NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

No. 2 2

- 2106

JOHN DOE 1, in their own capacity and as parent of Child Doe 1; JANE DOE 1, in their own capacity and as parent of Child Doe 1; JOHN DOE 2, in their own capacity and as parent of Child Doe 2; JANE DOE 2, in their own capacity and as parent of Child Doe 2; JOHN DOE 3, in their own capacity and as parent of Child Doe 3; JANE DOE 3, in their own capacity and as parent of Child Doe 3; JOHN DOE 4, in their own capacity and as parent of Child Doe 4; JANE DOE 4, in their own capacity and as parent of Child Doe 4; JOHN DOE 5, in their own capacity and as parent of Child Doe 5; JANE DOE 5, in their own capacity and as parent of Child Doe 5 and on behalf of those sim ilarly situated, Appellants

v. UPPER SAINT CLAIR SCHOOL DISTRICT, a Pennsylvania governmental entity; PHILLIP J. ELIAS, all individual elected officials sued in their official capacity as members of the Upper Saint Clair School Distri ct Board of Directors; DAPHNA GANS,

all individual elected officials sued in their official capacity as members of the Upper Saint Clair School District Board of Directors; BARBARA L. BOLAS, all individual

elected officials sued in their official capacity as members of the Upper Saint Clair School District Board of Directors; PATRICK A. HEWITT, all individual elected officials sued in their official capacity as members of the Upper Saint Clair School District Board of Directors; LOUIS P. MAFRICE, JR., all i ndividual elected officials sued in their official capacity as members of the Upper Saint Clair School District Board of Directors; MICHAEL R. MASCARO, all individual elected officials sued in their official capacity as members of the Upper Saint Clair Sch ool District Board of Directors;

ANGELA B. PETERSEN, all individual elected officials sued in their official capacity as members of the Upper Saint Clair School District Board of Directors; JENNIFER A. SCHNORE, all individual elected officials sued in thei r official capacity as members of the Upper Saint Clair School District Board of Directors; DANIELLE Z. WETZEL, all individual elected officials sued in their official capacity as members of the Upper Saint Clair School District Board of Directors; UPPER S AINT2 CLAIR SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF DIRECTORS, a Pennsylvania elected legislative body

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (D.C. Civil Action No. 2

- 22

- cv - 00112 ) District Judge: Honorable William S. Stickman , IV

Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) January 11, 2023
Before: AMBRO , GREENAWAY , JR. , and KRAUSE , Circuit Judges (Opinion filed: January 13, 2023 )



### ____________ OPINION *



### ____________ AMBRO, Circuit Judge

. Plaintiff s - Appellants (for ease of reference, “Plaintiffs”) are school

- age children and their parents who sued to enjoin the Upper Saint Clair School District from instituting an optional COVID

- 19 masking policy in January 2022 . They claimed violations of the
Ameri cans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
In connection with Plaintiffs’ complaint, they sought a temporary restraining order
from the District Court

. That request was denied. Plaintiffs next filed an interlocutory

a

ppeal with us

. A long with thei r appeal, they moved for emergency injunctive relief. We

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent.3 granted that relief on a temporary basis the same day it was sought to preserve the P arties’
status quo pending our decision on the merits

. We then extended the tempo rary injunction pending further briefing and oral argument.

B ut before we could consider the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims (much less render a decision) , the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published revised guidance for COVID

- 19 mitigation measures. We concluded that guidance mooted Plaintiffs’ claims. As such, we dismissed their appeal and directed the District Court on remand to dismiss their complaint without prejudice. Follo wing dism issal on remand, Plaintiffs motioned the District Court for attorneys’ fees and costs. See 42 U.S.C. § 12205; 29 U.S.C. § 794a. It denied that request, ruling that they were not prevailing parties entitled to statutory relief. We agree.
Plaintiffs have not obtained a “ judgment on the merits ” or a “court

- ordered consent
decree.” Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. W. Va. Dep ’ t of Health & Hum. Res. , 532 U.S. 598, 605 (2001). This case also does not present the “rare situation where a merits

based determ ination is made at the injunction stage.” Singer Mgmt. Consultants, Inc. v. Milgram , 650 F.3d 223, 229 (3d Cir. 2011) (en banc) (citing People Against Police Violence v. City of Pittsburgh , 520 F.3d 226 , 229 (3d Cir. 2008) ). We merely issued limited injunctive relief “on a temporary basis” to facilitate the forming of a “full three

- judge panel
of this Court” to consider the substance of Plaintiffs’ claims. J.A. 390. In the end , the

P arties’ dispute was resolved by the CDC’s “nonjudicial alte ration of actual
circumstances , ” a situation that does not call for an award of attorneys ’ fees or costs

. Buckhannon , 532 U.S. at 606 (cleaned up)

.4 Because Plaintiffs achieved none of the outcomes that warrant the relief they seek,

we affirm.