Hawaii and Texas judges, hardest hit. And maybe legal strategists who benefit from forum-shopping as well.
In a 6-3 decision released this morning, the Supreme Court put a stop to the practice of district courts issuing nationwide or “universal” injunctions against the executive branch in exercises of its constitutional authority. The case of Trump v CASA arises from Donald Trump’s reinterpretation of birthright citizenship, but as Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the majority, that question is not yet before the top court. This pertains specifically to federal courts attempting to dictate policies that go beyond the parties before them in legal actions, and the court put a sharp end to that today.
This case produced a thick opinion and a thicket of concurrences and dissents, but the executive summary gives us the gist of the controlling opinion. Barrett and the majority scoff at the notion that district courts have any authority or jurisdiction beyond their district, and essentially beyond the parties at the bar before them:
The issuance of 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. This Court has held that the statutory grant encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies “traditionally accorded by courts of equity” at our country’s inception. Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo, S. A. v. Alliance Bond Fund, Inc., 527 U. S. 308, 319. …
Nor did founding-era courts of equity in the United States chart a different course. If anything, the approach traditionally taken by federal courts cuts against the existence of such a sweeping remedy. Consider Scott v. Donald, where the plaintiff successfully challenged the constitutionality of a law on which state officials had relied to confiscate alcohol that the plaintiff kept for personal use. See 165 U. S. 107, 109 (statement of case); id., at 111–112 (opinion of the Court). Although the plaintiff sought an injunction barring enforcement of the law against both himself and anyone “whose rights [were] infringed and threatened” by it, the Court permitted only relief benefitting the named plaintiff. Id., at 115–117. In the ensuing decades, the Court consistently rebuffed requests for relief that extended beyond the parties. See, e.g., Perkins v. Lukens Steel Co., 310 U. S. 113, 123; Frothingham v. Mellon, decided with Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 487–489.
The Court’s early refusals to grant relief to nonparties are consistent with the party-specific principles that permeate the Court’s understanding of equity.
Federal courts can still rule against an exercise of executive policy if they find it to be unlawful. They can issue temporary injunctions ahead of such trials if the judge believes that the plaintiffs have a good chance of prevailing and will suffer irreparable harm in the interregnum, just as they did before. However, this ruling limits those stays and injunctions only to the parties before the court in each case. That could complicate matters and force these into class actions at some point, but courts have rules and procedures for that as well.
The usual three justices dissented, but Barrett took a moment out to blister Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in particular:
Rhetoric aside, JUSTICE JACKSON’s position is difficult to pin down. She might be arguing that universal injunctions are appropriate—even required—whenever the defendant is part of the Executive Branch. See, e.g., post, at 3, 10–12, 16–18. If so, her position goes far beyond the mainstream defense of universal injunctions. See, e.g., Frost, 93 N. Y. U. L. Rev., at 1069 (“Nationwide injunctions come with significant costs and should never be the default remedy in cases challenging federal executive action”). As best we can tell, though, her argument is more extreme still, because its logic does not depend on the entry of a universal injunction: JUSTICE JACKSON appears to believe that the reasoning behind any court order demands “universal adherence,” at least where the Executive is concerned. Post, at 2 (dissenting opinion). In her law-declaring vision of the judicial function, a district court’s opinion is not just persuasive, but has the legal force of a judgment. But see Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U. S. 255, 294 (2023) (“It is a federal court’s judgment, not its opinion, that remedies an injury”). Once a single district court deems executive conduct unlawful, it has stated what the law requires. And the Executive must conform to that view, ceasing its enforcement of the law against anyone, anywhere.17
We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary. … In other words, it is unecessary to consider whether Congress has constrained the Judiciary; what matters is how the Judiciary may constrain the Executive. JUSTICE JACKSON would do well to heed her own admonition: “[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound bylaw.” Ibid. That goes for judges too.
This has been the problem all along. The only court with nationwide jurisdiction is the Supreme Court. Jackson would create 677 unelected emperors to override the elected head of the executive branch. These cases can pick up jurisdictional territory as they move up the chain of appeals, but district courts are by design limited to a geographical boundary and those parties before them at the bar. By arguing that each of the 677 judges at the circuit level has the authority to dictate national policy, not only would Jackson endorse the usurpation of executive authority, but also the usurpation of the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction.
Justice Elana Kagan joined the dissents, but she sang a different tune when Republicans forum-shopped to stop Joe Biden’s policies. Our colleague Katie Pavlich has the clip:
A reminder about what Justice Kayan said about a single judge trying to derail a president’s agenda/nationwide policy pic.twitter.com/lNi127R23W
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) June 27, 2025
The three liberal justices aren’t angry over an imperial presidency. They’re just unhappy that this path to obstructionism got closed down in a Republican administration.
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