On June 27, the Supreme Court issued a series of decisions involving policy and legal issues relevant for HR professionals. Notably, the Supreme Court ruled on the process for establishing preventive care treatments covered under the Affordable Care Act, as well as on the use of nationwide preliminary injunctions placed by lower courts after legal challenges are filed.
Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, Inc.
The first decision considered the process for determining which preventive care treatments are covered by health plans under the ACA. More specifically, the lawsuit filed by Braidwood Management challenged the process for appointing members to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which is tasked with formulating evidence-based recommendations regarding preventive healthcare services and whose determinations result in health insurers and group health plans needing to cover such preventive services without cost sharing. Currently, task force volunteer members are appointed by the HHS secretary as they are considered inferior officers under the appointments clause of the Constitution.
Braidwood Management sued HHS over their appointment practices for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. They argued that members of the task force are principal officers under the appointments clause that must be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Supreme Court ultimately disagreed with Braidwood, arguing that members of the task force are inferior officers and leaving the process for designating required preventive services in health plans intact.
Trump v. CASA, Inc.
The second ruling stems from a court case regarding birthright citizenship in the U.S.. Several lawsuits were filed against President Trump’s executive order “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” which identified scenarios in which a person born in the U.S. is not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and is not recognized as an American citizen. The lawsuits argued the EO violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause, and in each case, the lower federal district courts issued “universal injunctions” that bar the Trump administration from implementing the EO nationwide. The Trump administration filed emergency applications for partial stays on the preliminary injunctions to the Supreme Court soon after the lower courts’ rulings.
In their ruling, the Supreme Court focused on whether courts have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions. In a 6-3 ruling, the court held that universal injunctions “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts,” limiting the lower courts’ injunctions to provide relief only to the plaintiffs with standing to sue. The ruling did not consider the merits of the executive order, which are still being litigated in lower courts.
Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh raised notable questions about the scope of the Supreme Court’s ruling on universal injunctions in their concurring opinions. Alito raised questions surrounding requirements for third-party standing and class certification as they apply to injunctive relief and stated concerns about “potentially significant loopholes” to the decision to limit universal injunctions. He asked whether injunctions procured by states bind the defendant with respect to all residents of said states, and he warned that procedural rules for class certification in class action suits are unchanged under the ruling.
In Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion, he discussed the Supreme Court’s role in determining how major new federal statutes and executive actions are implemented and enforced during the “interim legal status for the several-year period before a final decision on the merits.” With the new ruling limiting universal injunctions, Kavanaugh states that district courts may issue a series of individual preliminary rulings or broader classwide or set-aside preliminary rulings, which will continue through the appeals process until it reaches the Supreme Court. He argues that when the Supreme Court makes a decision on the stays and injunctions that lead to the interim legal status, such decision will “constitute a form of precedent (de jure or de facto) that provides guidance throughout the United States during the years-long interim period until a final decision on the merits.”
The ruling could have broader implications on future legal challenges on policy issues important to higher education HR professionals. For example, policies like Title IX and FLSA overtime regulations have been litigated in federal courts over the past several years, often resulting in preliminary injunctions that bar the administration from implementing or enforcing said regulations nationwide. While previously issued preliminary injunctions on these issues are not directly impacted by this ruling, future injunctions will likely be limited in scope due to this ruling.
CUPA-HR will continue to monitor for updates from the Supreme Court that impact higher education HR operations.