Case ID: f-appx_566/html/0098-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Sam SLOAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, Richard Bozulich, Thomas R. Stevens, Plaintiff, v. Salvataore G. CARUSO, Daniel S. Szalk-iewicz, Board of Elections in the City of New York, Defendants-Appellees.
    No. 13-3328-cv.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    May 20, 2014.
    Sam Sloan, Bronx, NY, for Appellant.
    Larry A. Sonnenshein, Stephen Kitzinger, Susan P. Greenberg, for Jeffrey D. Friedlander, Acting Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, New York, NY, for Appellees.
    PRESENT: JOHN M. WALKER, JR., PETER W. HALL, Circuit Judges and J. GARVAN MURTHA, District Judge.
    
      
      . Judge J. Garvan Murtha, of the United States District Court for the District of Vermont, sitting by designation.
    
   SUMMARY ORDER

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the appeal is DISMISSED.

In 2013, Sam Sloan attempted to run as a Republican candidate for mayor of New York City. He submitted a nominating petition to the New York City Board of Elections (“BOE”). Salvataore • Caruso filed an objection, arguing that the witnesses to the petitions were not registered Republicans as required by New York’s “Party Witness Rule.” The BOE rejected Sloan’s petition. Sloan brought a pro se action in the district court for the Southern District of New York against Caruso, Daniel Szalkiewicz (Caruso’s lawyer), and the BOE, requesting that the district court order the BOE to put his name on the ballot. Construing the action as one for a preliminary injunction, the district court denied Sloan’s requested relief because Sloan had not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits. Sloan appeals that denial. He argues that the case is not moot, despite the passing of the 2013 election cycle, because he intends to run for “state-wide office” in 2014, and the “same issue is likely to come up again.” We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal.

This Court lacks jurisdiction over the appeal because intervening events have rendered Sloan’s appeal moot. “ ‘In general, an appeal from the denial of a preliminary injunction is mooted by the occurrence of the action sought to be enjoined.’ ” Knaust v. City of Kingston, 157 F.3d 86, 88 (2d Cir.1998) (quoting Bank of N.Y. Co. v. Northeast Bancorp, Inc., 9 F.3d 1065, 1067 (2d Cir.1993)). “A moot case may still be justiciable, however, if the underlying dispute is ‘capable of repetition, yet evading review.’ ” Van Wie v. Pataki, 267 F.3d 109, 113 (2d Cir.2001) (quoting Knaust, 157 F.3d at 88). This exception applies when “‘(1) the challenged action [is] in its duration too short to be fully litigated pri- or to its cessation or expiration, and (2) there [is] a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party [will] be subjected to the same action again.’ ” Id. at 114 (quoting Weinstein v. Bradford, 423 U.S. 147, 149, 96 S.Ct. 347, 46 L.Ed.2d 350 (1975)).

Sloan sought to have his name added to the ballot as a Republican candidate for mayor in the 2013 New York City Republican primary and general elections. Because the 2013 election cycle has passed, we cannot offer “effective relief,” and Sloan’s appeal is moot. Furthermore, this is not a matter that can be described as “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” Sloan’s speculative assertion that the “same issue is likely to come up again” because he intends to run for an unspecified office in 2014 amounts to “a mere theoretical possibility that the controversy is capable of repetition.” Id. at 115. “Such speculation does not establish ‘a reasonable expectation’ that [he] will again be subjected to the same dispute.” Id.

We have reviewed Sloan’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, we DISMISS the appeal as moot. 
      
      . We note, additionally, that in the interim between submission of the appeal and the filing of this Order, the district court has now dismissed Sloan’s complaint.