[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Monday granted certiorari [order list, PDF] in Jesinoski v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. [docket; cert. petition, PDF] to determine the requirements of the Truth in Lending Act [15 USC § 1635]. The Jesinoskis refinanced their house with Countrywide Home Loans in 2007, but Countrywide failed to furnish the Jesinoskis with all the information and disclosures required by the Act. The Jesinoskis attempted to rescind their loan transaction under 15 USC § 1635(a), sparking the case at hand. The federal courts of appeals are split on whether “a borrower [may] exercise his right to rescind a transaction in satisfaction of the requirements of Section 1635 by ‘notifying the creditor’ in writing within three years of the consummation of the transaction,” or “must a borrower file a lawsuit within three years of the consummation of the transaction.” The court will decide the issue next term.

The court also granted certiorari in Yates v. United States [docket; cert. petition, PDF]. The court limited the grant to question 1: “Whether … Yates was deprived of fair notice that destruction of fish would fall within the purview of 18 USC § 1519 [text], where the term ‘tangible object’ is ambiguous and undefined in the statute, and unlike the nouns accompanying ‘tangible object’ in section 1519, possesses no record-keeing [sic], documentary, or informational content or purpose.” John Yates, a commercial fisherman, was convicted under the “anti-shredding” provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for destroying undersized fish after being instructed to bring them back to port. The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld his conviction [opinion].

Also Monday the court declined to hear a challenge to an indefinite detention law, denying certiorari in Hedges v. Obama [docket]. The lawsuit was filed by a group of journalists, authors and political activists challenging the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA) [text, PDF] which affirms the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain “a person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.” The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in July that the group lacked standing to sue [JURIST report] because they failed to show that they were actually at risk of being targeted by the government policy.