In a recent Justia blog post, Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar makes the argument that it's time for the Supreme Court to determine how broadly the relief a lower court might issue to the plaintiffs in a particular case—blocking executive action—can extend.
He says, "...lower federal courts are issuing orders that offer protection not just to the plaintiffs who brought the cases at hand, but to all similar parties, including parties located in areas where other federal courts might have different views on the permissibility of the federal policies in question.
"The general appropriateness of these sweeping, nationwide (or in some instances global) orders is something the Supreme Court needs to take up explicitly, beyond the merits of any particular dispute. To be sure, when a federal district court has jurisdiction (that is, the power to speak the law) over a particular dispute and the defendants (including US government agencies) who are being sued, the court has authority to order the defendants to act or not act. This includes the authority to issue a directive that often has effects “outside the territorial jurisdiction of the court,” if for no other reason than because sometimes a plaintiff operates in more than one federal judicial district, and a court needs to be able to give a plaintiff full relief—not just local relief—from a defendant’s wrongful actions."
Read the full post at verdict.justia.com.