1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

KAREN CREAMER, et al. , Plaintiff s ,

v. Civil Action No. 1: 22

- cv - 0 1874 ( C JN ) DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al. , Defendant s
.

ORDER
Plaintiffs are five telephonic advice nurses who hold nursing license s in the District of
Columbia. Compl. ¶ 14, ECF No. 1. When they filed this suit, the District required the m to be vaccinated against COVID

- 19 as a condition of keeping their licenses , unless they received exemption s
. Since then , the District has revised that regulation, and the n urses now concede that they face no adverse consequences for fail ing to vaccinate. 5/9/23 Joint Status Report at 2 , ECF
No. 22. They have accordingly withdrawn their request for injunctive relief

. Id.
The y nevertheless maintain their requests for declaratory relief and damages

. A s they put it, a lthough they have agreed to “withdraw their demand for declaratory judgment on the issue of whether [the regulation] is legally invalid,” they still seek a declaratory “ ruling that [the regulation]

was legally invalid as enacted and imposed upon them.” Id. at 3. Such a ruling is ne cessary, say
the n urses, because it “goes to the core issue of the cognizable harm already caused by [the District’s] illegal actions , for which [the n urses] have sought damages .” Id.
To obtain declaratory relief, plaintiffs ordinarily “must allege ongo ing or imminent injury, rather than purely past injury.” Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders v. EPA , 786 F.3d 34, 40 (D.C. Cir. 2015) ; see also Dearth v. Holder , 641 F.3d 499, 501 (D.C. Cir. 2011)

. As noted above, the n urses2 have acknowledged the lack of ongoin g or imminent injury by withdrawing their request for injunctive relief. Still, courts have held that plaintiff s “may seek a retrospective declaratory judgment ”

— that is, declaratory relief premised on past harm

— when the request is “ intertwined with a claim for monetary damages that requires [the c ourt] to declare whether a past constitutional
violation occurred.” Fludd v. Mitchell , 181 F. Supp. 3d 132, 140 (D.D.C. 2016) (quotations omitted).
But the n urses fail to identity a ny concr ete harm that can be redressed by damages ( nominal
or otherwise )

. See Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski , 141 S. Ct. 792, 797 (2021) (holding that “a plaintiff
who sues over a completed injury ” can establish standing “by requesting only nominal damages”) (emphasis added). The upshot of the Complaint is that the n urses w ill “likely begin incurring damages” if their licenses are not timely renewed. Compl. ¶¶ 64, 71

– 74. But i t is undisputed that all five nursing licenses were renewed without lapse for a period of tw o years
. 7/5/22 Joint Status Report, ECF No. 9

. The n urses cannot establish a past injury that is redressable by damages simply by alleging that the regulation , as originally enacted , violated (or risked violating) federal and D.C.
law. TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez , 141 S. Ct. 2190, 2205

– 0 7 (2021). Nor can they do so by resting only on the costs of bringing th is lawsuit. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better En v’t , 523 U.S. 83, 107 (1998). In short, this action does not present a live case or controversy for the Court to resolve. 1 It is accordingly

1 To the extent the n urses rely on the doctrine of voluntary cessation (and assuming that the doctrine is even relevant here given the relief sought ), there’s still no live dispute. For a claim to be ripe, there must be “some cognizable danger of recurrent violation, something more than the mere possibility which serves to keep the case alive.” Air Line Pilots Ass’n, Int’l v. Nw. Airlines, Inc. , 199 F.3d 477, 486 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (quotations omitted). Given the revised regulations , together with the previ ous grant of exemptions and license renewals , i t is far too speculative that any alleged harm will recur.3 ORDERED that the Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 14, is GRANTED , and the Plaintiffs’ Cross Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 17, is DENIED AS MOOT

. This is a final appealable order.
The Clerk is directed to terminate the case.

DATE: June 15, 2023 CARL J. NICHOLS United States District Judge