McHenry v. Texas Top Cop Shop, Inc.
The Supreme Court paused a Texas federal district court's order that had blocked the government from enforcing a federal law, allowing enforcement to resume while a legal challenge plays out in the appeals courts.
The brief order also surfaces a broader debate about whether single district courts should be able to issue nationwide injunctions blocking federal laws in the first place.
How it got here: A federal district court in Texas issued a universal injunction on December 5, 2024, blocking enforcement of a federal law; the government applied to the Supreme Court for a stay pending the Fifth Circuit appeal.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A group of businesses, including a company called Texas Top Cop Shop, sued the federal government to block a federal law they argued was unlawful. A federal district court in Texas agreed and issued a sweeping order blocking the government from enforcing the law against anyone — not just the businesses that sued. The government (represented by the Acting Attorney General) asked the Supreme Court to put that block on hold while the appeal proceeded.
The question before the Court
Should a district court's nationwide order blocking enforcement of a federal law be paused while the government's appeal winds through the lower courts?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court paused the district court's order blocking the federal law, allowing the government to enforce it while the appeal in the Fifth Circuit plays out and, if pursued, while a petition for Supreme Court review is pending. The stay will end automatically if the Supreme Court declines to hear the case, or will last until the Supreme Court issues its final judgment if it agrees to take the case.
The per curiam order offers no written reasoning, but Justice Jackson's dissent reveals the core dispute: she would have denied the stay because the Fifth Circuit was already moving quickly on the appeal and the government had itself delayed enforcing the law for nearly four years after Congress passed it, undermining its claim of urgent need.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Businesses and individuals subject to the federal law must now comply with it while the lawsuit continues. The stay is temporary and could be undone if the Fifth Circuit or the Supreme Court ultimately rules the law unlawful. Justice Gorsuch's call to revisit whether any district court can freeze a law nationwide signals that the practice of universal injunctions may face Supreme Court review soon.
What changes now
The government may now enforce the federal law while the Fifth Circuit hears the appeal. If the Fifth Circuit rules in the government's favor, the stay becomes moot. If the government seeks Supreme Court review and the Court agrees to take the case, the stay continues until the Court issues a final ruling. The stay ends automatically if certiorari is denied. The underlying constitutional or statutory challenge to the law remains unresolved.
What this does not decide
The stay does not decide whether the federal law is constitutional or otherwise lawful — that question stays alive in the lower courts. It also does not resolve whether district courts may legally issue universal injunctions blocking enforcement against parties who never joined the lawsuit, a question Justice Gorsuch explicitly flagged as unresolved.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Gorsuch
Justice Gorsuch agreed the stay was warranted but argued the Court should take a further step and grant certiorari now to definitively resolve whether a district court has the power to issue a universal injunction — one that blocks a law against everyone in the country, not just the parties who sued. He has raised this concern in prior similar cases.
Dissent — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson would have denied the stay. She argued the government failed to show the kind of urgency required to justify the Supreme Court's intervention ahead of the normal appeals process. She noted that the Fifth Circuit had already expedited its review and that the government had voluntarily delayed enforcing the law for nearly four years — making it hard to claim the situation was now an emergency requiring immediate Supreme Court action.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Emergency stay applications are judged against a four-factor test: how likely the side seeking the stay is to win on the merits, whether it will suffer serious harm without the pause, whether the opposing party will be seriously harmed if the pause is granted, and where the public interest lies. The Court's unsigned order does not spell out its analysis, but granting the stay implies a majority found these factors favored the government.
- The government argued the district court's order — a universal injunction blocking enforcement against everyone, not just the plaintiffs who sued — was itself legally improper, giving the government a strong likely-success argument independent of the merits of the underlying law.
- Justice Jackson, dissenting, focused on the exigency factor: she argued the government had not shown the kind of urgent, serious harm that warrants the Supreme Court stepping in ahead of the normal appellate process, pointing to the Fifth Circuit's already-expedited schedule.
- Jackson also noted that the government had deferred the law's enforcement on its own for nearly four years after Congress enacted it — and presented no evidence that further short delay while the appeal ran its course would cause materially greater harm.
- Justice Gorsuch, concurring, agreed the stay was proper but argued the Court should go further and use this case to settle once and for all whether district courts have the power to issue universal injunctions — orders that block enforcement of a law against the entire country, not just the parties before the court.