Trump Administration v. Rule of Law Redux

Trump's Department of Justice sued all 14 trial judges who serve in the District of Maryland. DOJ contests a standing order issued by the Chief Judge of the district that instructs to clerk of the court to enter a two-day temporary restraining order whenever someone files a petition for habeas corpus in a deportation case. The purpose of the TRO is to preserve the district court's jurisdiction to allow for an orderly review of the merits of the petition -- i.e., to prevent the administration from whisking the deportee out of the country and mooting the habeas petition. It's a perfectly ordinary protective order under the All Writs Act, which has been part of the law of the land since the Judiciary Act of 1789.

Professor Austin Sarat (Amherst College) is all over this one, arguing that the DOJ effort in this case shows yet again the disdain this administration has for the rule of law. It's a brief op-ed in Slate and worth the four minutes it takes to read.

As I wrote on Wednesday, respect for the rule of law -- particularly the law of the Constitution -- is exactly what our officials swear to uphold when they take their oath of office. And the Trump lawyers, among and above all others, should know better. 

None of this bodes well for future health-law cases, which depend upon a fair reading of constitutional and statutory precedents, not the current DOJ's strong suit.

The Supreme Court's "Disastrous Decision"

HealthLawBlog tracks decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court that have some bearing on the cost, quality, access, and equitable distribution of health care goods and services. This includes a pretty vast number of federal statutes and related regulations, as well decisions in other areas of law that may eventually affect health care (First Amendment (speech and religion), Fifth & Fourteenth Amendments (due process & equal protection), administrative procedure, antitrust, insurance law, etc. A brief but illustrative listing is here.).

Immigration law isn't one of the areas I've tracked, despite the absolutely awful situation of immigrants who are not lawfully present when it comes to their access to any care other than emergency health care. But the Court's decision this week -- in which it green-lighted the deportation of immigrants to countries with which the immigrant has no connection (read: countries with the absolute worst prisons and human-rights records) without a scintilla of due process -- deserves mention. 

The opinions consist of an exceedingly brief unsigned order apparently on behalf the five or six conservative justices and a 19-page dissenting opinion by Justice Sotomayor that was joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson. What follows are a few quotations from the dissent followed by commentary by Prof. Steve Vladeck (his Substack column is well worth following) and a piece by Boston Globe senior opinion writer Kimberly Atkins Stohr):

1. Sotomayor, J.:
   In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution. In this case, the Government took the opposite approach. It wrongfully deported one plaintiff to Guatemala, even though an Immigration Judge found he was likely to face torture there. Then, in clear violation of a court order,
   it deported six more to South Sudan, a nation the State Department considers too unsafe for all but its most critical personnel. An attentive District Court’s timely intervention only narrowly prevented a third set of unlawful removals to Libya.
   
   Rather than allowing our lower court colleagues to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention it plainly requires, this Court now intervenes to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied. I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion. . . . 
   
    It is axiomatic, moreover, that when Congress enacts a statutory entitlement, basic procedural due process protections attach. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 332 (1976). Congress expressly provided noncitizens with the right not to be removed to a country where they are likely to be tortured or killed. See 8 U. S. C. §1231 note. As this Court has explained, the “‘right to be heard before being condemned to suffer grievous loss of any kind . . . is a principle basic to our society.’” Mathews, 424 U. S., at 333 (quoting Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 168 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring)). Being deprived of the right not to be deported to a country likely to torture or kill you plainly counts. Thus, plaintiffs have a right to be heard. . . .

There is no evidence in this case that the Government ever did determine that the countries it designated (Libya, El Salvador, and South Sudan) “w[ould] not torture” the plaintiffs. Application for Stay of Injunction 29. Plaintiffs merely seek access to notice and process, so that, in the event the Executive makes a determination in their case, they learn about it in time to seek an immigration judge’s review. The Fifth Amendment unambiguously guarantees that right. . . . 

The Due Process Clause represents “the principle that ours is a government of laws, not of men, and that we submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 646 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). By rewarding lawlessness, the Court once again undermines that foundational principle. Apparently, the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in farflung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled. That use of discretion is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable. Respectfully, but regretfully, I dissent. 

1. Vladeck:
   As long-time readers of this newsletter know, I’m not prone to hyperbole. But the title of this piece refers to today’s ruling as “disastrous.” In my view, that’s true for two reasons:
   
   First, it is going to have massive effects. Keep in mind that, in a pair of similarly unexplained grants of emergency relief to the Trump administration last month, the Court cleared the way for the government to treat as many as one million migrants as removable who weren’t previously (including those with “temporary protected status” and those covered by a humanitarian parole program started by the Biden administration. Those folks can now not only be placed in removal proceedings, but even if they can’t be removed to their countries of origin, they can apparently be removed to other countries without additional process—at least until and unless something changes.
   
   Second, and even more importantly, here is one of the most stark examples to date of the Trump administration overtly defying rulings by a federal district judge. Indeed, it did so twice in this case. For the Court to not only grant emergency relief in this case, but to offer nary a word of explanation either in criticism of the government’s behavior, or in defense of why it granted relief notwithstanding that behavior, is to invite—if not affirmatively enable—comparable defiance of future district court orders by the government. I would’ve thought that this was a message that this Supreme Court would be ill-inclined to send, even (if not especially) implicitly. But it’s impossible to imagine that the Trump administration will view it any other way.
   
   
2. Stohr:
   [T]he Supreme Court’s majority has essentially washed its hands of its role in upholding the rule of law, the foundational principle that laws are meant to be followed by everyone, the government included, if we are to have a just society.

I don’t know how this court comes back from such an astonishing abrogation of its role at the top of a separate, coequal branch of government tasked with, among other things, being a check against tyranny from the executive branch. If last year’s ruling granting Trump broad immunity for illegal acts committed during his presidency was the shot, this week’s order was the bitter chaser.

For all the litigants (present and future) whose legal arguments depend upon the Court's interpretation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution, hold onto your seats. If this case is any indication, it's going to be a bumpy ride. 

SCOTUS Upholds Tennessee's Prohibition Against Transgender Treatments for Minors

This morning the Court handed down its decision in United States v. Skrmetti, No. 23-477 by a vote of 6-3 along entirely predictable political lines. Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, in which the Court held that the lower appellate court correctly applied the rational basis standard of review, rather than heightened judicial scrutiny of the Tennessee law. 

The Chief Justice described rational-basis review this way: "Under this standard, we will uphold a statutory classification so long as there is 'any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification.'” He concluded that the Tennessee law "clearly meets this standard." Indeed, you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Supreme Court cases in which the government's action failed the rational-basis test.

So the real battle in this case was over the correct standard of judicial review, an issue that is often -- as it was here -- dispositive, even if -- as it was here -- it was hotly contested. How wide and deep was the disagreement? Here's the lineup of opinions:

1. ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined, and in which ALITO, J., joined as to Parts I and II–B. 
2. THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion.
3. BARRETT, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which THOMAS, J., joined.
4. ALITO, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. 
5. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which JACKSON, J., joined in full, and in which KAGAN, J., joined as to Parts I–IV. 
6. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion. 

Not quite a record,* but that's a lot of back-and-forth over the dividing line between rational-basis review and intermediate scrutiny: sex. If Tennessee's transgender treatment ban descriminates on the basis of sex, it should be subjected to heightened review. That's the issue underlying the Court's choice of judicial-review standard. I will leave it to you to review the debate that's spread across 118 pages. I'll add just a few notes from the opinions:

"An estimated 1.6 million Americans over the age of 13 identify as transgender, meaning that their gender identity does not align with their biological sex. See 1 App. 257–259; 2 id., at 827. Some transgender individuals suffer from gender dysphoria, a medical condition characterized by persistent, clinically significant distress resulting from an incongruence between gender identity and biological sex. Left untreated, gender dysphoria may result in severe physical and psychological harms." (Majority opinion) Including suicidal ideation. But, hey, the Tennessee legislature knows what's best for these minors.

"The United States asserted that “the medical community and the nation’s leading hospitals overwhelmingly agree” with the Government’s position that the treatments outlawed by SB1 can be medically necessary. Brief for United States 35; see also Brief for Respondents in Support of Petitioner 5 (asserting that “[e]very major medical association in the United States” supports this position). The implication of these arguments is that courts should defer to so-called expert consensus. . . . [T]here are particularly good reasons to question the expert class here, as recent revelations suggest that leading voices in this area have relied on questionable evidence, and have allowed ideology to influence their medical guidance." (Thomas, J., concurring). Justice Thomas offered three additional reasons to reject the expert opinion of "every major medical association in the United States," but this one is based upon Justice Thomas's medical opinion.

Justices Barrett and Alito hang their hats on their rejection of transgender as a "suspect class," the necessary predicate for heightened judicial review. Both compare the same characteristics of transgender persons as a class to the characteristics of approved suspect classes: sex, race, and national origin. Justice Both accept the assertion that transgender individuals face discrimination, which is one of the defining characteristics of a "suspect class." But Justice Barrett quite explicitly and Justice Alito more implicitly conclude it's not the right kind of discrimination. Private discrimination doesn't count; it has to be de jure discrimination. I'm not enough of a student of constitutional law to know whether this qualification is something new, but neither justice cites a case holding that only de jure discrimination counts in the determination of a "suspect class."

Justice Sotomayor cuts to the heart of the matter:

To give meaning to our Constitution’s bedrock equal protection guarantee, this Court has long subjected to heightened judicial scrutiny any law that treats people differently based on sex. See United States v. Virginia, 518 U. S. 515, 533 (1996). If a State seeks to differentiate on that basis, it must show that the sex classification “serves important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Such review (known as intermediate scrutiny) allows courts to ascertain whether the State has a sound, evidence-based reason to distinguish on the basis of sex or whether it does so in reliance on impermissible stereotypes about the sexes. Today, the Court considers a Tennessee law that categorically prohibits doctors from prescribing certain medications to adolescents if (and only if) they will help a patient “identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex.” Tenn. Code Ann. §68–33– 103(a)(1)(A) (2023). In addition to discriminating against transgender adolescents, who by definition “identify with” an identity “inconsistent” with their sex, that law conditions the availability of medications on a patient’s sex. Male (but not female) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like boys, and female (but not male) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like girls.

Tennessee’s law expressly classifies on the basis of sex and transgender status, so the Constitution and settled precedent require the Court to subject it to intermediate scrutiny. The majority contorts logic and precedent to say otherwise, inexplicably declaring it must uphold Tennessee’s categorical ban on lifesaving medical treatment so long as “‘any reasonably conceivable state of facts’” might justify it. Ante, at 21. Thus, the majority subjects a law that plainly discriminates on the basis of sex to mere rational-basis review. By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons

transgender children and their families to political whims.

In sadness, I dissent.

Health law issues at the Supreme Court

There's a handful of cases before SCOTUS that have been argued and, with only a couple of weeks left in the Term, are still awaiting decision. At the bottom of this post, I've listed health law cases that will be argued during the 2025 Term.

1. Ker:r v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, No. 23-1275: Whether the Medicaid Act's any-qualified-provider provision unambiguously confers a private right upon a Medicaid beneficiary to choose a specific provider. Argued: April 2, 2025.
2. United States v. Skrmetti, No. 23-477: Whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow "a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex" or to treat "purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity," violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Argued: Dec. 4, 2024.

• There's an FDA case on the list of cases awaiting decision, but the issue is a technical, federal procedure one: Whether a manufacturer may file a petition for review in a circuit (other than the D.C. Circuit) where it neither resides nor has its principal place of business, if the petition is joined by a seller of the manufacturer's products that is located within that circuit. FDA v. R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., No. 23-1187.

The Court has granted review in 19 cases to be heard in the next Term, of which XX have a health law angle:

1. Chiles v. Salazar, No. 24-539: In this conversion-therapy case, the issue is whether a law that censors certain conversations between counselors and their clients based on the viewpoints expressed regulates conduct or violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment. At least 20 states have similar laws. Review granted: March 10, 2025.
2. First Choice Women's Resource v. Platkin, No. 24-781: (From SCOTUSBlog:) "Whether a group of crisis pregnancy centers – faith-based nonprofits that hold themselves out as healthcare clinics and often provide material support to pregnant women, but try to persuade them not to have an abortion – can go to federal court to challenge the constitutionality of a subpoena from a state attorney general, or whether they must instead pursue those claims in state court. . . . This case arose from an investigation by the state’s Division of Consumer Affairs into whether First Choice Women’s Resource Centers was misleading donors and potential clients – by, for example, omitting information about its mission on its client-facing websites and by indicating that ultrasounds are 'generally required' before a medication abortion, although they are not." Review granted: June 16, 2025. 

SCOTUS Adds Medicaid Exclusion of Planned Parenthood to its Docket

Add another case to my SCOTUS "roundup" (Dec. 1).

SCOTUSBlog notes that the Supreme Court has granted review of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals's decision in Kerr v. Planned Parenthood, which involves "a dispute over whether a South Carolina woman can bring a lawsuit challenging that state’s decision to end Planned Parenthood’s participation in its Medicaid program. . . ." Amy Howe, Court adds Medicaid lawsuit to docket, SCOTUSblog (Dec. 18, 2024, 12:57 PM). It's a safe bet that the required four votes to grant the petition for review came from the 6-member conservative group of Justices, so this is an ominous development for Planned Parenthood (and the women who depend upon PP for a variety of healthcare needs). The note continues:

Under federal law, Medicaid funds cannot generally be used to provide abortions. But Planned Parenthood provides other medical services to women, including gynecological and contraceptive care but also screenings for cancer, high blood pressure, and cholesterol.

At two clinics in Charleston and Columbia, Planned Parenthood has tried to make it easier to lower-income patients, many of whom are covered by Medicaid, to use its services – by, for example, offering same-day appointments and extended clinic hours. One of those Medicaid patients is Julie Edwards, who suffers from diabetes. She went to Planned Parenthood for birth control but says she wants to return to receive other care in the future.

In 2018, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster ordered the state’s Department of Health and Human Services to bar abortion clinics from participating in the Medicaid program. McMaster explained that the “payment of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any purpose, results in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the right to life.”

Edwards and Planned Parenthood went to federal court in South Carolina. They argued that McMaster’s order violated a provision of the Medicaid Act that allows any patient who is eligible for Medicaid to seek health care from any “qualified” provider.

A federal appeals court agreed with Edwards and Planned Parenthood and blocked the state from excluding Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program. That decision prompted the state – represented by the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom – to come to the Supreme Court this summer, asking the justices to decide whether Edwards and Planned Parenthood have a legal right to sue to enforce the Medicaid Act.

The state told the justices that five federal courts of appeals “have wrongly subjected states to private lawsuits Congress never intended.” Moreover, it added, with 70 million Americans receiving Medicaid benefits and tens of thousands of health-care providers participating in the program, the question at the center of the case is “of great national importance.”

But Planned Parenthood and Edwards countered that the question does not come up very often these days. And most of the cases in which it did arise, they continued, “were efforts by states to target Planned Parenthood in ways courts have recognized are unwarranted and politically motivated.” But in any event, they concluded, as all three judges on the court of appeals agreed in this case, the Medicaid law is “clear and unambiguous in conferring a privately enforceable right.”

The justices considered the state’s petition at nine consecutive conferences before finally granting review on Wednesday. The case will likely be slated for argument in either March or April, with a decision to follow by summer.

A number of states have removed Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs, including Texas. Beyond that, the Texas Attorney General has sued PP for$1.8 billion in an attempt to bankrupt the organization. Details are here.

SCOTUS Watch: Week of Dec. 2

The Court will hear arguments in two important health-law-related case this week:

• Monday, 12/2: E-cigarettes and the FDA. The Court will consider "[w]hether the court of appeals erred in setting aside the Food and Drug Administration’s orders denying respondents’ applications for authorization to market new e-cigarette products as arbitrary and capricious." Food and Drug Administration v. Wages and White Lion Investments, LLC, No. 23-1038, reviewing the en banc decision of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which vacated the FDA's orders as arbitrary and capricious.  

• Wednesday, 12/4: Gender-affirm care for minors.
  The Court will consider "[w]hether Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow 'a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex' or to treat 'purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,' violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment." United States v. Skrmetti, No. 23-477, reviewing the decision of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the preliminary injunctions issued by the district courts and remanded them for further proceedings.

 

Washington Physicians Seek Supreme Court Injunction, Claiming 1st Amendment Right to Spread Vax Misinformation

Three physicians licensed in Washington State have disciplinary proceedings pending against them based upon their unfounded public statements about the PCR test for COVID-19 ("inaccurate"), the risk of injury or death from the COVID vaccine, the efficacy of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, and the transmissibility of COVID-19 from children.

The physicians have sued the state Attorney General (who represents the Washington Medical Commission) and the chair of the Commission in federal district court, claiming the pending investigations violate their protect speech and due-process rights under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Their suit is joined by a nonphysician who claims a constitutional right to read and listen to the physicians' misinformation.

District Judge Thomas O. Rice denied the plaintiffs' request for an injunction against the state's enforcement proceedings and granted the state's motion to dismiss the suit for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted (Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6)). See Stockton et al v. Ferguson et al, No. 2:2024cv00071 (E.D. Wash., May 22 2024). The judge ruled that, because the state had not (yet) taken any action against the physician plaintiffs, "Plaintiffs have not shown that they are impeded from otherwise accessing this information, or that Drs. Eggleston and Siler’s speech has been or will likely be chilled by the Commission’s actions." Because the plaintiffs they had not (yet) suffered and were not likely to suffer any harm to a claimed constitutional right, their case was not ripe for judicial consideration. More than that, the judge found  plaintiffs' challenge to the Commission's ability to be completely wrong-headed. The judge ruled that "medical board disciplinary proceedings clearly implicate an important state interest in ensuring adequate healthcare."

On appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, plaintiffs asked for an injunction against the state's enforcement proceedings while their appeal was pending. The Court denied their motion, and on Monday the plaintiffs (represented by, among others, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) filed an application with the Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit, Justice Elena Kagan, against seeking an injunction against the state. Significantly, they asked Justice Kagan not to decide their application but instead to circulate it to the entire court. Stockton et al. v. Ferguson et al., No. 24a440 (filed Oct. 30, 2024), Application at 1.

The plaintiffs' position is clear: "Public speech does not lose its constitutional protection from government action simply because it is uttered by a healthcare professional, even if it is at odds with medical orthodoxy." Id. at 4. The district court's opinion, however, has the better argument:

[T]he Commission may fully regulate professional conduct of physicians licensed to practice in this state.  States may regulate professional conduct, even though that conduct incidentally involves speech.Tingley v. Ferguson, 47 F.4th 1055, 1074 (9th Cir. 2022).  “[C]onduct may indicate unfitness to practice medicine if it raises reasonable concerns that the individual may abuse the status of being a physician in such a way as to harm members of the public, or if it lowers the standing of the medical profession in the public's eyes.”  Haley v. Med. Disciplinary Bd., 117 Wash. 2d 720, 733 (1991).  The Commission’s regulation of medical professionals does not violate the First Amendment.  Accordingly, Plaintiffs’ First Amendment facial challenges or as applied challenges to the Commission’s authority must fail.

COVID-19 misinformation constitutes a clear and present threat to public health and safety. You can read more about it here:

• U.S. Surgeon General: "Health Misinformation" (“Health misinformation is a serious threat to public health. It can cause confusion, sow mistrust, harm people’s health, and undermine public health efforts.”)
• Mayo Clinic, "Debunking COVID-19 myths" (comprehensive collection of myths and why they are wrong)
• Frank Otto, Penn Medicine News, "COVID-19 Misinformation: The Flip Side of ‘Knowledge is Power’" ("An early study estimated that one rumor, which had to do with drinking highly-concentrated alcohol-based cleaning products as a 'cure' for COVID-19, led to more than 5,800 people being hospitalized (with 800 dying) from January through March of 2020 alone")

More later. Meanwhile, Kelsey Reichmann at the Courthouse News Service is doing a good job of following the Stockton case and explaining what's going on.

SCOTUS Oral Argument Today

Just a quick addendum to my Friday listing of healthcare-related cases on the current SCOTUS docket. This morning the Justices heard oral argument in Advocate Christ Medical Center v. Becerra, No. 23-715. The question presented (and accepted by the Court as defining the scope of their review) is a dry-sounding issue of statutory interpretation: "Does the phrase 'entitled . . . to benefits,' used twice in the same sentence of the Medicare Act, mean the same thing for Medicare part A and SSI, such that it includes all who meet basic program-eligibility criteria, whether or not benefits are actually received."

Is this technical issue worth more than a minute of our time? Well, yes, it is. I point you to an excellent article in Axios by Maya Goldman. A few key points from her piece:

• Over 200 hospitals joined this case as petitioners. This is probably not a record number of parites joining together to seek review, but it's still a lot!
• Why does issue mean so much to so many hospitals? Because an answer to the question that favors the hospitals will increase their Disproportionate Share payments -- a reimbursement bump to reflect the higher average cost of treating low-income patients -- by about $1.5 billion.

As Sen. Everett Dirksen (probably never) famously said (though it is often misattributed to him*): "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money." Enough to get the attention of nine Justices of the Supreme Court for an hour on Election Day. Oral argument audio should be posted later today.

_________________________________________________

* https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Everett_Dirksen. The New Yale Book of Quotations (2021) cites to a quotation from the Jan. 19, 1938 New York Times "Topics of the Times" column: "Well, now, about this new budget. It's a billion here and a billion there, and by and by it begins to mount up into money."

SCOTUS Update: Health-Related Cases on the Docket for the October 2024 Term

Here are a handful of cases of potential significance (case name links to SCOTUSBlog; case numbers link to Supreme Court's docket):

Firearm Regulation

Garland v. VanDerStok, No. 23-852 [Argued: 10.8.2024]
Issue(s): (1) Whether “a weapon parts kit that is designed to or may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive” under 27 C.F.R. § 478.11 is a “firearm” regulated by the Gun Control Act of 1968; and (2) whether “a partially complete, disassembled, or nonfunctional frame or receiver” that is “designed to or may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to function as a frame or receiver” under 27 C.F.R. § 478.12(c) is a “frame or receiver” regulated by the act.

Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, No. 23-1141 [No argument date yet]
Issue(s): (1) Whether the production and sale of firearms in the United States is the proximate cause of alleged injuries to the Mexican government stemming from violence committed by drug cartels in Mexico; and (2) whether the production and sale of firearms in the United States amounts to “aiding and abetting” illegal firearms trafficking because firearms companies allegedly know that some of their products are unlawfully trafficked.

Medicare

Advocate Christ Medical Center v. Becerra, No. 23-715 [Argued: 11.5.2024]
Issue(s): Whether the phrase “entitled ... to benefits,” used twice in the same sentence of the Medicare Act, means the same thing for Medicare part A and Supplemental Social Security benefits, such that it includes all who meet basic program eligibility criteria, whether or not benefits are actually received.

Medicare Part D: See Mulready case, below

Medicaid, Affordable Care Act

See Crouch case, below (Transgender Health Care)

FDA: E-cigarettes

Food and Drug Administration v. Wages and White Lion Investments, LLC, No. 23-1038 [Set for argument: 12.2.2024]
Issue(s): Whether the court of appeals erred in setting aside the Food and Drug Administration’s orders denying respondents’ applications for authorization to market new e-cigarette products as arbitrary and capricious.

Transgender Health Care

U.S. v. Skrmetti, No. 23-477 [Set for argument: 12.4.2024]
Issue(s): Whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,” violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Cert. petition pending: Crouch v. Anderson, No. 24-90
Issues: (1) Whether West Virginia violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment by declining to cover surgical treatments for gender dysphoria; and (2) whether West Virginia violated the Medicaid Act and the Affordable Care Act by declining to cover surgical treatments for gender dysphoria.

Disability Discrimination/ADA

Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida, No. 23-997 [Set for argument: 1.13.2025]
Issue(s): Whether, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a former employee — who was qualified to perform her job and who earned post-employment benefits while employed — loses her right to sue over discrimination with respect to those benefits solely because she no longer holds her job.

ERISA

Cunningham v. Cornell University, No. 23-1007 [Set for argument: 1.22.2025]
Issue(s): Whether a plaintiff can state a claim by alleging that a plan fiduciary engaged in a transaction constituting a furnishing of goods, services, or facilities between the plan and a party in interest, as proscribed by 29 U.S.C. § 1106(a)(1)(C), or whether a plaintiff must plead and prove additional elements and facts not contained in the provision’s text. Note: This case involves a retirement plan, not a health-insurance plan. I've included it here because the case is based upon an alleged violation of a plan fiduciary's statutory duty and is equally applicable to pension plans and health plans.

Cert. petition pending: Mulready v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, No. 23-1213
Issues: (1) Whether the Employee Retirement Income Security Act preempts state laws that regulate pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) by preventing them from cutting off rural patients’ access, steering patients to PBM-favored pharmacies, excluding pharmacies willing to accept their terms from preferred networks, and overriding state discipline of pharmacists; and (2) whether Medicare Part D preempts state laws that limit the conditions PBMs may place on pharmacies’ participation in their preferred networks. Note: The Court has requested a brief from the Solicitor General.

Abortion/First Amendment

Cert. petition pending: Turco v. City of Englewood, New Jersey, No. 23-1189
Issues: (1) Whether the City of Englewood’s speech-free buffer zones, including zones outside an abortion clinic, violate the First Amendment; and (2) whether the court should overrule Hill v. Colorado. Distributed for the third time for Conference of 11/8/2024.

Note: The Court has denied review in a Texas case that raised the issue whether the state's restrictive abortion law violates federal EMTALA law. Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and Human Services v. Texas,, No. 23-10246. Late in the October 2023 Term, the Court declined to review two cases out of Idaho that raised the same issue. Moyle v. United States, No. 23-726; Idaho v. United States, No. 23-727.

Texas AG Sues Pediatrician for Providing Gender-Affirming Treatment

Last week Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Dr. May Lau, a Dallas pediatrician and assistant professor at UT-Southwestern Medical School, for violating Texas's statutory ban on gender-affirming care for persons under the age of 18. Here are some helpful links, ending with links to a relevant U.S. Supreme Court case that will be argued in December:

1. A few newspapers have picked up this story (WaPo, NY Times, Dallas Morning News), all behind a paywall except for this one: The Texas Tribune (Oct. 17, 2024). There is also free coverage from NBC News, CNN, and KERA News (NPR affiliate in Dallas).

2. The AG's complaint is on his official website here. The essence of the complaint is:

a. Dr. Lau provided gender-affirming care to a minor, and

b. She misrepresented the nature of her treatment, allegedly (1) to cover up the medical rationale for testosterone therapy and (2) to secure insurance coverage for the treatments.

 3. The Texas law that provides the basis for the AG's lawsuit is HB 14 (eff. September 1, 2023). It is codified in various places in the Texas Code, e.g.:

a. § 62.151, Health and Safety Code: (g)  The child health plan may not provide coverage for services prohibited by Section 161.702 that are intended to transition a child's biological sex as determined by the child's sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous profiles. 

b. § 161.702, Health and Safety Code: PROHIBITED PROVISION OF GENDER TRANSITIONING OR GENDER REASSIGNMENT PROCEDURES AND TREATMENTS TO CERTAIN CHILDREN. For the purpose of transitioning a child's biological sex as determined by the sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous profiles of the child or affirming the child's perception of the child's sex if that perception is inconsistent with the child's biological sex, a physician or health care provider may not knowingly:

               (1)  perform a surgery that sterilizes the child,

  including:

                     (A)  castration;

                     (B)  vasectomy;

                     (C)  hysterectomy;

                     (D)  oophorectomy;

                     (E)  metoidioplasty;

                     (F)  orchiectomy;

                     (G)  penectomy;

                     (H)  phalloplasty; and

                     (I)  vaginoplasty;

               (2)  perform a mastectomy;

               (3)  provide, prescribe, administer, or dispense any of the following prescription drugs that induce transient or permanent infertility:

                     (A)  puberty suppression or blocking prescription drugs to stop or delay normal puberty;

                     (B)  supraphysiologic doses of testosterone to females; or

                     (C)  supraphysiologic doses of estrogen to males; or

               (4)  remove any otherwise healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue. 

c. Sec. 161.704.  PROHIBITED USE OF PUBLIC MONEY.***

d. Sec. 161.705.  PROHIBITED STATE HEALTH PLAN REIMBURSEMENT.***

e.   Sec. 161.706.  ATTORNEY GENERAL ENFORCEMENT. (a) If the attorney general has reason to believe that a person is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a violation of Section 161.702, the attorney general may bring an action to enforce this subchapter to restrain or enjoin the person from committing, continuing to commit, or repeating the violation.***

4. In Texas v. Loe (No. 23-0697, June 28, 2024) the Texas Supreme Court reversed the trial court's preliminary injunction against enforcement of HB 14, concluding:

The trial court concluded that the law likely violates the Texas Constitution, and it temporarily enjoined the law’s enforcement. On direct appeal of the temporary injunction, we do not attempt to identify the most appropriate treatment for a child suffering from gender dysphoria.  That is a complicated question hotly debated by medical experts and policy makers throughout this country and the world.  And, to be sure, neither this Court nor any party to this proceeding suggests that children suffering from gender dysphoria are undeserving of treatment and support.  The reverse is obviously true: they, like all children, deserve the most appropriate treatment together with support, love, and empathy.  We emphasize, though, that the only question we are called upon to answer is a distinctly legal one: whether plaintiffs in this case have established a probable right to relief on their claims that the Legislature’s prohibition of certain treatments for children suffering from gender dysphoria violates the Texas Constitution. 

We conclude that plaintiffs failed to meet that burden.  We have said—and we reaffirm today—that fit parents have a fundamental interest in directing the care, custody, and control of their children free from government interference.  But we have never defined the source or precise scope of this interest, and our precedents make clear that this interest is not absolute.  Indeed, we have never held that a fit parent’s interest in caring for her child free from government interference, though weighty, triggers heightened scrutiny of every statute that restricts any asserted right connected to that interest.  When developments in our society raise new and previously unconsidered questions about the appropriate line between parental autonomy on the one hand and the Legislature’s authority to regulate the practice of medicine on the other, our Constitution does not render the Legislature powerless to provide answers. 

For the reasons explained below, we conclude the Legislature made a permissible, rational policy choice to limit the types of available medical procedures for children, particularly in light of the relative nascency of both gender dysphoria and its various modes of treatment and the Legislature’s express constitutional authority to regulate the practice of medicine.  We therefore conclude the statute does not unconstitutionally deprive parents of their rights or physicians or health care providers of an alleged property right in their medical licenses or claimed right to occupational freedom.  We also conclude the law does not unconstitutionally deny or abridge equality under the law because of sex or any other characteristic asserted by plaintiffs.  We therefore reverse and vacate the trial court’s order (footnote deleted and emphasis added).

  5. In the United States Supreme Court, a very similar Tennessee law will be debated in December. Tenn. SB 1 (eff. July 1, 2023) codified as Tenn. Code § 68-33-103) broadly prohibits medical or surgical treatments for minors with gender dysphoria. A similar law was enacted in Kentucky. Two district courts granted preliminary injunctions to block enforcement of the laws while challenges were being considered in their courts. On appeal from those decisions, the Sixth Circuit -- in a wide-ranging opinion -- reversed the two district courts, concluding that all the usual factors related to injunctions -- including the likelihood of prevailing on the merits of the challenge -- favored denial of the challengers' motions. See L.W. v. Skrmetti (6th Cir., Nos. 23-5600 and 23-5609, Sept. 28, 2023). The challenge in the Supreme Court is limited to the issue presented by the petition for certiorari: "Whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1 (SB1), which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow 'a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex' or to treat 'purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the  minor’s sex and asserted identity,' Tenn. Code Ann.  § 68-33-103(a)(1), violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment" (emphasis added). 

6. According to the 6th Circuit, 35 states have legislated on this subject, with 21 states prohibiting medical or surgical treatments (or both) and 14 states passing laws protecting patients who seeks such treatment. 

7. My old firm, Covington & Burling, filed an amicus brief in support of the challengers and urging reversal of the 6th Circuit on behalf of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and 23 additional medical and health care associations and societies. Additional amicus briefs in support of the challengers were filed by the American Psychological Association and the American Bar Association and literally scores of other amici including many in support of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

SCOTUS and Health Agencies (Part 2)

The totally excellent health-policy journal, Health Affairs, posted an analysis of the likely impact of the death of the Chevron doctrine on some hotly (or at least frequently) litigated federal health-law issues: "Supreme Court Overrules Chevron Doctrine: Ripple Effects Across Health Care," by Zachary Baron et al. (I have no idea if this article is available only to subscribers (like me) or is free to the public. The latter, I hope.)

The authors start with Chevron itself, a useful three-paragraph introduction especially for anyone -- lawyers and non-lawyers alike -- with limited or no familiarity with Chevron deference.

After that, the authors focus on six areas of possible impact as a result of the Court's decision in the Loper Bright Enterprises case (discussed by this blog on July 7):

1. Nondiscrimination Protections. This includes "the battle over the meaning of 'sex' under Section 1557 [of the Affordable Care Act], which prohibits discrimination in health care on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, age, and sex."
2. Medicare Reimbursement. An early test might be a case currently pending before the Supreme Court for its 2024 Term: Advocate Christ Medical Center v. Becerra. As the authors point out, there are few statutes that rival the Medicare statute in complexity, and lower courts often decide these reimbursement disputes by relying on Chevron: If the statutory provision is unclear (which is often the case), the courts defer to any reasonable interpretation by HHS/CMS. That was the case in Advocate Christ Medical Center. If I had to guess, this case might be remanded for reconsideration in light of Loper Bright, but there will be others!
3. Medicare Advantage. Noting that "federal agencies often face hurdles to accomplishing their regulatory goals separate and aside from Chevron, . . . the path forward for litigation over the MA program following Chevron being overruled is not clear." Not necessarily good news for "more than half, or 51 percent, of the eligible Medicare population."
4. Medicare Drug Negotiation. BigPharma has been fighting this program since before its enactment, bringing "a slew of constitutional, statutory, and agency authority claims against the negotiation program, [and] industry has lost on the substance of all their legal arguments." Will Loper Bright help the drug makers in future court challenges to the program. The authors think not.
5. Private Health Insurance. In the more than 2,000 legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act and its volumes of regulations, Chevron has played a role in the final rulings of many cases but far from all. The authors look at a couple of cases involving the No Surprises Act that are currently pending before the Fifth Circuit. The authors conclude: "Now, the Administration and health care providers are sparring about the fallout from the Loper Bright decision and how it will impact the pending Fifth Circuit decisions. Yet with the current Fifth Circuit taking such a strict approach to statutory interpretation even when Chevron remained on the books, the Administration faces a challenging environment there."
6. FDA. Chevron deference has been "critical to allow FDA to use its expertise to administer very complex and technical programs that widely touch industry and health care consumers alike. . . . Overturning Chevron could open the floodgates to challenges of a wide variety of FDA regulations." 

The authors conclude:

This revised legal regulatory landscape opens up new opportunities to challenge regulations and other agency actions by future administrations. These challenges may affect the implementation of agency regulations addressing consumer protections, access to health care services, women’s rights, and other measures that impact health care costs. . . . The level of disruption remains uncertain, and may be felt unevenly, but the trend line remains clear: Courts more than ever will have the final say on complex policy decisions that affect the health of millions of Americans."

Oh, happy day. {sigh} 

SCOTUS and Health Agencies

The New England Journal of Medicine today posted a Perspective piece (apparently free, at least for now) by Rachel Sachs and Erin Fuse Brown: "Supreme Power — The Loss of Judicial Deference to Health Agencies." I won't go into the details of the recent Supreme Court opinions, but I discussed them in an earlier post here. The cause for concern is the Court's overruling of the 40-year-old Chevron case, which obligated federal courts to defer to reasonable agency interpretations of federal statutes that were silent or ambiguous with respect to the issue in question. 

The Court was vague about how lower courts should decide such cases in the future. "Deference" is out; apparently "respect" -- at least when Congress has delegated interpretive authority to the agency -- is in, but what does "respect" mean? Without guidance from the Court, "the implications . . . are highly uncertain and potentially vast. The decision could open the door to more, and broader, challenges to actions taken by health agencies, such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)."

If this sounds like a mess, it is exactly that. Eliminating a deferential standard of review will encourage litigation by opponents of the health-related decisions of agencies such as CMS (which runs Medicare and Medicaid) and the FDA (and EPA, the Public Health Service, NIH, etc.). And the final word on often technical scientific public-health issues will be decided by generalist judges. I hesitate to quote myself, but I'll make an exeption:

Consider for a moment that many of these disagreements will concern technical, scientific, or policy expertise that agencies typically have in abundance and that courts usually lack. Justice Gorsuch illustrated just such a contrast in an opinion in the past two weeks in which he confused nitrogen oxide (a pollutant that was the subject of EPA regulation at issue in Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 23A349 [Opinion: Gorsuch; decided 6.27.2024]) with nitrous oxide ("laughing gas"). Unfortunately, this is no laughing matter.

SCOTUS Kneecaps the Fourth Branch; Effect on Healthcare Regulations Is Uncertain

In the final ten days of the just-concluded Supreme Court Term, SCOTUS delivered two gut punches and an upper-cut amounting to at least a TKO to federal administrative agencies. Sometimes it's only the independent agencies that are called the "fourth branch of government," and other times the term refers to all federal agencies. The underlying rationale for the term is that most agencies exercise power closely resembling the powers under Articles I (rule-making), II (enforcement), and III (adjudication) of the U.S. Constitution. This concentration of power in the hands of unelected government officials has been a matter of concern for many observers and for others a welcome innovation to meet the evolving needs -- technical, scientific, economic, and political -- of our society. (Count me as having a foot planted in both camps.)

In an email message to subscribers, WaPo editor and columnist Ruth Marcus had this to say about the three decisions:

Lost in the immunity news was the last step in this term's anti-regulatory trifecta. First, the court made enforcement harder, ruling that agencies seeking civil fines can't use in-house judges but have to go to federal court for jury trials.[1] Next, the court made regulation harder, overturning the doctrine of Chevron deference.[2] Monday, the court junked the usual six-year deadline and said regulations can be challenged at any time by someone newly affected.[3] Taken together, as Justice Jackson noted, this means "chaos."

My annotations:

[1] Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, No. 22-859 [Opinion: Roberts, C.J.; decided 6.27.2024; 6-3] 
Held: "When the SEC seeks civil penalties against a defendant for securities fraud, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant to a jury trial rather than adjudication by an administrative law judge."

From Justice Sotomayor's dissent:

Throughout our Nation’s history, Congress has authorized agency adjudicators to find violations of statutory obligations and award civil penalties to the Government as an injured sovereign. The Constitution, this Court has said, does not require these civil-penalty claims belonging to the Government to be tried before a jury in federal district court. Congress can instead assign them to an agency for initial adjudication, subject to judicial review.  This Court has blessed that practice repeatedly, declaring it “the ‘settled judicial construction’” all along; indeed, “‘from the beginning.’”  Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm’n, 430 U. S. 442, 460 (1977).  Unsurprisingly, Congress has taken this Court’s word at face value. It has enacted more than 200 statutes authorizing dozens of agencies to impose civil penalties for violations of statutory obligations.  Congress had no reason to anticipate the chaos today’s majority would unleash after all these years. (emphasis added) 

Today, for the very first time, this Court holds that Congress violated the Constitution by authorizing a federal agency to adjudicate a statutory right that inheres in the Government in its sovereign capacity, also known as a public right. According to the majority, the Constitution requires the Government to seek civil penalties for federalsecurities fraud before a jury in federal court.  The nature of the remedy is, in the majority’s view, virtually dispositive. That is plainly wrong. This Court has held, without exception, that Congress has broad latitude to create statutory obligations that entitle the Government to civil penalties, and then to assign their enforcement outside the regular courts of law where there are no juries. 

[2] Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, No. 22-451 [Opinion: Roberts, C.J.; decided 6.28.2024; 6-3]
Held: "The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous; Chevron is overruled." Notice: Another opinion by the Chief Justice that overrules a sturdy precedent that has long been vilified by conservatives.

Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Res. Def. Council is was a 40-year-old mainstay of federal administrative law. It recognized that statutes may contain silences or ambiguities, whether intentionally or not, that need to be resolved by agencies as part of their enforcement duties. Chevron stated that in such cases, if the agency interpretation is reasonable, federal courts should defer to the agency, even if the court would not have adopted the agency's reasonable interpretation if it were writing on a clean slate.

In Loper Bright, the Court ruled that such deference violates § 706 of the federal Administrative Procedure Act (and intimated that it was unconstitutional as either a violation of separation of powers or a violation of the nondelegation doctrine). Section 706 provides that a "reviewing court shall decide all relevant questions of law." It doesn't say how a reviewing should go about this task, and (imho) it takes a singular lack of imagination to conclude that deferring to a reasonable interpretation by an expert agency isn't a a way of deciding relevant questions of law. At the same time, it take an audacious imagination to conclude, as the majority does, that affected parties and federal judges will know the difference between "respect" for agency interpretations (which is okay) and deference to agency interpretations (which is not).

The result of the Court's overruling of Chevron is that federal judges at the trial, appeals, and Supreme Court level, are now free to substitute their preferred interpretation of Congressional silence or ambiguity in place of an agency's interpretation. 

Consider for a moment that many of these disagreements will concern technical, scientific, or policy expertise that agencies typically have in abundance and that courts usually lack. Justice Gorsuch illustrated just such a contrast in an opinion in the past two weeks in which he confused nitrogen oxide (a pollutant that was the subject of EPA regulation at issue in Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 23A349 [Opinion: Gorsuch; decided 6.27.2024]) with nitrous oxide ("laughing gas"). Unfortunately, this is no laughing matter.

Just a comment -- for the time being -- on the implications for healthcare regulations. This industry may be the most regulated in the country. The Department of Health and Human Services -- along with its "subsidiary" agencies: the Food and Drug Administration, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services,  Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Public Health Service, Indian Health Service, Office of Civil Rights, National Institutes of Health, etc. -- issues tons of regulations, opinions, and guidance documents each year. The statutes it enforces are among the most complex ever conceived by Congress, and they are replete with ambiguities and critical gaps, all of which require the HHS agencies in the first instance to interpret and enforce. If reasonable agency interpretations are subject to second-guessing by generalist judges -- not to mention politically-partial generalist judges -- expect a lot of chaos.

[3] Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, No. 22-1008 [Opinion: Barrett, .J.; decided 7.1.2024; 6-3]
Held: "An Administrative Procedures Act claim does not accrue for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a) — the default 6-year statute of limitations applicable to suits against the United States — until the plaintiff is injured by final agency action."

The majority opinion disagrees with the decisions of eight circuit courts of appeals (a majority). The lower courts ruled that an agency's promulgation of a final rule constitutes "final agency action," which starts the six-year clock running for facial challenges to the rule. After that, only litigants who can show that they were injured in some specific way as a result of the application of an agency's rule can challenge the rule "as applied" to them.

The majority's position on when a cause of action "accrues" under the APA may be the most radical of the three decisions Ruth Marcus identified above. As Justice Jackson wrote in her dissenting opinion:

The Court’s baseless conclusion means that there is effectively no longer any limitations period for lawsuits that challenge agency regulations on their face. Allowing every new commercial entity to bring fresh facial challenges to long-existing regulations is profoundly destabilizing for both Government and businesses.  It also allows well-heeled litigants to game the system by creating new entities or finding new plaintiffs whenever they blow past the statutory deadline. 

The majority refuses to accept the straightforward, commonsense, and singularly plausible reading of the limitations statute that Congress wrote. . . .

Justice Jackson concludes with an apt epitaph that applies to all three of these administrative-procedure cases -- 

Settlement Off in Bankruptcy Case Involving Purdue

Let's set the stage with the first paragraph from Thursday's majority opinion in the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy case:

The opioid epidemic represents “one of the largest public health crises in this nation’s history.” In re Purdue Pharma L. P., 69 F. 4th 45, 56 (CA2 2023).  Between 1999 and 2019, approximately 247,000 people in the United States died from prescription-opioid overdoses. In re Purdue Pharma L. P., 635 B. R. 26, 44 (SDNY 2021).  The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that the opioid epidemic has cost the country between $53 and $72 billion annually. Ibid. 

The history in this case is a little complicated, but the Syllabus's description can be boiled down to this:

Owned and controlled by the Sackler family, Purdue began marketing OxyContin, an opioid prescription pain reliever, in the mid-1990s.  After Purdue earned billions of dollars in sales on the drug, . . .thousands of lawsuits followed.  Fearful that the litigation would eventually impact them directly, the Sacklers initiated a “milking program,” withdrawing from Purdue approximately $11 billion—roughly 75% of the firm’s total assets—over the next decade. Those withdrawals left Purdue in a significantly weakened financial state.  And in 2019, Purdue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  

During that process, the Sacklers proposed to return approximately $4.3 billion to Purdue’s bankruptcy estate.  In exchange, the Sacklers sought a judicial order releasing the family from all opioid-related claims and enjoining victims from bringing such claims against them in the future.  The bankruptcy court approved Purdue’s proposed reorganization plan, including its provisions concerning the Sackler discharge.

The Court held (5-4) "that the bankruptcy code does not authorize a release and injunction that, as part of a plan of reorganization under Chapter 11, effectively seeks to discharge claims against a nondebtor without the consent of affected claimants." Meaning? 

1. The Sackler family's assets aren't protected, which seems only fair since they were plundered from Purdue in the first place. That's the good news. 

2. But that's the only good news, and it's not really good news at all, not if you were one of the claimants who stood to receive compensation pursuant to the settlement agreement. The truly awful news is that the settlement agreement, which was going to pay out billions to the claimants, is now kaput. This is the opening paragraph of Justice Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion:

Today’s decision is wrong on the law and devastating for more than 100,000 opioid victims and their families.  The Court’s decision rewrites the text of the U. S. Bankruptcy Code and restricts the long-established authority of bankruptcy courts to fashion fair and equitable relief for mass-tort victims.  As a result, opioid victims are now deprived of the substantial monetary recovery that they long fought for and finally secured after years of litigation.

Does EMTALA Require Medically-Appropriate Abortion Even in the Absence of a State Exception for Emergency Medical Conditions? [Updated June 27]

One of the most eagerly awaited opinions yet to be released by SCOTUS is -- or was (see below) -- Moyle v. United States, Docket No. 23-726. The question presented is "Whether the Supreme Court should stay the order by the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho enjoining the enforcement of Idaho’s Defense of Life Act, which prohibits abortions unless necessary to save the life of the mother, on the ground that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act preempts it."

The federal district court for Idaho ruled that EMTALA pre-empts state law and requires hospitals to provide stabilizing medical care for emergency conditions, which federal law defines more broadly than life-threatening conditions.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declined to stay the lower-court injunction against enforcement of Idaho's law pending appeal from the district court's ruling. 

This set up the appeal to SCOTUS. Merits briefs were filed and the case was argued in April. With the Supreme Court's term winding down, Moyle was one of the most anticipated cases left on the Court's docket, especially after a Fifth Circuit decision that rejected the EMTALA pre-emption argument (Texas v, Becerra, No. 23-10246, 5th Cir., Jan. 2, 2024).

SCOTUSBlog (free access) reports that Bloomberg (possible paywall) reports that earlier today, inadvertently and only briefly, SCOTUS posted an opinion in Moyle that dismisses the case on the ground that review was improvidently granted. Assuming no change after the premature release, this will keep the 9th Circuit's refusal to stay the district court's injunction pending appeal. 

Update: On Thursday, June 27, SCOTUS released the official order and concurring and dissenting opinions:

A. The effect of this order is to allow the district court's injunction against enforcement of the restrictive Idaho law, which means doctors and hospitals may provide EMTALA-mandated stabilizing treatment -- including abortions, as needed -- when continuing the pregnancy represents a threat to the pregnant person's health. Eventually the 9th Circuit will decide this case on the merits (assuming there's no problem with standing), the losing party will ask SCOTUS to review, and SCOTUS will decide in its discretion whether to grant the request.

B. A majority of the Court is unlikely to say this, but it's obvious that they view the Court's January actions to be a mistake. Which actions? All of them:

• Entering a stay that had the effect of negating EMTALA and allowing the restrictive Idaho law to be enforced;
• Skipping over the usual order of things, which would typically allow the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits before deciding whether to grant review; and
• Treating the petitioner's request for a stay as the equivalent of a petition for certiorari and then granting the "petition."

C. Some of the Justices weren't shy about calling out other Justices, either for entering a stay in the first place or for now changing their minds about the stay. There were lots of opinions, and they don't conform to the usual 6-3 lineup along party lines:

1. Opinion per curiam. 
2. Kagan, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Sotomayor, J., joined, and in which Jackson, J., joined as to Part II. 
3. Barrett, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kavanaugh, J., joined. 
4. Jackson, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. 
5. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined, and Gorsuch, J., joined as to Parts I and II.