Jordan By and Through Jones v. Indiana High School Athletic Ass'n, Inc.

• Citation: 16 F.3d 785
• Decision Date: 15 February 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-1435,93-1435
• Parties: 89 Ed. Law Rep. 745 Herman JORDAN, By and Through his next friend and parent, Doretha JONES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. INDIANA HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, INC. and C. Eugene Cato, in his capacity as Commissioner of the Indiana High School Athletic Association, Inc., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Page 785

16 F.3d 785

89 Ed. Law Rep. 745

Herman JORDAN, By and Through his next friend and parent, Doretha JONES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. INDIANA HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, INC. and C. Eugene

Cato, in his capacity as Commissioner of the

Indiana High School Athletic

Association, Inc.,

Defendants-Appellants.

No. 93-1435.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Oct. 29, 1993.

Decided Feb. 15, 1994.

R. John Wray, Wray & Associates, Fort Wayne, IN, for plaintiff-appellee.

Robert M. Baker, III, Johnson, Smith, Densborn, Wright & Heath, Indianapolis, IN, Gilmore S. Haynie, Jr., Hawk, Haynie, Gallmayer & Chickedantz, Fort Wayne, IN, for defendants-appellants.

Before RIPPLE, KANNE, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

KANNE, Circuit Judge.

The district court granted injunctive relief in favor of a high school basketball player, Herman Jordan, prohibiting the Indiana High School Athletic Association from enforcing certain of its eligibility rules. As this lawsuit finally reached us for decision it ceased to be a case or controversy as required by Article III of the United States Constitution. We are thus without jurisdiction and the decision of the district court must be vacated and remanded and the case dismissed. The following describes why we reach this result.

Herman Jordan attended Marshall Metro High School in Chicago, Illinois for his freshman and sophomore years. Jordan enrolled at Marshall for his junior year, but later was forced to withdraw because of poor attendance. He received no academic credit for his junior year. Jordan did not participate in interscholastic athletics at Marshall, and under the rules of the Illinois High School Athletic Association he would have been ineligible to do so because of poor academic performance.

Jordan subsequently moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana to live with his uncle and cousin. He enrolled at R. Nelson Snider High School in Fort Wayne and repeated his junior year. He became a member of Snider High School's varsity basketball team and was selected as an all-conference player. Jordan wished to continue as a member of the basketball team as a senior, but according to Rule 12 of the Indiana High School Athletic Association ("IHSAA"), ¹ he had exhausted his athletic eligibility. Rule 12 limits student athletes to a maximum of four Spring and four Fall semesters of high school interscholastic athletic eligibility. C. Eugene Cato, the Commissioner of the IHSAA, determined that Jordan had already been eligible for the maximum number of semesters.

Jordan appealed the Commissioner's decision to the IHSAA's Executive Committee. The committee concurred in the Commissioner's decision that Jordan had already been enrolled for four Spring and four Fall semesters and thus, under Rule 12, had no more athletic eligibility remaining.

Jordan, by his mother, Doretha Jones, filed suit in Indiana state court seeking an injunction against the IHSAA; C. Eugene Cato, Commissioner of the IHSAA; Snider High School; and Dennis V. McClurg, Snider's principal. Jordan contended that application of Rule 12 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Equal Privileges Clause of the Indiana Constitution. The IHSAA removed this case to federal court.

The district court found that Rule 12, as applied, did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but did violate the Equal Privileges Clause of the Indiana Constitution because it was both over- and underinclusive. The court also found that application of Rule 12 was arbitrary and capricious under Indiana's law of voluntary associations. Accordingly, the district court entered a permanent injunction against the defendants, prohibiting them from enforcing Rule 12 against Jordan.

Jordan played in seven of Snider's remaining regular season basketball games and played in two games of the 1993 IHSAA Basketball Tournament. Snider High School won three of those regular season games and one tournament game. Jordan also participated in an IHSAA sponsored "slam-dunk" contest at the Fort Wayne Northside sectional, earning first-place honors, and advancing to the 1993 state finals in Indianapolis, where he finished fifteenth out of fifty-six competitors. Jordan received an IHSAA Slam-Dunk T-shirt for participating in the Indianapolis contest. The IHSAA reimbursed Snider High School $24 for the expenses incurred for Jordan traveling to and from Indianapolis for the Slam-Dunk contest.

The IHSAA and its commissioner, Eugene Cato--but not Snider High School and its principal, Dennis McClurg--appealed the district court's decision. After the appeal of the IHSAA and Cato was filed, but before oral argument, Herman Jordan graduated from Snider High School.

Discussion

Article III of the United States Constitution limits the jurisdiction of the federal courts to actual cases or controversies. Article III is based on the founding fathers' belief that only concrete controversies, involving genuinely adverse parties with a stake in the outcome of the litigation, are capable of presenting the information needed by federal courts to resolve difficult legal questions. Erwin Chemerinski, Federal Jurisdiction Sec. 2.1, p. 40 (1989); cf. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 703, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962) (discussing standing).

Furthermore, it is well established that "an actual controversy must exist at all stages of appellate review, not merely at the time the complaint is filed." Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 329, 108 S.Ct. 592, 607, 98 L.Ed.2d 686 (1988) (Rehnquist, J., concurring) (citing United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36, 71 S.Ct. 104, 95 L.Ed. 36 (1950)). If a case becomes moot at any stage of an appeal, the judgment below must be vacated and the case remanded with instructions to dismiss. Munsingwear, 340 U.S. at 39, 71 S.Ct. at 106-07; Turner v. Chicago Hous. Auth., 969 F.2d 461, 464-465 (7th Cir.1992).

It is undisputed that Jordan graduated from Snider High School in the spring of 1993 and therefore, the permanent injunction has expired. The IHSAA argues, however, that according to our holding in Crane v. IHSAA, 975 F.2d 1315 (7th Cir.1992), this case is not moot. In that case, we held that an IHSAA appeal was not moot despite the fact that the district court's injunction had expired under its own terms. The IHSAA had declared a student athlete ineligible to play varsity sports for one year, but the district court granted an injunction prohibiting the IHSAA from enforcing its determination. By the time the appeal reached this court, the one year period had expired. The student athlete, however, was just starting his senior year when our opinion issued and was still subject to the IHSAA eligibility rules. Id. at 1319.

We held that the appeal was not moot because, inter alia, IHSAA Rule 17-6 allows it "to impose retroactive penalties on student athletes (and their schools) who are declared ineligible by the IHSAA but are permitted to participate in interschool competition in accordance with a court restraining order or injunction." Id. at 1318. These penalties include: vacating individual or team records, requiring team victories to be forfeited to their opponent, and requiring individual or team awards to be returned to the IHSAA. Id.

As in Crane, the IHSAA argues that this case is not moot because it retains the power to order Snider to forfeit the four basketball games that it won with Jordan as a participant. ² However, because Snider High School is no longer a party to this...