Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-05-05321/USCOURTS-caDC-05-05321-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 18, 2006 Decided June 23, 2006

No. 05-5321

DENNIS R. WORTH,

APPELLANT

v.

ALPHONSO JACKSON,

SECRETARY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND

URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND

CARI M. DOMINGUEZ, CHAIR, UNITED STATES EQUAL

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 02cv01576)

Michael E. Rosman argued the cause and filed the briefs for

appellant.

Matthew M. Collette, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were

Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, and Marleigh D.

Dover, Attorney.

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Before: ROGERS, TATEL, and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

TATEL, Circuit Judge: Three inter-related judicial

doctrines—standing, mootness, and ripeness—ensure that

federal courts assert jurisdiction only over “Cases” and

“Controversies.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2. In a rare justiciability

hat trick, this case implicates all three. At issue is a white male

employee’s challenge to a government agency’s affirmative

action policy that allegedly deprives him of the opportunity to

compete for job openings on an even playing field. The

employee makes two claims, but we have jurisdiction over

neither. The first relates to a written affirmative employment

plan, the expiration of which has mooted his claim. The second

involves a generalized challenge to unspecified agency “policies

and practices”—a challenge that the employee lacks standing to

bring and that, in any event, is unripe.

I.

Appellant Dennis Worth, a white employee at the St. Louis

office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development

(HUD), has applied for at least four open positions within HUD

over the past decade but claims he “has been unable to advance

because of HUD’s emphasis on meeting racial and gender

employment targets.” Second Am. Compl. 6. In this case,

however, he challenges none of those rejections. Instead,

alleging that he “intends to continue to apply for new positions

and promotion within HUD,” id., he filed suit in the U.S.

District Court for the District of Columbia against HUD and the

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fifth

Amendment to the Constitution seeking to enjoin the two

agencies from “discriminating on the basis of race and gender,”

id. at 10.

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Specifically, Worth alleges that EEOC uses its authority to

enforce Title VII to “cajole[] and induce[] federal departments

and agencies, such as HUD, to discriminate on the basis of race

and gender in employment.” Id. at 4. According to Worth,

EEOC does so in part by requiring HUD and all other agencies

to implement an “affirmative employment plan” (AEP) that,

pursuant to EEOC’s Equal Employment Opportunity

Management Directive 714 (MD-714), “obligates all federal

departments and agencies to . . . identify alleged instances of

‘manifest imbalance’ and ‘conspicuous absence’ of women and

racial minorities, by gender and race, and establish ‘goals’ and

‘target dates’ in order to eliminate such alleged

‘underrepresentation’ at all organizational levels.” Id. at 3-4.

Because HUD’s AEP, in alleged conformity to MD-714,

“establishes certain racial and gender goals in employment,” id.

at 4, and because those goals, according to Worth, will adversely

affect his prospects for advancement, he seeks to enjoin HUD’s

reliance on the plan, id. at 10. But Worth’s challenge extends

beyond the AEP. Alleging more generally that “[i]n its

employment practices, HUD favors non-white racial groups over

whites, and women over men,” id. at 4, he also seeks an

injunction barring HUD “from discriminating on the basis of

race and gender in violation of the Fifth Amendment and [Title

VII],” id. at 10.

The government moved to dismiss, arguing that Worth

failed to allege any adverse employment action as required by

Title VII. See Brown v. Brody, 199 F.3d 446, 452-55 (D.C. Cir.

1999) (requiring plaintiff to have suffered an adverse

employment action to prevail in a Title VII suit). While that

motion was pending, EEOC replaced MD-714 with MD-715.

See Equal Employment Opportunity Management Directive 715,

at i (Oct. 1, 2003) (MD-715). Differing markedly from MD714, MD-715 declares that agencies have “an ongoing

obligation to eliminate barriers that impede free and open

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competition in the workplace and prevent individuals of any

racial or national origin group or either sex from realizing their

full potential.” MD-715 at 8 (emphasis added). HUD’s AEP

expired immediately prior to MD-715’s promulgation, and HUD

declined to renew it given EEOC’s new management directive.

On the government’s motion, the district court found that

any challenge to MD-714, HUD’s AEP, or any policies based on

either of those documents was moot. Worth v. Jackson, No. 02-

1576 (D.D.C. Jan. 5, 2004) (order dismissing challenges to the

AEP and MD-714); Worth v. Jackson, No. 02-1576 (D.D.C.

Feb. 23, 2005) (order dismissing challenges to policies based on

the AEP or MD-714). But finding that “some of HUD’s hiring

and promotion policies were not implemented pursuant to MD714,” the district court held that Worth’s challenges to such

policies could proceed. Worth v. Jackson, No. 02-1576, slip op.

at 17 (D.D.C. Feb. 23, 2005).

With the mootness questions resolved, the government

renewed its initial motion to dismiss. The district court,

pointing out that Title VII is the sole avenue of redress for

employment discrimination and finding that Worth failed to

allege an adverse employment action sufficient to state a Title

VII claim, dismissed the complaint in its entirety. Worth v.

Jackson, No. 02-1576 (D.D.C. July 19, 2005). 

Worth now appeals, making three broad arguments. First,

urging us to reverse the district court’s mootness determinations,

Worth insists that all his claims remain viable. Second, he

argues that because he alleged the existence of a constitutional

injury, the lack of an adverse employment action is not fatal to

his Title VII claim. And third, he argues that if Title VII

“precludes any remedy at all for unconstitutional conduct,”

Appellant’s Br. 43, the statute is unconstitutional as applied to

him. For its part—and without addressing any jurisdictional

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issue save mootness—the government insists the district court

got it right on all fronts.

II.

We begin, as always, with our jurisdiction, the

constitutional boundaries of which we measure through the

application of standing, mootness, and ripeness doctrines. See

Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94-95

(1998) (“The requirement that jurisdiction be established as a

threshold matter springs from the nature and limits of the

judicial power of the United States and is inflexible and without

exception.” (internal quotation marks and alterations in original

omitted)). “All of the doctrines that cluster about Article

III—not only standing but mootness [and] ripeness . . . —relate

in part, and in different though overlapping ways, to an idea,

which is more than an intuition but less than a rigorous and

explicit theory, about the constitutional and prudential limits to

the powers of an unelected, unrepresentative judiciary in our

kind of government.” Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 750 (1984)

(quoting Vander Jagt v. O’Neill, 699 F.2d 1166, 1178-79 (D.C.

Cir. 1983) (Bork, J., concurring)).

Significantly for our jurisdictional inquiry, Worth has

disavowed any challenge to MD-715 or other written HUD or

EEOC policies. See Worth v. Jackson, No. 02-1576, slip op. at

11 n.6 (D.D.C. Feb. 23, 2005) (noting Worth’s concession that

“he has not asserted any claims based on MD-715 and the

[Federal Employment Opportunity Recruitment Program]”);

Appellant’s Br. 48 (explaining that references to written policies

and memoranda in his complaint merely provide “evidence”

supporting his claim “that HUD, with the EEOC’s guidance and

approval, adopted policies and practices that discriminated

against white males on the basis of race and sex”). Despite

some suggestions to the contrary, Worth’s complaint asks for

just two discrete forms of relief: (1) to stop HUD “from using

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the AEP,” and (2) to enjoin HUD and EEOC more generally

“from discriminating on the basis of race and gender.” Second

Am. Compl. 10. In considering our jurisdiction, therefore, we

consider only those two remedial requests.

Standing

As an “irreducible constitutional minimum,” a plaintiff

seeking to demonstrate standing “must have suffered an ‘injury

in fact’—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a)

concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not

conjectural or hypothetical.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504

U.S. 555, 560 (1992) (internal quotation marks and citations

omitted). Moreover, that injury must be “fairly traceable” to the

defendant’s conduct and likely to be “redressed by a favorable

decision.” Id. at 560-61 (internal quotation marks and

alterations omitted).

Because Worth “had allegedly suffered an injury as a result

of [HUD’s] preferential treatment of minorities,” the district

court found he had suffered the requisite injury in fact. Worth

v. Jackson, No. 02-1576, slip op. at 3 (D.D.C. July 19, 2005).

We disagree. While HUD’s policies did allegedly injure Worth

in the past, he seeks no relief for such injuries. See Appellant’s

Br. 38 (stating that “Worth [is] not seeking any backwardlooking remedy for any of those instances of discrimination”).

Instead, the basis for both his claims is that he “intends to apply

for new positions and promotions at HUD on a regular basis in

the future,” Second Am. Compl. 2, and that, when he does, HUD

will “violate [his] equal protection and civil rights,” id. at 6; see

also Appellant’s Br. 41 (“Worth here seeks only forwardlooking relief.”). For standing purposes, then, we limit our

inquiry to determining whether that prospective injury qualifies

as an injury in fact. See Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena,

515 U.S. 200, 211 (1995) (“If [the plaintiff] is to maintain its

claim for forward-looking relief, our cases require it to allege

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that the [federal government’s] use of [race-conscious setasides] in the future constitutes [an injury in fact].”); O’Shea v.

Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 495-96 (1974) (“Past exposure to illegal

conduct does not in itself show a present case or controversy

regarding injunctive relief . . . if unaccompanied by any

continuing, present adverse effects.”).

Worth’s assertion that he “intends to apply for new

positions and promotions at HUD on a regular basis in the

future” is just the kind of speculative intention normally

insufficient for standing purposes. In Lujan v. Defenders of

Wildlife, for example, environmental plaintiffs claimed they

would suffer aesthetic injuries when wild animals were killed in

other countries because they “intended” to travel there and do

some sight-seeing. The Court held that “[s]uch ‘some day’

intentions—without any description of concrete plans, or indeed

even any specification of when the some day will be—do not

support a finding of the ‘actual or imminent’ injury that our

cases require.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 564; see also Am. Library

Ass’n v. FCC, 401 F.3d 489, 496 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (“‘[G]eneral

averments,’ ‘conclusory allegations,’ and ‘speculative “some

day” intentions’ are inadequate to demonstrate injury in fact.”).

But the Supreme Court has created an exception to this

general rule for plaintiffs bringing facial challenges to raceconscious set-aside programs. In Northeastern Florida Chapter

of the Associated General Contractors of America v. City of

Jacksonville, 508 U.S. 656, 658 (1993), the Court found that a

group of contractors had standing to challenge a city ordinance

establishing a minority set-aside program even though none of

the contractors had actually bid for any contract. The Court

reasoned that:

[w]hen the government erects a barrier that makes it

more difficult for members of one group to obtain a

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benefit than it is for members of another group, a

member of the former group seeking to challenge the

barrier need not allege that he would have obtained the

benefit but for the barrier in order to establish standing.

The “injury in fact” in an equal protection case of this

variety is the denial of equal treatment resulting from the

imposition of the barrier, not the ultimate inability to

obtain the benefit. And in the context of a challenge to

a set-aside program, the “injury in fact” is the inability

to compete on an equal footing in the bidding process,

not the loss of a contract. To establish standing,

therefore, a party challenging a set-aside program like

Jacksonville’s need only demonstrate that it is able and

ready to bid on contracts and that a discriminatory policy

prevents it from doing so on an equal basis.

Id. at 666 (internal citations omitted). In Adarand Constructors,

Inc. v. Pena, the Court reaffirmed that contractors have standing

to press facial challenges to race-conscious statutory regimes, at

least so long as those contractors “ha[ve] made an adequate

showing that sometime in the relatively near future [they] will

bid on another Government contract.” Adarand, 515 U.S. at

211. We see no basis for distinguishing between contractors and

job applicants. Because job applicants, like contractors, must

compete to obtain a benefit, they too have standing to challenge

statutory set-aside programs. Cf. Texas v. Lesage, 528 U.S. 18,

21 (1999) (suggesting that applicants to graduate schools can

prospectively challenge a public university’s race-conscious

policies). 

No such statutory program is at issue here, however, since

Worth challenges only internal agency policies. And neither

Northeastern Florida nor Adarand resolves whether plaintiffs

can bring facial challenges to agency employment policies not

embodied in a statute. We nonetheless see no basis for thinking

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the source of an agency’s race-conscious policy—whether a

statute, a regulation, or agency guidelines—controls the standing

question. Emphasizing that imminence is “a somewhat elastic

concept,” 515 U.S. at 211 (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 565 n.2),

Adarand rests on the common-sense notion that when a

contractor depends for its livelihood on competing for

government contracts, and when the government has committed

itself to doling out those contracts on a race-conscious basis, it

stands to reason that the contractor will soon be competing on an

uneven playing field. See id. at 212. Under Adarand, then, the

relevant consideration is whether the agency is sufficiently

committed to a particular race-conscious policy that the plaintiff

will likely face a career impediment.

Given this common-sense approach, we have little doubt

that Worth has standing to bring a facial challenge to HUD’s

AEP. Just as the statutes at issue in Northeastern Florida and

Adarand committed the contracting agencies to favoring

minority contractors, the AEP committed HUD to a raceconscious policy favoring minorities and women. Like the

statutes, then, the AEP stood as “a barrier that makes it difficult

for members of one group [white men] to obtain a benefit

[positions at HUD] than it is for members of another group

[minorities and women].” Ne. Fla., 508 U.S. at 666. Moreover,

Adarand instructs us to take seriously Worth’s statement that

“sometime in the relatively near future” he will apply for a job

at HUD. Adarand, 515 U.S. at 211. Because of this, and

because no one doubts that HUD will continue posting job

openings, Worth’s injury (competing on an uneven playing

field) is sufficiently imminent for standing purposes. And

because it is “fairly traceable” to HUD and eminently

redressable, Worth has standing to challenge the AEP. To be

sure, the AEP has now lapsed, but it was in place when Worth

filed suit and “[t]he existence of federal jurisdiction ordinarily

depends on the facts as they exist when the complaint is filed.”

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Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U.S. 826, 830

(1989).

Whether Worth also has standing to challenge HUD’s

unwritten “policies and practices” is another story altogether.

Worth challenges no statute, regulation, or written policy

committing HUD to favoring minorities or women, resting his

claim instead on speculation, untethered to any written directive,

about how HUD is likely to make future employment decisions.

But we have no way of knowing how or even whether HUD will

continue taking race or gender into account, particularly given

that the adoption of MD-715 has thrown HUD’s hiring practices

into some disarray. See Worth v. Jackson, No. 02-1576, slip op.

at 11 n.8 (D.D.C. Jan. 5, 2004) (noting HUD’s view that “the

effect of MD-714’s rescission on HUD’s general employment

policies will take some time to determine”). For that

reason—and in contrast to the contractors in Northeastern

Florida and Adarand, both of which faced almost-certain

application of race-conscious statutes—Worth may never have

to compete at a disadvantage for a new position. Thus, “[w]hile

there is, of course, some chance that somewhere, at some time,

[plaintiff] may again be exposed” to a prospective injury, “that

possibility seems to us far too remote and attenuated to establish

a case or controversy under Article III.” Branton v. FCC, 993

F.2d 906, 909 (D.C. Cir. 1993).

As Worth notes, dismissing his claim on standing grounds

creates an incongruity: plaintiffs will normally have standing to

bring facial challenges to de jure employment policies but not

de facto ones, even if those de facto policies are as unyielding as

the de jure policies. This incongruity, however, reflects Article

III’s jurisdictional limitation to cases and controversies. A

reviewing court can read a de jure policy and know with a high

degree of certainty how the agency plans on tilting the playing

field in favor of one race or gender. Because the likelihood of

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the alleged harm coming to pass is quite high, the prospective

injury is sufficiently imminent to give rise to a case or

controversy even before the policy is applied. By contrast, in a

facial challenge to a de facto policy, a court attempting to

establish its jurisdiction has no way of satisfying itself that the

alleged injury will ever actually occur. Perhaps the agency will

abandon its race-conscious ways, or perhaps, having never

committed to any general policy, it won’t discriminate against

that plaintiff. Whatever the agency chooses to do, there exists

a healthy chance that it will never harm the plaintiff.

Because we resolve this claim on standing grounds, we need

not address the district court’s conclusion that Worth failed to

allege an “adverse employment action” within the meaning of

Title VII.

Mootness

Although Worth had standing to challenge HUD’s AEP

when he brought his suit, that policy has since expired, and the

district court held that Worth’s claim was moot. See Worth v.

Jackson, No. 02-1576 (D.D.C. Jan. 5, 2004). Worth disagrees,

observing that “‘[i]t is well settled that a defendant’s voluntary

cessation of a challenged practice does not deprive a federal

court of its power to determine the legality of the practice’”

except when the defendant meets its “‘heavy burden of

persuading the court that the challenged conduct cannot

reasonably be expected to start up again.’” Appellant’s Br. 46

(quoting Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs., Inc.,

528 U.S. 167, 189 (2000) (alterations omitted)). Insisting that

the AEP’s expiration is precisely such a voluntary cessation,

Worth argues that HUD has failed to meet its burden because it

never demonstrated that “any future plan . . . would not retain

the same flaws as [HUD’s] earlier AEP.” Id. at 50.

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In making this argument, Worth loses sight of his claim.

The “challenged practice” at issue here is HUD’s reliance on the

AEP that existed when Worth filed his complaint, and Worth

nowhere disputes the district court’s finding, supported by an

unchallenged agency affidavit, that HUD “will not renew the

AEP that was in effect when MD-714 was operative.” Worth v.

Jackson, No. 02-1576, slip op. at 11 (Jan. 5, 2004); Jackson

Decl. at 2, Sept. 10, 2003 (stating that the AEP “will not be

renewed or reissued”); see also United States v. Concentrated

Phosphate Export Ass’n, 393 U.S. 199, 203-04 (1968) (finding

in the mootness context that whether “the likelihood of further

violations is sufficiently remote to make injunctive relief

unnecessary . . . is a matter for the trial judge”). That ends the

matter. See Burke v. Barnes, 479 U.S. 361, 363-65 (1987)

(holding that a statute’s expiration mooted any challenge to the

statute). To be sure, the Supreme Court has occasionally

addressed challenges to laws no longer in force, but it has done

so only when the statute or ordinance in question has been

replaced by a substantially similar enactment, see Ne. Fla., 508

U.S. at 662, or where the governing body expressed an intent to

re-enact the allegedly defective law, see City of Mesquite v.

Aladdin’s Castle, Inc., 455 U.S. 283, 289 & n.11 (1982).

Neither condition exists here, particularly given that the advent

of MD-715, with its apparent commitment to equal treatment for

all, decreases the likelihood that any new AEP will resemble the

now-defunct AEP. Because the Constitution nowhere licenses

us to rule on the legality of an agency policy that no longer

exists and that, according to the district court, will never again

exist, Worth’s challenge to HUD’s AEP is moot.

Ripeness

Although the foregoing resolves this case, our conclusion

that Worth lacks standing to challenge HUD’s “policies and

practices” rests, as we explained earlier, on our view that neither

Northeastern Florida nor Adarand extends much beyond their

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particular facts. See supra at p. 10. But even if this is wrong

and the Supreme Court one day extends them to cover the kind

of situation we face here, we would still lack jurisdiction to hear

Worth’s claim because it is unripe. In Abbott Laboratories v.

Gardner, 387 U.S. 136 (1967), the Supreme Court explained

that the ripeness doctrine’s

basic rationale is to prevent the courts, through

avoidance of premature adjudication, from entangling

themselves in abstract disagreements over administrative

policies, and also to protect the agencies from judicial

interference until an administrative decision has been

formalized and its effects felt in a concrete way by the

challenging parties.

Id. at 148-49. To this end, the Court has repeatedly held that

“[a] claim is not ripe for adjudication if it rests upon contingent

future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may

not occur at all.” Texas v. United States, 523 U.S. 296, 300

(1998) (internal quotation marks omitted). In considering

ripeness, we must “evaluate both the fitness of the issues for

judicial decision and the hardship to the parties of withholding

court consideration.” Abbott Labs., 387 U.S. at 149.

In our view, Worth’s free-wheeling challenge to HUD’s

“policies and practices” is not yet ready for judicial airing.

While Worth insists that HUD and EEOC “have adopted and

maintain[ed] a system of race preferences that disadvantage

Worth on their face,” Appellant’s Br. 37, we cannot assess a

facial challenge to an unwritten policy that by definition has no

face. Even assuming HUD will someday apply a discriminatory

policy to Worth, absent concrete application of that policy, we

lack “sufficient confidence in our powers of imagination” to

ascertain its contours. Texas, 523 U.S. at 301. Far from

presenting a “purely legal question[] . . . presumptively suitable

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for judicial review,” Better Gov’t Ass’n v. Dep’t of State, 780

F.2d 86, 92 (D.C. Cir. 1986), Worth’s complaint asks us to

resolve an “abstract disagreement[] over administrative policies”

that have yet to be “formalized and . . . felt in a concrete way by

the challenging part[y].” Abbott Labs., 387 U.S. at 148-49.

Because we “would benefit from postponing review until the

policy in question has sufficiently ‘crystallized’ by taking on a

more definite form,” see City of Houston v. HUD, 24 F.3d 1421,

1431 (D.C. Cir. 1994), we would, even if Worth did have

standing, put off review for another day.

Such a disposition might give us pause if it would burden

Worth unduly, but he remains free to challenge HUD’s use of

racial or gender preferences should they ever actually affect him.

He just needs to wait. By contrast, HUD would be significantly

burdened if forced to shadowbox with litigants like Worth who,

although pointing to no written policy or adverse action of any

kind, attempt to enlist the judiciary in shaping agency policy.

Disgruntled employees without concrete complaints could drag

HUD—indeed, any agency—through months or years of

intensive discovery in an effort to unearth elusive evidence of

tacit agency policies and practices. Underscoring the burden

this suit would impose on HUD, Worth admits he pleaded

generalized claims for the very purpose of preventing HUD

from interposing the plaintiff-specific defenses normally

available in Title VII cases. See Appellant’s Br. 40 (observing

that an employer can “largely avoid liability by showing that it

would not have hired plaintiff even if it had not discriminated[,]

. . . lead[ing] toward the expenditure of a great deal of time and

energy spent on this ‘same decision’ defense”). Such defenses

are available for good reason, however, and Worth may not

circumvent them merely by casting his complaint at a high level

of generality. 

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III.

Though Worth may one day have a live and perhaps even

meritorious claim, that day has not yet come. We affirm in part,

vacate in part, and remand with instructions to dismiss for lack

of jurisdiction.

So ordered.

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