Opinion ID: 61690
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Standard for determining mootness

Text: As a general rule, any set of circumstances that eliminates actual controversy after the commencement of a lawsuit renders that action moot. Carmouche, 449 F.3d at 661. A case should not be declared moot [a]s long as the parties maintain a `concrete interest in the outcome' and effective relief is available to remedy the effect of the violation .... Dailey v. Vought Aircraft Co., 141 F.3d 224, 227 (5th Cir.1998). But a case will become moot where there are no longer adverse parties with sufficient legal interests to maintain the litigation or when the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome of the litigation. In re Scruggs, 392 F.3d at 128. As the Supreme Court has noted, it is not enough that a dispute was very much alive when the suit was filed; ... [t]he parties must continue to have a personal stake in the outcome of the lawsuit. Lewis v. Cont'l Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 472, 477-78, 110 S.Ct. 1249, 108 L.Ed.2d 400 (1990) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). ECO argues that, if the EPA-negotiated consent decree can moot its citizen suit, the test for mootness should be the traditional, stringent standard that was applied by this court in Carr v. Alta Verde Industries. According to Carr, in order to have a case dismissed as moot, [t]he defendant must demonstrate that it is absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur. 931 F.2d at 1062 (quoting Gwaltney, 484 U.S. at 66, 108 S.Ct. 376) (some quotation marks omitted; emphasis in original). Under this standard, the party asserting mootness bears the formidable burden of showing that its alleged violations of the CWA cannot reasonably be expected to recur. Laidlaw, 528 U.S. at 189-90, 120 S.Ct. 693. As such, ECO argues that the City must prove that the consent decree actually stops all violations without any likelihood the violations will recur in order to have its citizen suit dismissed as moot. However, the test for mootness that ECO urges us to apply is derived from cases in which the defendant argued that its voluntary conduct mooted the plaintiff's suit. See Laidlaw, 528 U.S. at 189, 120 S.Ct. 693 (The only conceivable basis for a finding of mootness in this case is Laidlaw's voluntary conduct ....); Carr, 931 F.2d at 1061-65 (cattle feedlot's voluntary improvements and application for CWA permit did not moot citizen suit). This stringent standard is appropriate when considering voluntary cessations of CWA violations because it protects plaintiffs from defendants who seek to evade sanction by predictable protestations of repentance and reform. Gwaltney, 484 U.S. at 66, 108 S.Ct. 376 (quotation marks omitted). For example, if we were considering an argument by the City that ECO's claims were moot because the City voluntarily hired the requisite number of compliance and monitoring staff or voluntarily set aside funds for supplemental environmental projects, we would employ the standard discussed in Laidlaw and Carr because there would no impediment to the City's laying off the new hires or reallocating the funds after ECO's suit was dismissed. Far from voluntary, the City's compliance with the terms of its MS4 Permit and the CWA has been compelled by an EPA enforcement action and the resulting court-approved consent decree. Further, the actions that allegedly moot ECO's suit are actions of third parties (the EPA and a federal court), not those of the City. As such, we would not be relying solely on the City's assurances that it will not return to [its] old ways. United States v. W.T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. 629, 632, 73 S.Ct. 894, 97 L.Ed. 1303 (1953). Under such circumstances, Carr 's stringent test for voluntary mootness is inappropriate. Instead, we apply the test that has been endorsed by the Second and Eighth Circuits, under which ECO's claims for relief are moot unless ECO (the citizen-suit plaintiff) proves that there is a realistic prospect that the violations alleged in its complaint will continue notwithstanding the consent decree. Comfort Lake, 138 F.3d at 355; Eastman Kodak, 933 F.2d at 128. [4] This standard for determining whether a CWA citizen suit has been mooted by a subsequent government enforcement action respects Congress's intent that citizen suits supplement rather than ... supplant government action. Gwaltney, 484 U.S. at 60, 108 S.Ct. 376. The primary function of a citizen suit is to spur agency enforcement of law. See Nat'l Wildlife Fed'n v. Hanson, 859 F.2d 313, 317 (4th Cir.1988) (such suits help ensure that the agencies fulfill their duties under the CWA responsibly). That is why the Supreme Court has noted that citizen suits are proper only `if the Federal, State, and local agencies fail to exercise their enforcement responsibility.' Gwaltney, 484 U.S. at 60, 108 S.Ct. 376 (quoting S.Rep. No. 92-414, at 64 (1971), reprinted in 1972 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3668, 3730). Were we to employ the stringent voluntary cessation standard urged by ECO to these circumstances  where compliance was brought about as the result of an EPA enforcement action and a court-approved consent decree  we would effectively cede primary enforcement authority under the CWA to citizens acting in the role of private attorneys general. Such ceding would discourage defendants in a citizen from entering a consent decree with federal or state enforcement agencies, because defendants would remain exposed to duplicative penalties. See Gwaltney, 484 U.S. at 60-61, 108 S.Ct. 376; Eastman Kodak, 933 F.2d at 127. Not only might this lead to under-enforcement of the CWA, it would also shift primary responsibility from the expert agencies to the necessarily generalist courts. Cf. Sierra Club, Lone Star Chapter v. Cedar Point Oil Co., 73 F.3d 546, 579 (5th Cir.1996) (primary regulation of pollution should be by the EPA, not through a federal district court's supervision); Eastman Kodak, 933 F.2d at 127. Further, the realistic prospect mootness standard that we employ today comports with Congress's policy that only diligent prosecutions preempt citizen suits. See § 1365(b)(1)(B). If a citizen-suit plaintiff demonstrates that there is a realistic prospect that the violations alleged in its complaint will continue notwithstanding the government-backed consent decree, then a less-than-diligent prosecution might have been shown. Placing the burden on the citizen-suit plaintiff to demonstrate that his claims are not mooted by the consent decree is also in step with Congressional policy. See Karr v. Hefner, 475 F.3d 1192, 1198 (10th Cir.2007) (noting that the citizen-suit plaintiff bears the burden to demonstrate that an EPA prosecution is not diligent). For these reasons, we adopt the realistic prospect test for mootness that has been employed by the Second and Eighth Circuits in this context.