IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

 

LINNET BROOKS, AARON 

BROOKS, MICHAEL LUCY, 

ELIZABETH YODER, and MEGAN 

ABPLANALP on behalf of their minor 

daughters A.B., R.L., and Q.H., 

 Plaintiffs, 

 v. 

STATE COLLEGE AREA SCHOOL 

DISTRICT, 

 Defendant. 

 No. 4:22-CV-01335 

 (Chief Judge Brann) 

 

 

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER 

DECEMBER 1, 2022 

I. BACKGROUND 

The facts of this dispute involve female students eligible to participate in 

sports within the State College Area School District (the “District”), and the conduct 

of the District in managing its middle school club ice hockey team and 

corresponding parent-run booster club called the Ice Hockey Club (“IHC”).1

 

Plaintiffs have sought a declaratory judgment from the Court in order to resolve an 

alleged controversy regarding whether the District is responsible for complying 

with, and enforcing, Title IX within the context of its club sports programs.2

 

1 See Doc. 6. 

2 See Docs. 5, 6. 

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In their opening brief, Plaintiffs argue that the District has “continued with [a] 

position that it had no Title IX responsibility” for club sports, including the ice 

hockey team managed by IHC, and that “[p]er [the District’s] interpretation of its 

legal responsibilities, Title IX and constitutional compliance is either transferred 

completely to [IHC], or the rights vanish all together.”3

 In its opposition brief, the 

District states that it is not attempting to evade its Title IX responsibility, asserting 

that “both [District] and club sport or intramural athletics are subsumed by Title 

IX.”4

 The District further argues that while the parties disagree about “conclusions 

of fact and law as promulgated through the District’s Title IX report,” the District 

does not dispute that it is responsible for complying with, and enforcing, Title IX 

within club sports.5

 

In its reply brief, Plaintiffs acknowledge that the District “recognizes that club 

sports fall under [the District’s] Title IX obligations,” and states that “[the District] 

and Plaintiffs now appear to be in agreement that [the District] is ultimately 

responsible for its club sports and Title IX compliance.”6

 The Motion has been fully 

briefed and is ripe for disposition.7

3

 Doc. 6 at pp. 8, 10. 

4

 Doc. 14 at p. 6. 

5 Id. 6

 Doc. 16 at pp. 1, 5. 

7

 Docs. 5, 6, 14, 16. 

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II. LAW 

The Declaratory Judgment Act provides that federal courts “may declare the 

rights and other legal relations of any interested party seeking such declaration” 

when presented with a “case of actual controversy.”8

 The actual controversy must 

be “definite and concrete, touching the legal relations of parties having adverse legal 

interests,”9

 and, to be ripe for judicial intervention, the controversy must not be 

“nebulous or contingent,” but have a “fixed and final shape” so the court can 

determine “what legal issues it is deciding, what effect [the court’s] decision will 

have on the adversaries, and some useful purpose to be achieved in deciding them.”10

The jurisdiction conferred by the Act is “discretionary rather than compulsory.”11

The Court therefore has “broad discretion to decline to hear actions arising under the 

[Act].”12 “[E]ven if a declaratory judgment would clarify the parties’ legal rights, it 

8

 28 U.S.C. § 2201; Red Bend Hunting & Fishing Club v. Range Resources – Appalachia, LLC, 

No. 4:16-CV-00864, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166431, at *16 (M.D. Pa. Dec. 2, 2016) (citing 

Principal Life Ins. Co. v. Lawrence Rucker 2007 Ins. Trust, 674 F. Supp. 2d 562, 565 (D. Del. 

2009)). 

9 Red Bend Hunting & Fishing, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166431, at *16 (citing Wyatt, Virgin 

Islands, Inc. v. Gov’t of the Virgin Islands, 385 F.3d 801, 806 (3d Cir 2004)). 

10 Id. (citing Team Angry Filmworks, Inc. v. Greer, 171 F. Supp. 3d 437, 447 (W.D. Pa. 2016) 

(citing Pub. Serv. Comm’n of Utah v. Wycoff Co., 344 U.S. 237, 244 (1952))). 

11 King’s Coll. v. Traveler’s Ins. Co., No. 3:20-CV-01655, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS at *5 (citing 

Reifer v. Westport Ins. Corp., 751 F.3d 129, 134 (3d Cir. 2014) (citing Brillhart v. Excess Ins. 

Co. of Am., 316 U.S. 491, 494 (1942))). 

12 Id. (internal citations omitted). 

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should ordinarily not be granted unless the parties’ plans of actions are likely to be 

affected by a declaratory judgment.13

III. ANALYSIS 

The Court shall use its broad discretion (as described above) to dispose of this 

motion in a cursory fashion because the parties’ own briefing indicates that the 

alleged controversy set forth in Plaintiffs’ Motion is no longer a contested issue for 

which resolution via declaratory judgment is necessary. Indeed, Plaintiffs’ reply 

brief states that the parties are “now in agreement” that the District is responsible for 

Title IX compliance in club sports.14 This ruling is keeping with the Court’s practice 

of declining to provide declaratory relief when appropriate and when there is no 

actual controversy.15 

The disagreement that remains, then, is whether the District’s conduct as 

alleged by Plaintiffs violated Title IX; which is to say, the dispute lies in the merits 

13 Fouad v. Milton Hershey Sch. & Trust, No. 1:19-CV-253, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29364, at 

*87 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 19, 2020) (quoting Armstrong World Industries, Inc. v. Adams, 916 F.2d 

405, 410 (3d Cir. 1992)). 

14 Doc. 16 at pp. 1, 5. 

15 See, e.g., Midvale Paper Box Co. v. Cintas Corp., No. 3:20-0022, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 

176563, at *24-25 (M.D. Pa. Sept. 28, 2022) (“Because the court observes that [the 

defendant’s] requested order of declaratory judgment would not add anything further to this 

case, the court declines to entertain [it].”); Hordis v. Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., No. 3:19-CV296, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20349 (court exercising discretion to dismiss declaratory 

judgment motion on the grounds that there was complete identity of factual and legal issues 

between the complaint and declaratory judgment counterclaim); Shaw v. McGuinn, No. 4:14-

CV-1965, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118075 (M.D. Pa. Sept. 4, 2015) (dismissing motion for 

declaratory judgment because no controversy existed between a third party and insurer); 

Capitol Indem. Corp. v. Piccotti, No. 3:04cv1571, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 34361 (M.D. Pa. 

July 18, 2005). 

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of this case, and not in a preliminary question regarding the existence or scope of the 

District’s Title IX responsibilities. Therefore, a declaratory judgment from the Court 

establishing this now undisputed fact will not change the parties’ “plans of action,” 

which are presumably to move forward in litigation on the merits of Plaintiffs’ 

claims. 

AND NOW, upon consideration of the foregoing, IT IS HEREBY 

ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ Motion for Declaratory Judgment (Doc. 5) is DENIED. 

 BY THE COURT: 

s/ Matthew W. Brann 

 Matthew W. Brann 

 Chief United States District Judge 

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