Opinion · Supreme Court of the United States
Burke v. Barnes
93 L. Ed. 2d 732
- Type
- Opinion
- Court
- Supreme Court of the United States
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
- Date
- 1987-01-14
- Topic
- general
holding that, when a challenged statute “by its own terms [becomes] a dead letter,” the case becomes moot | holding that any issues concerning whether bill had become law were mooted when bill expired by its own terms | holding that, when a challenged statute “by its own terms [becomes] a dead letter,” the case becomes moot | holding that issue was moot because Department of Fish and Game repealed challenged regulations | holding that issue was moot because Department of Fish and Game repealed challenged regulations | holding that respondents could not overcome mootness by pointing to a possible future lawsuit; that dispute, if it arose, “would not be between the parties to this case” | holding that a statute’s expiration mooted any challenge to the statute | holding that issues' "were mooted when that bill expired by its own terms” | concluding that the expiration of a statute extinguished any “judicially cognizable injury” | explaining that challenges to an expired statute, like those made to a repealed statute, are moot | concluding that expiration of challenged proposed legislation mooted litigation | holding “that any issues concerning whether [a bill] became a law were mooted when [it] expired by its own terms” | holding “that any issues concerning whether [a bill] became a law were mooted when [it] expired by its own terms” | leaving unresolved question of congressional standing because Court determined case was moot | finding that case was moot when bill at issue expired after the court of appeals entered judgment and stating that “it is not enough that there may have been a five case or controversy when the case was decided by the court whose judgment we are reviewing” | declining to reach standing question where expiration of law mooted controversy | declining to reach standing question where expiration of law mooted controversy | finding that case was moot when bill at issue expired after the court of appeals entered judgment and stating that "it is not enough that there may have been a live case or controversy when the case was decided by the court whose judgment we are reviewing" | declining to address standing because the Court determined that the case was moot | applying voluntary-cessation principles to executive orders that expired on their own terms | bill expired during pendency of appeal, rendering moot question of whether president’s pocket veto prevented bill from becoming law | "Article III of the Constitution requires that there be a live case or controversy at the time that a federal court decides the case." | a challenge to the validity of a statute is mooted when the statute expires by its own terms | “[A]ny issues concerning whether [a bill] became a law were mooted when that bill expired by its own terms.” | “[A]ny issues concerning whether [a bill] became a law were mooted when that bill expired by its own terms.” | a challenge to the validity of a statute is mooted when the statute expires by its own terms | bill expired during pendency of appeal, rendering moot question of whether president’s pocket veto prevented bill from becoming law | bill expired during pendency of appeal, rendering moot the question of whether the president’s pocket veto prevented it from becoming law | “Article III of the Constitution requires that there be a live case or controversy at the time that a federal court decides the case.” | interest in "lawmaking process" does not save legal challenge to expired statute from mootness; judicially cognizable injury no longer exists when statute ceases to be effective | “Article III of the Constitution requires that there be a live case or controversy at the time that a federal court decides the case.... ” | “Article III of the Constitution requires that there be a live case or controversy at the time that a federal court decides the case.” | “Article III of the Constitution requires that there be a live case or controversy at the time that a federal court decides the case.... ”
Citator
- Cited by
- 118 opinions
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed a bill, H. R. 4042, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. (1983), conditioning the continuance of United States military aid to El Salvador upon the President’s semiannual certification of El Salvador’s progress in protecting human rights. The President neither signed the bill nor returned it to the House of Representatives where it had originated, and took the position that because Congress had in the meantime adjourned at the end of its first session the bill had been subjected to a “pocket veto” under Article I, § 7, cl. 2, of the United States Constitution.
Respondents-plaintiffs in this action are 33 individual Members of the House of Representatives who filed suit in the District Court challenging the action of the President in seeking to “pocket-veto” the bill in question. The Senate and the Speaker and Bipartisan Leadership Group of the House of Representatives intervened in support of the plaintiffs and are also respondents here. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of petitioners-defendants, Barnes v. Carmen, 582 F. Supp. 163 (DC 1984), but a divided Court of Appeals reversed. Barnes v. Kline, 245 U. S. App. D. C. 1, 759 F. 2d 21 (1984). The majority concluded that respondents had standing to maintain this action, and that the bill had become a law notwithstanding the President’s effort to “pocket-veto” it. The dissenting judge took the view that respondents did not have stand
The bill in question expired by its own terms on September 30, 1984, a few weeks after the Court of Appeals entered its judgment. Article III of the Constitution requires that there be a live case or controversy at the time that a federal court decides the case; it is not enough that there may have been a live case or controversy when the case was decided by the court whose judgment we are reviewing. Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393, 402 (1975); Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U. S. 103, 108 (1969). We therefore analyze this case as if respondents had originally sought to litigate the validity of a statute which by its terms had already expired. In Diffenderfer v. Central Baptist Church of Miami, Florida, Inc., 404 U. S. 412 (1972) (per curiam), we stated:
“The only relief sought in the complaint was a declaratory judgment that the now repealed Fla. Stat. § 192.06 (4) is unconstitutional as applied to a church parking lot used for commercial purposes and an injunction against its application to said lot. This relief is, of course, inappropriate now that the statute has been repealed.” Id., at 414-415.
We see no reason to treat a challenge to the validity of a statute that has expired any differently from a challenge to the validity of a statute that has been repealed, and accordingly hold that any issues concerning whether H. R. 4042 became a law were mooted when that bill expired by its own terms. The failure of the bill to have any present effect does not depend on any decision as to whether the President’s action was
Respondents contend that other issues in the case keep it from being moot. They first assert that there remains a live controversy over the failure of petitioner Burke to publish H. R. 4042 in the Statutes at Large as a duly enacted law, in accordance with the provisions of 1 U. S. C. §§ 106a and 112 (1982 ed., Supp. III). This inaction, respondents cryptically claim, caused the “nullification of their lawmaking processes.” Brief for Respondents Speaker and Bipartisan Leadership Group 50. We fail to see how any interest in the “lawmaking process” that might be served by the publication of duly enacted statutes can survive the life of the statutes themselves.*
Respondents also claim that funds expended on military aid without the certification required by H. R. 4042 might at some future date be subject to recovery under the provisions of 31 U. S. C. §§ 1341, 1349-1351, 3521. These laws relate to the auditing and account settlement of Government expenditures by the Comptroller General. But we think that this argument likewise fails to show that there is a live controversy here. There is no indication of a presently existing dispute as to the accounting obligations, and if such a dispute were to arise it would not be between the parties to this case. “[S]uch speculative contingencies afford no basis for our passing on the substantive issues [respondents] would have us de
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded to that court with instructions to remand the case to the District Court with instructions to dismiss the complaint. United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36, 39 (1950).
It is so ordered.
Justice Sc alia took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
We reject respondents’ argument that the questions of mootness and standing are necessarily intertwined. We can assume, arguendo, that a House of Congress suffers a judicially cognizable injury when the votes it has cast to pass an otherwise live statute have been nullified by action on the part of the Executive Branch. But this injury in “the nullification of [Congress’] lawmaking processes,” Brief for Respondents Speaker and Bipartisan Leadership Group 50, no longer exists when the claimed statute has ceased to be effective by its own terms.