Eric L. Clay

Requires a clear jurisdictional signal before treating a statutory filing deadline as an absolute bar; when Congress has not supplied one, he treats the deadline as nonjurisdictional and leaves fact-specific equitable tolling for the lower court.

“we join the Second and Third Circuits in holding that § 6213(a)’s petition-filing deadline is not jurisdictional.”

In reviewing discriminatory economic restrictions, demands concrete evidence that the challenged rule actually advances the asserted public-health or safety interest.

“Because the record is virtually ‘devoid of any concrete evidence showing that the [Restriction] actually promotes public health or safety,’ we conclude that the predominant effect of the law is not the protection of public health.”

Clay treated a trademark owner's authorization of the challenged use as defeating the owner's federal infringement claim.

“Guided by this reasoning, we hold that authorization to use a mark defeats an infringement claim under § 1125(a).”

In construing an immigration-detention statute, Clay gave independent effect to Congress's narrower phrase rather than extending mandatory detention to every applicant for admission.

“Congress could have easily drafted IIRIRA to extend § 1225(b)(2)(A)’s reach to all applicants for admission, but it chose not to do so.”

Title VII retaliation uses the materially-adverse-action standard, which is substantially different from the adverse-employment-action element governing a discrimination claim.

“The ‘materially adverse action’ element of a Title VII retaliation claim is substantially different from the ‘adverse employment action’ element of a Title VII race discrimination claim.”

A later copyright agreement supported standing because it formalized earlier agreements that had already granted the plaintiff exclusive live commercial-distribution rights.

“We conclude that the Copyright Agreement gave JHP an enforceable right to sue Defendants because it formalized a series of earlier agreements under which JHP went about exclusively licensing and distributing the Fight to commercial establishments in a specific region before the Fight aired.”

A credible threat of enforcement supplied injury in fact where election laws prohibited the intended ballot-photo speech and officials had publicly maintained that the prohibition applied.

“On this record, an individual deciding whether to display a photograph of his or her marked ballot must do so in light of the following: a law that punishes revealing one’s marked ballot with imprisonment, repeated statements by Defendants that posting photographs of a marked ballot is illegal, no evidence that Defendants have publicly disavowed these statements, and at least one past instance in which the Board has ordered an individual to remove a ballot from display.”

Dark, indecipherable body-camera screenshots and conclusory testimony did not establish that officers could see suspected drugs through a tinted vehicle window under the plain-view doctrine.

“those screenshots are dark to the point of being indecipherable. Besides conclusory statements as to what officers saw, the government has furnished no evidence to establish that the photo taken from inside the car was an accurate depiction of what was seen from outside the vehicle.”