IAL Aircraft Holding v. F.A.A., No. 98-5522

• Decision Date: 06 July 2000
• Docket Number: No. 98-5522
• Citation: 216 F.3d 1304
• Parties: (11th Cir. 2000) IAL AIRCRAFT HOLDING, INC. Petitioner, v. FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1304

216 F.3d 1304 (11th Cir. 2000)

IAL AIRCRAFT HOLDING, INC. Petitioner, v. FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION Respondent.

No. 98-5522.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

July 6, 2000.

Petition for Review of an Order of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Before COX and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges, and PROPST^*, District Judge.

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge:

Respondent Federal Aviation Administration's ("FAA") motion to recall this court's mandate requires us to revisit our earlier decision as part of our "continuing duty to review [the] jurisdiction of an appeal at any point in the appellate process." National Solid Wastes Management Assoc. v. Alabama Dep't of Envtl. Management, 924 F.2d 1001, 1002 (11th Cir.1991) (quotation and citation omitted). In our earlier decision in this case, we reviewed an order of the FAA in which it refused to register an aircraft belonging to Petitioner IAL Aircraft Holding, Inc. ("IAL"), on the ground that the aircraft was already registered in Brazil. After briefing and argument, this court filed an opinion on March 13, 2000, in which the majority of the panel granted IAL's petition for review and ordered the FAA to register the aircraft in the United States. See IAL Aircraft Holding, Inc. v. FAA, 206 F.3d 1042, 1048-49 (11th Cir.2000). The FAA did not petition for rehearing, and the mandate issued on May 16, 2000.

The day after the mandate issued, officials at the Brazilian registry informed the FAA that the subject aircraft had been re-registered in Brazil based on documentation that included a bill of sale dated October 29, 1999, in which IAL had sold the aircraft to CSB Servios Ltda. IAL did not inform its attorneys or this court of its sale of the aircraft; we were apprised by the FAA's motion to recall the mandate. In its motion, the FAA contends that this court must vacate its earlier opinion because the sale of the aircraft rendered the subject matter of the appeal moot, thereby divesting this court of its appellate jurisdiction. In response, IAL argues that recall of a mandate is an extraordinary remedy not warranted here. Because we are satisfied that this case became moot when the aircraft was sold on October 29, 1999 and re-registered in Brazil, we lacked jurisdiction when we issued our opinion on March 13, 2000.

A prerequisite to Article III standing is the existence of a live "case or controversy." This requirement not only must exist at the time the complaint is filed, but at all stages of appellate review. See Lewis v. Continental Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 472, 477, 110 S.Ct. 1249, 1253, 108 L.Ed.2d 400 (1990). "[A] case is moot when the issues presented are no longer 'live' or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome." Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 496, 89 S.Ct. 1944, 1951, 23 L.Ed.2d 491 (1969). "In this circuit, when a case becomes moot after the panel publishes its decision but before the mandate issues, we dismiss the appeal, vacate the district court's judgment, and remand to the district court with instructions to dismiss the case." Key Enters. v. Venice Hosp., 9 F.3d 893, 894 (11th Cir.1993) (en banc); see also United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36, 39, 71 S.Ct. 104, 106, 95 L.Ed. 36 (1950) ("The established practice of the Court in dealing with a civil case ... which has become moot while on its way here or pending our decision on the merits is to reverse or vacate the judgment below and remand with a direction to dismiss.").

Insofar as courts generally do not recall their mandates when a case becomes moot after the mandate issues,¹ this does not inform our decision here because this case became moot before the opinion was filed, even though this court was not so apprised. Although this court acted in good faith on the belief that it had jurisdiction when it issued its opinion, the cessation of any redressable legal injury upon the sale of IAL's aircraft on October 29, 1999, ended this court's jurisdiction on that date. Without a live case or controversy, we have no authority to address the merits of an appeal.²

Although it is rather unusual for a court to learn, after its mandate issues, that its prior decision lacked a jurisdictional basis, the few courts confronting this issue uniformly have vacated their prior decisions. In Snow v. United States, the Supreme Court was alerted for the first time that it had predicated its assertion of jurisdiction in an earlier decision on an erroneous interpretation of a statute. See 118 U.S. 346, 354, 6 S.Ct. 1059, 1064, 30 L.Ed. 207 (1886). Finding that "the want of jurisdiction in it is clear" the Court "decided to vacate [the] judgment, and recall the mandate, and dismiss the writ of error for want of jurisdiction." Id. at 354, 6 S.Ct. at 1064. More recently, the Ninth Circuit withdrew an opinion that it unknowingly had filed a few months after the case had become moot because it concluded that the court had been "without power" to decide the case. Bumpus v. Clark, 702 F.2d 826, 826-27 (9th Cir.1983); see also United States v. Pressman (In re Grand Jury Proceedings), ...