Supreme Court Nukes Universal Injunctions (UPDATED)

in a major decision this morning, the Supreme Court has put the kibosh on the growing practice of issuing universal injunctions. In a 6-3 decision by Justice Amy Coney Barrett (the former civil procedure professor, natch), the Court grants the Trump Administration’s request to narrow the injunction in Trump v. CASA (the Birthright Citizenship case). [Note, however, the opinion says nothing about the merits of the Trump Administration's position on birthright citizenship.]

The Court split on ideological lines. .Justice Thomas concurred (joined by Justice Gorsuch); Justice Alito concurred (joined by Justice Thomas), Justice Kavanaugh concurred. Justice Sotomayor dissented (joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson), and Jackson wrote a separate dissent (to which the majority replies quite forcefully).
a dissenting opinion.

Justice Barrett’s decision for the Court begins:

The United States has filed three emergency applications challenging the scope of a federal court’s authority to enjoin Government officials from enforcing an executive order. Traditionally, courts issued injunctions prohibiting executive officials from enforcing a challenged law or policy only against the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The injunctions before us today reflect a more recent development: district courts asserting the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone. These injunctions—known as “universal injunctions”—likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts.1 We therefore grant the Government’s applications to partially stay the injunctions entered below.

Justice Barrett explains the core of the rationale:

The Government is likely to succeed on the merits of its argument regarding the scope of relief. See Nken v. Holder, 556 U. S. 418, 434 (2009) (holding that for a stay application to be granted, the applicant must make “‘a strong showing that [it] is likely to succeed on the merits’”). A universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power.

The Judiciary Act of 1789 endowed federal courts with jurisdiction over “all suits . . . in equity,” §11, 1 Stat. 78, and still today, this statute “is what authorizes the federal courts to issue equitable remedies,” S. Bray & E. Sherwin, Remedies 442 (4th ed. 2024). Though flexible, this equitable authority is not freewheeling. We have held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. . . . We must therefore ask whether universal injunctions are sufficiently “analogous” to the relief issued “‘by the High Court of Chancery in England at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the enactment of the original Judiciary Act.’” . . .

The answer is no: Neither the universal injunction nor any analogous form of relief was available in the High Court of Chancery in England at the time of the founding.
Equity offered a mechanism for the Crown “to secure justice where it would not be secured by the ordinary and existing processes of law.”

The opinion closes, explaining the relief offered:

Some say that the universal injunction “give[s] the Judiciary a powerful tool to check the Executive Branch.” Trump, 585 U. S., at 720 (THOMAS, J., concurring) (citing S.Amdur & D. Hausman, Nationwide Injunctions and Nationwide Harm, 131 Harv. L. Rev. Forum 49, 51, 54 (2017); S. Malveaux, Class Actions, Civil Rights, and the National Injunction, 131 Harv. L. Rev. Forum, 56, 57, 60–62 (2017)). But federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them. When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.

The Government’s applications to partially stay the preliminary injunctions are granted, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue. The lower courts shall move expeditiously to ensure that, with respect to each plaintiff, the injunctions comport with this rule and otherwise comply with principles of equity. The injunctions are also stayed to the extent that they prohibit executive agencies from developing and issuing public guidance about the Executive’s plans to implement the Executive Order. Consistent with the Solicitor General’s representation, §2 of the Executive Order shall not take effect until 30 days after the date of this opinion. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 55.

Check back to the blog for more on this important case, including how it jibes with theories that Justice Barrett is drifting or lacks “courage.”

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