Circuit Split Alerter

Whether 18 U.S.C. § 1965(b) (or another subsection of § 1965) authorizes nationwide service of process—and hence nationwide personal jurisdiction—in civil RICO actions.

Whether off-site repair facilities and equipment that are merely connected to extraction operations, but are not located on or immediately adjacent to an extraction site or coal-processing plant, are “mines” within the meaning of 30 U.S.C. § 802(h)(1)(C) and therefore subject to MSHA jurisdiction.

Whether police may, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, automatically inquire about the presence of weapons during any traffic stop (a per-se officer-safety rule) or may do so only when the totality of circumstances creates a reasonable officer-safety concern and the inquiry does not prolong the stop.

Whether employer incentive/retention bonus programs like Merrill Lynch's WealthChoice Awards qualify as an "employee pension benefit plan" under ERISA or are exempt bonus plans under 29 C.F.R. § 2510.3-2(c).

Whether 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(2) of the Prison Litigation Reform Act allows a district court to issue successive (renewed) preliminary injunctions beyond the statute’s 90-day limit without converting the relief into final prospective relief.

Whether 18 U.S.C. § 1505’s phrase “any pending proceeding … being had before any department or agency” encompasses an agency’s post-adjudication enforcement action, such as ICE’s execution of a final immigration-court removal order.

Whether an inmate alleging First-Amendment retaliation based on the threatened loss (or loss) of a prison job must plead or prove specific facts about the job’s nature and value to show an adverse action that would chill a person of ordinary firmness.

Whether expedited-removal proceedings under 8 U.S.C. § 1228(b) provide a meaningful administrative vehicle for a non-citizen to challenge the legal basis of removability, such that the exhaustion requirement in § 1326(d)(1) can or cannot be satisfied.

Whether state statutes regulating manufacturers’ distribution of 340B drugs are pre-empted by the federal 340B statutory scheme.

Whether 49 U.S.C. § 46110’s grant of exclusive circuit-court review over TSA No-Fly-List orders divests district courts of jurisdiction to hear challenges to Terrorist Watchlist placements when a concurrent TSA final order is in effect.

Whether a drug-detection dog sniff at the doorway of a dwelling (apartment or motel room) constitutes a Fourth-Amendment "search" because it intrudes on a reasonable expectation of privacy inside the residence.

Proper standard of review (de novo vs. abuse-of-discretion) for a district court’s application of the equitable-mootness doctrine in bankruptcy appeals.

Whether standard-form pollution exclusion clauses in commercial general-liability policies operate as narrow, environment-related exclusions or as broad, 'absolute' exclusions that bar coverage for non-environmental bodily-injury claims caused by substances such as carbon monoxide.

What prima-facie framework governs a Title VII religious-discrimination claim in which the employee asserts he was fired because his religious beliefs differed from those of his supervisor or employer?

Whether the principal-place-of-business clause in 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1) independently confers state citizenship on federally chartered corporations for purposes of diversity jurisdiction when the corporation is not incorporated in any state.