Summary:
- The Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. CASA, Inc means the end of nationwide injunctions, hindering the ability of lower federal courts to protect Americans.
- The lack of legislation in the highly polarized Congress led to presidents exercising executive orders more frequently than previously necessary, resulting in a sharp increase in universal injunctions.
- The conservative majority has once again made it harder for all but the wealthiest Americans – or those with significant pro bono assistance – to find relief in lower courts.
The United States Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc. stripped federal judges’ ability to issue so-called “universal injunctions.” In a case concerning the Trump Administration’s executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship, the Court questioned if district court judges had the authority to issue injunctions – orders preventing a person, entity, or government body from taking a certain action – that applied outside of their jurisdiction..
With SCOTUS’s conservative majority holding that such injunctions “likely exceed the equitable authority Congress has given to federal courts,” the injunctions in the original cases no longer had the force of law nationwide, but still covered the 22 states involved in the lawsuit.
North Carolina is among those states, but the precedent created by this case will impact North Carolina families far beyond immigration issues.
By asserting that universal injunctions exceed district courts’ authority, SCOTUS limits redress against executive overreach for residents of districts outside where plaintiffs reside. This decision will likely require additional lawsuits to secure fundamental rights in every instance they are violated by federal action, with a range of outcomes varying depending on the jurisdiction.
While the holding suggests that the courts transcend their authority with injunctions, it seems to shift the burden on communities and potential plaintiffs to redesignate their cases as class action lawsuits if they want their holdings to apply to parties outside the case. By increasing the barriers to equitable relief from the judicial system, this decision represents another way in which SCOTUS is turning its back on low-income Americans.
What is a “Universal Injunction?”
An injunction is a court order that orders a party to cease a particular action. District courts have access to various injunctions, including preliminary injunctions, which halt an action until the end of the case, and permanent injunctions, which serve as the final judgment in that case.
Universal injunctions are orders that prevent the enforcement of a law or policy against anyone, regardless of whether they were a party in the case or not. They serve as a judicial check on power.
The case that arguably birthed the first true undisputed universal injunction was 1963 Baldor Electric Co. v. Wirtz. Baldor Electric Company and several of their competitors in the industry argued that the minimum wage regulation set by the Secretary of Labor was in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. After winning in district court and then again on the appeal, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals decided not to confine the relief, which would have given those original plaintiffs an unfair competitive advantage, and instead the judges opted for a nationwide – or universal – injunction.
Since then, the use of universal injunctions has protected citizens from governmental and corporate overreach. They allowed courts to facilitate a mandate where no citizens could be disadvantaged based on where they live, preventing a situation where rulings throughout the country don’t conflict with each other.
Lawfare Against the Obama Administration
The number of universal injunctions issued experienced slight growth in the late 20th century, but they didn’t become common until the Obama Administration.
The 12 universal injunctions under President Barack Obama, according to the Harvard Law Review, ranged from immigration to civil rights, including a ruling that blocked his policy granting deferred action to undocumented immigrants (DACA).
Obama faced fewer injunctions compared to the first Trump administration, which tallied 64 universal injunctions. President Joe Biden was issued fewer at 14.
This overall increase in injunctions is no accident, as it coincides with a highly polarized Congress. In his decision not to run for reelection, North Carolina. Sen. Thom Tillis described independent, bipartisan, compromising policymakers as an “endangered species.”
The gridlock in the nation’s legislative branch prompted the last few presidents to more aggressively exercise their executive authority. After taking more aggressive executive action, opponents of any given policy could seek a universal injunction to prevent its realization.
In seeking politically motivated injunctions, plaintiffs can judge shop, or strategically file cases in friendlier jurisdictions in hopes of receiving a favorable ruling. For example, Matthew Kacsmaryk is the only federal judge assigned to Amarillo, Texas, and a noted conservative. Anti-Abortion plaintiffs have flocked to his district in hopes of receiving favorable rulings, succeeding in temporarily receiving a preliminary ruling suspending access to the abortion pill mifepristone nationwide.
The most recent executive action to be blocked by a universal injunction was Trump’s executive order eliminating birthright citizenship, which, since the Reconstruction-era 14th Amendment, guaranteed that anyone born in the United States receives citizenship, regardless of the status of their parents.
The order, ruled unconstitutional by courts in New Hampshire, Maryland and Washington, faced universal injunction.
Waiting on appeal was a SCOTUS with a 6 – 3 conservative majority. Out of the six were Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito, three judges who have already criticized
universal injunctions with Thomas describing universal injunctions as “legally and historically dubious.” This set the stage for the June 27 opinion.
Universal Injunctions in North Carolina
At the state level, North Carolina residents still enjoy the protections of the 14th Amendment since we were a plaintiff state, but we remain affected by the ruling reducing access to judicial relief.
With universal injunctions off the board, it is more difficult for individuals in need of protection from executive overreach to receive that protection without participating in a suit. But due to costs, everyone may not have access to an attorney in order to do so.
The average hourly rate for North Carolina attorneys through all courts, according to the World Population Review, is $295. If you can’t afford a lawyer and proceed pro se, you face potentially prohibitive fees, for example the a $405 charge to file a civil case in the Western District of North Carolina.
Patchwork protections are another consequence of this decision. While North Carolina is one of the 22 states in which the Trump executive order has been enjoined so far, neighboring states such as Tennessee, South Carolina, and Virginia are not. Were the order to go into effect, the legal status of a person crossing state lines or born in one state and moving into another – assuming they were not a member of a class action – could become complicated, with messy legal challenges and questions of what rights they possess in each state to sort through.
A reality where the law is dependent on the state or even county in the case of more narrow district injunctions, increases potential inequality for residents statewide.
The SCOTUS opinion also makes it more difficult for the judiciary to check the other branches. North Carolina’s status as a plaintiff will allow us to keep birthright citizenship, but in future cases, we can no longer anticipate the protection of universal injunctions. Broad class action suits and suits by states, avenues to functionally “universal” equitable relief, although these come with their own issues, including navigating Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and relying on state attorneys general to file suits.
The end of the universal injunction does not mean the end of universal relief completely. However, it does restrict courts’ abilities to provide that relief efficiently and judiciously. While we won’t see the fallout from the end of universal injunctions in CASA, in future cases that don’t feature broad classes or North Carolina as a party, we are all at risk of falling outside the jurisdiction and, therefore, the protection of courts seeking to prevent executive overreach and preserve the rule of law.
