Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66 (1975), was a case in which Justice William J. Brennan writing for a unanimous United States Supreme Court articulated a four factor test for federal courts to apply when deciding whether the implication doctrine allows a cause of action to be inferred from a federal statute that does not clearly state a civil remedy.

[1] The Cort criteria were applied by some lower federal courts as a restrictive standard to test applications of the implication doctrine, including a 7th Circuit decision, later reversed by the Supreme Court, which held no private right of action exists under Title IX to challenge a denial of admission to medical school as gender-based discrimination.

[2] Defendant/petitioner Stewart S. Cort, chairman of the board of directors of Bethlehem Steel Corporation, published a series of political advertisements in nineteen local newspapers where the company had plants, as well as several national publications (including Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report).

The District Court held that the criminal penalties of the federal statute did not include any private cause of action, and granted summary judgment for the defendant.

He also found that implying a cause of action was inconsistent with the statute's purpose, and that the plaintiff had a remedy under state corporate law.