“Although our interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its equitable discretion in like cases,” the majority ruling said.

The ruling pointed to its May emergency order in Trump v. Wilcox, which found greater harm in allowing the fired NLRB and MSPB board members to remain in their positions pending the end of their legal battles than if they were removed in the interim because of their executive power.

“The same is true on the facts presented here, where the Consumer Product Safety Commission exercises executive power in a similar manner as the National Labor Relations Board, and the case does not otherwise differ from Wilcox in any pertinent respect,” the majority ruling said.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh issued his own concurrence, agreeing with the majority opinion. He stated that he would have granted the petition to take the case before it had finished litigation at lower courts. He argued that when the high court appears, it may change precedent on a matter; it should hear the case rather than leave the lower courts in confusion.

“When an emergency application turns on whether this Court will narrow or overrule a precedent, and there is at least a fair prospect (not certainty, but at least some reasonable prospect) that we will do so, the better practice often may be to both grant a stay and grant certiorari before judgment,” Kavanaugh wrote.

“In those unusual circumstances, if we grant a stay but do not also grant certiorari before judgment, we may leave the lower courts and affected parties with extended uncertainty and confusion about the status of the precedent in question,” he added.

He argued that when a court is presented with “whether to narrow or overrule one of this Court’s precedents,” it would be better served for the Supreme Court to take the case sooner rather than later.

“In that situation, the downsides of delay in definitively resolving the status of the precedent sometimes tend to outweigh the benefits of further lower-court consideration,” Kavanaugh wrote. “So it is here. Therefore, I not only would have granted a stay but also would have granted certiorari before judgment.”

Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued in his petition for the stay that it should consider taking on the case’s merits, echoing the concerns about confusion that Kavanaugh wrote about in his concurrence.

“Until this Court issues a final decision, each of those agencies will operate under a cloud of uncertainty and will risk legal challenges to any actions that it takes,” Sauer wrote in his application to the high court earlier this month.

Since the petition was filed, two lower federal courts have issued orders that the Trump administration must restore different fired Democratic-appointed independent agency heads. The volume of lawsuits has made the issue of firing independent agency heads likely to appear before the justices on the merits in the months ahead.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent, which was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, which argued the majority had “rescinded” the CPSC’s status as an independent agency and “negated Congress’s choice of agency bipartisanship and independence.”

The dissent also took aim at the Supreme Court majority handing President Donald Trump another win via the emergency docket earlier this month, when it allowed his administration to go forward with mass layoffs at the Department of Education.

TRUMP FACES CONTINUED LEGAL FIGHTS OVER FIRING INDEPENDENT AGENCY HEADS

“The majority has acted on the emergency docket—with ‘little time, scant briefing, and no argument’—to override Congress’s decisions about how to structure administrative agencies so that they can perform their prescribed duties,” Kagan wrote.

“By means of such actions, this Court may facilitate the permanent transfer of authority, piece by piece by piece, from one branch of Government to another. Respectfully, I dissent,” Kagan added.