Department of Education v. Brown

by Supreme Court of the United States

Note: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ET AL. v. BROWN ET AL.
CERTIORARI BEFORE JUDGMENT TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 22–535. Argued February 28, 2023—Decided June 30, 2023

To alleviate hardship expected to be caused by the impending resumption of federal student-loan repayments that had been suspended during the multi-year coronavirus pandemic, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona announced a substantial student-loan debt-forgiveness plan (Plan). The Plan discharges $10,000 to $20,000 of an eligible borrower’s debt, depending on criteria such as the borrower’s income and the type of loan held. The Secretary invoked the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act), which authorizes the Secretary “to waive or modify any provision” applicable to federal “student financial assistance” programs “as may be necessary to ensure that … recipients of student financial assistance” are no worse off “financially in relation to that financial assistance because” of a national emergency or disaster. 20 U. S. C. §§1098bb(a)(1), (a)(2)(A), 1098ee(2)(C)–(D). The HEROES Act also exempts rules promulgated pursuant to it from the otherwise-applicable negotiated-rulemaking and notice-and-comment processes.

Before the Plan took effect, various plaintiffs—including respondents here—sued to enjoin it. Respondents Myra Brown and Alexander Taylor are two borrowers who do not qualify for the maximum relief available under the Plan. Their one-count complaint alleges that the Secretary was required to follow notice-and-comment and negotiated-rulemaking procedures in promulgating the Plan, which all agree he did not do. Brown and Taylor argue that the HEROES Act’s procedural exemptions apply only when the rule promulgated is substantively authorized by the Act, and because the HEROES Act does not authorize the Plan (they argue), the Secretary was required to follow negotiated rulemaking and notice and comment. The District Court rejected their argument regarding the scope of the HEROES Act’s procedural exemptions, but nevertheless vacated the Plan as substantively unauthorized. This Court granted certiorari before judgment to consider this case alongside Biden v. Nebraska, No. 22–506, which presents a similar challenge to the Plan.

Held: Because respondents fail to establish that any injury they suffer from not having their loans forgiven is fairly traceable to the Plan, they lack Article III standing, so the Court has no jurisdiction to address their procedural claim. Pp. 6–15.

(a) “This case begins and ends with standing.” Carney v. Adams, 592 U. S. ___, ___. The Court’s authority under the Constitution is limited to resolving “Cases” or “Controversies.” Art. III, §2. The Court’s jurisprudence has “established that the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing contains three elements” that a plaintiff must plead and—ultimately—prove. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560. Those elements are: (1) a “concrete and particularized” injury that is (2) “fairly traceable” to the challenged action of the defendant and (3) “likely” to be “redressed by a favorable decision.” Id., at 560–561 (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). But where, as here, the plaintiff alleges that she has been deprived of a procedural right to protect her concrete interest, she need not show that observing the contested procedure would necessarily lead to a different substantive result. Id., at 572, n. 7. Pp. 6–8.

(b) As articulated in this Court, respondents’ claim and theory of standing are twofold: First, because the HEROES Act does not substantively authorize the Plan, the Secretary was obligated to follow typical negotiated-rulemaking and notice-and-comment requirements. Second, if the Secretary had observed those procedures, respondents might have used those opportunities to convince him not only that proceeding under the HEROES Act is unlawful, but also that he should instead adopt a different loan-forgiveness program under the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), and to make that program more generous to respondents than the Plan. Respondents assert there is at least a chance that this series of events will come to pass now if this Court vacates the Plan. Pp. 8–9.

(c) Respondents’ standing claim most clearly fails on traceability: They cannot show that their purported injury of not receiving loan relief under the HEA is fairly traceable to the Department’s (allegedly unlawful) decision to grant loan relief under the HEROES Act. Pp. 9–15.

(1) Significantly, respondents are not claiming that they are injured by not being sufficiently included among the Plan’s beneficiaries: They think the Plan is substantively unlawful and instead seek debt forgiveness under the HEA. But a decision regarding the lawfulness of the Plan does not directly affect respondents’ ability to obtain loan relief under the HEA; the Department’s authority to grant loan relief under the HEA (upon which the Court does not pass) is not affected by whether the Plan is lawful or unlawful. Any connection between loan forgiveness under the two statutes is speculative.

While it is true that the Court’s procedural-standing case law tolerates uncertainty over whether observing certain procedures would have led to (caused) a different substantive outcome, see Lujan, 504 U. S., at 572, n. 7, the causal uncertainty here is not so limited. Instead, the uncertainty concerns whether the substantive decisions the Department has made regarding the Plan under the HEROES Act have a causal relationship with other substantive decisions respondents want the Department to make under the HEA. There is no precedent for tolerating this sort of causal uncertainty. Respondents cannot show that the denial of HEA loan relief—their ostensible injury—“fairly can be traced to” the Department’s decision to grant loan relief in the Plan. Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U. S. 26, 42–43. There is little reason to think that the Department’s discretionary decision to pursue one mechanism of loan relief under the HEROES Act has anything to do with its discretionary decision to pursue (or not pursue) action under the HEA. “The line of causation between” the Department’s promulgation of the Plan and respondents’ lack of benefits under the HEA “is attenuated at best,” Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 757, and all too dependent on “ ‘conjecture,’ ” Summers v. Earth Island Institute, 555 U. S. 488, 496. Pp. 10–13.

(2) Respondents’ attempts to tie the Plan to potential HEA relief are unavailing. Although the Department has occasionally referred to “one-time” student-loan relief in publicizing the Plan, the Plan itself contains no such reference. And any incidental effect of the Plan on the likelihood that the Department will undertake a separate loan-forgiveness program under a different statute is too weak and speculative to show that the absence of HEA-based loan forgiveness is fairly traceable to the Plan. See, e.g., Simon, 426 U. S., at 42–43. To the extent the Department has determined that the Plan crowds out other efforts to forgive student loans, that determination is a discretionary one that respondents may petition the Department to reconsider. Finally, respondents cannot demonstrate causation on the theory that the Department’s failure to observe the requisite procedural rules cost them a chance to obtain debt forgiveness; they do not want debt forgiveness under the HEROES Act, and nothing the Department has done deprives them of a chance to seek debt forgiveness under the HEA. Respondents cannot meaningfully connect the absence of loan relief under the HEA to the adoption of the Plan, so they have failed to show that their injury is fairly traceable to the Plan. Pp. 13–14.

Vacated and remanded.

Alito, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

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