Opinion ID: 814597
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ongoing Controversy

Text: Aslin’s case is moot because he no longer has the designation that he claims violates his due process rights, and he is not seeking any retrospective relief. As we know, a broker is included on the list of brokers who worked at Disciplined Firms only if the broker worked at a DisciNo. 12-2250 7 plined Firm within the last three years. Aslin last worked at a Disciplined Firm — Brewer Financial — in March 2009. By the end of March 2012 FINRA no longer counted him as a member of a Disciplined Firm under the Taping Rule. When the district court decided the case in April 2012, Aslin no longer had the designation he challenged. Because Aslin was no longer being counted adversely under the rule, there was no justiciable controversy. Aslin’s complaint seeks only: (1) a declaration that the Taping Rule denied him due process of law and (2) an injunction preventing the application of the rule to him unless and until he is afforded an opportunity to challenge the designation. The court could not grant or effect the relief Aslin sought — to prevent FINRA from designating him as a member of a Disciplined Firm without process — since FINRA is no longer designating Aslin as such or threatening to designate him in the immediate future. If this suit were to continue, Aslin would be asking a court either to tell FINRA to stop doing something that it is not doing, or to declare rights and obligations about a controversy that no longer exists. In either case there is no longer an ongoing controversy and no jurisdiction.3 3 This is not a case where a defendant has voluntarily discontinued the challenged activity or policy but reserved the right to change its mind. In such cases the question of mootness may be more difficult because dismissal would leave the defendant free to return to its old ways. E.g., United (continued...) 8 No. 12-2250 Aslin contends, however, that the alleged violation of his due process rights is continuing to cause him harm that this suit may remedy. He contends that the rule caused him to be terminated from his employment, and that he has not yet been reinstated or found other work as a broker. He also claims that this fact will make it more difficult for him to get employment in the future. But these injuries, significant though they may be, could not be remedied by the relief sought in this case. A declaration that a rule not currently being applied to Aslin violates his due process rights does not address the problem of lingering harm from the actions of private persons. Such a declaration would not require BEST Direct to rehire Aslin or prohibit a prospective employer from considering the fact that he was fired because of the Taping Rule. Aslin cites the Supreme Court’s decision in Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 437 (1971), for the proposition that he has a right to remove the stigma of the rule from his name. Aslin’s reliance on Constantineau is misplaced. The decision held that there is a due process right to contest a present government designation that challenges “a person’s good name, reputation, honor, or integrity . . . .” Id. at 437. The case did not say that a suit seeking to enjoin conduct alleged to violate the Due 3 (...continued) States v. W.T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. 629, 632-33 (1953). Under the terms of the challenged FINRA Taping Rule, the rule’s application to plaintiff Aslin simply expired by passage of time. No. 12-2250 9 Process Clause remains justiciable when the defendant is no longer engaging, or threatening to engage, in the conduct. In Constantineau a police chief posted a notice in local liquor stores that Constantineau was prohibited from purchasing liquor. The chief did this under authority of a Wisconsin statute that permitted him to “forbid the sale or gift of intoxicating liquors to one who ‘by excessive drinking’ produces described conditions or exhibits specified traits, such as exposing himself or family ‘to want’ or becoming ‘dangerous to the peace’ of the community.” Id. at 434, quoting Wis. Stat. § 176.26 (1967). Constantineau sought an injunction against the statute on the ground that the statute violated her right to due process because it attached a stigma of wrongdoing to her without affording her any process to challenge the designation. In effect, the posting was a “quasijudicial determination” that the police chief “ ‘found the particular individual’s behavior to fall within one of the categories enumerated in the statutes’ ” that permitted such posting. Id. at 436, quoting Constantineau v. Grager, 302 F. Supp. 861, 864 (E.D. Wis. 1969). Constantineau brought suit seeking to invalidate a state law that was currently depriving her of her due process rights. A decision holding the law unconstitutional could provide immediate relief from the application of the law. Here, Aslin no longer has the designation that he complains violates his right to due process. A possible decision that the Taping Rule is unconstitutional would not provide him relief from the rule, because the 10 No. 12-2250 rule is no longer being applied to him, and he is not seeking redress for the past harm.4