The Problem With Universal Injunctions

Are lower courts misinterpreting the Administrative Procedure Act?

WHAT DO TRAVEL BANS, mask mandates and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program have in common?

In each case, lower federal courts have used universal remedies—in the form of a universal injunction—to block government policies from being carried out.

Professor John Harrison argues that lower courts using universal injunctions in this manner are misinterpreting what the law says about available remedies. He makes his case in a Yale Journal on Regulation Bulletin article, “Vacatur of Rules Under the Administrative Procedure Act.”

Universal injunctions direct the government not to take some action, such as enforcing a regulation, with respect to anyone, whether they are a plaintiff in a lawsuit or not, Harrison explained. When the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida struck down mask mandates on public transportation, saying the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention had exceeded its authority, it delivered a universal injunction that vacated the rule for the entire country.

“By giving a remedy of that kind, a single district court can have the kind of effect that usually only the Supreme Court has,” Harrison said, “without the benefits of percolation.”

In the past several years, legal scholars have hotly debated whether lower federal courts have authority to issue universal remedies. Lower courts often rely on section 706(2) of the Administrative Procedure Act in support of their authority to provide universal relief. Harrison said that’s a mistake.

“Many lower courts take the position that section 706(2) of the Administrative Procedure Act directs them to give