Class certification and universal injunctions

Judge Chutkan of the District of the District of Columbia last week issued a preliminary injunction barring HHS and the Office of Refugee Resettlement from enforcing policies preventing pregnant unaccompanied undocumented minors in federal detention from obtaining services to terminate pregnancies. Wanting a broad injunction that would reach beyond the four named plaintiffs (all of whom had terminated their pregnancies) to all women who might be subject to the challenged regulations, the court did it the proper way. It certified a class and issued a class-wide 23(b)(2) injunction prohibiting enforcement of the policies as to all members of a class defined as "all pregnant, unaccompanied immigrant minor children (UCs) who are or will be in the legal custody of the federal government."

Unlike courts in many recent cases, Judge Chutkan  followed the middle step of certifying a broad class, then issuing an injunction protecting the entire class that is the plaintiff in the action. But the case illustrates an important point. If universal injunctions are readily available, no plaintiff would bother jumping through the class-certification hurdles, but will proceed directly to asking the court for the same broad injunction while keeping the action as an individual one.