Anti-injunction act – The Health Care Blog

End Gaming the Supreme Court’s ACA Review

Nov 16, 2011• 5

By Timothy Jost

On November 14, 2011, the Supreme Court decided to review a decision of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the minimum coverage requirement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as unconstitutional. The case will probably be argued before the Court in March and decided in the early summer.

Procedurally, the Court “granted certiorari.” This means that it agreed to review certain questions raised by the certiorari petitions presented by the various parties in the Florida case, including the plaintiffs who challenged the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act — 26 states, the National Federation of Independent Business, and two private individuals — and the federal government, which defended the Act’s constitutionality. The Eleventh Circuit had ruled against the federal government on the question of whether the minimum coverage requirement of the ACA is constitutional, but had ruled against the plaintiffs on all other issues.

The Supreme Court did not rule on certiorari petitions pending before it from the Virginia, Liberty University, and Thomas More cases, two of which rejected a challenge to the ACA on jurisdictional grounds and the other of which held the minimum coverage requirement to be constitutional. (The Virginia petition was not yet before the Court, as it was filed later than the others). The fact that the Court only granted petitions in the Florida case probably signals nothing about the Court’s ultimate decision, as the Florida case raises all of the issues raised by the other cases and reviewing additional cases would have merely made the case more complex administratively.

Appellate Court Upholds ACA In Opinion By Prominent Conservative Judge

Nov 9, 2011• 8

By TIMOTHY JOST

Yesterday, November 8, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia became the second federal court of appeals to uphold the constitutionality of the minimum coverage requirement of the Affordable Care Act.

To date, one federal appellate court has held the minimum coverage requirement to be unconstitutional (although severable from the remainder of the ACA), while five other appellate court decisions have held that the courts lacked jurisdiction to consider the challenge brought to them, either because the plaintiffs in the particular case had not been injured by the minimum coverage requirement or because a federal statute, the Anti-Injunction Act, denies jurisdiction.

This is a very important decision. Judge Laurence Silberman, who wrote the majority opinion upholding the statute, is a highly-respected conservative judge, appointed by President Reagan. Judge Harry T. Edwards, a Carter appointee, joined Judge Silberman in the majority. Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, another well known conservative judge appointed by George W. Bush, dissented in an opinion that was much longer than the majority opinion, but on jurisdictional grounds rather than on the merits. Kavanaugh would have held, as the Fourth Circuit did in the Liberty University case, that the Anti-Injunction Act deprives the federal courts of jurisdiction. In the course of his lengthy opinion, Judge Kavanaugh suggests that there may be prudential as well as legal reasons why the courts may want to stay out of this fight, and suggests that if there is in fact a constitutional defect with the ACA (which he does not decide), it could be easily fixed by Congress.

This decision comes down two days before the Supreme Court will consider, and quite possibly decide, whether or not to take certiorari in one or more of four other appellate court cases that have been decided in ACA challenges. Although a grant of certiorari is almost certain at this point, the D.C. Circuit’s decision, as well as the earlier opinion of Judge Jeffrey Sutton, another prominent conservative who sided with the constitutionality of the ACA in a Sixth Circuit case, will certainly be noted by the Supreme Court justices. Moreover, the media narrative that seemed to explain the district court opinions—Republican appointees strike down the law while Democratic appointees uphold it—seems again not to work for appellate court judges. It may not work for predicting the Supreme Court vote either.

The Anti-Injunction Act Complications

Sep 13, 2011• 8

By BRAD JOONDEPH

The big news from [last Friday’s] two decisions was not that Virginia lacks standing; that was a problem lurking in that case from the beginning, a nettlesome issue going all the way back to Judge Hudson’s first opinion (in August 2010) rejecting the United States’s motion to dismiss on 12(b)(1) grounds. Virginia would have stood on much stronger ground had it also alleged an injury in fact from the effect of the minimum essential coverage provision’s necessarily pushing more Virginia residents onto the state’s Medicaid rolls, and thus imposing a significant financial cost on the state. But the Commonwealth failed to do this, instead resting on the claim that it had standing based on the alleged “conflict” between its Virginia Health Care Freedom Act and the individual mandate. This was a weak argument from the beginning, and the Fourth Circuit’s holding was entirely unsurprising.

What is surprising–perhaps not on the merits, but in relation to the attention the issue has received to date, from the courts and the parties–is the court’s holding in Liberty Universityv. Geithner that federal courts lack any subject matter jurisdiction over a suit seeking to enjoin enforcement of the individual mandate because such jurisdiction is precluded by the Anti-Injunction Act. In this respect, there are some important points worth noting:

* This is a potential problem in every lawsuit currently challenging the individual mandate. That is, if the Fourth Circuit’s analysis is correct, then the Supreme Court would lack jurisdiction to hear any private plaintiff’s claim that the minimum coverage provision exceeds Congress’s enumerated powers until after a taxpayer was assessed a penalty under ACA 1501, paid the penalty, and sued the federal government for a refund. The case thus would not reach the Supreme Court until somewhere in the neighborhood of 2015 or 2016.