Four Ways the Universal Injunction Ruling May Complicate Lawsuits

In Trump v. CASA, Inc., the US Supreme Court held that district courts can’t issue broad orders that enjoin the government from any application of policies or actions the court has found to be unlawful or unenforceable—so-called universal injunctions.

The high court reasoned that this sort of broad injunctive relief exceeds federal courts’ equitable authority because no analogous form of relief was available from courts of equity in England at the time of our country’s founding. The lack of historical analog, according to the decision, puts universal injunctions outside Congress’s statutory grant of jurisdiction in the Judiciary Act of 1789 as to “all suits . . . in equity.”

The Supreme Court’s decision has an immediate effect on suits against the Trump administration’s executive orders and immigration-related actions, making it difficult for courts to block administration policies nationwide. But the decision also may have unintended consequences for other areas of law—from commercial class actions to administrative procedure.

Here are four takeaways from the court’s landmark ruling.

Class-Action Complexity

Calling universal injunctions “a class-action workaround,” the Supreme Court stated that the proper procedural path for a district court to grant relief to a group of nonplaintiffs is through Fed. R. Civ. P. 23’s class action procedures, not a universal injunction.

Expect challengers to seek preliminary class certification in conjunction with preliminary-injunction motions as a substitute for universal injunctions, making every constitutional lawyer a class-action litigator. These class-certification proceedings will make already complex cases even more complex with disputes over class definitions, commonality, typicality, adequate representation, notice, and opt-out rights.

There is also the risk of overlapping nationwide class actions being brought in front of different judges. With universal injunctions, critics charged that a single judge controlled nationwide policy. But with nationwide class actions, the first judge to certify a nationwide class—particularly if it’s a nationwide no-opt-out class under Rule 23(b)(1) or (2)—will also control nationwide policy.

The resulting merits decision—positive or negative—will be preclusive as to both the government and all absent class members. Overlapping nationwide classes therefore creates a risk of a “race to res judicata” where the judge willing to move the fastest can create nationwide precedent with no potential for percolation in other courts.

This uptick in class-certification practice has the potential to bleed over into commercial class actions. Rule 23 applies to classes of all sorts and a flood of potentially hasty class-certification decisions in emergency, politically charged cases may end up being precedent in more pedestrian disputes.

The risk isn’t limited to the district courts: The Trump administration aggressively appeals adverse decisions, and we may see a raft of court of appeals class-certification decisions that will be cited beyond constitutional cases.

Standing in Focus

The Supreme Court stated the district courts’ error below was that the “injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.”

When courts could enjoin a policy or practice for being unlawful generally, a court needed only to find that at least one plaintiff had standing; any dispute about the other plaintiffs’ standing was irrelevant because those other plaintiffs would be protected by the universal injunction.

Now, courts will need to go plaintiff-by-plaintiff and make a standing determination for each one before entering relief. That will again make disputes more complex and lead to more binding standing decisions that can impact cases that aren’t as politically charged.

Associational and Third-Party Standing

Civil-liberties groups and industry associations, as well as state and local governments, also regularly challenge executive action. With universal injunctions, these organizations and governments could obtain relief that would prevent an unlawful or unenforceable policy from taking effect, ensuring all their members and citizens were protected.

The Supreme Court’s opinion raises significant questions about the scope of relief when organizations and governments sue. If the US Chamber of Commerce or the American Civil Liberties Union brings a suit in its own name to challenge an executive order and wins, can the injunction extend to every member of the organization? Would the Chamber or ACLU have to demonstrate that every member is similarly affected? And would the relief run to every member at the time the suit is filed, or when it’s decided? What about those who later become members? If Texas or New York sues over an executive order and wins, can the court grant relief not just to the state governments but also all Texans or New Yorkers? Justice Samuel Alito’s concurrence raised these questions, but the court’s opinion didn’t have any answers.

Administrative Procedure Punt

The Supreme Court in a footnote emphasized that it wasn’t passing on the availability of universal vacatur under the Administrative Procedure Act—the principle that a court can nullify an unlawful agency action nationally.

But Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, has said in a recent concurrence that the argument that the APA doesn’t authorize universal vacatur is “serious enough to warrant careful consideration.”

Expect that debate to reignite in the wake of the court’s decision. For now, expect challengers to continue to cast their claims as APA causes of action to take advantage of the continued availability of universal vacatur.

The decision will also bring new focus on the APA’s stay provision, 5 U.S.C. 705, which permits a court to “issue all necessary and appropriate process to postpone the effective date of an agency action or to preserve status or rights pending conclusion of the review proceedings.”

Currently, APA plaintiffs seek nationwide stays of agency action before the action takes effect through universal preliminary injunctions. Courts will now need to decide whether, as Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurrence suggested, Section 705’s grant of authority is sufficient to allow nationwide preliminary relief against agency action.

The case is Trump v. CASA, US, No. 24a884, decided 6/27/25.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Sean Marotta is partner at Hogan Lovells and has argued at the Supreme Court and in state and federal courts across the country.

Jessica Ellsworth is the co-head of Hogan Lovells’ Supreme Court and appellate practice, where she regularly litigates administrative, constitutional, and class-action appeals.

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