Nationwide (Universal) Injunctions, Judicial Overreach, and Why Justice Barrett Was Right

Abstract.

Universal (often referred to as “nationwide”) injunctions allow a single district judge to prohibit the federal government from enforcing a policy against anyone, not just the parties before the court. That shortcut to uniformity undermines Article III’s case-or-controversy limits, distorts the historical scope of equity, and corrodes separation of powers. In Trump v. CASA, Inc. (June 27, 2025), the Supreme Court, through Justice Barrett, curtailed the practice, directing lower courts to tailor injunctions to the relief necessary to protect the parties. This article explains the doctrine, excavates the history, and answers the strongest counterarguments (including Justice Jackson’s dissent), while laying out lawful alternatives, such as class actions and APA vacatur, that preserve robust checks on unlawful government action without turning one trial judge into a “mini–Supreme Court” while maintaining the separation of powers.

Introduction: A Check, but the Wrong One

Nationwide injunctions not only check power—they short-circuit the Constitution. By restoring party-focused remedies in CASA, Justice Barrett did not weaken the judiciary; she stopped one district judge from wearing nine robes.
The constitutional design channels disputes into cases with parties; appellate review, class certification, and (for agency rules) APA vacatur deliver lawful uniformity. Barrett’s opinion restores that design. It doesn’t shield executive overreach; it disciplines judicial overreach.

This piece makes three claims.

1.   Universal injunctions are ahistorical as a general remedial tool for trial courts and sit poorly with Article III’s plaintiff-centric remedial tradition.
2. Ending universal injunctions strengthens the separation of powers by forcing courts to check the executive within cases, rather than by supervisory edict.
3. The system already offers three lawful paths to broad relief—complete-relief injunctions for parties (including states), class actions under Rule 23(b)(2), and APA vacatur. Universal injunctions are, therefore, not only unnecessary but they are also harmful and distasteful to the Constitution. It is a singular power-concentrated _____ that should have never been implemented.

What Is a “Nationwide” (Universal) Injunction?

A universal injunction bars the government from enforcing a law or policy against anyone, not just the plaintiffs who sued. The label “nationwide” is a misnomer; the real feature is that the order protects nonparties. In practice, the device surged across administrations in the last decade, often becoming a first-stop remedy in high-stakes policy fights. The Solicitor General repeatedly objected, and the Court has now pulled the reins.

Two points often muddled in debate:

• Geography vs. Beneficiaries. Traditional injunctions may apply beyond the issuing court’s geography (a court can order a party to act or refrain anywhere). The innovation of universal injunctions is not necessarily where they apply, but whom they protect: everyone, not just the suing parties.
• Preliminary Posture. Many universal orders issued as preliminary injunctions, before full merits adjudication, magnify the risks of error, forum shopping, and conflicting decrees

A. The Modern Spike, in Numbers

• A recent Congressional Research Service survey counted 86 universal injunctions during the first Trump Administration and 28 during the first three years of the Biden Administration. In the first 100 days of the second Trump Administration alone, CRS tallied 25 such injunctions. Those figures underscore why the Court finally intervened.
• The pattern was bipartisan: administrations of both parties were frequently enjoined, often by ideologically opposed districts, fueling claims of nationwide forum shopping and policy whiplash.

B. Why Litigants Sought Universal Orders

• Speed & Leverage. Because of the one-win-halt policy everywhere, plaintiffs had enormous leverage on a preliminary record.
• Avoiding Patchwork. Plaintiffs argued that partial, party-only injunctions were unworkable for policies that touch everyone. The Court agreed that uniformity matters but insisted that the law already provides proper channels for it (class actions, vacatur, appellate precedent).

The Supreme Court’s Turn: Trump v. CASA, Inc. (2025)

A. Posture and Holding

In CASA, multiple district courts had entered universal preliminary injunctions blocking the enforcement of an Executive Order addressing birthright citizenship. On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court (6–3) granted the government’s applications for partial stays, holding that the government was likely to succeed on its contention that universal injunctions exceed the equitable authority federal courts possess under the Judiciary Act of 1789. The Court left injunctions in place only to the extent necessary to provide complete relief to the named plaintiffs (including state plaintiffs where appropriate), and it remanded for the lower courts to tailor relief.

B. Justice Barrett’s Reasoning

1. Parties, Not the World. Equity relief historically protects the parties before the court; incidental benefits to nonparties do not convert a plaintiff-protective order into a universal one. The complete-relief principle asks what is necessary for these plaintiffs, not “everyone similarly situated.”
2. Institutional Costs. Universal injunctions (i) invite forum shopping because one plaintiff victory yields nationwide relief, (ii) short-circuit percolation among circuits, and (iii) risk conflicting national decrees.
3. Separation of Powers. Universal injunctions are a “new, potent” remedy that intrudes on coordinate branches by forbidding executive enforcement against nonparties; the Court emphasized that crafting such a “nuclear weapon” is beyond the traditional equitable authority that was intended.
4. Remedial Tailoring. Courts must tailor injunctions to be “no more burdensome than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs.” That can be broad, in suits by states or large associations, but it is still party-focused.

C. The Opinions

• Majority (Barrett, J.). Universal injunctions likely exceed equitable authority; stays entered to narrow scope; lower courts to recalibrate.
• Concurrences (Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh). Various emphases: historical limits, structural concerns, and reassurance that the Supreme Court retains capacity (via stays and injunctions) to supply uniform nationwide relief when warranted.
• Dissents (Sotomayor; Jackson). The dissents stress practicality, equal treatment, and the judiciary’s duty to maintain the rule of law, criticizing the majority for disabling a potent check on executive overreach.

“But Haven’t Courts Enjoined Broad Classes Historically?”

Dating back, early equity sometimes produced decrees with broad practical effects. For example, public-nuisance abatements, guild and monopoly disputes, “bills of peace,” and later structural injunctions. But those orders were still aimed at parties and specific wrongs. The key distinctions:

• Public Nuisance & Guild Cases. Chancery and later American equity would enjoin activities that affected whole communities or trades, functionally benefitting a class, but the orders ran in personam against identified defendants. Think of abating a tannery’s fumes or shutting down a health menace; the whole town benefits, yet the decree binds the nuisance-maker.
• Bills of Peace / Multiplicity of Suits. Equity could prevent a multiplicity of suits by binding parties and privies or by channeling disputes through representative mechanisms; again, the tool was not a roving license to protect all nonparties
• Supreme Court Interim Orders (1913–1923). The Court itself occasionally issued sweeping interim restraints (e.g., Lewis Publishing; Hill v. Wallace; Board of Trade v. Olsen), temporarily halting enforcement of federal laws beyond the named plaintiffs while the Court decided the merits. Those episodes cut for Supreme Court power to preserve the status quo, not for a general trial-court authority to issue universal preliminary injunctions as a matter of course.

A. The Scholarly Debate (Bray v. Sohoni)

• Samuel Bray argues that national/universal injunctions diverge from traditional equity by protecting nonparties and undermining percolation and judicial modesty.
• Mila Sohoni recovers episodes in which federal courts (including the Supreme Court) issued broad, even universal, relief—especially as interim measures—contending that Article III’s single “judicial Power” did not forbid breadth where necessary.
• Synthesis for Practitioners. Even on Sohoni’s reading, the strongest historical examples are Supreme Court–issued or interim. CASA aligns with Bray in rejecting a general trial-court power to enjoin the government as to nonparties, while leaving room for the Supreme Court to provide national uniformity in exigent cases.

Doctrine: Article III, Equity, and the Complete-Relief Principle

1. Article III’s Case Orientation. The judicial power extends to “Cases in Law and Equity.” Federal courts resolve concrete disputes between litigants; remedies presumptively protect those litigants.
2. Complete-Relief Rule. Injunctive relief “should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs.” That principle is centuries old in equity and rearticulated in modern Supreme Court doctrine.
3. Rules 65 & 71; Preclusion. Injunctions bind parties and those in active concert (Rule 65). Nonparties generally cannot enforce orders (Rule 71 is narrow), and the government is insulated from nonmutual offensive issue preclusion (Mendoza). Universal injunctions effectively evade these constraints by purporting to protect everyone without certifying a class or going through the appellate channels that produce true national uniformity.

The Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Structure

Hamilton and Madison anticipated the need for uniformity and judicial review but never envisioned that a single trial judge could paralyze federal policy for the entire nation. In Federalist 78, Hamilton stressed that the judiciary exercises “neither force nor will, but merely judgment.” Nationwide injunctions short-circuit this design. Rather than allowing disagreements among circuits to “percolate” upward for Supreme Court resolution, one trial court imposes immediate, country-wide uniformity. See Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. ___ (2018) (Thomas, J., concurring) (warning that nationwide injunctions encourage forum shopping and disrupt percolation).

1. Nationwide injunctions invert that principle, transforming trial courts into policymakers. In Federalist 80, Hamilton argued that national uniformity in law should be achieved through appellate hierarchy, with the Supreme Court providing the final word.
2. Justice Jackson’s dissent misreads this design: she treats inconsistency as a flaw when the Framers saw it as a temporary feature of federalism. Finally, Federalist 82 confirms that inferior courts were designed with a limited scope, their authority subject to Supreme Court review.
3. By issuing nationwide injunctions, trial courts disrupt this hierarchy and arrogate to themselves more power than Publius ever contemplated. Universal injunctions resemble the very monarchical decrees Madison warned against in Federalist 47, where the concentration of power in one body is “the very definition of tyranny.

Lawful Paths to Broad Relief After CASA

Justice Barrett’s opinion, as many have misinterpreted, does not abandon individuals or states injured by unlawful policies. Instead, it points toward three established mechanisms that preserve both relief and structure:

1. Plaintiff-Focused Tailoring (Including State Plaintiffs). Courts can and should craft orders broad enough to give complete relief to the plaintiffs, which may be quite expansive for sovereign or institutional plaintiffs whose injuries span jurisdictions. In my view, for states, relief can extend to program administration, benefits determinations, and recordkeeping burdens across state lines when needed to redress state-specific
2. 1. Rule 23(b)(2) Class Actions. When the alleged wrong is class-wide and indivisible, certifying a (b)(2) class makes class-wide injunctions lawful and administrable. Post-Dukes, courts must ensure the injunction is truly indivisible, not a patchwork of individualized relief, but once certified, the resulting decree properly protects all class members.

   Bottom line: If breadth is truly warranted, the law already supplies it, class certification and APA vacatur, without converting preliminary relief into national policy.

A. Sidebar: Universal Injunction v. Universal Vacatur

• Universal Injunction: A command directed at people (e.g., “DHS shall not enforce Policy X against anyone”).
• Universal Vacatur: A judgment directed at the rule itself (e.g., “Rule X is set aside”), disabling its enforcement against anyone because there is no operative rule.
• Post-CASA Reality: Injunctions must be party-focused; vacatur remains available in APA cases (subject to ongoing debate).

One trial judge with a universal pen is not a guardian of liberty: it’s a single‑chamber legislature in a black robe.

B. The Three-Judge-Court Lesson

From the 1910s–1976, Congress often required three-judge district courts to enjoin the enforcement of state (and sometimes federal) statutes, with direct appeal to the Supreme Court. The design recognized that broad, quasi-structural remedies demand institutional safeguards, more judges, and faster Supreme Court review. Congress repealed most of that regime in 1976; the modern universal injunction tried to resurrect national reach without the safeguards. CASA pulls us back to the design: trial courts decide cases; the Supreme Court ensures national uniformity.

My Critique of Justice Jackson’s Dissent

Barrett’s cabin remedies to judgment; Jackson conflates law‑declaration with lawgiving.

Justice Jackson’s dissent is principled and powerful in tone: she fears a world in which the Executive violates the law while courts lack the necessary tools to halt the violation for everyone. Justice Jackson punctures any notion that limiting injunctions enhances judicial discipline. She characterizes the majority’s ruling as “an existential threat to the rule of law,” warning that the Court has now created dual zones of legal protection, only individuals who sue benefit from constitutional safeguards, while everyone else is left under the Executive’s unchecked authority. While strong in tone, it lacks any constitutional basis, given that nationwide injunctions were simply not a thing at the founding.

Three replies:

1. Law-Declaration vs. Judgment. Courts declare law incident to rendering judgment in cases; nationwide policy control comes from final appellate precedent, not from a trial court’s preliminary universal order. The dissent’s law-declaration theory conflates the persuasive force of an opinion with the binding scope of a judgment.
2. Uniformity Has Proper Channels. When uniformity is crucial, the system provides it, via class certification, plaintiff-focused but broad injunctions (especially for state plaintiffs), or APA vacatur for agency rules. The dissent’s parade of horribles assumes a remedial vacuum that simply does not exist.
3. Rule of Law vs. Judicial Overreach. The rule of law is not strengthened when a single district judge becomes a national policy czar. As CASA recognized, universal injunctions are a “new, potent” remedy with asymmetric effects: plaintiffs need to win once to halt a policy everywhere; the government must win everywhere to carry on.

Justice Jackson’s “Calvinball” Jurisprudence in National Institute of Health v. Am. Pub. Health Association

I further reject the notion that the Court’s recent decisions amount to mere “gamesmanship,” as Justice Jackson has suggested. In her dissent in Nat’l Insts. of Health v. Am. Pub. Health Ass’n, she accused the majority of engaging in “Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist,” describing it as a system with no fixed rules save for two: “that one, and this Administration always wins.” (Nat’l Insts. of Health v. Am. Pub. Health Ass’n, No. 24-___, ___ U.S. ___, ___ (2025) (Jackson, J., dissenting)).

Such rhetoric, though memorable, mischaracterizes the judiciary’s role and trivializes constitutional adjudication.

Judges are not policymakers, nor is the Supreme Court a policymaking body. Period. The Framers established Article III courts to decide “Cases” and “Controversies,” not to referee partisan struggles. See U.S. Const. art. III, § 2. By asserting that “the administration always wins,” Justice Jackson inadvertently undermines public confidence in the judiciary, situating the Court within the political arena and exacerbating the perception of politicization.

Justice Barrett’s majority in Trump v. CASA, Inc. offers the more faithful rejoinder: “We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.” 603 U.S. ___, ___ (2025) (Barrett, J., majority opinion). Jackson’s Calvinball remark may score rhetorical points, but it strays from law into politics. Constitutional fidelity demands that we measure judicial decisions by precedent, text, and structure, not by metaphors of children’s games.

B. On Equal Treatment and the “Zones”

The dissent worries that party-limited relief creates law-free “zones” where the Executive may act unlawfully until each person sues. That concern has force in emergencies, but it overlooks available systemic tools: (i) rapid class certification for indivisible harms; (ii) state-led suits that justify broad plaintiff-focused relief; (iii) Supreme Court emergency relief (including stays and injunctions) supplying temporary nationwide uniformity; and (iv) vacatur for agency rules. The dissent’s appeal to “uniformity now” is a policy instinct, not an Article III warrant. Judges are not policymakers; fidelity to the Constitution demands restraint. Justice Jackson’s sharpened pen spills ink that makes the judiciary twinkle with policy ambitions, unseeing of the distortion that sparkle imposes on judicial role.

Policy Payoffs: Why Ending Universal Injunctions Is Healthy

• Reduces Forum Shopping. Litigants lose the incentive to hunt for a single sympathetic judge to halt national policy.
• Restores Percolation. Multiple circuits can deliberate; the Supreme Court resolves conflicts, yielding higher‑quality national rulings. The Constitution prefers arguments to echo across circuits before one rule governs us all; universal injunctions hit the mute button after a single note.
• Clarifies Responsibility. Congress can legislate uniform remedies (as in the APA); agencies can adjust rules; courts can still issue broad party-focused injunctions and certify classes.
• Protects Legitimacy. The judiciary avoids the optics (and reality) of one-judge national decrees while preserving robust case-based checks on executive illegality.
• Improves Remedies. Class actions and vacatur force courts to confront administrability, define classes, and evaluate reliance interests, producing clearer, more durable remedies than a one-line universal edict.

Checks and balances don’t need shortcuts. CASA restores judgment over will, and that is the cure for judicial overreach.

Notes & References

1. Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2) (“hold unlawful and set aside”—vacatur).
2. Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 702 (1979) (injunctions no more burdensome than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs).
3. Congressional Research Service, Reports on Universal Injunctions (2025) (cataloging frequency in recent administrations).
4. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2) (injunctive/declaratory class actions).
5. R. Civ. P. 65 & 71 (scope; enforcement by/against nonparties).
6. Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo, S.A. v. Alliance Bond Fund, Inc., 527 U.S. 308 (1999) (limiting equitable remedies to those recognized in 1789).
7. Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, 561 U.S. 139 (2010) (overbroad nationwide injunction reversed).
8. Nat’l Insts. of Health v. Am. Pub. Health Ass’n, No. 24-___, ___ U.S. ___ (2025) (Jackson, J., dissenting).
9. Samuel L. Bray, Multiple Chancellors: Reforming the National Injunction, 131 Harv. L. Rev. 417 (2017).
10. Mila Sohoni, The Lost History of the “Universal” Injunction, 133 Harv. L. Rev. 920 (2020); The Past and Future of Universal Vacatur, 133 Yale L.J. (2024) (feature).
11. The Federalist Papers: No. 47 (Madison) (warning that accumulation of all powers is the definition of tyranny); No. 78 (Hamilton) (judiciary has “neither force nor will, but merely judgment”); No. 80 (Hamilton) (uniformity to be achieved through appellate hierarchy); No. 82 (Hamilton) (inferior courts limited, with Supreme Court holding ultimate authority).
12. Three-Judge Courts: 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281–2282 (repealed 1976); § 2284 (when required).
13. Trump v. CASA, Inc., No. 24A884 (U.S. June 27, 2025) (Barrett, J.) (slip op.).
14. Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. ___ (2018) (Thomas, J., concurring) (criticizing nationwide injunctions as legally suspect).
15. United States v. Mendoza, 464 U.S. 154 (1984) (no nonmutual offensive issue preclusion against the United States).
16. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338 (2011) (limits on Rule 23(b)(2)).