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Supreme Court Case TrackerThe Court, in plain English

Emergency application

Stephen Downs v. Doug Collins, Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Denied
No. 26A363Stay applicationFiled by a private partyPresented to Justice KavanaughFrom United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

What did the Court do?

The Court denied the request on September 24, 2026: the lower court's ruling stays in effect while the appeal continues.

Emergency rulings are temporary and do not decide the underlying case.

Filed Ruled 14 days after filing

What's being asked

Stephen Downs, a private individual, asks the Court to temporarily pause a Sixth Circuit ruling in his dispute with Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins. The record does not explain what the dispute or the ruling concerns.

What the Court did

The Court refused emergency help: Justice Kavanaugh denied (turned down) Downs’s request to pause the Sixth Circuit ruling. The Court did not publish how the justices voted.

Vote not published · 9the order does not say how they voted
  1. Roberts
  2. Thomas
  3. Alito
  4. Sotomayor
  5. Kagan
  6. Gorsuch
  7. Kavanaugh
  8. Barrett
  9. Jackson
The order does not say how any justice voted, as is usual on the emergency docket.
Half of 300 rulings on applications decided without a response came 8 to 28 days after filing, and the median was 14 days; this one was ruled on 14 days after filing.

What it means

An emergency ruling on a temporary pause does not decide who wins the underlying case. The Sixth Circuit ruling remains in place. The docket lists no related case about the main legal question, and no argument was set.

Sources

Facts on this page come from the Supreme Court docket, orders, and opinions for No. 26A363. The answers restate that record in plain words; explainer copy is written from the record and the filings only.

Checked November 3, 2026