post hoc

Basic Incorporated was a publicly traded company primarily engaged in manufacturing chemical refractories for the steel industry. As early as 1965 or 1966 Combustion Engineering expressed interest in acquiring Basic but was deterred by antitrust concerns. In 1976 regulatory action removed the antitrust barrier and Combustion's strategic plan listed an objective to acquire Basic for thirty million dollars. Beginning in September 1976 Combustion representatives met and spoke by telephone with Basic officers and directors about a possible merger. During 1977 and 1978 Basic issued three public statements denying that merger negotiations were under way. On December 18 1978 Basic asked the New York Stock Exchange to suspend trading in its shares and announced it had been approached by another company concerning a merger. The next day Basic's board endorsed Combustion's offer of forty-six dollars per share. On December 20 1978 Basic publicly announced approval of Combustion's tender offer for all outstanding shares. Respondents are former Basic shareholders who sold their stock after Basic's October 21 1977 public statement and before the December 1978 trading suspension. Respondents brought a class action against Basic and its directors alleging that the three statements violated section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 by misleading the market and causing sales at artificially depressed prices. The District Court certified the class under a presumption of reliance but granted summary judgment for the defendants on the ground that any misstatements were immaterial. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed class certification reversed the summary judgment and remanded the case. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

In 1991, about 10,000 Exxon dealers filed a class-action suit against the Exxon Corporation in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida. They alleged an intentional and systematic scheme by which they were overcharged for fuel purchased from Exxon. The plaintiffs invoked the District Court's diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). Each dealer's claim was for slightly less than the $75,000 jurisdictional minimum. After a unanimous jury verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, the District Court certified the case for interlocutory review on the question of supplemental jurisdiction over class members who did not meet the jurisdictional minimum. In a separate action, a 9-year-old girl sued Star-Kist in a diversity action in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. She sought damages for unusually severe injuries she received when she sliced her finger on a tuna can. Her family joined in the suit seeking damages for emotional distress and medical expenses. The District Court granted summary judgment to Star-Kist, finding that none of the plaintiffs met the minimum amount-in-controversy requirement. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the District Court's extension of supplemental jurisdiction to the class members who did not meet the amount requirement. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that the injured girl, but not her family members, had made allegations of damages in the requisite amount. It further held that section 1367 authorizes supplemental jurisdiction only when the district court has original jurisdiction over the action. In a diversity case, original jurisdiction is lacking if one plaintiff fails to satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict among the Courts of Appeals. The cases were consolidated before the Supreme Court.

In early 1992 the Attorney General approved Operation Gunsmoke, a national program in which United States Marshals and local police targeted armed fugitives wanted for serious drug and violent felonies. One target was Dominic Wilson, who had violated probation on robbery, theft, and assault charges and whose computer record listed caution indicators for being armed and resisting arrest. The listed address was 909 North Stone Street Avenue in Rockville, Maryland, the home of his parents Charles and Geraldine Wilson. In April 1992 the Circuit Court for Montgomery County issued three arrest warrants for Dominic Wilson addressed to any peace officer and commanding immediate arrest; the warrants contained no reference to media presence. On April 16, 1992 a Gunsmoke team of Deputy United States Marshals and Montgomery County officers assembled to execute the warrants. The team was accompanied by a Washington Post reporter and photographer invited under the Marshals Service ride-along policy. Shortly after 6:45 a.m. the officers entered the Wilson home. Charles Wilson, wearing only briefs, confronted the armed men in street clothes and was subdued on the living-room floor. Geraldine Wilson, wearing only a nightgown, entered and saw her husband restrained. After a protective sweep revealed Dominic Wilson was absent, the officers left; during the entry the Post photographer took numerous pictures while the reporter observed. The Washington Post never published the photographs. Charles and Geraldine Wilson sued the federal officers under Bivens and the county officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the media presence during the warrant execution violated their Fourth Amendment rights. The district court denied the officers’ motion for summary judgment on qualified-immunity grounds. On interlocutory appeal a Fourth Circuit panel reversed; after two en banc rehearings the court upheld qualified immunity without deciding whether the media presence violated the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Circuit reasoned that no prior decision had held media entry into a home during warrant execution unconstitutional, so the asserted right was not clearly established. Noting a circuit split on the issue, the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

In August 1982, respondent Michael Hardwick was charged with violating the Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy by committing that act with another adult male in the bedroom of respondent's home. After a preliminary hearing, the District Attorney decided not to present the matter to the grand jury unless further evidence developed. Hardwick, who identified as a practicing homosexual, then brought suit in the Federal District Court challenging the constitutionality of the statute insofar as it criminalized consensual sodomy. He asserted that the Georgia sodomy statute, as administered by the defendants, placed him in imminent danger of arrest. The District Court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, relying on Doe v. Commonwealth's Attorney for the City of Richmond, which the Supreme Court had summarily affirmed. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed. The appellate court held that the Georgia statute violated respondent's fundamental rights because his homosexual activity is a private and intimate association beyond the reach of state regulation by reason of the Ninth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It remanded for trial. John and Mary Doe were also plaintiffs in the action. They alleged that they wished to engage in sexual activity proscribed by the statute in the privacy of their home and that they had been chilled and deterred from engaging in such activity by both the existence of the statute and Hardwick's arrest. The District Court held that because they had neither sustained, nor were in immediate danger of sustaining, any direct injury from the enforcement of the statute, they did not have proper standing to maintain the action. The Court of Appeals affirmed that dismissal. The Georgia statute at issue, Ga. Code Ann. § 16-6-2, provides that a person commits the offense of sodomy when he performs or submits to any sexual act involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another. A person convicted shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than twenty years. Because other Courts of Appeals had arrived at judgments contrary to that of the Eleventh Circuit, the Supreme Court granted the Attorney General's petition for certiorari questioning the holding that the sodomy statute violates the fundamental rights of homosexuals.