US Asks Texas Court to Transfer Latest IEEPA Tariff Suit to CIT
The U.S. asked the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to transfer the latest International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariff lawsuit to the Court of International Trade and to stay briefing on the companies' challenging the tariffs' motion for summary judgment pending resolution of the transfer motion. The government said four courts have found that CIT has exclusive jurisdiction over cases challenging the legality of tariffs imposed under IEEPA, while just one has "declined to transfer the case to the CIT or dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction" (FIREDISC, Inc. v. Donald J. Trump, W.D. Tex. # 25-01134).
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The U.S. said the Texas court "should hew to the majority approach, conclude that it lacks jurisdiction, and transfer this case to the CIT."
The suit is the second of its kind brought by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a conservative advocacy group (see 2507220064). The alliance's first case was initially filed in a Florida district court but transferred to the CIT on the grounds that the trade court has exclusive jurisdiction to hear the case under Section 1581(i) (see 2507220064). The Texas case was recently assigned to Judge David Ezra, a President Ronald Reagan appointee to the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii (see 2507240051). In 2013, Chief Justice John Roberts designed Ezra to serve on the Texas court to help manage the court's caseload.
The government's argument for transfer is now a familiar one: CIT has exclusive jurisdiction under Section 1581(i) to hear the case. Section 1581(i) says only the trade court will hear cases that arise out of U.S. laws providing for tariffs. The Texas case arises out of President Donald Trump's executive orders implementing the tariffs, which modify the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. The statute establishing the HTS makes these EOs "laws of the United States" under Section 1581(i), which says presidential actions modifying the HTS are laws of the U.S. for statutory purposes, the government argued.
"For these reasons, the CIT -- the only court with familiarity and expertise on the HTSUS -- has already exercised jurisdiction over indistinguishable challenges to these tariffs," the brief said.
The U.S. added that the trade court also has exclusive jurisdiction to hear the matter given a key decision from the predecessor court to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which "heard similar challenges to tariffs under IEEPA’s predecessor statute," the Trading With the Enemy Act.