Johnson v. City of Opelousas

• Decision Date: 13 October 1981
• Docket Number: No. 80-3411,80-3411
• Citation: 658 F.2d 1065
• Parties: Madeline JOHNSON, etc., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The CITY OF OPELOUSAS, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellees. . Unit A *
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1065

658 F.2d 1065

Madeline JOHNSON, etc., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The CITY OF OPELOUSAS, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 80-3411.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Unit A ^*

Oct. 13, 1981.

Henry C. Remm, Jr., Acadiana Legal Service Corp., Lafayette, La., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Richard B. Millspaugh, City Atty., Opelousas, La., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Before INGRAHAM, POLITZ and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge:

This case involves an action by a mother and her son to challenge the constitutionality of the nocturnal juvenile curfew ordinance of the City of Opelousas, Louisiana. The district court upheld, with a minor exception, the constitutionality of the ordinance. See Johnson v. City of Opelousas, 488 F.Supp. 433 (W.D.La.1980). We reverse.

I. Facts

On August 16, 1978, appellant Madeline Johnson's son, James Johnson, then fourteen years old, was arrested at 2:05 a.m. by a police officer of the City of Opelousas under Opelousas Code § 18-8.1 (1972), ¹ the nocturnal juvenile curfew ordinance of Opelousas. James Johnson subsequently was found to be in violation of the ordinance as a result of this incident. He was first placed on probation, then was placed in a private juvenile residential facility, and eventually was released and allowed to live at home with his mother in Opelousas. No appeal was taken from this adjudication.

Appellants, Madeline Johnson, on the behalf of herself, her then minor son, James Johnson, and all other minors similarly situated, and James Johnson, suing by his mother as his next friend, then brought this action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 challenging the constitutionality of Opelousas' juvenile curfew ordinance on several grounds. The defendants are the City of Opelousas, Thomas Edwards, Mayor of Opelousas, and Howard Zerangue, Police Chief of Opelousas.

Appellants sought to maintain the suit as a class action under Rule 23(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the class being "all persons who have been or in the future will be arrested or detained under § 18-8.1." Although it expressly found that all of the requirements of Rule 23(a) and (b)(2), Fed.R.Civ.P., had been satisfied, the district court nevertheless denied class status to appellants. The court reasoned that a class action was "unnecessary" because "any declaratory or injunctive relief to the named plaintiffs would inure to the benefit of other similarly situated minors." 488 F.Supp. at 435-36.

On April 16, 1980, the district court upheld the constitutionality of the curfew ordinance, with one minor exception. ² The court entered a final judgment dismissing the action on the merits.

Appellants now appeal from this judgment. They initially claim that the district court abused its discretion in denying class certification. As to the merits of their suit, they assert, as they did below, a broad challenge to the constitutionality of the curfew ordinance under the United States Constitution specifically urging that the ordinance: (1) is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad on its face, in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; (2) violates the minor appellant's rights of freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion under the First and Fourteenth Amendments; (3) violates the minor's substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to move freely and to use the public streets in a way that does not interfere with the personal liberties of others; (4) violates the constitutional rights of parents under the Fourteenth Amendment to direct the upbringing of their children and the constitutional guarantee of family autonomy; (5) violates the minor appellant's constitutional rights of interstate and intrastate travel guaranteed by the commerce clause of Article 1, Section 8 and the privileges and immunities clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and Article 4, Section 2; and (5) violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

II. Mootness

An inevitable event subsequent to the district court's decision in this case raises a mootness issue with respect to the claims of appellant James Johnson. On February 5, 1981, James Johnson, a minor at the time this suit was brought and decided below, turned seventeen years of age. As a result, the Opelousas nocturnal juvenile curfew ordinance no longer applies to him. Since James Johnson now no longer is threatened by the prohibitions of the ordinance or the consequences of its violation, all issues on this appeal concerning his constitutional rights possibly are moot.

Appellant James Johnson seeks to avoid this mootness problem by claiming that he continues to possess a personal stake in the outcome of this suit. The personal stake he asserts is his desire to use a favorable judgment from this Court to attack collaterally his prior adjudication and delete his juvenile court record. With a favorable judgment here, he also hopes to eliminate any damage to his reputation and educational and employment opportunities caused by his juvenile court adjudication.

Appellant's alleged continuing personal stake is inadequate under federal law to avoid a determination of mootness. His claimed personal stake in this suit is based on the possible collateral consequences to him from his juvenile court adjudication. These potential collateral consequences are of a social nature. He is faced with the established law that only possible collateral legal consequences may maintain one's personal interest in such an adjudication after the juvenile court's remedial order has been completed. "(A) criminal case is moot only if it is shown that there is no possibility that any collateral legal consequences will be imposed on the basis of the challenged conviction." Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 57, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 1899, 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968) (emphasis added); see also Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234, 237-38, 88 S.Ct. 1556, 1559, 20 L.Ed.2d 554 (1968). Although Sibron and Carafas involved adult criminal convictions, their rule regarding mootness is equally applicable to juvenile court adjudications.

Accordingly, James Johnson was required to assert a potential penalty or disability imposed under either state or federal law as a result of his juvenile court adjudication. He has failed to meet this challenge. Indeed, Louisiana law specifically prohibits the imposition of such collateral consequences on a child adjudged to be a "neglected child," within the meaning of La.Rev.Stat.Ann. §§ 13:1569, 13:1570 (West 1968), in a Louisiana juvenile court. ³

Therefore, the personal claims of appellant James Johnson are now moot, and we are without jurisdiction to address them. We note, however, that his mother, appellant Madeline Johnson, as the mother of five other children younger than James Johnson who remain subject to the curfew ordinance, continues to possess a personal stake in this controversy.

III. Class Action

Despite the mootness of appellant James Johnson's claims on the merits of this appeal, James Johnson still may appeal the district court's denial of class certification. In United States Parole Commission v. Geraghty, 445 U.S. 388, 100 S.Ct. 1202, 63 L.Ed.2d 479 (1980), the Supreme Court held:

an action brought on behalf of a class does not become moot upon expiration of the named plaintiff's substantive claim, even though class certification has been denied. The proposed representative retains a "personal stake" in obtaining class certification sufficient to assure that Art. III values are not undermined. If the appeal results in reversal of the class certification denial, and a class subsequently is properly certified, the merits of the class claim then may be adjudicated pursuant to the holding in (Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393 (95 S.Ct. 553, 42 L.Ed.2d 532) (1975)).

Id. 100 S.Ct. at 1212. ⁴ Since the class certification issue remains live and James Johnson is a proper representative for raising it on appeal, we turn now to that procedural question.

As noted earlier, the district court found that all of the requirements of Rule 23(a) and (b)(2), Fed.R.Civ.P., had been satisfied by appellants, but nevertheless denied class certification on its belief that a class action was "unnecessary" since any relief obtained by appellants would inure to the benefit of all similarly situated minors.

A district court's decision whether a class action may be maintained should stand absent an abuse of discretion. Boggs v. Alto Trailer Sales, Inc., 511 F.2d 114, 117 (5th Cir. 1975). After reviewing the relevant law on class actions and considering the circumstances of this case, we find, however, that the district court abused its discretion in denying class certification because it failed to consider the risk of mootness in this litigation.

There is a division of authority on whether a trial judge properly may deny certification to an otherwise eligible class solely because of "lack of need" i. e., because all potential class members will benefit automatically from any relief granted to the named plaintiff. ⁵ We need not reach that issue in this case because we believe that the substantial risk of mootness presented by the facts of this dispute was sufficient to create a need for certification. When the court below entered its judgment, Johnson was sixteen years of age. Having been denied certification as a class representative (a position from which he could pursue the interests of the class despite any subsequent mooting of his personal claim, see Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 95 S.Ct. 553, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975)), he had only ten months to complete successfully his judicial course past one and conceivably two appellate hurdles. Given the inevitable lapse of time in appellate...