On December 12, 2022, the Supreme Court announced that it would grant a petition for certiorari as to the separate loan-forgiveness challenge pending before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and calendar the matter for argument in February 2023.
On December 1, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to consider the standing of the plaintiffs who obtained an an injunction from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that currently prevents the Biden Administration from enacting its plan to forgive approximately $400 billion in federal student loans. The district court ruling on appeal to the Fifth Circuit stands as a separate bar to the loan-forgiveness program. The Fifth Circuit had denied the Administration’s request for a stay of the district court’s ruling.
The plaintiffs in the Fifth Circuit case are different plaintiffs than those in the Eighth Circuit case and claim standing on different grounds. Whether the Fifth Circuit case will be consolidated for briefing and argument with the Eighth Circuit case or heard separately by the Supreme Court is unclear, but in either event, the Supreme Court will have an opportunity to consider the merits of more than one theory of standing in connection with the Biden Administration’s authority to proceed with loan forgiveness.