Supreme Court Term Paints Mixed Picture for Business

Supreme Court Term Paints Mixed Picture for Business

WASHINGTON—Business litigants overall have fared well at the Supreme Court in recent years but their gains were more incremental during the court’s just-ended term, and while they won a few big cases, others ended in one-sided defeats.

Wins for the business community included rulings that cut back on unions’ physical access to farmworkers, raised a new bar for some consumer class-action lawsuits and removed a hurdle for the construction of natural-gas pipelines.

But those were balanced against losses in which the court declined to make it harder to bring certain product-liability and securities-fraud lawsuits. The justices also affirmed antitrust liability for the National Collegiate Athletic Association.