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Texas, et al. v. California, et al.

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, No. 19-10011 · judgment December 18, 2019

Decided · June 17, 2021
Pre-decision estimate: 7% cert probability (95% interval 5%–11%)

Before the decision, about 1.8× the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a petition filed soon after the judgment below, a Fifth Circuit decision below, and a dissent in the court below (flagged in the petition).

Questions presented

Consolidated with 19-840. Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("ACA"), Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119 (Mar. 23, 2010), with the express goal of achieving nearuniversal health-insurance coverage. To achieve that goal, Congress found it was "essential" to require healthy Americans to ensure that they have what Congress considered minimum essential coverage. In 2012, this Court held that "[t]he Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance." Nat'l Fed'n of Indep. Bus. v. Sebelius ("NFIB"), 567 U.S. 519, 575 (2012) (op. of Roberts, C.J.). The Court upheld the minimum-essential-coverage requirement, however, because it was "fairly possible" to construe the mandate as a tax. Id. at 574. In 2017, Congress eliminated that alternative construction by zeroing out any penalty. That legislative act rendered the individual mandate unconstitutional, as the court below correctly held. The Court should deny the petitions in Nos. 19-840 and 19-841. But if it grants them, it should grant this conditional cross-petition, as well, which presents the following questions:

  1. Whether the unconstitutional individual mandate to purchase minimum essential coverage is severable from the remainder of the ACA.

  2. Whether the district court properly declared the ACA invalid in its entirety and unenforceable any-where.

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Judd Edward Stone II
Stone | Hilton PLLC

For respondent
Douglas Neal Letter
Office of General Counsel

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Related
Vide, 19-840

Argument & decision

Argued November 10, 2020 — Michael J. Mongan · Donald B. Verrilli · Kyle D. Hawkins · Jeffrey .... Audio and transcript

Decided June 17, 2021. Opinion by Breyer.

Proceedings

  1. Jul 19 2021
    JUDGMENT ISSUED.
  2. Jun 17 2021
    Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Breyer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Thomas, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a concurring opinion. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Gorsuch, J., joined. VIDED.
  3. Nov 10 2020
    Argued. For California, et al.: Michael J. Mongan, Solicitor General, San Francisco, Cal. For U.S. House of Representatives: Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., Washington, D. C. For Texas, et al.: Kyle D. Hawkins, Solicitor General, Austin, Tex. For United States, et al.: Jeffrey B. Wall, Acting Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C. VIDED.
  4. Sep 10 2020
    The record from the U.S.C.A. 5th Circuit is electronic and located on Pacer.
  5. Sep 02 2020
    CIRCULATED
  6. Aug 31 2020
    Record requested from the U.S.C.A. 5th Circuit.
  7. Aug 19 2020
    SET FOR ARGUMENT on Tuesday, November 10, 2020. VIDED.
  8. Mar 02 2020
    Petition GRANTED. The petition for a writ of certiorari in No. 19-840 is granted. The cases are consolidated and a total of one hour is allotted for oral argument. VIDED.
  9. Mar 02 2020
    Because the Court has consolidated these cases for briefing and oral argument, future filings and activity in the cases will now be reflected on the docket of No. 19-840. Subsequent filings in these cases must therefore be submitted through the electronic filing system in No. 19-840. Each document submitted in connection with one or more of these cases must include on its cover the case number and caption for each case in which the filing is intended to be submitted. Where a filing is submitted in fewer than all of the cases, the docket entry will reflect the case number(s) in which the filing is submitted; a document filed in all of the consolidated cases will be noted as “VIDED.”
  10. Feb 24 2020
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/28/2020.
  11. Feb 19 2020
    Letter of February 19, 2020 from counsel for respondent State of California filed.
  12. Feb 18 2020
    Letter of February 18, 2020 from counsel for respondent U.S. House of Representatives filed.
  13. Feb 14 2020
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due March 16, 2020)