State Case Database
Search State Court Report's database of significant state supreme court decisions and pending cases. Download decisions and briefs for cases that develop state constitutional law. This is a selected database and does not include every state supreme court case. See methodology and "How to Use the State Case Database" for more information.
This database is updated monthly, although individual cases may be updated more frequently. Last updated comprehensively with cases decided through March 2025.
Featured Cases
Contoocook Valley School District v. New Hampshire
Trial court found state must pay a base amount of at least $7,356.01 per child per year to meet its state constitutional obligation to provide an adequate public education. On appeal, the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed the state's existing education funding law is constitutionally inadequate and the $7,356.01 calculation as guidance for future legislative action, but reversed the trial court's injunction directing the state immediately to pay that amount because the court failed to give adequate weight to separation of powers concerns. Instead, the high court said it was incumbent upon the legislative and executive branches to address the constitutional deficiency.
Republican National Committee v. Eternal Vigilance Action, Inc; Georgia v. Eternal Vigilance Action
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled invalid under state nondelegation principles four of seven rules passed by the Georgia State Election board, while upholding one rule. The court did not decide the validity of two other rules, holding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the provisions.
Planned Parenthood of Montana v. State (Planned Parenthood 1)
Montana Supreme Court held that a 20-week abortion ban; restrictions on medication abortions, including a telehealth ban and 24-hour waiting period; and requirement that providers give patients an opportunity to view an ultrasound and listen to a fetal heartbeat violate the express right to privacy in the state constitution.
Stein v. Berger
Refused to halt an appeals court decision allowing a law to go into effect that shifted power to appoint members to the state elections board from the governor to the state auditor. The governor had requested a stay of the appeals court decision. A trial court found that the law was unconstitutional, and litigation on those issues is ongoing.
Republican National Committee v. Eternal Vigilance Action, Inc; Georgia v. Eternal Vigilance Action
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled invalid under state nondelegation principles four of seven rules passed by the Georgia State Election board, while upholding one rule. The court did not decide the validity of two other rules, holding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the provisions.
Welch v. United Medical Healthwest-New Orleans
Held that the Louisiana Health Emergency Powers Act's (LHEPA) immunity provision did not violate state constitution's access to courts and adequate remedy provision, due process provisions, nor its prohibition of special laws
Boline v. JKC Trucking
Held that impecuniosity following an award of sanctions did not violate the open courts provision of state constitution, which guarantees a right to access state courts
McCombie v. Illinois State Board of Elections
Refused to accept an original action by the state’s house majority leader and voters, claiming that house districts drawn in 2021 are partisan and not compact, finding the complaint untimely and barred by laches because the plaintiffs did not exercise due diligence in bringing suit. The dissenting justice said the majority was wrong to discredit the plaintiffs’ argument that they had to collect data from multiple election cycles. Because the Illinois high court has never adjudicated a state constitutional partisan gerrymandering claim before, he opined, it has not provided guidance on whether such data — which was required for federal constitutional claims until the U.S. Supreme Court in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) ruled such claims cannot be brought — is applicable for a state constitutional challenge.
McCarty v. Missouri Secretary of State
Missouri Supreme Court held that plaintiff business groups and voters had failed to show that the ballot summary and fiscal note summary for an approved measure increasing the state's minimum wage and providing paid sick leave were inadequate or unfair. The court also held that its constitutionally and statutorily derived original jurisdiction over post-election contests is limited to matters related to the election process and does not extend to claims about the validity of a ballot measure.
League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa v. Pate
Iowa Supreme Court held the plaintiff organization did not have standing to seek to dissolve an injunction entered in a separate case that barred the secretary of state from providing voter registration forms in languages other than English, by claiming such materials fall within an exception to the state law underlying the injunction. The law generally requires all "official documents" to be in English but exempts "language usage required by or necessary to secure" state constitutional or federal law rights. According to the state high court, an organization's expenditure of resources in response to a law that does not violate or regulate its rights, status, or legal relations is not a legally cognizable injury establishing standing.
Griffin v. State Board of Elections
A candidate for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, who lost by over 700 votes, claims that the state board of elections followed an incorrect process for registering voters and seeks to invalidate more than 60,000 votes.
Bailey v. McKintosh County, Webster v. McIntosh County, McIntosh County v. Webster
Will consider whether to uphold a lower court order stopping a special election, after early voting had already begun, on a local referendum to repeal zoning changes that would increase permissible house sizes in a historic community of slave descendants. The lower court ruled that a state constitutional provision allowing citizens to petition to repeal or amend county ordinances by referendum does not extend to zoning ordinances.
League of Women Voters of South Carolina v. Alexander
Original petition challenging 2022 congressional district map as partisan gerrymandering in violation of the South Carolina Constitution and arguing that the more explicit guarantee of equal voting rights in the state constitution (as compared to the federal) make such a challenge justiciable, unlike federal partisan gerrymandering claims under Rucho v. Common Cause (U.S. Supreme Court 2019). The same map was previously challenged in federal court as racially discriminatory line-drawing in violation of the U.S. Constitution, but the U.S. Supreme Court in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP (2024) found that the plaintiffs did not meet their burden of proving that racial considerations predominated over partisan political motivations.
