State of Justice: August 2026 Cases in the Courts

Consumers 

Michigan 

Attorney General v. Eli Lilly and Company 

The Michigan Supreme Court reversed two of its previous decisions that limited the scope of the state’s consumer protection law. The case arose when the state’s attorney general opened an investigation into one of the nation’s largest drug manufacturers regarding its price for insulin, which is commonly prescribed to people with diabetes. A trial court authorized the attorney general’s office to issue subpoenas probing the company’s insulin pricing scheme. The company argued that it should not have to comply with the subpoenas because the state’s highest court had previously ruled that the consumer protection law shielded entire state-licensed industries from oversight under the consumer protection act unless alleged misconduct was expressly prohibited rather than broadly regulated by the consumer protection law. The court held that companies are not shielded by the law just because they hold a general state or federal license to operate in a regulated field. The ruling restores protections afforded to Michigan consumers by the consumer protection act that the court’s previous decisions had gutted. 

Criminal Justice 

Michigan 

People v. Eads 

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that people convicted of criminal offenses committed before their 21st birthday (hereafter, “ incarcerated juveniles”) who received sentences of many years or decades in prison must receive new sentences. The court concluded that sentencing incarcerated juveniles to prison terms of such length that they are functionally serving life sentences amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and violates both the Michigan Constitution and the U.S. Constitution. The ruling follows a similar 2022 decision by the state’s highest court, which held that life sentences for incarcerated juveniles are unconstitutional and upon which the court relied heavily in its latest ruling addressing prison sentences for incarcerated juveniles. Affected individuals may petition for resentencing in accordance with the ruling. 

Michigan 

People v. Jade 

The Michigan Supreme Court issued a ruling clarifying how Michigan courts must evaluate entrapment claims arising from law enforcement sting operations. The ruling stemmed from a case in which police induced a man into meeting an undercover officer who was posing online as a 15-year-old girl, even after the man initially balked at the meeting upon learning of the decoy’s purported age and indicated that he did not want to meet with her because she was under 16. Officers continued chatting with the suspect and convinced him to agree to the meeting, resulting in the man being charged with accosting a child less than 16 years of age for immoral purposes. The court ruled that appellate courts must independently review whether entrapment occurred, rather than deferring to the trial court’s conclusion. The court also ruled that entrapment occurs when police continue a sting operation after a suspect shows willingness to commit a lesser offense and law enforcement’s decision to continue the sting results in the suspect taking actions that lead to more serious charges. The court remanded the case to the appeals court to reconsider the charges under the clarified standard.  

Environment 

Michigan 

In re Application of Enbridge Energy to Replace & Relocate Line 5 

The Michigan Supreme Court blocked a permit issued by the state’s public services commission to a Canadian energy company that is seeking to make improvements to a crude oil and natural gas pipeline that spans 645 miles between Sarnia, Ontario, and Superior, Wisconsin. The aging, controversial pipeline includes a nearly five-mile segment that runs along the lakebed of the ecologically sensitive Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron converge. The court ruled that the commission failed to consider alternatives to the project when it issued the permit by improperly limiting the scope of the environmental review to consider only the pipeline segment that crosses the straits and by preventing intervenors from submitting evidence illustrating the pipeline’s threat to the environment and questioning the public need for the fossil fuels it transports. The court ordered the commission to hold a new hearing on the permit that considers the environmental impact of the entire 645-mile pipeline, which was built in 1953 to last 50 years and has leaked at least 29 times, spilling more than one million gallons of crude oil in Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas in its 73-year history. 

Executive Power and Civil Liberties 

Arizona 

Barry Goldwater Institute for Public Policy Research Center v. City of Phoenix, et al. 

In a unanimous opinion, the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed that trial courts must use a balancing test that has stood for more than 40 years in Arizona to weigh the interest of parties seeking the disclosure of public records against the government’s interest in maintaining the confidentiality of the records. The court ruled that the city of Phoenix should release records related to its public-sector labor negotiations to a conservative public policy think tank that has sought the records for more than three years, overturning two lower-court rulings and sending the case back to the trial court to apply the balancing test. 

Louisiana 

Fuller v. State of Louisiana 

The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the legislature’s authority to change the structure of the court system in Orleans Parish in a challenge to a new law that eliminated three of the 12 judgeships in the parish’s criminal court system. A lower court blocked the law from taking effect, finding that the state constitution requires approval from two-thirds of the legislature to change judicial districts, which the legislation did not obtain. On appeal, the state’s highest court ruled that a separate provision of the constitution that empowers the legislature to make changes to the Orleans Parish judiciary supersedes the provision that requires two-thirds of the legislature to approve changes to the judiciary. Three dissenting justices wrote that the legislative supermajority requirement is clear, and the court’s majority opinion threatens judicial independence by allowing legislators to eliminate judgeships without overwhelming legislative support. 

Pennsylvania 

Punxsutawney Hunting Club, Inc. v. Pennsylvania Game Commission 

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously ruled that officers of the state’s game commission may not enter private hunting lands without a warrant, overturning a legal standard known as the open fields doctrine that had controlled for nearly 20 years. The court held that the state’s constitution affords greater protections than the U.S. Constitution against government intrusion onto private property secured against entry, and ruled that government officials must have a warrant, probable cause, or consent to enter private property that has been clearly marked or secured. The ruling came after two hunting clubs sued the state because game wardens repeatedly entered their land. The ruling also invalidated portions of the state’s code governing game and wildlife that authorized warrantless entry onto posted private property. 

Immigration 

California 

People v. Hernandez 

The California Supreme Court ruled that criminal defendants whose immigration status will be affected if they accept a plea deal must meaningfully understand how their plea will impact their legal status. The ruling resolved the appeal of a Mexican citizen and legal permanent U.S. resident of 19 years who pleaded guilty to drug-related charges in 2013. Two years later, she visited Mexico on a trip approved by her probation officer, but customs officials detained her on her return home and initiated removal proceedings against her. She testified that she did not understand the ramifications of signing an alien status waiver form as part of her guilty plea and did so only on the advice of her lawyer, who did not speak Spanish. The state’s highest court determined that her actions of seeking permission to leave the U.S. and then attempting to reenter lawfully through a port of entry clearly demonstrated that she did not understand whether or how her guilty plea would affect her ability to continue residing in the U.S. The court remanded the case to a lower court to vacate the woman’s convictions. 

Voting Rights 

Arizona 

Protect Education Accountability Now Committee v. Legislative Council 

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that language Republican state lawmakers wrote to describe a ballot proposal that would make changes to the state’s school voucher program was written in an “argumentative, speculative, and non-neutral” fashion, in violation of state law. The language was written for a brochure the state mails to all registered voters that is intended to describe all ballot measures neutrally and impartially. The state’s highest court ordered lawmakers to rewrite the language, then ruled in a separate challenge, Clark v. Protect Education, that the proposal’s organizers failed to collect the constitutionally mandated number of petition signatures, thus ordering the secretary of state to exclude the proposal from the ballot. 

Texas 

In re the Honorable Dereck Rose, Wilma Green, and Diane Merchant 

The Texas Supreme Court denied a petition from three Galveston County officials and candidates that asked the court to stop the county from implementing new district lines for county commissioner, justice of the peace, and constable precincts for the November 2026 election. The petition sought to stop the county from redrawing the districts after voters chose the primary election winners under different district maps in March. The court did not rule on the petition’s merits but remanded, instructing a lower court to consider the matter first. 

Workers 

Maryland 

Prince George’s County v. Watts 

The Maryland Supreme Court ruled that the damages cap outlined in the state’s tort claims act for local governments does not apply to claimants awarded damages for violations of the state’s law governing fair employment standards but may still apply to county- and municipal-level antidiscrimination ordinances. The ruling came after a court capped $1.7 million in damages a jury awarded to a former Prince George’s County correctional employee who alleged discrimination under the state’s fair employment standards act and the county’s anti-discrimination ordinance. The trial court limited the employee’s recovery to the $400,000 cap set by the tort claims act. An appeals court reversed the trial court’s determination, finding that the tort claims act does not govern the state’s fair employment standards act or county anti-discrimination ordinances. The Maryland Supreme Court partly affirmed and partly reversed the appeals court’s ruling, holding the tort claims act does not control the state’s fair employment standards act but does govern county-level antidiscrimination ordinances. The court remanded the case to the trial court to recalculate the award amount consistent with its ruling. 

Washington 

Bolina v. AssureCare Adult Home LLC 

In an 8-1 opinion, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that live-in caregivers must be paid the state’s minimum wage, ending a decades-old exemption to the state’s labor statutes that allowed employers to pay live-in caregivers a flat daily rate that averaged considerably less than the state’s minimum wage. The case arose when six live-in caregivers sued their employer, alleging that they cared for elderly and disabled patients for up to 24-hour shifts with no overtime pay. The daily rate they were paid amounted to between four and six dollars per hour, far below the state’s minimum wage, which was $15.74 per hour when the suit was filed in 2023 and is $17.13 today. The ruling requires employers to begin paying live-in caregivers the minimum wage immediately. The state’s highest court remanded the case back to the lower court to determine what, if any, back pay or other compensation the workers are eligible to receive.