One Judge, Whole Country: Trump DOJ Asks SCOTUS to End Universal Agency Vacatur

Official presidential portrait of President Donald J. Trump. White House photo / U.S. government work, public domain.

The Supreme Court already told district judges they cannot freeze presidential policy for the whole country with a single nationwide injunction. Now Solicitor General D. John Sauer is asking the justices to close the back door: the "default" practice of wiping an agency rule off the books for everyone under the Administrative Procedure Act.

On Oct. 14, the Justice Department docketed a petition for certiorari in Department of Health and Human Services v. Texas Medical Association, No. 26-491. The question presented is whether the APA, at 5 U.S.C. § 706(2), authorizes courts to enter universal vacatur of agency rules held unlawful — and, if so, in what circumstances. Respondents' response is due Nov. 13, according to the Supreme Court docket.

After CASA, the next fight over one-judge power

Two Terms ago, the Court rejected universal injunctions in Trump v. CASA, Inc. The petition leans hard on that holding. Sauer argues that "set aside" in § 706(2) is a rule of decision for the parties before the court — not a license to erase a regulation for nonparties. Universal vacatur, the filing says, is a "variation on th[at] theme" of the nationwide injunctions the Court already curtailed.

That framing matters for Hoosiers who watched years of forum-shopped lawsuits stall immigration, energy, and regulatory moves from a single courthouse. If one plaintiff can still win a national "vacatur" by default, the CASA win becomes a paper tiger. The petition spells out the asymmetry: plaintiffs need one victory; the government must win everywhere or lose the rule for the whole country.

How a billing fight became a separation-of-powers case

The underlying dispute is not abstract. Providers and air-ambulance firms challenged No Surprises Act rules on how insurers calculate the "qualifying payment amount" for out-of-network care. A Texas federal court vacated parts of the rule. The Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc on Aug. 11, kept universal vacatur as the circuit's "default" APA remedy and put the burden on the government to prove a narrower fix — a posture Sauer asks the High Court to reject.

Judge James C. Ho concurred while flagging the constitutional problem: universal vacatur "provides relief for non-parties as well as parties" and "challenges our basic conception of the judicial power under Article III," echoing the same concerns that drove the CASA majority. Circuit precedent, he noted, still pointed the other way — which is why only the Supreme Court can reset the rule.

What the administration is asking for

The petition does not ask the justices to reopen every No Surprises Act merits fight. It tees up the remedy question alone so briefing can focus on whether "set aside" means disregard an unlawful rule in the case at hand, or nullify it for the world. Sauer cites Sections 702 and 703 of the APA — the provisions that preserve equitable limits and list traditional remedies such as injunctions and declaratory judgments — and argues Congress never buried a "remedial superpower" in the "Scope of review" section.

Coverage of the filing landed this week in The Hill and Law360, which cast the petition as a major test of how far lower courts may go when checking executive agencies. The full petition PDF is on the Court's site.

For a White House that already forced the Court to rein in nationwide injunctions, this is the logical sequel: stop letting "vacatur" do the same work under a different label. Whether the justices take the case will decide if one district judge — or one regional circuit — can still write national administrative law from a single docket.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.