''Adams v. Robertson'', 520 U.S. 83 (1997), was a

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case in which the court, in a ''

per curiam In law, a ''per curiam'' decision (or opinion) is a ruling issued by an appellate court of multiple judges in which the decision rendered is made by the court (or at least, a majority of the court) acting collectively (and typically, though not ...

'' opinion, "dismissed the

writ of certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...

as improvidently granted."

Background

The defendant, Charlie Frank Robertson, filed a class action lawsuit in 1992, alleging that "Liberty National Life Insurance Company had fraudulently encouraged its customers to exchange existing health insurance policies for new policies" that provided an insubstantial amount of coverage for cancer treatment. At trial, a settlement was agreed upon that precluded class members from individually suing Liberty National. However several of the people included in the class action lawsuit disagreed with the settlement. Guy E. Adams, the plaintiff in this case, was one of those people.

Question before the court

Does the

Supreme Court of Alabama The Supreme Court of Alabama is the highest court in the state of Alabama. The court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices. Each justice is elected in partisan elections for staggered six-year terms. The Supreme Court is hous ...

's approval of the settlement violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Decision of the Supreme Court

In a unanimous decision in favor of Robertson, the opinion of the court was written

. The court dismissed the writ of certiorari and noted that the State Supreme Court "did not expressly address the question on which certiorari was granted." Further, the court found that the petitioners had "failed to establish that they had properly presented the issues to that court." The court concluded that it could not answer the question before the court because it would "unbalance" the US dual system of government.

References

External links

* United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court 1997 in United States case law {{SCOTUS-case-stub