Opinion ID: 1435575
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: an actual controversy is presented

Text: As a threshold issue, amicus curiae suggests that the case should be dismissed as not presenting an actual controversy. As this court has recognized, `The duty of this court, as of every other judicial tribunal, is to decide actual controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and not to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the matter in issue in the case before it.' State v. Teeter, 65 Nev. 584, 654, 200 P.2d 657, 691 (1948). The principle requires that a court act only to redress injury that fairly can be traced to the challenged action of the defendant, and not injury that results from the action of some third party not before the court. Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 41-42, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 1926, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976). Accord, National Collegiate Athletic Ass'n v. Califano, 444 F. Supp. 425 (D.Kan. 1978). In State v. McCullough, 20 Nev. 154, 156, 18 P. 756 (1888), the court observed that Courts uniformly refuse to consider cases brought upon pretended controversies, when the object of the suit is to get the opinion of the court for the benefit of the parties themselves, or to affect the interest of third persons. In the instant case, it is clear that the purpose of the university's suspension of Tarkanian was to carry out the mandate of the NCAA, and not merely to create a cause of action for litigation. There is no evidence whatever to suggest that had the university prevailed it would then have reinstated Tarkanian, in defiance of what it had determined were its contractual obligations to the NCAA and in the face of prospective sanctions by the NCAA. This case does present an actual controversy, and therefore shall not be dismissed.