Opinion ID: 770692
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Moot-ness and Standing

Text: 11 The appellants argue that Cole and Chris and Jason Niemeyer each has a live case or controversy for injunctive relief and damages related to the District's policy of refusing to permit sectarian, proselytizing speeches as part of the Oroville graduation. They rely on the capable of repetition, yet evading review exception to moot-ness and the third-party standing doctrines of First Amendment over-breadth and jus tertii. They argue further that the additional Oroville students have standing to bring suit because they may present valedictory speeches or invocations in the future and thus the District's policy will infringe upon their freedom of speech. Finally, they argue that the parents and additional students have standing to bring First Amendment free speech and establishment clause claims as prospective participants or attendees at future graduations. With the exception of Cole's and Niemeyer's damage claims, which we discuss below in the context of qualified immunity, we disagree with all of appellants' arguments. 12
13 As the Supreme Court has recently noted, both standing and mootness are jurisdictional issues deriving from the requirement of a case or controversy under Article III. See Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 120 S.Ct. 693, 703-04, 145 L.Ed.2d 610 (2000); see also Blair v. Shanahan, 38 F.3d 1514, 1518 (9th Cir. 1994) ( `Article III of the Constitution requires that there be a live case or controversy at the time that a federal court decides the case . . . .'  (quoting Burke v. Barnes , 479 U.S. 361, 363 (1987))). It is well-settled that once a student graduates, he no longer has a live case or controversy justifying declaratory and injunctive relief against a school's action or policy. See Doe v. Madison Sch. Dist. No. 321, 177 F.3d 789, 798 (9th Cir. 1999) (en banc). Thus, this court has no jurisdiction to entertain the claims for injunctive relief brought by Cole and Chris and Jason Niemeyer unless an exception to mootness applies. 14 The capable of repetition, yet evading review exception to mootness applies only when (1) the challenged action is too short in duration to be fully litigated before cessation or expiration, and (2) there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be subjected to the same action again. See Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 17 (1998); Madison Sch. Dist., 177 F.3d at 798. In Madison School District, we held that this exception did not apply to a student's Establishment Clause challenge to a school district's graduation prayer policy because the student had graduated, and thus would never again be compelled to participate in a prayer at his or her high school graduation ceremony. 177 F.3d at 799. Similarly, as graduates of Oroville, Cole and Chris and Jason Niemeyer will never again be required to omit sectarian references from their Oroville graduation presentations. This case is therefore different from Lee v. Weisman , 505 U.S. 577 (1992), in which the Supreme Court concluded that, although the student who objected to the graduation prayer at her middle school had herself graduated, the Court had a live and justiciable controversy before it because she was enrolled as a high school student in the same district and it appeared likely, if not certain, that an invocation and benediction [would] be conducted at her high school graduation. Id. at 584. Thus, Cole's and the Niemeyers' injunctive claims are moot. 2 15 The appellants try to avoid the jurisdictional defect in the injunctive claims of Cole and Chris and Jason Niemeyer by asserting that they present a live controversy under the third party standing doctrines of First Amendment over-breadth and jus tertii. Appellants' claim is more properly characterized as an over-breadth claim than as jus tertii because the appellants base their third-party claim on a theory that the District might in the future apply its policy to infringe the rights of students at Oroville, not that a single application of the District's policy threatens their rights as well as those of a third-party. 3 Nevertheless, whichever theory of third-party standing applies, Cole and Chris and Jason Niemeyer can no longer sustain such a claim. 16 Under the doctrine of jus tertii, a plaintiff can invoke the rights of third parties who are not before the court only if that plaintiff has a sufficiently concrete interest in the outcome of the[ ] suit to make it a case or controversy subject to a federal court's Art. III jurisdiction . . . . Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 112 (1976); accord Powers v. Ohio , 499 U.S. 400, 411 (1991); see also Note, Standing to Assert Constitutional Jus Tertii, 88 Harv. L. Rev. 423, 429 (1974) (Because the judiciary's primary role in judicial review is to adjudicate the rights of the private parties before it, the mere fact that the constitutional rights of third parties may be in jeopardy provides no justification for judicial intervention.  (footnote omitted)). Similarly, only if he presents a case or controversy, [may] a litigant . . . challenge a statute by showing that it substantially abridges the First Amendment rights of other parties not before the court. Village of Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 444 U.S. 620, 634 (1980) (emphasis added); accord Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U.S. 809, 816-17 (1975) (explaining that, in order to have overbreadth standing, a person must have a `claim of specific present objective harm or a threat of specific future harm,'  and concluding that this requirement is met where there can be no doubt concerning the appellant's personal stake in the outcome of the controversy (quoting Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 13-14 (1972))). In short, a litigant cannot sustain an over-breadth or jus tertii claim if he no longer has a personal interest in the outcome which itself satisfies the case or controversy requirement. See Howard v. City of Burlingame, 937 F.2d 1376, 1381 n.7 (9th Cir. 1991) (noting that litigant's facial over-breadth challenge to city zoning ordinance requiring special permits for radio antennas over 25 feet became moot when the city granted his permit to erect such an antenna). 17 Although a student's graduation moots his claims for declaratory and injunctive relief against school officials, it does not moot his damage claims. See Madison Sch. Dist., 177 F.3d at 798. Thus, we must address the damage claims brought by Cole and Chris Niemeyer and determine whether the District officials are entitled to qualified immunity for their decisions to refuse to allow these students to give a sectarian speech or prayer as part of the Oroville graduation ceremony. 4 Before we reach that question, we turn to the issue of whether the other appellants have standing to sustain the claims for injunctive relief. 18
19 Appellants argue that the other students, parents of Oroville students and others likely to attend future graduations joined in the third amended complaint have standing to bring a claim to enjoin the school from prohibiting sectarian speeches and prayers as part of the graduation ceremony. This argument fails because any injury to these parties is too speculative to satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement of Article III. 20 Article III standing requires an injury that is actual or imminent, not `conjectural' or `hypothetical.'  Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155 (1990) (quoting City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 101-02 (1983)). In the context of injunctive relief, the plaintiff must demonstrate a real or immediate threat of an irreparable injury. See Lyons, 461 U.S. at 110-11. In Preferred Communications, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, 13 F.3d 1327 (9th Cir. 1994) (per curiam), we held that a company unlawfully denied the opportunity to compete for a cable franchise lacked standing to bring damage claims against the city for profits the company would have received had it been awarded a franchise. Id. at 1333-34. We concluded the alleged injury was too uncertain because it depended on the very speculative assumption that the company would have received the franchise as the most qualified competitor and would have built and operated a profitable cable franchise . . . if it had only been given the chance. Id. at 1334. Similarly, the other students, parents and others likely to attend future Oroville graduations lack standing because the likelihood that they will suffer a future injury depends upon the highly speculative assumption that a student seeking to give a sectarian speech or prayer will be chosen as valedictorian or salutatorian, or will be elected by classmates to deliver an invocation. 5 This threat of injury is neither real nor immediate. Cf. Eggar v. Livingston, 40 F.3d 312, 316-17 (9th Cir. 1994) (holding that plaintiffs alleging city had policy of imprisoning indigent defendants without appointing counsel did not have standing to bring declaratory or injunctive claims because the likelihood that they would suffer future injury relied on a  `chain of speculative contingencies'  (quoting Nelson v. King County, 895 F.2d 1248, 1252 (9th Cir. 1990)). 21