Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22a901_3d9g.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

3 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

regulatory “chaos” would occur due to an alleged conflict be-
tween the relief awarded in these cases and the relief pro-
vided by a decision of the United States District Court for
the  Eastern  District  of  Washington.    It  is  not  clear  that 
there actually is a conflict because the relief in these cases 
is a stay, not an injunction, but even if there is a conflict,
that should not be given any weight.  Our granting of a stay 
of a lower-court decision is an equitable remedy.  It should 
not  be  given  if  the  moving  party  has  not  acted  equitably,
and that is the situation here.  The Food and Drug Admin-
istration (FDA) has engaged in what has become the prac-
tice of “leverag[ing]” district court injunctions “as a basis” 
for implementing a desired policy while evading both nec-
essary  agency  procedures  and  judicial  review.  Arizona  v. 
City and County of San Francisco, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) 
(ROBERTS, C. J., concurring) (slip op., at 2).

The  Washington  District  Court  enjoined  the  FDA  from
altering its current practice regarding mifepristone—some-
thing that the FDA had never hinted it was contemplating.
The FDA did not appeal that appealable order, and when
seven States that might take such an appeal asked to inter-
vene, the FDA opposed their request.  This series of events 
laid the foundation for the Government’s regulatory “chaos” 
argument.

Once  this  argument  is  put  aside,  the  applicants’  argu-
ment  on  irreparable  harm  is  largely  reduced  to  the  claim 
that Danco could not continue to market mifepristone be-
cause the drug would  be mislabeled and that distribution 
could  not  resume  until  Danco  jumped  through  a  series  of 
regulatory  steps  that  would  be  largely  perfunctory  under
present  circumstances.  That  would  not  take  place,  how-
ever, unless the FDA elected to use its enforcement discre-
tion to stop Danco, and the applicants’ papers do not pro-
vide any reason to believe the FDA would make that choice.
The FDA has previously invoked enforcement discretion to 
permit  the  distribution  of  mifepristone  in  a  way  that  the