Court Opinion

ID: 9911500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-20 01:00:43.629651+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:50:21.605825
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-30634      Document: 00517007642          Page: 1     Date Filed: 12/19/2023

            United States Court of Appeals
                 for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                        United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                 Fifth Circuit

                                           FILED
                                 ____________
                                                                        December 19, 2023
                                  No. 23-30634                            Lyle W. Cayce
                                 ____________                                  Clerk

   Molly Smith, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated,
   real party in interest Alex A.; Kenione Rogers, individually and on behalf
   of all others similarly situated, real party in interest, Brian B., real party in
   interest, Charles C.,

                                                             Plaintiffs—Appellees,

                                        versus

   John Bel Edwards, Governor; in his official capacity as
   Governor of Louisiana; William Sommers, in his official
   capacity as Deputy Secretary of the Office of Juvenile Justice; James M.
   LeBlanc, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of
   Public Safety & Corrections,

                                           Defendants—Appellants.
                   ______________________________

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Middle District of Louisiana
                             USDC No. 3:22-CV-573
                   ______________________________

   Before Higginbotham, Stewart, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.
   Cory T. Wilson, Circuit Judge:
          Defendants, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, Deputy Secretary
   of the Office of Juvenile Justice William Sommers, and Secretary of the
   Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections James M. LeBlanc,
Case: 23-30634      Document: 00517007642          Page: 2   Date Filed: 12/19/2023

                                    No. 23-30634

   appeal the district court’s preliminary injunction ordering them to remove
   juvenile offenders from Bridge City Center for Youth at West Feliciana
   (BCCY-WF) and enjoining them from housing juveniles at BCCY-WF in the
   future. But the injunction has automatically expired under the Prison
   Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). See 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(2). So the appeal is
   moot. Accordingly, we dismiss Defendants’ interlocutory appeal and vacate
   the district court’s underlying order.
                                            I.
           The Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) is the Louisiana state agency
   responsible for providing rehabilitative services to delinquent youth. La.
   Stat. Ann. § 15:905(A). OJJ maintains five secure care facilities across
   Louisiana to house juvenile offenders who cannot be housed with the general
   youth population because of behavioral issues. Historically, those five
   facilities have been sufficient. But beginning in 2021, OJJ experienced a
   significant increase in the frequency and severity of serious incidents at the
   facilities.
           In May 2021, certain “high-risk” youths detained at one of the secure
   care facilities destroyed a housing unit. Subsequently, OJJ transferred them
   to a facility in Alabama, which they also destroyed. The youths were then
   returned to Louisiana and redispersed among the five secure care facilities.
   Upon their return, the offenders resumed their violent behavior, sparking
   riots and staging escape attempts. After one successful escape, five of the
   youths stole a truck and rammed it into a sheriff’s vehicle, while another
   carjacked a vehicle, shooting and critically injuring the driver. These youths
   also victimized other juveniles at the facilities, assaulted OJJ staff with
   weapons, and caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage to the facilities
   where they were housed. Louisiana’s secure care facilities were no longer

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   capable of containing and rehabilitating these high-risk youths while
   protecting other youths, facility staff, and the public.
          After exploring different options, OJJ determined that a building
   located on the campus of the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola) could be
   modified to provide the necessary layout and infrastructure to house the
   high-risk youths. This building eventually became BCCY-WF. It was
   formerly used to house adult female inmates, and before that it was the death
   row cell block.
          In summer 2022, OJJ made necessary changes to the facility and
   prepared to open BCCY-WF. Though located on Angola’s campus, BCCY-
   WF is completely isolated from the adult prison complex, and the youths
   have no interaction with the adult prisoners. Importantly, BCCY-WF was
   intended to be a temporary solution: OJJ is constructing a new Transitional
   Treatment Unit (TTU) that has the infrastructure to contain and treat high-
   risk youth like those who were moved to BCCY-WF.
          On July 19, 2022, Governor Edwards announced a plan to begin
   moving some of the juveniles to BCCY-WF.               Shortly thereafter, OJJ
   informed Plaintiff Alex A. that he would be among those moved in the coming
   weeks. On August 16, Alex A. filed an emergency Administrative Review
   Procedure (ARP) application on behalf of himself and other similarly situated
   youths, challenging OJJ’s decision to move juveniles to BCCY-WF. The
   next day, after OJJ denied his emergency ARP, Alex A. filed a class-action
   complaint on behalf of himself and a putative class of all youths in OJJ’s
   custody subject to transfer to BCCY-WF.             He sought a preliminary
   injunction requiring OJJ to cease plans to transfer him and the other plaintiffs
   to BCCY-WF.
          After days of hearings, the district court denied Plaintiffs’ request for
   a preliminary injunction in a 64-page order. See Alex A. ex rel Smith v.

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   Edwards, No. 22-573, 2022 WL 4445499 (M.D. La. Sept. 23, 2022). In
   concluding that there was not a substantial likelihood that moving the youths
   to BCCY-WF would violate their constitutional rights, the district court
   expressly relied on promises by Defendants that (1) the use of BCCY-WF
   would be short term; (2) BCCY-WF would only be used for a small
   population of youth; (3) the youths would not be isolated to their cells for
   long periods of time; (4) their treatment at BCCY-WF would be rehabilitative
   and therapeutic, not punitive; (5) BCCY-WF would be adequately staffed;
   (6) the youths would have access to an appropriate education; (7) mental
   health counselors would be available; and (8) the youths would receive
   weekly individual counseling. Id. at *18–30; see Alex A. ex rel Smith v.
   Edwards, No. 22-573, 2023 WL 5984280, at *1 (M.D. La. Sept. 14, 2023)
   (Smith II).
          Just under a year later, Plaintiffs filed a second motion for preliminary
   injunction. They argued that OJJ was violating their constitutional rights by,
   inter alia, confining them in cells for more than eight hours a day, not
   providing adequate counseling and educational services, and improperly
   using chemical spray and handcuffs. This time, the district court granted
   their motion, finding that “[v]irtually every promise made [by OJJ] was
   broken, causing severe and irreparable harm to the wards that [OJJ] is obliged
   to help.” Smith II, 2023 WL 5984280, at *1. Accordingly, the district court
   ordered OJJ to remove the youths from BCCY-WF and enjoined Defendants
   from housing juveniles there in the future. Id. at *10. The district court
   initially ruled from the bench on September 8, 2023, and entered its written
   order on September 14.
          Defendants filed a notice of appeal on September 13. The same day
   they filed an emergency motion to stay the injunction pending appeal. But
   on September 15, before we ruled on that motion, Defendants moved the
   youths from BCCY-WF to the Jackson Parish Juvenile Facility in Jonesboro,

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   Louisiana. In view of that development, we denied the motion to stay without
   prejudice. We also set an expedited briefing schedule, with Defendants’
   opening brief due October 27, Plaintiffs’ response due November 27, and
   Defendants’ reply due December 1. We set the case for argument on
   December 5, 2023.
           In their opening brief, Defendants argued, inter alia, that Plaintiffs
   failed to exhaust their administrative remedies before filing this action. They
   contended that Alex A. could not “pre-exhaust” claims about a facility where
   he was never housed and about conditions he never experienced. In their
   response brief, Plaintiffs contested Defendants’ exhaustion argument.
   Plaintiffs also argued that Defendants’ appeal was partially mooted when
   Defendants moved the youths from BCCY-WF and would become fully moot
   on December 7 when the preliminary injunction would expire under the
   PLRA. Neither party raised mootness by operation of the PLRA before
   November 27.1 In their reply brief, Defendants offered several grounds for
   concluding that the appeal was not moot, regardless of the expiration of the
   preliminary injunction. Beyond these threshold issues, the parties vigorously
   contested the underlying merits of the district court’s order.
                                              II.
           We review a district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction under an
   abuse-of-discretion standard. United States v. Billingsley, 615 F.3d 404, 408–
   09 (5th Cir. 2010). But “a federal court may not rule on the merits of a case
   without first determining its jurisdiction.” Daves v. Dallas County, 64 F.4th
   616, 623 (5th Cir. 2023) (en banc). “Mootness is a jurisdictional matter

           _____________________
           1
            Plaintiffs filed a motion to dismiss the appeal in part as moot after OJJ moved the
   youths from BCCY-WF. But that motion did not address the expiration of the preliminary
   injunction under the PLRA.

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   which can be raised for the first time on appeal.” Brinsdon v. McAllen Indep.
   Sch. Dist., 863 F.3d 338, 345 (5th Cir. 2017) (quoting Tex. Midstream Gas
   Servs., LLC v. City of Grand Prairie, 608 F.3d 200, 204 (5th Cir. 2010)). “A
   claim is moot when a case or controversy no longer exists between the
   parties.” Id. (citing Bd. of Sch. Comm’rs v. Jacobs, 420 U.S. 128, 129 (1975)).
             The PLRA allows a court to enter a preliminary injunction concerning
   prison conditions in certain circumstances. 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(2). But the
   statute makes clear that “[p]reliminary injunctive relief shall automatically
   expire on the date that is 90 days after its entry,” unless the entering court
   “finds that such relief is narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary
   to correct the violation of the Federal right, and is the least intrusive means
   necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right.” Id. § 3626(a)(1)(A),
   (a)(2).
             In this case, the district court orally announced its preliminary
   injunction ruling on September 8, 2023. And the district court has not made
   the findings required by § 3626(a)(1)(A) to extend the injunction’s duration;
   nor have Plaintiffs otherwise sought to extend it.              Accordingly, the
   preliminary injunction automatically expired on December 7, 2023—or,
   crediting Defendants’ reasoning, on December 13, ninety days after the
   district court entered the written order.2 “Generally, when an injunction
   ‘expires by its own terms,’ it is moot and ‘there is nothing to review.’” Yates
   v. Collier, 677 F. App’x 915, 917 (5th Cir. 2017) (quoting Briggs & Stratton
   Corp. v. Local 232, Int’l Union, Allied Indus. Workers of Am. (AFL-CIO), 36
   F.3d 712, 713 (7th Cir. 1994)); see also Banks v. Booth, 3 F.4th 445, 447–49
   (D.C. Cir. 2021) (finding that case was moot after preliminary injunction

             _____________________
             2
            We need not decide whether the injunction expired on December 7 or December
   13 because, regardless of the date of entry, Defendants’ appeal is now moot.

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                                    No. 23-30634

   expired under the PLRA); Ahlman v. Barnes, 20 F.4th 489, 493–95 (9th Cir.
   2021) (same); United States v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 778 F.3d 1223, 1226–
   30 (11th Cir. 2015) (same).
          Defendants raise three counterpoints to Plaintiffs’ mootness
   arguments. None serves to revivify this appeal. First, they contend that we
   should address the issue of exhaustion before mootness. They assert that
   courts have “leeway to choose among threshold grounds for denying
   audience to a case on the merits.” Daves, 64 F.4th at 623 (quoting Sinochem
   Int’l Co. v. Malaysia Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U.S. 422, 431 (2007)).
   Defendants are correct that there is “no mandatory sequencing of
   jurisdictional issues.” Id. (quoting Sinochem, 549 U.S. at 431). However,
   “the leeway granted by Sinochem is not boundless, but carefully
   circumscribed to cases where [jurisdiction] is difficult to determine, and
   dismissal on another threshold ground is clear.” Daves, 64 F.4th at 655
   (Higginson, J., concurring) (internal quotations omitted); see also Sinochem,
   549 U.S. at 436 (“[W]here subject-matter or personal jurisdiction is difficult
   to determine, and forum non conveniens considerations weigh heavily in favor
   of dismissal, the court properly takes the less burdensome course.”). Here,
   the opposite is true: The jurisdictional question is relatively straightforward;
   the exhaustion question, more difficult. The circumstances of this case
   present nuanced questions about exhaustion, including whether a juvenile
   who has been told he is being moved to an adult prison may exhaust
   administrative remedies before actually being moved to that prison, and how
   the OJJ’s ARP procedures bear on the timing of Plaintiffs’ filing suit. Better
   to leave those questions for another day and “take[] the less burdensome
   course,” which here is mootness. See Sinochem, 549 U.S. at 436.
          Second, Defendants argue that the appeal is not moot because the
   issue is capable of repetition but will evade review. See Shemwell v. City of
   McKinney, 63 F.4th 480, 484 (5th Cir. 2023) (citing S. Pac. Terminal Co. v.

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   Interstate Com. Comm’n, 219 U.S. 498, 515 (1911)). “Th[at] exception applies
   when (1) ‘the challenged action is in its duration too short to be fully litigated
   prior to cessation or expiration’ and (2) ‘there is a reasonable expectation
   that the same complaining party will be subject to the same action again.’”
   Id. (quoting Kingdomware Techs., Inc. v. United States, 579 U.S. 162, 170
   (2016)).   The exception only applies in “exceptional situations,” and
   Defendants must prove both prongs to overcome mootness. Id. “If a court
   finds that [a party] failed to meet [its] burden under either prong, it need not
   address the other.” Id. at 484–85.
          Defendants’ argument fails out of the gate because they have not
   shown that any similar future injunction will evade review. Though a
   preliminary injunction entered under the PLRA otherwise automatically
   expires ninety days after entry, the injunction may be extended by the district
   court if it makes the requisite findings. See 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(2). “There
   is no basis for us to predict that if [Plaintiffs] seek[] a new preliminary
   injunction, the district court . . . will decline to make the required need-
   narrowness-intrusiveness findings or will refrain from finalizing its order.”
   Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 778 F.3d at 1229. And in any event, ninety days is not in
   itself necessarily too short a time fully to litigate a challenge to a PLRA
   injunction. Had the parties raised the PLRA mootness issue in September
   when Defendants filed their notice of appeal—or at least some time before
   Plaintiffs first raised it in their November 27 brief—this court could have set
   a more expedited briefing schedule and perhaps adjudicated the appeal before
   the preliminary injunction expired. Regardless, Defendants fail to show that
   any new injunction entered by the district court would evade review.
          Defendants’ argument also fails to clear the second hurdle because it
   is not clear that they will again be subject to the same action, i.e., that the
   preliminary injunction is capable of repetition. Defendants complied with
   the first part of the injunction when they removed the youths from BCCY-

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   WF on September 15. As for OJJ’s ability to house youth at BCCY-WF in
   the future, Defendants have expressed no present intent to send juveniles
   back to BCCY-WF, and the pending construction of the new TTU raises
   questions about whether BCCY-WF will ever need to be used again.
   Basically, any new injunctive relief would be based on different facts and
   potentially different law, and any challenge to such a ruling would constitute
   a new controversy. And even if youth are again housed at BCCY-WF, there
   is no indication on the present record they would be subject to the same
   conditions found by the district court to be unconstitutional.
          Finally, Defendants contend that even though the preliminary
   injunction has expired, a live controversy remains because of Plaintiffs’
   request for permanent injunctive relief pending in the district court. We do
   not forecast what, if anything, remains to be done regarding the Plaintiffs’
   claims in the district court given the mootness of the preliminary injunction
   and given the events that have transpired on the ground since this appeal was
   filed. Should the district court take further action in the underlying case
   (ranging from a permanent injunction to dismissal of Plaintiffs’ action), we
   cannot predict the parameters of that decision. And we need not do so:
   Today’s case remains an interlocutory appeal of the district court’s
   preliminary injunction, nothing more. Because the preliminary injunction
   has expired, there is no remedy we can provide Defendants at this point.
   Where this court is “unable to grant any remedy for an appellant, its opinion
   would be merely advisory and it must dismiss the appeal as moot.” In re Blast
   Energy Servs., Inc., 593 F.3d 418, 423 (5th Cir. 2010).
                                        III.
          Having concluded that this appeal is moot, we must address whether
   to vacate the district court’s order. “[H]istorically, the established rule was
   to vacate the judgment if the case became moot on appeal.” Staley v. Harris

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   County, 485 F.3d 305, 310 (5th Cir. 2007). However, in U.S. Bancorp
   Mortgage Co. v. Bonner Mall Partnership, 513 U.S. 18 (1994), “[t]he Supreme
   Court made clear and emphasized that vacatur is an ‘extraordinary’ and
   equitable remedy . . . to be determined on a case-by-case basis.” Staley, 485
   F.3d at 310. One principal consideration “is whether the party seeking relief
   from the judgment . . . caused the mootness by voluntary action.”                 Id.
   (quoting U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. at 24). “Thus, for example, ‘vacatur must
   be granted where mootness results from the unilateral action of the party who
   prevailed in the [district] court.’” Id. (quoting U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. at 23).
          The equitable principles espoused in U.S. Bancorp and recognized by
   Staley apply in this case. Though Defendants complied with the preliminary
   injunction by removing the youths from BCCY-WF, they did not cause
   mootness by voluntary action. And though the injunction automatically
   expired under the PLRA, Plaintiffs could have sought an extension to extend
   its duration. See Yates, 677 F. App’x at 918. Having been “frustrated by the
   vagaries of circumstance, [Defendants] ought not in fairness be forced to
   acquiesce in the judgment.” Staley, 485 F.3d at 310 (quoting U.S. Bancorp,
   513 U.S. at 25); see Yates, 677 F. App’x at 918; see also Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 778
   F.3d at 1229–30. Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s order.
                                           IV.
          Based on the foregoing, we dismiss Defendants’ appeal as moot and
   vacate the district court’s preliminary injunction.3
                             APPEAL DISMISSED; ORDER VACATED.

          _____________________
          3
            American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry et al., filed an opposed
   motion for leave to file and amici curiae brief. That motion is GRANTED. The opposed
   motion of Plaintiffs to strike portions of Defendants’ motion to stay is DENIED AS
   MOOT.

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