Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 379

529US1

Unit: $U42

[10-11-01 11:58:08] PAGES PGT: OPIN

304

ERIE v. PAP’S A. M.

Scalia, J., concurring in judgment

vanced age,2 it seems to me that there is “no reasonable
expectation,” even if there remains a theoretical possibility,
that Pap’s will resume nude dancing operations in the
future.3

The situation here is indistinguishable from that which
obtained in Arizonans for Ofﬁcial English v. Arizona, 520
U. S. 43 (1997), where the plaintiff-respondent, a state em-
ployee who had sued to enjoin enforcement of an amendment
to the Arizona Constitution making English that State’s of-
ﬁcial language, had resigned her public-sector employment.
We held the case moot and, since the mootness was attribut-
able to the “ ‘unilateral action of the party who prevailed in
the lower court,’ ” we followed our usual practice of vacat-
ing the favorable judgment respondent had obtained in the

2 The Court asserts that “[s]everal Members of this Court can attest . . .
that the ‘advanced age’ ” of 72 “does not make it ‘absolutely clear’ that a
life of quiet retirement is [one’s] only reasonable expectation.” Ante, at
288. That is tre´s gallant, but it misses the point. Now as heretofore,
Justices in their seventies continue to do their work competently—indeed,
perhaps better than their youthful colleagues because of the wisdom that
age imparts. But to respond to my point, what the Court requires is
citation of an instance in which a Member of this Court (or of any other
court, for that matter) resigned at the age of 72 to begin a new career—
or more remarkable still (for this is what the Court suspects the young
Mr. Panos is up to) resigned at the age of 72 to go judge on a different
court, of no greater stature, and located in Erie, Pennsylvania, rather than
Palm Springs.
I base my assessment of reasonable expectations not upon
Mr. Panos’ age alone, but upon that combined with his sale of the business
and his assertion, under oath, that he does not intend to enter another.
3 It is signiﬁcant that none of the assertions of Panos’ afﬁdavit is con-
tested. Those pertaining to the sale of Kandyland and the current nonin-
volvement of Pap’s in any other nude dancing establishment would seem
readily veriﬁable by petitioners. The statements regarding Pap’s and
Panos’ intentions for the future are by their nature not veriﬁable, and it
would be reasonable not to credit them if either petitioners asserted some
reason to believe they were not true or they were not rendered highly
plausible by Panos’ age and his past actions. Neither condition exists
here.