The Supreme Court denied a petition seeking to revive the National Rifle Association’s free speech lawsuit against a former New York official, effectively ending the lawsuit from going forward.
The high court issued an order list on Monday in which it agreed to take up one case but also declined to take up dozens of other cases petitioned to the justices. One of the cases the Supreme Court declined to take up was NRA v. Vullo, which is a lawsuit brought by the gun rights group against Maria Vullo, a former superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial Services. The denial of the petition did not include any explanation for why the justices decided not to take up the case or any noted dissents to the rejection.
The NRA filed the lawsuit claiming Vullo infringed on its First Amendment right to political speech by using her position to pressure state financial institutions to cut ties with the NRA following the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting.
The case NRA v. Vullo initially made its way up to the Supreme Court in 2024, after an appeals court had tossed the case, claiming that the NRA did not plausibly allege that Vullo violated the First Amendment. The unanimous decision reviving the case left open the door for Vullo to have immunity to the charges, and the appeals court found that she did indeed have immunity in its July 2025 ruling, which tossed the case again.
The NRA returned to the Supreme Court late last year, asking it to “clarify when a constitutional violation can be sufficiently obvious to preclude qualified immunity even in the absence of prior cases involving exactly identical facts.” The high court declined to take up their request, leaving the appeals court’s immunity ruling intact.
Vullo has maintained that she committed no wrongdoing and that the allegations against her by the NRA are false.
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The lone case the Supreme Court decided to take up was Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, which could have wide ramifications for the future of climate-related lawsuits brought by local governments against oil companies.
The Suncor Energy case asks the high court to decide whether federal law prevents state law claims for damages related to interstate and international greenhouse gas emissions. The oil companies are seeking to shut down a case in state court that could cost them billions of dollars in damages for liability related to their impact on the global climate. The high court is expected to hear the case sometime during its next term, which will begin in October.