Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/423/963.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 01:11:07+00:00

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See 423 U.S. 1080 .
Appellants insist that the judgment of the District Court is wrong under our holding in Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974), while appellees insist that it is consistent with that case. But this case comes here as an appeal from an order of a three- judge District Court enjoining the enforcement of a state statute, a question not even present in Milliken. The three-judge District Court by its order of April 16, 1975, enjoined appellants from relying upon1 [423 U.S. 963 , 964] provisions of a Delaware statute which by their terms had expired six years earlier. Because in doing so I believe the District Court decided an issue that is demonstrably moot, I would reverse its judgment on this point. Since the additional question of whether the Milliken issues briefed by the parties are properly before us under any conceivable theory is one which veritably bristles with jurisdictional problems, I would note probable jurisdiction and set the case for argument on these points. The Court's summary affirmance, in my opinion, not only wrongfully upholds an erroneous injunction issued by the District Court, but because of the difficult jurisdictional questions present in this case leaves totally beclouded and uncertain what is decided by that summary affirmance.
'The key reorganization provisions of the Act provided an exemption of approximately one year from the long-standing requirement in Delaware law that consolidation of contiguous school districts must be approved by a referendum in each of the districts affected. 14 Del. C. 1001-05. In other words, for a limited time, the State Board of Education was authorized to consolidate school districts according to the dictates of sound educational administration and certain statutory criteria. The Wilmington School District was explicitly excluded from the reorganization powers of the State Board by 1004( c)(4): 'The proposed school district for the City of Wilmington shall be the City of Wilmington with the territory within its limits.' Wilmington was also excluded implicitly from any consolidation plan by 1004(c)(2), which limited [423 U.S. 963 , 967] the maximum pupil enrollment in any proposed school district to 12, 000.' 393 F.Supp., at 438 (emphasis added).
Thus by July 1, 1969, the state board had been relegated, Cinderella- like, to the status which it occupied prior to the 1968 legislation. The provision of 1004(c), limiting the authority of the state board with [423 U.S. 963 , 968] respect to the school district consisting of the city of Wilmington, was relevant, if at all, at the time this case was heard by the three-judge court, only as an historical fact. Whatever may be the proper weight to be accorded this historical fact in the assessment by a single-judge district court of the factors made relevant inMilliken, it was functus officio as a part of an operative statute.
A three-judge District Court cannot enjoin the operation of a statute which has expired by the time the Court's decree is entered. Indeed, so strongly has this Court felt about the necessity for a 'live controversy' that it has vacated the judgment of the District Court where the statute was repealed after the ruling of that court but before decision here. Diffenderfer v. Central Baptist Church, 404 U.S. 412 , 30 L. Ed.2d 567 (1972). A fortiori, a prayer for restraint against a state officer's enforcement of a statute which expired prior to litigation presents a dead issue. The grant of judicial power in Art. III of the United States Constitution limits federal courts to cases or controversies, and a dispute about the constitutionality of a statute which is no longer in effect is moot in the classical sense.
Presumably the Court's summary and unexplained affirmance of the judgment of the District Court upholds its issuance of an injunction against the enforcement of sections of a law which by their own terms have expired. By reason of the summary nature of the Court's action, however, neither the parties nor the District Court can know what additional effect the affirmance here may have. Although the parties have briefed the Milliken issues, I believe that there are all but insurmountable jurisdictional difficulties to the Court's reach- [423 U.S. 963 , 969] ing them, whether it were to affirm or to reverse the injunctive portion of the District Court's judgment. I would at the very least note probable jurisdiction and hear argument on them in order to make a principled determination as to whether we have authority on this appeal to deal with those issues at all.
Construing this language in United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17 (1960), the Court stated that it seemed 'to indicate a desire of Congress that the whole case come up . . ..' 362 U.S. 17 , 27 n. 7.6 [423 U.S. 963 , 970] By contrast, the much narrower language of 1253 allows appeal here not from a final judgment or decree but only from 'an order granting or denying . . . an interlocutory or permanent injunction . . ..' It is established by the consistent holdings of this Court that this section, together with 28 U.S.C. 2281, are to be narrowly, rather than broadly, construed. Gonzalez v. Employees Credit Union, 419 U.S. 90, 98 (1974); Phillips v. United States, 312 U.S. 246, 248 (1941).
'The three-judge court is not required where the district court itself lacks jurisdiction of the complaint . . .. See Ex parte Poresky, 290 U.S. 30, 31 .' Gonzalez v. Employees Credit Union, 419 U.S. 90, 100 (1974).
'As the case was not one within [ 2281], the merits cannot be brought to this Court by a direct appeal. [Citations omitted.] But, although the merits cannot be reviewed here in such a case, this Court by virtue of its appellate jurisdiction in cases of decrees purporting to be entered pursuant to [ 2281], necessarily has jurisdiction to determine whether the court below has acted within the authority conferred by that section and to make such corrective orders as may be appropriate to the enforcement of the limitations which that section imposes.' Gully v. Interstate Nat. Gas Co., 292 U.S. 16, 18 (1934). See also Phillips v. United States, 312 U.S. 246, 248 (1941); Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U.S. 31, 34 ( 1962); Gonzalez v. Employees Credit Union, 419 U.S. 90 , 95 n. 12 (1974).
I think the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in a situation virtually identical to that now presented here, and presented to that court in an earlier stage of the Milliken litigation, is of some weight in deciding the question of our jurisdiction here. That court held, Bradley v. Milliken, 468 F.2d 902 (C.A.6), cert. [423 U.S. 963 , 975] denied, 409 U.S. 844 (1972), that an order finding an interdistrict violation and requiring submission of plans, but not imposing any remedy, was not appealable from the District Court to the Court of Appeals. Since the jurisdiction conferred upon the courts of appeals by 28 U.S.C. 1291 and 1292(a) is far more generous in scope than that conferred upon us by 28 U.S.C. 1253, if the Court of Appeals was right in Milliken it is highly doubtful that we have any authority to go beyond review of the District Court's injunctive decree here.
[ Footnote 1 ] Appellees contend, not implausibly, that no injunction was in fact issued in this case, and that the only action of the District Court with respect to Delaware's Educational Advancement Act of 1968 (EEA) was to declare certain provisions unconstitutional. They rely on Gunn v. University Committee, 399 U.S. 383 (1970), and Goldstein v. Cox, 396 U.S. 471 (1970), to support their conclusion. If appellees are correct on this point, of course, appellants should have taken their appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rather than to this Court. Gonzalez v. Employees Credit Union, 419 U.S. 90 (1974). But in Gunn, supra, this Court held that 'there was no order of any kind either granting or denying an injunction. . . .' 399 U.S. 383, 387 . Goldstein v. Cox, supra, held that a district court's denial of plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment was not appealable to this Court under 1253 where plaintiffs in their complaint had sought no preliminary injunction. Here the operative language of the District Court's order addressed to appellants was that '[i]n preparing any inter-district plan, the Defendant State Board of Education is enjoined from relying upon those provisions of [EEA] found unconstitutional by this Court.' There is thus an injunction, and it is against the enforcement of certain provisions of a state statute. While, for reasons which follow, I believe that the District Court was wrong in passing on the merits of the statute, that consideration is an argument going beyond the issue of whether or not its order was in fact an injunction as that term is used in 28 U.S.C. 1253.
[ Footnote 5 ] Appellees had originally claimed that 1027 implicitly excluded Wilmington from its operation, Evans v. Buchanan, D.C., 379 F.Supp. 1218, 1219, note, and therefore contributed along with 1004(c) to the alleged unconstitutional confinement. But the District Court in its present decision found that under 1027 'consolidation of Wilmington with neighboring school districts is still possible by . . . referendum.' 393 F. Supp., at 442. Section 1026, which sets out a similar mechanism for altering reorganized school district boundaries, does expressly exclude Wilmington. Appellees have not pursued their initial charge that this section also unconstitutionally confined black students, and the District Court did not mention 1026 in its second opinion. Appellees have not asserted either claim on this appeal, and our inquiry can go only to 1004(c).
[ Footnote 6 ] The Court in Raines contrasted the scope of 1252 with the scope of 3731 of Title 18, the Criminal Appeals Act. That Act allowed the Government a right of appeal from particular types of decisions of a district court prior to trial in a criminal case, and the Court in construing it in United States v. Borden Co., 308 U.S. 188, 193 (1939), stated that '[t]he Government's appeal does not open the whole case.' The language of 1253, with which we deal, is much more akin to that of the Criminal Appeals Act than it is to that of 1252. See also United States v. Keitel, 211 U.S. 370, 397 -399 (1908).
[ Footnote 7 ] Reopening a desegregation suit that had lain dormant since the mid- sixties, appellees contended that the city's black students were being compelled to attend segregated schools. The claim was three-fold: (1) the state board continued to maintain an unconstitutional dual system in New Castle County, of which Wilmington is a part; (2) the State through various practices, e. g., low-cost housing policies, had enforced or approved public and private discrimination resulting in segregated schools ; (3) the portions of EEA establishing a mechanism for school district consolidation, both created a suspect classification in directing that Wilmington be continued as a single school district and prevented the state board from implementing its Fourteenth Amendment duty to dismantle the dual system.

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