Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-24-05011/USCOURTS-ca10-24-05011-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

THLOPTHLOCCO TRIBAL TOWN, a 

federally recognized Indian Tribe, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v. 

ROGER WILEY; RICHARD C. 

LERBLANCE; AMOS McNAC; 

ANDREW ADAMS, III; KATHLEEN R. 

SUPERNAW; MONTIE R. DEER; 

GEORGE THOMPSON, JR.; LEAH 

HARJO-WARE, 

 Defendants - Appellants. 

No. 24-5011 

(D.C. No. 4:09-CV-00527-JCG-CDL) 

(N.D. Okla.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_________________________________ 

Before TYMKOVICH, McHUGH, and ROSSMAN, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

This case returns to us after remand in 2014 for exhaustion in the courts of the 

Muscogee (Creek) Nation. See Thlopthlocco Tribal Town v. Stidham (Thlopthlocco 

I), 762 F.3d 1226, 1229 (10th Cir. 2014). It involves a dispute between Appellee 

Thlopthlocco Tribal Town (the “Town”) and Nathan Anderson, who attempted to 

seize control of the Town’s governing body in 2007. In response, the Town filed suit 

* This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines 

of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for 

its persuasive value consistent with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1 and 

Tenth Circuit Rule 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

December 10, 2024

Christopher M. Wolpert 

Clerk of Court

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against Mr. Anderson in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation District Court. In so doing, the 

Town waived its sovereign immunity for purposes of that litigation. Two years later, 

the Town attempted to end the Muscogee-court litigation by withdrawing its waiver 

of immunity; however, the Muscogee district court refused to acknowledge the 

Town’s sovereign immunity and dismiss the case. The Town therefore sued 

Appellants—judicial officers of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation (the “Officers”)— in 

federal district court, asserting that they were wrongfully exercising jurisdiction over 

the Town. 

This case has since followed a winding procedural road: In 2013, the district 

court dismissed the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction; in 2014, we reversed 

that dismissal and remanded the case for tribal-court exhaustion; in 2022, the 

Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court dismissed the underlying Muscogee-court 

cases; and in 2023, the district court issued a declaratory judgment in favor of the 

Town. The Officers now appeal that declaratory judgment, arguing the district court 

lacked jurisdiction because the case is moot. We agree. The Muscogee courts are no 

longer exercising jurisdiction over the Town and, consequently, there is no longer a 

live case or controversy. Accordingly, we dismiss this appeal as moot and vacate the 

district court’s judgment. 

I. BACKGROUND 

A. Historical Background 

As is explained in more detail in our previous decision, the Town is a historic 

Creek tribe that was forcibly relocated to present-day Oklahoma in the 1820s and 

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1830s. Id. at 1229–30. In 1939, the Town became a federally recognized tribe after it 

drafted a “constitution and received its federal charter of incorporation.” Id. at 1230. 

The Town is governed by “a ten-member Business Committee, which is 

composed of five elected town officers—the Town King, two Warriors, a Secretary, 

and a Treasurer—and five advisors appointed by the elected officials.” Id. at 1231. 

Pertinent here, the Town’s constitution provides that (1) tribal members elect new 

town officers every four years, (2) Committee members can fill vacancies that arise 

between elections, and (3) Committee members can be removed at any time “by a 

majority vote of Tribal Town members.” Id. Additionally, because the Town lacks 

the resources necessary to maintain its own judiciary, the federal government “gives 

federal funding earmarked for judicial services for the Thlopthlocco people to the” 

Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s courts. Id. The Town thus has frequently relied on the 

Muscogee court system when it needs a judicial forum. 

B. The First Muscogee Case: Anderson I 

In 2007, the Town King, Nathan Anderson, “attempted to overthrow the 

Business Committee . . . and declare himself the only legitimately elected Tribal 

Town official.” Id. at 1232. As the only remaining Business Committee member, 

Mr. Anderson then appointed nine of his supporters to the Committee. See Crowe & 

Dunlevy, P.C. v. Stidham, 640 F.3d 1140, 1144 (10th Cir. 2011) (discussing this 

background for related litigation). 

In response, the Town (represented by the ousted Committee members) waived 

its sovereign immunity and sued Mr. Anderson in Muscogee district court, seeking 

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injunctive relief and a declaration that the ousted Committee members were “the 

lawful leaders of Thlopthlocco.” App. Vol. V at 7381

; see Thlopthlocco Tribal Town 

v. Anderson (Anderson I), No. cv-2007-39 (M. (Cr.) Dist. Ct. June 11, 2007). The 

scope of the Town’s sovereign-immunity waiver extended to “this dispute only, only 

[for] claims brought by the Plaintiff, Thlopthlocco Tribal Town, and only for 

injunctive and declaratory relief.” App. Vol. V at 715. Additionally, the Town 

initiated internal efforts to remove Mr. Anderson as Town King and, in July 2007, 

Mr. Anderson was removed from office pursuant to a majority vote of the Town’s 

members. 

Even so, the litigation in Anderson I continued, largely because of crossclaims 

Mr. Anderson had filed against the Town. In February 2009, the Town withdrew its 

initial waiver of sovereign immunity and asked the Muscogee district court to dismiss 

Anderson I. But the Muscogee district court refused to dismiss the case, finding 

“even in the absence of the [] Town's consent, the Muscogee courts had jurisdiction 

to hear the suit.” Thlopthlocco I, 762 F.3d at 1232. The Town responded by filing an 

interlocutory appeal with the Muscogee Supreme Court and the present lawsuit in the 

Northern District of Oklahoma, arguing that the Muscogee courts were unlawfully 

exercising jurisdiction over it. The federal case was ultimately stayed until the 

Muscogee Supreme Court issued a decision in the interlocutory appeal. 

1

 Unless otherwise specified, citations to the Appendix are to Appellee’s 

fifteen-volume Supplemental Appendix at ECF No. 28. 

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C. The Second Muscogee Case: Anderson II 

While the interlocutory appeal and federal case were pending, Mr. Anderson 

filed a new lawsuit in the Muscogee district court challenging the Town’s refusal to 

allow him to run as a candidate in the Town’s January 2011 election. See Anderson v. 

Burden (Anderson II), No. cv-2011-08 (M. (Cr.) Dist. Ct. Jan. 2009). The Muscogee 

district court suspended the January 2011 election, conducted a multi-day hearing, 

and ultimately entered an order in July 2011 directing the Town to reschedule the 

election and place Mr. Anderson on the ballot. 

The Town filed an interlocutory appeal of this decision with the Muscogee 

Supreme Court, which was still considering the Anderson I appeal. That court denied 

the Anderson II appeal as untimely in January 2012. Then in March 2012, the court 

denied the Anderson I appeal as unripe, holding that whether the Town could 

withdraw its immunity waiver could not be decided “until sufficient fact-finding is 

conducted.” App. Vol. XV at 2367. 

D. First Round of Federal Litigation 

The federal case subsequently resumed, and in January 2013 the district court 

dismissed the Town’s claims against the Officers, holding inter alia that it lacked 

subject matter jurisdiction because the case involved an intratribal dispute. 

Thlopthlocco Tribal Town v. Stidham, No. 09-CV-527, 2013 WL 65234, at *14 (N.D. 

Okla. Jan. 3, 2013). We disagreed and reversed the district court’s dismissal, holding 

that “whether a tribal court has exceeded its jurisdictional authority is a question of 

federal common law” over which federal courts have subject matter jurisdiction. 

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Thlopthlocco I, 762 F.3d at 1234 (citing Nat’l Farmers Union Ins. v. Crow Tribe of 

Indians, 471 U.S. 845, 852 (1985)). We also held that the Officers were not shielded 

by sovereign immunity because “a plaintiff seeking injunctive relief from the 

Muscogee courts’ allegedly unlawful exercise of jurisdiction over a nonmember is 

entitled to sue the judge in federal court” under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908). 

Thlopthlocco I, 762 F.3d at 1235 (following Crowe & Dunlevy, 640 F.3d at 1156). 

Even so, we remanded the case for further proceedings because, although the 

Muscogee Supreme Court had denied the Town’s interlocutory appeal in Anderson I, 

it had not yet decided whether the Town could withdraw its waiver of sovereign 

immunity. Id. at 1238. Thus, nothing prevented the Town from “seek[ing] appellate 

review in the Muscogee Supreme Court after the Muscogee district court completes 

its fact finding and reaches a decision on the merits.” Id. We indicated that this court 

could “benefit from the Muscogee Supreme Court’s tribal law analysis of the [] 

Town’s and Muscogee Nation’s relationship” and from its “analysis of the effect of 

the [] Town’s withdrawal of its waiver of sovereign immunity.” Id. at 1240. We 

therefore remanded the case for further proceedings in the Muscogee courts and 

instructed the district court to abate, rather than dismiss, the case to “protect the [] 

Town’s position in this litigation.” Id. at 1241. 

E. Muscogee Court Decisions 

The case thus returned to the Muscogee district court, and by May 2016 both 

the Town and Mr. Anderson had filed and fully briefed dispositive motions. Those 

motions remained pending for five years. Eventually, in May 2021, the Muscogee 

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district court dismissed Anderson I as moot and ordered the Town to schedule an 

election in Anderson II. The court recognized that a central question at issue was 

whether the Town’s withdrawal of its immunity waiver required dismissal of the 

cases “or whether there is a point of no return where a plaintiff cannot unilaterally 

decide to voluntarily dismiss a case it initiated.” App. Vol. XIV at 2268. The court 

found that “by 2009, [the Town] could no longer voluntarily dismiss the action and to 

allow such dismissal would be unjust to the defendants and inconsistent with 

concepts of judicial efficiency.” But the court still dismissed Anderson I, finding that 

although it had “exercised proper jurisdiction over Anderson I for many years,” the 

case was “no longer justiciable as a practical matter.” Id. at 2274. 

The parties appealed to the Muscogee Supreme Court, which dismissed both 

cases in February 2022. In so doing, the court reaffirmed that the Town “is a 

federally recognized band of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation” and “also something 

more under Muscogee tribal law,” and it stated that this dual role “does not diminish 

[the Town’s] rights, but expands them.” App. Vol. XV at 2409. The court then 

affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Anderson I as nonjusticiable based on “the 

current political status of [Mr.] Anderson.” Id. at 2410. The court also ruled that the 

claims in Anderson II were not encompassed “within the scope of the initial” waiver 

in Anderson I and, consequently, they were barred “absent a waiver of sovereign 

immunity by the [Town].” Id. at 2411–12. Therefore, the court remanded Anderson II 

to the district court with instructions to dismiss Anderson II for lack of jurisdiction. 

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F. Post-Exhaustion Federal Proceedings 

Not satisfied with this outcome, the Town returned to federal district court and 

sought a declaratory judgment that the Town had authority to withdraw a waiver of 

sovereign immunity. For their part, the Officers argued the “case is moot and that any 

opinion . . . would be advisory.” Thlopthlocco Tribal Town v. Wiley (Thlopthlocco 

II), 710 F. Supp. 3d 1043, 1053 (N.D. Okla. 2023). 

The district court granted the Town’s motion for a declaratory judgment in 

December 2023. See id. at 1062. In its judgment, the court found the case is not moot 

“because the question of whether the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Courts may exercise 

jurisdiction over the . . . Town after [it withdrew] its sovereign immunity waiver has 

not yet been resolved.” Id. at 1054. The court explained that the Town “has a 

concrete interest in knowing whether” it could withdraw a waiver of sovereign 

immunity in the Muscogee courts. Id. The court decided that, because the Muscogee 

Supreme Court did not decide whether the Town’s withdrawal of its immunity waiver 

divested the Muscogee courts of jurisdiction, there was still a live controversy 

regarding this issue. Id. at 1054–55. 

The court alternatively held the case was justiciable under the “capable of 

repetition yet evading review” exception to mootness. Id. at 1056. The court found 

that whether the Town could withdraw a waiver of immunity was an issue capable of 

evading review because it arose in the context of an election dispute, and election 

disputes are by nature short in duration. Thlopthlocco II, 710 F. Supp. 3d at 1055–56. 

The district court further concluded “there is a reasonable expectation” that the issue 

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was capable of repetition because the Town has no judicial forum other than the 

Muscogee courts. Id.

On the merits, the court granted the Town’s request for a declaratory 

judgment. It declared that the “Town is a federally recognized tribe, and it enjoys 

sovereign immunity as pronounced in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court’s 

decision.” Id. at 1060. The court further declared that the Town, as a sovereign, “may 

withdraw its consent whenever it may suppose that justice to the public requires it.” 

Id. at 1061 (quoting Iowa Tribe of Kan. & Neb. v. Salazar, 607 F.3d 1225, 1234 (10th 

Cir. 2010)). And the court specified that the “Town may withdraw its waiver of 

sovereign immunity in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Courts if the tribal courts’ 

exercise of jurisdiction exceeds the terms and conditions of the waiver.” Id. The 

Officers timely appealed this judgment on January 19, 2024. 

II. DISCUSSION 

The Officers argue the district court erred by holding the case is not moot. 

This court reviews the jurisdictional question of mootness de novo. See Rio Grande 

Silvery Minnow v. Bureau of Reclamation, 601 F.3d 1096, 1122 (10th Cir. 2010). We 

agree that the case is moot because there is no longer a live controversy.2

2

 Because we dismiss the case as constitutionally moot, we do not address the 

Officers’ alternative argument that we lack jurisdiction under Ex parte Young, 209 

U.S. 123 (1908), because there is no longer an ongoing violation of federal law. See 

Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer, 601 U.S. 1, 4 (2023) (affirming that federal courts 

“can address jurisdictional issues in any order [they] choose”). For the same reason, 

we do not reach the issue of prudential mootness. 

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A. Mootness Standard 

The Constitution vests federal courts with jurisdiction over “Cases” or 

“Controversies.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1. This requires “that a case embody a 

genuine, live dispute between adverse parties, thereby preventing the federal courts 

from issuing advisory opinions.” Carney v. Adams, 592 U.S. 53, 58 (2020). For a 

dispute to be considered genuine and live, the plaintiff must establish standing: that 

the plaintiff suffered (1) an injury in fact, (2) caused by the defendant, which is 

(3) redressable by law. Brown v. Buhman, 822 F.3d 1151, 1164 (10th Cir. 2016). 

The counterpart to standing is mootness, which ensures that a case still meets 

the Constitution’s case-or-controversy requirement “at the time a court renders its 

decision.” Id. at 1163. A case must be dismissed as moot if “the issues presented are 

no longer live or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome.” Smith 

v. Becerra, 44 F.4th 1238, 1247 (10th Cir. 2022) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Claims for declaratory relief, in particular, are “moot if the relief would not affect the 

behavior of the defendant toward the plaintiff.” Id. (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Even when “interesting academic questions” persist, federal courts “may 

answer only questions whose resolution will have an actual effect in the real world.” 

Wyoming v. U.S. Dep’t of Int., 587 F.3d 1245, 1247 (10th Cir. 2009). Additionally, 

the party asserting mootness must establish “that the challenged conduct cannot 

reasonably be expected to start up again.” Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Env’t 

Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 189 (2000); see also Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc., 

568 U.S. 85, 92 (2013). 

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B. Analysis 

1. Constitutional Mootness 

The Officers bear the burden of establishing mootness. Friends of the Earth, 

528 U.S. at 189. The Officers argue the case is moot because there are no pending 

cases in the Muscogee court system in which a court “is asserting, or threatening to 

assert, jurisdiction over the Town despite a withdrawn immunity waiver. No such 

litigation exists, and none is in the offing.” Appellant’s Br. at 32. The Officers urge 

that the Town’s interest in knowing whether it will be allowed to withdraw an 

immunity waiver in future litigation “is the very sort of speculative, hypothetical 

factual scenario that would render . . . [any] judgment a prohibited advisory opinion.” 

Id. at 32–33 (quoting Schell v. OXY USA Inc., 814 F.3d 1107, 1115 (10th Cir. 2016)). 

We agree that there is no longer a live controversy. The Muscogee Supreme 

Court dismissed all cases involving the Town, and neither party asserts that any other 

Muscogee-court litigation is pending. In our previous decision, we held that the 

district court had jurisdiction to decide whether the Officers were infringing on the 

Town’s “federally recognized rights” by exercising jurisdiction over the Town 

without its consent. Thlopthlocco I, 762 F.3d at 1234. But now, ten years later, the 

Officers are no longer exercising or attempting to exercise jurisdiction over the 

Town. Thus, this is the quintessential situation in which a judgment will not affect 

“the behavior of the defendant toward the plaintiff” because the Officers are no 

longer engaging in the challenged behavior. Smith, 44 F.4th at 1247 (quotation marks 

omitted). 

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Accordingly, the district court’s exercise of subject matter jurisdiction over 

this matter amounts to an advisory opinion because it provides only a “possible, 

indirect benefit in a future lawsuit,” and only if the Town were to again attempt to 

withdraw an immunity waiver. United States v. Juvenile Male, 564 U.S. 932, 937 

(2011). Indeed, the district court acknowledged that the only “real-world effect” of 

its declaratory judgment was to advise the Town whether it could withdraw an 

immunity waiver if, in the future, it again “waives its sovereign immunity to submit 

to the jurisdiction of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Courts.” Thlopthlocco II, 710 F. 

Supp. 3d at 1054. And on appeal, the Town asserts only that the district court’s 

judgment was proper because it provides guidance for future litigation the Town may

initiate in the Muscogee courts.3

 But such concerns about “a hypothetical unfiled suit 

are not cognizable reasons for continuing litigation.” Schell, 814 F.3d at 1115. 

The Town also urges that there is an outstanding “rule of decision” in the 

Muscogee courts that the Town may not “withdraw any waiver of sovereign 

immunity,” and that this existing rule of decision constitutes an ongoing injury 

sufficient to prevent a finding of mootness. Appellee’s Br. at 28. But that argument is 

inconsistent with the Muscogee Supreme Court’s actions. That court (1) dismissed 

3

 Relying on Three Affiliated Tribes v. Wold Engineering, 476 U.S. 877 

(1986), the Town also argues the case is not moot where “issues of access to court 

conditioned upon waivers of sovereign immunity present immediate questions to be 

resolved because they impinge upon the rights of the sovereign parties. Appellee’s 

Br. at 35–36. But Three Affiliated Tribes does not discuss mootness; it establishes 

only that a state may not condition a tribe’s access to state courts on a broad waiver 

of the tribe’s sovereign immunity. See id. at 891–92. The case is thus irrelevant to the 

present question of mootness. 

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Anderson I as moot and (2) dismissed Anderson II for lack of jurisdiction, holding 

that the Town had not waived its immunity for that litigation. And to the extent there 

is a “rule of decision” in the Muscogee courts preventing the Town from withdrawing 

a waiver of immunity, nothing indicates that the correctness of that rule could not be 

litigated when the issue arises in a future case. The fact that the Muscogee courts 

have previously asserted jurisdiction over the Town after it attempted to withdraw an 

immunity waiver, standing alone, does not establish “standing [for the Town] to 

pursue declaratory relief.” Already, 568 U.S. at 730. 

In sum, the Town is no longer suffering an injury because the Muscogee courts 

have relinquished all jurisdiction over it. Accordingly, the case is moot. 

2. Voluntary Cessation 

Despite this finding of constitutional mootness, the Town argues that an 

exception to mootness is applicable here because the “[m]ere voluntary cessation of 

allegedly illegal conduct does not moot a case” unless “the allegedly wrongful 

behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur.” Appellee’s Br. at 41 (quoting 

City of Mesquite v. Aladdin’s Castle, 455 U.S. 283, 289 n.10 (1982)). 

A defendant’s voluntary cessation of challenged conduct will not render a case 

moot unless “(1) it can be said with assurance that there is no reasonable expectation 

that the alleged violation will recur, and (2) interim relief or events have completely 

and irrevocably eradicated the effects of the alleged violation.” Ind v. Colo. Dep’t of 

Corr., 801 F.3d 1209, 1214 (10th Cir. 2015) (quoting Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, 

601 F.3d at 1115). We have also held that the voluntary-cessation exception is 

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inapplicable when “the controversy has become moot through the normal course of 

events rather than through the unilateral action of the defendant.” O’Connor v. 

Washburn Univ., 416 F.3d 1216, 1222 (10th Cir. 2005). 

First, the Officers’ alleged violation—exercising jurisdiction despite the 

Town’s withdrawal of its immunity waiver in Anderson I—cannot reasonably be 

expected to recur. The Town attempted to withdraw the immunity waiver nearly two 

years after it initiated litigation in the Muscogee district court, against a procedural 

backdrop where the Town had argued vigorously in favor of Muscogee-court 

jurisdiction. This factual background informs the jurisdictional issue because whether 

a sovereign can withdraw a waiver of sovereign immunity in litigation that it initiated 

turns on a fact-dependent analysis of whether the attempted withdrawal constitutes a 

“selective assertion of immunity” barred by “[p]rinciples of fairness and 

consistency.” Vas-Cath, Inc. v. Curators of Univ. of Mo., 473 F.3d 1376, 1384 (Fed. 

Cir. 2007); see also Lapides v. Board of Regents, 535 U.S. 613, 622 (2002) 

(distinguishing between situations in which a sovereign “voluntarily invoked the 

jurisdiction of the federal court” and those in which “a private plaintiff had 

involuntarily made [the sovereign] a defendant”); but see Thlopthlocco I, 762 F.3d at 

1240 (stating without deciding that federal law allows a sovereign to withdraw an 

immunity waiver in litigation that the sovereign initiated). In short, whether a 

sovereign may withdraw a waiver of sovereign immunity cannot be answered with a 

bright-line rule but rather turns on the circumstances at hand. Accordingly, the 

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Officers’ allegedly unlawful exercise of jurisdiction, which was contingent on the 

specific factual backdrop of Anderson I and II, is not reasonably likely to recur. 

Second, the Town’s Ex parte Young challenge against the Officers’ allegedly 

unlawful exercise of jurisdiction could be redressed only through prospective 

injunctive relief preventing the Officers’ ongoing exercise of jurisdiction. See 

Buchheit v. Green, 705 F.3d 1157, 1159 (10th Cir. 2012) (denying a Young claim that 

sought to “address alleged past harms rather than prevent prospective violations of 

federal law”). The Town has now received that relief—the Muscogee courts have 

dismissed Anderson I and II and are no longer exercising jurisdiction over the Town. 

The Muscogee Supreme Court’s dismissal of Anderson I and II has therefore 

“eradicated the effects of the alleged violation.” Ind, 801 F.3d at 1214 (quotation 

marks omitted); see, e.g., Ghailani v. Sessions, 859 F.3d 1295, 1302 (10th Cir. 2017) 

(concluding there was no evidence of harmful effects because harmful effects at issue 

were not “currently affecting [the plaintiff]”); Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, 601 F.3d 

at 1120 (dismissing a case as moot when the court could “identify no lingering 

effects from the [defendants’] alleged violations”). 

The Town urges that the voluntary-cessation exception controls under the 

Supreme Court’s recent decision in Federal Bureau of Investigations v. Fikre, 601 

U.S. 234 (2024). But that case is easily distinguishable. There, the plaintiff 

challenged the FBI’s decision to list him on the national No Fly List. Id. at 238–39. 

After the plaintiff initiated the lawsuit, the FBI removed him from the No Fly List 

without explanation and with no assurances that he would not be relisted in the 

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future. Id. at 239–40. The Court held that the FBI’s voluntary cessation was 

insufficient to moot the case because it had not demonstrated that the challenged 

conduct would not recur in the future. Id. at 244–45. Here, in contrast, the case is 

moot not because of the “the unilateral action of the defendant[s]” but rather due to 

“the normal course of events.” O’Connor, 416 F.3d at 1222. Unlike the FBI in Fikre, 

which unilaterally removed the plaintiff from the No Fly List without explanation, 

the Muscogee courts relinquished jurisdiction over Anderson I because the case was 

moot and those courts thus had no authority to do anything else. 

In short, the Muscogee Supreme Court dismissed Anderson I due to the 

“normal course of events,” not because it was apparently attempting to evade federal 

review. Accordingly, the voluntary-cessation exception is inapplicable. See, e.g., Rio 

Grande Silvery Minnow, 601 F.3d at 1117 (“In practice, however, [the voluntarycessation exception] frequently has not prevented governmental officials from 

discontinuing challenged practices and mooting a case.”). 

3. Capable of Repetition Yet Evading Review 

The Town also argues the case is not moot because the jurisdictional issue is 

capable of repetition, yet evading review. The district court held that this exception 

applied because (1) the case involves election disputes and election disputes are, by 

nature, short in duration, and (2) the jurisdictional issue is likely to recur in the future 

because the Town relies on the Muscogee courts as a judicial forum. Thlopthlocco II, 

710 F. Supp. 3d at 1055–56. We disagree. 

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The capable-of-repetition exception to mootness applies only in “exceptional 

situations.” Jordan v. Sosa, 654 F.3d 1012, 1035 (10th Cir. 2011) (quotation marks 

omitted). It requires a plaintiff to establish that “(1) the challenged action was in its 

duration too short to be fully litigated prior 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. (alterations in original) (quoting Weinstein v. 

Bradford, 423 U.S. 147, 149 (1975)). A plaintiff bears the burden of showing that the 

challenged action is “necessarily of short duration.” See id. at 1036. For example, 

“disputes involving abortion evade review because the relatively short duration of 

human gestation does not allow such matters to be fully litigated before the end of 

the pregnancy.” Disability L. Ctr. v. Millcreek Health Ctr., 428 F.3d 992, 997 (10th 

Cir. 2005). 

The district court erroneously found this exception applicable because it 

confused the present jurisdictional issue—whether the Town has sovereign immunity 

and can withdraw a waiver of that immunity—with the election disputes in Anderson 

I and II. Although the underlying tribal cases generally dealt with election disputes, 

this case inquires whether the Muscogee courts had jurisdiction over the Town based 

on a waiver of sovereign immunity the Town subsequently withdrew. That 

jurisdictional question is not “necessarily of short duration.” Jordan, 654 F.3d 

at 1036. There is no indication the Town would be unable to challenge the Muscogee 

courts’ exercise of jurisdiction in a future case, nor that the issue is inherently time 

sensitive. 

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Indeed, on appeal the Town agrees that the “brevity of opportunity to 

challenge the [Muscogee courts’] actions was not caused by . . . fixed events such as 

elections.” Appellee’s Br. at 46. But the Town argues it lacked sufficient opportunity 

to litigate the jurisdictional issue in federal court because the Officers “refused to 

promptly rule,” making the Town “a prisoner of the exhaustion of tribal remedies.” 

Id. at 46–47. However, the Town’s frustration over the Muscogee courts’ delay in 

deciding Anderson I and II does not make the jurisdictional question necessarily 

short in duration. See Disability L. Ctr., 428 F.3d at 997 (holding this exception only 

applies when an issue involves “an inherent time limit such that it would necessarily 

evade review in future litigation”). Because the question of whether the Town can 

withdraw a previously issued waiver of sovereign immunity after initiating litigation 

in the Muscogee courts can arise in myriad factual contexts, the chance to resolve 

that question is not necessarily of short duration. 

Accordingly, the capable-of-repetition exception does not counsel against 

finding this case moot. 

Appellate Case: 24-5011 Document: 50-1 Date Filed: 12/10/2024 Page: 18
19 

III. CONCLUSION 

We hold the case is constitutionally moot because the Muscogee courts have 

relinquished all jurisdiction over the Town. Therefore, we VACATE the district 

court’s judgment and DISMISS the case as moot. 

Entered for the Court 

Carolyn B. McHugh 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 24-5011 Document: 50-1 Date Filed: 12/10/2024 Page: 19