Question

Please list at least five types of existing or potential federal or state litigation for which little, or no, stare decisis presently exists?

Answer 1

CASE - 1 Dirks vs SEC

Insider trading in the securities industry is the misuse of material nonpublic information for financial gain. The insider can trade the information for his portfolio or sell the information to an outsider for a cost. The precedent looked to by courts when dealing with insider trading is the 1983 case of Dirks v. SEC. In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that insiders are guilty if they directly or indirectly received material benefits from disclosing the information to someone who acts on it. In addition, exploiting confidential information exists when the information is gifted to a relative or friend. This decision became precedent and is upheld by courts dealing with financial crimes that are similar in nature.

CASE - 2 SALMAN vs the UNITED STATES

In the 2016 ruling of Salman v. the United States, the Supreme Court used stare decisis to make the ruling. Bassam Salman made an estimated $1.5 million from insider information that he received indirectly from his brother-in-law, Maher Kara, then a Citigroup investment banker. While Salman’s counsel believed that he should be convicted only if he compensated his brother-in-law in cash or kind, the Supreme Court judge ruled that insiders do not have to get something in return for divulging company secrets. Based on stare decisis, the confidential information given to Salman was considered a gift—as Dirks v. SEC makes it clear that fiduciary duty is breached when a tipper gives confidential information as a gift. Salman was therefore found guilty of insider trading.

CASE - 3 Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson

In 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York overturned the insider trading conviction of two hedge fund managers, Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson, stating an insider can be convicted only if the misappropriated information produced a real personal benefit. If it had abided by the Supreme Court’s precedent, Newman and Chiasson probably would have been convicted.

CASE - 4 Brown vs Educational board

in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court overturned its earlier decision that allowed separate schools for children of different races. In Brown, the court set a new precedent by ordering that children of different races should go to school together. Roscoe Pound, a famous jurist and dean of Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936, once said, "The law must be stable, and yet it cannot stand still." This quote sums up the ability of our legal system to remain predictable, yet be flexible enough to change and grow.

The Indiana Supreme Court is the highest court in the state of Indiana; therefore, the decisions of the Supreme Court have to be followed by all courts below it: the Indiana Court of Appeals, the Indiana Tax Court, and the Indiana trial courts. Indiana trial courts also have to follow the decisions of the Indiana Court of Appeals and the Indiana Tax Court, because they are higher courts.

Although the Indiana Supreme Court is the highest court in Indiana, the United States Supreme Court is the highest court in all of the United States. Therefore, the Indiana Supreme Court, like all other state supreme courts, must follow the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

CASE - 5 Planned Parenthood v. Casey

n Casey, a plurality of Justices reaffirmed the core aspects of the Court's earlier holding in Roe v. Wade that a woman has a protected constitutional liberty interest in terminating her pregnancy prior to fetal viability, stating that the essential holding of Roe "should be retained."⁸ But the plurality's opinion in Casey suggests that several Justices who voted to reaffirm Roe had significant doubts about the quality of its reasoning.⁹ Despite these doubts, the Casey plurality decided that other considerations required reaffirming Roe's central holding, including societal reliance on a fundamental constitutional right; concern for the Court's legitimacy as an institution; and the principle that the Court should adhere to rules in its prior decisions (i.e., stare decisis), particularly when a case implicates a highly divisive issue like abortion