How the coronavirus fight might end up at the Supreme Court

Though it may now be difficult to imagine, at some point this crisis will end. Whether when a vaccine for the novel coronavirus is released or — heaven help us — well before then, new infections will slow and life will move back toward normal. Then it will be time to sue each other.

Salus populi suprema lex esto, wrote the Roman jurist Cicero: "The health [or welfare or common good] of the people should be the supreme law." But in the United States our literal supreme law is the...