Case docket
National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA — Supreme Court of the United States, Nos. 21A244 and 21A247
National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA — 2 court filings in the archive from Supreme Court of the United States, filed between December 23, 2021 and December 30, 2021.
Case facts
| Court | Supreme Court of the United States |
|---|---|
| Filings | 2 public filings |
| Filed | 2021-12-23 – 2021-12-30 |
Case summary
The National Federation of Independent Business and other business associations, and Ohio and other states, applied to the Supreme Court of the United States for a stay of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Emergency Temporary Standard on COVID-19 vaccination and testing, pending certiorari review. The applications, Nos. 21A244 and 21A247, were filed on December 17-21, 2021 and came to the Court on application for stay and petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. This page carries two filings: the applicants' joint unopposed motion for divided argument of December 23, 2021, and a December 30, 2021 motion by Local Unions 1249 and 97 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for leave to file an amicus brief supporting the applications. No order or opinion of the Court appears among the filings on this page.
Case at a glance
| Parties | Applicants: National Federation of Independent Business et al. in No. 21A244, described in the motion as the Business Association Applicants, and Ohio et al. in No. 21A247, described as the State Applicants. Respondents: the Department of Labor, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration et al. Movants on the second filing published here: Local Unions 1249 and 97 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, as amici in support of the applications |
|---|---|
| Court and docket | Supreme Court of the United States, Nos. 21A244 and 21A247, on application for stay of administrative action and petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; the motion cites the Sixth Circuit proceeding as In re MCP No. 165, No. 21-7000 et al. |
| Program | Not named in the filings on this page. The regulation at issue is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Emergency Temporary Standard on COVID-19 vaccination and testing |
| Claims | As the motion for divided argument describes the stay applications: the Business Association Applicants argued that the emergency temporary standard is not "necessary" under 29 U.S.C. Section 655(c) because it was not necessary for OSHA to promulgate an immediately effective standard without using ordinary notice-and-comment rulemaking; the State Applicants argued that the risk presented by COVID-19 is not "grave," that the rule is not a "temporary" response to an "emergency," that the federalism canon forbade reading the authorizing statute as empowering OSHA to issue the rule, and that so reading the statute would cause it to violate the Commerce Clause |
| Disposition or status | No order or opinion of the Court appears among the filings on this page. Both documents are pre-argument filings; the motion for divided argument, dated December 23, 2021, records that the case was to be argued in just over two weeks |
| Status checked | 2026-09-23 · against DOJ press releases through 2026-09-22; court docket not yet read |
What did the applicants ask the Supreme Court to do?
To stay the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Emergency Temporary Standard on COVID-19 vaccination and testing pending certiorari review. The motion published here asks a narrower question: that the two groups of applicants be allowed to divide evenly the 30 minutes of argument time, 15 minutes each. The respondents declined to take any position on that motion.
How did the two groups of applicants differ?
The motion states that they were represented by different counsel throughout the litigation, filed separately in the courts of appeals and separately sought relief from the Court. The Business Association Applicants sought a stay to prevent injury to their members' businesses; the State Applicants sought relief to prevent federal regulation of matters over which they said they alone have constitutional authority, to defend their own laws against a regulation with preemptive force, and to spare states that administer their own state OSHA plans from enforcing the standard.
What do the filings on this page not show?
They do not show any ruling. The page holds two filings in filing-date order, December 23 and December 30, 2021; neither is an order, opinion or judgment of the Court, and no later filing appears on the page.
Summary written from the documents on this page; every sentence is sourced.
Filings
2 public filings from this case, in filing-date order.
Court, dates and docket numbers are as recorded on the filings.