Litigation Update
July 10, 2026
This week’s newsletter includes several updates on recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on issues related to Temporary Protected Status, birthright citizenship, tort litigation, gun rights, and transgender athletes. You can find our archive of previous newsletters here.
Temporary Protected Status
In Mullin v. Doe (Docket No. 25-1083, consolidated with Trump v. Miot, Docket No. 25-1084) the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether Haitian and Syrian noncitizens challenging the Trump administration’s termination of their Temporary Protected Status (TPS) should have their termination of status postponed while litigation continues. In a ruling on June 25, a 6-3 majority of the Court said no. The TPS program was enacted by Congress in 1990 and allows eligible migrants to live and work legally in the United States if returning to their home country is not safe due to armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security designates which countries can qualify.
The Court ruled that the TPS statute prevents consideration of non-constitutional claims and does not permit judicial review of TPS terminations. Additionally, the Court majority held that the sole constitutional claim advanced — that the termination of Haitians’ TPS status violated the Equal Protection Clause because it was motivated by the country’s racial makeup — was not likely to succeed because the Trump administration simply opposes the TPS program in general. The dissent disputed these arguments, stating that the TPS statute allows the judiciary to review whether the Secretary of Homeland Security is following the procedures outlined in the policy and arguing that statements by President Trump himself plainly show the role race played in eliminating TPS for Haitians.
In addition to removing people who have made the U.S. their home for years, sometimes decades, the termination of TPS status could force Haitians and Syrians to return to unstable and unsafe situations in their home countries. Human Rights Watch has described the situation in Haiti as “one of the world’s most devastating human rights crises” while the U.S. Department of State itself says that “no part of Syria is safe from violence.” The conditions in both countries that allowed people to come to the U.S. under TPS in the first place have not changed.
Additionally, the stripping of Haitian immigrants’ TPS status would have significant impacts on the U.S. health care system and nursing homes. Researchers have estimated that 21,000 Haitians in the U.S. are in difficult-to-fill positions as nursing assistants and caregivers. This has prompted concerns that the termination of TPS status will worsen already-existing shortages of health care workers, increasing wait times and reducing the availability of services in facilities like nursing homes.
Furthermore, when nursing homes don’t have enough staff, facilities often have to limit admissions, which in turn can prevent hospitals from discharging patients who would otherwise go to nursing homes, creating an overall bottleneck in the health care system.
Birthright Citizenship
In Trump v. Barbara (Docket No. 25-365), the Supreme Court upheld the longstanding legal principle of birthright citizenship, rejecting an executive order by President Trump seeking to deny citizenship to the children of parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the U.S.
The Court majority held that the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to all children born in the U.S. and “subject to its power,” including the children of parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the U.S. In doing so, the Court reaffirmed a long-held understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment based on the landmark 1898 case Wong Kim Ark v. United States and dismissed Trump’s effort to upend that legal precedent.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
Several conservative justices dissented, arguing that the Court’s historical account of the Fourteenth Amendment was not accurate.
If upheld, Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship would have had significant implications, denying citizenship rights to more than 150,000 children born in the U.S. annually. The public health effects would have been far-reaching, as federal law restricts non-citizens’ ability to access crucial federal health programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare. Furthermore, research has found that ending birthright citizenship would discourage immigrant families from seeking health services, including prenatal care, leading to worse outcomes for children of noncitizens.
Cancer Warnings on Pesticide Labels
In Monsanto v. Durnell (Docket No. 24-1068), the Supreme Court ruled by a vote of 7-2 that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) expressly preempts state lawsuits trying to hold Monsanto liable for failing to add cancer warnings to its labels for Roundup. This case, which we covered in our May 8 and June 12 newsletters, arose from a Missouri jury verdict of $1.25 million in favor of Durnell, who alleged that Monsanto failed to disclose the cancer risk associated with using Roundup. Monsanto argued that FIFRA preempts state tort claims and that manufacturers cannot unilaterally add label warnings without the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approval without risking a “misbranding” violation.
The majority held that FIFRA expressly preempts state-law failure-to-warn claims against Monsanto because the claims would require the company to “add a cancer warning to Roundup’s label” that is not part of the EPA-approved plan, and such a requirement would violate the Act’s uniformity requirement. The opinion says that the EPA has concluded that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is not likely to cause cancer, and therefore has not required pesticides with this chemical to include a cancer warning on their labels. So, as a matter of federal law, Monsanto legally must use a label without a cancer warning unless the EPA requires it. The dissent, written by Justice Jackson and joined by Justice Gorsuch, asserted that FIFRA expressly limits states’ authority to regulate pesticide labels, but does not eliminate that authority, and states retain the power to impose labeling requirements such as the cancer warning at issue in this case.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Durnell has the potential to impact many tort lawsuits, not just those at issue in this case, although it will most immediately affect the thousands of pending cases related to Roundup. The preemption decision here could preclude verdicts in favor of plaintiffs in tobacco, prescription drug, or other health product-related claims that are directly tied to label warnings. While tort plaintiffs may have other routes to viable claims, they are likely to still face hurdles when seeking relief against the companies whose products negatively impacted their health.
Second Amendment Decisions
In June, the Supreme Court also decided two Second Amendment cases. In United States v. Hemani (Docket No. 24-1234), a unanimous Court ruled that the federal government cannot prosecute defendant, Ali Hemani, under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) (part of the Controlled Substances Act), for knowingly possessing a gun in his home while being an unlawful user of a controlled substance. This case began in 2022 when Hemani’s home was searched and FBI agents found a pistol, marijuana, and cocaine, and Hemani admitted he used marijuana every other day. The government argued that the federal law’s purpose was to protect the public from “unusually dangerous individuals who will misuse firearms to commit violent crimes.” The majority said the government was asking the court to conclude that anyone who regularly uses marijuana is categorically violent and dangerous. The Court declined to do so.
In Wolford v. Lopez (Docket No. 24-1046), a 6-3 Supreme Court held that a Hawaii law prohibiting licensed concealed-carry permit holders from carrying handguns on private property open to the public without the property owner’s express authorization violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments. The majority opinion, written by Justice Alito, states that the law “hobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives.” Justice Jackson in her dissent said that the law “fairly applies a first principle of property law–the right to exclude– and does not harm the Second Amendment.” This decision also impacts four other states - California, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey - that have similar laws.
Transgender Athletes
On its final day of the term, the Supreme Court decided on two consolidated cases, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., holding that Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex. In a 6-3 ruling, the Court held that laws enacted by Idaho and West Virginia do not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. In 2020, Idaho enacted the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act to bar transgender women and girls from participating on any women’s and girls’ sports teams in public schools, from elementary school through college. In 2022, West Virginia passed a similar law but limited it to public secondary schools and colleges. The Court’s decision, written by Justice Kavanaugh, emphasized the “inherent physical differences” between men and women (he noted height, weight, strength, speed, endurance, and jumping ability) that are “relevant to athletic performance,” and argued that “forcing female athletes to compete against males can create significant safety risks” in contact sports (an unproven assertion) and that “in virtually all competitive sports, forcing female athletes to compete against males can undermine competitive fairness.” Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson concurred in the judgment in part and dissented in part, agreeing that the ban does not violate Title IX because B.P.J. agreed that sex means “biological sex” and states can create sports teams based on sex. The dissent, however, argues that there are unresolved factual disputes over whether transgender girls who have never gone through puberty are “similarly situated to cisgender girls.”
The Court’s decision allowing states to discriminate against transgender women and girls furthers the environment of fear and false allegations regarding their involvement in sports. While the dissenting opinion correctly lays out that there are not enough facts yet to argue that transgender girls and women who have taken puberty blockers and did not go through puberty are still at an advantage compared to cisgender girls, even this question potentially opens the door to invasive screenings and medical exams. Questions over an athlete’s biological sex puts young girls at an even higher risk of abuse, and lack of recognition or space for transgender girls and women in sports can have significant mental health implications. The decision allows states to ban transgender girls from sports, but does not require it. Twenty-nine states currently ban transgender students from participating in sports that align with their gender identity. We will continue to track as state legislatures and agencies respond to this Supreme Court decision.
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