Court Opinion

ID: 9632077
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:02:20.229509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:34:31.478502
License: Public Domain

FLAUM, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
As the majority states, the question in this case is whether the plaintiffs are prevailing parties. To make that assessment, we must determine whether Karraker, or any other member of the plaintiff class, obtained “some relief on the merits of his claim” that “directly benefit[ted] him at the time of judgment or settlement.” Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 111, 113 S.Ct. 566, 121 L.Ed.2d 494 (1992). The majority does not specifically identify any benefit that the plaintiffs received and simply concludes that “[destruction of the results of improperly administered tests is a valuable benefit.” See supra p. 899. However, the mere existence of the test results caused the plaintiffs no injury. To be entitled to an injunction, the plaintiffs had to establish that they sustained, or were immediately in danger of sustaining, some direct injury as a result of the challenged conduct. Foster v. Center Tp. of LaPorte County, 798 F.2d 237, 244 (7th Cir.1986). The plaintiffs’ claims that RAC might have disclosed the results in the future or allowed their dissemination through negligence did not confer standing because “the injury or threat of injury must be real and immediate, not conjectural or hypothetical.” O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 494, 94 S.Ct. 669, 38 L.Ed.2d 674 (1974). The power to grant injunctive relief is not exercised to allay mere apprehension of injury at some indefinite future time. Accordingly, I believe that the first part of the district court’s injunction was improperly entered.
As for the second part of the injunction, which ordered RAC not to consider the APT test scores when making employment decisions, the district court found that “there [wa]s no indication in the record ... that [the test scores] were used any longer in promotion decisions by RAC.” If the district court’s factual finding was correct, then it did not have jurisdiction to enjoin RAC from considering the scores when making employment decisions, because the issue was moot. However, the *901record reflects that the district court’s factual finding was incorrect because, as RAC acknowledged, it issued a memorandum on August 14, 2000 which stated that it would still use passing APT test scores in promotion decisions. As a result, there may have been a plaintiff who had standing to challenge RAC’s continued use of the APT test scores if he or she 1) failed the APT test, 2) did not pass the Future Choice Selection Process and did not complete any required Developmental Competencies, and 3) was still employed at RAC on the date that the district court issued the injunction. Consequently, I would remand the case to the district court with instructions to determine whether the class included such a plaintiff on the date the injunction issued. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision.