The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to restrict judges' authority to invalidate federal regulations nationwide, seeking a second major limit on judicial remedies after winning curbs on nationwide injunctions last year.
The Justice Department's Oct. 14 petition argues that courts should generally protect only the plaintiffs who successfully challenge a regulation, rather than set the rule aside for everyone. A ruling in its favor could allow agencies to continue enforcing provisions against others even after a court finds them unlawful.
The Supreme Court "should return the lower courts to their proper role under the APA," the department said, referring to the Administrative Procedure Act, the 1946 law governing federal agencies and judicial review of their actions.
The justices have not agreed to hear the appeal. Responses are due Dec. 14, and the court is expected to consider whether to take the case early next year.
The dispute concerns a remedy known as universal vacatur. Courts have long interpreted the APA's authority to set aside unlawful agency action as allowing them to invalidate regulations nationwide. That differs from an injunction, which directs government officials to stop taking specified actions.
In Trump v. CASA, decided June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court restricted universal injunctions, generally limiting relief to those involved in a lawsuit. It left unresolved whether the APA separately permits courts to remove unlawful regulations from operation nationwide.
Aditya Bamzai, an administrative law expert at the University of Virginia, told Reuters that limiting that authority "would give more flexibility to the executive branch." Agencies could continue applying rules to people outside the litigation, potentially for years while legal challenges proceed, he said.
The case comes from a challenge by Texas doctors, air-ambulance providers and other healthcare interests to regulations implementing legislation against surprise medical bills that Trump signed during his first term.
The providers argued that the regulations violated the APA and improperly depressed their insurance reimbursements. On Aug. 11, the New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld nationwide invalidation of challenged provisions while reversing other portions of the lower court's ruling.
The administration is not asking the Supreme Court to uphold those provisions as lawful. Its appeal instead challenges the scope of the remedy.
The consequences could reach well beyond medical billing. Plaintiffs have invoked the APA to contest Trump administration policies involving immigration status, research funding and citizenship verification, among other matters.
Support for broad APA remedies also crosses party lines. Texas, Florida and other mostly Republican-led states previously urged the Fifth Circuit to preserve the law's effectiveness, describing it as an important protection against federal agencies encroaching on state authority.
Ronald Levin, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, told Reuters that nationwide invalidation is sometimes necessary to maintain consistent regulatory standards, particularly for food safety and automobile manufacturing.
"When an agency adopts a rule that has been held to be unlawful, sometimes the only sensible solution is to wipe it off the books," Levin said.
The Biden administration sought similar limits in a 2023 immigration case brought by Texas and Louisiana. The Supreme Court ruled for Biden on other grounds without resolving the broader question of nationwide APA remedies.
