Consumer Electronics Retailer Files Amicus Brief Against IEEPA Tariffs
Crutchfield, a consumer electronics seller, filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court on Oct. 17 challenging the legality of President Donald Trump's tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. In the brief, the company highlighted the harms imposed on "American retailers" by the tariffs and argued that the "plain language" of IEEPA and the Constitution don't grant the president "unprecedented, unilateral, and unreviewable" tariff authority (Donald J. Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, U.S. 25-250) (Learning Resources v. Donald J. Trump, U.S. 24-1287).
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The amicus brief is the third to be filed at the high court contesting the tariffs, after civil litigation attorney Corey Biazzo and Consumer Watchdog submitted briefs ahead of the Oct. 24 amicus brief deadline (see 2510090039). The court is considering whether IEEPA can be used to impose tariffs and, if so, whether that power covers Trump's reciprocal tariffs and tariffs imposed on China, Canada and Mexico to combat fentanyl trafficking.
Crutchfield opened its brief by arguing that it's actually the "high and highly volatile tariffs" and not trade deficits that are the "unusual and extraordinary threat" to U.S. retailers that import the products they sell. The company said pauses of announced tariffs of "uncertain length" along with the "threat of additional tariffs of unknown size" paralyze its ability to "make intelligent business decisions." Crutchfield said it can't "engage in sensible business planning if tariffs can be increased, decreased, suspended, or altered on a moment's notice without any recourse."
Shifting to its legal claim, the company said the "unprecedented" claim that IEEPA lets the president unilaterally and unreviewably impose, increase, decrease or suspend tariffs on imports from virtually every country in the world can't be found in IEEPA or the Constitution. Crutchfield said the statute's plain language, which says the president can "regulate ... importation" of property in which a foreign party has an interest, doesn't confer tariff power. The power to "regulate" is known by the company it keeps, namely the other actions the president is allowed to take under IEEPA, and none of its company includes the power to tax, the brief said.
The U.S. doesn't claim that the express language of IEEPA grants this sweeping tariff power, but instead "takes a long and winding road in which a predecessor court interpreting a different statute 50 years ago under different circumstances and under different Supreme Court precedent concluded that President [Richard] Nixon had authority to impose temporary tariffs under the Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA)," the brief said.
Crutchfield cited a recent Supreme Court case to emphasize that, when interpreting statutes, the court doesn't "usually pick a conceivable-but-convoluted interpretation over the ordinary one." Even if a lower court "faithfully applied this Court's statutory and constitutional interpretation tools in 1975 to interpret the TWEA," that result can't be "teleported by this Court in 2025 to interpret the IEEPA," the brief said. Legislative history is "meant to clear up ambiguity, not create it," the brief said.
The amicus added that the government's case flunks the major questions doctrine, which says the executive can only act on issues of major political or economic significance upon express delegation from Congress. Connecting the word "regulate" and "importation" with an "ellipsis that erases 16 intervening words of the statute does not add up to 'clear congressional authorization' for the President to impose a 'tariff,'" the brief said.
Crutchfield lastly said the non-delegation doctrine also instructs the court to strike down such unfettered tariff authority in IEEPA. The amicus invoked the high court's recent decision in Consumer's Research v. FCC, in which the court said the issue is whether Congress has laid out the "general policy" the agency must pursue and the "boundaries" of the delegated authority. Here, no such guideposts are found. "IEEPA does not contain any direction or boundaries on the amounts or duration or scope cabining the recently imposed tariffs," the brief said.