.2 cmt. n. 5 (defining a "minor participant" as "a defendant ... who is less culpable than most other participants in the criminal activity, but whose role could not be described as minimal") (emphasis added); United States v. Friedman, 998 F.2d 53, 60 (2d Cir. 1993) (<HOLDING>). Both Griffith and the Government focus their
Holding statements: (A) recognizing this distinction (B) holding that there is no distinction in the right to jury trial between sentencing factors and elements (C) recognizing distinction between two types of waiver (D) holding that the district court improperly used the two different standards under ussg 3b12 interchangeably thus blurring the distinction between section 3b12a and b (E) recognizing distinction between tolling and estoppel

SOLUTION: (D)

PROBLEM: 548 U.S. at 518, 126 S.Ct. at 2667 (Scalia, J., joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas and Alito, concurring in part and dissenting in part) (concluding that "compliance with 5 of the Voting Rights Act can be [a compelling state] interest ... [otherwise] a State could be placed in the impossible position of having to choose between compliance with 5 and compliance with the Equal Protection Clause"). And we conclude that a plan will be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest when the race-based action taken was reasonably necessary under a constitutional reading and application of the Act. See Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900, 921, 115 S.Ct. 2475, 2490-91, 132 L.Ed.2d 762 (1995); see also Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U.S. 899, 916, 116 S.Ct. 1894, 1906, 135 L.Ed.2d 207 (1996) (<HOLDING>); United Jewish Orgs. of Williamsburgh, Inc. v.
Holding statements: (A) holding that the appropriate remedy for a public trial violation was a new suppression hearing not a new trial because the remedy should be appropriate to the violation (B) holding that where the claimed interest is avoidance of liability under section 2 the legislative action must at a minimum remedy the anticipated violation or achieve compliance to be narrowly tailored (C) holding that liability may not be imposed on supervisory personnel under 1983 where at best the plaintiff has merely claimed that the appellants were aware of alleged violation but did not take appropriate action (D) holding that even if the minimum mandatory exceeds the statutory maximum the court must impose the minimum mandatory (E) holding that individual liability under 1983 must be based on personal involvement in the alleged constitutional violation

SOLUTION:
(B)