Lancaster v. Sec'y of Navy

• Docket Number: 23-1578
• Decision Date: 26 July 2024
• Citation: 109 F.4th 283
• Parties: Darlene Faye LANCASTER, wife, heir and executor of the estate of her late husband, Commander Allen Lee Lancaster, CHC, USN (ret), Intervenor/Plaintiff - Appellant, and Allen L. Lancaster, Plaintiff, v. The SECRETARY OF the NAVY; the Chief of Naval Personnel; the Navy Chief of Chaplains, Defendants - Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

109 F.4th 283

Darlene Faye LANCASTER, wife, heirand executor of the estate of her late husband,Commander Allen Lee Lancaster, CHC, USN (ret), Intervenor/Plaintiff - Appellant,andAllen L. Lancaster, Plaintiff, v. The SECRETARY OF the NAVY; the Chief of Naval Personnel;the Navy Chief of Chaplains, Defendants - Appellees.

No. 23-1578

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit

Argued: May 10, 2024

Decided: July 26, 2024

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Norfolk.Elizabeth W. Hanes, District Judge.(2:19-cv-00095-EWH-RJK)

ARGUED: Arthur A. Schulcz, LAW OFFICE OF ARTHUR A. SCHULCZ, SR., CHAPLAINS' COUNCIL, PLLC, Leesburg, Virginia, for Appellant.Garry Daniel Hartlieb, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellees.ON BRIEF: Jessica D. Aber, United States Attorney, Richmond, Virginia, Lauren A. Wetzler, Civil Chief, Alexandria, Virginia, Joel E. Wilson, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges.

Vacated and remanded with instructions by published opinion.Judge Quattlebaum wrote the opinion, in which Judge Wilkinson and Judge Niemeyer joined.

QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judge:

Lawsuits have lifespans, sometimes coinciding with those of the parties.This lawsuit began when a retired Navy chaplain sued several Navy officials in their official capacity, alleging discrimination in the Navy's promotion practices.It should have ended when the ex-chaplain died—after the Navy moved to dismiss the case but before the district court ruled on that motion.But neither the Navy nor the district court addressed how the plaintiff's death affected the district court's subject matter jurisdiction.Instead, the district court dismissed the case as res judicata.Then, after being named the executor of the ex-chaplain's estate, the ex-chaplain's widow sought to reopen the lawsuit and to substitute herself as the plaintiff, asking for a chance to amend the dismissed complaint.The district court denied all these requests.Only then was this appeal taken.

But we cannot reach the merits of the widow's post-dismissal motion since her husband's death mooted his claims for prospective relief and sovereign immunity would preclude retrospective relief, to the extent the ex-chaplain even sought it.Consequently, the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to dismiss the case on any other grounds or to rule on the widow's post-dismissal motion.

I.

This appeal stems from a longstanding dispute over the Navy's methods for promoting its chaplains.In this particular episode, an ex-chaplain, Allen Lancaster, sued the Secretary of the Navy, the Commander of the Naval Personnel Command and the Navy Chief of Chaplains, all in their official capacities.According to his amended complaint, which he filed on September 25, 2019, Mr. Lancaster served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-one years before retiring in 2001 as a Commander, earlier than he would have retired had he been promoted to Captain. Mr. Lancaster alleged that he was not promoted due to "retaliation based on personal hostility and denominational prejudice."J.A. 33.For those reasons, he challenged the Navy's "personnel systems' procedures and practices."J.A. 35.

More specifically, the amended complaint raised four "counts."To begin, Mr. Lancaster claimed that the Navy's procedures permitted "illegal retaliation" against him by stymying his promotion for denominational reasons, but he specified no legal framework.J.A. 43-46.And lastly, he claimed that the Navy's promotion procedures and the retaliation they allegedly allowed violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,Pub. L. No. 103-141,107 Stat. 1488(1993)(codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb to § 2000bb-4)("RFRA").In between, Mr. Lancaster brought two procedural counts.First, he sought to toll the six-year statute of limitations for civil actions against the United States provided in 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a).And second, he challenged the constitutionality of 10 U.S.C. § 613a, which privileges from disclosure in litigation the deliberations of selection boards responsible for promoting officers in the armed services.

The Navy officials moved to dismiss Mr. Lancaster's amended complaint on October 29, 2020.To discuss that motion and set a trial date, the district court held a status conference on July 20, 2021.Mr. Lancaster's lawyer notified the court on August 8 that he had presented a proposed second amended complaint to the defendants and was awaiting a response.On August 20, Mr. Lancaster's lawyer followed up with a second notice, reporting that the Navy officials planned to oppose his motion for leave to amend, which he planned to file on or about September 8.

But Mr. Lancaster had passed away seven days earlier, on August 13.In light of that development, the Navy officials filed a suggestion of death on August 24, explaining that Mr. Lancaster's counsel had informed defendants of Mr. Lancaster's death one day prior.Acknowledging the death, the district court granted the Navy officials' long-pending and fully briefed motion to dismiss.Based on res judicata, the district court dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice on August 30, referring to several prior decisions in this longstanding dispute over the Navy's procedures for promoting chaplains.¹

Though that dismissal was not appealed, on March 4, 2022, Mr. Lancaster's widow and the executor of his estate, Darlene Lancaster, tried to revive the case by filing a multifaceted motion.She moved the district court to reopen the case under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), to substitute her for Mr. Lancaster as the plaintiff under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25(a)(1), and to permit her "to complete the Rule 15(a)(2) process" for obtaining leave to file a second amended complaint.J.A. 299.The district court denied the motion in full on March 28, 2023.On May 25, Mrs. Lancaster timely appealed that order.SeeFed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(B)(iii)(providing 60 days to appeal a judgment or order if one of the parties is "a United States officer or employee sued in an official capacity").

II.

To reach the merits of this appeal, we must first address—even if the parties do not—whether federal courts, including the district court, could properly exercise jurisdiction.SeeRandall v. United States, 95 F.3d 339, 344-45(4th Cir.1996)("[E]very federal appellate court has a special obligation to satisfy itself not only of its own jurisdiction, but also that of the lower courts in a cause under review, even though the parties are prepared to concede it."(internal quotations omitted)(quotingBender v. Williamsport Area Sch. Dist., 475 U.S. 534, 541, 106 S.Ct. 1326, 89 L.Ed.2d 501(1986))).We have the authority to discharge this duty since "a federal court always has jurisdiction to determine its own jurisdiction."Appalachian Voices v. U.S. Dep't of the Interior, 78 F.4th 71, 76(4th Cir.2023)(quotingUnited States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622, 628, 122 S.Ct. 2450, 153 L.Ed.2d 586(2002)).

Until oral argument in this appeal, neither party nor the district court questioned whether Mr. Lancaster's death affected the district court's subject matter jurisdiction.No motion or memorandum was offered to the district court after Mr. Lancaster's death.And the issue was not discussed in the parties' initial appellate briefs.After raising jurisdictional concerns sua sponte at oral argument, we ordered supplemental briefing on whether Mr. Lancaster's death deprived federal courts of jurisdiction based on the interplay of mootness and sovereign immunity.As those issues dispose of this appeal, we address them in turn.

A.

Federal courts"have only the power that is authorized by Article III of the Constitution and the statutes enacted by Congress pursuant thereto."Bender, 475 U.S. at 541, 106 S.Ct. 1326.Article III limits the federal judicial power to "Cases" or "Controversies."Chafin v. Chafin, 568 U.S. 165, 171-72, 133 S.Ct. 1017, 185 L.Ed.2d 1(2013);United States v. Springer, 715 F.3d 535, 540(4th Cir.2013).The case or controversy "must be extant at all stages of review, not merely at the time the complaint is filed."Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U.S. 395, 401, 95 S.Ct. 2330, 45 L.Ed.2d 272(1975)(quotingSteffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 459 n.10, 94 S.Ct. 1209, 39 L.Ed.2d 505(1974)).A case or controversy dissipates when it becomes moot; that is "when the issues presented are no longer 'live' or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome."Williams v. Ozmint, 716 F.3d 801, 809(4th Cir.2013)(quotingPowell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 496, 89 S.Ct. 1944, 23 L.Ed.2d 491(1969)).For mootness to occur, events transpiring while the matter is pending must "make[ ] it impossible for the court to grant any effectual relief to the plaintiff."Id.(citingChurch of Scientology of Cal. v. United States, 506 U.S. 9, 12, 113 S.Ct. 447, 121 L.Ed.2d 313(1992)).Since mootness depends on the court's ability to grant effectual relief, it follows that mootness hinges on the type of relief sought.Cf.City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 105, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 75 L.Ed.2d 675(1983)(holding that a person previously subjected to a police chokehold lacked standing to seek injunctive relief, as opposed to damages, since he had not articulated a "real and immediate threat" of being once again subject to the challenged chokehold).

To determine the sort of relief sought, we rely on the operative complaint.SeeJohnson v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schs. Bd. of Educ., 20 F.4th 835, 844-45(4th Cir.2021)(holding that a parent of a student "ordinarily must include in her federal complaint a request for compensatory education to avoid dismissal for mootness when the student no longer is enrolled in the defendant school system");Nestler v. Bd. of L. Exam'rs of N.C., 611 F.2d 1380, 1382(...