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Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 13, 2024 Decided August 6, 2024

No. 23-7042

ANTHONY D. GIVENS, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

MURIEL BOWSER, IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS MAYOR,

WASHINGTON, D.C., ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:20-cv-00307)

Aytan Y. Bellin argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellants.

Russell C. Bogue, Appellate Litigation Fellow, Assistant 

Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the 

District of Columbia, argued the cause for appellees. On the 

brief were Brian L. Schwalb, Attorney General, Caroline S. 

Van Zile, Solicitor General, Ashwin P. Phatak, Principal 

Deputy Solicitor General, and Thais-Lyn Trayer, Deputy 

Solicitor General.

USCA Case #23-7042 Document #2068473 Filed: 08/06/2024 Page 1 of 11
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Before: MILLETT and WALKER, Circuit Judges, and 

GINSBURG, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WALKER.

WALKER, Circuit Judge: Eva Mae Givens applied for 

Medicaid assistance. The District of Columbia erroneously 

calculated her copay. It also failed to provide her with a fair 

hearing in a timely manner. 

Givens sued, alleging a violation of her federal rights. 

Before the suit ended, D.C. held a hearing and corrected its 

miscalculation. Shortly after that, Givens passed away. 

The district court then dismissed the case with prejudice. 

It held that the case was moot. In the alternative, it held that 

Givens failed to state a claim for relief. 

We affirm in part and vacate in part. 

Givens’ fair-hearing claims are moot — though their 

dismissal should have been without prejudice. 

Her calculation claim is not moot because, after D.C. 

corrected its miscalculation, it sent back-payments only to the 

nursing homes, not to Givens. But the calculation claim fails 

to plausibly allege a federal-rights violation. So it was still 

proper to dismiss that claim. On remand, the district court 

should dismiss the calculation claim without prejudice if the 

defects in the complaint could plausibly be cured by additional 

pleading.

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I. Background

Eva Mae Givens asked the District of Columbia for 

Medicaid funding to help cover her nursing-home costs. But 

D.C. miscalculated her copay. See 42 C.F.R.

§ 435.725(c)(4)(ii). As a result of that miscalculation, Givens 

was erroneously required to contribute about $2,000 a month 

to the cost of her own care. 

Four months later, Givens requested an administrative

hearing to contest the miscalculation. But D.C. did not provide 

a hearing within ninety days, as required by federal law. See 

42 C.F.R. § 431.244(f). 

Givens later sued in federal district court under 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983 for a violation of her federal rights. She raised two 

types of individual claims: (1) requests for injunctive and 

declaratory relief to obtain a fair hearing on her Medicaid 

claim, and (2) a request for monetary damages for the amount

she was required to overpay her nursing homes after the 

miscalculation of her copay. Givens also (3) sought 

certification of a class of D.C. Medicaid recipients denied

timely hearings and requested injunctive and declaratory relief 

on their behalf.

1

 

While the district court case was pending, D.C. finally 

provided Givens with an administrative hearing. During the

hearing, D.C. conceded that it had miscalculated her copay. It 

recalculated her copay and sent back-payments to Givens’

nursing homes — the payments that it should have made all 

along. But D.C. did not send payments to Givens to 

1 Givens also sought certification of a separate class of D.C. 

Medicaid recipients whose copays had been miscalculated, but that 

issue is not presented on appeal. 

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compensate her for the $2,000 per month that she had wrongly 

been required to pay the nursing homes prior to D.C.’s 

recalculation. See JA 59, 66, 67. 

Givens passed away nine days after the administrative 

hearing. The district court case was still pending, and her 

attorneys notified the court of her death. They said they would 

move to substitute her adult children as plaintiffs.

But months passed and the motion never arrived. So a 

magistrate judge recommended that the district court dismiss 

the case. 

Givens’ children then moved to be substituted as plaintiffs

in place of their mother. They also asked for permission to 

amend the complaint. And they filed objections to the 

magistrate judge’s recommendation of dismissal. 

The magistrate judge allowed the children to be listed as 

parties only “for the limited purpose of objecting to the” 

recommendation. JA 7. He expressed no view on whether they 

could be substituted as full parties. And he declined to consider 

the proposed amended complaint until the district court ruled

on the recommended dismissal. 

The district court overruled the objections, adopted the 

magistrate judge’s recommendation, and dismissed the case

with prejudice. See Givens v. Bowser, 2022 WL 4598576, at 

*1 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 2022). It held that all of Givens’ claims 

were moot. In the alternative, it held that Givens had failed to 

state any valid claim. 

The Givens children sought reconsideration. They argued

that the dismissal should have been without prejudice. But the 

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district court denied reconsideration. See Givens v. Bowser, 

2023 WL 2645663, at *1, *4 (D.D.C. Mar. 26, 2023). 

The Givens children appealed. 

II. The Fair-Hearing Claims Are Moot

The Givens children concede that the claim for injunctive 

and declaratory relief to obtain a fair hearing is moot because 

D.C. eventually provided Givens a fair hearing. Oral Arg. Tr. 

at 17-18. They have not argued that an exception to mootness 

applies to that claim. Nevertheless, they argue that the fairhearing claims of the proposed class are not moot and that they 

can still serve as representatives for this class. 

We disagree.

A proposed class representative “must keep her individual 

dispute live until certification, or else the class action based on 

that claim generally becomes moot.” J.D. v. Azar, 925 F.3d 

1291, 1307 (D.C. Cir. 2019). So here, unless an exception 

applies, the proposed class’s fair-hearing claims became moot 

when Givens’ individual fair-hearing claim became moot. See 

United States v. Sanchez-Gomez, 584 U.S. 381, 386-87 (2018). 

No exception to that rule fits this case. The Givens 

children note that when “a named plaintiff’s claim is inherently 

transitory, and becomes moot prior to certification, a motion 

for certification may relate back to the filing of the complaint.” 

Genesis Healthcare Corp. v. Symczyk, 569 U.S. 66, 71 n.2

(2013) (cleaned up). But the “inherently transitory” exception 

applies only when “the record . . . assure[s] us that some class 

members will retain a live claim throughout the proceedings.” 

J.D., 925 F.3d at 1310. 

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Here, nothing in the record assures us that the alleged 

violations are pervasive and ongoing. The complaint says D.C. 

miscalculated the copays of forty D.C. residents and then 

denied them timely hearings. JA 16-17. Even assuming there 

is a factual basis for that number, that is a small fraction of the 

residents in D.C. covered by Medicaid — too small to 

demonstrate that the alleged violations will recur often enough 

for members of the proposed class to retain live claims 

throughout the litigation.

III. The Calculation Claim Is Not Moot

Givens sought damages to compensate her for D.C.’s 

miscalculation of her copay. The Givens children argue that 

this calculation claim is not moot. We agree. 

A case becomes moot when “it is impossible for a court to 

grant any effectual relief whatever to the prevailing party.” 

Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, 568 U.S. 

597, 609 (2013) (cleaned up). Here, Givens’ complaint sought

compensation for a pocketbook injury — the extra money that 

D.C.’s miscalculation forced her to pay nursing homes. And 

she has not received that compensation. So it is possible to 

grant her relief that she has not yet received. 

D.C. notes that it made back-payments to Givens’ nursing 

homes. And it argues that federal regulations require payments 

only to a healthcare provider, not an individual patient. But 

Givens sought damages under § 1983 to be measured by the 

amount of money she had wrongly been forced to pay out of 

pocket — not just corrected payments to the nursing homes. 

And even were D.C. correct that § 1983 does not allow 

payments directly to her, that is a merits question, not a 

jurisdictional question. See Mendoza v. Perez, 754 F.3d 1002, 

1010 (D.C. Cir. 2014). 

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IV. The Calculation Claim Is Not Plausible

Even though Givens’ calculation claim is not moot, it does 

not plausibly state a claim upon which relief can be granted. 

See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). 

As a municipality, D.C. is not liable under § 1983 for 

injuries “inflicted solely by its employees or agents.” Monell 

v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978). 

Rather, D.C. is liable only if a city policy or practice causes an

injury. See id. at 690-91. So to state a valid claim, Givens 

needed to plausibly allege that the government itself, as an 

institution, was “the moving force behind the violation” of her

federal rights. Frederick Douglass Foundation, Inc. v. District 

of Columbia, 82 F.4th 1122, 1136 (D.C. Cir. 2023) (cleaned 

up). 

That means Givens had to identify (1) an official policy 

explicitly adopted by D.C., (2) actions by a D.C. policymaker 

with final decision-making authority, (3) repeated behavior by 

D.C. municipal employees that have reached the level of a 

custom, or (4) a failure to act by D.C. that shows deliberate 

indifference to the potential for such violations. See Baker v. 

District of Columbia, 326 F.3d 1302, 1306 (D.C. Cir. 2003). 

With that rule comes two related requirements. First, 

Givens needed to plead facts that plausibly support one of those 

four types of municipal policies. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 

U.S. 662, 677-79 (2009); Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 

U.S. 544, 556-57 (2007). Second, Givens needed to plead “the 

elements of the relevant type of municipal policy.” See Blue v. 

District of Columbia, 811 F.3d 14, 20 (D.C. Cir. 2015). That’s 

because we are “unable to determine” whether a plaintiff has 

“provided plausible support for her claim” when she does not 

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plead those elements. Id. “Although the court could try to 

surmise which theory of municipal liability has the strongest 

support in the complaint, this is not our role.” Id.

Givens’ calculation claim fails because she “never 

indicated the contours of any type of municipal policy.” Id. 

Instead, she makes conclusory assertions that D.C. has an

unspecified number of unidentified policies, which caused it to

miscalculate the copays of forty unnamed people. JA 16-17. 

Those allegations are not specific enough to survive a motion 

to dismiss. See Blue, 811 F.3d at 18-20. 

 

V. The District Court Abused Its Discretion When It 

Dismissed All Givens’ Claims With Prejudice

Finally, we turn to whether Givens’ claims should have 

been dismissed with prejudice or without prejudice. 

A dismissal for mootness is a dismissal for lack of 

jurisdiction. See Conservation Force, Inc. v. Jewell, 733 F.3d 

1200, 1204 (D.C. Cir. 2013). And as a general rule, claims 

dismissed without “an adjudication on the merits” should be 

dismissed “without prejudice,” rather than with prejudice. 

Havens v. Mabus, 759 F.3d 91, 98 (D.C. Cir. 2014). So here, 

Givens’ moot fair-hearing claims should have been dismissed 

without prejudice.2

That leaves Givens’ non-moot calculation claim — for 

which Givens failed to plausibly state a claim. When 

dismissing a case for failure to state a claim, a district court 

should not dismiss the case with prejudice unless it has 

2 The district court’s alternate reason for dismissing these moot 

claims — for failure to state a claim — does not alter our conclusion. 

If a claim is moot, then any merits determination is merely advisory. 

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determined that an amendment would be futile. See Couch v. 

Verizon Communications Inc., 105 F.4th 425, 431 (D.C. Cir.

June 21, 2024); cf. Belizan v. Hershon, 434 F.3d 579, 583 (D.C. 

Cir. 2006) (“dismissal with prejudice is warranted” only when 

the district court determines that “the allegation of other facts 

. . . could not possibly cure the deficiency”) (cleaned up); 

Okusami v. Psychiatric Institute of Washington, Inc., 959 F.2d 

1062, 1066 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (dismissal for failure to state a 

claim “is a resolution on the merits and is ordinarily 

prejudicial”).

In this case, there is a wrinkle to the question whether an 

amendment would be futile. Givens cannot amend the 

complaint because she is now deceased. And even though the 

Givens children filed an amended complaint, the district court 

did not consider it because the Givens children had not been 

substituted as full parties to the case. See Givens v. Bowser, 

2023 WL 2645663, at *4 (D.D.C. Mar. 26, 2023). After they 

moved for substitution, that motion was granted “for the 

limited purpose of objecting to” the magistrate judge’s 

recommendation. JA 7. And it is not clear whether the district 

court issued a final decision denying substitution for other 

purposes. Rather, it is possible that the substitution motion 

remained pending at the time the case was dismissed.

Given this muddled procedural posture, the district court 

should determine whether it already resolved the pending 

motion to substitute the Givens children as full parties, whether 

the motion should be granted, and whether it should have 

accepted the amended complaint. 

To be sure, the district court suggested it already resolved 

some of these questions in its order denying reconsideration. 

See Givens, 2023 WL 2645663, at *4. But it did so under the 

“clear error” standard of Rule 59(e) of the Federal Rules of 

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Civil Procedure, and only after having concluded that it did not 

clearly err by dismissing the complaint with prejudice. See id.

at *2-5. And as we have explained, we disagree with that initial 

decision — the jurisdiction-based dismissal should have been 

without prejudice. So any remaining questions about 

substituting parties and amending the complaint should not be 

considered under the clear error standards, but under normal 

legal principles and in the first instance.

With this in mind, “[w]e therefore vacate the order of 

dismissal and remand the [calculation claim] for the district 

court to enter a new order either dismissing without prejudice 

or explaining its dismissal with prejudice in a manner 

consistent with this opinion.” Belizan, 434 F.3d at 584. 

* * *

We affirm the dismissal of Givens’ fair-hearing claims as 

moot. We affirm the dismissal of her calculation claim for 

failure to properly state a claim. 

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We vacate the order dismissing this case with prejudice.

We remand for the district court to dismiss the moot fairhearing claims without prejudice and either to dismiss the 

calculation claim without prejudice or to explain its dismissal 

with prejudice.

3

So ordered.

3 During our deliberations, the Givens children filed a motion asking

us to take judicial notice of records that they obtained from D.C., 

which they claim support their assertion that D.C. has a pattern of 

not providing hearings in a timely fashion. Without expressing an 

opinion on the merits of this motion or whether this court or the 

district court can take judicial notice of this kind of information, we 

leave it to the district court to assess in the first instance any effect 

of these additional records. We therefore deny the motion for 

judicial notice without prejudice to its renewal before the district 

court. 

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