US Defends Stay of IEEPA Tariff Suit at CIT Pending V.O.S. Appeal at CAFC
The U.S. on July 15 opposed importer Simplified's bid to have the Court of International Trade reconsider its stay of proceedings in its case against the legality of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, arguing that Simplified's case will be resolved by the current appeal on the IEEPA tariffs before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Emily Ley Paper, d/b/a Simplified v. Donald J. Trump, CIT # 25-00096).
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CIT Judges Timothy Reif, Gary Katzmann and Jane Restani stayed Simplified's lawsuit pending a final decision on appeal in V.O.S. Selections v. Trump. In V.O.S. Selections, the same three judges vacated the executive orders implementing all tariffs issued thus far under IEEPA by President Donald Trump (see 2505280068).
Simplified asked the trade court to reconsider its stay decision, arguing that such relief is needed, since it's challenging the court's jurisdiction and asserting an "affirmative claim not included in V.O.S. Selections" (see 2506240073). As a result, the importer said the government must show it would suffer "clear hardship" from "continuing to defend this case."
In response, the U.S. said Simplified's wish to litigate the question of jurisdiction immediately doesn't meet the "high standard for reconsideration, especially where the Court" held that it had jurisdiction in V.O.S. Selections, which is a "materially identical case for purposes of jurisdiction." It's "irrelevant" that the plaintiffs in V.O.S. Selections never challenged the fact that CIT has exclusive jurisdiction to hear the matter, since the court said it has jurisdiction and even addressed Simplified's arguments in a separate order, the U.S. argued.
There's no need for the trade court to "retreat its decision on identical jurisdictional issues in other cases," the U.S. said, adding that this is "well within the Court's power to control its own docket." And if the Federal Circuit agrees with Simplified's theory of jurisdiction in the V.O.S. Selections appeal, "then IEEPA would not authorize any tariffs, and plaintiffs would get the relief they seek in short order," the brief said.
Simplified also said the U.S. failed to show the government would suffer hardship absent a stay as required by the Supreme Court in Landis v. North American Company. The government said Simplified overreads Landis, which stands for the notion that “the power to stay proceedings is incidental to the power inherent in every court to control the disposition of the causes on its dockets with economy of time and effort for itself, for counsel, and for litigants.”
The importer's claim "misconstrues the applicable legal standard, which requires that an applicant for a stay establish ‘clear hardship’ only where ‘there is . . . a fair possibility that the stay for which he prays will work damage to some one else,'" the brief said. And, here, Simplified has failed to show the "possibility of any concrete, cognizable harm attendant to the stay," so there was no need for the government to show hardship, the U.S. said.
Lastly, Simplified said the government sought a stay to "stall" litigation to "use the tariffs as a negotiating tactic." The U.S. decried the claim as unfair, noting that it has "agreed to expedite challenges to the IEEPA tariffs in order to enable the Court and the Federal Circuit to consider the issues quickly."