Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-463_3ebh.pdf
Page Number: 16.0

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2021) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 
Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

large,”  ibid.,  or  purport  to  enjoin  challenged  “laws  them-
selves,” Whole Woman’s Health, 594 U. S., at ___ (slip op., 
at  1)  (citing  California  v.  Texas,  593  U. S.  ___,  ___  (2021) 
(slip op., at 8)). 
  Our colleagues offer no persuasive reply to this problem.  
THE  CHIEF  JUSTICE  does  not  address  it.    Meanwhile, 
JUSTICE  SOTOMAYOR  offers  a  radical  answer,  suggesting 
once more that this Court should cast aside its precedents 
requiring  federal  courts  to  abide  by  traditional  equitable 
principles.    Post,  at  9,  n. 3.    This  time,  however,  JUSTICE 
SOTOMAYOR  does  not  claim  to  identify  any  countervailing 
authority to support her proposal.  Instead, she says, it is 
justified purely by the fact that the State of Texas in S. B. 8 
has “delegat[ed] its enforcement authority to the world at 
large.”  Ibid.  But somewhat analogous complaints could be 
levied  against  private  attorneys  general  acts,  statutes  al-
lowing  for  private  rights  of  action,  tort  law,  federal  anti-
trust law, and even the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  In some 
sense all of these laws “delegate” the enforcement of public 
policy to private parties and reward those who bring suits 
with “bount[ies]” like exemplary or statutory damages and 
attorney’s  fees.    Nor  does  JUSTICE  SOTOMAYOR  explain 
where her novel plan to overthrow this Court’s precedents 
and  expand  the  equitable  powers  of  federal  courts  would 
stop—or on what theory it might plausibly happen to reach 
just this case or maybe those exactly like it.2 

C 
  While this Court’s precedents foreclose some of the peti-
tioners’  claims  for  relief,  others  survive.    The  petitioners 
—————— 

2 This  is  not  to  say  that  the  petitioners,  or  other  abortion  providers, 
lack  potentially  triable  state-law  claims  that  S. B. 8  improperly  dele-
gates  state law  enforcement  authority.    Nor  do  we  determine  whether 
any particular S. B. 8 plaintiff possesses standing to sue under state jus-
ticiability  doctrines.   We  note  only  that  such  arguments do  not  justify 
federal courts abandoning traditional limits on their equitable authority 
and our precedents enforcing them.