Hall v. Louisiana

• Decision Date: 13 March 2018
• Docket Number: No. 15-30858,15-30858
• Citation: 884 F.3d 546
• Parties: Kenneth HALL, Plaintiff–Appellant, Byron Sharper, Intervenor Plaintiff–Appellant, v. State of LOUISIANA; John Bel Edwards, in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Louisiana; Jeff Landry, in his official capacity as Attorney General; Tom Schedler, In his official capacity as the Louisiana Secretary of State; City of Baton Rouge; Parish of East Baton Rouge; Sharon Weston Broome, Official Capacity as the Mayor- President of Baton Rouge, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

884 F.3d 546

Kenneth HALL, Plaintiff–Appellant,Byron Sharper, Intervenor Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.State of LOUISIANA; John Bel Edwards, in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Louisiana; Jeff Landry, in his official capacity as Attorney General; Tom Schedler, In his official capacity as the Louisiana Secretary of State; City of Baton Rouge; Parish of East Baton Rouge; Sharon Weston Broome, Official Capacity as the Mayor- President of Baton Rouge, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 15-30858

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Filed March 13, 2018

Stephen M. Irving, Attorney, Steve Irving, L.L.C., Baton Rouge, LA, Adrian Fontecilla, Proskauer, Jon Marshall Greenbaum, Esq., Director, Ezra D. Rosenberg, Esq., Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington, DC, Jennifer R. Scullion, Proskauer, New York, NY, for intervenor Appellant, Intervenor-Plaintiff.

Angelique Duhon Freel, Esq., Assistant Attorney General, Louisiana Department of Justice, Baton Rouge, LA, for Defendants-Appellees STATE OF LOUISIANA, JEFF LANDRY.

John Carroll Walsh, Shows, Cali & Walsh, L.L.P., Baton Rouge, LA, for Defendant-Appellee TOM SCHEDLER.

Christina Berthelot Peck, Roedel, Parsons, Koch, Blache, Balhoff & McCollister, A.L.C., Ashley Walton Beck, Parish Attorney's Office for the Parish of East Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge, LA, for Defendants-Appellees CITY OF BATON ROUGE, PARISH OF EAST BATON ROUGE, SHARON WESTON BROOME.

Before HIGGINBOTHAM, SMITH, and OWEN, Circuit Judges.

PRISCILLA R. OWEN, Circuit Judge:

Kenneth Hall and Byron Sharper appeal the district court's denial of their Rule 60(b)(6) motion to vacate claims rendered moot by intervening legislation enacted after the court issued its judgment but before the time to appeal had expired. We affirm.

I

In 1993, the Louisiana Legislature enacted Act 609, which replaced Baton Rouge's at-large electoral system with one that divided the city into two electoral sections, demarcated Election Section One and Election Section Two. The Legislature then subdivided the majority-black Election Section One into two electoral divisions (B and D) and the majority-white Election Section Two into three electoral divisions (A, C, and E). This electoral formulation is known as a "2-3" districting system.

In this system, each division elects one judge to Baton Rouge City Court. After the enactment of Act 609, Baton Rouge elected two black judges to divisions B and D and three white judges to divisions A, C, and E in every election, resulting in a court that was constantly composed of two black judges and three white judges. During this time, Baton Rouge's demographics shifted from 43.9% black and 53.9% white to 54.5% black and 39.4% white.

In light of these facts, Hall initiated a suit, in which Sharper subsequently intervened, against the State of Louisiana, the City of Baton Rouge, the Parish of East Baton Rouge, and various state officials (collectively the Government). Hall and Sharper (collectively Hall) asserted claims under the Voting Rights Act, requesting declaratory and injunctive relief under the theory that the "2-3" districting system violated Section 2 of the Act and requested that the court declare the State of Louisiana subject to the Act pursuant to its Section 3(c). Also alleging that the "2-3" districting system contravened the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, Hall sought damages, inclusive of costs, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1986. After a bench trial, the district court rejected each of Hall's claims.

Two days after the district court issued its judgment, the Louisiana Legislature enrolled House Bill 76, which sought to replace the "2-3" districting system with a "2-2-1" districting system. Under the new system, Election Sections One and Two elect two judges each, and the city as a whole elects one judge to an at-large seat. The Legislature enacted House Bill 76 as Act 374, which Governor Piyush "Bobby" Jindal signed into law on July 1, 2015, before Hall's time to appeal had passed. Act 374, which took immediate effect, rendered Hall's claims for injunctive and declaratory relief from the "2-3" districting system moot. Because these claims were moot, Hall lost the opportunity to appeal.

Hall timely moved pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6) for the district court to vacate its judgment. Specifically, Hall maintained that because the passage of Act 374 was a circumstance outside of his control that eliminated his ability to appeal the district court's judgment, the district court should vacate the portion of the judgment related to the mooted Voting Rights Act Section 2 claim.

The district court denied Hall's motion to vacate. The court reasoned that, although Hall's claims for injunctive and declaratory relief under the Voting Rights Act were moot, vacatur is not an automatic right and Hall did not show that the balance of equities warranted such an "extraordinary remedy."¹ To reach its decision, the court assessed "twin considerations of fault and public interest."² Fault, the court held, weighed in favor of vacatur because Hall had not caused his claims to become moot. Nevertheless, the court determined that the public interest in preserving precedent and furthering judicial consistency, when combined with the judgment's minimal effect on non-parties, was sufficient to offset Hall's lack of fault, resulting in the denial of Hall's Rule 60(b)(6) motion.

Hall appeals only the denial of his Rule 60(b)(6) motion to vacate his Voting Rights Act Section 2 claim.

II

We review the denial of a Rule 60(b)(6) motion for abuse of discretion.³ A court "abuses its discretion if it bases its decision on an erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence."⁴ Questions of law receive de novo review.⁵

Rule 60(b)(6) empowers a district court to "relieve a party ... from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for ... any ... reason that justifies relief."⁶ Rule 60(b)"merely prescribes the practice in proceedings to obtain relief" and "does not assume to define the substantive law as to the grounds for vacating judgments."⁷ Courts have clarified that, although broadly stated, Rule 60(b)(6) justifies relief in only "extraordinary circumstances."⁸

Hall contends there are three principal errors in the district court's assessment of whether vacatur was appropriate. First, Hall asserts that the district court misapplied the Supreme Court's decision in U.S. Bancorp Mortgage Company v. Bonner Mall Partnership⁹ and our court's en banc decision in Staley v. Harris County, Texas .¹⁰ Second, Hall argues that the district court erroneously speculated that its judgment influenced the Louisiana legislature and erred in concluding that this influence weighed against vacatur. Hall contends that "the key equitable consideration is whether the party seeking vacatur is responsible for the loss of its appeal rights." He maintains that "[i]f an appeal is mooted by any circumstance beyond that party's control," then "equity favors vacatur." Third, Hall argues that the district court erred in concluding that "it did not expect its judgment to have great effect on nonparties to the litigation."

Hall's briefing relies on court decisions in which the controversy became moot while the case was on appeal, and an appellate court considered the question of whether to vacate the district court's judgment and opinion or order.¹¹ The source of a district court's authority to vacate a judgment when a controversy has become moot is Rule 60(b),¹² with exceptions regarding an injunction not relevant here.¹³ An appellate court's authority to vacate a district court's judgment when a pending appeal has become moot is 28 U.S.C. § 2106.¹⁴ We therefore examine, as an initial matter, whether the factors to be considered by a district court regarding vacatur in the context of a Rule 60(b)(6) motion differ from those to be considered by an appellate court under § 2106.

United States v. Munsingwear, Inc.¹⁵ and Bancorp are two of the Supreme Court's seminal decisions regarding the propriety of vacatur when a case is rendered moot. Both of these cases, and others applying them, addressed vacatur in the context of § 2106—the appellate vacatur rule—not Rule 60(b)(6).¹⁶ The Circuit courts that have addressed whether Bancorp or other Supreme Court decisions applying § 2106necessarily bind a district court in assessing a Rule 60(b) motion have held that they do not.¹⁷ We agree.

Driving this decision is the basic judicial tenet that "cases cannot be read as foreclosing an argument [with which] they never dealt."¹⁸ Neither the Supreme Court nor our court has addressed the standard for assessing a Rule 60(b)(6) motion for vacatur when a case has become moot before an appeal has been taken. Some cases construing § 2106 do contain broad, abstract propositions that, despite not directly addressing Rule 60(b)(6), could be construed to reach all vacatur decisions.¹⁹

But, to the extent that these propositions were not necessary to determine the scope of the appellate court's power under § 2106, the propositions are mere obiter dicta devoid of binding effect.²⁰ In any event, the Supreme Court has effectively cabined this broad language in later opinions, clarifying that its decisions apply not when a case becomes moot before the right to appeal is exercised but rather "[w]hen a case becomes moot pending appellate adjudication ."²¹ Hall's claims became moot before an appeal was filed—not pending appellate adjudication.²²

For the reasons articulated by the Fourth Circuit,²³ we conclude that "absent unusual circumstances, the appellate vacatur decision under Bancorp is informed almost entirely, if not entirely, by the twin considerations of fault and public interest,"²⁴ and that those considerations "must also be largely determinative of a district court's decision whether to vacate its own judgment due to mootness under Rule 60(b), and specifically Rule 60(b)(6)."²⁵ But ...