Ahmed v. University of Toledo, 86-3687

• Citation: 822 F.2d 26
• Decision Date: 30 June 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-3687,86-3687
• Parties: , 40 Ed. Law Rep. 616 Wail AHMED, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 26

822 F.2d 26

8 Fed.R.Serv.3d 261, 40 Ed. Law Rep. 616

Wail AHMED, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 86-3687.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued April 23, 1987.

Decided June 30, 1987.

Thomas J. Zraik (argued) Toledo, Ohio, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Theodore M. Rowen, Spengler, Nathanson, Heyman, McCarthy & Durfee, Toledo, Ohio, Joan C. Szuberla (argued), for defendants-appellees.

Before MERRITT, WELLFORD and NELSON, Circuit Judges.

DAVID A. NELSON, Circuit Judge.

This is a civil rights case filed as a class action by four foreign students at the University of Toledo. The plaintiffs claimed that the University had violated the Constitution by requiring foreign students to carry health insurance. The district court decided the case in favor of the University, and the plaintiffs appealed. The defendants have moved to dismiss the appeal as moot, none of the individual plaintiffs being any longer enrolled as a university student. Finding the motion well taken, we shall dismiss the appeal.

* * *

At the time the suit was filed one of the plaintiffs was a freshman at the University, two were juniors, and one was a senior. All were non-resident aliens admitted to this country under student visas. None carried health insurance; two of the plaintiffs are adherents of a religious sect that is said to prohibit the purchase of insurance, and it is alleged that many members of the putative class could not afford to purchase the required coverage.

Although the University adopted a resolution in 1972 requiring all foreign students to carry "health insurance equal to the Blue Cross-Blue Shield plan offered University students or a comparable health insurance policy," that resolution was not enforced with any vigor until the spring of 1986. The lack of enforcement came to light after several uninsured foreign students were injured in an auto accident in Canada. The University then notified foreign students that proof of health insurance coverage would be required for continued enrollment.

The Plaintiffs responded by filing a lawsuit in which they alleged that the University had denied them and their proposed class equal protection of the law by singling out foreign students in this way. They also pleaded a violation of the Due Process Clause, the Supremacy Clause, and the First Amendment of the Constitution. The complaint sought class certification under Rule 23, Fed.R.Civ.P., and requested declaratory and injunctive relief.

After a request for a temporary restraining order had been denied, the parties agreed to a consolidation of the trial on the merits with a hearing on an application for a preliminary injunction. Upon conclusion of the presentation of the plaintiffs' case in the consolidated hearing, the district court, finding no constitutional violation, granted a motion for judgment in favor of the defendants. Extensive findings of fact and conclusions of law were filed thereafter. At no point during the proceedings did plaintiffs formally move for class certification, and the district court never certified a class.

Shortly before we heard oral argument on the plaintiffs' appeal from the judgment against them, the University moved for a dismissal on the ground that the cause had become moot. An affidavit accompanying the motion established that none of the four named plaintiffs is currently a student at the university; one has been graduated, two failed to reenroll after the 1986 summer quarter, and the other failed to reenroll after the following quarter.

* * *

Article III of the Constitution permits the federal courts to hear only actual cases or controversies. This "case or controversy" requirement must be satisfied "at all stages of review, and not simply on the date the action is initiated." Rettig v. Kent City School District, 788 F.2d 328, 330 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 3297, 92 L.Ed.2d 711 (1986). Where there is no "real, substantial controversy between parties having adverse legal interests," there is no case or controversy in the constitutional sense. Martin v. Attorney General of the United States, 771 F.2d 102, 105 (6th Cir.1985). It is fundamental that we may not decide moot issues. United States v. City of Detroit, 720 F.2d 443, 448 (6th Cir.1983).

Plaintiffs try to breathe life back into their lawsuit by arguing that because the case was filed as a class action and was treated as such by the district court and the parties, the Article III requirement must be interpreted as it is in the class action setting. A class action may sometimes remain justiciable notwithstanding that the claims of the named plaintiffs have become moot, if the class has "acquired a legal status separate from the interest asserted" by the named plaintiffs. Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 399, 402, 95 S.Ct. 553, 558, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975).

The plaintiffs' efforts at resuscitation cannot succeed here because the purported class was never certified under Rule 23. See Board of School Commissioners of the City of Indianapolis v. Jacobs, 420 U.S. 128, 95 S.Ct. 848, 43 L.Ed.2d 74 (1975), where six high school students filed a class action alleging that certain school board regulations interfered with the students' First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Because all of the named plaintiffs had been graduated from high school by the time of oral argument before the Supreme Court, the controversy had become moot as to them. This meant that the case as a whole was...