UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

FORT WORTH DIVISION

JENNIFER VANDERSTOK, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

BLACKHAWK MANUFACTURING 

GROUP INC., et al., 

Intervenor Plaintiffs, 

v. 

MERRICK GARLAND, et al.

Defendants.

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Civil Action No. 4:22-cv-00691-O

OPINION & ORDER ON DEFENSE DISTRIBUTED AND BLACKHAWK 

MANUFACTURING GROUP INC. d/b/a 80 PERCENT ARMS’ EMERGENCY

MOTIONS FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF PENDING APPEAL

Before the Court are Defense Distributed and BlackHawk Manufacturing Group Inc. d/b/a 

80 Percent Arms’ (“Intervenor-Plaintiffs”) Emergency Motions for Injunction Pending Appeal 

(ECF Nos. 249, 251), filed August 9, 2023 and August 14, 2023; the Attorney General of the 

United States, the United States Department of Justice, the Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, 

Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’

(the “Government Defendants”) Objection and Response in Opposition (ECF No. 254), filed 

August 17, 2023; and Intervenor-Plaintiffs’ Replies (ECF Nos. 256, 257), filed August 21, 2023. 

Having considered the parties’ briefing and applicable law, the Court GRANTS IntervenorPlaintiffs’ emergency motions for injunctive relief pending appeal to enforce unstayed portions of 

the Court’s Order Granting Summary Judgment (ECF No. 227) and Final Judgment (ECF No. 231)

against the Government Defendants. 

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I. BACKGROUND

The United States Congress established the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and 

Explosives (“ATF”) to regulate “firearms” in interstate commerce under the Gun Control Act of 

1986 (“GCA”). See 26 U.S.C. § 599A(a); 28 C.F.R. § 0.130(a); 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(3). In April 

2022, the ATF promulgated a Final Rule that purports to regulate partially manufactured firearm 

parts and weapon parts kits, which took effect on August 24, 2022. See Definition of “Frame or 

Receiver” and Identification of Firearms, 87 Fed. Reg. 24,652 (Apr. 26, 2022) (codified at 

27 C.F.R. pts. 447, 478, 479). The Final Rule departed from nearly a half century of ATF 

precedent, during which the agency declined to interpret the GCA’s term “firearms” as 

encompassing partially manufactured frames and receivers.1 ATF subsequently issued an “Open 

Letter to All Federal Firearms Licensees,” declaring that certain products are considered “frames” 

(and thus qualify as “firearms”) under the GCA pursuant to the Final Rule’s redefinition of that 

term.2 Those products include partially complete Polymer80, Lone Wolf, and similar striker-fired 

semi-automatic pistol frames, including those sold within parts kits.3

Jennifer VanDerStok, Michael Andren, Tactical Machining, LLC, and the Firearms Policy 

Coalition, Inc. (the “Original Plaintiffs”) filed this suit on August 11, 2022, to challenge the Final 

Rule’s validity, claiming that the regulation exceeds the lawful scope of statutory authority that 

Congress vested in the ATF.4 The Original Plaintiffs subsequently moved for a preliminary 

injunction that sought to broadly enjoin the Government Defendants from enforcing the Final 

1

See First Op. 2–3, ECF No. 56 (discussing ATF’s Title and Definition Changes, 43 Fed. Reg. 13,531, 

13,537 (Mar. 31, 1978) and others)

2 U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, Open Letter to All Federal 

Firearms Licensees (Dec. 27, 2022) (“ATF Open Letter (Dec. 27, 2022)”), https://www.atf.gov/rulesandregulations/docs/open-letter/all-ffls-dec2022-open-letter-impact-final-rule-2021-05f/download. 

3

Id. 

4 Compl. 1, ECF No. 1.

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Rule.5 On September 2, 2022, the Court issued its First Opinion in which it held that the Original 

Plaintiffs were substantially likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that provisions of the 

ATF’s Final Rule—namely, 27 C.F.R. §§ 478.11, 478.12(c)—exceed the scope of the ATF’s 

lawful jurisdictional grant under the GCA.6 Having made this preliminary finding, the Court 

enjoined the Government Defendants, along with their officers, agents, servants, and employees, 

from implementing or enforcing the Final Rule against Tactical Machining, LLC (“Tactical”)—

the only Original Plaintiff to establish irreparable harm.7 The Court denied injunctive relief to the 

remaining Original Plaintiffs in its First Opinion.8 The Court issued its Second Opinion (ECF No. 

89) on the proper scope of the preliminary injunction on October 1, 2022, which expanded the 

injunction to include the additional Original Plaintiffs and—for the purpose of providing Tactical 

complete relief—Tactical’s customers.9 The Court declined any invitation to issue a “nationwide” 

injunction.10

In the ensuing months, the Court further extended this injunctive relief to IntervenorPlaintiffs on the same grounds and with the same scope as that of the Original Plaintiffs.11

BlackHawk Manufacturing Group Inc. d/b/a 80 Percent Arms (“BlackHawk”) is a manufacturer 

and retailer that sells products newly subject to the Final Rule, with most of its revenue earned 

through sales of those products.12 Defense Distributed is a private defense contractor that primarily 

manufactures and deals products now subject to the Final Rule.13 By March 2023, the Government 

5 Pls.’ Mot. for Prelim. Inj., ECF No. 15. 

6 First Opinion 15, 22–23, ECF No. 56. 

7

Id.

8

Id. 

9 Second Op. 20–22, ECF No. 89. 

10 Id. at 19. 

11 See Mem. Ops., ECF Nos. 118, 188. 

12 Lifschitz Decl. 6–8, ECF No. 62-5 ¶¶ 8, 11, 13.

13 See generally Defense Distributed Compl., ECF No. 143.

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Defendants and their officers, agents, servants, and employees were enjoined from implementing 

and enforcing against Intervenor-Plaintiffs and their customers the provisions in 

27 C.F.R. §§ 478.11 and 478.12 that the Court preliminarily held to be unlawful.14 The 

Government Defendants appealed these individualized, Plaintiff-specific preliminary injunctions, 

but did not seek stays pending appeal. 

On June 30, 2023, the Court ruled in favor of the Original Plaintiffs and IntervenorPlaintiffs on the merits and granted their motions for summary judgment.15 The Court held on the 

merits that both challenged provisions of the Final Rule were invalid and that the ATF “acted in 

excess of its statutory jurisdiction by promulgating [the Final Rule].”16 In Section IV(B)(4) of the 

Memorandum Opinion and Order Granting Summary Judgment (ECF No. 227), the Court vacated 

the entire Final Rule pursuant to section 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”).17 The 

Court predicated its APA vacatur on the “default rule” of the Fifth and D.C. Circuits with respect 

to the appropriate statutory remedy for unlawful agency action.18 On July 5, 2023, the Court 

entered its Final Judgment (ECF No. 231), which categorically memorialized each of the Court’s 

June 30, 2023 determinations: (1) grant of summary judgment to Plaintiffs and (2) APA vacatur 

of the Final Rule.19

The Government Defendants appealed the Memorandum Opinion and Order Granting 

14 See Mem. Ops., ECF Nos. 118, 188 (injunctive relief did not extend to customers prohibited from 

possessing firearms under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)).

15 Summ. J. Mem. Op. & Order 37–38, ECF No. 227.

16 Id. at 35. 

17 Id. at 35–37 (setting forth the Court’s “Remedy”); see 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(C) (directing the reviewing court 

to “hold unlawful and set aside agency action” found to be “in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or 

limitations, or short of statutory right”).

18 Id. at 35–37 (citing Data Mktg. P’ship, LP v. U.S. Dep’t of Lab., 45 F.4th 846, 859–60 (5th Cir. 2022) 

(permitting APA vacatur under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2) as the “default rule”); Franciscan All., Inc. v. Becerra, 

47 F.4th 368, 374–75, 375 n.29 (5th Cir. 2022) (“Vacatur is the only statutorily prescribed remedy for a 

successful APA challenge to a regulation.”); United Steel v. Mine Safety & Health Admin., 925 F.3d 1279, 

1287 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (“The ordinary practice is to vacate unlawful agency action.”)). 

19 Final J. 1, ECF No. 231. 

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Summary Judgment (ECF No. 227) and Final Judgment (ECF No. 231) to the United States Court 

of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

20 At the same time, the Government Defendants moved for this 

Court to issue an emergency stay pending appeal.21 On July 18, 2023, the Court denied the 

Government Defendants’ motion for stay of the Memorandum Opinion and Order (ECF No. 227) 

and the Final Judgment (ECF No. 231) pending appeal.22 On July 24, 2023, the United States Court 

of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted the Government Defendants’ request for a stay of this 

Court’s APA vacatur remedy insofar as it applied to provisions of the Final Rule that were neither 

challenged by Plaintiffs nor held unlawful by this Court. See VanDerStok v. Garland, No. 23-

10718, 2023 WL 4945360, at *1 (5th Cir. July 24, 2023) (per curiam). The Fifth Circuit otherwise 

declined to stay the APA vacatur of provisions of the Final Rule that this Court held unlawful on 

the merits. See id. The Fifth Circuit expedited the Government Defendants’ appeal. See id.23

On July 5, 2023, the Government Defendants filed an application with the Supreme Court 

of the United States for a stay of this Court’s Final Judgment (ECF No. 231).24 In its application 

briefing, the Government Defendants sought a full stay of the Final Judgment, but secondarily 

argued that, “[a]t a minimum, the [Supreme] Court should stay the district court’s judgment to the 

extent it apples to nonparties.”25 More specifically, the Government Defendants requested that, 

“to the extent the [Supreme] Court concludes that the June 30 [summary judgment] order might 

continue to have independent effect,” the Supreme Court’s order should “stay both the June 30 

20 Defs.’ Notice of Interlocutory Appeal, ECF No. 234.

21 Defs.’ Emergency Mot. for Stay Pending Appeal, ECF No. 236.

22 Order, ECF No. 238. 

23 See C.A. Doc. No. 63 (July 25, 2023). Following the Supreme Court’s stay, the Fifth Circuit heard oral 

arguments on September 7, 2023.

24 See Government’s Application for a Stay of the Judgment Entered by the United States District Court for 

the Northern District of Texas, Garland, Att’y Gen., et al. v. Vanderstok, Jennifer, et al., No. 23A82 (July 

2023). 

25 Defense Distributed’s Reply Ex., ECF No. 257-3, at 20 (emphasis added). 

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[summary judgment] order and the July 5 final judgment” of this Court.26 On August 8, 2023, the 

Supreme Court accepted the Government Defendants’ secondary invitation and granted its 

application for a stay. See Garland v. VanDerStok, No. 23A82, 2023 WL 5023383, at *1 (U.S. 

Aug. 8, 2023) (mem.). The Supreme Court’s Stay Order provides, in relevant part, that:

[t]he June 30, 2023 [summary judgment] order and July 5, 2023 [final] judgment 

of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, case No. 4:22-

cv-691, insofar as they vacate the final rule of the [ATF], 87 Fed. Reg. 24652 

(April 26, 2022), is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States 

Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of 

certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought.

Id. (emphasis added).

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Stay Order, Intervenor-Plaintiffs each filed Opposed 

Emergency Motions for Injunction Pending Appeal on August 9, 2023 and August 14, 2023, 

respectively.27 Following the completion of expedited briefing,28 Intervenor-Plaintiffs’ motions

are now ripe for the Court’s review.29

II. JURISDICTION

The core issue in dispute between the parties is whether the Court, following the Supreme 

Court’s Stay Order, has jurisdiction to afford individualized, post-judgment equitable relief to 

Intervenor-Plaintiffs enjoining the Government Defendants from enforcing the challenged 

provisions of the Final Rule against each Intervenor-Plaintiff, pending final disposition of the 

appellate process. Upon review of the parties’ briefing and applicable law, the Court answers in 

the affirmative and holds that it retains Article III jurisdiction to enforce—through party-specific 

relief against the Government Defendants—the concrete aspects of its Summary Judgment Order 

26 Id. at 20–21, 21 n.4 (emphasis added). 

27 See Defense Distributed’s Mot., ECF No. 249; BlackHawk’s Mot., ECF No. 251. 

28 See Orders, ECF Nos. 250, 253.

29 See generally Defense Distributed’s Mot., ECF No. 249; BlackHawk’s Mot., ECF No. 251; Defs.’ Resp., 

ECF No. 254; BlackHawk’s Reply, ECF No. 256; Defense Distributed’s Reply, ECF No. 257.

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(ECF No. 227) and Final Judgment (ECF No. 231) that the Supreme Court declined to stay. 

A. Legal Standard

The judicial power “extend[s] to all Cases, in Law and Equity,” that arise under the 

Constitution and Laws of the United States. U.S. CONST. art. III § 2. When the demands of a 

particular case require a federal court to ascertain the scope of its Article III jurisdiction, it is 

instructed to look to “history and tradition” as a “meaningful guide.” United States v. Texas, 143 

S. Ct. 1964, 1970 (2023) (cleaned up); cf. Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 460 (1939) 

(Frankfurter, J.) (“[T]he framers of [Article III] gave merely the outlines of what were to them the 

familiar operations of the English judicial system and its manifestations on this side of the ocean 

before the Union.”).

The judicial power of Article III encompasses the inherent authority of federal courts to 

grant equitable remedies in the execution of their judgments. See Bodley v. Taylor, 9 U.S. (5 

Cranch) 191, 222–23 (1809) (Marshall, C.J.); see also Peacock v. Thomas, 516 U.S. 349, 356 

(1996). The question of whether a federal court can properly exercise this inherent authority over

a given matter, therefore, is constrained by historical and traditional equity practice. Grupo 

Mexicano de Desarrollo S.A. v. All. Bond Fund, Inc., 527 U.S. 308, 318–19 (1999); see also Bivens 

v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 404–05 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring in the 

judgment) (explaining that the reach of a federal court’s inherent equitable powers is “determined 

according to the distinctive historical traditions of equity”). Congressional authorizations of 

equitable remedies must be construed and exercised in a manner compatible with the same preestablished body of rules and principles. Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U.S. 99, 105–06 (1945); 

Boyle v. Zacharie, 31 U.S. 648, 658 (1832) (Story, J.). A federal district court’s equitable remedial 

power is further subject to the external constraints found elsewhere in the Constitution, as well as 

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in federal common law and congressional enactment. See Peacock, 516 U.S. at 354–59, 354 n.5; 

Porter v. Warner Holding Co., 328 U.S. 395, 398 (1946); Hecht Co. v. Bowles, 321 U.S. 321, 329–

30 (1944).

B. Analysis

Intervenor-Plaintiffs seek post-judgment injunctive relief pending the outcome of appeal 

of the Court’s Summary Judgment Order (ECF No. 227) and Final Judgment (ECF No. 231). The 

requested relief would afford individualized, party-specific protection to Intervenor-Plaintiffs that 

enjoins the Government Defendants from implementing and enforcing against each IntervenorPlaintiff and their respective customers the provisions of the Final Rule that this Court, 

preliminarily and on the merits, held are unlawful.30

In its Summary and Final Judgments,31 the Court issued the default legal remedy prescribed 

by federal statute for unlawful agency action: vacatur of the entire Final Rule. See 5 U.S.C. 

§ 706(2)(C) (authorizing courts to “hold unlawful and set aside agency action”); Data Mktg. 

P’ship, LP v. U.S. Dep’t of Lab., 45 F.4th 846, 859–60 (5th Cir. 2022) (discussing vacatur as the 

default remedy for unlawful agency action); Franciscan All., Inc. v. Becerra, 47 F.4th 368, 374–

75, 375 n.29 (5th Cir. 2022) (“Vacatur is the only statutorily prescribed remedy for a successful 

APA challenge to a regulation.”); United Steel v. Mine Safety & Health Admin., 925 F.3d 1279, 

1287 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (“The ordinary practice is to vacate unlawful agency action.”). Following 

the Supreme Court’s Stay Order, however, Intervenor-Plaintiffs no longer enjoy the protection 

previously afforded to them by the default remedy at law that Congress provided in the APA. See 

Vanderstok, 2023 WL 5023383, at *1 (staying the Summary Judgment Order and Final Judgment 

30 See Defense Distributed’s Mot., ECF No. 249 (citing 27 C.F.R. §§ 478.11, 478.12); BlackHawk’s Mot., 

ECF No. 251 (same).

31 Summ. J. Mem. Op. & Order 35–38, ECF No. 227; Final J. 1, ECF No. 231. 

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“insofar as they vacate the final rule”). Moreover, Intervenor-Plaintiffs will remain deprived of the 

standard statutory relief until “disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for 

the Fifth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari.” Id.

On account of Intervenor-Plaintiffs’ prolonged lack of shelter from the Final Rule under

the default statutory relief, they now seek the refuge of this Court’s equitable remedial authority 

in the interim. Intervenor-Plaintiffs pray for the Court to exercise its equitable jurisdiction—to the 

extent that Intervenor-Plaintiffs each receive individual interlocutory protection against the 

Government Defendants’ enforcement of the Final Rule—and at least until such time that the 

pending appeal and potential certiorari, as well as the Supreme Court’s Stay Order, have been 

exhausted upon final conclusion. 

The Court finds that the injunctive relief prayed for by Intervenor-Plaintiffs accords with

(1) the historical and traditional maxims of equitable remedial jurisdiction prescribed by the 

Framers in Article III; and (2) the additional jurisdictional constraints imposed by the Constitution

and contemporary judicial doctrine. 

1. The History and Tradition of Equity Support Jurisdiction

Article III vests in this Court the equitable power to enforce its federal judgments.

Zacharie, 31 U.S. at 658 (Story, J.) (“The chancery jurisdiction [is] given by the constitution and 

laws of the United States.”); cf. THE FEDERALIST NO. 80, at 415 (Alexander Hamilton) (George 

W. Carey & James McClellan eds., 2001) (“[I]t would be impossible for the federal judicatories 

to do justice without an equitable as well as a legal jurisdiction”). The Court is further vested with 

general congressional grants of equity jurisdiction that are applicable in the pending motion.32

32 See 5 U.S.C. § 705 (providing that “to the extent necessary to prevent irreparable injury,” the Court “to 

which a case may be taken on appeal from . . . may issue all necessary and appropriate process to . . . 

preserve status or rights pending conclusion of the review proceedings”); Fed. R. Civ. P. 62(d) (providing 

that the Court “may suspend, modify, restore, or grant an injunction” pending appeal of a final judgment); 

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“We are dealing here with the requirements of equity practice with a background of several 

hundred years of history.” Hecht, 321 U.S. at 329. The equity jurisdiction vested in district courts 

is an authority to administer “the principles of the system of judicial remedies which had been 

devised and was being administered by the English Court of Chancery at the time of the separation 

of the two countries.” Atlas Life Ins. Co. v. W.I. Southern, Inc., 306 U.S. 563, 568 (1939). Its 

contours are outlined by “the jurisdiction in equity exercised by the High Court of Chancery in 

England at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.” Grupo Mexicano, 527 U.S. at 318 (citing 

A. DOBIE, HANDBOOK OF FEDERAL JURISDICTION AND PROCEDURE 660 (1928)); see Hayburn’s 

Case, 2 U.S. (Dall.) 409, 410–11 (1792) (Jay, C.J.). Beyond the equity jurisdiction conferred by

Article III, courts must also construe general statutory grants of equitable remedial authority to 

harmonize with “the body of law which had been transplanted to this country from the English 

Court of Chancery” at the Founding. Guaranty Trust Co., 326 U.S. at 105. It is “settled doctrine” 

that broad congressional authorizations of “remedies in equity are to be administered . . . according 

to the practice of courts of equity in the parent country.” Id. (quoting Zacharie, 31 U.S. at 658 

(Story, J.)).

33 The Court finds that the rules, principles, and practices of equity familiar to the

Founding generation counsel in favor of the Court’s jurisdiction to enjoin the Government 

Defendants from enforcing challenged provisions of the Final Rule against Intervenor-Plaintiffs—

at least until the outcome of those judgments are finalized on appeal and certiorari. 

Fed. R. App. P. 8(a)(1) (providing that the Court may issue “an order suspending, modifying, restoring, or 

granting an injunction while an appeal is pending.”); see also 28 U.S.C. § 1651 (providing that the Court 

“may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the 

usages and principles of law.”)

33 To be sure, the “substantive principles of Courts of Chancery remain unaffected” by the fusion of law 

and equity in our Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, 336 U.S. 368, 382 n. 

26 (1949).

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Since King James I decreed the supremacy of English Chancery in 1616,34 the reigning 

predominance of equity over law has remained a cornerstone of our Anglo-American legal 

tradition. See JOHN H. LANGBEIN ET AL., HISTORY OF THE COMMON LAW: THE DEVELOPMENT OF 

ANGLO-AMERICAN LEGAL INSTITUTIONS 335 (2009). Equity supremacy was originally intertwined 

with royal prerogative and divinely ordained absolutism.

35 Yet in spite of its philosophical 

underpinnings, the prevailing jurisdiction, principles, and practices of equity occupied such an 

“integral part in the machinery of the law,” that the Court of Chancery and its wide body of 

jurisprudence nonetheless survived and maintained preeminent status after nearly two hundred 

years of war and revolution in England and the United States—which had been marked by bloody

hostilities, violent overthrows, and abolitionist attempts against the English Crown—and by 

extension, the institution of equity itself. LORD NOTTINGHAM’S “MANUAL OF CHANCERY 

PRACTICE” AND “PROLEGOMENA OF CHANCERY AND EQUITY” 7–8 (D. E. C. Yale ed. 1965); see

generally LANGBEIN ET AL., at 329–35, 345–55. Equity triumphed in the midst of these existential 

threats on account of the three “Great Chancellors,”36 who carefully doctrinalized and enshrined 

centuries of deeply ingrained Chancery practices into a system of clearly established rules, 

jurisdictional contours, and binding precedents to govern the administration of equitable remedies. 

See 1 WILLIAM S. HOLDSWORTH, A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW 465 (1922–1966) (16 vols.); 1 LORD 

34 The King’s Order and Decree in Chancery, Cary 115, 21 Eng. Rep. 61 (1616) (decreeing the supremacy 

of “relief in equity . . . notwithstanding any proceedings at common law . . . as shall stand with the true 

merits and justice of [] cases”)

35 See The King’s Order and Decree in Chancery, Cary 115, 21 Eng. Rep. 61 (1616) (decreeing that “God, 

who hath placed [the monarch] over” the people, had vested within the king’s “princely care and office 

only to judge over all Judges, and to discern and determine such differences as at any time may or shall 

arise between our several Courts, touching their Jurisdictions, and the same to settle and decide as we in 

our princely wisdom shall find to stand most with our honor . . . .”). 

36 LANGBEIN ET AL., at 348–55. Lord Nottingham (1673–1682), Lord Hardwicke (1737–1756), and Lord 

Eldon (1801–1806, 1807–1827) are widely accredited with the systemization of modern equity. See S. F. 

C. MILSOM, HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE COMMON LAW 95 (2d ed. 1981).

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NOTTINGHAM’S CHANCERY CASES xxxvii–lxxiii (D. E. C. Yale ed. 1957) (2 vols. 1957, 1961). It 

was this abundant and systematized body of equity jurisprudence that was peculiarly familiar to 

the jurists of our Founding generation. See, e.g., 3 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE,COMMENTARIES ON THE 

LAWS OF ENGLAND 432–33 (Oxford 1765–1769) (describing relief in equity as a “connected 

system, governed by established rules, and bound down by precedents”); THE FEDERALIST NO. 83, 

at 438 n.* (Alexander Hamilton) (George W. Carey & James McClellan eds., 2001) (describing 

Article III relief in equity as mirroring “the principles by which that relief is governed [in England, 

which] are now reduced to a regular system”).37

The equitable remedial jurisdiction exercised by the Court of Chancery was necessarily 

forged out of (and therefore mirrored) the remedial gaps left behind by the austerity and 

incompleteness of relief available at law. See FRANZ METZGER, “The Last Phase of the Medieval

Chancery,” in LAW-MAKING AND LAW-MAKERS IN BRITISH HISTORY 84 (Alan Harding ed. 1980).

Equity jurisdiction was supplemental in nature—it neither competed with, nor contradicted, nor 

denied the validity of the law—but rather aided, followed, and fulfilled the law. See CASES 

CONCERNING EQUITY AND THE COURTS OF EQUITY 1550–1660, vol. I, p. xli (William Hamilton 

Bryson, ed. 2001); Cowper v. Earl Cowper (1734) 24 Eng. Rep. 930, 941–42; 2 P. Wms. 720, 

752–54 (Jekyll, MR). The “primary use of a court of equity [was] to give relief in extraordinary 

cases” where ordinary law remedies could not, which held steady as a routine phenomenon in the 

Anglo-American system by and through the Founding Era. THE FEDERALIST No. 83, at 438 & n.* 

(Alexander Hamilton) (George W. Carey & James McClellan eds., 2001); see id. NO. 80, at 415 

(Alexander Hamilton) (“There is hardly a subject of litigation between individuals which may not 

37 Of course, the long legacy of equity’s triumph over law endures in our fused-civil procedure system 

today. See generally Stephen N. Subrin, How Equity Conquered Common Law: The Federal Rules of Civil 

Procedure in Historical Perspective, 135 U. PENN. L. REV. 909 (1987).

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involve those ingredients . . . which would render the matter an object of equitable rather than legal 

jurisdiction”); see also CASES CONCERNING EQUITY, at li (“The term ‘extraordinary’ is used [in 

equity] in the sense of going beyond the basic rather than in the sense of unusual; equity is both 

extraordinary and quite usual and frequent”).

Through the development of equity’s complementary function toward law, the scope of its

jurisdiction became defined by a series of maxims well known to early American jurists—

principally, (i) that equity acts in personam, see JOSEPH STORY, COMMENTARIES ON EQUITY 

PLEADINGS § 72, at 74 (Boston, 2d ed. 1840); (ii) that equity “follows the law,” 1 JOSEPH STORY,

COMMENTARIES ON EQUITY JURISPRUDENCE § 19, at 22 (Boston 1836); and (iii) that equity “suffers 

not a right to be without a remedy,” RICHARD FRANCIS, MAXIMS OF EQUITY, no. 6, at 24 (London 

1728). These primary maxims were crystalized in the rich tradition of injunctive relief practice in 

English Chancery and furthermore in the courts of equity of the Early Republic. The Court finds 

that the equitable maxims and their historic illustrations are in harmony with the injunctions 

presently sought by Intervenor-Plaintiffs in their motions before the Court.

i. The Prayed Injunctions Act in Personam

Like the rest of its remedial toolbox, English Chancery’s decree of injunction operated in 

personam (i.e., on the person that is a party), rather than in rem (i.e., on the underlying subject 

matter in dispute). See CASES CONCERNING EQUITY, at xlv, li; LORD NOTTINGHAM’S “MANUAL OF 

CHANCERY PRACTICE” AND “PROLEGOMENA OF CHANCERY AND EQUITY” 17 (D. E. C. Yale ed. 

1965); ROBERT HENLEY EDEN, A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF INJUNCTIONS 141 (London 1821). This 

maxim served to demarcate the boundaries of equitable jurisdiction relative to that of law and to 

prevent conflict between the two. See, e.g., Massie v. Watts, 10 U.S. 148, 156–59 (1810) (Marshall, 

C.J.) (adjudicating the issue of the court’s equitable jurisdiction to issue the prayed relief based on 

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whether it operated in personam). Whereas relief in rem was cabined to courts of law, equity 

jurisdiction began at matters in personam and any relief touching upon the conduct of a person 

was the sole prerogative of Chancery. See L. B. CURZON, ENGLISH LEGAL HISTORY 106 (2d ed. 

1979); CASES CONCERNING EQUITY, at li. Injunctions were crafted as orders directed upon a living 

person to either undertake or refrain from undertaking a specific act—subject to enforcement via 

contempt of court or imprisonment to ensure compliance. See LANGBEIN ET AL., at 286; Penn v. 

Lord Baltimore, 1 Ves. Sen. 444, 447–48, 27 Eng. Rep. 1132, 1134–35, 1139 (1750) (Ld. 

Hardwicke, Ch.) (decreeing that, on the basis of Chancery’s in personam jurisdiction over any 

party to a proceeding that is present within England, the parties are compelled to specifically

perform their agreed-upon contract terms governing the resolution of boundary disputes; but 

declining to exercise any equitable authority on the original right of the boundaries). 

The in personam–in rem jurisdictional dichotomy is well documented in the landmark case

that gave rise to equity’s supremacy over the law. In Glanvile’s Case, Richard Glanvile won a 

judgment on a sales contract that the buyer entered under Glanvile’s fraudulent misrepresentations. 

72 Eng. Rep. 939 (K.B. 1615). In a law court, Glanvile entered judgment for an exorbitant bond 

debt. See id.; CASES CONCERNING EQUITY, at xlvi. But in Chancery, Lord Ellesmere decreed an 

injunction that operated against Glanvile himself, rather than the underlying property or judgment

at law. See LANGBEIN ET AL., at 333–34. The injunction restrained Glanvile from attempting to 

enforce the law court judgment and compelled him to pay back the buyer-debtor, repossess the 

merchandise, and acknowledge satisfaction of the judgment. See Glanvile’s Case, 72 Eng. Rep. 

939. When Glanvile refused to comply, Chancery exercised its contempt power over Glanvile and 

imprisoned him for breach of a decree. Id. From the King’s Bench, Lord Coke ruled that a 

judgment at law prevails over Chancery decree and granted the common law writ of habeas corpus

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for Glanvile’s release from prison. Id. Lord Coke’s maneuver “struck at the heart of the Court of 

Chancery’s in personam power,” i.e., the remedial power over a party’s own person that is backed 

by the force of contempt. LANGBEIN ET AL., at 330. It also leveled a direct challenge to the finality 

and binding effect of an equity order when a conflicting legal order had been entered. The 1616 

decree of King James settled equity’s supreme status on both fronts and enshrined the rule of 

jurisdiction that endures to this day: where the results of an equity order acting in personam and 

the results of a legal order acting in rem “are in disagreement, the equity rule and decree will 

prevail.” CASES CONCERNING EQUITY, at xlvii; see The King’s Order and Decree in Chancery, 

Cary 115, 21 Eng. Rep. 61 (1616).

Decisions of the Chancery Court of New York under James Kent are instructive as to how 

traditional equity maxims applied to injunction practice in the Early Republic. See, e.g., Manning 

v. Manning, 1 Johns. Ch. 527, 530 (N.Y. Ch. 1815) (Kent, Ch.) (“It is the duty of this Court to 

apply the principles of [English Chancery] to individual cases, . . . and, by this means, endeavor to 

transplant and incorporate all that is applicable in that system into the body of our own judicial 

annals, by a series of decisions.”).38 In officer suits, Chancellor Kent exercised equitable remedial 

jurisdiction to directly enjoin government officials from acting in excess of statutory authority and 

infringing upon the legal rights of private persons. E.g., Belknap v. Belknap, 2 Johns. Ch. 463 

(N.Y. Ch. 1817) (Kent, Ch.); Gardner v. Vill. of Newburgh, 2 Johns. Ch. 162 (N.Y. Ch. 1816) 

(Kent, Ch.); see also Bonaparte v. Camden & A.R. Co., 3 F. Cas. 821, 827, 831–34 (C.C.D.N.J. 

1830) (collecting cases).

In Belknap v. Belknap, for example, private plaintiffs sought an injunction to restrain 

government inspectors, who were authorized by statute to drain certain swamps and bog meadows

38 See also generally Charles Evans Hughes, James Kent: A Master Builder of Legal Institutions, 9

A.B.A. J. 353 (1923).

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for the benefit of some properties, from proceeding to cut down the outlet to a pond that supplied 

the source of water to plaintiffs’ mills. 2 Johns. Ch. 463, 463–67, 468–70 (N.Y. Ch. 1817) (Kent, 

Ch.). Chancellor Kent determined that the officers gave “too extended a construction to their 

powers under the act” and that “this power should be kept within the words of the act” through an 

injunction. Id. at 470, 472. On the question of jurisdiction to provide such relief, Kent concluded

that if the court is “right in the construction of the act, then the jurisdiction of the Court, and the 

duty of exercising it, are equally manifest.” Id. at 472–74. In Gardner v. Village of Newburgh, a 

private plaintiff prayed a similar injunction to restrain government trustees, who were authorized 

by statute to supply a village with water, from proceeding to divert a stream away from the 

plaintiff’s farm that his brickyard and distillery depended on. 2 Johns. Ch. 162, 162–64 (N.Y. Ch. 

1816) (Kent, Ch.). The Chancery Court found that the impending diversion exceeded the limits of 

the officers’ authority under statute for failing to provide adequate compensation to the plaintiff 

pursuant to his rights vested under law. Id. at 164, 166–67. Chancellor Kent held that the statute 

“ought not to be enforced . . . until such provision should be made,” id. at 164, asserting the Court’s 

jurisdiction to enjoin the officers from proceeding to divert the water course until the plaintiff’s 

legal rights were indemnified. Id. at 164–65, 167–69. 

Applying on-point precedent from English Chancery, Chancellor Kent concluded that the 

equitable remedial jurisdiction in the cases before him was “well settled, and in constant exercise.” 

Belknap, 2 Johns. Ch. at 473–74 (citing Hughes v. Trs. of Morden Coll., 1 Ves. Sen. 188, 27 Eng. 

Rep. 973 (1748) (Ld. Hardwicke, Ch.); Shand v. Henderson, 2 Dow. P.C. 519 (1814) (Ld. Eldon, 

Ch.)); see Gardner, 2 Johns. Ch. at 168 (citing Agar v. Regent's Canal Co., G Coop. 77, 14 R. R. 

217 (1815) (Ld. Eldon, Ch.)). Moreover, in each of these cases where the controversy between 

parties “turn[ed] upon the construction of [an] act,” Chancellor Kent tailored the injunctive decrees

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to directly “confine [the officers] and their operations . . . within the strict precise limits prescribed 

by the statute,” but not extend jurisdiction in rem over the underlying statute itself. Belknap, 2 

Johns. Ch. at 471–74; see Gardner, 2 Johns. Ch. at 162. Each injunction acted strictly in personam 

on the officers themselves, dictating only their specific actions in relation to the law at issue

between the parties. The impact in rem of each injunction on the underlying law was merely 

incidental. Thus, by operating exclusively within the territory of in personam, Chancellor Kent’s 

injunctions could not be dissolved or superseded by an order or judgment at law with conflicting

effects. See Belknap, 2 Johns. Ch. at 474 (Kent, Ch.) (“These cases remove all doubt on the point 

of jurisdiction, and the observation of Lord Hardwicke alludes to its preeminent utility.”); CASES

CONCERNING EQUITY, at xlvii; LANGBEIN ET AL., at 334–36 (citing The King’s Order and Decree 

in Chancery, Cary 115, 21 Eng. Rep. 61 (1616)).

In the instant motions before the Court, Intervenor-Plaintiffs each seek injunctions that act 

in personam on the Government Defendants. The Court is asked to enjoin the Government 

Defendants from enforcing against Intervenor-Plaintiffs the two challenged provisions of the Final 

Rule—along the same lines as the relief issued by the Court during the preliminary injunction stage 

of the litigation.39 Such relief would entail that the Government Defendants and their officers, 

agents, servants, and employees are enjoined from implementing and enforcing against IntervenorPlaintiffs and their customers the provisions in 27 C.F.R. §§ 478.11 and 478.12(c) that the Court 

has determined are unlawful.40 The Government Defendants contend that, following the Supreme 

Court’s stay of the APA vacatur of the Final Rule, the prayed injunctions would carve out 

exemptions from the stayed vacatur and re-vacate the Final Rule for each Intervenor-Plaintiff.41

39 Defense Distributed’s Mot., ECF No. 249; BlackHawk’s Mot., ECF No. 251. 

40 See, e.g., Mem. Ops., ECF Nos. 118, 188. 

41 Defs.’ Resp., ECF No. 254. 

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The Government Defendants further assert that the prayed injunctive relief before the Court—as 

it relates to the APA vacatur relief issued at Final Judgment and the stay relief issued after Final 

Judgment—are “distinctions without a difference,” and thus the Court is without jurisdiction to 

grant the motions.

42 However, the Government Defendants misunderstand the nature of equitable 

relief and are wrong on all counts. 

In the Summary and Final Judgments, the Court vacated the Final Rule, which is the default 

remedy prescribed by section 706 of the APA for successful challenges to an agency regulation.

See Franciscan All., Inc. v. Becerra, 47 F.4th 368, 374–75, 375 n.29 (5th Cir. 2022). As courts 

uniformly recognize, vacatur “does not order the defendant to do anything; it only removes the 

source of the defendant’s authority.” All. for Hippocratic Med. v. U.S. Food & Drug Admin., No. 

23-10362, 2023 WL 5266026, at *30 (5th Cir. Aug. 16, 2023) (citing Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 

418, 428–29 (2009)); see also BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (11th ed. 2019) (defining Vacatur in 

legal parlance as the “act of annulling or setting aside”). In the agency context, “vacatur effectively 

rescinds the unlawful agency [rule]” upon a successful APA challenge. Id. (citations omitted). And 

where the final rule is vacated, that relief “neither compels nor restrains [any] further agency 

decision-making” on the part of the government. Texas v. United States, 40 F.4th 205, 220 (5th 

Cir. 2022). Applied here, the APA vacatur merely operated on the Final Rule itself—specifically 

the two provisions deemed unlawful—which was entirely annulled, and thus no longer in 

existence, until the Supreme Court placed its stay on that vacatur. In that sense, it can fairly be said 

that the vacatur relief prescribed under section 706 of the APA—and ordered by the Court in the

Summary and Final Judgments—operated in rem on the underlying provisions of the Final Rule

in controversy between the parties. 

42 Id.

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The Supreme Court’s stay on the Court’s APA vacatur operates as an additional action in 

rem on the underlying provisions of the Final Rule. See All. for Hippocratic Med., 2023 WL 

5266026, at *30 (expounding that “a stay is the temporary form of vacatur”). It temporarily 

supplanted the vacatur in rem with a restoration in rem on the existence of the Final Rule itself. 

See id. But as the foundational history and tradition of equity practice demonstrate, this is wholly 

different than the prayed relief before the Court. Whereas APA vacatur “unwinds the challenged 

agency [rule],” an injunction “blocks enforcement” of it. Driftless Area Land Conservancy v. 

Valcq, 16 F.4th 508, 522 (7th Cir. 2021). Similar to the historical officer injunctions granted in 

English and Early Republic chancery courts, the preventive injunctions sought by IntervenorPlaintiffs here operate to directly restrain the Government Defendants from taking actions (i.e., 

enforcing provisions of the Final Rule) that are in excess of the ATF’s statutory authority under 

the GCA. The injunctions confine the Government Defendants’ investigative and enforcement 

actions regarding the Intervenor-Plaintiffs within the precise limits prescribed by the GCA. 

In this sense, the prayed injunctions act purely in personam over the Government 

Defendants themselves. The relief would dictate only the Government Defendants’ specific actions 

in relation to the Final Rule in controversy between the parties, without issuing any commands or 

alterations on the Final Rule itself. And the prayed injunctions’ binding effect in personam over 

the Government Defendants’ enforcement decisions is backed by the traditional force of contempt, 

which is wholly lacking in both the Court’s original APA vacatur and the Supreme Court’s stay

that each act in rem over the Final Rule. See All. for Hippocratic Med., 2023 WL 5266026, at *31.

Furthermore, to the extent that the secondary impact of the prayed injunctions may incidentally

conflict with the in-rem operation of the unvacated Final Rule, the force and effect of the in 

personam decree sought by Intervenor-Plaintiffs predominates. See Belknap, 2 Johns. Ch. at 474 

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(Kent, Ch.); CASES CONCERNING EQUITY, at xlvii; LANGBEIN ET AL., at 334–36 (citing The King’s 

Order and Decree in Chancery, Cary 115, 21 Eng. Rep. 61 (1616)). Accordingly, the prayed 

injunctive relief satisfies the first maxim of equity jurisdiction. 

ii. The Prayed Injunctions Follow the Law

An outflow of the in personam equity maxim is a companion contour that the exercise of 

equitable remedial jurisdiction “follows the law” and “seeks out and guides itself by the analogies 

of the law.” 1 STORY, COMMENTARIES ON EQUITY JURISPRUDENCE §§ 19, 64 at 22, 71–72. This 

maxim neatly complements that of equity’s in personam posture. That is, if equity power cannot 

be exercised in rem, it cannot modify judgments at law or declare new rights at law either. See 

CASES CONCERNING EQUITY, at xlv, li (citing Ward v. Fulwood, No. 118–[201] (Ch. 1598)). In 

this regard, the Chancellors of England drew upon the wisdom of the ancients. See 1 LORD 

NOTTINGHAM’S CHANCERY CASES, at lii, n. 2. Building upon a principle of Aristotle’s original 

formulation of equity, the English Chancellors recognized that “laws properly enacted, should 

themselves define the issue of all cases as far as possible, and leave as little as possible to the 

discretion of the judges.” ARISTOTLE, RHETORIC 1353a-b (J. H. Freese trans., Harvard 1926). By 

the 18th century, Chancery fleshed out this antique maxim into a more clearly defined framework: 

“[Equitable remedial] discretion, in some cases, follows the law implicitly, in others, assists it, and 

advances the remedy. In others again, it relieves against the abuse, or allays the rigour [sic] of it, 

but in no case does it contradict or overturn the grounds or principles thereof.” Cowper v. Earl 

Cowper (1734) 24 Eng. Rep. 930, 942 (Jekyll, MR); see also Dudley v. Dudley, Prec. Ch. 241, 

244, 24 Eng. Rep. 118, 119 (Ch. 1705) (“Equity therefore does not destroy the law, nor create it, 

but assist it.”).

Specifically, where a rule of statutory law is directly on point and governs the entire case 

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or particular point at issue, a “Court of Equity is as much bound by it, as a Court of Law, and can 

as little justify departure from it.” 1 STORY, COMMENTARIES ON EQUITY JURISPRUDENCE § 64 at 

72 (citing Kemp v. Pryor (1802) 32 Eng. Rep. 96, 101; 7 Ves. Jr. 237, 249–51 (Ld. Eldon, Ch.)).

To that end, it became a “familiar principle of equity jurisdiction to protect by injunction statutory 

rights and privileges which [were] threatened to be destroyed or rendered valueless to the party by 

unauthorized interference of others.” Tyack v. Bromley, 4 Edw. Ch. 258, 271–72 (N.Y. Ch. 

1843), modified sub nom. Tyack v. Brumley, 1 Barb. Ch. 519 (N.Y. Ch. 1846). If upon following 

the applicable law, it was conclusive that a party seeking injunctive relief was in “actual 

possession” of a “clear and undisputed” statutory right, the “settled” doctrine of chancery courts 

was that an “injunction is the proper remedy to secure to [that] party the enjoyment” of their right

against invasion by others. Croton Tpk. Co. v. Ryder, 1 Johns. Ch. 611, 611, 615–16 (N.Y. Ch. 

1815) (Kent, Ch.) (granting injunctive relief to secure a company’s statutory right to a tollway and

explaining that the “equity jurisdiction in such a case is extremely benign and salutary,” without 

which “all our statute privileges . . . would be rendered of little value”); see Newburgh & C. Tpk. 

Rd. Co. v. Miller, 5 Johns. Ch. 101, 111–14 (N.Y. Ch. 1821) (Kent, Ch.) (granting a perpetual 

injunction to secure a company’s statutorily vested right to a operate a bridge); 2 JOSEPH STORY,

COMMENTARIES ON EQUITY JURISPRUDENCE § 927, at 206 (Boston, 2d ed. 1839). 

A favorable judgment at law on a statutory right asserted by the plaintiff was sufficient to 

establish the possession of a legally vested right entitled to the protection of an injunctive decree. 

Tyack, 4 Edw. Ch. at 271 (explaining that “it is discreet to await the decision of a court of law 

upon the legal right set up” for a court of chancery to enforce it in equity); 2 STORY,

COMMENTARIES ON EQUITY JURISPRUDENCE § 927, at 207 (“And when the right is fully established 

a perpetual injunction will be decreed.”) (citations omitted)); see Livingston v. Livingston, 6 Johns. 

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Ch. 497, 497, 499–501 (N.Y. Ch. 1822) (Kent, Ch.) (holding, after a right was decided in favor of 

the plaintiff in one action and while another was still pending, that it was “just and necessary” to 

grant injunctive relief to prevent “further disturbance” of the plaintiff’s asserted legal right “until 

the right is settled” at law). 

The question of whether the prayed injunctions follow the law depends on whether 

Intervenor-Plaintiffs are legally vested with the statutory right of having the Final Rule set aside. 

See 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(C) (providing a right of action for regulated entities to have courts “hold 

unlawful and set aside agency [rules]” that are determined to be “in excess of statutory jurisdiction, 

authority, or limitations”). And whether Intervenor-Plaintiffs are legally vested with the statutory 

right to have the Final Rule set aside falls upon the “law of the case” with respect to that right. 

Herein lies the dispute between the parties. 

The law-of-the-case doctrine posits that “when a court decides upon a rule of law, that 

decision should continue to govern the same issue in subsequent stages in the same case.” Med. 

Ctr. Pharmacy v. Holder, 634 F.3d 830, 834 (5th Cir. 2011) (cleaned up). In the present litigation, 

the Court held on the merits that both challenged provisions of the Final Rule were unlawful and 

that the Government Defendants “acted in excess of its statutory jurisdiction by promulgating [the 

Final Rule].” Later on in the Court’s Opinion and Order Granting Summary Judgment (ECF No. 

227), the Court vacated the Final Rule pursuant to the default statutory remedy that IntervenorPlaintiffs were entitled to. The Court entered a Final Judgment (ECF No. 231) categorically 

memorializing the grant of summary judgment to Intervenor-Plaintiffs (i.e., statutory right) and 

the vacatur of the Final Rule (i.e., statutory remedy). By this point at least, or upon Summary 

Judgment, Intervenor-Plaintiffs had been vested with the statutory right to have the unlawful 

provisions of the Final Rule set aside under the APA. The Government Defendants contend that 

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that Intervenor-Plaintiffs were divested of that right by the Supreme Court’s Stay Order, which 

now controls as the “law of the case” on that issue. See VanDerStok, 2023 WL 5023383, at *1

(mem.). The Stay Order provides, in relevant part, that this Court’s Summary and Final Judgments 

are “staying pending the disposition of the appeal . . . insofar as they vacate the final rule of the 

[ATF].” Id. (emphasis added). The controlling “law of the case” that is dispositive of IntervenorPlaintiffs’ statutory right turns upon an interpretation of the Stay Order. 

In any case involving the interpretation of an order, the Court examines the text to give 

each word its ordinary meaning and each phrase its intended effect. United States v. Kaluza, 780 

F.3d 647, 659 (5th Cir. 2015); Cargill v. Garland, 57 F.4th 447, 458 (5th Cir. 2023). Here, the 

plain language of the Stay Order indicates that the Supreme Court did not order a full stay of the 

Court’s Summary and Final Judgments. Rather, the inclusion of the phrase “insofar as” is an 

express limitation of the scope of the Stay Order. The meaning of “insofar as” in legal parlance is

“[t]o the degree or extent that.” BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (10th ed. 2014); see Pub. Serv. Co. of 

Ind. v. EPA, 682 F.2d 626, 635 n.15 (7th Cir. 1982) (noting “the primary definition of ‘insofar as’ 

is to such extent or degree”) (cleaned up)). It is clear to the Court that this phrase narrows the 

operative scope of the Stay Order “to the extent that” it merely stays the portion of the Court’s 

Summary and Final Judgments that issued an APA vacatur remedy on the Final Rule.

So too, if the Supreme Court intended to order a full stay, it certainly could have used the 

familiar phrase of “full stay” that it has in prior stay orders. See, e.g., Morrison v. Olson, 484 U.S. 

1058 (1988) (granting “application for full stay”). The Supreme Court could have also crafted a 

verbatim stay order that simply omitted of any limiting or conditional language, as it did in a 

separate case just months before. See Danco Lab’ys, LLC v. All. for Hippocratic Med., 143 S. Ct. 

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1075, 1075 (2023) (mem.).43 Instead, the Supreme Court followed prior stay orders that 

incorporated “insofar as” and like phrases that narrow the scope and frame the specific target of 

the stay. See, e.g., Berbling v. Littleton, 409 U.S. 1053, 1053–54 (1972) (“The application for stay 

of judgment . . . is granted insofar as it applies to applicants O’Shea and Spomer pending the 

timely filing of a petition for a writ of certiorari.”) (emphasis added)); see also Rsrv. Nat. Ins. Co. 

v. Crowell, 507 U.S. 1015 (1993) (“The application for stay . . . is granted and it is ordered that 

execution upon the punitive damages portion of the judgment . . . is stayed pending the timely 

filing and disposition by this Court of a petition for a writ of certiorari”) (emphasis added)).

Furthermore, in its application briefing, the Government Defendants requested that, “to the 

extent the [Supreme] Court concludes that the June 30 [summary judgment] order might continue 

to have independent effect,” the Supreme Court’s order should “stay both the June 30 [summary 

judgment] order and the July 5 final judgment” of this Court.44 The Supreme Court accepted that 

invitation and combined it with language confining the stay to cover only this Court’s grant of

vacatur—the statutorily prescribed remedy for unlawful agency actions under the APA—and not 

the Court’s judgment on the merits that the challenged provisions of the Final Rule are unlawful. 

Accordingly, the Court finds that the law of the case—with respect to the issue of IntervenorPlaintiffs’ legal rights—remains decided by the Court’s own Summary and Final Judgments. 

Having decided in their favor, each Intervenor-Plaintiff remains legally vested with the statutory 

right to have the Final Rule set aside under the APA, even while the statutory remedy for that right 

is presently stayed pending appeal. 

43

“The April 7, 2023 order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, case No. 

2:22–cv–223, is stayed pending disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the 

Fifth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought. Should 

certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall 

terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court.” Id. 

44 Defense Distributed’s Reply Ex., ECF No. 257-3, at 20–21, 21 n.4 (emphasis added).

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Intervenor-Plaintiffs pray for the Court to preserve their statutory right against the Final 

Rule through injunctive relief. In accordance with historical and traditional equity practice, the 

Court’s prior judgment of law in favor of Intervenor-Plaintiffs’ asserted statutory right establishes 

their possession of a legally vested right within the reach of equity jurisdiction. Tyack, 4 Edw. Ch. 

at 271; 2 STORY, COMMENTARIES ON EQUITY JURISPRUDENCE § 927, at 207 (citations omitted); see 

Livingston, 6 Johns. Ch. at 497, 499–501 (Kent, Ch.). Based on the law-following maxim of equity, 

therefore, the Court may enforce Intervenor-Plaintiffs’ APA-vested right against the Final Rule 

with an injunctive decree.

iii. The Prayed Injunctions Relieve Rights Without Remedy

Lastly, and inversely proportional to “equity follow[ing] the law,” is the maxim that “equity 

suffers not a right to be without a remedy.” FRANCIS, MAXIMS OF EQUITY, no. 6, at 24; see 1 STORY,

COMMENTARIES ON EQUITY JURISPRUDENCE § 56, at 75 (“[I]t cannot be generally affirmed, that, 

where there is no remedy at law in the given case, there is none in Equity.”) (citing Kemp v. Pryor 

(1802) 32 Eng. Rep. 96, 101; 7 Ves. Jr. 237, 249–250, (Ld. Eldon, Ch.))).45 This maxim reflects 

the original teleology of equity in Western law, see id. §§ 2–3, at 2–5 (discussing the ancient and 

natural law underpinnings of equity), which was “to give remedy in cases where none was before 

administered” under the ordinary law. 3 BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES, at 50. Though historically 

utilized to expand equitable intervention in the law, the maxim nonetheless functions as another 

cabining mechanism on the scope of equity jurisdiction. See 1 STORY, COMMENTARIES ON EQUITY 

JURISPRUDENCE § 33, at 32. In addition to the in personam- and law-following constraints, 

equitable remedial jurisdiction is further confined to “cases of rights recognised [sic] and protected 

45

“The maxim that ‘equity follows the law’ is also reflected in the notion that injunctions were not to be 

granted unless the legal remedy was inadequate—equity begins when law ends.” Henry E. Smith, Equity 

as Meta-Law, 130 YALE L. J. 1050, 1116 (2021) (emphasis added). 

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by municipal jurisprudence, where a plain, adequate, and complete remedy cannot be had in the 

. . . Law.” Id. (citations omitted). The adequate remedy rule of traditional injunction practice 

posited, as it does today, that equity lacks jurisdiction in cases where remedies prescribed by law 

are at least as adequate as those available in chancery—measured against the deficiencies of the 

party seeking relief for a vested right. See Lewis v. Lord Lechmere (1722) 88 Eng. Rep. 828, 829; 

10 Mod. 503, 506, (K.B.) (“The Lord Chancellor was of opinion, that the remedy the [plaintiff] 

had at law upon the articles was not adequate to that of a bill in equity for a specific performance.”); 

see also, e.g., Bonaparte, 3 F. Cas. at 834 (“[T]his is deemed an irreparable injury, for which the 

law can give no adequate remedy, or none equal to that which is given in equity, and is an 

acknowledged ground for [equity’s] interference.”). 

The historical case law highlights several common threads that, each taken on their own, 

were sufficient to render legal relief inadequate per se and call upon preventive injunctive relief to 

secure plaintiffs’ legal rights. The first, and most straightforward scenario, is where there is no

statutory remedy available to enforce a party’s legal right vested by that statute. In Bodley v. 

Taylor, for example, the Marshall Court was presented with the argument that because the legal 

right at issue was “given by a statute ” and the “[statute] affords no remedy against a person who 

has defeated this right,” that a “court of chancery, which can afford it, ought to consider itself as 

sitting in the character of a court of law, and ought to decide those questions as a court of law 

would decide them.” 9 U.S. (5 Cranch) 191, 222 (1809). Chief Justice Marshall retorted that the 

“jurisdiction exercised by a court of chancery is not granted by statute; it is assumed by itself.” Id. 

(emphasis added). In that case, the Marshall Court held that a federal court in such scenarios “will 

afford a remedy which a court of law cannot afford, but since that remedy is not given by statute, 

it will be applied by this court as the principles of equity require its application.” Id. at 223 

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(Marshall, C.J.). A second scenario is where the “loss of trade, destruction of the means of 

subsistence, or permanent ruin to property, may or will ensure from the wrongful act.” 2 JOSEPH 

STORY, COMMENTARIES ON EQUITY JURISPRUDENCE § 926, at 204–205. “[I]n every such case,” 

Justice Story observed, “Courts of Equity will interfere by injunction, in furtherance of justice and 

the violated rights of the party. Id. at 205 (citations omitted). It is of no significance that “an action 

for damages would lie at law,” either, “for the latter can in no just sense be deemed an adequate 

relief in such a case.” Id. (citations omitted). Thus, where either of these scenarios are present, 

traditional injunction practice dictates that equity subsume jurisdiction over the cause and secure 

the legal rights of plaintiffs. 

The no-right-without-remedy maxim also played a prolific role in actions to enjoin the 

ultra vires conduct of public officers during the 18th and 19th centuries. E.g., Hughes v. Trs. of 

Morden Coll., 1 Ves. Sen. 188, 27 Eng. Rep. 973 (1748) (Ld. Hardwicke, Ch.); Osborn v. Bank of 

the United States, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 738, 845 (1824) (Marshall, C.J.); see also Carroll v. Safford, 

44 U.S. (3 How.) 441, 463 (1845) (“[R]elief may be given in a court of equity . . . to prevent an 

injurious act by a public officer, for which the law might give no adequate redress.”); Bonaparte, 

3 F. Cas. at 827 (collecting cases). 

In Hughes v. Trustees of Merton College, English Chancery asserted its equity mandate 

over a bill to enjoin turnpike commissioners, acting under color of statute, from proceeding to take 

possession of, dig through, and destroy garden grounds that the plaintiff was legally entitled to. 1 

Ves. Sen. 188, 27 Eng. Rep. 973 (1748) (Ld. Hardwicke, Ch.). The commissioners’ authorizing 

statute had specifically excluded gardens from their lawful mandate. Id. Despite the availability of 

a remedy at law, Lord Hardwicke held that the plaintiff was entitled to a preventive injunction to 

restrain the commissioners from acting outside of the statute’s provisions, at the expense of the 

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plaintiff’s garden grounds, any further. Id. Lord Hardwicke’s reasoning was grounded in the 

recognition that the plaintiff was a gardener by trade, and that the impending “destruction of what 

a man was using as his trade or livelihood” could never receive adequate remedy at law. Jerome 

v. Ross, 7 Johns. Ch. 315, 335 (N.Y. Ch. 1823) (Kent, Ch.) (citing Hughes, 1 Ves. Sen. 188, 27 

Eng. Rep. 973). Thus, Lord Hardwicke found it squarely within the jurisdictional prerogative of 

equity to protect the pleading tradesman from permanent economic loss at the hands of government 

officers. Id. The precedent set by Lord Hardwicke in Hughes—that equity has jurisdiction to 

protect plaintiffs’ trades and livelihoods entangled in their legal rights, by preventive injunctive 

relief, from impending destruction at the hands of officer actions that are ultra vires—was directly 

followed and extended in subsequent cases under the Court of Chancery of Lord Eldon. See Agar 

v. Regent's Canal Co., G Coop. 77, 14 R. R. 217 (1815) (Ld. Eldon, Ch.) (granting an injunction 

to restrain defendants, empowered by act of parliament to cut a canal, from departing from the 

statutorily prescribed boundaries of the canal and destroying a tradesman’s brickyard and garden).

By the 19th century, the equity jurisdiction head enshrined in Hughes had become “well 

settled” and of “preeminent utility” to traditional injunction doctrine. Belknap, 2 Johns. Ch. at 473–

74 (Kent, Ch.). Its preeminence was demonstrated in Osborn v. Bank of the United States, where 

the Marshall Court affirmed an injunction that restrained the state auditor from acting outside of

his lawful authority to impose an annual levy of $100,000 on the national bank, threatening both 

to destroy its franchise and expel it from the State of Ohio. 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 738, 838–40 (1824). 

The Supreme Court rejected the state auditor’s challenge to the equitable jurisdiction of federal 

courts to provide or affirm injunctive relief, notwithstanding the availability of remedies at law. 

See id. at 841–45. The Supreme Court found that “the probability that remedy [at law] would be 

adequate, is stronger in the cases put in the books, than in this, where the sum is so greatly beyond 

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the capacity of an ordinary agent to pay.” Id. at 845. Based upon this finding of impending 

destruction to the bank’s statutory franchise and business operations, Chief Justice Marshall, 

writing for the Supreme Court, held that “it is the province of a Court of equity, in such cases, to 

arrest the injury, and prevent the wrong,” and that the Court’s injunctive decree “is more beneficial 

and complete, than the law can give.” Id.

In the instant motions, the prayed injunctions embody both scenarios from classical 

injunction practice that implicate equitable remedial jurisdiction as a per se matter. First, 

Intervenor-Plaintiffs possess a legally vested right that is bereft of any legal remedy. Even 

assuming their businesses survive the appeals process, Intervenor-Plaintiffs will never be able to 

recoup monetary damages at law due to the Government Defendants’ sovereign immunity. In 

traditional and modern injunction practice, this bar on recovery at law is already more than enough

to justify equitable remedial intervention, as such harms cannot be undone through monetary

remedies. Dennis Melancon, 703 F.3d at 279 (citation omitted); Wages & White Lion, 16 F.4th at

1142. Furthermore, the only statutory remedy available to vindicate Intervenor-Plaintiffs’ statutory 

right is the vacatur prescribed by § 706(2) of the APA. But because this exclusive remedy is subject 

to stay pending appeal and Intervenor-Plaintiffs lack any other remedy at law, the grounds for 

equity jurisdiction over the prayed injunctive relief is without doubt at this stage in the litigation. 

See Bodley, 9 U.S. (5 Cranch) at 222–23 (1809) (Marshall, C.J.); Louisiana v. Biden, 55 F.4th at 

1033–34. Otherwise, Intervenor-Plaintiffs “may be unable to . . . pursue [their] legal rights.”46

Second, compliance with the unlawful interpretation of the GCA carries the potential for 

serious economic costs and existential threats to the trades and livelihoods of Intervenor-Plaintiffs. 

Jerome, 7 Johns. Ch. at 335 (Kent, Ch.) (citing Hughes, 1 Ves. Sen. 188, 27 Eng. Rep. 973); Texas 

46 BlackHawk’s Mot. 8, ECF No. 251.

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v. EPA, 829 F.3d 405, 433 (5th Cir. 2016). Without intervening equitable relief in the interim, 

Intervenor-Plaintiffs will suffer substantial economic costs should the Government Defendants 

enforce the Final Rule. Indeed, any resumed enforcement efforts against Intervenor-Plaintiffs 

would result in significant harm to their businesses. Defense Distributed has already shown that it 

“will go out of business and cease to exist.”47 This harm is even more salient today than when the 

Court first took up this issue. The longer the business sustains economic costs, the more likely that 

the Final Rule “will destroy Defense Distributed, soon, unless the government is enjoined from 

enforcing” the Final Rule in the interim.48 Similarly, BlackHawk “will be unable to continue its 

core business operations” and “may cease to exist.”49 BlackHawk previously demonstrated that 

complying with the Final Rule’s requirements would entail an overhaul of its entire online, directto-consumer business model, along with requiring it to incur costs through administrative 

compliance and other FFL-related fees.50 While the vacatur of the Final Rule is on appeal, 

preventing the incurrence of such prohibitive costs will avoid irreversible damage to IntervenorPlaintiffs’ businesses.

But even if the Court’s original APA vacatur remedy is ultimately affirmed on appeal, any 

incurred economic losses will be for naught. Harms that flow from “complying with a regulation 

later held invalid almost always produce[] the irreparable harm of nonrecoverable compliance 

costs.” Texas v. EPA, 829 F.3d at 433 (cleaned up). This is especially true when such harms 

“threaten the existence of the [Intervenor-Plaintiffs’] business[es]” and could lead to catastrophic 

economic losses—including closing the business—absent interim protection from an injunction 

pending appeal. Atwood Turnkey, 875 F.2d at 1179. Where a plaintiff occupied the status of 

47 Defense Distributed’s Mot. 5, ECF No. 249.

48 Id.

49 BlackHawk’s Mot. 8, ECF No. 251.

50 Second Mem. Op. 7, ECF No. 118.

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tradesman, traditional equity practice posited that the impending “destruction of what [that 

plaintiff] was using as his trade or livelihood” can never receive adequate remedy at law. Jerome, 

7 Johns. Ch. at 335 (Kent, Ch.) (citing Hughes, 1 Ves. Sen. 188, 27 Eng. Rep. 973). Under the 

historical no-right-without-remedy maxim of equity, therefore, there can be no uncertainty as to 

the Court’s equitable remedial prerogative over Intervenor-Plaintiffs’ prayed injunctions. See 

Osborn, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) at 845 (Marshall, C.J.); Carroll, 44 U.S. (3 How.) at 463 (1845). 

Further than that, an injunctive decree awarded to Intervenor-Plaintiffs would affirm the maxim’s 

core tenet that “equity suffers not a right to be without a remedy.” FRANCIS, MAXIMS OF EQUITY,

no. 6, at 24; see 1 STORY, COMMENTARIES ON EQUITY JURISPRUDENCE § 56, at 75. 

Accordingly, the Court finds that the history and tradition of equity practice familiar to our

Founding generation, along with its accompanying jurisdictional maxims, are in perfect parity with 

the injunctions presently sought by Intervenor-Plaintiffs in their motions before the Court. The 

Court proceeds by testing this holding against applicable constitutional and doctrinal restraints. 

2. Jurisdiction Lies Within Constitutional and Doctrinal Boundaries

Drawing from the classical roots of equity jurisprudence, contemporary judicial doctrine 

recognizes that “it is axiomatic that federal courts possess inherent power to enforce their 

judgments.” Thomas v. Hughes, 27 F.4th 363, 368 (5th Cir. 2022) (cleaned up). “That a federal 

court of equity has jurisdiction of a bill ancillary to an original case or proceeding in the same 

court, whether at law or in equity, to secure or preserve the fruits and advantages of a judgment or 

decree rendered therein, is well settled.” Loc. Loan Co. v. Hunt, 292 U.S. 234, 239 (1934). A 

court’s ancillary enforcement jurisdiction over its orders and judgments is a “creature of 

necessity,” see Peacock, 516 U.S. at 359, without which “the judicial power would be incomplete 

and entirely inadequate to the purposes for which it was conferred by the Constitution.” Riggs v. 

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Johnson County, 73 U.S. (6 Wall.) 166, 187 (1868); Bank of U.S. v. Halstead, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 

51, 53 (1825). This ancillary enforcement jurisdiction includes the power to “enter injunctions as 

a means to enforce prior judgments.” Test Masters Educ. Servs., Inc. v. Singh, 428 F.3d 559, 577–

78 (5th Cir. 2005) (citing Santopadre v. Pelican Homestead & Sav. Ass’n, 937 F.2d 268 (5th 

Cir.1991)). When a federal district court had subject-matter jurisdiction over the principal action

containing the order or final judgment that a party seeks to enforce in a post-judgment proceeding, 

there is no doubt as to the jurisdiction of that same court to enjoin actions threatening to contravene 

that prior order or judgment in which the court itself had originally entered. See Hunt, 292 U.S. at 

239; Boim v. Am. Muslims for Palestine, 9 F.4th 545, 551–52 (7th Cir. 2021). This is true of the 

instant injunction proceedings and is not disputed by either of the parties.

But a district court’s ancillary equitable enforcement power is cabined by the additional 

constraints found within Article III and contemporary judicial doctrine. As “inferior Courts” 

ordained and established by Congress, the judicial power of a district court is limited by and 

subservient to the judicial power exercised by higher inferior courts, the judicial power exercised 

by the Supreme Court of the United States, and Congressional enactments defining or limiting the 

scope of the district court’s judicial power. U.S. CONST. art. III §§ 1, 2; see Martin v. Hunter’s 

Lessee, 14 U.S. 304, 314–15 (1816); Lauf v. E.G. Shinner & Co., 303 U.S. 323, 330 (1938). To 

that end, a district court retains ancillary enforcement jurisdiction pending direct appeal only 

insofar as its prior order or judgment is not stayed or superseded by a superior federal court. Nicol 

v. Gulf Fleet Supply Vessels, Inc., 743 F.2d 298, 299 n.2 (5th Cir. 1984); Farmhand, Inc. v. Anel 

Eng’g Indus., Inc., 693 F.2d 1140, 1145–46 (5th Cir. 1982); Deering Milliken, Inc. v. F.T.C., 647 

F.2d 1124, 1128–29 (D.C. Cir. 1978). Moreover, its jurisdiction over an injunction pending appeal 

is “limited to maintaining the status quo” and cannot extend so far as to “divest the court of appeals

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[of] jurisdiction” while the appealed issues are before it. Coastal Corp. v. Texas E. Corp., 869 F.2d 

817, 820 (5th Cir. 1989) (citing FED.R.CIV. P. 62(c)); see also EEOC v. Locs. 14 & 15, Int’l Union 

of Operating Engineers, 438 F. Supp. 876, 880 (S.D.N.Y. 1977). The parties are in dispute over 

whether the Court would upset these boundaries by exercising jurisdiction over the prayed relief.

The Court finds that the exercise of equitable remedial jurisdiction over the prayed relief is safely 

within the boundaries prescribed by the Constitution of the United States and federal judicial 

doctrine. 

For starters, the Government Defendants’ assertion that the Supreme Court’s Stay Order 

functions as a bar to jurisdiction falls short. Guided by the history and tradition of equity and the 

plain meaning of the Supreme Court’s Stay Order, the Court’s prior analysis of how the equitable 

maxims comport with the prayed relief are dispositive of the matter. Very simply, the Stay Order 

merely acts in rem over the Final Rule, while the prayed injunctions act in personam on the 

Government Defendants and their conduct in relation to the Final Rule. Thus, if the Court were to 

issue the injunctive decrees sought by Intervenor-Plaintiffs, the Final Rule would remain on the 

books and carry the force and effect of law—unless and until the Supreme Court’s stay is lifted 

and the Court’s original APA vacatur remedy is reinstated. Moreover, the breadth of the Stay Order 

is limited to the statutory remedy decreed by the Court at Final Judgment, while the statutory rights

decreed by the Court at Final Judgment remain the applicable law of the case. Under that law of 

the case, Intervenor-Plaintiffs are vested with a statutory right against the Final Rule that is 

enforceable in equity. And to the degree that the material results of the prayed injunctions, if 

granted, might intersect with the material results of the stay insofar as it concerns enforcement of 

the challenged provisions of the Final Rule against Intervenor-Plaintiffs, our system rests on the 

bedrock principle that “the equity rule and decree will prevail.” CASES CONCERNING EQUITY, at 

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xlvii; see The King’s Order and Decree in Chancery, Cary 115, 21 Eng. Rep. 61 (1616). In sum, 

the Stay Order does not bar the Court’s equitable remedial jurisdiction to issue relief in equity to 

Intervenor-Plaintiffs.

Lastly, the injunctive decree sought by Intervenor-Plaintiffs would merely preserve the 

status quo pending appeal and potential certiorari. According to the Fifth Circuit, the status quo 

ante this litigation is the “world before the [Final] Rule became effective.” VanDerStok v. Garland, 

No. 23-10718, 2023 WL 4945360, at *1 (5th Cir. July 24, 2023) (per curiam). With vacatur stayed, 

the full scope of the status quo ante is currently unattainable, as it would require some form of 

rescission operating in rem on the Final Rule itself. However, within the status quo world before 

the Final Rule became effective is the next closest analog at a lower level of generality, which is 

the world before the Final Rule became enforceable against Intervenor-Plaintiffs. And indeed, the 

Government Defendants themselves conceded this in their stay application briefing before the 

Supreme Court of the United States.51 The Court agrees with the Government Defendants and 

finds that the injunctive relief sought by Intervenor-Plaintiffs would merely preserve the status 

quo ante this litigation with respect to the legal relationship between the parties before the Court 

in the present motion. 

Accordingly, the Court finds that the exercise of equity jurisdiction over the prayed 

injunctions falls within constitutional and judicial constraints. The historical and traditional 

grounds for the Court’s equity jurisdiction neatly trace the separate boundaries erected by the 

Constitution of the United States and federal judicial doctrine. Overall, the Court holds that it is 

properly vested with equitable remedial jurisdiction under Article III to afford injunctive relief to

51 Defense Distributed’s Reply Ex., ECF No. 257-1, at 41 (“To begin with, the [Final] Rule has been the 

“status quo” since August 2022 for everyone except some respondents and their customers who secured 

preliminary relief.”); Id. No. 257-3, at 19 (“First, the Rule has been the “status quo” for nearly a year for 

everyone except some respondents who secured preliminary relief (and their customers).”). 

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Intervenor-Plaintiffs, pending appeal, that would secure their legally vested rights under the APA 

against the Government Defendants’ enforcement of the Final Rule. The Court proceeds to the 

merits of Intervenor-Plaintiffs’ emergency motions for injunctive relief to determine if such shall 

warrant. 

III. LEGAL STANDARD

Having established ancillary enforcement jurisdiction, the decision to extend interlocutory 

relief now rests with the sound discretion of this Court. See Miss. Power & Light Co. v. United 

Gas Pipe Line Co., 760 F.2d 618, 621 (5th Cir. 1985) (laying out the criteria for preliminary 

injunctive relief); see also Hecht, 321 U.S. at 329 (“An appeal to the equity jurisdiction conferred 

on federal district courts is an appeal to the sound discretion which guides the determinations of 

courts of equity.” (cleaned up)). The factors governing the Court’s discretion on whether to grant 

an injunction pending appeal are virtually identical to those governing whether to grant a 

preliminary injunction. See, e.g., Chamber of Com. v. Hugler, No. 3:16-CV-1476-M, 2017 WL 

1062444, at *2 (N.D. Tex. Mar. 20, 2017); Cardoni v. Prosperity Bank, No. CIV.A. H-14-1946, 

2015 WL 410589, at *1 (S.D. Tex. Jan. 29, 2015). 

To establish entitlement to injunctive relief pending disposition of appeal, IntervenorPlaintiffs must demonstrate: (1) a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; (2) a substantial 

threat of irreparable harm; (3) that the balance of hardships weighs in their favor; and (4) that the 

issuance of injunctive relief will not disserve the public interest. Daniels Health Servs., L.L.C. v. 

Vascular Health Scis., L.L.C., 710 F.3d 579, 582 (5th Cir. 2013). The final two elements merge 

when the opposing party is the government. Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 435 (2009). As 

movants, Intervenor-Plaintiffs seeking relief bear the burden of proving all four elements. Nichols 

v. Alcatel USA, Inc., 532 F.3d 364, 372 (5th Cir. 2008); Miss. Power & Light Co., 760 F.2d at 621. 

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Upon determination that a party is entitled to injunctive relief, a court must make a separate 

determination regarding the appropriate scope of the prospective relief, which is “dictated by the 

extent of the violation established.” Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 702 (1979). As an 

extraordinary remedy, an injunction “should be no more burdensome to the defendant than 

necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiff.” Madsen v. Women’s Health Ctr., Inc., 512 

U.S. 753, 765 (1994) (cleaned up). Thus, an injunction must “redress the plaintiff’s particular 

injury,” and no more. Gill v. Whitford, 138 S. Ct. 1916, 1934 (2018) (citation omitted).

IV. ANALYSIS

A. Substantial Likelihood of Success on the Merits

At the outset, Intervenor-Plaintiffs must demonstrate that they are substantially likely to 

succeed on the merits of their APA claims. Daniels Health Servs., 710 F.3d at 582. IntervenorPlaintiffs contend that the Final Rule exceeds the scope of lawful authority that Congress conferred 

upon the ATF. The Court agrees.

Very simply, the Court has already decided on the merits that there exists no genuine 

dispute of material fact that the challenged provisions of the Final Rule—specifically, 

27 C.F.R. §§ 478.11, 478.12(c)—exceed the scope of the ATF’s statutory jurisdiction under the 

GCA, see 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(3), and that Intervenor-Plaintiffs are entitled to judgment as a matter 

of law on their APA claims. See 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(c) (codifying the statutory cause of action and 

relief for agency actions “in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations”).52 In their 

motions before the Court, Intervenor-Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief from the Government 

Defendants’ enforcement of the Final Rule on identical grounds.53 As discussed earlier in this 

52 See Summ. J. Mem. Op. & Order 35, ECF No. 227 (holding on the merits that both challenged provisions 

of the Final Rule were invalid and that the ATF “acted in excess of its statutory jurisdiction by promulgating 

[the Final Rule].”).

53 See Defense Distributed’s Mot., ECF No. 249; BlackHawk’s Mot., ECF No. 251.

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Opinion, the Court finds that its previous judgments on the merits of these APA claims have not 

been stayed by the Supreme Court and continue to embody the “law of the case.” Med. Ctr. 

Pharmacy v. Holder, 634 F.3d 830, 834 (5th Cir. 2011) (“[W]hen a court decides upon a rule of 

law, that decision should continue to govern the same issue in subsequent stages in the same case.”) 

(cleaned up)).

Based on the foregoing, Intervenor-Plaintiffs have demonstrated, a fortiori, an actual 

success on the merits of their claims. 

B. Substantial Threat of Irreparable Harm Absent Injunctive Relief

Intervenor-Plaintiffs are also obliged to show a substantial threat of irreparable harm. 

Irreparable harm exists where “there is no adequate remedy at law.” Louisiana v. Biden, 55 F.4th 

1017, 1033-34 (5th Cir. 2022) (cleaned up). The Fifth Circuit considers harm irreparable “if it

cannot be undone through monetary remedies.” Dennis Melancon, Inc. v. City of New Orleans, 

703 F.3d 262, 279 (5th Cir. 2012) (quoting Interox Am. v. PPG Indus., Inc., 736 F.2d 194, 202

(5th Cir.1984)). A showing of economic loss is usually insufficient to establish irreparable harm

because damages may be recoverable at the conclusion of litigation. Janvey v. Alguire, 647 F.3d 

585, 600 (5th Cir. 2011). However, “an exception exists where the potential economic loss is so

great as to threaten the existence of the movant’s business.” Atwood Turnkey Drilling, Inc. v. 

Petroleo Brasileiro, S.A., 875 F.2d 1174, 1179 (5th Cir. 1989). Or where costs are nonrecoverable

because the government-defendant enjoys sovereign immunity from monetary damages, as is the

case here, irreparable harm is generally satisfied. See Wages & White Lion Invs., L.L.C. v. FDA,

16 F.4th 1130, 1142 (5th Cir. 2021). Irreparable harm must be concrete, non-speculative, and more 

than merely de minimis. Daniels Health Servs., 710 F.3d at 585; Dennis Melancon, Inc., 703 F.3d 

at 279. Finally, a movant’s “delay in seeking relief is a consideration when analyzing the threat of 

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imminent and irreparable harm.” Anyadike v. Vernon Coll., No. 7:15-cv-00157, 2015 WL 

12964684, at *3 (N.D. Tex. Nov. 20, 2015). 

Compliance with an impermissible or illegal interpretation of the law carries the potential 

for economic costs. Texas v. EPA, 829 F.3d 405, 433 (5th Cir. 2016). Without an injunction 

pending appeal, Intervenor-Plaintiffs will suffer substantial economic costs should the 

Government Defendants enforce the Final Rule. Indeed, any resumed enforcement efforts against 

Intervenor-Plaintiffs would result in significant harm to their businesses. Defense Distributed has 

already shown that it “will go out of business and cease to exist.”54 This harm is even more salient 

today than when the Court first took up this issue. The longer the business sustains economic costs, 

the more likely that the Final Rule “will destroy Defense Distributed, soon, unless the government 

is enjoined from enforcing” the Final Rule in the interim.55 Similarly, BlackHawk “will be unable 

to continue its core business operations” and “may cease to exist.”56 BlackHawk previously

demonstrated that complying with the Final Rule’s requirements would entail an overhaul of its 

entire online, direct-to-consumer business model, along with requiring it to incur costs through 

administrative compliance and other FFL-related fees.57 While the vacatur of the Final Rule is on 

appeal, preventing the incurrence of such prohibitive costs will avoid irreparable damage to 

Intervenor-Plaintiffs’ businesses.

If this Court’s vacatur is ultimately affirmed on appeal, any incurred economic losses will 

be for naught. Harms that flow from “complying with a regulation later held invalid almost always 

produce[] the irreparable harm of nonrecoverable compliance costs.” Texas v. EPA, 829 F.3d at

433 (cleaned up). This is especially true when such harms “threaten the existence of the 

54 Defense Distributed’s Mot. 5, ECF No. 249.

55 Id.

56 BlackHawk’s Mot. 8, ECF No. 251.

57 Second Mem. Op. 7, ECF No. 118.

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[Intervenor-Plaintiffs’] business[es]” and could lead to catastrophic economic losses—including 

closing the business—absent interim protection from an injunction pending appeal. Atwood 

Turnkey, 875 F.2d at 1179. And even if the businesses somehow survive beyond the appeals 

process, Intervenor-Plaintiffs would never be able to recoup monetary damages due to the 

Government Defendants’ sovereign immunity. This bar on recovery is enough to show irreparable

harm because such harms cannot be undone through monetary remedies. Dennis Melancon, 703 

F.3d at 279 (citation omitted); Wages & White Lion, 16 F.4th at 1142. In fact, only one remedy at 

law is available to the Intervenor-Plaintiffs: vacatur under § 706(2) of the APA. Because this 

exclusive remedy is the subject of the appeal and the parties lack any other remedy at law, the need 

for injunctive relief pending appeal is even more critical at this stage to preserve the status quo. 

Louisiana v. Biden, 55 F.4th at 1033–34 (explaining that irreparable harm exists where “there is 

no adequate remedy at law”). Otherwise, Intervenor-Plaintiffs “may be unable to . . . pursue [their] 

legal rights.”58

Further underscoring the need for an injunction pending appeal is the timing of the 

requested relief. Intervenor-Plaintiffs filed their emergency motions immediately after the 

Supreme Court issued its stay order.59 This timing demonstrates the urgency of the need for an 

injunction. Anyadike, 2015 WL 12964684, at *3. Because Intervenor-Plaintiffs are no longer 

protected by this Court’s Final Judgment during the appeals process, an individualized injunction 

pending appeal is the only way to preserve the status quo and prevent irreparable harm in the 

interim until the appeals process concludes. 

58 BlackHawk’s Mot. 8, ECF No. 251.

59 The Supreme Court issued its Order staying the Final Judmgent on August 8, 2023. Vanderstok, 2023 

WL 5023383, at *1. Defense Distributed filed its emergency motion the very next day on August 9, 2023. 

Defense Distributed’s Mot., ECF No. 249. BlackHawk filed its emergency motion less than a week later 

on August 14, 2023. BlackHawk’s Mot., ECF No. 251.

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For these reasons, the Court finds that Intervenor-Plaintiffs have carried their burden to 

show that irreparable harms exist at this stage.

C. The Balance of Equities and Public Interest Favor Issuing Injunctive Relief

The final two elements necessary to support a grant of injunctive relief—the balance of 

equities (the difference in harm to the respective parties) and the public interest—merge together 

when the government is a party. Nken, 556 U.S. at 435. In this assessment, the Court weighs “the 

competing claims of injury” and considers “the effect on each party of the granting or withholding 

of the requested relief,” paying close attention to the public consequences of granting an 

injunction. Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 24 (2008) (citations omitted). 

The Court has established on multiple occasions—and again in this Opinion—that 

Intervenor-Plaintiffs each face a substantial threat of irreparable harm absent relief from 

enforcement of the Final Rule. But at the other end of the scale, there can be “no public interest in 

the perpetuation of unlawful agency action.” Louisiana v. Biden, 55 F.4th 1017, 1035 (5th Cir. 

2022) (emphasis added). As it relates to enforcement of the Final Rule against IntervenorPlaintiffs, “neither [the Government Defendants] nor the public has any interest in enforcing a 

regulation that violates federal law.” All. for Hippocratic Med. v. FDA, No. 23-10362, 2023 WL 

5266026, at *28 (5th Cir. Aug. 16, 2023) (emphasis added). In this respect, the government-publicinterest equities evaporate entirely upon adverse judgment on the merits. See Sierra Club v. U.S. 

Army Corps of Eng’rs, 990 F. Supp. 2d 9, 43 (D.D.C. 2013) (Jackson, J.) (expounding that public 

interest arguments are “derivative of . . . merits arguments and depend in large part on the vitality 

of the latter”). The controlling law of this case is that the Government Defendants’ promulgation 

of the two challenged provisions of the Final Rule, see 27 C.F.R. §§ 478.11, 478.12(c), transgress

the boundaries of lawful authority prescribed by Congress, see 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(3), and are in 

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violation of the federal APA. See 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(c). It follows, of course, that there is no injury 

that the Government Defendants and the public at-large could possibly suffer from.

Having no equities to balance against those of Intervenor-Plaintiffs, the Court finds that 

the public’s interest is entirely undisturbed by a grant of the prayed-for relief.

* * * *

Having considered the arguments, evidence, and applicable law, the Court holds that it has

ancillary jurisdiction to enforce, in equity, the portions of its Summary Judgment Order (ECF No. 

227) and Final Judgment (ECF No. 231) that remain in effect following the Stay Order of the 

Supreme Court of the United States. See VanDerStok, 2023 WL 5023383, at *1 (mem.). The Court 

also holds that the relevant factors weigh in favor of granting injunctive relief to IntervenorPlaintiffs. The proper scope of relief is that which mirrors the relief previously granted to 

Intervenor-Plaintiffs at the preliminary injunction stage—plus an extended effective period that 

mirrors the expiration timetable of the stay ordered by the Supreme Court of the United States on 

August 8, 2023. 

V. CONCLUSION

The Court is properly vested with the jurisdiction to dispense—and each IntervenorPlaintiff has demonstrated their individual entitlement to—injunctive relief against the 

Government Defendants’ enforcement of provisions of the Final Rule that this Court has 

repeatedly held to be void. 

For the foregoing reasons, the Court GRANTS the Emergency Motions for Injunction 

Pending Appeal. Accordingly, the Court ORDERS that the Government Defendants—the 

Attorney General of the United States; the United States Department of Justice; the Director of the 

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, 

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42

Firearms and Explosives—and each of their respective officers, agents, servants, and employees—

are ENJOINED from implementing and enforcing against Intervenor-Plaintiffs Defense 

Distributed and BlackHawk Manufacturing Group Inc. d/b/a 80 Percent Arms the provisions in 27 

C.F.R. §§ 478.11 and 478.12 that the Court has preliminarily and on the merits determined are 

unlawful. Reflecting the scope of relief previously afforded to each Intervenor-Plaintiff, this

injunctive relief shall extend to each of Defense Distributed’s and BlackHawk Manufacturing 

Group Inc. d/b/a 80 Percent Arms’ respective customers (except for those individuals prohibited 

from possessing firearms under 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)). Reflecting the scope of the stay on the finaljudgment remedy decreed in this case, so ordered by the Supreme Court of the United States on 

August 8, 2023, this injunctive relief shall take effect immediately and shall remain in effect 

pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit 

and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought, absent other 

order on this issue. Should certiorari be denied, this injunctive relief shall terminate automatically. 

In the event certiorari is granted, this injunctive relief shall terminate upon the sending down of 

the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States. 

The Court waives the security requirements of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 62(d) and 

65(c). See Kaepa, Inc. v. Achilles Corp., 76 F.3d 624, 628 (5th Cir. 1996).60

SO ORDERED this 14th day of September, 2023. 

60 Because neither party raises the security requirement in Rule 65(c), no security is ordered. See FED. R.

CIV. P. 65(c).

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