This is John Batchel, conversation with Richard Epstein about the tariff money that's to be returned

following the Supreme Court ruling that it's illegal to collect that tariff money.

When will it be returned?

Richard sees the possibility that it could drag out for years, but there is a weapon, a tool that the courts have.

Preliminary injunction.

Richard explains.

Tariffs, money in the hands of the Treasury, not in the hands of the people who paid it,

not understanding at the time because it hadn't been ruled that it was illegal to collect it.

Now it has to go back to the people who paid it. How long? Here's Richard. Key element to understand about these cases.

It sounds in many cases like a procedural nicety, but it's one of the single most important elements

in civil litigation, which is the preliminary injunction. That is, a case

comes before you, and you don't know which way it's going to go. Do you let the behavior go through

and then try to unravel it afterwards, like the refund question, or do you say this thing is

sufficiently improbable on the merits and sufficiently disruptive that what we do is we enjoin it from taking place

until the president gets a ratification from Congress. And there's a famous case called Winter having to do with a trade-off of complicated issues,

which shows just how far from this universe the president then. That was a case in which you had some naturalists worried about the

preservation of scenic environments and so forth and marine habitat, and you had the Navy trying to

figure out how to run certain kinds of drills that could not be covered in many places. And the

issue is did you give a plenary injunction against the military activities in order to protect

the environment.

And what the Supreme Court said, this case is so close this way and the other way,

that we just can't give the pulmonary injunction.

...