No. 21-405

Emerald Home Care, Inc. v. Department of Unemployment Assistance

Lower Court: Massachusetts
Docketed: 2021-09-15
Status: Denied
Type: Paid
Response Waived
Tags: constitutional-rights due-process first-amendment free-speech preemption speech-restriction supremacy-clause tax tax-law
Key Terms:
SocialSecurity DueProcess FirstAmendment Privacy JusticiabilityDoctri Jurisdiction
Latest Conference: 2021-10-29
Question Presented (AI Summary)

Whether assessing a tax but withholding notice of information fundamental and necessary for understanding the tax unless the taxpayer first executes a certification attesting that the information is confidential and promising not to disclose it, except under very limited circumstances, violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution

Question Presented (from Petition)

QUESTIONS PRESENTED This case concerns, as far as Petitioner can determine, the first law in American history that restricts taxpayers’ speech about a tax. It also concerns a taxing procedure that withholds adequate notice of the tax pending the execution of an attestation about the confidentiality of certain tax information and a promise to restrict one’s speech concerning that information. The questions presented are: 1. Whether assessing a tax but withholding notice of information fundamental and necessary for understanding the tax unless the taxpayer first executes a certification attesting that the information is confidential and promising not to disclose it, except under very limited circumstances, violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. 2. Whether assessing a tax but withholding notice of information fundamental and necessary for understanding the tax unless the taxpayer first executes a certification attesting that the information is confidential and promising not to disclose it, except under very limited circumstances, violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, made applicable to the States via the Fourteenth Amendment. 3. Whether a state law that puts federal constitutional and statutory rights into conflict violates the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. ii RULE 14.1(b) STATEMENT The caption of the case contains the names of all the parties.

Docket Entries

2021-11-01
Petition DENIED.
2021-10-06
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 10/29/2021.
2021-09-20
Waiver of right of respondent Department of Unemployment Assistance to respond filed.
2021-09-09
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due October 15, 2021)

Attorneys

Department of Unemployment Assistance
Elizabeth KaplanMassachusetts Attorney General's Office, Respondent
Elizabeth KaplanMassachusetts Attorney General's Office, Respondent
Emerald Home Care, Inc.
Arthur Raymond Cormier Jr.Emerald Home Care, Inc., Petitioner
Arthur Raymond Cormier Jr.Emerald Home Care, Inc., Petitioner