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Qualitex Company has used a special shade of green-gold color on the press pads it makes and sells to dry cleaning firms for use on dry cleaning presses since the 1950s. Jacobson Products Company, a rival firm, began selling its own press pads colored in a similar green-gold shade to dry cleaning firms in 1989. In 1991 Qualitex registered the special green-gold color on press pads with the Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark under Registration No. 1,633,711 dated February 5, 1991. Qualitex subsequently added a trademark infringement count to an unfair competition claim under the Lanham Act in a lawsuit it had already filed against Jacobson. The District Court ruled in Qualitex's favor in the action. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit set aside the judgment in Qualitex's favor on the trademark infringement claim. Courts of Appeals had differed on whether color alone could qualify as a trademark, with some circuits imposing an absolute prohibition and others allowing registration in particular circumstances. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1994 to address the division among the circuits.

In 1966 the Pennsylvania Legislature enacted the Bituminous Mine Subsidence and Land Conservation Act to address land subsidence caused by underground coal mining. The Act authorizes the Department of Environmental Resources to implement and enforce a comprehensive program preventing or minimizing subsidence and consequent damage to surface structures. Section 4 prohibits mining that causes subsidence damage to public buildings, dwellings used for human habitation, and cemeteries, and generally requires that 50 percent of the coal beneath such structures remain in place to provide surface support. Petitioners are an association of coal producers and several of its member corporations engaged in underground bituminous coal mining in western Pennsylvania. They own, lease, or control substantial coal reserves and associated support estates beneath surface properties affected by the Subsidence Act. Many of these interests were severed from the surface estate between 1890 and 1920, and petitioners or their predecessors typically acquired waivers of liability for subsidence damage along with rights to deposit wastes, provide drainage and ventilation, and erect surface facilities. In 1982 petitioners filed a civil rights action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania against the Secretary of the Department of Environmental Resources and other officials. They sought to enjoin enforcement of the Subsidence Act and its implementing regulations, alleging that Section 4 and Section 6 effected a taking of their property without compensation and that Section 6 impaired their contractual obligations. The parties entered a stipulation of facts concerning the facial challenge and filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the Department officials. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the constitutional challenges to the Subsidence Act. Petitioners have never claimed that the Subsidence Act makes it commercially impracticable for them to continue mining their bituminous coal interests in western Pennsylvania, nor have they identified any specific mine rendered unprofitable by the statute. The evidence in the record shows that enforcement of the 50 percent rule has required petitioners to leave less than 27 million tons of coal in place. This applies across 13 mines containing over 1.46 billion tons. It amounts to less than 2 percent of the total coal in those operations.

Plaintiffs in these consolidated actions were exposed to the drug diethylstilbestrol, known as DES, while in utero after their mothers ingested the drug during pregnancy to prevent miscarriage. Because multiple manufacturers produced DES according to the same formula, the plaintiffs could not identify the specific manufacturer responsible for the particular DES taken by their mothers. The plaintiffs filed suit in the San Francisco Superior Court against numerous drug manufacturers, with typical complaints naming 170 or more defendants. These cases were designated as complex litigation, with pretrial rulings issued in a lead case numbered 830-109 that would apply to at least 69 related actions. The complaints alleged that the defendants manufactured DES from the same formula, that the drug was unsafe for use in preventing miscarriage, and that the manufacturers knew it contained a cancer-causing substance yet failed to provide warnings to users or their physicians. In addition to claims for negligence, the plaintiffs asserted causes of action for strict liability based on design defects in DES, as well as breach of express and implied warranty and fraud. Where they could not identify the specific manufacturer, the plaintiffs sought to hold liable those defendants who had manufactured a substantial share of the DES market. The trial court sustained demurrers to the strict liability design defect claims. It ruled that breach of warranty and fraud claims could not be pursued under the market share theory, while also determining that any liability would be several rather than joint. The Court of Appeal reviewed the trial court's pretrial rulings through writ proceedings and affirmed those determinations. The Supreme Court of California granted review to consider the questions presented by the litigation.

In 1967 the Atomic Energy Commission granted Vermont Yankee a construction permit for a nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vermont, after the required adjudicatory hearing and reviews. Vermont Yankee later applied for an operating license; NRDC intervened and objected to exclusion of fuel-reprocessing and waste-disposal impacts from the hearing. In November 1972 the Commission opened a separate rulemaking proceeding on those fuel-cycle issues, noticed two alternative approaches based on its Environmental Survey, and conducted a February 1973 hearing at which more than forty participants submitted comments but no discovery or cross-examination occurred. In April 1974 the Commission adopted a rule assigning numerical values to fuel-cycle impacts and applied it prospectively. In January 1969 Consumers Power applied for permits to build two nuclear reactors in Midland, Michigan. After staff and ACRS review, Saginaw and Mapleton intervened and raised 119 environmental contentions, including seventeen on energy conservation. The Licensing Board held hearings on radiological issues, the staff issued a final environmental impact statement in March 1972, and further hearings occurred in May and June 1972; Saginaw declined to participate in the later hearings or submit proposed findings. The Licensing Board granted the construction permit, the Appeal Board affirmed, and the Commission declined further review. In November 1973 the Commission ruled in another case that energy-conservation evidence meeting threshold tests could be considered, but it later refused Saginaw's motion to reopen the Consumers Power record. NRDC appealed the Vermont Yankee license and rule to the D.C. Circuit; Saginaw and others appealed the Consumers Power permit. In 1976 the Court of Appeals remanded both matters, holding the fuel-cycle rulemaking procedures inadequate, the Consumers Power environmental impact statement defective for omitting energy conservation, and the ACRS report insufficiently explained. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1977. The Commission is the successor agency to the Atomic Energy Commission under the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. All licensing proceedings followed the two-stage process of construction permit followed by operating license under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, with NEPA environmental reviews added after 1969.