This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by

Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA

IN COURT OF APPEALS

A23-0963

In re: The Matter of T. M. and the Commissioner Jodi Harpstead.

Filed March 18, 2024

Reversed and remanded

Ross, Judge

Ramsey County District Court

File No. 62-CV-22-5868

Benjamin L. Weiss, Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, Inc., St. Paul, Minnesota 

(for appellant T.M.)

John J. Choi, Ramsey County Attorney, Jean Y. Park, Assistant County Attorney, St. Paul, 

Minnesota (for respondent Ramsey County Health and Wellness)

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, R.J. Detrick, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul, 

Minnesota (for respondent Jodi Harpstead)

Interfaith Action of Greater Saint Paul, St. Paul, Minnesota (respondent)

Considered and decided by Ross, Presiding Judge; Larkin, Judge; and Bjorkman, 

Judge.

NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION

ROSS, Judge

Project Home, a government-contracted facility that provides temporary residential 

shelter to homeless individuals, removed T.M. after T.M.’s teenage daughter threatened to 

cut another resident with a knife. T.M. unsuccessfully appealed her removal to the 

department of human services, and a human-services judge affirmed. T.M. then appealed 
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the department’s decision to the district court. T.M. obtained permanent housing while her

appeal to the district court was pending, and the district court therefore dismissed the appeal 

as moot. T.M. appeals to this court, challenging the district court’s dismissal. Because 

T.M.’s case meets an exception to the mootness doctrine by presenting a single issue that 

is functionally justiciable and has statewide importance, we reverse the dismissal and 

remand the case to the district court for further proceedings.

FACTS

T.M. and her two children, including her then-fifteen-year-old daughter, moved into 

the Project Home residential shelter in St. Paul in April 2022. Project Home discharged 

T.M.’s family from staying at the shelter, and the propriety of that discharge is the subject 

of the dispute that underlies this appeal.

Project Home is a homeless shelter that receives federal funding through its 

contractual relationship with Ramsey County. The shelter therefore is obligated to establish 

rules pertaining to the justification for and process of removing a resident. Project Home 

shelter staff advised T.M. of its rules when she entered the shelter. Relevant here, Project 

Home’s rules prohibit residents from engaging in or threatening violence toward other 

residents, and they establish that a resident who violates the anti-violence rules will be 

discharged from the shelter within 24 hours. T.M.’s daughter violated the violence

prohibition in May 2022 by threatening to cut another girl with a knife. Project Home 

notified T.M. that day that it was terminating her stay at the shelter.

The brevity of Project Home’s pre-termination notification period is central to this 

dispute. The required period results from the layered, governmental oversight of Project 
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Home’s operations. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development 

(HUD) disburses funds to states through the Emergency Solutions Grant Program (ESG). 

The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) is a recipient of these funds, and it 

disperses the ESG funds to subrecipient local agencies in the state, including the City of 

Saint Paul. Saint Paul in turn administers the funds under a joint-powers agreement with 

Ramsey County. Ramsey County contracts with respondent Interfaith Action of Greater 

Saint Paul, an entity that runs the Project Home shelter. Ramsey County’s contract with 

Project Home provides that “[f]amilies will not be exited from emergency shelter until they 

attain longer-term stable housing placement.” Entities receiving ESG funds are also subject 

to various federal laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Fair 

Housing Act (FHA), and federal regulations, including one that requires entities to

establish and submit to HUD written standards of shelter discharge.

The regulations limit a recipient’s or subrecipient’s decision to terminate assistance.

Relevant here, before discharging a program participant, “[t]he recipient or subrecipient 

must exercise judgment and examine all extenuating circumstances in determining when 

violations warrant termination so that a program participant’s assistance is terminated only 

in the most severe cases.” 24 C.F.R. § 576.402(a) (2024). If a recipient or subrecipient 

intends to discharge a participant for violating program requirements, it must do so through 

a formal, established process. Id. Ramsey County’s formal process requires programs to 

afford program participants the opportunity for administrative review of the decision to be 

considered by “a person other than the person (or a subordinate of that person) who made 

or approved the termination decision.”
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T.M. sent a letter electronically to Project Home in June 2022 asking to be 

readmitted into the shelter. She framed her request as one seeking a reasonable 

accommodation under the ADA and the FHA. She said that her daughter had “a record of 

mental impairments, diagnosed initially as generalized anxiety disorder and later as major 

depression.” She asserted that her daughter’s threatening outburst arose from those 

conditions and from the fact that T.M. had been unable to obtain mental-health services for 

her daughter. T.M. asked to be readmitted into the shelter conditioned on her daughter 

resuming treatment. The shelter and county denied her readmission request.

A human-services judge (HSJ) conducted an evidentiary hearing on the propriety of

T.M.’s removal from the shelter. The HSJ made findings of fact that supported the removal. 

The HSJ found that, because T.M. had informed Project Home intake staff that no family 

member had mental-health issues, staff did not inform her that she had a right to request an 

ADA accommodation. He also found that T.M.’s daughter did not have mental-health 

conditions. And he found that T.M.’s daughter threatened the other girl, violating the zerotolerance policy.

T.M. raised her challenge to the Minnesota Department of Human Services 

Commissioner by moving for reconsideration. T.M. made four arguments premised on the 

idea that, as a recipient of federal ESG funding, the shelter was subject to the rules for 

shelter discharge found in a federal regulation:

If a program participant violates program requirements, the 

recipient or subrecipient may terminate the assistance in 

accordance with a formal process established by the recipient 

or subrecipient that recognizes the rights of individuals 

affected. The recipient or subrecipient must exercise judgment 
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and examine all extenuating circumstances in determining 

when violations warrant termination so that a program 

participant’s assistance is terminated only in the most severe 

cases.

24 C.F.R. § 576.402(a). Relying on that regulation, T.M. maintained first that the shelter 

had a duty to inquire whether any “extenuating circumstances,” such as her daughter’s 

mental-health disorders, played a role in the rule violation. T.M. argued second that the 

county failed to follow its own policies for discharge because it failed to notify her of her 

right to administrative review. T.M. argued third that she was not provided adequate notice 

of the termination under a county policy. T.M. argued fourth that, as an ESG-fund recipient,

Project Home was subject to but violated the ADA and FHA by denying T.M.’s request 

for an accommodation on behalf of her daughter. The commissioner denied T.M.’s motion 

for reconsideration because the evidence did not show that her daughter had a disability

and because the DHS is “not the appropriate forum for the ADA enforcement remedies.”

T.M. then appealed the commissioner’s decision denying her motion to reconsider 

to the district court, raising four questions:

1. Does 24 C.F.R. § 576.402(a), require a shelter that receives 

funding from the federal Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) to 

make an affirmative inquiry into any extenuating 

circumstances that may apply before terminating shelter?

2. Is Project Home required to provide an opportunity for an 

internal grievance, and notice of such opportunity, to residents 

it seeks to evict?

3. Is Project Home required to provide notice to residents of 

the right and process to request a disability accommodation 

under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and related 

statutes?
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4. Does Respondent Minnesota Department of Human 

Services (DHS) have authority to refuse to decide whether an 

agency’s action violates the Americans with Disabilities Act 

and related statutes, when raised by an appellant as a basis for 

disputing that action?

The district court did not address the merits of T.M.’s arguments and dismissed the case as 

moot after it received notice that T.M. and her family became permanently housed

elsewhere.

T.M. appeals.

DECISION

T.M. correctly concedes that her challenge to Project Home’s decision to terminate 

her stay at the shelter is moot. Courts may ordinarily exercise jurisdiction only over 

justiciable controversies, In re Guardianship of Tschumy, 853 N.W.2d 728, 733–34 (Minn. 

2014), and a moot case is not justiciable, Snell v. Walz, 985 N.W.2d 277, 283 (Minn. 2023). 

But exceptions exist. A case that is “technically moot” may yet be justiciable if “the harm 

to the plaintiff is capable of repetition yet evading review,” or if the case is “functionally 

justiciable” and presents an important matter of “statewide significance” requiring an 

immediate decision. Snell, 985 N.W.2d at 284 (quotations omitted). Whether a mootness 

exception applies is a question of law we review de novo. Id. at 283. For the following 

reasons, we conclude that the important-matter-of-statewide-significance mootness 

exception applies to the sole question of whether DHS improperly concluded that it lacked 

authority to consider whether its actions violated the ADA or the federal regulations.
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Capable of Repetition Yet Evading Review

T.M. unconvincingly argues that the capable-of-repetition exception applies. To 

succeed on this theory, T.M. needed to establish that a reasonable expectation exists that 

she would be subjected to the same allegedly improper action again and that “the duration 

of the challenged action is too short to be fully litigated.” Id. at 287 (quotation omitted).

But T.M. failed to establish that it is reasonably expected that she will be housed at Project 

Home again. Project Home provides shelter to “families with minor children” and T.M.’s 

youngest child is about seventeen years old. For the allegedly improper termination to 

occur again, T.M. would need to lose her present housing, seek and obtain housing 

specifically at Project Home rather than other housing options, engage in an allegedly 

terminable violation, and be removed from Project Home without a sufficient notice period, 

all within about one year. The likelihood of the contingent events occurring seems highly 

speculative, not reasonably expected. The circumstances do not meet the capable-ofrepetition exception to mootness.

Functionally Justiciable Issue of Statewide Importance

But one issue in the case is a functionally justiciable matter of statewide importance. 

T.M. argues that three issues fit the exception: (1) whether federal regulations required 

Project Home to ask about any extenuating circumstances before removing T.M.; 

(2) whether Project Home was required to give residents notice of the right to request a 

disability accommodation; and (3) whether DHS had the authority to decline to consider 

T.M.’s argument that its actions violated federal guidelines and procedures. The first two 

issues are necessarily local in nature, involving one shelter in one city. At oral argument, 
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counsel for T.M. acknowledged that the record does not indicate that other shelters 

elsewhere receive ESG funding but fail to abide by regulatory requirements. Those issues

are clearly dissimilar to issues in cases having statewide significance. For example, the 

supreme court recognized that the question of whether a breath analyzer for testing alcohol 

concentration used by all state police agencies had been properly approved by the

commissioner of public safety was a matter of statewide importance. Jasper v. Comm’r of 

Pub. Safety, 642 N.W.2d 435, 439 (Minn. 2002). It likewise recognized that the question 

of whether a defendant accused of criminal sexual conduct can compel the testimony of an 

alleged child victim at the defendant’s omnibus hearing was a matter of statewide 

importance. State v. Rud, 359 N.W.2d 573, 576 (Minn. 1984). Only T.M.’s third stated 

issue is similarly a matter of importance throughout the state, in that it affects DHS review 

of removal challenges originating from any shelter in the department’s statewide 

jurisdiction.

That statewide issue is also functionally justiciable. An issue is functionally 

justiciable if the record and the parties’ arguments are so developed that a court could 

effectively decide the case. See Dean v. City of Winona, 868 N.W.2d 1, 6 (Minn. 2015). 

The question of whether the department had the authority to refuse to consider T.M.’s 

challenge based on federal regulations is functionally justiciable because the record 

contains the entire administrative file, the question presented is purely legal in nature as it 

turns largely on statutory analysis, and the parties briefed the issue adequately. This 

question meets an exception to the mootness doctrine.
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District Court Standard of Review

T.M. contends relatedly that the district court erroneously concluded that its 

standard of review is bound by deference to the department and that its scope of review 

was limited to deciding only the issue the department decided, which was whether T.M.’s 

daughter violated Project Home’s zero-tolerance policy. The district court has the authority 

to consider whether the agency’s decision was made under an unlawful procedure or was 

affected by an error of law. Minn. Stat. § 14.69(c), (d) (2022). When a party alleges that 

the department made a procedural or legal error, courts are not bound by the department’s 

decision, and they instead review the issue de novo. See In re Schmalz, 945 N.W.2d 46, 50 

(Minn. 2020) (error of law); In re Kind Heart Daycare, Inc. v. Comm’r of Hum. Servs., 905 

N.W.2d 1, 9 (Minn. 2017) (unlawful procedure). The appropriate standard of review for 

the legal question left on appeal is therefore de novo.

We reverse the district court’s mootness decision for the reasons stated, and we 

remand the case for further proceedings.

Reversed and remanded.