Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf
Page Number: 49.0

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

3 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

124 (1995) (THOMAS, J., concurring).  No statute expressly
grants district courts the power to issue universal injunc-
tions.2  So the only possible bases for these injunctions are 
a  generic  statute  that  authorizes  equitable  relief  or  the 
courts’ inherent constitutional authority.  Neither of those 
sources  would  permit  a  form  of  injunctive  relief  that  is 
“[in]consistent with our history and traditions.”  Ibid. 

A 
This Court has never treated general statutory grants of 
equitable authority as giving federal courts a freewheeling 
power to fashion new forms of equitable remedies.  Rather, 
it  has  read  such  statutes  as  constrained  by  “the  body  of 
law which had been transplanted to this country from the 
English  Court  of  Chancery”  in  1789.    Guaranty  Trust  Co. 
v.  York,  326  U. S.  99,  105  (1945).    As  Justice  Story  ex-
plained, this Court’s “settled doctrine” under such statutes
is that “the remedies in equity are to be administered . . . 
according to the practice of courts of equity in [England].” 
Boyle v. Zacharie & Turner, 6 Pet. 648, 658 (1832).  More 
recently, this Court reiterated that broad statutory grants 
of equitable authority give federal courts “ ‘an authority to
administer  in  equity  suits  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.’ ”  Grupo Mexi-
cano  de  Desarrollo  S. A.  v.  Alliance  Bond  Fund,  Inc.,  527 
U. S.  308,  318  (1999)  (Scalia,  J.)  (quoting  Atlas  Life  Ins. 
Co. v. W. I. Southern, Inc., 306 U. S. 563, 568 (1939)). 

—————— 

2 Even  if  Congress  someday  enacted  a  statute  that  clearly  and  ex-
pressly authorized universal injunctions, courts would need to consider 
whether that statute complies with the limits that Article III places on 
the authority of federal courts.  See infra, at 7–8.