Task: sc_issue_2

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue of the Court's decision. Determine the issue of the case on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis.

Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992 (Coal Act or Act) includes the present 26 U. S. C. § 9706(a), providing generally that the Commissioner of Social Security “shall, before October 1, 1993,” assign each coal industry retiree eligible for benefits to an extant operating company or a “related” entity, which shall then be responsible for funding the assigned beneficiary’s benefits. The question is whether an initial assignment made after that date is valid despite its untimeliness. We hold that it is.
I
We have spoken about portions of the Coal Act in two recent cases, Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co., 534 U. S. 438 (2002), and Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U. S. 498 (1998), the first of which sketches the Act’s history, 534 U. S., at 442-447. Here, it is enough to recall that in its current form the Act requires the Commissioner to assign, where possible, every coal industry retiree to a “signatory operator,” defined as a signatory of a coal wage agreement specified in § 9701(b)(1). §§ 9701(c)(1), 9706(a). An assignment should turn on a retiree’s employment history with a particular operator, § 9706(a), unless an appropriate signatory is no longer in business, in which case the proper assignee is a “related person” of that operator, defined in terms of corporate associations and relationships not in issue here, § 9701(c)(2). The Act recognizes that some retirees will be “unassigned.” § 9704(d).
Assignment to a signatory operator binds the operator to pay an annual premium to the United Mine Workers of America Combined Benefit Fund, established under the Act to administer benefits. §9702. The premium has up to three components, starting with a “health benefit premium,” computed by multiplying the number of assigned retirees by the year’s “per beneficiary” premium, set by the Commissioner and based on the Combined Fund’s health benefit expenses for the prior year, adjusted for changes in the Consumer Price Index. § 9704(b). The second element is a “death benefit premium” for projected benefits to the retirees’ survivors, the premium being the operator’s share of “the amount, aetuarially determined, which the Combined Fund will be required to pay during the plan year for death benefits coverage.” § 9704(c).
A possible third constituent of the premium is for retirees who are not assigned to a particular operator, whose health and death benefits are nonetheless paid from the Combined Fund as if they were assigned beneficiaries. Before passage of the Coal Act, many operators withdrew from coal wage agreements, shifting the costs of paying for their retirees’ benefits to the remaining signatories, Sigmon Coal Co., supra, at 444, and an important object of the Coal Act was providing stable funding for the health benefits of these “orphan retirees,” House Committee on Ways and Means, Development and Implementation of the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992, 104th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (Comm. Print 1995) (hereinafter Coal Act Implementation). See Energy Policy Act of 1992, Pub. L. 102-486, § 19142, 106 Stat. 3037 (intent to “stabilize plan funding” and “provide for the continuation of a privately financed self-sufficient program”).
Before signatory operators may be compelled to contribute for the benefit of unassigned beneficiaries, however, funding from two other sources must run out. The United Mine Workers of America 1950 Pension Plan (UMWA Pension Plan) was required to make three substantial payments to the Combined Fund for this purpose on February 1, 1993, October 1, 1993, and October 1, 1994. § 9705(a)(1). The Act also calls for yearly payments to the Combined Fund from the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Fund (AML Fund), established for reclamation and restoration of land and water resources degraded by coal mining. 30 U. S. C. § 1231(c). Annual transfers from this AML Fund are limited to the greater of $70 million and the annual interest earned by the fund, and are subject to an aggregate limit equal to the amount of interest earned on the AML Fund between September 30, 1992, and October 1, 1995. §§ 1232(h)(2), (3)(B).
So far, these transfers from the UMWA Pension Plan and the AML Fund have covered the benefits of all unassigned beneficiaries. If they fall short, however, the third source comes into play (and the third element of an operator’s Combined Fund premium becomes actual): all assignee operators (that is, operators with assigned retirees) will have to pay an “unassigned beneficiaries premium,” being their applicable percentage portion of the amount needed to pay annual benefits for the unassigned. An operator’s “applicable percentage” is defined as “the percentage determined by dividing the number of eligible beneficiaries assigned under section 9706 to such operator by the total number of eligible beneficiaries assigned under section 9706 to all such operators (determined on the basis of assignments as of October 1, 1993).” 26 U. S. C. § 9704(f)(1). The signatory with the most assigned retirees thus would cover the greatest share of the benefits payable to the unassigned (as well as their spouses and certain dependants).
II
Although §9706 provides that the Commissioner “shall” complete all assignments before October 1, 1993, the Commissioner did not, and she now estimates that some 10,000 beneficiaries were first assigned to signatory operators after the statutory date. The parties disagree on the reason the Commissioner failed to meet the deadline, but that dispute need not be resolved here.
After October 1,1993, the Commissioner assigned 330 beneficiaries to respondents Peabody Coal Company and Eastern Associated Coal Corp., and a total of 270 beneficiaries to respondents Bellaire Corporation, NACCO Industries, Inc., and The North American Coal Corporation. These companies challenged the assignments in two separate actions before different District Courts, claiming that the statutory date sets a time limit on the Commissioner’s power to assign, so that a beneficiary not assigned on October 1, 1993 (and the beneficiary’s eligible dependants) must be left unassigned for life. If the respondent companies are right, the challenged assignments are void and the corresponding benefits must be financed not by them, but by the transfers from the UMWA Pension Plan and the AML Fund and, if necessary, by unassigned beneficiary premiums paid by other signatory operators to whom timely assignments were made.
The Commissioner denied that Congress intended the Commissioner’s tardiness in assignments to impose a permanent charge on the public AML Fund, otherwise earmarked for reclamation, or to raise the threat of permanently heavier financial burdens on companies that happened to get assignments before October 1, 1993. The Commissioner argued that Congress primarily intended coal operators to pay for their own retirees. The trustees of the Combined Fund intervened in one of the cases and took the Commissioner’s view that initial assignments made after September 30, 1993, are valid.
The companies obtained summary judgments in each case, on the authority of Dixie Fuel Co. v. Commissioner of Social Security, 171 F. 3d 1052 (CA6 1999), which went against the Commissioner on the issue here. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed in two opinions likewise following Dixie Fuel—Peabody Coal Co. v. Massanari, 14 Fed. Appx. 393 (2001), and Bellaire Corp. v. Massanari, 14 Fed. Appx. 424 (2001)—but conflicting with the Fourth Circuit’s holding in Holland v. Pardee Coal Co., 269 F. 3d 424 (2001). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 534 U. S. 1112 (2002), and now reverse.
III
It misses the point simply to argue that the October 1, 1993, date was “mandatory,” “imperative,” or a “deadline,” as of course it was, however unrealistic the mandate may have been. The Commissioner had no discretion to choose to leave assignments until after the prescribed date, and the assignments in issue here represent a default on a statutory duty, though it may well be a wholly blameless one. But the failure to act on schedule' merely raises the real question, which is what the consequence of tardiness should be. The respondent companies call the failure “jurisdictional,” such that the affected beneficiaries (like truly orphan beneficiaries) may never be assigned, but instead must be permanent wards of the UMWA Pension Plan, the AML Fund, and, potentially, of coal operators without prior relationship to these beneficiaries. The companies, in other words, say that as to tardily assigned beneficiaries who were, perhaps, formerly their own employees, they go scot free. We think the claim is as unsupportable as it is counterintuitive.
A
First there is the companies’ position that couching the duty in terms of the mandatory “shall” together with a specific deadline leaves the Commissioner with no authority to make an initial assignment on or after October 1, 1993. We rejected a comparable argument in Brock v. Pierce County, 476 U. S. 253 (1986), dealing with the power of the Secretary of Labor to audit a grant recipient under a provision that he “ ‘shall’ issue a final determination... within 120 days” of receiving a complaint alleging misuse of federal grant funds. Id., at 255. Like the Court of Appeals here, the Ninth Circuit in Brock thought the mandate and deadline together implied that Congress “had intended to prevent the Secretary from acting” after the statutory period, id., at 257. We, on the contrary, expressed reluctance “to conclude that every failure of an agency to observe a procedural requirement voids subsequent agency action, especially when important public rights are at stake,” id., at 260, and reversed. As in this litigation, the Secretary’s responsibility in Brock was “substantial,” the “ability to complete it within 120 days [was] subject to factors beyond [the Secretary’s] control,” and “the Secretary’s delay, under respondent’s theory, would prejudice the rights of the taxpaying public.” Id., at 261. We accordingly read the 120-day provision as meant “to spur the Secretary to action, not to limit the scope of his authority,” so that untimely action was still valid. Id., at 265.
Nor, since Brock, have we ever construed a provision that the Government “shall” act within a specified time, without more, as a jurisdictional limit precluding action later. Thus, a provision that a detention hearing “ ‘shall be held immediately upon the [detainee’s] first appearance before the judicial officer’” did not bar detention after a tardy hearing, United States v. Montalvo-Murillo, 495 U. S. 711, 714 (1990) (quoting 18 U. S. C. § 3142(f)), and a mandate that the Secretary of Health and Human Services “ ‘shall report’ ” within a certain time did “not mean that [the] official lacked power to act beyond it,” Regions Hospital v. Shalala, 522 U. S. 448, 459, n. 3 (1998).
We have summed up this way: “if a statute does not specify a consequence for noncompliance with statutory timing provisions, the federal courts will not in the ordinary course impose their own coercive sanction.” United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U. S. 43, 63 (1993).
Hence the oddity at this date of a claim that late official action should shift financial burdens from otherwise responsible private purses to the public fisc, let alone siphon money from funds set aside expressly for a different public purpose, like the AML Fund for land reclamation. The point would be the same, however, even if Brock were the only case on the subject. The Coal Act was adopted six years after Brock came down, when Congress was presumably aware that we do not readily infer congressional intent to limit an agency’s power to get a mandatory job done merely from a specification to act by a certain time. See United States v. Wells, 519 U. S. 482, 495 (1997). The Brock example conse quently has to mean that a statute directing official action needs more than a mandatory “shall” before the grant of power can sensibly be read to expire when the job is supposed to be done. Nothing so limiting, however, is to be found in the Coal Act: no express language supports the companies, while structure, purpose, and legislative history go against them.
Structural clues support the Commissioner in the Coal Act’s other instances of combining the word “shall” with a specific date that could not possibly be read to prohibit action outside the statutory period. Congress, for example, provided that the UMWA Pension Plan “shall transfer to the Combined Fund” installments of $70 million on February 1, 1993, on October 1, 1993, and on October 1, 1994. § 9705(a)(1). It could not be that a failure to make a transfer on one of those precise dates, for whatever reason, would have left the UMWA Pension Plan with no authority to make the payment; October 1, 1994, was not even a business day. Or consider the Act’s mandatory provisions that the trustees of the Combined Fund “shall” be designated no later than 60 days from the enactment date, § 9702(a)(1), and that the designated trustees “shall, not later than 60 days after the enactment date,” give the Commissioner certain information about benefits, § 9704(h). No one could seriously argue that the entire scheme would have been nullified if appointments had been left to the 61st day, or that trustees (whose appointments could properly have been left to the 60th day) were powerless to divulge information to the SSA after the 60-day period had expired.
In each of these instances, we draw a conclusion on grounds of plausibility: if Congress had meant to set a coun-terintuitive limit on authority to act, it would have said more than it did, and would surely not have couched its intent in language Brock had already held to lack any clear jurisdictional significance. The same may be said here.
B
Nor do we think the result of appealing to plausibility is affected by either of two other textual features that the companies take as indicating inability to assign beneficiaries after the statutory date: the provision for unassigned beneficiary status itself, and the provision that an operator’s contribution for the benefit of the unassigned shall be calculated “on the basis of assignments as of October 1, 1993.” §§ 9704(f)(1), (2).
1
The companies characterize the provision for unassigned beneficiaries as the specification of a “consequence” for failure to assign a beneficiary to an operator or related person. Cf. Brock, 476 U. S., at 259. Specifying this consequence of failure, they say, shows that the failure must be governed by the consequence provided, not corrected by a tardy assignment corresponding to one that should have been made earlier. The specified consequence, in other words, reflects a legislative preference for finality over accurate initial assignments and creates a right on the part of the companies to rely permanently on the state of affairs as they were on October 1, 1993. We think this line of reasoning is unsound at every step.
To begin with, whatever might be inferable from the fact that a specific provision addressed the failure to make a timely assignment, the part of the Act referring to “unassigned” beneficiaries is not any such provision. The Act speaks of the beneficiaries not in terms of the Commissioner’s failure to assign them in time, but simply as “beneficiaries who are not assigned.” § 9704(d). The most obvious reason for beneficiaries’ being unassigned, in fact, is the disappearance of a beneficiary’s former employer, leaving no signatory operator for assignment under § 9706(a). This is not to say that failure of timely assignment does not also leave a beneficiary “unassigned” under the Act. It simply means that unassigned status has no significance peculiar to failure of timely assignment.
Second, to the extent that “unassigned” status is a consequence of mere untimeliness, there would be a far more obvious reason for specifying that consequence than a supposed desire for finality. On its face, the provision for a beneficiary left out through tardiness functions simply as a default rule to provide coverage under the new regime required to be in place by October 1, 1993; there had to be some source of funding for every beneficiary by then, and provisions for the “unassigned” employees tell the SSA what the source will be in the absence of any other. But we do not read a provision apparently made for want of something better as an absolute command to forgo something better for all time.
In fact, it is unrealistic to think that Congress understood unassigned status as an enduring “consequence” of uncompleted work, for nothing indicates that Congress even foresaw that some beneficiaries matchable with operators still in business might not be assigned before October 1, 1993. As the companies themselves point out, the Commissioner led Congress to believe as late as 1995 that all possible assignments had been made on time, see n. 3, supra, and such little legislative history as there is on the point tends to show that Congress assumed that any assignments that could be made at all (say, to an operator still in business) would be made on time. On October 8, 1992, on the heels of the Conference Committee Report on the Act and just before the vote in the Senate adopting the Act, Senator Wallop gave a detailed explanation of the Coal Act’s provisions for unassigned beneficiaries, which assumed that the “unassigned” would be true orphans:
“As a practical matter, not all beneficiaries can be assigned to a specific last signatory operator, related person or assigned operator for payment purposes. This is because in some instances, none of those persons remain in business, even as defined to include non-mining related businesses. Thus, provisions are made for unassigned beneficiary premiums.” 138 Cong. Rec. 34003 (1992).
The Senator’s report says that the transfer to the Combined Fund from the UMWA Pension Plan and AML Fund would be made because “unassigned beneficiaries were not employed by the assigned operators at the time of their retirement.... [I]f no operator remains in business under the formulations described above, that retiree becomes an unassigned beneficiary.... [The Coal Act’s] purpose is to assure that any beneficiary, once assigned, remains the responsibility of a particular operator, and that the number of unassigned beneficiaries is kept to an absolute minimum.” Ibid. It seems not to have crossed Congress’s mind that the category of the “unassigned” would include beneficiaries, let alone a lot of beneficiaries, who could be connected with an operator, albeit late. Providing a consequence of default was apparently just happenstance.
Congress plainly did, however, weigh finality on October 1, 1993, against accuracy of initial assignments in one circumstance, and accuracy won. Section 9704(d) speaks of “beneficiaries who are not assigned... for [any] plan year,” suggesting that assignment status may change from year to year. One way it may change is by correcting an erroneous assignment. Under the Act, an operator getting notice of an assignment has 30 days to request information regarding the basis of the assignment and then 30 days from receipt of that information to ask for reconsideration. §§ 9706(f)(1)— (2). If the Commissioner finds error, the Combined Fund trustees will fix it by reducing premiums and refunding any overpayments. § 9706(f)(3)(A)(i); see also § 9706(f)(3)(A)(ii). Nothing is said about finality on October 1,1993, and no time limit whatever is imposed on the Commissioner’s authority to reassign. The companies concede, as they must, that the statute permits reassignment

Question: What is the issue of the decision?
年. involuntary confession
数. habeas corpus
日. plea bargaining: the constitutionality of and/or the circumstances of its exercise
的. retroactivity (of newly announced or newly enacted constitutional or statutory rights)
月. search and seizure (other than as pertains to vehicles or Crime Control Act)
用. search and seizure, vehicles
成. search and seizure, Crime Control Act
名. contempt of court or congress
时. self-incrimination (other than as pertains to Miranda or immunity from prosecution)
件. Miranda warnings
一. self-incrimination, immunity from prosecution
请. right to counsel (cf. indigents appointment of counsel or inadequate representation)
中. cruel and unusual punishment, death penalty (cf. extra legal jury influence, death penalty)
据. cruel and unusual punishment, non-death penalty (cf. liability, civil rights acts)
码. line-up
不. discovery and inspection (in the context of criminal litigation only, otherwise Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations)
新. double jeopardy
文. ex post facto (state)
下. extra-legal jury influences: miscellaneous
分. extra-legal jury influences: prejudicial statements or evidence
入. extra-legal jury influences: contact with jurors outside courtroom
人. extra-legal jury influences: jury instructions (not necessarily in criminal cases)
功. extra-legal jury influences: voir dire (not necessarily a criminal case)
上. extra-legal jury influences: prison garb or appearance
户. extra-legal jury influences: jurors and death penalty (cf. cruel and unusual punishment)
为. extra-legal jury influences: pretrial publicity
间. confrontation (right to confront accuser, call and cross-examine witnesses)
号. subconstitutional fair procedure: confession of error
取. subconstitutional fair procedure: conspiracy (cf. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure: conspiracy)
回. subconstitutional fair procedure: entrapment
在. subconstitutional fair procedure: exhaustion of remedies
页. subconstitutional fair procedure: fugitive from justice
字. subconstitutional fair procedure: presentation, admissibility, or sufficiency of evidence (not necessarily a criminal case)
有. subconstitutional fair procedure: stay of execution
个. subconstitutional fair procedure: timeliness
作. subconstitutional fair procedure: miscellaneous
示. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure
出. statutory construction of criminal laws: assault
是. statutory construction of criminal laws: bank robbery
失. statutory construction of criminal laws: conspiracy (cf. subconstitutional fair procedure: conspiracy)
表. statutory construction of criminal laws: escape from custody
除. statutory construction of criminal laws: false statements (cf. statutory construction of criminal laws: perjury)
加. statutory construction of criminal laws: financial (other than in fraud or internal revenue)
败. statutory construction of criminal laws: firearms
生. statutory construction of criminal laws: fraud
信. statutory construction of criminal laws: gambling
类. statutory construction of criminal laws: Hobbs Act; i.e., 18 USC 1951
置. statutory construction of criminal laws: immigration (cf. immigration and naturalization)
理. statutory construction of criminal laws: internal revenue (cf. Federal Taxation)
本. statutory construction of criminal laws: Mann Act and related statutes
息. statutory construction of criminal laws: narcotics includes regulation and prohibition of alcohol
行. statutory construction of criminal laws: obstruction of justice
定. statutory construction of criminal laws: perjury (other than as pertains to statutory construction of criminal laws: false statements)
改. statutory construction of criminal laws: Travel Act, 18 USC 1952
市. statutory construction of criminal laws: war crimes
期. statutory construction of criminal laws: sentencing guidelines
以. statutory construction of criminal laws: miscellaneous
修. jury trial (right to, as distinct from extra-legal jury influences)
元. speedy trial
方. miscellaneous criminal procedure (cf. due process, prisoners' rights, comity: criminal procedure)
录. voting
区. Voting Rights Act of 1965, plus amendments
单. ballot access (of candidates and political parties)
位. desegregation (other than as pertains to school desegregation, employment discrimination, and affirmative action)
型. desegregation, schools
法. employment discrimination: on basis of race, age, religion, illegitimacy, national origin, or working conditions.
县. affirmative action
存. slavery or indenture
品. sit-in demonstrations (protests against racial discrimination in places of public accommodation)
前. reapportionment: other than plans governed by the Voting Rights Act
称. debtors' rights
注. deportation (cf. immigration and naturalization)
值. employability of aliens (cf. immigration and naturalization)
输. sex discrimination (excluding sex discrimination in employment)
建. sex discrimination in employment (cf. sex discrimination)
能. Indians (other than pertains to state jurisdiction over)
大. Indians, state jurisdiction over
例. juveniles (cf. rights of illegitimates)
度. poverty law, constitutional
始. poverty law, statutory: welfare benefits, typically under some Social Security Act provision.
到. illegitimates, rights of (cf. juveniles): typically inheritance and survivor's benefits, and paternity suits
面. handicapped, rights of: under Rehabilitation, Americans with Disabilities Act, and related statutes
载. residency requirements: durational, plus discrimination against nonresidents
点. military: draftee, or person subject to induction
密. military: active duty
动. military: veteran
果. immigration and naturalization: permanent residence
图. immigration and naturalization: citizenship
提. immigration and naturalization: loss of citizenship, denaturalization
发. immigration and naturalization: access to public education
式. immigration and naturalization: welfare benefits
国. immigration and naturalization: miscellaneous
登. indigents: appointment of counsel (cf. right to counsel)
错. indigents: inadequate representation by counsel (cf. right to counsel)
者. indigents: payment of fine
认. indigents: costs or filing fees
误. indigents: U.S. Supreme Court docketing fee
接. indigents: transcript
关. indigents: assistance of psychiatrist
重. indigents: miscellaneous
第. liability, civil rights acts (cf. liability, governmental and liability, nongovernmental; cruel and unusual punishment, non-death penalty)
地. miscellaneous civil rights (cf. comity: civil rights)
如. First Amendment, miscellaneous (cf. comity: First Amendment)
设. commercial speech, excluding attorneys
目. libel, defamation: defamation of public officials and public and private persons
开. libel, privacy: true and false light invasions of privacy
事. legislative investigations: concerning internal security only
可. federal or state internal security legislation: Smith, Internal Security, and related federal statutes
要. loyalty oath or non-Communist affidavit (other than bar applicants, government employees, political party, or teacher)
代. loyalty oath: bar applicants (cf. admission to bar, state or federal or U.S. Supreme Court)
小. loyalty oath: government employees
选. loyalty oath: political party
标. loyalty oath: teachers
明. security risks: denial of benefits or dismissal of employees for reasons other than failure to meet loyalty oath requirements
编. conscientious objectors (cf. military draftee or military active duty) to military service
求. campaign spending (cf. governmental corruption):
列. protest demonstrations (other than as pertains to sit-in demonstrations): demonstrations and other forms of protest based on First Amendment guarantees
网. free exercise of religion
万. establishment of religion (other than as pertains to parochiaid:)
最. parochiaid: government aid to religious schools, or religious requirements in public schools
器. obscenity, state (cf. comity: privacy): including the regulation of sexually explicit material under the 21st Amendment
所. obscenity, federal
内. due process: miscellaneous (cf. loyalty oath), the residual code
体. due process: hearing or notice (other than as pertains to government employees or prisoners' rights)
通. due process: hearing, government employees
务. due process: prisoners' rights and defendants' rights
此. due process: impartial decision maker
商. due process: jurisdiction (jurisdiction over non-resident litigants)
序. due process: takings clause, or other non-constitutional governmental taking of property
化. privacy (cf. libel, comity: privacy)
消. abortion: including contraceptives
否. right to die
保. Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations
使. attorneys' and governmental employees' or officials' fees or compensation or licenses
次. commercial speech, attorneys (cf. commercial speech)
机. admission to a state or federal bar, disbarment, and attorney discipline (cf. loyalty oath: bar applicants)
对. admission to, or disbarment from, Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court
量. arbitration (in the context of labor-management or employer-employee relations) (cf. arbitration)
查. union antitrust: legality of anticompetitive union activity
部. union or closed shop: includes agency shop litigation
性. Fair Labor Standards Act
和. Occupational Safety and Health Act
更. union-union member dispute (except as pertains to union or closed shop)
后. labor-management disputes: bargaining
证. labor-management disputes: employee discharge
题. labor-management disputes: distribution of union literature
确. labor-management disputes: representative election
格. labor-management disputes: antistrike injunction
了. labor-management disputes: jurisdictional dispute
于. labor-management disputes: right to organize
金. labor-management disputes: picketing
公. labor-management disputes: secondary activity
午. labor-management disputes: no-strike clause
円. labor-management disputes: union representatives
片. labor-management disputes: union trust funds (cf. ERISA)
空. labor-management disputes: working conditions
态. labor-management disputes: miscellaneous dispute
管. miscellaneous union
主. antitrust (except in the context of mergers and union antitrust)
天. mergers
自. bankruptcy (except in the context of priority of federal fiscal claims)
我. sufficiency of evidence: typically in the context of a jury's determination of compensation for injury or death
全. election of remedies: legal remedies available to injured persons or things
今. liability, governmental: tort or contract actions by or against government or governmental officials other than defense of criminal actions brought under a civil rights action.
来. liability, other than as in sufficiency of evidence, election of remedies, punitive damages
正. liability, punitive damages
说. Employee Retirement Income Security Act (cf. union trust funds)
意. state or local government tax
送. state and territorial land claims
容. state or local government regulation, especially of business (cf. federal pre-emption of state court jurisdiction, federal pre-emption of state legislation or regulation)
已. federal or state regulation of securities
结. natural resources - environmental protection (cf. national supremacy: natural resources, national supremacy: pollution)
会. corruption, governmental or governmental regulation of other than as in campaign spending
段. zoning: constitutionality of such ordinances, or restrictions on owners' or lessors' use of real property
计. arbitration (other than as pertains to labor-management or employer-employee relations (cf. union arbitration)
源. federal or state consumer protection: typically under the Truth in Lending; Food, Drug and Cosmetic; and Consumer Protection Credit Acts
色. patents and copyrights: patent
時. patents and copyrights: copyright
交. patents and copyrights: trademark
系. patents and copyrights: patentability of computer processes
过. federal or state regulation of transportation regulation: railroad
电. federal and some few state regulations of transportation regulation: boat
询. federal and some few state regulation of transportation regulation:truck, or motor carrier
符. federal and some few state regulation of transportation regulation: pipeline (cf. federal public utilities regulation: gas pipeline)
未. federal and some few state regulation of transportation regulation: airline
程. federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: electric power
常. federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: nuclear power
条. federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: oil producer
当. federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: gas producer
情. federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: gas pipeline (cf. federal transportation regulation: pipeline)
口. federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: radio and television (cf. cable television)
合. federal and some few state regulation of public utilities regulation: cable television (cf. radio and television)
车. federal and some few state regulations of public utilities regulation: telephone or telegraph company
实. miscellaneous economic regulation
组. comity: civil rights
版. comity: criminal procedure
周. comity: First Amendment
址. comity: habeas corpus
记. comity: military
二. comity: obscenity
同. comity: privacy
业. comity: miscellaneous
权. comity primarily removal cases, civil procedure (cf. comity, criminal and First Amendment); deference to foreign judicial tribunals
其. assessment of costs or damages: as part of a court order
进. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure including Supreme Court Rules, application of the Federal Rules of Evidence, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure in civil litigation, Circuit Court Rules, and state rules and admiralty rules
试. judicial review of administrative agency's or administrative official's actions and procedures
验. mootness (cf. standing to sue: live dispute)
料. venue
传. no merits: writ improvidently granted
述. no merits: dismissed or affirmed for want of a substantial or properly presented federal question, or a nonsuit
集. no merits: dismissed or affirmed for want of jurisdiction (cf. judicial administration: Supreme Court jurisdiction or authority on appeal from federal district courts or courts of appeals)
多. no merits: adequate non-federal grounds for decision
无. no merits: remand to determine basis of state or federal court decision (cf. judicial administration: state law)
员. no merits: miscellaneous
报. standing to sue: adversary parties
他. standing to sue: direct injury
無. standing to sue: legal injury
服. standing to sue: personal injury
线. standing to sue: justiciable question
这. standing to sue: live dispute
制. standing to sue: parens patriae standing
将. standing to sue: statutory standing
处. standing to sue: private or implied cause of action
高. standing to sue: taxpayer's suit
子. standing to sue: miscellaneous
道. judicial administration: jurisdiction or authority of federal district courts or territorial courts
章. judicial administration: jurisdiction or authority of federal courts of appeals
手. judicial administration: Supreme Court jurisdiction or authority on appeal or writ of error, from federal district courts or courts of appeals (cf. 753)
库. judicial administration: Supreme Court jurisdiction or authority on appeal or writ of error, from highest state court
三. judicial administration: jurisdiction or authority of the Court of Claims
从. judicial administration: Supreme Court's original jurisdiction
支. judicial administration: review of non-final order
家. judicial administration: change in state law (cf. no merits: remand to determine basis of state court decision)
长. judicial administration: federal question (cf. no merits: dismissed for want of a substantial or properly presented federal question)
付. judicial administration: ancillary or pendent jurisdiction
秒. judicial administration: extraordinary relief (e.g., mandamus, injunction)
路. judicial administration: certification (cf. objection to reason for denial of certiorari or appeal)
完. judicial administration: resolution of circuit conflict, or conflict between or among other courts
象. judicial administration: objection to reason for denial of certiorari or appeal
则. judicial administration: collateral estoppel or res judicata
现. judicial administration: interpleader
京. judicial administration: untimely filing
转. judicial administration: Act of State doctrine
辑. judicial administration: miscellaneous
限. Supreme Court's certiorari, writ of error, or appeals jurisdiction
力. miscellaneous judicial power, especially diversity jurisdiction
学. federal-state ownership dispute (cf. Submerged Lands Act)
外. federal pre-emption of state court jurisdiction
调. federal pre-emption of state legislation or regulation. cf. state regulation of business. rarely involves union activity. Does not involve constitutional interpretation unless the Court says it does.
项. Submerged Lands Act (cf. federal-state ownership dispute)
北. national supremacy: commodities
工. national supremacy: intergovernmental tax immunity
笑. national supremacy: marital and family relationships and property, including obligation of child support
监. national supremacy: natural resources (cf. natural resources - environmental protection)
任. national supremacy: pollution, air or water (cf. natural resources - environmental protection)
相. national supremacy: public utilities (cf. federal public utilities regulation)
微. national supremacy: state tax (cf. state tax)
册. national supremacy: miscellaneous
联. miscellaneous federalism
平. boundary dispute between states
增. non-real property dispute between states
听. miscellaneous interstate relations conflict
解. incorporation of foreign territories
等. federal taxation, typically under provisions of the Internal Revenue Code
得. federal taxation of gifts, personal, business, or professional expenses
收. priority of federal fiscal claims: over those of the states or private entities
安. miscellaneous federal taxation (cf. national supremacy: state tax)
价. legislative veto
藏. executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states
命. miscellaneous
应. real property
看. personal property
索. contracts
资. evidence
产. civil procedure
串. torts
布. wills and trusts
原. commercial transactions
Answer:

Answer: 始