Court Opinion

ID: 9403702
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-21 16:01:02.907347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:08.871627
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                For the Seventh Circuit
                   ____________________

No. 22-2828
DEBORAH BRUMIT and ANDREW SIMPSON,
                                            Plaintiffs-Appellants,

                               v.

CITY OF GRANITE CITY, ILLINOIS,
                                             Defendant-Appellee.
                   ____________________

           Appeal from the United States District Court
                for the Southern District of Illinois.
          No. 19-CV-1090-SMY — Staci M. Yandle, Judge.
                   ____________________

       ARGUED MAY 25, 2023 — DECIDED JUNE 16, 2023
                ____________________

   Before EASTERBROOK, ROVNER, and LEE, Circuit Judges.
    EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. After the Supreme Court held
in HUD v. Rucker, 535 U.S. 125 (2002), that a public housing
authority may enforce a term in a tenant’s lease allowing evic-
tion if a member of the household or guest commits a crime
(even without the tenant’s knowledge), some cities enacted
ordinances extending that approach to private leases. The Jus-
tices remarked in Rucker that the decision involved subsidized
2                                                  No. 22-2828

tenancies rather than the regulation of private conduct. 535
U.S. at 135. They added that the approved system also al-
lowed the landlord discretion to decide whether eviction is
appropriate. Id. at 133–34. Granite City, Illinois, departed
from the Rucker model in both ways. It required private land-
lords to evict tenants not as a condition of receiving a subsidy
but as a ma[er of regulatory compulsion, and it deprived
landlords of any discretion to excuse violations.
    Deborah Brumit and Andrew Simpson permi[ed their
adult daughter to stay in their leased home occasionally dur-
ing 2019. One night that June they welcomed their daughter
and her boyfriend into their house brieﬂy. After the visitors
left, they were arrested for stealing a van. Within days, the
City served a “Notice of Violation.” Plaintiﬀs contested this
Notice, but a hearing oﬃcer directed plaintiﬀs’ landlord to
begin eviction proceedings.
    The landlord, who did not want to evict Brumit and Simp-
son, dragged his feet long enough for them to ﬁle this suit un-
der 42 U.S.C. §1983. A district court swiftly entered a tempo-
rary restraining order, which it later converted to a prelimi-
nary injunction forbidding eviction while the federal suit con-
tinued. In January 2022, while still protected by this injunc-
tion, Brumit and Simpson gave up their lease voluntarily and
moved out of Granite City. They do not plan to return, even
though Granite City has amended its ordinance to abrogate
the features about which they complain. The parties agree
that these events eliminate the justiﬁcation for prospective re-
lief. Indeed, one might think that they make the case moot.
But the district court rendered a decision—without mention-
ing the possibility that the case became moot when the plain-
tiﬀs left Granite City—and decided against Brumit and
No. 22-2828                                                   3

Simpson on the merits. 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 167052 (S.D. Ill.
Sept. 15, 2022). (The district court had held, while the plain-
tiﬀs still lived in Granite City, that the amendments to the or-
dinance, which were not retroactive, did not themselves make
the case moot. 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24316 (S.D. Ill. Feb. 9,
2021).)
    In this court, Brumit and Simpson contend that, if they
prevail on the merits, they will be entitled to nominal dam-
ages, which prevents mootness. That eﬀect of nominal dam-
ages is well established. See, e.g., Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski,
141 S. Ct. 792 (2021). But what the Supreme Court said in
Uzuegbunam is that “a request for nominal damages satisﬁes
the redressability element of standing where a plaintiﬀ’s
claim is based on a completed violation of a legal right.” 141
S. Ct. at 802. Plaintiﬀs’ potential problem is that their com-
plaint did not allege a “completed” violation of their rights
(whether that right is one to due process of law or freedom of
intimate association), so have failed to identify a concrete in-
jury that could be redressed by nominal damages.
    Granite City told their landlord to evict them, but plain-
tiﬀs do not contend that the landlord complied. They resided
in their leased home until they left Granite City for other rea-
sons. Uzuegbunam said that a completed violation supports
nominal damages and added that “[n]ominal damages … are
unavailable where a plaintiﬀ has failed to establish a past,
completed injury.” Id. at 802 n.*. We therefore asked the par-
ties to ﬁle post-argument memoranda addressing the ques-
tion whether plaintiﬀs have suﬀered a “completed” violation
of their rights and, if not, whether there is any basis for an
award of nominal damages. We asked, in particular, whether
any decision of the Supreme Court or a court of appeals has
4                                                   No. 22-2828

awarded nominal damages after a threatened violation was
averted.
    Plaintiﬀs’ post-argument submission does not identify
any decision of the sort we have mentioned but contends that
they nonetheless were injured by the stress and anxiety the
Notice caused and by the expenses incurred in the hearing
and the litigation. Brumit says that the stress led her to stop
working. Plaintiﬀs also characterize the Notice as an impair-
ment of their lease contract. If they were seeking actual dam-
ages, we would need to decide whether these ma[ers qualify,
given the norm that the a[orneys’ fees, costs, and stress of lit-
igation do not justify adjudication of a suit that is otherwise
moot. See, e.g., Diamond v. Charles, 476 U.S. 54, 70–71 (1986);
Lewis v. Continental Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 472, 480–81 (1990). But
Brumit and Simpson have never requested anything but an
injunction and nominal damages. So the question remains:
does an unsuccessful a[empt to have someone evicted sup-
port nominal damages?
    Thousands of unsuccessful eviction or foreclosure actions
must begin every year, only to be abandoned when the plain-
tiﬀ gives up (perhaps because the suit rests on a mistake of
fact) or a court blocks the procedure. We asked at oral argu-
ment whether these unsuccessful eﬀorts ever lead to nominal
damages. Plaintiﬀs have not found such a case. That’s signiﬁ-
cant, if only because Uzuegbunam stressed the importance of
history in revealing when nominal damages are appropriate.
And we have not been given any other indication that the dic-
tum in Uzuegbunam saying that “[n]ominal damages … are
unavailable where a plaintiﬀ has failed to establish a past,
completed injury” neglects any line of precedent—or any sin-
gle precedent, for that ma[er.
No. 22-2828                                                   5

    This case therefore is moot. The district court’s judgment
is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to dis-
miss for lack of a justiciable controversy. See United States v.
Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36 (1950).