Task: sc_issue_8

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 question in this ease is whether treatment decisions made by a health maintenance organization, acting through its physician employees, are fiduciary acts within the meaning of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 832, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 1001 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. III). We hold that they are not.
r-f
Petitioners, Carle Clinic Association, P. C., Health Alliance Medical Plans, Inc., and Carle Health Insurance Management Co., Inc. (collectively Carle), function as a health maintenance organization (HMO) organized for profit. Its owners are physicians providing prepaid medical services to participants whose employers contract with Carle to provide such coverage. Respondent, Cynthia Herdrich, was covered by Carle through her husband’s employer, State Farm Insurance Company.
The events in question began when a Carle physician, petitioner Lori Pegram, examined Herdrich, who was experiencing pain in the midline area of her groin. Six days later, Dr. Pegram discovered a six by eight centimeter inflamed mass in Herdrich’s abdomen. Despite the noticeable inflammation, Dr. Pegram did not order an ultrasound diagnostic procedure at a local hospital, but decided that Herdrich would have to wait eight more days for an ultrasound, to be performed at a facility staffed by Carle more than 50 miles away. Before the eight days were over, Herdrich’s appendix ruptured, causing peritonitis. See 154 F. 3d 362, 365, n. 1 (CA7 1998).
Herdrich sued Pegram and Carle in state court for medical malpractice, and she later added two counts charging state-law fraud. Carle and Pegram responded that ERISA preempted the new counts, and removed the ease to federal court, where they then sought summary judgment on the state-law fraud counts. The District Court granted their motion as to the second fraud count hut granted Herdrieh leave to amend the one remaining. This she did by alleging that provision of medical services under the terms of the Carle HMO organization, rewarding its physician owners for limiting medical care, entailed an inherent or anticipatory breach of an ERISA fiduciary duty, since these terms created an incentive to make decisions in the physicians’ self-interest, rather than the exclusive interests of plan participants.
Herdrich sought relief under 29 U. S. C. § 1109(a), which provides that
“[a]ny person who is a fiduciary with respect to a plan who breaches any of the responsibilities, obligations, or duties imposed upon fiduciaries by this subchapter shall be personally liable to make good to such plan any losses to the plan resulting from each such breach, and to restore to such plan any profits of such fiduciary which have been made through use of assets of the plan by the fiduciary, and shall be subject to such other equitable or remedial relief as the court may deem appropriate, including removal of such fiduciary.”
When Carle moved to dismiss the ERISA count for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, the District Court granted the motion, accepting the Magistrate Judge’s determination that Carle was not “involved [in these events] as” an ERISA fiduciary. App. to Pet. for Cert. 68a. The original malpractice counts were then tried to a jury, and Herdrich prevailed on both, receiving $35,000 in compensation for her injury. 154 F. 3d, at 367. She then appealed the dismissal of the ERISA claim to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which reversed. The court held that Carle was acting as a fiduciary when its physicians made the challenged decisions and that Herdrieh’s allegations were sufficient to state a claim:
“Our decision does not stand for the proposition that the existence of incentives automatically gives rise to a breach of fiduciary duty. Rather, we hold that incentives can rise to the level of a breach where, as pleaded here, the fiduciary trust between plan participants and plan fiduciaries no longer exists (i. e., where physicians delay providing necessary treatment to, or withhold administering proper care to, plan beneficiaries for the sole purpose of increasing their bonuses).” Id., at 373.
We granted certiorari, 527 U. S. 1068 (1999), and now reverse the Court of Appeals.
II
Whether Carle is a fiduciary when it acts through its physician owners as pleaded in the ERISA count depends on some background of fact and law about HMOs, medical benefit plans, fiduciary obligation, and the meaning of Herdrich’s allegations.
A
Traditionally, medical care in the United States has been provided on a “fee-for-service” basis. A physician charges so much for a general physical exam, a vaccination, a tonsillectomy, and so on. The physician bills the patient for services provided or, if there is insurance and the doctor is willing, submits the bill for the patient’s care to the insurer, for payment subject to the terms of the insurance agreement. Cf. R. Rosenblatt, S. Law, & S. Rosenbaum, Law and the American Health Care System 548-544 (1997) (hereinafter Rosenblatt) (citing Weiner & de Lissovoy, Razing a Tower of Babel: A Taxonomy for Managed Care and Health Insurance Plans, 18 J. Health Politics, Policy & Law 75,76-78 (Summer 1998)). In a fee-for-service system, a physician’s financial incentive is to provide more care, not less, so long as payment is forthcoming. The check on this incentive is a physician’s obligation to exercise reasonable medical skill and judgment in the patient’s interest.
Beginning in the late 1960’s, insurers and others developed new models for health-care delivery, including HMOs. Cf. Rosenblatt 546. The defining feature of an HMO is receipt of a fixed fee for each patient enrolled under the terms of a contract to provide specified health care if needed. The HMO thus assumes the financial risk of providing the benefits promised: if a participant never gets sick, the HMO keeps the money regardless, and if a participant becomes expensively ill, the HMO is responsible for the treatment agreed upon even if its cost exceeds the participant’s premiums.
Like other risk-bearing organizations, HMOs take steps to control costs. At the least, HMOs, like traditional insurers, will in some fashion make coverage determinations, scrutinizing requested services against the contractual provisions to make sure that a request for care falls within the seope of covered circumstances (pregnancy, for example), or that a given treatment falls within the scope of the care promised (surgery, for instance). They customarily issue general guidelines for their physicians about appropriate levels of care. See id., at 568-570. And they commonly require utilization review (in which specific treatment decisions are reviewed by a decisionmaker other than the treating physician) and approval in advance (preeertification) for many types of care, keyed to standards of medical necessity or the reasonableness of the proposed treatment. See Andresen, Is Utilization Review the Practice of Medicine?, Implications for Managed Care Administrators, 19 J. Legal Med. 431, 482 (Sept. 1998). These cost-controlling measures are commonly complemented by specific financial incentives to physicians, rewarding them for decreasing utilization of health-care services, and penalizing them for what may be found to be excessive treatment, see Rosenblatt 568-565; Iglehart, Health Policy Report: The American Health Care System— Managed Care, 327 New England J. Med. 742,742-747 (1992). Hence, in an HMO system, a physician’s financial interest lies in providing less care, not more. The check on this influence (like that on the converse, fee-for-service incentive) is the professional obligation to provide covered services with a reasonable degree of skill and judgment in the patient’s interest. See Brief for American Medical Association as Amicus Curiae 17-21.
The adequacy of professional obligation to counter financial self-interest has been challenged no matter what the form of medical organization. HMOs became popular because fee-for-service physicians were thought to be providing unnecessary or useless services; today, many doctors and other observers argue that HMOs often ignore the individual needs of a patient in order to improve the HMOs’ bottom lines. See, e. g., 154 F. 3d, at 375-378 (citing various critics of HMOs). In this case, for instance, one could argue that Pegram’s decision to wait before getting an ultrasound for Herdrich, and her insistence that the ultrasound be done at a distant facility owned by Carle, reflected an interest in limiting the HMO’s expenses, which blinded her to the need for immediate diagnosis and treatment.
B
Herdrich focuses on the Carle scheme’s provision for a “year-end distribution,” n. 3, swpra, to the HMO’s physician owners. She argues that this particular incentive device of annually paying physician owners the profit resulting from their own decisions rationing care can distinguish Carle’s organization from HMOs generally, so that reviewing Carle’s decisions under a fiduciary standard as pleaded in Herdrich’s complaint would not open the door to like claims about other HMO structures. While the Court of Appeals agreed, we think otherwise, under the law as now written.
Although it is true that the relationship between sparing medical treatment and physician reward is not a subtle one under the Carle scheme, no HMO organization could survive without some incentive connecting physician reward with treatment rationing. The essence of an HMO is that salaries and profits are limited by the HMO’s fixed membership fees. See Orentlicher, Paying Physicians More To Do Less: Financial Incentives to Limit Care, 30 U. Rich. L. Rev. 155, 174 (1996). This is not to suggest that the Carle provisions are as socially desirable as some other HMO organizational schemes; they may not be. See, e. g., Grumbach, Osmond, Vranigan, Jaffe, & Bindman, Primary Care Physicians’ Experience of Financial Incentives in Managed-Care Systems, 339 New England J. Med. 1516 (1998) (arguing that HMOs that reward quality of care and patient satisfaction would be preferable to HMOs that reward only physician productivity). But whatever the HMO, there must be rationing and inducement to ration.
Since inducement to ration care goes to the very point of any HMO scheme, and rationing necessarily raises some risks while reducing others (ruptured appendixes are more likely; unnecessary appendectomies are less so), any legal principle purporting to draw a line between good and bad HMOs would embody, in effect, a judgment about socially acceptable medical risk. A valid conclusion of this sort would, however, necessarily turn on facts to which courts would probably not have ready access: correlations between malpractice rates and various HMO models, similar correlations involving fee-for-service models, and so on. And, of course, assuming such material could be obtained by courts in litigation like this, any standard defining the unacceptably risky HMO structure (and consequent vulnerability to claims like Herdrich’s) would depend on a judgment about the appropriate level of expenditure for health care in light of the associated malpractice risk. But such complicated factfind-ing and such a debatable social judgment are not wisely required of courts unless for some reason resort cannot be had to the legislative process, with its preferable forum for comprehensive investigations and judgments of social value, such as optimum treatment levels and health-care expenditure. Cf. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622, 665-666 (1994) (plurality opinion) (“Congress is far better equipped than the judiciary to ‘amass and evaluate the vast amounts of data’ bearing upon an issue as complex and dynamic as that presented here” (quoting Walters v. National Assn. of Radiation Survivors, 473 U. S. 305, 381, n. 12 (1985))); Patsy v. Board of Regents of Fla., 457 U. S. 496, 513 (1982) (“[Tjhe relevant policy considerations do not invariably point in one direction, and there is vehement disagreement over the validity of the assumptions underlying many of them. The very difficulty of these policy considerations, and Congress’ superior institutional competence to pursue this debate, suggest that legislative not judicial solutions are preferable” (footnote omitted)).
We think, then, that courts are not in a position to derive a sound legal principle to differentiate an HMO like Carle from other HMOs. For that reason, we proceed on the assumption that the decisions listed in Herdrich’s complaint cannot be subject to a claim that they violate fiduciary standards unless all such decisions by all HMOs acting through their owner or employee physicians are to be judged by the same standards and subject to the same claims.
C
We turn now from the structure of HMOs to the requirements of ERISA. A fiduciary within the meaning of ERISA must be someone acting in the capacity of manager, administrator, or financial adviser to a “plan,” see 29 U. S. C. §§ 1002(21)(A)(i) — (iii), and Herdrieh’s ERISA count accordingly charged Carle with a breach of fiduciary duty in discharging its obligations under State Farm’s medical plan. App. to Pet. for Cert. 85a-86a. ERISA’s definition of an employee welfare benefit plan is ultimately circular: “any plan, fund, or program... to the extent that such plan, fund, or program was established... for the purpose of providing... through the purchase of insurance or otherwise... medical, surgical, or hospital care or benefits.” § 1002(1)(A). One is thus left to the common understanding of the word “plan” as referring to a scheme decided upon in advance, see Webster’s New International Dictionary 1879 (2d ed. 1957); Jacobson & Pomfret, Form, Function, and Managed Care Torts: Achieving Fairness and Equity in ERISA Jurisprudence, 35 Houston L. Rev. 985, 1050 (1998). Here the scheme comprises a set of rules that define the rights of a beneficiary and provide for their enforcement. Rules governing collection of premiums, definition of benefits, submission of claims, and resolution of disagreements over entitlement to services are the sorts of provisions that constitute a plan. See Hansen v. Continental Ins. Co., 940 F. 2d 971, 977 (CA5 1991). Thus, when employers contract with an HMO to provide benefits to employees subject to ERISA, the provisions of documents that set up the HMO are not, as such, an ERISA plan; but the agreement between an HMO and an employer who pays the premiums may, as here, provide elements of a plan by setting out rules under which beneficiaries will be entitled to care.
D
As just noted, fiduciary obligations can apply to managing, advising, and administering an ERISA plan, the fiduciary function addressed by Herdrich’s ERISA count being the exercise of “discretionary authority or discretionary responsibility in the administration of [an ERISA] plan,” 29 U. S. C. § 1002(21)(A)(iii). And as we have already suggested, although Carle is not an ERISA fiduciary merely because it administers or exercises discretionary authority over its own HMO business, it may still be a fiduciary if it administers the plan.
In general terms, fiduciary responsibility under ERISA is simply stated. The statute provides that fiduciaries shall discharge their duties with respect to a plan “solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries,” § 1104(a)(1), that is, “for the exclusive purpose of (i) providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries; and (ii) defraying reasonable expenses of administering the plan,” § 1104(a)(1)(A). These responsibilities imposed by ERISA have the familiar ring of their source in the common law of trusts. See Central States, Southeast & Southwest Areas Pension Fund v. Central Transport, Inc., 472 U. S. 559, 570 (1985) (“[RJather than explicitly enumerating all of the powers and duties of trustees and other fiduciaries, Congress invoked the common law of trusts to define the general scope of their authority and responsibility”). Thus, the common law (understood as including what were once the distinct rules of equity) charges fiduciaries with a duty of loyalty to guarantee beneficiaries’ interests: “The most fundamental duty owed by the trustee to the beneficiaries of the trust is the duty of loyalty.... It is the duty of a trustee to administer the trust solely in the interest of the beneficiaries.” 2A A. Scott & W. Fratcher, Trusts § 170, p. 311 (4th ed. 1987) (hereinafter Scott); see also G. Bogert & G. Bogert, Law of Trusts and Trustees §543 (rev. 2d ed. 1980) (‘Terhaps the most fundamental duty of a trustee is that he must display throughout the administration of the trust complete loyalty to the interests of the beneficiary and must exclude all selfish interest and all consideration of the interests of third persons”); Central States, supra, at 570-571; Meinhard v. Salmon, 249 N. Y. 458, 464, 164 N. E. 545, 546 (1928) (Cardozo, J.) (“Many forms of conduct permissible in a workaday world for those acting at arm’s length, are forbidden to those bound by fiduciary ties. A trustee is held to something stricter than the morals of the market place. Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior”).
Beyond the threshold statement of responsibility, however, the analogy between ERISA fiduciary and common law trustee becomes problematic. This is so because the trustee at common law characteristically wears only his fiduciary hat when he takes action to affect a beneficiary, whereas the trustee under ERISA may wear different hats.
Speaking of the traditional trustee, Professor Scott’s treatise admonishes that the trustee “is not permitted to place himself in a position where it would be for his own benefit to violate his duty to the beneficiaries.” 2A Scott § 170, at 311. Under ERISA, however, a fiduciary may have financial interests adverse to beneficiaries. Employers, for example, can be ERISA fiduciaries and still take actions to the disadvantage of employee beneficiaries, when they act as employers (e. g., firing a beneficiary for reasons unrelated to the ERISA plan), or even as plan sponsors (e. g., modifying the terms of a plan as allowed by ERISA to provide less generous benefits). Nor is there any apparent reason in the ERISA provisions to conclude, as Herdrieh argues, that this tension is permissible only for the employer or plan sponsor, to the exclusion of persons who provide services to an ERISA plan.
ERISA does require, however, that the fiduciary with two hats wear only one at a time, and wear the fiduciary hat when making fiduciary decisions. See Hughes Aircraft Co. v. Jacobson, 525 U. S. 432, 443-444 (1999); Varity Corp. v. Howe, 516 U. S. 489, 497 (1996). Thus, the statute does not describe fiduciaries simply as administrators of the plan, or managers or advisers. Instead it defines an administrator, for example, as a fiduciary only “to the extent” that he acts in such a capacity in relation to a plan. 29 U. S. C. § 1002(21)(A). In every case charging breach of ERISA fiduciary duty, then, the threshold question is not whether the actions of some person employed to provide services under a plan adversely affected

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: 说