The Opinions of Justice Amy Coney Barrett

October Term 2024

Opinions authored by Justice Barrett during the term that began October 7, 2024.

  1. Trump v. CASA, Inc.

    Majority Opinion Equity

    Question Presented: Whether federal courts may issue nationwide (universal) injunctions blocking enforcement of an executive order beyond the parties to the case.

    Holding: Justice Barrett, writing for the five other justices, held that universal injunctions exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts. In her view, courts may only issue injunctions that are no broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.

  2. FDA v. R. J. Reynolds Vapor Co.

    Majority Opinion Administrative Law

    Question Presented: Whether retailers may seek judicial review of FDA denial orders under the Tobacco Control Act as "persons adversely affected."

    Holding: Retailers are included within "any person adversely affected" and may challenge FDA orders; Fifth Circuit affirmed.

  3. Esteras v. United States

    Majority Opinion Supervised Release

    Question Presented: Whether a district court may consider 18 U.S.C. §3553(a)(2)(A) (retribution) when deciding whether to revoke supervised release.

    Holding: Courts may not consider §3553(a)(2)(A) in supervised-release revocation decisions; judgment vacated and remanded.

  4. Commissioner v. Zuch

    Majority Opinion Tax Court Jurisdiction

    Question Presented: Whether the Tax Court has jurisdiction under 26 U.S.C. §6330 when the IRS is no longer pursuing a levy.

    Holding: The Tax Court lacks jurisdiction once the IRS is no longer pursuing a levy; reversed and remanded.

  5. Kousisis v. United States

    Majority Opinion Criminal Law

    Question Presented: Whether federal fraud statutes require intent to cause economic loss, or whether fraudulent inducement alone suffices.

    Holding: A defendant may be convicted of fraud even without intent to cause economic loss; affirmed.

  6. Advocate Christ Medical Center v. Kennedy

    Majority Opinion Statutory Interpretation

    Question Presented: Whether a patient is "entitled to SSI benefits" for Medicare DSH calculations when eligible for an SSI payment during the hospitalization month.

    Holding: A patient is "entitled" when eligible to receive an SSI payment that month; affirmed.

  7. Medical Marijuana, Inc. v. Horn

    Majority Opinion RICO

    Question Presented: Whether economic losses flowing from personal injury qualify as "business or property" injuries under civil RICO.

    Holding: Civil RICO allows treble damages for economic losses even when derived from personal injury; affirmed and remanded.

Concurring Opinions

Concurrences authored by Justice Barrett during October Term 2024.

  1. Gutierrez v. Saenz

    Concurrence Post-Conviction Relief

    Question Presented: Does Article III standing require a particularized determination of whether a specific state official will redress the plaintiff's injury by following a favorable declaratory judgment?

    Holding: Gutierrez has standing to bring his § 1983 claim challenging Texas's postconviction DNA testing procedures under the Due Process Clause.

    Barrett's View: Justice Barrett would have reversed on the sole basis that the Fifth Circuit failed to consider the breadth of the relief sought by Gutierrez. In her view, the majority muddied the waters of standing doctrine by invoking inapposite administrative law cases for its redressability analysis.

  2. United States v. Skrmetti

    Concurrence Equal Protection Clause

    Question Presented: Whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

    Holding: Tennessee's law prohibiting certain medical treatments for transgender minors is not subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and satisfies rational basis review.

    Barrett's View: Justice Barrett, joined by Justice Thomas, wrote separately to explain why transgender status does not constitute a “suspect class” under the Court's Equal Protection Clause precedents. She invoked the Court's decision in Cleburne, which held that when social or economic legislation is at issue, the Equal Protection Clause allows the States wide latitude.

  3. National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Assn.

    Concurrence Jurisdiction

    Question Presented: Whether to grant the Federal Government's request to stay a district court's order vacating the Government's termination of various research-related grants.

    Holding: The Court granted the stay.

    Barrett's View: Justice Barrett concurred in part. She agreed that challenges to grant terminations belong before the Court of Federal Claims, not U.S. District Courts. But she disagreed with the majority about APA challenges to agency guidance; those challenges, she wrote, can properly be heard by district courts.

Dissenting Opinions

Dissents authored by Justice Barrett during October Term 2024.

  1. Perttu v. Richards

    Dissent PLRA

    Question Presented: In cases subject to the Prison Litigation Reform Act, do prisoners have a right to a jury trial concerning their exhaustion of administrative remedies where disputed facts regarding exhaustion are intertwined with the underlying merits of their claim?

    Holding: Parties are entitled to a jury trial on PLRA exhaustion when that issue is intertwined with the merits of a claim that requires a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment.

    Barrett's View: Justice Barrett, joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh, would have reversed on the ground that the jury right conferred by the Seventh Amendment does not depend on the degree of factual overlap between a threshold issue and the merits of the plaintiff's claim. In her view, the majority strayed beyond the question presented by not resolving the constitutional question that the parties brought and instead holding the PLRA itself requires a jury trial whenever an issue is common to exhaustion and the merits.

  2. Monsalvo Velazquez v. Bondi

    Dissent Immigration

    Question Presented: When a noncitizen's voluntary-departure period ends on a weekend or public holiday, is a motion to reopen filed the next business day sufficient to avoid the penalties for failure to depart?

    Holding: Under § 1229c(b)(2), a voluntary-departure deadline that falls on a weekend or legal holiday extends to the next business day.

    Barrett's View: Justice Barrett would have held that the Court lacked jurisdiction because Monsalvo did not dispute anything in the immigration court decisions finding him removable.

  3. City and County of San Francisco v. EPA

    Dissent Environmental Law

    Question Presented: Whether the Clean Water Act allows EPA (or an authorized state) to impose generic prohibitions in NPDES permits that subject permitholders to enforcement for exceedances of water quality standards without identifying specific limits to which their discharges must conform.

    Holding: Section 1311(b)(1)(C) does not authorize the EPA to include “end-result” provisions in NPDES permits.

    Barrett's View: Justice Barrett, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, dissented in part from the Court's narrowing of EPA authority under the Clean Water Act. The majority held that the challenged permit's restrictions are not “limitations” as that word is ordinarily used. In Justice Barrett's view, that analysis contradicts the text of the CWA.

  4. Glossip v. Oklahoma

    Dissent Post-Conviction Relief

    Question Presented: Whether the Court has jurisdiction and whether the prosecution violated Napue v. Illinois by failing to correct false testimony.

    Holding: The Court has jurisdiction, and the prosecution violated its constitutional obligation to correct false testimony.

    Barrett's View: Justice Barrett agreed with much of the Court's analysis but would have only corrected the state court's misstatements of federal law and vacated the judgment, leaving next steps—including the decision whether to conduct an evidentiary hearing—to the state court.