Well - I called that case wrong. I didn't see the judge making such a bold decision - you just don't see it all that often and I thought the CDC had positioned itself to make Florida's case mostly moot. I also thought the CDC had a good standing argument and argument that Congress ratified the CDC's action.
I haven't been providing updates due to the new rules here, but have been following the case every few days. I will pull the order and provide more details, but don't expect everything to go away right away. The injunction is stayed until July 18, and it looks like the judge is leaving some room for adjustments to it. It is also just a preliminary injunction - not a final injunction. I will post more shortly.
Hopefully, now that a decision has been made, we can have non-political informational posts about it without a violation of the new rules - but mods, check me if I am wrong.
Given the groundbreaking nature of this decision on the cruise industry and significant impact this decision will have on cruising, I hope the mods will allow me to post this summary. I will keep this as brief as possible for a 124-page order, for fear that I could violate the new rules, and for not wanting to put too much time into a post that may be removed.
I won't get into the standing arguments, or other legal analysis, other than to say, the court very much agreed with Florida and comments from the cruise line association, that there wasn't actually a reasonable path for saving the summer cruise seasons, and that Florida and its citizens would suffer significant harm, giving Florida standing. The court did not seem to like that the CDC provided the phase 2 guidance on the same day its reply brief was due. The court goes into great history about the federal governments quarantine power and says:
"
Never has CDC (or a predecessor) detained a vessel for more than fifteen months; never has CDC implemented a widespread or industry-wide detention of a fleet of vessels in American waters; never has CDC conditioned pratique as extensively and burdensomely as the conditional sailing order; and never has CDC imposed restrictions that have summarily dismissed the effectiveness of state regulation and halted for an extended time an entire multi-billion dollar industry nationwide. In a word, never has CDC implemented measures as extensive, disabling, and exclusive as those under review in this action."
The court finds the CDC exceeded its statuary authority with the COI and says:
"
CDC cites no historical precedent in which the federal government detained a fleet of vessels for more than a year and imposed comprehensive and impossibly detailed “technical guidelines” before again permitting a vessel to sail. That is, CDC cites no historical precedent for, in effect, closing an entire industry."
So what is the ordered?
"
CDC is PRELIMINARILY ENJOINED from enforcing against a cruise ship arriving in, within, or departing from a port in Florida the conditional sailing order and the later measures (technical guidelines, manuals, and the like). However, the preliminary injunction is STAYED until 12:01 a.m. EDT on JULY 18, 2021, at which time the conditional sailing order and the measures promulgated under the conditional sailing
order will persist as only a non-binding “consideration,” “recommendation” or “guideline,” the same tools used by CDC when addressing the practices in other similarly situated industries, such as airlines, railroads, hotels, casinos, sports venues, buses, subways, and others."
(emphasis mine)
Then the court says the CDC can propose a narrower injunction based on scientific evidence (which it must back up, unlike its generic statement in the CSO) - essentially leaving the door open to giving the CDC the power to provide some regulation that doesn't look like the current requirements that essentially keep the industry closed.
This is a
major win for cruise lines, because absent a change on appeal, they will have the ability to sail again very soon, with limited restrictions, and without doing the test sailings first. I don't see the court allowing for those types of hurdles, given its unabashed inclination to open the industry quickly and save the summer cruising season.
P.S. - please remember we are not allowed to discuss politics at all here. This is a summary of the court's reasoning and not an invitation for political debate.