3 Supreme Court cases to watch

How the court might help - or hurt - small companies.

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Of the 51 cases the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear this term, which began in October, eight directly affect small business.

One of the most closely watched is the employment-discrimination case Sprint/United Management Co. v. Mendelsohn, which the court is expected to hear on December 3.

The justices must decide whether to exclude "me too" evidence from employees outside a discrimination suit. NFIB Legal Foundation executive director Karen Harned believes that such evidence is unduly burdensome and forces small businesses with limited resources to litigate more than the issue at hand.

Two preemption cases - Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc. and Warner-Lambert Co. v. Kent - are also potential landmines since they address whether a company is protected from liability claims when the Food and Drug Administration has already deemed its products to be safe.

The court's biggest business-related case is Stoneridge Investment v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., in which the justices must decide if investors can sue third-party businesses for helping firms to commit securities fraud. The outcome could impact a separate suit against banks accused of assisting Enron in disguising its true financial picture.  To top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.