Professor Greg Sisk on the Trump Administration’s Failure to Transfer Federal Grant Litigation to the Court of Claims
Federal grant recipients and beneficiaries have filed multiple suits in federal district court challenging the Trump Administration’s grant cancellations. Insofar as these suits seek the disbursement or payment of promised funds, it would seem jurisdiction lies in the Court of Federal Claims. Yet the Trump Administration has not (as yet) sought to transfer any of these cases. Why not?
Professor Greg Sisk is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on civil litigation with the federal government. Indeed, he wrote the hornbook on the subject. He is also the Associate Dean for Research and Pio Cardinal Laghi Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
Below is a guest post by Professor Sisk exploring this question.
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Given my study of civil litigation with the federal government, the current bevy of lawsuits challenging various Trump Administration initiatives falls right into my scholarly wheelhouse. From mass firings (reductions in force) of federal employees to immigration battles and beyond to spending disputes, nearly every day brings me something new to watch with interest. At the still early stage for most of these lawsuits, the focus has been on procedural and jurisdictional questions, which are grist for my litigation-with-the-federal-government mill.
Take, for example, the proliferation of lawsuits in federal district courts around the country provoked by the Trump Administration’s cancellation of thousands of federal government grants amounting to billions of dollars. In addition to other defenses, the Department of Justice regularly asserts that (1) grants are simply contracts and (2) contract disputes involving the federal government fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the special Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491.
The Supreme Court has weighed in on this jurisdictional choice, at least preliminarily on the so-called shadow docket and at least with respect a lawsuit where the plaintiffs are disappointed grant recipients. Granting the government a stay of a district court injunction to resume payments on certain grants, the Supreme Court ruled in Department of Education v. California that the government was likely to prevail on
Article from Reason.com
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