In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons that the filing party or parties believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party or parties against whom the claim is brought that entitles the plaintiff(s) to a remedy. For example, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) that govern civil litigation in United States courts provide that a civil action is commenced with the filing or service of a pleading called a complaint. Civil court rules in states that have incorporated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure use the same term for the same pleading.
Corporate personhood or juridical personality is the legal notion that a juridical person such as a corporation, separately from its associated human beings, has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. In most countries, a corporation has the same rights as a natural person to hold property, enter into contracts, and to sue or be sued.
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992), was a landmark Supreme Court of the United States decision, handed down on June 12, 1992, that heightened standing requirements under Article III of the United States Constitution. It is "one of the most influential cases in modern environmental standing jurisprudence." Lily Henning of the Legal Times stated that:
Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164 (2008), is a Supreme Court of the United States case that addresses use of evidence obtained by police in a search incident to an arrest if that arrest is later found to be unlawful.
Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency, 573 U.S. 302 (2014), was a US Supreme Court case regarding the Environmental Protection Agency's regulation of air pollution under the Clean Air Act.
Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), was a 2014 United States Supreme Court decision about patent eligibility of business method patents. The issue in the case was whether certain patent claims for a computer-implemented, electronic escrow service covered abstract ideas, which would make the claims ineligible for patent protection. The patents were held to be invalid, because the claims were drawn to an abstract idea, and implementing those claims on a computer was not enough to transform that abstract idea into patentable subject matter.
National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, 573 U.S. 513 (2014), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously ruled that the President of the United States cannot use their authority under the Recess Appointment Clause of the United States Constitution to appoint public officials unless the United States Senate is in recess and not able to transact Senate business. The Court held that the clause allows the president to make appointments during both intra-session and inter-session recesses but only if the recess is of sufficient length, and if the Senate is actually unavailable for deliberation, thereby limiting future recess appointments. The Court also ruled that any office vacancy can be filled during the recess, regardless of when it arose. The case arose out of President Barack Obama's appointments of Sharon Block, Richard Griffin, and Terence Flynn to the National Labor Relations Board and Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the court ruled that the warrantless search and seizure of the digital contents of a cell phone during an arrest is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.
POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co., 573 U.S. 102 (2014), was a United States Supreme Court case that held that a statutory private right of action under the Lanham Act is not precluded by regulatory provisions of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
American Broadcasting Cos., Inc. v. Aereo, Inc., 573 U.S. 431 (2014), was a United States Supreme Court case. The Court ruled that the service provided by Aereo, which allowed subscribers to view live and time-shifted streams of over-the-air television on Internet-connected devices, violated copyright laws.
McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U.S. 464 (2014), is a United States Supreme Court case involving a First Amendment challenge to the validity of a Massachusetts law establishing 35-foot (11 m) fixed buffer zones around facilities where abortions were performed.
Harris v. Quinn, 573 U.S. 616 (2014), is a US labor law case of the United States Supreme Court regarding provisions of Illinois state law that allowed a union security agreement. Since the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 prohibited the closed shop, states could still choose whether to allow unions to collect fees from non-union members since the collective agreements with the employer would still benefit non-union members. The Court decided 5–4 that Illinois's Public Labor Relations Act, which permitted the union security agreements, violated the First Amendment. A similar case was decided by the Court in 2018, Janus v AFSCME, overturning the Court's unanimous decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977) which the appeals court had upheld in Harris.
Republic of Argentina v. NML Capital, Ltd., 573 U.S. 134 (2014), is a U.S. Supreme Court opinion regarding foreign sovereign immunity. After defaulting on its debt and losing a federal collection action, Argentina claimed that its foreign assets were immune from discovery. The Court found that no such immunity existed.
Abramski v. United States, 573 U.S. 169 (2014), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court found that making arrangements for a straw purchase of a gun is in violation of the Gun Control Act of 1968, and is different from re-selling or gifting a previously purchased gun. In the Abramski case, a former police officer from Virginia took advantage of a local discount to buy a gun for his uncle and later transferred it to Pennsylvania—the uncle's residence—using the appropriate federal procedure. During the purchase, Abramski falsely declared that he was purchasing the gun for himself.
Lane v. Franks, 573 U.S. 228 (2014), is a U.S. Supreme Court case involving public employee's freedom of speech rights. Edward Lane sued Steve Franks for unfairly firing him, out of retaliation for sworn testimony Lane gave during a federal fraud case. The Eleventh Circuit originally ruled in favor of Franks, “denying [Lane] first amendment protection to subpoenaed testimony”. The case was argued before the Supreme Court on April 28, 2014. The case was decided on June 19, 2014.
Republic of Sudan v. Harrison, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2018 term. The Court held that civil service of a lawsuit against the government of Sudan was invalid because the civil complaints and summons had been sent to the Embassy of Sudan in Washington, D.C. rather than to the Sudanese Foreign Minister in Khartoum.
Polselli v. Internal Revenue Service, 598 U.S. ___ (2023), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that when the Internal Revenue Service issues a summons in aid of collecting a tax liability, the exception to the notice requirement in 26 U.S.C. § 7609(c)(2)(D)(i) applies even if the delinquent taxpayer has no legal interest in the accounts or records summoned.
Loughrin v. United States, 573 U.S. 351 (2014), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a conviction of the crime of knowingly executing a scheme to obtain property owned by, or under the custody of, a bank "by means of false or fraudulent pretenses," does not require the government to prove that a defendant intended to defraud a financial institution.
Clark v. Rameker, 573 U.S. 122 (2014), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that funds held in inherited Individual Retirement Accounts are not "retirement funds" within the meaning of 11 U.S.C. § 522(b)(3)(c) and therefore not exempt from the bankruptcy estate.
CTS Corp. v. Waldburger, 573 U.S. 1 (2014), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that north Carolina’s statute of repose is not preempted by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, which instead only preempts state statutes of limitations on bringing state-law environmental tort cases.
