Chapter § 6.04 Actions for Injunctive Relief

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Publication year: 2020

§ 6.04 Actions for Injunctive Relief

Before 1976, “it was nearly impossible to get an injunction against the United States.”¹⁹¹ Injunctions were at times available against government officials, but “courts used the sovereign immunity doctrine and the principle of indispensable parties to dismiss actions against officials that crossed the line into suits against the government.”¹⁹² But, in 1976, Congress revised the Administrative Procedures Act (the “APA”) to effect a limited waiver of the government’s sovereign immunity and bar its use of the indispensable party doctrine in the present context. The APA provides that “[a]n action in a court of the United States seeking relief other than money damages and stating a claim that an agency or an officer or employee thereof acted or failed to act in an official capacity or under color of legal authority shall not be dismissed nor relief therein be denied on the ground that it is against the United States or that the United States is an indispensable party.”¹⁹³ The statute also specifies that it does not confer “authority to grant relief if any other statute that grants consent to suit expressly or impliedly forbids the relief...