Opinion ID: 720568
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the sunset clausese

Text: 29 We turn now to the issues if and when the 1983 decree terminated. The Department contends that on November 1, 1989 the sunset clause was activated and, as a matter of law, terminated the court's jurisdiction. As a result, the Department concludes, the district court lacked jurisdiction to enter the 1995 Reinstatement Order, breathing life into what it viewed as a deceased decree. We conclude otherwise. The Department may not now assert issues which have long expired. 30 In 1993, the district court stated, on the record, that it was convinced that all the parties had agreed to extend the consent decree beyond any sunset provision, but that the court had been unable to locate the order memorializing this extension. To clarify what it found to be either a clerical error or an administrative oversight, the court entered another order, the '93 Extension Order. That order expressly extended the Consent Decree-- retroactively from November 1, 1989 and indefinitely into the future. Neither party objected; neither party appealed. The matter ends there except for the court's inherent and continuing jurisdiction to enforce its decree--essential to the court's constitutional function.