Ledure v. Union Pacific Railroad Company
142 S. Ct. 1582 · No. 20-807 · 2021 term · Roberts Court
Decided Apr 28, 2022 · argued Mar 28, 2022
The voteEach side
4–44 on each side
Equally divided: the decision below stands
Affirmed. Ledure lost.
What this ruling means
Affirmed by an equally divided Court: with the justices split evenly, the decision of the Illinois Southern U.S. District Court stands, but the Court wrote no opinion and the ruling sets no precedent for other cases.
Ledure was the petitioner, the side that asked the Supreme Court to review the case. “Lost” means the Court did not give that side the result it asked for.
From the Supreme Court Database. A justice who agreed with the result but not the reasoning counts in the majority.
Summary
The opening of the case’s Wikipedia article: what the case was about and what the Court held.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nine per curiam opinions during its 2021 term, which began October 4, 2021 and concluded October 2, 2022.
Because per curiam decisions are issued from the Court as an institution, these opinions all lack the attribution of authorship or joining votes to specific justices. All justices on the Court at the time the decision was handed down are assumed to have participated and concurred unless otherwise noted.
Data notes
The text is Wikipedia’s (CC BY-SA 4.0), matched to the case by its citation, docket number or name and year, and is not checked against the opinion. The site keeps the article’s opening section, ending on its last full sentence. The one-sentence summary under the title is the Decisions list’s: Wikipedia’s own ruling sentence, or, tagged “AI-written”, one Claude wrote from this opening.
How the justices voted
The Court split evenly, 4–4, which leaves the lower court’s decision in place without an opinion. Each justice who took part is placed by their Martin–Quinn ideology score for the 2021 term.
Did not take part: Amy Barrett.
Data notes
Each justice’s vote and what they wrote are from the justice-centered file of the Supreme Court Database. “Wrote a concurrence” means the justice sided with the majority and wrote separately; a justice who dissented in part is counted on the side they took overall. A justice who wrote nothing is listed as joining their side.
Positions are each justice’s Martin–Quinn score for the case’s term, the same scores as the Ideology page: negative is more liberal, positive more conservative. A score sums up a justice’s votes across the whole term, so it says where they usually sit, not why they voted as they did here. The median line is the Court’s median justice that term.
The parties
Who brought the case to the Court, who answered it, and how it got there.
- Petitioner
- LedureRailroad
- Respondent
- Union Pacific Railroad Company
- Reached the Court by
- Certiorari (the Court chose to hear it)
Data notes
The names are the two sides of the case’s title. The description under each is the Supreme Court Database’s category for that party, in its own wording. The petitioner is the side that asked the Supreme Court to review the decision below. “Why it was taken” appears only when the majority opinion says lower courts disagreed or were unsure about the question; reasons that would fit any case (“to resolve the question presented”, “an important question”) are left out.
The law at issue
The record codes no legal provision for this case.
Data notes
The Supreme Court Database codes the main constitutional provision, statute or court rule each case turned on, and the basis of the decision: judicial review of a federal or state law, interpreting a statute, supervising the lower courts, and so on. A case can rest on more than one. “Overruled” counts only where the majority opinion says so.
Timeline
What happened at the Court and how the case got there, newest first.
- Apr 28, 2022DecidedDecided · Decided 4–4: affirmed. Ledure lost.
- Mar 28, 2022ArguedArgued · Oral argument before the Court.
- Not datedTaken upTaken up · The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case (certiorari).
- Not datedCourt belowCourt below · Decided by the Illinois Southern U.S. District Court: affirmed.
- Not datedBeganBegan · The case began in the U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Data notes
From the Supreme Court Database: the court the case began in, the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed and what that court did, how the case came to the Court, and the dates of argument and decision. The database does not date the steps in the lower courts. Court names are the database’s.
Official record
Read the argument audio on Oyez and Wikipedia. Case data from the Supreme Court Database, Version 2026 Release 01, through the 2025 term.