Court Opinion

ID: 9380522
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-20 14:01:41.112554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:25.798930
License: Public Domain

Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023)              1

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
 MICHELLE CHAPMAN, CLERK, CIRCUIT COURT OF
  MISSOURI, RANDOLPH COUNTY v. JANE DOE, BY
       NEXT FRIEND ANTHONY E. ROTHERT

   ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED
   STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
               No. 22–312.   Decided March 20, 2023

   The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judg-
ment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United
States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit with instruc-
tions to dismiss the case as moot. See United States v. Mun-
singwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36 (1950).
   JUSTICE JACKSON, dissenting.
   I am concerned that contemporary practice related to so-
called “Munsingwear vacaturs” has drifted away from the
doctrine’s foundational moorings.
                          *    *     *
   When a case becomes moot, the losing party is generally
deprived of the right to appeal the merits of an adverse de-
cision. U. S. Bancorp Mortgage Co. v. Bonner Mall Partner-
ship, 513 U. S. 18, 21–22 (1994). In United States v. Mun-
singwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36, 38–39 (1950), this Court
observed that, sometimes, that result might be especially
unfair, and thus a request for vacatur of the lower court’s
judgment may be entertained, and granted, to address the
inequity. But the Court declined to do so in Munsingwear
itself because the equities did not favor the party request-
ing that relief, as the party had “slept on its rights.” Id., at
41. Later, this Court clarified that this “Munsingwear va-
catur” remedy is available only in “extraordinary” or “ex-
ceptional” cases where a party meets the burden of demon-
strating equitable entitlement to vacatur in an otherwise
moot case. Bancorp, 513 U. S., at 26, 29.
2                     CHAPMAN v. DOE

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

   Here, the majority has acquiesced to the parties’ joint re-
quest for a Munsingwear vacatur. This case involves a law-
suit that respondent Doe filed in the U. S. District Court for
the Eastern District of Missouri, invoking Rev. Stat. §1979,
42 U. S. C. §1983 and alleging that petitioner Chapman vi-
olated the Fourteenth Amendment when she denied Doe ac-
cess to a judicial bypass for an abortion without parental
notification. The Eighth Circuit rejected Chapman’s plea
for quasi-judicial and qualified immunity, see 30 F. 4th 766
(2022), after which this Court issued Dobbs v. Jackson
Women’s Health Organization, 597 U. S. ___ (2022). That
decision led the parties to jointly stipulate to dismiss Doe’s
civil action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
41(a)(1)(A)(ii), thereby mooting the case. Doe could only
have effectuated a dismissal of her case without a court or-
der if Chapman agreed to the dismissal, see ibid., and, ap-
parently, Chapman agreed on the condition that Doe did
not object to a request for Munsingwear vacatur from this
Court.
   Whatever the parties might have seen fit to agree to, we
have long recognized that the equities generally do not fa-
vor Munsingwear vacatur when the party requesting such
relief played a role in rendering the case moot. See, e.g.,
Bancorp, 513 U. S., at 25; United States v. Hamburg-
Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien Gesellschaft, 239 U. S.
466, 478 (1916). Chapman contributed to the mootness of
this case insofar as she stipulated to its dismissal. And it
is not unfair for us to now deprive her of the benefit of this
bargain, since this form of relief is discretionary, and Chap-
man had other viable options including relying on her orig-
inal request that the Court grant a petition for certiorari,
vacate the Eighth Circuit’s judgment, and remand in light
of Dobbs—our ordinary process for addressing intervening
developments in the law.
   Even more fundamentally, this case presents absolutely
no “extraordinary” circumstances justifying Munsingwear
                  Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023)             3

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

relief. Bancorp, 513 U. S., at 26, 29. The underlying matter
was voluntarily dismissed, and Chapman does not contend
that she is somehow bound to the judgment below; thus, no
unfairness inures from Chapman’s loss of the right to ap-
peal. Indeed, Chapman’s only argument in support of va-
catur is that the Eighth Circuit’s opinion was wrongly de-
cided. But mere disagreement with the decision that one
seeks to have vacated cannot suffice to warrant equitable
relief under Munsingwear. See Bancorp, 513 U. S., at 27
(finding it “inappropriate . . . to vacate mooted cases, in
which we have no constitutional power to decide the merits,
on the basis of assumptions about the merits,” and empha-
sizing that issuance of vacatur should turn on the equities
of the individual case).
   In my view, it is crucial that we hold the line and limit
the availability of Munsingwear vacatur to truly excep-
tional cases. To do otherwise risks considerable damage to
first principles of appellate review, since at least three
background precepts counsel against indiscriminate vaca-
tur of a lower court’s judgment:
   (1) an appellate court generally does not have jurisdiction
to review a moot case, much less issue an order awarding
relief in the matter;
   (2) Munsingwear vacatur is an exception to the statuto-
rily prescribed path for obtaining relief from adverse judg-
ments (namely, appeals as of right and certiorari); and
   (3) our common-law system assumes that judicial deci-
sions are valuable and should not be cast aside lightly, es-
pecially because judicial precedents “ ‘are not merely the
property of private litigants,’ ” but also belong to the public
and “ ‘legal community as a whole.’ ” Bancorp, 513 U. S., at
21, 26–27 (citation omitted). Injudicious awards of Mun-
singwear vacatur can also incentivize gamesmanship, as it,
for example, enables parties to disclaim potential mootness
before the lower court, and, if unsuccessful on the merits at
4                         CHAPMAN v. DOE

                        JACKSON, J., dissenting

that stage, argue mootness on appeal to eliminate the ad-
verse decision through vacatur.*
                         *    *     *
   While these core principles warrant an exceedingly cau-
tious approach to Munsingwear vacatur requests, our re-
cent practices reflect a sharp uptick in the number of vaca-
turs awarded. I would not add this far-from-exceptional
case to that growing list.

——————
  *See, e.g., Mayorkas v. Innovation Law Lab, 594 U. S. ___ (2021) (issu-
ing Munsingwear vacatur in a case where, after a preliminary injunction
against the Government was imposed and the appellate court affirmed,
the Government ceased the challenged policy and then asked this Court
to vacate the lower court opinion as moot); Maryland v. United States
Dept. of Ed., 2020 WL 7773390, *1 (D DC, Dec. 29, 2020) (party argued
to District Court that an issue was not moot but reversed course and
argued to the appellate court that the issue was moot, so as to obtain
vacatur of the adverse decision).