Case Study : Burger King V. Rudzewicz

The majority opinion of the Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines can be reasoned

In Walker III v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans (2015), attorney Scott Keller argues on behalf of the petitioner—Walker III (Walker)—and attorney Roger George represents the respondent—Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV). The case concerns the constitutionality of a decision made by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles Board (the DMV Board) to reject the specialty license plate designs submitted by SCV and its members, and addresses possible violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendment. Four contentions surround the issue: the form of speech embodied by the specialty license plate program; State control over the content of specialty license plates; specialty license plates as a limited public forum; and, ultimately, the potential violation of the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “viewpoint neutrality.” Justice Breyer delivers the opinion of the Court, affirming the plates as government speech. However, Justice Alito, joined by the Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Kennedy, Justice Alito dissents, concerned with. the Court’s broad interpretation of government speech.

Issue: The issue in this case is whether the state violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment.

In the Court’s highly fragmented decision, the justices attempted to define a proper balance of and boundary between federal and state authority: by arguing that state action constituted only those acts sanctioned by the state’s laws and by dismissing Section 20 for vagueness, the major block of dissenters suggested that the risk posed to state autonomy by federal intervention was too great; by recognizing the defendants’ actions as those perpetrated “under color of law” and by creating a “willful” test for acts under Section 20, the majority Opinion affirmed the federal government’s interest in protecting the rights of citizens from abuse by state authority, but provided it with a tenuous means for defending those liberties.

“The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.” (Pollman, 1643)

The breach of contract filed by McDonalds against Simon Marketing was eventually tossed out of court as the US District Justice ruled the case did not belong in federal court. Simon Marketing filed suit against McDonalds on October 23, 2001 asking for 1.9 billion in damages on charges of fraud, breach of contract, breach of licensing agreement and defamation. Simon Marketing alleged that by keeping them in the dark during the nearly year long FBI investigation, McDonald’s ran a fraudulent campaign to intentionally destroy Simon for its own public relations and financial benefit.” (Anonymous, 2002, para. 3-6).

Case Summary: Many states wanted to adopt policies that would limit the lives of illegal immigrants. Arizona being the primary state vying for laws to punish unauthorized immigrants. On April 23, 2010 the governor of Arizona signed a law designed to “ ... identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants.” The United States seeking to stop the law before it was in effect, argued that the law was in conflict with the federal laws on illegal immigration. In the law signed by Arizona, given was four provisions, a condition in an agreement or law. The four provisions were (1) that being in Arizona without the proper legal documentation

In the case of Anthony, a New Jersey resident and owner of a waste disposal company in the state of New Jersey, and his two business associates, Paul and Silvio, whom suffered severe injuries due to a motor vehicle accident caused by a negligent truck driver; they have great standing to sue against the neglectful driver and the company associated with the ownership of the vehicle. Regardless of the diversity of their residency/ citizenship, the affected party can proceed to sue the corporation responsible for the damages caused by their staff and property; reason being that they are protected under the Constitution’s diversity of citizenship, and the privileges and immunities clause. Furthermore, these two constitutional clauses in addition to the commerce clause, dictate the court that the matter needs to be brought to.

The majority’s argument primarily focused on the Court’s 2009 decision of Pleasant Grove City v Summum. This case presented a First Amendment question which the U. S, Supreme Court ruled that, “Although a park is a traditional public forum for speeches and other transitory expressive acts... The placement of a permanent monument in a public park is best viewed as a form of government speech and is therefore not subject to scrutiny under the Free Speech Clause” (PGC v Summum, 2009). By using the precedent of PGC v Summum, the majority stated, “Each plate is a government article serving the governmental purposes of vehicle registration and identification… The state of Texas requires Texas vehicle owners to display license plates, issues every Texas plate, and owns all of the designs on its plates” (Breyer, Walker v SCV). The majority opinion also argued that “both parties agree that the use of personal license plates is not a part of public forum”, which references the case law of International Soc. for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, 505 U. S. 672 –679, and “nor does Texas’s requirement that vehicle owners pay annual fees for specialty plates mean that the plates are a forum for private speech” (Breyer, Walker v SCV), which is taken from the case law of Wooley v Maynard, 430 U.S. 705. The Court acknowledged that the drivers who display a state’s license

The background of the case is a conflict between the state and the federal government over the creation of a minimum drinking age. The conflict was pursued when a car with four friends, all of age nineteen on a summer evening in 1984, crosses the state line into South Dakota where they could legally purchase beer. During the year of 1984, lawmakers in Washington D.C. we’re fortifying the National Minimum Drink Age Amendment which proclaimed that states who refuse to raise their drinking age to 21 would be deducted from 5% federal highway funds by the Secretary of Transportation. South Dakota challenged the rule because it is a state that legalized persons 19 years of age to procure alcohol. The law in question was whether Congress was in violation of the Twenty-first Amendment which granted states the elite power to regulate alcohol.

The Constitution also establishes the principle of federalism, or division between the federal government and the states. The Constitution grants specific powers to the federal government and the other powers

This case is distinguishable from Carbone, Inc. v. Clarkstown. Indeed, it is hard to imagine two cases that are factually more distinct, as Carbone involved a state favoring a single private business and our case involves simply a government pursuing a legitimate interest, not for profit nor to favor any private entity. C & A Carbone v. Town of Clarkstown, 511 U.S. 383, 387 (1994). Petitioners concede that they are strictly in the business for profit. And it’s a widely-known fact that when people engage in endeavors solely for profit—that usually remains their preoccupation. Besides, all private providers, both in-state and out-of-staters are free without restriction to operate in all other regions of the state where there are no state run facilities. Nevertheless, the regulation is strictly nondiscriminatory and absolutely does not impose an undue burden on interstate commerce—far from it. Our instant case is analogous to United Haulers Ass’n v. Oneida-Hertimer Solid Waste Mgmt. Auth. where the County required all waste collectors to deliver all solid waste to processing facilities that are operated by a public entity. There, the court held that such regulation did not violate the commerce clause because the ordinance clearly benefited only a public facility, while treating all private companies exactly the same. Like in United Haulers, the regulation here treats

This paper will consider the facts associated with the case of Stella Liebeck versus McDonald’s, resulting from Ms. Liebeck’s efforts to collect for damages sustained when she spilled extremely hot coffee into her lap in 1992. The issues, applicable laws and the conclusion the jury reached will also be covered as well as the subsequent impacts on American tort law following this decision.

In reviewing the similarities between this case and Lopez, the possession of a gun in a local school zone, just as second-hand smoking in relations to restaurants, “is no sense an economic activity that might, through repetition elsewhere, have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.” In addressing a ‘direct and logical relationship’ like we have previously noted in The Carter Coal Case and The Sick Chicken Case, we concur that second-hand smoking does not present a ‘direct and logical’ contact with restaurant

After many months of research and debate, our company has chosen to a corporation with limited Liability as our legal structure. One of the many reasons for this chose is that while Police Box Burgers ‘ believes in working to make a profit, we also want to motivate our staff to feel that our restaurant is their restaurants as while to accomplish this we plan on offing our staff stocks in the company after working with us, as an added benefit. Another reason for this decision is that as a corporation with limited