Wilson v. Centene Management addressed the proper standard for determining Article III standing at the class certification stage. The Fifth Circuit held: “The class certification approach evaluates only a named plaintiff’s individual standing. The court’s determination that the named plaintiff demonstrated individual standing concludes the inquiry. Only then should the court ‘address the question whether the named plaintiffs have representative capacity, as defined by Rule 23(a), to assert the rights of others.’”

This approach contrasts with a more searching approach that would compare the injuries of the named plaintiff to those of the putative class and determine whether the named plaintiff’s harms are sufficiently analogous to those suffered by the rest of the class. The Court expressly rejected this approach as it  “prematurely and unnecessarily muddies the waters for the threshold constitutional issue of justiciability.”

The Court cautioned that “where there is ‘substantial overlap between’ standing and the merits of a plaintiff’s claim, ‘the better course’ is to treat the attack on standing ‘as an attack on the merits— and therefore outside the scope of our Rule 23(f) review of class certification decisions—rather than as a question of standing.’” No. 24-50044, July 17, 2025

In Association of Club Executives v. Paxton, a group of plaintiffs associated with the adult entertainment industry (who have had an unfortunate record in the courts in recent years), the Fifth Circuit addressed the constitutionality of a Texas law that raises the minimum employment age at sexually oriented businesses (SOBs) from 18 to 21.

The court upheld the law, finding that it withstands First Amendment scrutiny because it is designed to serve a substantial government interest—namely, the prevention of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation—and does not restrict more speech than necessary. Texas provided sufficient evidence linking SOBs to sex trafficking and that the law was a reasonable measure to address these secondary effects. And, the law does not substantially restrict protected speech, as it leaves SOBs with a “reasonable opportunity to open and operate” their businesses and does not meaningfully limit the expressive conduct of their employees based on age. No. 24-50434, Jul. 14, 2025

The Fifth Circuit granted mandamus relief, in a venue-transfer dispute, requiring a “do-over” by the trial court that fully evaluated all eight relevant factors. In re Media Matters, No. 25-10630 (July 15, 2025). The underlying case is between X (formerly Twitter) and a nonprofit that was critical of how X delivered ads to users.

In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. UT-Austin, the Fifth Circuit addressed whether challenges to both the university’s old and revised admissions policies were moot. The Court held that claims related to the university’s pre-2023 admissions policy, which explicitly considered race, were moot because the policy had been formally repealed and replaced in response to the Supreme Court’s Harvard decision.

However, the Court found that the controversy over the university’s revised, post-2023 admissions policy remained live and was not moot. The new policy, while facially race-neutral, still allowed admissions officers access to applicants’ racial data during the admissions process, which the plaintiff alleged could enable continued discrimination. The court emphasized that “as long as the parties have a concrete interest, however small, in the outcome of the litigation, the case is not moot,” and concluded that the plaintiff had not yet secured all the relief it sought. No. 24-50631, July 11, 2025.

In Reed v. Marshall, the Fifth Circuit addressed whether joint owners of a trademark can sue each other for infringement or dilution under the Lanham Act. The Court held that the Lanham Act does not authorize such claims between co-owners of a trademark.

The Court explained that trademark law is designed to protect owners and consumers from third-party infringers, not to resolve disputes among co-owners Joint ownership of a mark gives each owner a complete interest in the mark, allowing them to use it as they please unless a separate contractual agreement says otherwise. The statutory language of the Lanham Act, according to the court, “makes this cause exclusive to the registrant of the trademark,” and does not contemplate claims by one co-owner against another. No. 24-20198, July 2, 2025

United States v. Texas considers, inter alia, whether an organization that provides legal services to immigrants has standing to challenge a Texas law about illegal entry into the country. The panel majority finds standing; a dissent notes:

“Plaintiffs allege only—just as the doctors did in [FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine]—that they want to serve clients who are impacted by the law. That makes the organizations’ standing every bit as impermissible as it was in Alliance.”

No. 24-50149 (July 3, 2025).

Class-action litigation has drawn considerable attention after Trump v. CASA limited the use of nationwide injunctions. Another tool for expanding the impact of a given case is collateral estoppel, and that’s the subject of this article that I recently published in Salon.