Mandated

A challenging case about the Texas foster-care system returned to the Fifth Circuit in M.D. v. Abbott, No. 19-41015 (Oct. 16, 2020), and the panel did not approve of revisions to an injunction that went beyond its mandate in the previous appeal: “Plaintiffs claim that the district court did not violate the mandate rule
because a court ‘invok[ing] equity’s power to remedy a constitutional
violation by an injunction mandating systemic changes to an institution’ generally has ‘the continuing duty and responsibility to assess the efficacy and consequences of its order.’ As Plaintiffs point out, we recited this general principle in Stukenberg II, stating that ‘[a] district court undoubtedly has the equitable power to oversee compliance with its own injunction.’ ‘E]quitable decrees that impose a continuing supervisory function on the court commonly . . . contemplate the subsequent issuance of specific implementing injunctions.’ But judges disagree on occasion over the proper exercise of equitable powers, just as judges disagree on occasion over the proper interpretation o statutes. When that happens, appellate courts must make the final decision—and once the decision is made, it must be followed. And that, of course, is the whole purpose of the mandate rule: ‘A district court on remand . . . may not disregard the explicit directives of [the appellate] court'”.’ A (citations omitted).