ripe for judicial review

George Eldridge was first awarded Social Security disability benefits in June 1968. In March 1972 he received a questionnaire from the state agency charged with monitoring his medical condition. He completed and returned the questionnaire, indicating that his condition had not improved and identifying recent medical sources. The state agency obtained reports from his physician and a psychiatric consultant. After reviewing those reports and other information in his file, the agency sent Eldridge a letter stating that it had made a tentative determination that his disability had ceased in May 1972. The letter included a statement of reasons for the proposed termination and advised Eldridge that he could request time to submit additional information. Eldridge responded in writing, disputing one characterization of his medical condition and asserting that the agency already possessed sufficient evidence of his disability. The state agency then made a final determination that Eldridge had ceased to be disabled in May 1972; the Social Security Administration accepted that determination. In July 1972 Eldridge received written notice that his benefits would terminate after that month and that he could seek reconsideration by the state agency within six months. Instead of requesting reconsideration, Eldridge filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. He challenged the constitutionality of the Secretary's termination procedures and sought an injunction barring termination of benefits until a pretermination evidentiary hearing was provided, together with immediate reinstatement of benefits. The District Court held that the existing procedures violated the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, ordered the Secretary to provide Eldridge a pretermination hearing, and directed reinstatement of benefits pending that hearing. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction and heard the case.

The petitioners were fourteen same-sex couples and two men whose same-sex partners were deceased. They lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. Those states defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman under their constitutions and statutes. The petitioners filed suits in federal district courts in their home states. They sought marriage licenses or recognition of marriages lawfully performed elsewhere. James Obergefell and John Arthur traveled from Ohio to Maryland to marry aboard a medical transport plane because Arthur suffered from ALS; Obergefell later sought to be listed as surviving spouse on Arthur's death certificate. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, Michigan nurses, adopted three children but could not both serve as legal parents under state adoption rules. Army Reserve Sergeant Ijpe DeKoe and Thomas Kostura married in New York before DeKoe's deployment to Afghanistan and later settled in Tennessee. Each district court ruled in the petitioners' favor. The respondents appealed. The Sixth Circuit consolidated the cases and reversed the district court judgments. The petitioners sought certiorari, which the Supreme Court granted. Same-sex couples had begun establishing families after substantial cultural and political developments in the late twentieth century. Earlier litigation had addressed the legal status of gays and lesbians, including challenges that reached the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas.

In 1986, petitioner David H. Lucas purchased two residential lots on the Isle of Palms in Charleston County, South Carolina, for $975,000. He intended to construct single-family homes on the parcels, which at the time were zoned for such use and required no building permit for development. No portion of the lots qualified as a critical area under then-existing coastal zone legislation. Subsequently, in 1988, the South Carolina Legislature enacted the Beachfront Management Act. The legislation established a baseline and prohibited construction of occupable improvements seaward of a line drawn 20 feet landward of that baseline, directly affecting Lucas's parcels by barring any permanent habitable structures. Lucas filed an action in the Court of Common Pleas alleging that the Act's restrictions effected a taking of his property without just compensation. Following a bench trial, the court determined that the prohibition rendered the lots valueless and ordered the state to pay just compensation in the amount of $1,232,387.50. The Supreme Court of South Carolina reversed the trial court's judgment. It accepted the legislature's findings that new construction threatened public resources and concluded that a regulation designed to prevent serious public harm could not constitute a taking. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the South Carolina Supreme Court's decision.

In 1940, Congress authorized the Executive Branch to acquire a tract of land a few miles from the Capitol and to construct Washington National Airport, which remained under federal ownership and operation until 1987, first managed by the Civil Aeronautics Agency and later by the Federal Aviation Administration within the Department of Transportation. A few years after National opened, the Truman administration proposed that a federal corporation be formed to operate the airport. Instead, when Congress authorized construction of a second major airport to serve the Washington area, it again provided for federal ownership and operation. Dulles International Airport (Dulles) was opened in 1962 under the direct control of the FAA. National and Dulles are the only two major commercial airports owned by the Federal Government. National is by far the busiest and most profitable of the three airports due to its central location. In 1984 the Secretary of Transportation appointed an advisory commission that recommended transferring control of National and Dulles to a regional authority created by compact between Virginia and the District of Columbia, with an eleven-member Board of Directors appointed by the governors of Virginia and Maryland, the Mayor of the District, and the President. Virginia and the District both passed legislation authorizing the establishment of the recommended regional authority. A bill embodying the advisory commission's recommendations passed the Senate. In the House of Representatives, however, the legislation encountered strong opposition from Members who expressed concern that the surrender of federal control of the airports might result in the transfer of a significant amount of traffic from National to Dulles. Substitute bills were therefore drafted to provide for the establishment of a review board with veto power over major actions of MWAA's Board of Directors. After Congress received an opinion from the Department of Justice that a veto of MWAA action by such a board of review would plainly be legislative action that must conform to the requirements of Article I, section 7 of the Constitution. The Senate adopted a version of the review board that required Members of Congress to serve in their individual capacities as representatives of users of the airports. The Transfer Act specified that the Board of Review shall consist of nine Members of the Congress, eight of whom serve on committees with jurisdiction over transportation issues and none of whom may be a Member from Maryland, Virginia, or the District of Columbia, and detailed the actions that must be submitted to the Board of Review for approval, which include adoption of a budget, authorization of bonds, promulgation of regulations, endorsement of a master plan, and appointment of the chief executive officer of the Authority, with disapproval by the Board preventing submitted actions from taking effect. The Act also authorized the Board of Review to require Authority directors to consider any action relating to the airports. It required that any action changing the hours of operation at either National or Dulles be taken by regulation and therefore be subject to veto by the Board of Review. The Act contained a provision disabling MWAA's Board of Directors from performing any action subject to the veto power if a court should hold that the Board of Review provisions of the Act are invalid. On March 2, 1987, the Secretary of Transportation and MWAA entered into a long-term lease complying with all of the conditions specified in the then recently enacted Transfer Act. The lease provided for a 50-year term and annual rental payments of $3 million in 1987 dollars. After the lease was executed, MWAA's Board of Directors adopted bylaws providing for the Board of Review, and Virginia and the District of Columbia amended their legislation to give MWAA power to establish the Board of Review. On September 2, 1987, the directors appointed the nine members of the Board of Review from lists that had been submitted by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate. On March 16, 1988, MWAA's Board of Directors adopted a master plan providing for the construction of a new terminal at National with gates capable of handling larger aircraft, an additional taxiway turnoff to reduce aircraft time on the runway and thereby improve airport capacity, a new dual-level roadway system, and new parking facilities. On April 13, the Board of Review met and voted not to disapprove the master plan. In November 1988, Citizens for the Abatement of Aircraft Noise, Inc., and two individuals who reside under flight paths of aircraft departing from, and arriving at, National brought this action against MWAA and the Board of Review, seeking a declaration that the Board of Review's power to veto actions of MWAA's Board of Directors is unconstitutional and an injunction against any action by the Board of Review as well as any action by the Board of Directors that is subject to Board of Review approval. The District Court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed. Because of the importance of the constitutional question, the Supreme Court granted MWAA's petition for certiorari.

Following the 1978 amendments to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the Environmental Protection Agency gained authority to consider data submitted by one registrant to support the registration of pesticides by follow-on applicants, provided the applicant offers compensation to the original data submitter. If the parties fail to agree on the amount of compensation, either may initiate binding arbitration, and the arbitrator's findings are final except for review based on fraud, misrepresentation, or other misconduct. Appellees are thirteen large firms that had submitted research data to the EPA for pesticide registrations. After the 1978 amendments took effect, the firms filed suit in the Southern District of New York challenging the data-consideration and compensation provisions on constitutional grounds, later amending the complaint to include an Article III claim regarding the arbitration mechanism. The district court granted appellees' motion for summary judgment on their Article III claims. The District Court, rather than striking down the statutory limitation on judicial review, enjoined the entire FIFRA data use and compensation scheme. The Supreme Court vacated that judgment and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of its decision in Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co. On remand in this case, appellees amended their complaint to reflect that EPA had, in fact, considered their data in support of other registration applications. The amended complaint also alleged that data submitted by appellee Stauffer Chemical Company had been used in connection with registrations by PPG Industries, Inc., and Drexel Chemical Company. Stauffer had invoked the arbitration provisions of § 3(c)(1)(D)(ii) against PPG, and appellees entered in evidence the award of the arbitration panel, handed down on June 28, 1983. The district court reinstated its prior judgment enjoining the operation of the data-consideration provisions as violative of Article III. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction on EPA's direct appeal.