2015 term opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States

The 2015 term of the Supreme Court of the United States began October 5, 2015 and will conclude October 2, 2016. The table below illustrates which opinion was filed by each justice in each case and which justices joined each opinion.^[1]

Table key

Delivered the Court's opinion Joined the Court's opinion Filed a concurrence Joined a concurrence Filed a dissent Joined a dissent Filed a concurrence/dissent Joined a concurrence/dissent Did not participate in the decision Decisions that do not note an argument date were decided without oral argument. Decisions that do not note a Justice delivering the Court's opinion are per curiam. Multiple concurrences and dissents within a case are numbered, with joining votes numbered accordingly. Justices frequently join multiple opinions in a single case; each vote is subdivided accordingly. An asterisk ( * ) in the Court's opinion denotes that it was only a majority in part or a plurality. An asterisk in a joining vote denotes that the justice joined it only in part. A dash ( - ) denotes that the Justice concurred or dissented without filing a separate opinion.

2015 term opinions

#	Case name and citation	Argued	Decided	Roberts	Scalia	Kennedy	Thomas	Ginsburg	Breyer	Alito	Sotomayor	Kagan
1	Maryland v. Kulbicki, 577 U.S. ___		October 5, 2015
2	Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. ___		November 9, 2015
3	OBB Personenverkehr AG v. Sachs, 577 U.S. ___	October 5, 2015	December 1, 2015
4	Shapiro v. McManus, 577 U.S. ___	November 4, 2015	December 8, 2015
5	DIRECTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, 577 U.S. ___	October 6, 2015	December 14, 2015				1	2			2
6	White v. Wheeler, 577 U.S. ___		December 14, 2015
7	Bruce v. Samuels, 577 U.S. ___	November 4, 2015	January 12, 2016
8	Hurst v. Florida, 577 U.S. ___	October 13, 2015	January 12, 2016
9	Kansas v. Carr, 577 U.S. ___	October 7, 2015	January 20, 2016
10	Montanile v. Board of Trustees of Nat. Elevator Industry Health Benefit Plan, 577 U.S. ___	November 9, 2015	January 20, 2016							*
11	Campbell-Ewald v. Gomez, 577 U.S. ___	October 14, 2015	January 20, 2016	1	1					1 2
12	Duncan v. Owens,[2] 577 U.S. ___	January 12, 2016	January 20, 2016
13	Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. ___	October 13, 2015	January 25, 2016		1		1 2			1
14	Musacchio v. United States, 577 U.S. ___	November 30, 2015	January 25, 2016
15	Menominee Tribe of Wis. v. United States, 577 U.S. ___	December 1, 2015	January 25, 2016
16	FERC v. Electric Power Supply Assn., 577 U.S. ___	October 14, 2015	January 25, 2016
17	James v. Boise, 577 U.S. ___		January 25, 2016
18	Amgen Inc. v. Harris, 577 U.S. ___		January 25, 2016
19	Gobeille v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 577 U.S. ___	December 2, 2015	March 1, 2016				1		2
20	Lockhart v. United States, 577 U.S. ___	November 3, 2015	March 1, 2016
21	Americold Realty Trust v. ConAgra Foods, Inc., 577 U.S. ___	January 19, 2016	March 7, 2016
22	Wearry v. Cain, 577 U.S. ___		March 7, 2016
23	V.L. v. E.L., 577 U.S. ___		March 7, 2016
24	Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U.S. ___		March 21, 2016
25	Sturgeon v. Frost, 577 U.S. ___	January 20, 2016	March 22, 2016
26	Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, 577 U.S. ___	November 10, 2015	March 22, 2016							*
27	Nebraska v. Parker, 577 U.S. ___	January 20, 2016	March 22, 2016
28	Hawkins v. Community Bank,[3] 577 U.S. ___	October 5, 2015	March 22, 2016
29	Friedrichs v. California Teachers Ass'n,[4] 578 U.S. ___	January 11, 2016	March 29, 2016
30	Luis v. United States, 578 U.S. ___	November 10, 2015	March 30, 2016			1			*	1		2
31	Evenwel v. Abbott, 578 U.S. ___	December 8, 2015	April 4, 2016				1 2*			2
32	Nichols v. United States, 578 U.S. ___	March 1, 2016	April 4, 2016
33	Woods v. Etherton, 578 U.S. ___		April 4, 2016
34	Welch v. United States, 578 U.S. ___	March 30, 2016	April 18, 2016
35	Hughes v. Talen Energy Marketing, LLC, 578 U.S. ___	February 24, 2016	April 19, 2016				1				2
36	Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt, 578 U.S. ___	December 7, 2015	April 19, 2016							-
37	Molina-Martinez v. United States, 578 U.S. ___	January 12, 2016	April 20, 2016
38	Bank Markazi v. Peterson, 578 U.S. ___	January 13, 2016	April 20, 2016				*
39	Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Comm’n, 578 U.S. ___	December 8, 2015	April 20, 2016
40	Heffernan v. City of Paterson, 578 U.S. ___	January 19, 2016	April 26, 2016
41	Ocasio v. United States, 578 U.S. ___	October 6, 2015	May 2, 2016	2			1				2
#	Case name and citation	Argued	Decided	Roberts	Scalia	Kennedy	Thomas	Ginsburg	Breyer	Alito	Sotomayor	Kagan

2015 term membership and statistics

This is the eleventh term of Chief Justice Roberts's tenure. Justice Scalia died on February 13, 2016, making it the sixth and final term with the same membership.

Justice		Appointment history		Agreement with judgment		Opinions filed
Seniority	Name	President	Date confirmed	%	#					Total
Chief Justice	Roberts, JohnJohn Roberts	Bush, George W.George W. Bush	September 29, 2005	90.2%	37/41	2	1	0	3	6
Associate Justice	Scalia, AntoninAntonin Scalia	Reagan, RonaldRonald Reagan	September 26, 1986	83.3%	15/18	2	1	0	2	5
Associate Justice	Kennedy, AnthonyAnthony Kennedy	Reagan, RonaldRonald Reagan	February 18, 1988	97.6%	40/41	5	0	0	1	6
Associate Justice	Thomas, ClarenceClarence Thomas	Bush, George H. W.George H. W. Bush	October 23, 1991	78%	32/41	3	5	0	6	14
Associate Justice	Ginsburg, Ruth BaderRuth Bader Ginsburg	Clinton, BillBill Clinton	August 10, 1993	92.7%	38/41	5	0	0	3	8
Associate Justice	Breyer, StephenStephen Breyer	Clinton, BillBill Clinton	August 3, 1994	97.6%	40/41	5	3	0	0	8
Associate Justice	Alito, SamuelSamuel Alito	Bush, George W.George W. Bush	January 31, 2006	82.5%	33/40	3	3	0	3	9
Associate Justice	Sotomayor, SoniaSonia Sotomayor	Obama, BarackBarack Obama	August 6, 2009	85.4%	35/41	3	1	0	3	7
Associate Justice	Kagan, ElenaElena Kagan	Obama, BarackBarack Obama	August 7, 2010	95.1%	39/41	1	0	0	2	3
Notes on statistics: Opinion counts only include the bench opinions listed above; opinions relating to orders or in-chambers opinions are not included. Agreement with the Court's judgment does not guarantee agreement with the reasoning expressed in its opinion. A justice is not considered in agreement if they dissented even in part. Agreement percentages are based only on the listed cases in which a justice participated and are rounded to the nearest one-tenth of one percentage point.						Totals
						29	14	0	23	66

Notes

1. One decree in an original jurisdiction case has been omitted from this table: Montana v. Wyoming, 577 U.S. ___ (2016).
2. In Duncan v. Owens, 577 U.S. ___ (2016), the Court dismissed certiorari as improvidently granted.
3. The Court's per curiam opinion in Hawkins v. Community Bank, 577 U.S. ___ (2016) noted that the judgment was affirmed by an equally divided Court.
4. The Court's per curiam opinion in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Assn., 578 U.S. ___ (2016) noted that the judgment was affirmed by an equally divided Court.

References

• 2015 Term Opinions of the Court, Supreme Court of the United States, retrieved May 2, 2016.

Further reading

• "The Biggest Questions Awaiting the Supreme Court", The New York Times, October 5, 2015 (editorial).
• Liptak, Adam (April 4, 2016), "Dynamics Are Shifting in an 8-Member Supreme Court", The New York Times.