The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Monday in Siegle v. Fitzgerald and United States v. Washington.

In Siegle, the Court is considering whether the 2017 Amendment to the Bankruptcy Judgeship Act, which increased quarterly fees for Chapter 11 cases in the Trustee program but not the Bankruptcy Administrator program, violates the uniformity requirement of the Constitution’s Bankruptcy Clause. Though the programs are funded differently and overseen by different federal agencies, Chapter 11 debtors in both programs paid quarterly fees under uniform formulas from 1978 until 2018. In 2017, the Trustee program, in which 88 of the 94 judicial districts operate, experienced a funding deficit and Congress passed an Amendment increasing the quarterly fee for larger Chapter 11 cases in the Trustee program only.

After the Amendment took effect on January 1, 2018, Circuit City, a US chain of electronics retail stores, refused to pay the increased fees and brought suit in the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, claiming that the 2017 Amendment, which creates nonuniform bankruptcy laws, was unconstitutional. The District Court ruled in the Circuit City trustee’s favor, and the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded the case.

The primary discussion during oral arguments was whether the bankruptcy fees and the split into two programs were procedural matters or substantive bankruptcy subjects. Additionally, there was disagreement about whether the two programs were initially a product of regionalism which unconstitutionally allows six districts to have a choice while 88 districts do not.

United States v. Washington concerns whether Washington’s 2018 amendment to its state workers’ compensation laws violates intergovernmental immunity because it applies only to certain federal workers in the state of Washington. For these workers, overseen by the US Department of Energy, who clean up radioactive and chemically hazardous waste at the Hanford Site, the 2018 amendment creates a rebuttable presumption that certain cancers and health conditions are work-related diseases.

The US government challenged this amendment, claiming that the law violated intergovernmental immunity, which is a constitutional law doctrine prohibiting both the federal government and individual states from intruding on the other’s sovereignty. The trial court granted summary judgment for Washington, and the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the decision.

Because the Hanford Site was a federal nuclear production site located in the state of Washington, and the clean-up is done by federal contractors, the government argued that Washington’s state law amendment discriminates against the federal government.  The oral argument discussion focused on whether the US government’s argument is moot in light of Washington removing the provisions challenged in this case, as well as the scope of Congress’s waiver statute allowing states to regulate federal contractors.