U.S. Federal civil procedure doctrines
Justiciability
Advisory opinions
Standing  · Ripeness  · Mootness
Political questions
Jurisdiction
* Subject matter jurisdiction:
Federal question jurisdiction
Diversity jurisdiction
Removal jurisdiction
Amount in controversy
* Personal jurisdiction:
Jurisdiction in rem
Minimum contacts
Federalism
Erie doctrine  · Abstention
Sovereign immunity  · Abrogation
Rooker-Feldman doctrine
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This article is about the law term moot. For the etymology board game see Moot game.

In law, a matter is moot if further legal proceedings with regard to it can have no effect, or events have placed it beyond the reach of the law. Thereby the matter has been deprived of practical significance or rendered purely academic. This is a little different from the ordinary meaning of moot, which means to raise an issue. The shift in usage was first observed in the United States. Official seal of the Supreme Court of the United States File links The following pages link to this file: Marbury v. ... For other uses, see United States (disambiguation) and US (disambiguation). ... Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the process that courts will follow when hearing cases of a civil nature (a civil action). These rules govern how a lawsuit or case may be commenced, what kind of service of process is required, the types of pleadings or... Justiciability is a term used in civil procedure to describe whether a dispute is capable of being settled by a court of law. ... An advisory opinion, in civil procedure, is an opinion issued by a court that does not have the effect of resolving a specific legal case, but merely advises on the constitutionality or interpretation of a law. ... In law, standing is the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged. ... In law, ripeness refers to the readiness of a case for litigation; for example, if a law of ambiguous quality has been enacted but never applied, a case challenging that law lacks the ripeness necessary for a decision. ... In United States law, a ruling that a matter in controversy is a political question is a statement by a federal court, declining to rule in a case because: 1) the U.S. Constitution has committed decision-making on this subject to another branch of the federal government; 2) there... In law, jurisdiction refers to the aspect of a any unique legal authority as being localized within boundaries. ... Subject matter jurisdiction is a legal term used in civil procedure to indicate that a case must be entered in the proper court of law based on the nature of the claim. ... Federal question jurisdiction is a term used in the United States law of civil procedure to refer to the situation in which a United States federal court has subject matter jurisdiction to hear a civil case because the plaintiff has alleged a violation of the Constitution, laws, or treaties of... Diversity jurisdiction is a term used in civil procedure to refer to the situation in which a United States district court has subject matter jurisdiction to hear a civil case because the parties are diverse, meaning that they come from different states. ... In the United States, removal jurisdiction refers to the power of a defendant to move a lawsuit filed in state court to the Federal district court of the original courts district. ... Amount in controversy (sometimes called jurisdictional amount) is a term used in United States civil procedure to denote a requirement that persons seeking to bring a lawsuit in a particular court must be suing for a certain minimum amount before that court may hear the case. ... Personal jurisdiction, jurisdiction of (or over) the person, or jurisdiction in personam is the power of a court to require a party (usually the defendant) or a witness to come before the court. ... Sometimes a court may exercise jurisdiction over property located within the perimeter of its powers without regard to personal jurisdiction over the litigants; this is called jurisdiction in rem. ... Minimum contacts is a term used in the United States law of civil procedure to determine when it is appropriate for a court in one state to assert in personam jurisdiction (i. ... Federalism is the idea of a group or body of members that are bound together (latin: foedus, covenant) with a governing representative head. ... The Erie doctrine is a fundamental legal doctrine of Civil procedure in the American legal system that stems from Supreme court Justice Louis Brandeis watershed opinion in the landmark decision of Erie Railroad Co. ... An abstention doctrine is any one of several doctrines that a United States federal court might (or in some cases must) apply to refuse to hear a case, when hearing the case would potentially intrude upon the powers of the state courts. ... Sovereign immunity or crown immunity is a type of immunity that, in common law jurisdictions traces its origins from early English law. ... The abrogation doctrine is a doctrine in United States constitutional law which permits the U.S. Congress to allow lawsuits seeking monetary damages against individual U.S. states, so long as this is usually done pursuant to a constitutional limitation on the power of the states. ... The Rooker-Feldman doctrine is a rule of civil procedure enunciated by the United States Supreme Court in two cases, Rooker v. ... Law (a loanword from Old Norse lagu), in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, intended to provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments of/for those who... Etymology is the study of the origins of words. ... MooT is a question and answer board game, similar to Trivial Pursuit, that asks questions about the history and meaning of English words. ... Law (a loanword from Old Norse lagu), in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, intended to provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments of/for those who...

Mootness and U.S. Federal Courts

In the U.S. federal judicial system, a moot case must be dismissed. The reason for this is that Article Three of the United States Constitution limits the jurisdiction of all federal courts to "cases and controversies". Thus, a civil action or appeal in which the court's decision will not affect the rights of the parties is beyond the power of the court to decide. Article Three of the United States Constitution establishes the judicial branch of the federal (national) government. ... The case or controversy clause of Article III of the United States Constitution has been deemed to impose a requirement that United States federal courts are not permitted to hear cases that do not pose an actual controversy - that is, an actual dispute between adverse parties which is capable of...

A textbook example of such a case is the United States Supreme Court case DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312 (1974). The plaintiff was a student who had been denied admission to law school, and had then been provisionally admitted during the pendancy of the case. Because the student was slated to graduate within a few months at the time the decision was rendered, and there was no action the law school could take to prevent that, the Court determined that a decision on its part would have no effect on the student's rights. Therefore, the case was dismissed as moot. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States... Holding --- Court membership Case opinions Laws applied --- DeFunis v. ... Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... 1974 (MCMLXXIV) is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar). ... // A law school is an institution where future lawyers obtain legal degrees. ...

Exceptions to mootness

There are three major exceptions to this mootness rule. These are cases of "voluntary cessation" on the part of the defendant; questions that are "capable of repetition, yet evading review"; and questions involving class actions where the named party ceases to represent the class. A defendant or defender is any party who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff or pursuer in a civil lawsuit before a court, or any party who has been formally charged or accused of violating a criminal statute. ... In law, a class action is an equitable procedural device used in litigation for determining the rights of and remedies, if any, for large numbers of people whose cases involve common questions of law and fact. ...

Voluntary cessation

Where a defendant is acting in a wrongful manner, but ceases to engage in such conduct once litigation has been threatened or commenced, the court will still not deem this correction to moot the case. Obviously, a party could stop acting improperly just long enough for the case to be dismissed, and then return to their previous ways. This exception has sometimes been stretched to an extreme - in Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc., 528 U.S. 167 (2000), the Supreme Court held that an industrial polluter, against whom various deterrant civil penalties were being pursued, could not claim that the case was moot, even though the polluter had ceased polluting and had closed the factory responsible for the pollution. The Court noted that the polluter still retained its license to operate such a factory, and could reopen similar operations elsewhere if not deterred by the fine sought. A lawsuit is a civil action brought before a court in order to recover a right, obtain damages for an injury, obtain an injunction to prevent an injury, or obtain a declaratory judgment to prevent future legal disputes. ... Holding --- Court membership Case opinions Laws applied --- Friends of the Earth, Inc. ... Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... This article is about the year 2000. ...

Capable of repetition, yet evading review

A court will allow a case to go forward if it is the type for which persons will frequently be faced with a particular situation, but will likely cease to be in a position where the court can provide a remedy for them in the time that it takes for the justice system to address their situation. The most frequently cited example is the 1973 United States Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), which challenged a Texas law forbidding abortion in most circumstances. The state argued that the case was moot because plaintiff Roe was no longer pregnant by the time the case was heard. As Justice Blackmun wrote in the majority opinion, 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... Roe v. ... Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... Official language(s) None. ... Justice Harry Blackmun Harry Andrew Blackmun (November 12, 1908 – March 4, 1999) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. ...

...The normal 266-day human gestation period is so short that the pregnancy will come to term before the usual appellate process is complete. If that termination makes a case moot, pregnancy litigation seldom will survive much beyond the trial stage, and appellate review will be effectively denied. Our law should not be that rigid.

The Court cited Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U.S. 498, 515 (1911), which had held that a case was not moot when it presented an issue that was "capable of repetition, yet evading review". Perhaps in response to increasing workloads at all levels of the judiciary, the recent trend in the Supreme Court and other U.S. courts has been to construe this exception rather narrowly. Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ...

Class action representatives

Where a class action lawsuit is brought, with one named plaintiff actually representing the interests of many others, the case will not become moot even if the named plaintiff ceases to belong to the class that is seeking a remedy. In Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393 (1975), the plaintiff represented a class that was challenging an Iowa law that required persons to reside there for a year before seeking a divorce in Iowa's courts. The Supreme Court held that, although the plaintiff successfully divorced in another state, her attorneys could continue to competently advance the interests of other members of the class. Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Official language(s) English Capital Des Moines Largest city Des Moines Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 26th 145,743 km² 320 km 500 km 0. ... Divorce or dissolution of marriage is the ending of a marriage before the death of either spouse, which can be contrasted with an annulment which is a declaration that a marriage is void, though the effects of marriage may be recognized in such unions, such as spousal support, child custody... An attorney is someone who represents someone else in the transaction of business: For attorney-at-law, see lawyer, solicitor, barrister or civil law notary. ...

Mootness and U.S. State Courts

The U.S. state courts are not subject to the Article III limitations on their jurisdiction, and some state courts are permitted by their local constitutions and laws to render opinions in moot cases where the establishment of a legal precedent is desirable. For instance, in some state courts the prosecution can lodge an appeal after a defendant is acquitted: although the appeal court cannot set aside a not-guilty verdict due to double jeopardy, it can issue a ruling as to whether a trial court's ruling on a particular issue during the trial was erroneous. This opinion will then be binding on future cases heard by the courts of that state. Under the laws of the United States, most disputes are properly taken to the courts of the state in which the dispute arose. ... Double jeopardy is a procedural defense (and, in the United States and India, a constitutional right) that forbids a defendant from being tried a second time for a crime, after having already been tried for the same crime. ...