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Timestamp: 2020-01-28 17:13:42
Document Index: 344826607

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3', '§ 1842', '§ 2', '§ 1841', '§ 1841', '§ 664', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', 'art, 488']

US Supreme Court Decisions - On-Line> Volume 494 > LEWIS V. CONTINENTAL BANK CORP., 494 U. S. 472 (1990)
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1. The case has been rendered moot by the 1987 BHCA amendments. The only evidence in the record of appellee's stake in the case's outcome chanrobles.com-red
SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. chanrobles.com-red
Under § 3(d) of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (BHCA), 70 Stat. 134, as amended, 12 U.S.C. § 1842(d), a bank holding company with its principal banking operations in one State may not establish or acquire a bank in another State unless the latter State's statutes specifically authorize it to do so. The BHCA thus effectively permits States to prevent out-of-state holding companies from owning in-state banks. That license for state discrimination applies, however, only if the proposed banking subsidiary is a "bank" as defined in § 2(c) of the BHCA, 70 Stat. 133, as amended, 12 U.S.C. § 1841(c). Until 1987, a banking institution qualified as a "bank" for purposes of the BHCA only if it both accepted demand deposits and engaged in the business of commercial lending. As amended by the Competitive Equality Amendments of 1987, 101 Stat. 554, the BHCA definition was expanded to include all banks whose deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). See 12 U.S.C. § 1841(c)(1)(A). chanrobles.com-red
In June, 1984, after the District Court had entered judgment, the State of Florida amended its statutes to prohibit the chartering of any new ISBs in the State, whether by resident or nonresident enterprises. Fla.Stat. § 664.02(1) (Supp.1984). Lewis then moved to amend or alter the judgment pursuant to Rule 59(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, arguing that the new nondiscriminatory ban had rendered the validity of the challenged statutes moot. The District Court denied the motion, reasoning that the new statute, even if constitutional, did not moot the case, because the State's unconstitutional behavior was "capable of repetition, yet evading review." App. 66a. Meanwhile, Continental had moved for an award of attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, arguing that Lewis' enforcement of the statutes chanrobles.com-red
The Court of Appeals denied the petition for rehearing in a brief opinion, saying that it did "not agree that the amendments necessarily would make Continental's operation of an ISB in Florida a banking' activity in every instance," and chanrobles.com-red
Ibid. (quoting Aetna Life Insurance Co. v. Haworth, 300 U. S. 227, 300 U. S. 241 (1937)). This case-or-controversy requirement subsists through all stages of federal judicial proceedings, trial and appellate. To sustain our jurisdiction in the present case, it is not enough that a dispute was very much alive when suit was filed, or when review was obtained in the chanrobles.com-red
Continental has argued in this Court that the quoted language of the application meant that the ISB would have insurance if insurance was available, and none if none was available. We think not. "Insured by the FDIC to the maximum extent allowed" is quite different from "insured by the FDIC if possible," or "insured by the FDIC to the maximum extent allowed, if any." It envisions FDIC insurance, but instead of specifying a fixed dollar amount of that insurance (the permissible level of which has varied over the years, see, e.g., 94 Stat. 147) specifies the maximum amount allowable from time to time. The application thus constitutes no evidence that Continental had an intent to establish an uninsured bank. Nor can it be said that the difference between an insured bank and an uninsured bank is inconsequential, so that an expressed intention to open the one displays chanrobles.com-red
Continental contends that it still has a claim for relief because its complaint sought not only the specific relief of ordering Lewis to process the original application, but also a declaration that the Florida statutes were unconstitutional and an injunction against their enforcement in the future. The BHCA amendment, it argues, does not render that requested relief nugatory insofar as it applies to uninsured banks. That may well be so, but the Article III question is not whether the requested relief would be nugatory as to the world at large, but whether Continental has a stake in that relief. Even in order to pursue the declaratory and injunctive claims, in other words, Continental must establish that it has a "specific live grievance" against the application of the statutes to uninsured ISBs, Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U. S. 103, 394 U. S. 110 (1969), and not just an "'abstract disagreemen[t]'" over the constitutionality of such application, Thomas v. Union Carbide Agricultural Products Co., 473 U. S. 568, 473 U. S. 580 (1985) (quoting Abbott Laboratories, Inc. v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 387 U. S. 148 (1967)). As we have discussed, nothing in the record establishes that. Continental informs us that, under Florida law, it remains free to amend its application so as to seek an uninsured, rather than an insured, ISB. Perhaps so. But it could also be said that every bank in the country is free to file an application seeking an uninsured Florida ISB. In the one case as in the other, the mere power to seek is not an indication of the intent to do so, and thus does not establish a particularized, concrete stake that would be affected by our judgment. Continental's challenge to the constitutionality of the Florida statutes' application to an uninsured bank that it has neither applied for nor expressed any intent to apply for amounts to a request for advice as to "what the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts," Aetna Life Insurance Co. chanrobles.com-red
Continental sought to supplement the record in this Court, after argument, by filing the affidavit of an officer of one of its subsidiaries, averring Continental's interest in opening an uninsured Florida ISB, and explaining its failure to file an updated application for such a bank. In the circumstances of the present case, we are not disposed to accept such an affidavit as dispositive without providing petitioner the opportunity of rebuttal. At the time Continental's challenge to denial of its application for an insured ISB was mooted by the amendments to the BHCA, this litigation had been in progress for almost seven years. An order vacating the judgment on grounds of mootness would deprive Continental of its claim for attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (assuming, arguendo, it would have such a claim), because such fees are available only to a party that "prevails" by winning the relief it seeks, see Rhodes v. Stewart, 488 U. S. 1 (1988); Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U. S. 755 (1987). This interest in attorney's fees is, of course, insufficient to create an Article III case or controversy where none exists on the merits of the underlying claim, see Diamond v. Charles, 476 U. S. 54, 476 U. S. 70-71 (1986). Where, on the face of the record, it appears that the only concrete interest in the controversy has terminated, reasonable caution is needed to be sure that mooted litigation is not pressed forward, and unnecessary judicial pronouncements on even constitutional issues obtained, solely in order to obtain reimbursement of sunk costs. Reasonable caution includes, we think, not accepting as conclusive the ex parte affidavit of the party seeking fees without providing the other party the opportunity to adduce controverting facts that show the alleged dispute to be "abstract, feigned, or hypothetical." Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40, 392 U. S. 57 (1968). chanrobles.com-red
Murphy v. Hunt, 455 U. S. 478, 455 U. S. 482 (1982) (per curiam) (quoting Weinstein v. Bradford, 423 U. S. 147, 423 U. S. 149 (1975)). Neither of these requirements is satisfied here. Since Florida's allegedly unconstitutional action is no longer unconstitutional with respect to insured ISBs, there is no "reasonable expectation" that Continental will suffer the same wrong again -- unless, of course, it intends to establish an uninsured ISB, which does not appear on this record. Cf. California Coastal Comm'n v. Granite Rock Co., 480 U. S. 572, 480 U. S. 578 (1987); Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of California, Riverside County, 478 U. S. 1, 478 U. S. 6 (1986). Nor is the State's refusal to issue a bank charter the sort of action which, by reason of the inherently short duration of the opportunity for remedy, is likely forever to "evad[e] review." See, e.g., Burlington Northern R. Co. v. Maintenance of Way Employes, 481 U. S. 429, 482 U. S. 436, n. 4 (1987) (injunction on secondary picketing in railroad labor dispute); @ 427 U. S. 546-547 (1976) (protective order on press coverage of criminal trial). If Continental applies for and is denied a charter for an uninsured bank in Florida, there will be ample time to obtain judicial review of the denial.
Accordingly, we vacate the judgment and remand for the Court of Appeals to consider (or to remand for the District Court to consider) such material as may be submitted by both parties in supplementation of the record, bearing upon Continental's concrete interest in the grant of an application for an chanrobles.com-red