“The district court’s order promised to run for the life of this lawsuit, thus preventing Idaho from executing any aspect of its law for years,” Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion.

Though Monday’s ruling did not address whether justices think Idaho’s law is constitutional; the court’s justices used the case as a venue to debate the high court’s use of emergency rulings, which have significantly increased in recent years.

“This court is responsible for resolving questions of national importance, even when they arise on the emergency docket,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote. “Fulfilling that responsibility will sometimes require us to assess likelihood of success on the merits in emergency cases involving new laws.”

Most cases that are reviewed by the Supreme Court are scheduled for oral arguments, include lengthy court briefings from supporters and opponents, and result in detailed opinions from justices.

By contrast, what has been dubbed the court’s “shadow” docket includes cases brought to the court on emergency appeals, which generally are not slated for oral arguments but are instead quickly ruled upon with written orders, like the court’s decision on Wednesday. Those rulings sometimes do not include explanations.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, members of the court’s liberal minority, wrote in a dissent that Labrador had “not come close” to proving that the case deserved an emergency ruling from the court.

“In a troubling bid for this court’s early intervention, the state asks us to wade into the middle of ongoing lower court proceedings to weigh in on a single query concerning only one aspect of a preliminary determination by the District Court,” the justices wrote. “We should resist being conscripted into service when our involvement amounts to micromanaging the lower courts’ exercise of their discretionary authority in the midst of active litigation.”

While the conservative justices argued that Winmill’s injunction was too broad, the district judge ruled in December that part of his reasoning was because of the practical specifics of the case: It concerns two transgender minors using pseudonyms, and Winmill said he thought it would be inoperable to grant an injunction tailored to the two minors without risking revealing their identities.

Jackson and Sotomayor wrote that Labrador’s argument that Winmill’s decision was intended to be “universal” was wrong.

“The only problem: that’s not what the District Court did here,” they wrote. “The District Court settled on issuing a statewide preliminary injunction for a party-centered, fact-specific reason: because it found that doing so was necessary to protect the particular plaintiffs before the court, including two minors proceeding under pseudonyms, against action by the state it deemed likely unconstitutional.

“This court will almost certainly have a chance to consider the entirety of this case soon, whoever prevails below. In the meantime, it is far better for all concerned to let the lower courts proceed unfettered by our intervention.”

The lawsuit over Idaho’s ban on transgender care minors is far from decided. The court’s decision on Wednesday concerned only Winmill’s preliminary ban on enforcement of the law, which has now been narrowed to exempt only the plaintiffs.

A hearing on the merits of Winmill’s injunction is scheduled to be argued before the 9th Circuit this summer. After that, the lawsuit itself will be litigated.

Monday’s decision was the second involving emergency appeals from Labrador. In January, the Supreme Court allowed the state’s total abortion ban to be enforced as part of another appeal. That case is scheduled for a Supreme Court hearing later this month.

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