Corrigan v. Bos. Univ.

98 F.4th 346

Caitlin CORRIGAN, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. BOSTON UNIVERSITY, Defendant, Appellee.

No. 23-1003

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit

April 12, 2024

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. Denise J. Casper, U.S. District Judge]

Robert N. Meltzer, with whom Mountain States Law Group was on brief, for appellant.

Thomas M. Elcock, with whom Prince Lobel Tye, LLP, Jennifer C. Pucci, and Boston University Office of the General Counsel were on brief, for appellee.

Before Gelpí, Selya, and Thompson, Circuit Judges.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

Faced with grim statistics at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, universities collaborated with medical and scientific experts in an all-out effort to implement community-wide testing programs designed to safeguard the health and safety of those who set foot on their campuses. Notwithstanding these efforts, the fit was sometimes imperfect. When one such university, defendant-appellee Boston University (BU), implemented a mandatory testing program, plaintiff-appellant Caitlin Corrigan — a graduate student at the time — claimed that she could not comply due to a chronic medical condition. She further claimed that requiring her compliance with the program would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), see 42 U.S.C. §§ 12111-12213. Litigation ensued.

The district court did not reach the merits of Corrigan's claims. Instead, the court dismissed Corrigan's suit for want of subject-matter jurisdiction on the theory that it had become moot once BU ended its mandatory testing program. Concluding, as we do, that the district court appropriately applied mootness principles to dismiss Corrigan's suit and that Corrigan has not shown that her case comes within an applicable exception to those mootness principles, we affirm the order of dismissal.

I

We briefly rehearse the relevant facts and travel of the case.

A

In the fall of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic raged relentlessly throughout the nation. This circumstance prompted BU to mandate that its students — even if asymptomatic — undergo regular testing for the virus. To accomplish this goal, BU opened an on-campus laboratory so that it could conduct polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for the virus.¹ The university also set up a website that allowed it to broadcast information about university protocols as rapidly as practicable.

Time marched on, however, and by March of 2022, the pandemic was in decline. This decline led BU to terminate its mandatory testing program in May of that year. By then, BU also had relaxed other COVID-19 protocols (such as its masking requirement).

Corrigan enrolled as a graduate student in BU's School of Theology in the fall of 2021. She immediately cited a chronic medical condition and invoked the ADA to apply for an exemption from BU's mandatory testing program. BU rejected her proposed exemption and (she says) refused to negotiate with her. As a result, she was out of compliance with the university's protocol, and BU suspended her for the fall semester.

Although Corrigan was advised that she would be welcome to return to her academic pursuits after her suspension — assuming that she adhered to the mandatory testing program — she never returned to campus. Nor has she since attempted to reenroll as a student at BU.

This was not the end of the matter. Rather than attempting to repair her relationship with the university, Corrigan sued BU, alleging that BU had violated Title III of the ADA.² See Corrigan v. Boston Univ., No. 22-10443, 2022 WL 11218108, at *1 (D. Mass. Oct. 19, 2022).

B

BU moved to dismiss Corrigan's suit for want of subject-matter jurisdiction, and the district court — applying mootness principles — granted the motion.³ See id. Because BU had ended its mandatory testing program, the court determined that an order requiring BU to provide Corrigan with a reasonable accommodation to the program would have had no effect. After all, "there [was] no ongoing conduct to enjoin." Id. at *4 (quoting Town of Portsmouth v. Lewis, 813 F.3d 54, 58 (1st Cir. 2016)). The court added that "issuance of a declaratory judgment deeming past conduct illegal [was] also not permissible as it would be merely advisory." Id. (quoting Am. Civ. Liberties Union of Mass. v. U.S. Conf. of Cath. Bishops (ACLUM), 705 F.3d 44, 53 (1st Cir. 2013)). In the court's view, this general rule should be relaxed only if "there is a substantial controversy of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment." Id. (quoting Lewis, 813 F.3d at 59). But "[n]o such immediacy or reality exist[s] here." Id.

In support of this reasoning, the district court noted that "BU's mandatory testing program ended on May 23, 2022, and nothing in the record suggests that the program will be revived — let alone with the sufficient immediacy and reality to overcome a mootness challenge." Id. And although Corrigan advanced two potential exceptions to save her suit from mootness, the court ruled that neither exception had any footing in the facts of this case. See id. at *5-7. The voluntary cessation exception was inapplicable because BU stopped its mandatory testing program for a reason unrelated to Corrigan's suit (the waning severity of the pandemic) and BU was unlikely "to impose a [program] 'similar' enough to the old [program] to present substantially the same legal controversy as the one presented by [Corrigan's] complaint." Id. at *6 (alterations in original) (quoting Resurrection Sch. v. Hertel, 35 F.4th 524, 529 (6th Cir. 2022)).

So, too, the district court found inapplicable the exception for cases which, though capable of repetition, might otherwise evade review. See id.; see, e.g., Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 18, 118 S.Ct. 978, 140 L.Ed.2d 43 (1998) (holding that habeas petition had become moot after petitioner was released from second stint of incarceration following parole revocation because he had failed to show that "time between parole revocation and expiration of sentence is always so short as to evade review" and that he again likely would face parole revocation); Murphy v. Hunt, 455 U.S. 478, 481-84, 102 S.Ct. 1181, 71 L.Ed.2d 353 (1982) (holding that defendant's challenge to denial of pretrial release had become moot after he was convicted because he would have been entitled to pretrial release only if his convictions were reversed but had shown no more than a possibility of reversal); cf. Fed. Election Comm'n v. Wis. Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449, 462-64, 127 S.Ct. 2652, 168 L.Ed.2d 329 (2007) (holding that advocacy group's challenge to statute prohibiting certain campaign ads was not moot even though elections had concluded because election cycle was too short to obtain complete judicial review and advocacy group planned to run similar ads in future elections); Neb. Press Ass'n v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 546-47, 96 S.Ct. 2791, 49 L.Ed.2d 683 (1976) (holding that challenge to restraining order against press coverage of trial that expired after jury empanelment was not moot because such orders are short lived and press was likely to dispute similar orders in the future). The court pointed out that Corrigan's claim was not inherently transitory (BU's mandatory testing program had been in place for nearly two years) and BU was unlikely to subject Corrigan to mandatory testing again. Corrigan, 2022 WL 11218108, at *7.

Finally, the court held that the monetary relief that Corrigan sought was legally insufficient to support a claim of jurisdiction. See id. at *5. Under applicable precedents, the court maintained, Corrigan's prayer for monetary relief could not resurrect an otherwise moot case because she asked for damages without including a specific dollar amount.⁴ See id.; see also Harris v. Univ. of Mass. Lowell, 43 F.4th 187, 192-93 (1st Cir. 2022) (explaining that, although damages can salvage case when unavailability of equitable relief otherwise would render it moot, complaint failed to include "any specific request for damages"). And a catchall "request for 'any other relief [the] Court deems proper' cannot operate to save [an] otherwise moot action." Corrigan, 2022 WL 11218108, at *5 (alterations in original) (quoting Harris, 43 F.4th at 193). In like fashion, "an 'interest in attorneys' fees [or costs] is . . . insufficient to create an Article III case or controversy where none exists on the merits of the underlying claim.' " Id. (second alteration in original) (quoting Harris, 43 F.4th at 193).

This timely appeal followed.

II

We next proceed to note some applicable legal standards.

A

"Article III of the Constitution grants the federal judiciary the authority to adjudicate cases and controversies, see U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1, but that authority extends only to live cases and controversies, not to those which are or have become moot." In re Sundaram, 9 F.4th 16, 18 (1st Cir. 2021). In this regard, "the key question 'is whether the relief sought would, if granted, make a difference to the legal interests of the parties (as distinct from their psyches, which might remain deeply engaged with the merits of the litigation).' " Bos. Bit Labs, Inc. v. Baker, 11 F.4th 3, 8 (1st Cir. 2021) (quoting Air Line Pilots Ass'n, Int'l v. UAL Corp., 897 F.2d 1394, 1396 (7th Cir. 1990)). The burden of showing mootness is a heavy one — and it rests squarely with the proponent of the issue. See id.

B

As a general matter, we review the district court's mootness determinations de novo. See id. "The ultimate question of whether jurisdiction exists . . . , however, may turn on or be influenced by the district court's role as the decider of disputed facts." Amoche v. Guar. Tr. Life Ins. Co., 556 F.3d 41, 48 (1st Cir. 2009). That is, "a district court faced with a factual challenge under Rule 12(b)(1) ordinarily must resolve disputed facts (or, at least, choose among competing inferences from subsidiary facts) . . . . [And] such findings will be set...