First instance, Court

Finally, the Cooperative contends that we should construe the Controlled Substances Act to include a medical necessity defense in order to avoid what it considers to be difficult constitutional questions. In particular, the Cooperative asserts that, shorn of a medical necessity defense, the statute exceeds Congress Commerce Clause powers, violates the substantive due process rights of patients, and offends the fundamental liberties of the people under the Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. As the Cooperative acknowledges, however, the canon of constitutional avoidance has no application in the absence of statutory ambiguity. Because we have no doubt that the Controlled Substances Act cannot bear a medical necessity defense to distributions of marijuana, we do not find guidance in this avoidance principle. Nor do we consider the underlying constitutional issues today. Because the Court of Appeals did not address these claims, we decline to do so in the first instance. 

EC [European Commission], 2000. The Court of First Instance reduces the fines imposed on the cement cartel by almost 140 million. Press release No 16/00 [available at http //curia.eu.int/en/actu/communiques/cp00/aff/cp0016en.htm]. 

FN6. Respect for this distinction does not entail the requirement, as Echazabal claims, that qualification standards be neutral, stating what the job requires, as distinct from a worker s disqualifying characteristics. Brief for Respondent 26. It is just as much business necessity for skyscraper contractors to have steelworkers without vertigo as to have well-balanced ones. See 226 F.3d, at 1074 (Trott, J., dissenting). Reasonableness does not turn on formalism. We have no occasion, however, to try to describe how acutely an employee must exhibit a disqualifying condition before an employer may exclude him from the class of the generally qualified. See Brief for Respondent 31. This is a job for the trial courts in the first instance. 

Court of first instance, i.e. hears cases for the first time, the first level at which a case is officially recorded. 

A group of three superior Courts having both first instance and appeal functions. 

A court may have first instance jurisdiction, which means that it hears cases for the first time it may have appellate jurisdiction which means that a case is heard on appeal or a court may have both. 

The court most used is the local Sheriff Court which has wide civil and criminal jurisdiction. Civilly it may sit as a court of first instance or as a court of appeal (to the Sheriff Principal from a sheriff s decision). For criminal cases the sheriff sits with a jury for trials on indictment, and alone to deal with less serious offences prosecuted on complaints, when its jurisdiction encompasses that of the restricted district court. 

Under the Single European Act, 1986, the Council of Ministers has the power to create a new Court of First Instance. This Court was established by Council decision in 1988 and became effective in September 1989. It has 12 Members, appointed by common accord of the Member States. Members may also be asked to perform the task of an Advocate General. It may sit with three or five judges. 

Some Robens-based OHS legislation provides a process for issue resolution where a workplace has not agreed on its own process. This is often presented in the form of a flowchart. The usual advice to employees if they have an OHS problem is to raise it with their supervisor in the first instance. Where an atmosphere of tmst prevails this is good advice. However, if the employee feels that raising an issue may result in discrimination, the employee may rightly prefer to go through the health and safety representative, or a union. The health and safety representative or a union may resolve the issue with management or it may be dealt with by the health and safety committee. If it cannot be resolved, an OHS inspector may be asked for a determination and issue a notice. Further review by heads of OHS authorities, or courts varies with the particular jurisdiction. In New Zealand, for example, the District Court resolves disputed notices. 

Court of First Instance of the European Communities, Press Release No 45/07. 

The Court of First Instance is responsible for hearing all direct actions against the Community, such as seeking annulment because of illegality, or damages because of legal liability or actions by Community staff. It is subject to the legal supervision of the Court of Justice. 

But as this system now stands, there is to be as many inferior courts as Congress may see fit to appoint, who are to be authorised to originate and in the first instance to try all the cases falling under the description of this article there is no security that a trial by jury shall be had in these courts, but the trial here will soon become, as it is in Massachusetts inferior courts, mere matter of form for an appeal may be had to the supreme court on the whole merits. This court is to have power to determine in law and in equity, on the law and the fact, and this court is exalted above all other power in the government, subject to no controul, and so fixed as not to be removeable, but upon impeachment, which I shall hereafter shew, is much the same thing as not to be removeable at all. 

With regard to negligence, in the early case of Mercy Docks and Harbour Board Trustees v. Gibbs, decided in 1866, the court of first instance held that a public body could be held liable in negligence when exercising a statutory power. Blackburn J. rejected the argument of the defendant that a remedy lay only within statutory bounds, a decision which was upheld later by the House of Lords. The duty of care lay pursuant to a statutory power but was not prescribed both in terms of content and compensability within it. However, the scope of the statute and the persons it was meant to protect is important. ... 

If the brand-name company sued the first generic applicant, it also sued the second generic applicant, if there was one, in nearly 85 percent of the cases. There were 43 such instances. Of the suits that have been resolved as of June 1, 2002, in no instance did different district courts reach different results in resolving infringement issues over the same brand-name dmg product. 

In 8 instances, brand-name companies have listed later-issued patents in the Orange Book after an ANDA has been filed for the drug product. For the 8 dmg products, the additional delay of FDA approval (beyond the first 30 months) ranged from 4 to 40 months. In all of the 4 eases so far with a court decision on the validity or infiingement of a later-issued patent, the patent has been found either invalid or not infringed by the ANDA. 

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