Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-1008_1b82.pdf
Page Number: 43.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

15 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

the  available 

listing  of 
is 
nonexhaustive.”  Sohoni, The Past and Future of Universal 
Vacatur, 133 Yale L. J., at 2337.   

forms  of  proceedings 

To  support  its  novel  reliance  on  §703,  the  Government
suggests that the phrase “set aside” in §706(2) may refer to
a “rule of decision directing the reviewing court to disregard
unlawful”  agency  actions  in  “resolving  the  case  before  it,”
rather than the remedy of vacatur.  Brief for United States 
in United States v. Texas, O. T. 2022, No. 22–58, at 40.  But 
the leading cases and legal dictionaries at the time of the 
APA’s  enactment  did  not  use  “set  aside”  in  that  manner. 
They  instead  referred  to  setting  aside  (that  is,  vacating)
judgments—a meaning entirely consistent with the APA’s
authorization  to  vacate  agency  actions.  See  supra,  at  5. 
The Government’s position instead relies on some colloquial 
uses  of  the  phrase  “set  aside”  in  federal  constitutional 
challenges  to  state  statutes.  See,  e.g.,  Brief  for  United 
States  in  United  States  v.  Texas,  O. T.  2022,  No.  22–58, 
at 41  (citing  Mallinckrodt  Chemical  Works  v.  Missouri  ex 
rel. Jones, 238 U. S. 41, 54 (1915)); see also Mallinckrodt, 
238 U. S., at 54 (referring to “one who seeks to set aside a 
state  statute  as  repugnant  to  the  Federal  Constitution”).
That  is  a  thin  basis  for  suddenly  prohibiting  entire
categories of long-common administrative litigation. 

Third,  the  Government  seizes  on  legislative  history  to
argue that Congress did not expect the APA to create new 
remedies against unlawful agency actions.  But vacatur was 
not  a  new  remedy.  On  the  contrary,  several  pre-APA
statutes  authorized  courts  to  “set  aside”  specific  kinds  of
agency actions, such as orders by the Interstate Commerce 
Commission.  See  n.  2,  supra.  This  Court  correctly
understood  those  statutes  to  authorize  vacatur.  For 
example, in litigation regarding the regulation of railroads,
this  Court  held  that  an  unlawful  ICC  order  was  “void.” 
United States v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 293 U. S. 454, 464 
(1935).  Similar  examples  abound.    See,  e.g.,  Sohoni,  The