Griffin v. HM Florida-Orl, LLC
The Supreme Court refused to pause a lower-court order that blocked Florida's law making it a crime for restaurants and bars to let children into sexually explicit live shows, leaving the order in effect — and covering all businesses, not just the restaurant that sued — while the appeal continues.
Justice Kavanaugh's statement flagged a significant unresolved question: whether district courts can ever block a law's enforcement against people who never filed suit. He called it an important issue but said this case was the wrong vehicle to decide it.
How it got here: A federal district court blocked Florida's law as likely unconstitutional and extended the order to non-parties; the Eleventh Circuit refused to pause that order; Florida asked the Supreme Court for a partial stay.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Florida enacted a law making it a misdemeanor for a restaurant or bar to knowingly admit a child to an "adult live performance" — defined as a sexually explicit show that would be considered obscene given the child's age. An Orlando restaurant called Hamburger Mary's sued the State, arguing the law violated the First Amendment's guarantee of free expression. The restaurant also performs drag shows. The federal district court agreed the law was likely unconstitutional and issued a broad order blocking Florida from enforcing it against anyone — not just Hamburger Mary's.
The question before the Court
Could a federal court's order blocking Florida's new law against children attending explicit live performances extend to businesses that never went to court to challenge it?
The Court's answer
No — the Court denied Florida's request to freeze part of the lower-court order while the appeal plays out. To win a stay, Florida had to show a "reasonable probability" the Supreme Court would eventually agree to hear the case if the appeals court upheld the lower court's ruling. Florida's stay application challenged only one narrow point: whether the district court had the power to block enforcement of the law against businesses that were never part of the lawsuit, not just Hamburger Mary's.
Justice Kavanaugh's statement acknowledged the non-party injunction question is genuinely important and could warrant the Court's attention in the future. But because the case arose in the context of a First Amendment overbreadth challenge — a doctrine with its own special rules about how broad a court order can be — this particular case was an "imperfect vehicle" for resolving that broader question. Without a sufficient showing that the Court would likely take the case, the stay had to be denied.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Florida's law remains blocked statewide for now, protecting all businesses — not just the restaurant that sued — from enforcement during the appeal. Separately, Kavanaugh's statement signals that the Court may eventually want to limit federal courts' power to shield non-parties from a law's enforcement, a question with wide implications for future constitutional challenges to state and federal legislation.
What changes now
The district court's injunction remains in place, meaning Florida cannot enforce the law against Hamburger Mary's or any other business while the Eleventh Circuit considers the appeal. If the Eleventh Circuit upholds the district court's First Amendment ruling, Florida could try again to limit the injunction's reach. The Supreme Court's order is temporary and leaves both the First Amendment merits and the non-party injunction question unresolved for future cases.
What this does not decide
The order says nothing about whether Florida's law restricting children at adult live performances violates the First Amendment — that question was not before the Court. It also does not resolve whether district courts generally can issue injunctions blocking a law's enforcement against businesses and people who never sued; Justice Kavanaugh explicitly left that question open for a better case.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh wrote to explain why denying the stay was correct even though the non-party injunction question is important. Because Florida's case arose in the context of a First Amendment overbreadth challenge — which has its own special rules about the breadth of court orders — it was a poor vehicle for resolving the broader question. He also distinguished the non-party injunction issue from the separate question of when courts can set aside federal agency rules under the Administrative Procedure Act.
Dissent — Justice Thomas
Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch noted without explanation that they would have granted Florida's application to stay the district court's broad injunction while the appeal proceeded.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- To obtain a stay while an appeal is pending, the party seeking the stay must satisfy several requirements, including showing a 'reasonable probability' that the Supreme Court would eventually agree to hear the case if the appeals court ruled against them. That certification-likelihood requirement is the central issue here.
- Florida did not ask the Court to weigh in on whether its law violates the First Amendment. Instead, it raised only a narrower question: whether the district court had authority to block enforcement of the law against businesses that were never parties to the lawsuit — a kind of broad, non-party injunction.
- Justice Kavanaugh's statement recognized that the power of district courts to issue injunctions protecting non-parties is an important and unsettled legal question — one distinct from the separate question of when courts can set aside agency rules under a federal statute called the Administrative Procedure Act, which expressly authorizes courts to 'hold unlawful and set aside' agency action.
- However, the non-party injunction question arises here inside a First Amendment 'overbreadth' challenge — a special doctrine that sometimes permits broader court relief than usual because laws that chill free speech can harm people beyond the immediate parties. That doctrinal complexity makes this case a poor test case for answering the general non-party injunction question cleanly.
- Because the overbreadth context would muddy any general ruling on non-party injunctions, the Court was unlikely to agree to hear this particular case on that issue. Without that required showing, Florida could not obtain a stay, and the Court denied the application.