The National Labor Relations Act (“Act”) requires employers to bargain with their employees’ union regarding terms and conditions of employment. Ordinarily, an employer may only make unilateral changes after bargaining to impasse. The National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) has recognized an exception to that rule, which allows an employer to implement changes if the union engages in dilatory tactics to delay bargaining or forestall impasse.

Here, the parties bargained for 14 months. The union rejected more than 70 bargaining dates offered by employer, delayed bargaining for months at a time, and ultimately refused to bargain by placing an impossible condition on further bargaining. Consequently, employer implemented its last, best, and final offer.

The Board ruled that employer violated the Act. Employer sought judicial review pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 160(f£), which authorizes reviewing courts to set aside the Board’s orders, provided that “findings of the Board with respect to questions of fact if supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole shall… be conclusive.” The court of appeals affirmed the Board in a split-panel decision after concluding it had “no choice but to affirm it, based on the applicable standard of review.”

The questions presented by this case, which are of critical importance to employers, are:

1. Does review for “substantial evidence” require courts to ensure that the Board’s decision is reasonably supported by the evidence as a whole, including evidence that detracts from the Board’s view, as opposed to deferring to the Board if the record

In Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P., 603 U.S. 204, 227 (2024), this Court held “only that the bankruptcy code does not authorize a release and injunction that, as part of a plan of reorganization under Chapter 11, effectively seeks to discharge claims against a nondebtor without the consent of affected claimants.” Purdue cited but did not analyze 11 U.S.C. § 524(e), and its expressly limited holding did not resolve the longstanding circuit split about the meaning of that provision. The Fifth Circuit has long been on the minority side of that circuit split.

Through two opinions that severely limited two protections for nondebtors who are instrumental in the bankruptcy process from liability arising from the bankruptcy case itself, the Fifth Circuit has not just entrenched but vastly extended its minority reading of section 524(e)—even while recognizing that “there is a circuit split concerning the effect and reach of § 524(e),” App., infra, 47a—and adopted the extreme position that virtually no nondebtor bankruptcy participants can receive any protection. Its holdings sharpen splits with five circuits.

The questions presented are:

1. Whether a bankruptcy court can act as a gatekeeper to screen noncolorable lawsuits against nondebtor bankruptcy participants.

2. Whether a bankruptcy court can to a limited degree exculpate nondebtor bankruptcy participants from liability for conduct arising from the bankruptcy process.

Where Congress in the Protection of Lawful Com- merce in Arms Act (PLCAA), Pet.App.276a-287a (15 U.S.C. §§ 7901-7903), commanded judges to dismiss certain lawsuits involving gun-related liability under common-law authority but chose not to preempt state law or provide immunity against the same lability when it is the product of a legislative enactment, the Questions Presented are:

1. Has Congress violated federalism principles and the Tenth Amendment by invading a core structural element of State sovereignty when PLCAA bars a State from imposing liability on sun manufacturers and sellers in certain in- stances based on judicial determinations un- der the common law, but allows identical la- bility actions if the State imposes liability through legislative determinations?

2. Has Congress in PLCAA legitimately exer- cised its authority over interstate commerce when it does not regulate commercial activity of the firearms industry but prohibits state courts from authorizing liability for certain ac- tlons against gun manufacturers and sellers while refraining from the same prohibitions when a state legislature authorizes identical hability-inducing actions?

1. Whether the “zone of danger’ test articulated in Consolidated Rail Corp. v. Gottshall, 512 U.S. 532 (1994), applies to wrongful death claims premised on suicide under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), 45 U.S.C. 5?

2. Whether the suicide of a _ railroad employee caused by workplace harassment and stress creating an unsafe workplace constitutes a compensable claim for death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of the employer under FELA?

1. Whether the Due Process Clause protects defendants from being prosecuted under an ordinance that prohibits expression and conduct in public forums, such as “public buildings,” “street[s],” “or park[s]” and criminalizes “any act causing annoyance, disquiet, agitation, or derangement” in said various public places.

2. Whether the First Amendment allows a court to prohibit, as a term of a defendant’s probation, peaceful and otherwise lawful free speech within 500 feet of all medical facilities that provide abortion throughout the entirety of the nation, including free speech that would take place on the public sidewalk.

1. Whether lack of probable cause as an element of malicious prosecution under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is a factual question for the jury?

2. Whether dismissal of a Monell claim before an opportunity for discovery may deprive a litigant a fundamentally fair opportunity to litigate her claims under Section 1983”

3. Whether malicious prosecution under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 should be analyzed under the Fourteenth Amendment pursuant to the incorporation doctrine?

Petitioner Barry G. Croft, Jr. was one of several citizens targeted in 2020 by the FBI and a tightly controlled cohort of paid confidential agents/informants, all working together on a coordinated FBI team to ensnare these citizens in an FBI- promoted “conspiracy” to “kidnap” Michigan’s governor, who was 1n on the hoax and updated regularly, all timed for splashy arrests before the November 38, 2020 election. Petitioner has endured two trials on these charges, with his defense including that he was entrapped by the FBI and its agents/informants involved in the sting.

The jury in Trial 1 acquitted two co-defendants but was unable to reach verdicts as to Petitioner and co-defendant Adam Fox. In Trial 2, the government eked out a conviction but only because the district court arbitrarily barred the defense from using Evid.R. 801(d)(2)(D) to present, as non-hearsay substantive evidence, the numerous vicarious admissions by the FBI agents/informants within the scope of their assignment, unless they qualified under Evid.R. 801(d)(2)(B) or (C) as statements expressly authorized by their FBI bosses as “scripted words.” In so doing, the court forced Petitioner to present his entrapment defense without being allowed to use the one evidence rule most suited to 1t, Evid.R. 801(d)(2)(D). The Sixth Circuit agreed the district court erred, but found it was not a constitutional error because Petitioner could have himself testified about some of the admissions and it held that the error was “harmless” under the government-favorable Kotteakos standard.

Three questions are presented:

1. Did the district court deny Petitioner’s constitutional right to present a defense, and thereby commit a trial error of constitutional dimension, when the district court applied the Federal Rules of Evidence in such an arbitrary manner as

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a. After denying the Petitioner’s motion for mistrial, did not instruct the jury, sua sponte, that the testimony about Petitioner being a prisoner during police interviews was neither relevant nor admissible evidence and that the jury cannot consider during its deliberations that Petitioner had been in prison;

b. Denied the Petitioner’s motion to conduct an evidentiary hearing and to subpoena jurors for their testimony pursuant to Rule 606(b)(2)(A). Federal Rules of Evidence when jurors disclosed to defense counsel that the Petitioner’s prisoner status was discussed during deliberations;

i. Ruled that the inadmissible testimony of Detective Garcia about the Petitioner’s prisoner status was not “extraneous” evidence for the purpose of Rule 606(b)(2)(A) because it was evidence presented during trial;

c. Conducted an invalid and unreliable “harmless error’ analysis

B. Did the Ninth Circuit rule contrary to this Court’s definition of “extraneous” when it held that the inadmissible testimony about the Petitioner’s prisoner status was not “extraneous” evidence.

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