Court Opinion

ID: 9567281
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:51:45.256289+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:30.589222
License: Public Domain

CALABRESI, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree with everything substantive in the per curiam opinion1 and join it in full. I add a few lines because I think it is worthwhile to point out that this case was in fact moot at the district court level.
In Spring 2003, the defendant Student Association abolished the challenged funding policy. In September 2005, the district court granted the Plaintiffs’ summary judgment motion as to liability. In October 2006, the parties entered into the stipulation that — we have held — caused this case to become moot. Then, in February 2007, final judgment was entered, and the Student Association timely appealed.
The event which led us to find that this case is moot happened between the district court’s grant of summary judgment and the entry of final judgment below. I write to underscore that even after summary judgment has been granted, if, before the entry of final judgment, something occurs that causes a case to cease to be an Article III case or controversy, that action becomes moot and should be dismissed forthwith. This is so because the “case-or-controversy requirement subsists through all stages of federal judicial proceedings,” Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 7, 118 S.Ct. 978, 140 L.Ed.2d 43 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Altman v. Bedford Cent. Sch. Dist., 245 F.3d 49, 70 (2d Cir.2001).
Moreover, the fact that the case was moot before the district court entered final judgment forecloses any possible claim by the Plaintiffs for attorneys’ fees under 42 *37U.S.C. § 1988(b). “Whether [a plaintiff] can be deemed a ‘prevailing party’ in the District Court, even though its judgment was mooted after being rendered but before the losing party could challenge its validity on appeal, is a question of some difficulty.” Lewis v. Continental Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 472, 483, 110 S.Ct. 1249, 108 L.Ed.2d 400 (1990); see also Diffenderfer v. Gomez-Colon, 587 F.3d 445, 454 (1st Cir.2009) (answering the question in the affirmative and collecting other cases doing the same). But that question cannot arise in this case. “Since the judgment below is vacated on the basis of an event that mooted the controversy before the [district court’s] judgment issued, [the Plaintiffs were] not, at that stage, ... ‘prevailing part[ies]’ as [they] must be to recover fees under § 1988.” Lewis, 494 U.S. at 483, 110 S.Ct. 1249.

. I would, however, for the sake of Latin, substitute "[nostra ]” for "sua ” in the quotation from Joseph v. Leavitt, 465 F.3d 87, 89 (2d Cir.2006), ante, at 35.