Opinion ID: 1163270
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the mootness doctrine

Text: Mootness is a state or condition which prevents the appellate court from rendering effective relief. [7] Where, as here, after an appeal has been commenced, conditions arise which preclude an appellate decision from affording any effective relief, the appeal will be dismissed for mootness. [8] A viable controversy must exist at all stages of reviewboth on appeal and certiorari. [9] This court will neither decide abstract or hypothetical questions disconnected from affording actual relief nor make determinations when no practical relief is possible. [10] This is the essence of the law's mootness doctrine. Oklahoma jurisprudence recognizes but two escape hatches from its strictures  the public-interest [11] and the likelihood-of-recurrence [12] exceptions. Neither exception is present here. City 's sentence of nullity makes unlikely, if not indeed impossible, any future recurrence that would evade our review. When this action was initiated below, there was a justiciable controversy over Authority's status as a public body that would be subject to the prevailing-wage provisions of the Act. [13] This very issue was pending before us on certiorari when City held that post-October 10, 1995 public construction contracts were no longer to be governed by the prevailing-wage clause. City's pronouncement fully mooted the core of this controversy. Since no contract had yet been negotiated or entered into, the contest over Authority's status as a public body within the meaning of the Act no longer presents a legally viable controversy.