Opinion ID: 628621
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: District court's authority to consider sua sponte termination of the decree

Text: When the remedy prescribed in the consent decree has been accomplished, a district court does not have to await a party's motion to terminate a decree which requires temporary supervisory jurisdiction of an agreed upon consent decree. In Swift, the Court stated: The result is all one whether the decree has been entered after litigation or by consent. In either event, a court does not abdicate its power to revoke or modify its mandate, if satisfied that what it has been doing has been turned through changing circumstances into an instrument of wrong. 31 The First Circuit in In re Pearson, 32 has spoken on this subject: In institutional reform litigation, injunctions should not operate inviolate in perpetuity. This must mean that, notwithstanding the parties' silence or inertia, the district court is not doomed to some Sisyphean fate, bound forever to enforce and interpret a preexisting decree without occasionally pausing to question whether changing circumstances have rendered the decree unnecessary, outmoded, or even harmful to the public interest.