In a Friday letter to the WSJ‘s Letters section, Samuel Estreicher and Rudra Reddy, of the New York University School of Law, reminded us of a suggestion for curbing Federal district judge arrogance in issuing nationwide—universal—injunctions:

Aside from raising the legal standard for issuing such injunctions, the Supreme Court should also consider procedural steps that could be taken to challenge a nationwide injunction once issued, such as an expedited appeal to the regional circuit or to the high court itself.

My one further step is this: automatically stay each universal injunction until its final review by the relevant appellate court and Supreme Court, or by the Supreme Court directly. In conjunction with this, require the appellate court or Supreme Court to take up the case within an explicitly defined number of days (not many) of the injunction having been issued, with that takeup done either by appeal or by the appellate court on its own initiative, whichever is necessary to meet the deadline. Apply the same time-constraint to the Supreme Court in the event of a direct appeal.

I’d give serious consideration, given the serious nature and wide scope of a universal injunction issued at the district level, to having the injunction’s appeal go directly to the Supreme Court. That Court is, after all, the only one with universal jurisdiction, and it’s the only Constitutionally mandated Court in the US.

And an incentive step: in the event the universal injunction is struck down, even if it’s allowed to stand as it applies solely to the litigants, the appellate/Supreme Court should overtly chastise the issuing district court judge for his overreach.