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
Kaul v. Urmanski
Wisconsin Supreme Court held that an 1849 law, which a local prosecutor had claimed was a near-total abortion ban, is impliedly repealed as to abortion by subsequent legislation and does not ban the procedure in the state.
Contoocook Valley School District v. New Hampshire
The New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed the state's existing education funding law is constitutionally inadequate and $7,356.01 per pupil as a minimum constitutional guidepost for the legislature, 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.
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.
Natalie R. v. State of Utah
Plaintiffs claim that state's policy of promoting fossil-fuel development violates their substantive due process rights to life and to be free from government conduct that endangers health and safety
In re Courtney Rae Hudson v. Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts
Relying on the state high court's general superintending control over all state courts, vacated a circuit court preliminary injunction that had prevented the administrative office of the courts and the office of professional conduct from complying with a FOIA request for certain communications with the state supreme court chief justice. The state high court also referred the chief justice and her attorney, who had sought the injunction, to state ethics bodies.
Blackmon v. State
Plaintiffs who allege they were denied, or received delayed, medically necessary abortion care due to doctors' confusion regarding the scope of the medical necessity exception in the state's abortion ban challenge that exception as violating their state constitutional rights to life and equal protection and as unconstitutionally vague. A Tennessee trial court held the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits as to each challenge, at least with respect to certain maternal medical conditions the parties agreed fall within the exception, and granted temporary relief declaring the exception to include those conditions.
Mitchell v. University of North Carolina Board of Governors
Will consider whether public university's termination of a tenured professor based, in part, on a letter he wrote to a department chair using offensive language violates the First Amendment, and whether lower courts' deference to the interpretation put forth by the university -- a state agency -- of its faculty employment regulations violates separation of powers.
Murray v. Dalton (In re Doe)
Held that Idaho’s statutes governing powers and duties of guardianship and governing resignation, removal, modification, or termination proceedings for guardians of minors, were rationally related to legitimate government interest in the minor’s safety and best interests and, thus, were not unconstitutionally broad or vague in violation of due process
In re S.M.
Held that an indigent parent or custodial respondent in an abuse and neglect case has a right to appointed counsel at all stages of the proceedings, but they may elect to continue self-represented upon a knowing and intelligent waiver of the right to counsel
McKinney v. Goins
Ruled that the retroactive amendment of the statute of limitations for tort claims by victims of child sexual abuse effected by SAFE Child Act did not disturb or destroy a “vested right” and thus did not violate state constitution's Law of the Land Clause, and the General Assembly may enact retroactive legislation that does not fall into the two explicitly prohibited categories of retroactive laws enumerated in state constitution's Ex Post Facto Clause
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington v. John Doe, Board of Education of Harford County v. Doe, The Key School, Inc., et al. v. Valerie Bunker
Held that a law repealing a prior time bar for child sex abuse claims — which had prevented victims from suing once they turned 38 — did not violate a defendant's vested right to be free from liability because the prior time bar was an ordinary statute of limitations, not a statute of repose. The court concluded that the expiration of a statute of limitations does not create a vested right, while the running of a statute of repose does. Even absent a vested right, however, the court ruled that a law retroactively resurrecting a remedy previously precluded by a statute of limitations must bear "a real and substantial relation to the problem it addressed," but found that standard met in the context of child sex abuse claims.
Cross v. State
Affirmed a lower court's preliminary injunction against Montana's ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Applying strict scrutiny, the state high court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the ban likely violates the state constitution's express right to privacy.
Nevada Policy Research Institute v. Miller
Held that respondents' dual service as legislators and employees of state or local government did not violate the doctrine of separation of powers
