Injunction vs. App Store Anti-Steering Rules Is ‘Breathtakingly Broad': Apple Cert Petition

A federal court may provide injunctive relief only to a named plaintiff, “unless a class has been certified or broader relief is necessary to redress that plaintiff ’s injury,” said Apple’s cert petition against Epic Games, dated Sept. 28 and docketed Monday at the U.S. Supreme Court (docket 23-344).

Apple is seeking to set aside the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ affirmation of the district court’s injunction barring Apple from enforcing its anti-steering rules against U.S. iOS app developers arising from the antitrust litigation against Epic. Apple told the 9th Circuit in early July of its plans to seek SCOTUS review of the injunction (see 2307050021). Epic’s response to Apple’s cert petition is due Nov. 1.

In Epic’s “single-plaintiff lawsuit” against Apple, the 9th Circuit “affirmed a universal injunction that affects millions of nonparties without any findings or evidence that such relief is necessary to redress the individual plaintiff’s alleged injury,” said Apple’s petition. The restrictions on a federal court’s ability to impose injunctive relief are imposed by Article III and the due process clause, “and have repeatedly been recognized” by the Supreme Court, it said.

But lower federal courts lately “have been abjuring these limitations by issuing so-called nationwide (or universal) injunctions,” said the petition. They did so “even where no class has been certified and without concluding that relief as to all affected nonparties is necessary to redress the individual plaintiff ’s injury,” it said: “This case is a particularly egregious example.”

In Epic’s single-plaintiff case against Apple, the U.S. District Court for California sua sponte (of one’s own accord) issued a universal injunction prohibiting Apple from enforcing one of its “contractual guidelines” against all developers with apps on the U.S. App Store, of which there are millions, not just against Epic, said the petition. The 9th Circuit affirmed on the ground that extending injunctive relief to some nonparties, including about 100 other app developers, was necessary to redress Epic’s alleged injury, it said. But neither court “ever found, or even considered, whether relief as to all affected nonparties was necessary or appropriate,” it said.

The “breathtakingly broad” injunction defies the Supreme Court’s “admonition” in its 1979 decision in Califano v. Yamasaki that injunctive relief should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs, said the petition. An individual plaintiff must prove that affording relief to nonparties is necessary to redress its own injury in the same way as any other matter on which the plaintiff bears the burden of proof, it said, citing the 1992 SCOTUS decision in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife. Epic “failed to do so here,” and the resulting injunction “offends core constitutional principles,” including Article III and due process, it said.

SCOTUS justices expressed serious concerns about the “increasingly prevalent practice of issuing overbroad injunctions,” said the petition. Some appeals courts “recognized the threat that the recent trend toward nationwide injunctions poses to constitutional interests if not properly circumscribed,” it said.

But the 9th Circuit decision in this case “points in exactly the opposite direction,” said the petition. Its decision provides “a blueprint for universal injunctive relief without class certification or any findings that the relief is narrowly tailored,” it said. This case is the “ideal opportunity” for SCOTUS to confirm that the Constitution “requires federal courts to adjudicate the rights of only the parties before them,” it said. It’s also an opportunity “to limit injunctive decrees to the actual litigants or nonparties specifically found (not assumed) to be necessary,” it said.