United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit

No. 19-10754

Richard W. DeOtte, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated; 

Yvette DeOtte; John Kelley; Alison Kelley; Hotze 

Health & Wellness Center; Braidwood Management, 

Incorporated, on behalf of itself and others similarly situated,

Plaintiffs—Appellees,

versus

State of Nevada, 

Movant—Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Texas

USDC No. 4:18-CV-825

Before Higginbotham, Southwick, and Engelhardt, Circuit 

Judges.

Leslie H. Southwick, Circuit Judge:

This case involves a dispute about the effect of provisions in the 

Religious Freedom and Restoration Act on the contraceptive mandate found 

in the Affordable Care Act. The case became moot with issuance of the 

Supreme Court’s decision in Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul 

Home v. Pennsylvania, 140 S. Ct. 2367 (2020). The principal remaining issue 

is whether to leave in place the injunction that had been issued by the district 

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

December 17, 2021

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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court. We VACATE the judgment below and REMAND with instructions 

to dismiss as moot. 

THE ACA AND THE CONTRACEPTIVE MANDATE

We begin with an abbreviated history of the Patient Protection and 

Affordable Care Act (the “ACA”) and its contraceptive mandate, then 

explain the background of this case. 

The ACA requires covered employers to provide women with 

“preventive care and screenings” without cost-sharing requirements “as 

provided for in comprehensive guidelines supported by the Health Resources 

and Services Administration” (“HRSA”), an agency of the Department of 

Health and Human Services (“HHS”). 42 U.S.C. § 300gg-13(a)(4). Shortly 

after passage, the HHS, the Department of the Treasury, and the 

Department of Labor (together, “the Departments”) began promulgating 

rules under Section 300gg-13(a)(4). Little Sisters, 140 S. Ct. at 2374. 

In 2011, the Departments adopted rules including the contraceptive 

mandate, which required health plans to include coverage for all 

contraceptive methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration. See 

77 Fed. Reg. 8725 (Feb. 15, 2012). The rules created exemptions from the 

contraceptive mandate for religious employers. 76 Fed. Reg. 46,621, 46,623

(Aug. 3, 2011) (to be codified at 26 C.F.R. pt. 54; 29 C.F.R. pt. 2590; 45 

C.F.R. pt. 147). This exemption was “narrow[ly] focus[ed] on churches

. . . [and] is known as the church exemption.” Little Sisters, 140 S. Ct. at 

2374. In 2013, the Departments promulgated another final rule that created 

an accommodation process for religious nonprofits who did not qualify for 

the church exemption. 78 Fed. Reg. 39,870, 39,873–75 (July 2, 2013) (to be 

codified at 26 C.F.R. pt. 54; 45 C.F.R. pt. 147, 156; 29 C.F.R. pts. 2510, 2590; 

45 C.F.R. pts. 147, 156). The accommodation was different from the 

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exemption: under the accommodation, qualifying nonprofits were required 

to provide a self-certification form to the health insurer, which would exclude 

contraceptive coverage from the plan and provide those services to the 

employees separately. Id. at 39,875, 39,878. 

Those rules were challenged in courts. In 2014, the Supreme Court 

held that the contraceptive mandate violated the Religious Freedom and 

Restoration Act (“RFRA”) as applied to closely held corporations with 

religious objections, and the religious accommodation must apply to them as 

well as religious nonprofits. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682, 

691–93 (2014). Assuming without deciding that free access to contraceptives 

was a compelling government interest, the Court held that extending the 

accommodation to closely held corporations was a less restrictive means of 

achieving it. Id. at 691–92. In response, the rules were changed to allow forprofit corporations to use the self-certifying accommodation previously 

reserved for religious non-profits (“2015 Rules”). 80 Fed. Reg. 41,318, 

41,346 (July 14, 2015) (to be codified at 26 C.F.R. pt. 54; 29 C.F.R. pts. 2510, 

2590, 45 C.F.R. pt. 147).

In 2015, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari in a case that 

would have allowed it to determine whether the self-certifying 

accommodation itself violated RFRA, as many religious groups had argued, 

because completing the certification caused them to take an action that led to 

health insurers providing employees with the contraceptives to which they 

objected. Zubik v. Burwell, 577 U.S. 971, 971 (2015). Instead, though, the 

Supreme Court remanded without deciding the question in light of 

supplemental briefing by the parties. Zubik v. Burwell, 578 U.S. 403, 407–410

(2016). In that briefing, the petitioners and the government agreed that an 

alternative approach was possible where employees would receive 

contraceptive coverage from insurers without affirmative action by 

employers. Id. at 407–08. The Court ordered the parties on remand to reach 

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an approach that accommodated religious objections while meeting women’s 

contraceptive needs. Id. 

In the wake of Zubik, the Departments in 2016 published a request for 

information to reach an accommodation that satisfied the needs of both 

religious objectors and female employees of religious objectors. 81 Fed. Reg. 

47741, 47741–45. Ultimately, the Departments could not arrive at a solution, 

and they did not modify the rules at that time. Id. In 2017, the Departments 

tried again to satisfy Zubik by modifying the rules related to the contraceptive 

mandate. In relevant part, the Departments promulgated interim final rules 

(“IFRs”) that broadened the exemption to include for-profit and publicly 

traded entities who had religious objections to contraceptives, without having 

to use the self-certifying accommodation (“2017 Rules”). 82 Fed. Reg. 

47,792, 47,835 (Oct. 13, 2017) (to be codified at 26 C.F.R. pt. 54; 29 C.F.R. 

pts. 2510, 2590; 45 C.F.R. pt. 147). The 2017 Rules also gave the individuals

the option to obtain insurance that excluded contraception coverage so that 

individuals would not have to choose between policies that included 

contraceptive care or no policy at all. Id. The 2017 Rules included a lengthy 

explanation of why RFRA compelled the rule changes. Id. at 47, 800–06.

Litigants then challenged the 2017 Rules. Two district courts issued 

nationwide injunctions that enjoined enforcement of the 2017 Rules for 

procedural defects, thereby re-instating enforcement of the 2015 Rules with 

the church exemption and self-certifying accommodation. Pennsylvania v. 

Trump, 281 F. Supp. 3d 553, 585 (E.D. Pa. 2017), rev’d sub nom. Pennsylvania 

v. President United States, 816 F. App’x 632 (3d Cir. 2020); California v. 

HHS, 281 F. Supp. 3d 806, 831–32 (N.D. Cal. 2017). When the 2017 Rules 

became final, they were enjoined as the IFRs had been. Pennsylvania v. 

Trump, 351 F. Supp. 3d 791, 797–98 (E.D. Pa. 2019); Fed. Reg. 57, 536, 57, 

537 (Nov. 15, 2018) (to be codified at 26 C.F.R. pt. 54; 29 C.F.R. pt. 2590; 45 

C.F.R. pt. 147). 

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FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 

The Plaintiffs sued the Secretaries of the three Departments in the 

United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas in 2018, 

seeking relief from the nationwide injunctions that blocked enforcement of

the 2017 Rules and required enforcement of the 2015 Rules. They amended 

their complaint in February 2019. 

The Plaintiffs sued either as individuals or as employers and sought 

class certification for those similarly situated. Both categories of plaintiffs are 

morally opposed to long-acting contraceptives, viewing them as equivalent to 

abortion. Neither opposes other forms of contraception by married couples 

to prevent pregnancy, but both object to the contraceptive mandate’s 

requirement that insurers provide it to others because, as their complaint 

states, such contraception “encourages illicit sexual activity outside of 

marriage.” The Individual Plaintiffs seek an option for an insurance policy 

that does not include contraceptive coverage, believing that the 

contraceptive mandate “forces religious believers to choose between 

purchasing health insurance that makes them complicit in abortifacient 

contraception and sexual activity outside of marriage [because their 

premiums subsidize contraceptives for others], or forgoing health insurance 

entirely.” The Employer Plaintiffs argue that the contraceptive mandate’s 

self-certifying accommodation violates RFRA because “[i]t forces the 

company to become complicit in the provision” of contraceptives to others. 

The Plaintiffs sought to enjoin enforcement of the contraceptive 

mandate against individual and employer religious objectors — enforcement 

that was then occurring only because of the injunctions against enforcement 

of the 2017 Rules. The Defendants never filed a responsive pleading. 

The district court certified the two classes of plaintiffs described 

above — individual and employer — on March 30, 2019. The Plaintiffs filed 

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a motion for preliminary injunction, then on April 1, asked the court to 

convert that motion to a motion for summary judgment and for a permanent 

injunction. In response, the Defendants did not oppose summary judgment 

or a permanent injunction, conceding that the objected-to 2015 Rules were 

“insufficient” to satisfy RFRA. They did, however, oppose class-wide relief 

“at this time.” 

The state of Nevada, acting through its attorney general, sought to 

intervene on May 24, 2019. The district court granted the Plaintiffs’ motion 

for summary judgment and permanent injunction on June 5, 2019, without 

yet ruling on intervention. The permanent injunction granted relief to the

Plaintiffs that in essence imposed the 2017 Rules. Nevada filed a notice of 

appeal from the June 5 merits order on July 3 to protect its right to appeal “in 

the event intervention [was] granted after the time to appeal” that order had 

run. On July 9, an additional 21 states and the District of Columbia filed a 

brief as amicus curiae, opposing the Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment 

and permanent injunction and supporting Nevada’s motion to intervene. 

The district court denied Nevada’s motion to intervene on July 29 because

Nevada did not satisfy the interest requirement of Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 24(a). The court also denied permissive intervention. It entered 

final judgment that same day. 

Nevada appealed these rulings: (1) final judgment; (2) granting class 

certification (and later amending it); (3) granting summary judgment and 

permanent injunction; and (4) denying intervention. 

Arguing lack of standing, the Plaintiffs filed a motion to dismiss all of 

Nevada’s appeals except the appeal of the order denying intervention. We 

carried that motion with the case. In September 2019, the Defendants also 

filed a notice of appeal, then voluntarily dismissed it in December 2019. In 

January 2020, we stayed further proceedings pending the Supreme Court’s 

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decision in Little Sisters. In a July 2020 decision, the Court vacated the 

injunctions that prevented enforcement of the 2017 Rules, holding that the 

procedural challenges before it were unmeritorious. Little Sisters, 140 S. Ct. 

at 2386.

Thereafter, the Plaintiffs renewed their motion in this court to dismiss 

Nevada’s appeal of all orders other than the denial of intervention. Our 

decision today resolves that motion and the other issues before us.

DISCUSSION

The first question is whether the underlying dispute about the 2017 

Rules is moot. The Plaintiffs argue we need not address the effect of 

mootness because Nevada’s appeal fails for a reason that predated mootness. 

They contend there never was a case to become moot because Nevada has 

never had Article III standing to appeal the district court’s merits orders. 

They argue: “The case between the plaintiffs and defendants is not moot; 

that case is over — and it ended when the defendants [the Department 

Secretaries] abandoned their appeal and allowed the district court’s 

judgment to become final and conclusive between the parties.” The 

Plaintiffs urge us not to disturb the injunctions, while Nevada’s aim is to have 

the injunctions vacated. 

Despite the Plaintiffs’ recommendation, we will start with the issue of 

mootness. To some extent, we suppose, that forecasts our resolution of the 

issue of whether Nevada should have been allowed to intervene. 

I. Mootness

“[M]ootness is a threshold jurisdictional inquiry.” Louisiana Env’t 

Action Network v. U.S. EPA, 382 F.3d 575, 580 (5th Cir. 2004). A case is 

moot “only when it is impossible for a court to grant any effectual relief 

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whatever to the prevailing party.” Knox v. Service Emps. Int’l Union, Local 

1000, 567 U.S. 298, 307 (2012) (quotation marks and citation omitted). “A 

controversy is mooted when there are no longer adverse parties with 

sufficient legal interests to maintain the litigation.” Goldin v. Bartholow, 166 

F.3d 710, 717 (5th Cir. 1999). The court is “obligated to address issues of 

jurisdiction, including mootness, prior to addressing the merits of an 

appeal.” Id. at 714. “Generally, any set of circumstances that eliminates 

actual controversy after the commencement of a lawsuit renders that action 

moot.” Center for Individual Freedom v. Carmouche, 449 F.3d 655, 661 (5th 

Cir. 2006). Because Little Sisters granted the relief these Plaintiffs sought in 

the present litigation by vacating the injunctions that required the 

contraceptive mandate to be enforced against the Plaintiffs, mootness is an 

obvious issue.

The Plaintiffs filed this suit seeking relief from the Defendants’ 

enforcement of the 2015 Rules against them, enforcement that resulted from 

the other district courts’ nationwide injunctions against the 2017 Rules. 

Little Sisters vacated the district court injunctions against the 2017 Rules, 

thereby reinstating the rules. See 140 S. Ct. at 2386. Because the Plaintiffs 

through that decision received the relief they sought in this litigation, “it 

becomes impossible for the court to grant any effectual relief whatever to 

[the] prevailing party.” See City of Erie v. Pap’s A.M., 529 U.S. 277, 287

(2000) (quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original). The Supreme 

Court has done the work that Plaintiffs wanted the district court in this case 

to do, and no appeal to us can change that. Article III’s case-or-controversy 

requirement is no longer met. 

Nevada argues that the case is not moot because states could succeed 

in challenging the 2017 Rules as arbitrary and capricious or the new 

Presidential Administration could change the rules. If either occurred, the 

district court’s injunction would remain, requiring that the Defendants

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exempt the two classes of plaintiffs from the contraceptive mandate. 

Nevada’s argument that the case is still ripe because the current rules might

be changed by the executive branch does not support that an injury is “actual 

or imminent”; rather, it is “conjectural or hypothetical.” See Lujan v. 

Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992) (citation and quotation marks 

omitted). The Plaintiffs no longer have a cognizable injury. This underlying

dispute is moot.

II. Remedy in light of mootness

Nevada is a denied intervenor, not a party, yet seeks vacatur. The

Plaintiffs acknowledged in oral argument, as they must, that had vacatur been 

requested by a party, we would have jurisdiction. The Plaintiffs argue that 

because Nevada has not yet been allowed to intervene and should not be, we 

lack jurisdiction to vacate because this appeal needs to be dismissed for 

absence of a proper appellant. 

Vacatur of a lower court judgment generally follows when a case 

becomes moot during an appeal. The Supreme Court stated it was the

established practice of the Court in dealing with a civil case 

from a court in the federal system which has become moot 

while on its way here or pending our decision on the merits is 

to reverse or vacate the judgment below and remand with a 

direction to dismiss. 

United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36, 39 (1950). The reason is that 

vacatur 

clears the path for future religitation of the issues between the 

parties and eliminates a judgment, review of which was 

prevented through happenstance. When that procedure is 

followed, the rights of all parties are preserved; none is 

prejudiced by a decision which in the statutory scheme was 

only preliminary.

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Id. at 40. 

Close to fifty years later, the Supreme Court emphasized that vacatur 

is not automatic; it is “equitable relief” and must “take account of the public 

interest.” U.S. Bancorp Mortg. Co. v. Bonner Mall P’ship, 513 U.S. 18, 26 

(1994). Precedents “are not merely the property of private litigants and 

should stand unless a court concludes that the public interest would be served 

by a vacatur.” Id. (quoting Izumi Seimitsu Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha v. U.S. 

Philips Corp., 510 U.S. 27, 40 (1993) (Stevens, J., dissenting)). A court must

assess “the equities of the individual case” to determine whether vacatur is 

proper. Staley v. Harris Cnty., 485 F.3d 305, 312 (5th Cir. 2007) (en banc). 

This consideration centers on (1) “whether the party seeking relief from the 

judgment below caused the mootness by voluntary action”; and (2) whether 

public interests support vacatur. Id. at 310 (quoting U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. 

at 24, 26–27). We will give some background, then give our explanation of 

what the Supreme Court is telling courts facing such issues.

Our authority to vacate comes from a statute that provides that an 

appellate court “may affirm, modify, vacate, set aside or reverse any 

judgment, decree, or order of a court lawfully brought before it for review.” 

28 U.S.C. § 2106 (emphasis added). The Plaintiffs argue that an appeal by a 

nonparty is not “lawfully brought,” thus precluding authority to vacate. 

The Plaintiffs elaborate on the central point with two separate 

arguments. First, “[t]he district court’s judgment and classwide injunction 

have not been ‘lawfully brought before’ this [c]ourt, because Nevada lack[ed]

Article III standing to appeal those district-court rulings.” They present the

question about standing as one primarily about Nevada’s injury in fact from 

the district court’s order. In their view, “Nevada never had standing to 

appeal the district court’s judgment — either before or after the Supreme 

Court’s ruling in Little Sisters.” 

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Second, the Plaintiffs draw a distinction between parties and 

nonparties seeking vacatur. In briefing before this court, the Plaintiffs argue 

that had the Defendants appealed and sought vacatur, this court would have 

jurisdiction to vacate: “the losing party that appeals an adverse district-court 

judgment retains standing to seek vacatur on appeal — even after the case 

has become moot — because he will suffer injury from the preclusive effect 

below.” Because Nevada was never a party, the Plaintiffs claim we lack 

jurisdiction to vacate. 

We take the two arguments — standing and nonparty status — in 

reverse order to decide if Nevada has lawfully brought the case here. 

A. Nevada’s nonparty status

Certainly, had the federal defendants continued with their appeal, we 

would have authority to vacate. The difficult issue is whether Nevada 

“lawfully brought” this appeal to us. Nevada was not a party to this lawsuit 

because the district court denied intervention, but Nevada argues that denial 

was error.1

 We need to decide, then, whether intervention should have been 

allowed. If so, we then must decide whether Nevada has any injury that 

allows it to appeal to seek vacatur.

i. Jurisdiction to decide whether Nevada should have been 

allowed as an intervenor

We may examine the merits of the denial of intervention to determine 

our jurisdiction to vacate the district court injunction. The D.C. Circuit has 

described a similar situation where the sole named plaintiff in a putative class 

action petitioned the court for interlocutory review of the district court’s 

denial of class certification. In re Brewer, 863 F.3d 861, 867 (D.C. Cir. 2017).

1 Nevada has standing to appeal the denial of intervention, as the Plaintiffs concede. 

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While that petition was pending, the plaintiffsettled his individual claims and 

stipulated in district court to the dismissal of the claims. Id. 

At almost the same time, four individuals sought to intervene both in 

the interlocutory appeal to the D.C. Circuit and in district court. Id. Those 

same individuals later sought to appeal the dismissal of the named plaintiff 

and the denial of class certification. Id. The D.C. Circuit stated that the 

dismissal deprived the court of “any live claims or adverse parties unless one 

of the two motions for intervention is granted.” Id. at 868. Intervention

could not be granted, the court held, unless “this court or the district court 

[has] jurisdiction over the case, notwithstanding the apparent absence of 

either live claims or adverse parties at the moment.” Id. 

First, the court noted the circularity problem created by the situation: 

“Intervention can overcome the apparent jurisdictional problem created by 

the stipulated dismissal, but a court may grant intervention only if it has 

jurisdiction to do so.” Id. In answering the jurisdiction question, that court 

said: “[W]e have jurisdiction to determine our own jurisdiction, United 

States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622, 628 (2002), and we conclude we have 

jurisdiction to hear the motion for intervention.” Id.

The court next considered the effect of a stipulated dismissal on a 

federal court’s jurisdiction to hear a post-dismissal motion for intervention. 

Id. at 868. The court held “that mootness, albeit accelerated by the 

immediacy of a stipulated dismissal, is what gives a dismissal pursuant to 

Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) its jurisdictional effect. And if a motion to intervene can 

survive a case becoming otherwise moot, then so too can a motion to intervene 

survive a stipulated dismissal.” Id. at 870 (emphasis added). It therefore

held that it had jurisdiction to hear the motion to intervene, notwithstanding 

the dismissal of the named plaintiff’s claims. Id.

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Although the general rule is that intervention in a case that does not 

exist “is a legal impossibility,” several circuits have held that dismissal of the 

underlying action does not moot an appeal of the denial of a motion to 

intervene. See CVLR Performance Horses, Inc. v. Wynne, 792 F.3d 469, 474 

(4th Cir. 2015) (quotation marks omitted) (explaining that the Third, Tenth, 

and Eleventh Circuits allow the appeal of a motion denying intervention to 

continue after dismissal, the Second Circuit does not, and the Ninth and D.C. 

Circuits have divergent precedents).

We have held that intervention can be permitted even after dismissal 

of the case. Ford v. City of Huntsville, 242 F.3d 235, 239–41 (5th Cir. 2001). 

A court can allow “intervention as of right in a jurisdictionally and 

procedurally proper suit that has been dismissed voluntarily,” even when 

nothing is left before the district court. Sommers v. Bank of Am., N.A., 835 

F.3d 509, 513 n.5 (5th Cir. 2016); see also Odle v. Flores, 899 F.3d 342 (5th Cir. 

2017) (per curiam). 

The rationale for allowing an appeal is that although final judgment 

was entered, “the intervention controversy is still alive because, if it were 

concluded on appeal that the district court had erred in denying the 

intervention motion, and that the applicant was indeed entitled to intervene 

in the litigation, then the applicant would have standing to appeal the district 

court’s judgment.” DBSI/TRI IV Ltd. P’ship v. United States, 465 F.3d 1031, 

1037 (9th Cir. 2006) (quoting Canatella v. California, 404 F.3d 1106, 1109 n.1 

(9th Cir. 2005)). That is the situation here: a would-be intervenor seeks party 

status to appeal and request vacatur. 

The Supreme Court has compared a motion to intervene after final 

judgment for the purpose of appealing an earlier denial of class certification 

to other post-judgment motions to intervene for the purpose of appeals. 

United Airlines v. McDonald, 432 U.S. 385, 395 n.16 (1977) (citing other cases 

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allowing post-judgment intervention for appeal). That also is analogous to 

what Nevada seeks here. 

We recognize that various opinions allowing post-judgment 

intervention differ from our case in that, as one court put it, “[i]ntervention 

can overcome the apparent [mootness] problem.” In re Brewer, 863 F.3d at 

868. This case will remain moot even if we allow intervention. We conclude, 

though, that even though mootness would remain, there is some life to the 

case because of the relief the parties are contesting, namely, vacatur. Thus 

the “intervention controversy is still alive because, if it were concluded on 

appeal that the district court had erred in denying the intervention motion . . 

. then the applicant would have standing to” seek vacatur of the district court 

order. See DBSI/TRI IV Ltd. P’ship, 465 F.3d at 1037.

ii. Sufficiency of interest to allow Nevada’s intervention

We next analyze whether the denial of intervention by the district 

court was error, which, if corrected, allows Nevada to become a party and 

seek vacatur of the district court’s injunction.

2 The four requirements for 

intervention as of right are these:

(1) the application . . . must be timely; (2) the applicant must 

have an interest relating to the property or transaction which is 

the subject of the action; (3) the applicant must be so situated 

that the disposition of the action may, as a practical matter, 

impair or impede his ability to protect that interest; (4) the 

2 Rule 24(c) provides: “A motion to intervene . . . must state the grounds for intervention 

and be accompanied by a pleading that sets out the claim or defense for which intervention is 

sought.” Plaintiffs contend Nevada’s failure to include such pleading was fatal to its motion to 

intervene. The district court declined to preclude Nevada’s intervention on such grounds, noting 

the circuit split around the approach to enforcement of Rule 24(c), with a majority favoring a 

permissive interpretation of the rule. See International Marine Towing Inc. v. S. Leasing Partners, 

Ltd., 722 F.2d 126, 129 (5th Cir. 1983) (“In view of our lenience in the past and the fact that the 

district court’s act might be considered equivalent to authorizing intervention, we will not dismiss 

for failure to comply with Rule 24(c)).”). We follow a permissive approach here.

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applicant’s interest must be inadequately represented by the 

existing parties to the suit.

Wal–Mart Stores, Inc. v. Texas Alcoholic Beverage Comm’n, 834 F.3d 562, 565 

(5th Cir. 2016) (alteration in original) (quoting Texas v. United States, 805 

F.3d 653, 657 (5th Cir. 2015.

The district court concluded that Nevada established all of Rule 

24(a)’s requirements except that it failed to show it had “an interest relating 

to the property or transaction which is the subject of the action.” Id. That is 

the only requirement we need to consider now.

To meet this requirement, the “applicant must have a ‘direct, 

substantial, legally protectable interest in the proceedings.’” Edwards v. City 

of Houston, 78 F.3d 983, 1004 (5th Cir. 1996) (quoting NOPSI v. United Gas 

Pipe Line Co., 732 F.2d 452, 463 (5th. Cir. 1984)). We have observed that the 

preceding quotation is a “‘gloss on the rule’ [that] may not ‘provide any 

more guidance than does the bare term “interest” used in Rule 24 itself.’” 

Texas v. United States, 805 F.3d 653, 657 (5th Cir. 2015) (quoting 7C 

Charles Alan Wright et. Al., Federal Practice and 

Procedure § 1908.1 (3d ed. 2007)). What is important is “whether the 

intervenor has a stake in the matter that goes beyond a generalized preference 

that the case come out a certain way,” as when the party “seeks to intervene 

solely for ideological, economic, or precedential reasons.” Id. This focus on 

the party’s interest is “primarily a practical guide to disposing of lawsuits by 

involving as many apparently concerned persons as is compatible with 

efficiency and due process.” Sierra Club v. Espy, 18 F.3d 1202, 1207 (5th Cir. 

1994) (quotation marks and citation omitted). 

An interest is insufficiently direct when it requires vindication in a 

separate legal action or the intervenor is too removed from the dispute. Wal–

Mart, 834 F.3d at 568. A “legally protectable” right is not identical to a 

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“legally enforceable” right, such that “an interest is sufficient if it is of the 

type that the law deems worthy of protection, even if the intervenor . . . would 

not have standing to pursue her own claim.” Texas, 805 F.3d at 659. The 

intervenor must itself possess the right it seeks to assert in the action. 

NOPSI, 732 F.2d at 466. 

The First, Third, and Ninth Circuits held that states had standing to 

challenge the 2017 Rules. Massachusetts v. U.S. Dep’t of HHS, 923 F.3d 209, 

212, 227–28 (1st Cir. 2019); Pennsylvania v. President United States, 930 F.3d 

543, 561–65 (3d Cir. 2019); California v. Azar, 911 F.3d 558, 570 (9th Cir. 

2018). In these cases, the states established standing because they 

demonstrated with reasonable probability that the 2017 Rules would cause

the state financial injury through strain on its healthcare programs. 

Massachusetts, 923 F.3d at 226–27; Pennsylvania, 930 F.3d at 564; Azar, 911 

F.3d at 573. For example, in Azar, the states submitted declarations and 

analyses projecting anticipated costs of women losing coverage, and while the 

states did not identify a specific woman who would turn to state programs 

after losing coverage, the predicted costs were enough to show it was 

reasonably probable the 2017 Rules would cause economic harm to the states. 

Azar, 911 F.3d at 572–73. The states’ interests in challenging the 2017 Rules 

were established similarly in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. See 

Massachusetts, 923 F.3d at 219, 223–25 (establishing financial injury through 

regulatory analysis and declarations demonstrating anticipated lost 

coverage); Pennsylvania, 930 F.3d at 561–63 (establishing financial injury 

through regulatory analysis demonstrating anticipated lost coverage).

Nevada argues that its interest in this suit meets the Rule 24(a)(2) 

requirements. It says it has a legally protectable interest based on the 

financial strain caused by an increase in women relying on its family planning 

programs, but it distinguishes this interest from “a mere economic interest 

not directly related [to] this litigation.” Instead, it explains it also has an

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interest “in the provision of contraception care to preserve resulting public 

health gains and to conserve financial resources that were previously 

expended attempting to address unplanned pregnancies.” 

For support of that interest, Nevada attached two declarations to its 

motion for intervention. In one, Beth Handler, Deputy Administrator of 

Community Health Division of Public and Behavioral Health for the Nevada 

DHHS, stated that 379,000 Nevada women of child-bearing age “receive 

private insurance coverage and could be affected by Plaintiffs’ proposed class 

action relief.” Based on the national numbers and estimates of which 

employers would choose the exemption, she estimated that “between 600 

and 1200 Nevada women would be harmed” by the injunction. See 83 Fed. 

Reg. 57,578, 57580. She also believed that in 2014, before the contraceptive 

mandate, 194,000 women in Nevada were in need of publicly funded family 

planning, but Nevada was able to meet only 10% of the need. Those numbers, 

she believed, would increase without the 2015 Rules. Also, in 2010 before 

the contraceptive mandate, Nevada saw 29,000 unintended pregnancies. 

She identified a 35% decrease in abortions for women ages 15–19 and a 10% 

decrease for women ages 20–24 from 2012–2017. 

Kathryn Host, Acting Vice President for Domestic Research of the 

Guttmacher Institute, provided a similar declaration in which she explained 

the impact of the contraceptive mandate more generally, and the benefits that 

she believed flowed from it. 

Lastly, Nevada relies on its “quasi-sovereign” interests at issue, 

which “consist of a set of interests that the State has in the well-being of its 

populace.” Alfred L. Snapp & Son, Inc. v. Puerto Rico, ex rel., Barez, 458 U.S. 

592, 602 (1982). “[I]f the health and comfort of the inhabitants of a State are 

threatened, the State is the proper party to represent and defend them.” Id.

at 603–04 (quoting Missouri v. Illinois, 180 U.S. 208, 241 (1901)). 

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The Plaintiffs describe Nevada’s interests as (1) preservation of 

gained public-health benefits and (2) conserving its financial resources that it 

previously spent on addressing unplanned pregnancies. The Plaintiffs find 

these interests inadequate for several reasons.

First, the Plaintiffs argue Nevada’s interest in the outcome of the 

proceedings is not “direct” because it depends on speculation about 

independent choices made by other parties and even Nevada itself. The

Plaintiffs argue that any injury to Nevada is too attenuated from the outcome 

of the litigation here. 

Second, the Plaintiffs dispute the substantiality of the interest that 

Nevada claims to have demonstrated. Not only do the Plaintiffs take issue 

with Nevada’s “600 to 1200” figure of women who will be harmed, but they 

contend that Nevada has not sufficiently described the harm. Further, the

Plaintiffs argue that the number of women who work for objecting employers 

is not the relevant number for calculating Nevada’s financial interest because 

it fails to account for alternatives such as who will obtain contraceptives from 

other sources, or who will actually become unintentionally pregnant, or who 

will choose not to abort. Moreover, because the 2017 Rules, which track the 

district court’s injunction here, are currently in effect, they argue that 

Nevada has no interest in the outcome of the litigation. Finally, the Plaintiffs 

reject that Nevada’s interest is “legally protectable” because no law protects 

a state from an increase in expenditures in social-welfare programs. How 

much Nevada expends on public health and welfare programs will be 

completely within Nevada’s control. 

We evaluate the arguments. The “property or transaction that is the 

subject of the action” is the contraceptive mandate. FED. R. CIV. P.

24(a)(2). The question is whether Nevada has any interest relating to that 

mandate. See Texas, 805 F.3d at 657. We conclude that Nevada’s interest 

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“goes beyond a generalized preference that the case come out a certain way.” 

Id. Through the affidavits of Handler and Host, Nevada has established a

financial interest in federally mandated contraceptive provision so its state 

fisc does not have to fill the void if exceptions are carved out of the mandate. 

This holding accords with the holdings of our sister circuits in Azar, 

Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, which found standing on similar facts. 

Nevada also argues it has a quasi-sovereign interest, but as in Azar, 

Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, the panel need not reach this argument 

because its fiscal injury alone is sufficiently direct to allow it to intervene. See

Azar, 911 F.3d at 570; Pennsylvania, 930 F.3d at 561–62; Massachusetts, 923 

F.3d at 227–28. Further, Nevada’s interest is heightened here because the 

Defendants have abandoned any defense of the contraceptive mandate. In 

light of the liberal construction in favor of intervention, Wal–Mart, 834 F.3d 

at 565, the district court erred by holding Nevada’s interest was insufficient 

to establish intervention as of right as an intervenor–defendant. 

Nevada should have been granted intervention as of right. 

B. Nevada’s standing to appeal the district court’s injunction

Even if Nevada satisfies the requirements to intervene in the district 

court, Nevada still must show it has standing to appeal. The Plaintiffs argue 

Nevada lacks standing to appeal because “it failed to introduce evidence that 

it will suffer injury from this classwide relief.” 

Standing to appeal requires injury from the judgment of the lower 

court. Texas v. United States, 945 F.3d 355, 374 (5th Cir. 2019), as revised

(Jan. 9, 2020), rev’d on other grounds, California v. Texas, 141 S. Ct. 2104

(2021). Though related, the intervention question is not dispositive of the 

standing-to-appeal question; rather, an intervenor must still demonstrate an 

injury from the district court’s judgment to establish appellate standing. Id.

at 376. Standing includes injury in fact, a causal connection, and 

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redressability. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560. An injury in fact is “an invasion of a 

legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) 

actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Id. at 560 (quotation 

marks and citations omitted). 

Appellate standing is measured at the time of filing the notice of 

appeal, and mootness refers to standing that does not persist throughout a 

case. Center for Individual Freedom, 449 U.S. at 661. Moreover, in all 

Munsingwear situations, the underlying case is moot, so the court cannot 

redress the injury that initially led to the suit or the appeal. It can redress 

only the preclusive-effect injury, but that is sufficient for standing to vacate or 

there would never be Munsingwear vacatur.3

 Similarly, we refused in an 

earlier case to dismiss for lack of standing after a case became moot because 

dismissing the appeal on that basis “would lead to the problem at the heart 

of the Munsingwear doctrine — that an order may become unappealable due 

to no fault of the losing party, thus denying review of a possibly erroneous 

decision.” Goldin, 166 F.3d at 720.

Nevada suffers the preclusive effect of the district-court order with 

equal force as a party to the lawsuit because of the nationwide scope of the 

injunction and the resulting inability to relitigate the issue of whether the 

2017 Rules violate RFRA. This is sufficient to establish appellate standing:

“a party may be aggrieved by a district court decision that adversely affects 

its legal rights or position vis-à-vis other parties in the case or other potential 

litigants.” Texas, 945 F.3d at 377 (quotation marks omitted). The district 

3 Though a preclusion injury is sufficient, it may not be necessary. See Alfa Int’l Seafood, 

Inc. v. Ross, 320 F. Supp. 3d 184, 188 (D.D.C. 2018) (“Plaintiffs, however, cite no authority for the 

proposition that, to establish standing, a party or putative intervenor seeking vacatur must show that 

allowing the adverse decision to remain will have an ‘adverse precedential effect. . . . [Such 

requirement] would make little sense.”). 

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court held that Nevada suffered such injury, and that the nationwide 

injunction re-implementing the 2017 Rules is otherwise unappealable. 

Moreover, Nevada’s preclusive-effect injury would be redressed by a 

favorable court ruling that vacated the injunctions. The Munsingwear

doctrine is a remedy for the preclusive effect of an unappealable district-court 

judgment, making the preclusive injury sufficient for jurisdiction to vacate. 

U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. at 22. Vacatur is also proper under U.S. Bancorp’s

equitable considerations. U.S. Bancorp requires parties to demonstrate both 

that they did not cause the suit to become moot and that public interests favor 

vacatur. Staley, 485 F.3d at 310 (citing U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. at 26). Here, 

both considerations are met — Nevada did not cause the case to become 

moot; it was moot after the ruling in Little Sisters, and vacatur serves public 

interests in that it vacates a permanent injunction that Nevada never had 

proper opportunity to litigate the merits of before the district court. 

Regardless, the Plaintiffs conceded Nevada was entitled to vacatur at oral 

argument. Vacatur is therefore appropriate in this case. 

* * *

The judgment below is VACATED. We REMAND to the district 

court with instructions to dismiss as moot.

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