I'm Elizabeth Slattery and welcome to SCOTUS 101, where we break down what's happening at the Supreme Court, what the justices are up to, and other things related to our favorite branch of government.

This week, I'm joined by my heritage colleague Tom Jipping. Tom, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

We're going to talk about some pretty big issues, abortion, capital punishment, and iPhones. So first up, what's happening at the Supreme Court this week?

Well, on Monday, they released orders and opinions. First up is Apple Inc. versus Pepper. This was a

five-four decision by Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan,

allowing an antitrust suit concerning Apple's iPhone app store to go forward. So, Tom, what happened here and how concerned should Apple be?

Well, the issue in this case, and this is early in the whole litigation, the issue here is who the iPhone owners are supposed to sue. Basically,

the iPhone owners, and of course you have to buy Apple apps in the app store, and there's a 30%

sort of markup when you buy them. And so the iPhone owners were saying that violates the

antitrust laws. They're charging too much. But the question is, do you sue the developer of the

app because they're the one that sets the price? Or do you sue Apple because they're the ones that

actually sell it to you? And the 5-4 decision written by Justice Kavanaugh was that you can sue Apple.

It was just the direct purchaser sort of idea. And Justice Gorsuch, who was also appointed by

President Trump, wrote the dissenting opinion who said that, no, we ought to look at it in terms

of more economic reality because the way the majority

looked at it was just this sort of inflexible, arbitrary rule that didn't make economic sense.

I wonder what kind of apps that the challengers are suing over because I'm thinking of the apps

that I have.

And, you know, I don't think I've ever paid more than four bucks for an app.

Well, yeah, I'm a pretty low, low maintenance, low cost technology user, too, but a lot of

people are not.

...