Court Opinion

ID: 9458123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:43:39.523737+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:38.838437
License: Public Domain

MATTHES, Chief Judge
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I agree with the majority that the trial court erred when, in the course of dismissing the Ihrkes’ cause of action, it ruled that property rights were not as-sertable in actions brought under 42 U.S. C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3). See Lynch v. Household Finance Corp., 405 U.S. 538, 92 S.Ct. 1113, 31 L.Ed.2d 424 (1972).
I agree further that this suit cannot properly be maintained as a class action. For the reason stated by Judge Ross, I concur in the conclusion that “it is highly unlikely that the claim of the Ihrkes that a hearing should be required after notice and prior to termination, is typical of the claims of the class.”
But having determined that the Ihrkes are the only proper plaintiffs in this case, and in view of the fact that the Ihrkes no longer are direct subscribers of Northern, it seems clear to me that the issue presented has become moot, and for this reason I feel constrained to dissent from the holding of my brethren that the district court is empowered to adjudicate the merits of the issue.
Constitutional questions sought to be adjudicated in federal courts “must be presented in the context of a specific live grievance.” Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U.S. 103, 110, 89 S.Ct. 956, 960, 22 L.Ed.2d 113 (1969). See also, United Public Workers of America v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 89-90, 67 S.Ct. 556, 91 L.Ed. 754; Liverpool, New York & P. S. S. Co. v. Commissioners of Emigration, 113 U. S. 33, 39, 5 S.Ct. 352, 28 L.Ed. 899 (1885). The Ihrkes have no “live grievance” with Northern. On this record the controversy is terminated and the action should be dismissed.1
*574Because the cause should be dismissed as moot, I would not find it necessary or appropriate to reach the question of state action.

. The majority attempts to remove this case from the mootness doctrine because, although the immediate interest of the Ihrkes lias disappeared, the case presents “a recurring question of public interest.” Although the exception might be properly applicable in another case, it remains my conviction that when circumstances obviate or significantly diminish the interest of the complainant in the outcome of the law suit, the case loses its adversary character and ceases to be justiciable.
Mootness may not be the result where the change in circumstances is brought *574about, by tho defendant, because defendants cannot thus be allowed to avoid tbe legally binding effect of a court adjudication. United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. 629, 632, 73 S.Ct. 894, 97 L.Ed. 1303 (1953). Nor need a cause be mooted by tbe change in circumstances of one plaintiff where tbe complaint alleges the grievance of a proper class, because tbe class may remain to prosecute the claim. But neither of these cases is before us today.