It was initiated by a number of businesses, including Learning Resources, Inc., which had also taken part in the IEEPA tariff dispute.
In a prior update, I provided a concise overview of the fresh lawsuit challenging Trump’s sweeping Section 301 tariffs, brought by the Liberty Justice Center on behalf of two small businesses. LJC is the public-interest law firm I worked with on V.O.S. Selections v. Trump, the IEEPA tariff case decided by the Supreme Court in February. A second lawsuit challenging the tariffs has emerged: Learning Resources, Inc. v. United States. The complaint is available here.
This action was filed by a group of several firms, with Learning Resources, Inc. taking the lead as the plaintiff. Learning Resources, a toy producer, is the same firm whose case was consolidated with ours in the IEEPA proceedings, and ultimately lent its name to the Supreme Court decision. In that instance, their suit was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds (the justices found it had been filed in the wrong court) and ours prevailed. In the current case, all parties agree the only proper venue is the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT), the forum where we filed our IEEPA action, and which has also recently ruled against Trump’s Section 122 tariffs (in another case brought by LJC). Trump’s tariffs are keeping the CIT’s docket busier than ever!
As in the IEEPA dispute, Learning Resources is represented by prominent appellate litigator Pratik Shah, and colleagues at Akin Gump.
The core claims in Learning Resources’ filing closely resemble those in the LJC case. They likewise contend that the Section 301 tariffs fail to satisfy statutory requirements, and that if Section 301 truly authorized the president to impose these extensive tariffs, it would violate the constitutional nondelegation doctrine. However, unlike the LJC filing, this one does not invoke the major questions doctrine. It also does not seek class-action certification. Consequently, any relief granted by the court would likely be limited to the named plaintiff firms.
I expect the CIT will likely consolidate these two cases and consider them together. There may well be additional Section 301 cases filed by other businesses, public-interest groups, and perhaps state governments. We shall observe how this develops.
