The Supreme Court should restrict lower federal courts’ authority to issue nationwide injunctions against federal policies

What's this about?

People disagree about whether lower federal courts should stop judges from blocking a federal rule across the whole country. The key question is whether courts should limit these wide orders while still stopping real harm.

What supporters say

• The Supreme Court found that a law from 1789 likely does not let judges protect people who did not join the case.
• One judge can use a wide court order to control a rule for the whole country, even for people not in the case.
• Limits could cut down on court shopping, when groups seek a judge they think will favor them, and could avoid clashing orders.
• Wide court orders can make it hard for federal offices to run programs and put new rules into action.

What critics say

• Helping only the people who filed the case may not stop harm that spreads across the whole country.
• Courts have used wide help in the past, so a full ban may go too far.
• One rule for everyone can help make sure the law works the same way in every state.
• Limits may force many people to file the same kind of case in many courts.

How to read this

The number of points on each side does not show which side is right; the strength of the proof matters more.

The bottom line

The proof leans toward limiting wide orders from lower courts, not banning every court fix with effects across the country. The best plan would keep help for harms that truly affect the whole nation.

The Supreme Court should restrict lower federal courts from issuing nationwide injunctions against federal policies, but the evidence does not support eliminating every form of relief with nationwide effects. The strongest case is for limiting universal injunctions while preserving targeted tools for genuinely nationwide harms.

The case for

Nationwide injunctions can allow one district judge to control policy for the entire country, including people who are not parties to the lawsuit. A Harvard Law Review dataset identified 127 such injunctions from 1963 through 2023, including 64 against Trump administration policies. The injunctions were also concentrated in particular district courts, raising concerns that litigants can choose favorable venues to obtain national results (see Figure 1). 1

Other counts from the Congressional Research Service show a sharp increase over time: 12 nationwide injunctions during the George W. Bush presidency, 19 during the Obama presidency and 55 during Donald Trump’s first presidency through February 2020. The totals vary depending on how injunctions are defined and counted, but the broader trend is clear. Critics say the practice encourages forum shopping, conflicting court orders and premature control of national policy by a single judge. 2

Broad injunctions can also complicate the work of federal agencies while litigation continues. An Administrative Conference study found that nationwide injunctions and similar orders can disrupt rulemaking and policy implementation, although the effects vary by program and agencies respond differently. The concern is therefore real, but not uniform (see Figure 2). 3

The Supreme Court’s decision in *Trump v. CASA* provides the strongest legal support for restricting universal injunctions. The Court held that the Judiciary Act of 1789 likely does not give federal courts authority to issue injunctions protecting nonparties, and it stayed the challenged orders to the extent that they offered such relief. 4 The ruling creates a direct statutory basis for limiting this remedy.

The case against

The strongest objection is practical. A remedy limited to named plaintiffs may not stop nationwide harm, especially when the challenged policy operates uniformly across the country. The government might also continue applying the policy to everyone else, leaving plaintiffs exposed to inconsistent treatment or forcing similarly affected people to file separate cases.

Restrictions could therefore increase litigation costs and produce conflicting judgments. Affected people might need to bring multiple lawsuits or seek class certification even when the underlying legal question is the same. Uniform relief can also promote equal application of federal law by preventing an agency from treating plaintiffs one way and similarly situated nonparties another way. 56

Some legal and historical scholarship also cautions against treating all relief affecting nonparties as a new or categorically improper invention. Earlier injunctions sometimes had effects beyond the named parties, and Article III standing does not by itself determine the geographic scope of an equitable remedy. These arguments weaken a blanket prohibition, though the evidence behind them is less conclusive. 78

The bottom line

The evidence favours restricting universal injunctions, and it does so with high confidence under the statutory framework identified by *CASA*. The strongest support comes from the Supreme Court’s ruling and from substantial evidence that nationwide injunctions can concentrate national policy decisions in individual district courts, encourage strategic filing and disrupt agency administration.

But that does not establish that courts should lose every ability to provide relief with nationwide practical effects. The evidence that restrictions will improve administration or legal accuracy is more limited than the evidence showing that nationwide injunctions have grown and become concentrated. The record does not fully show how often injunctions were wrong, how much harm they caused or whether narrower remedies would work better.

The best-supported approach is targeted procedural reform rather than an across-the-board ban. Venue controls, faster appeals, class actions and carefully limited Administrative Procedure Act remedies or vacatur could address forum shopping and disruption while preserving protection against genuinely nationwide harm. The main uncertainty is how those alternatives will operate after *CASA*.