Supreme Court

PRO BONO WORK IN THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT

New York’s Josh Rosenkranz and San Franciso’s Ted Sichelman have been engaged in an important case pending at the certiorari stage in the United States Supreme Court for the 2007-2007 term.  Josh and Ted represent a client who was forced to leave her job after developing serious heart problems.  The client’s disability insurer, MetLife, ultimately terminated her benefits of about $1,000 per month.  After our client won her case in the Sixth Circuit seeking reinstatement of benefits, MetLife filed a petition for certiorari.  Heller Ehrman decided to take the case on as a pro bono matter.

The cert petition in this case presents a long-standing unresolved issue in the Courts of Appeal under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).  The question raised is whether an insurance company that both determines eligibility for employee benefits and pays those benefits acts under a conflict of interest that should be considered in the judicial review of a specific denial of benefits.

A decision from the Supreme Court on this issue would be of significant national importance.  The Solicitor General is expected to file its brief recommending in favor (or against) certiorari in the coming months, and the Court should decide soon thereafter whether to grant certiorari.  If certiorari is granted, the case will likely be argued in the fall of 2007 or in 2008.

Attorneys in our New York office are representing the respondent in Crogan v. Chaker, a First Amendment challenge to a California state law that criminalizes the filing of a false accusation against a police officer, but does not criminalize false denials by the officers or false statements exonerating them.

In 2006, Heller Ehrman attorneys filed an amicus brief on behalf of a group of Tennessee medical professionals in the Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman v. Bell lethal injection case. 

Heller Ehrman successfully represented a group of terminally ill patients in Gonzales v. Oregon, regarding Oregon's Death with Dignity Act.

In Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR) v. Rumsfeld, Heller Ehrman represented FAIR in bringing an unsuccessful challenge to the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment, which threatens universities and colleges with loss of all federal funds if they exclude military recruiters from campus or refuse to assist them in their recruiting efforts.

In Granholm v. Heald, Heller Ehrman wrote the successful brief for WineAmerica et al. in a decision that struck down laws in both New York and Michigan that allowed in-state wineries to ship wine directly to consumers but forbid out-of-state wineries from the same conduct. 

Heller Ehrman filed an amicus brief on behalf of the American Medical Association and other medical groups in Roper v. Simmons, in which the Supreme Court held that the execution of juvenile offenders is unconstitutional. 

Heller Ehrman filed a merits amicus brief in support of the defendant in Patane, which involved an application of Miranda.

Attorneys in our San Francisco office filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Center for Justice and Accountability et al. in Rasul v. Bush. 

Heller Ehrman successfully represented Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold and several of their colleagues in defending the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold).  Attorneys at Heller Ehrman also represented Representatives Christopher Shays and Martin Meehan in a successful challenge to the Federal Election Commission’s regulations implementing BCRA’s provisions.

In 2002, Heller Ehrman filed a brief in the Michigan affirmative actions cases on behalf of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the NAACP, et al.

An attorney in our Madison, Wisconsin office filed an unsuccessful pro bono petition for cert involving a 7-6 Seventh Circuit en banc decision dealing with the constitutionality of attorneys' fees restrictions in the PLRA.

Heller attorneys filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the Legal Aid Society's Employment Law Center Project, arguing that religious organizations should not be allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion when hiring purely secular employees.

On behalf of the Colorado Bar Association and fifteen other state bar associations, Heller filed an amicus brief encouraging the Court to reverse Colorado's Amendment 2, erasing laws which prohibited discrimination of gays, lesbians or bisexuals.

In United States v. Burke, Heller Ehrman attorneys filed an amicus brief on behalf of Equal Rights Advocates seeking to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that an award of back pay in a gender discrimination case under Title VII should be excluded from gross income under Section 104(a)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code.