Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 363.0

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ERIE v. PAP’S A. M.

Opinion of the Court

operation. Several Members of this Court can attest, how-
ever, that the “advanced age” of Pap’s owner (72) does not
make it “absolutely clear” that a life of quiet retirement is
his only reasonable expectation. Cf. Friends of Earth, Inc.
v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U. S.
167 (2000). Moreover, our appraisal of Pap’s afﬁdavit is in-
ﬂuenced by Pap’s failure, despite its obligation to the Court,
to mention a word about the potential mootness issue in its
brief in opposition to the petition for writ of certiorari, which
was ﬁled in April 1999, even though, as Justice Scalia
points out, Kandyland was closed and that property sold in
1998. See Board of License Comm’rs of Tiverton v. Pas-
tore, 469 U. S. 238, 240 (1985) (per curiam). Pap’s only
raised the issue after this Court granted certiorari.

In any event, this is not a run of the mill voluntary cessa-
tion case. Here it is the plaintiff who, having prevailed
below, now seeks to have the case declared moot. And it is
the city of Erie that seeks to invoke the federal judicial
power to obtain this Court’s review of the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court decision. Cf. ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490
U. S. 605, 617–618 (1989). The city has an ongoing injury
because it is barred from enforcing the public nudity provi-
sions of its ordinance.
If the challenged ordinance is found
constitutional, then Erie can enforce it, and the availability
of such relief is sufﬁcient to prevent the case from being
moot. See Church of Scientology of Cal. v. United States,
supra, at 13. And Pap’s still has a concrete stake in the
outcome of this case because, to the extent Pap’s has an in-
terest in resuming operations, it has an interest in preserv-
ing the judgment of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Our
interest in preventing litigants from attempting to manipu-
late the Court’s jurisdiction to insulate a favorable decision
from review further counsels against a ﬁnding of mootness
here. See United States v. W. T. Grant Co., supra, at 632;
cf. Arizonans for Ofﬁcial English v. Arizona, 520 U. S. 43,