Court Opinion

ID: 9467134
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:39:25.600421+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:10.759503
License: Public Domain

BAILEY BROWN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the reversal and remand of this ease as is provided in the panel’s opinion.
At argument of this case on appeal, it was brought to the attention of the court by counsel for appellee-receiver that appellants had never filed their claims in the receivership pending in the Ohio Common Pleas Court, that the receivership'had been terminated, that the appellee-receiver had been discharged, and that the surety on his bond had been released months ago. Counsel contended that this action against the appellee-receiver had therefore become moot. At the invitation of this court, ap-pellee has supplemented the record showing such facts and filed a brief in support of the contention that the case is moot. Appellants have filed a reply brief, but do not take issue with the factual contentions asserted by appellee as to mootness.
In my view, this case against the appel-lee, Miller as receiver, is now moot.
Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Johnson, 151 U.S. 81, 14 S.Ct. 250, 38 L.Ed. 81 (1894), cited in the panel’s opinion, is not authority that the case is not moot. In that case, the plaintiff had been injured by the railroad while the railroad was in a receivership in a federal court, and plaintiff brought his action in a Texas state court, after the receiver had been discharged, against the receiver and the railroad. The state court held that, under state law, the railroad was liable for the injury although the injury occurred during the receivership, and a judgment was obtained only against the railroad. The Supreme Court held that such application of state law was not inconsistent with and did not violate any federal law. It did not hold that the case would not have been moot had the appeal involved only an action against the receiver who had been discharged.
The principle involved here is this: “... a case is usually said to have become ‘moot’ for the purpose of an appeal where by a change of circumstances prior to appellate decision the case has lost any practical purpose for the parties ...” 5 Am.Jur.2d, Appeal and Error, § 762 at 204. A money judgment and/or decree providing for in-junctive relief, as are sought against a nonexistent receivership, would have no practical purpose.
It may be that liability can effectively be asserted against the receiver individually or against the purchaser of the property at the foreclosure sale as the panel’s opinion suggests, but that does not prevent the case before us from being moot. That would be another lawsuit that was not litigated below or in this court.
The question then should be: what disposition do we make of a case that has become moot. The simple and correct answer is: we should dismiss the appeal as being moot.
Instead, the panel’s opinion holds that the district judge erred in dismissing these claims as being frivolous (a view that I happen to share, although the total claim for compensatory damage is only $48.87 or an average of $4.68 per plaintiff), and then, in effect, it remands the case with a suggestion that appellants might start over and sue the receiver individually and sue the purchaser at the foreclosure sale and directs the district judge to determine whether appellants can successfully pursue these theories and whether appellants should be allowed to amend and pursue such claims. The opinion so provides even though appellants have not sought such relief in the district court and have not sought such relief here.
While, as the panel’s opinion implies, our laws prohibiting racial discrimination have *436their roots in the collective conscience of our society, we enforce them because they are laws and not because they represent moral principles. This is so because one person’s (or judge’s) morality may be another person’s (or judge’s) immorality, as witness the administration of “justice” in Iran today. This, therefore, is a lawsuit, not an exercise in morality, and we should so treat it. Appellants are represented by lawyers, and it should be for them to decide, not this court to suggest, the next step to take.