United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Argued November 2, 2021 

Decided June 7, 2022 

Before 

DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge 

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge 

CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge

No. 20-2723 

MARLEIS TROVER, as Personal 

Representative for the Estate of Donald 

Dean Gaddis,*

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

JASON WATTS, 

 Defendant-Appellant.

 

Appeal from the 

United States District Court for the 

Southern District of Illinois. 

No. 19-CV-653-SMY 

Staci M. Yandle, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Donald Gaddis was arrested at his home in Marion, Illinois, and charged in state 

court with unlawful restraint and disorderly conduct. With the charges against him still 

pending, Gaddis filed suit in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Jason Watts, 

*

 The plaintiff, Donald Gaddis, died on May 16, 2022. Marleis Trovis, the personal 

representative of his estate, is substituted on his behalf. FED. R. APP. P. 43(a). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 20-2723 Page 2 

the arresting officer, alleging a Fourth Amendment claim for false arrest. Officer Watts 

asked the district court to abstain and stay the federal suit under Younger v. Harris, 

401 U.S. 37 (1971), to avoid interfering with the ongoing state prosecution. The judge 

denied the motion, and Officer Watts appealed. 

The appeal was briefed and argued and is presently under advisement. Two 

issues are raised: (1) Is an order denying Younger abstention immediately appealable 

under the collateral-order doctrine; and (2) did the judge correctly deny the abstention 

motion? 

On May 18, 2022, Gaddis’s attorney notified us that Gaddis died on May 16. We 

directed counsel to notify us whether a personal representative has been appointed for 

Gaddis’s estate, and if so, to move to substitute the personal representative as the 

plaintiff. See FED. R. APP. P. 43(a). We also ordered counsel for both parties to file brief 

statements addressing whether Gaddis’s death moots this appeal. 

Gaddis’s counsel has now moved to substitute Marleis Trover—Gaddis’s mother 

and the personal representative of his estate—as the plaintiff pursuant to Rule 43(a). 

That motion is granted. 

Counsel also submitted a copy of the state court’s May 20 order dismissing the 

criminal charges against Gaddis. Gaddis’s death and the dismissal of the charges 

against him moots this appeal. We have held that Younger abstention becomes “a moot 

question” when the subject of the state-court proceeding dies and “there is no ongoing 

state proceeding” for the federal court to disturb. Sykes v. Cook Cnty. Cir. Ct. Prob. Div., 

837 F.3d 736, 741 (7th Cir. 2016). 

Officer Watts agrees that there is no longer any basis for Younger abstention. He 

insists, however, that his appeal is saved from mootness under the exception for issues 

that are “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” United States v. Sanchez-Gomez,

138S. Ct. 1532, 1540 (2018) (quoting Kingdomware Techs., Inc. v. United States, 579 U.S. 

162, 170 (2016). “A dispute qualifies for that exception only if (1) the challenged action is 

in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to cessation or expiration, and 

(2) there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be subjected 

to the same action again.” Sanchez-Gomez, 138 S. Ct. at 1540 (quotation marks omitted). 

We assume for argument’s sake that the denial of Younger abstention satisfies the 

first requirement. But there is no reasonable expectation that Officer Watts will suffer 

the same alleged wrong—the erroneous denial of Younger abstention—again. We accept 
No. 20-2723 Page 3 

that as a police officer, he will make many future arrests that lead to the issuance of 

state charges. But the remaining steps in the chain of events that produced this appeal—

the arrestee sues him in federal court alleging a Fourth Amendment violation, the suit is 

filed while the state prosecution remains pending, and the district judge declines to abstain 

and stay the federal suit to await the conclusion of the state prosecution—are too 

unusual and speculative to satisfy the exception. Watts is asking for an advisory 

opinion on Younger and the collateral-order doctrine based on a hypothetical state of 

facts. But federal courts are not empowered to “decide questions that cannot affect the 

rights of the litigants in the case before them.” Chafin v. Chafin, 568 U.S. 165, 172 (2013) 

(quotation marks omitted). We therefore dismiss the appeal as moot. 

The dismissal of this interlocutory appeal has no effect on the underlying suit. 

Whether it survives Gaddis’s death is a question for the parties and the district court to 

address. 

 RULE 43(a) MOTION GRANTED; APPEAL DISMISSED