Melissa Ahlman v. Don Barnes


FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MELISSA AHLMAN; DANIEL KAUWE; Nos. 20-55568 MICHAEL SEIF; JAVIER ESPARZA; 20-55668 PEDRO BONILLA; CYNTHIA CAMPBELL; MONIQUE CASTILLO; D.C. No. MARK TRACE; CECIBEL CARIDAD 8:20-cv-00835- ORTIZ; DON WAGNER, on behalf of JGB-SHK themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, OPINION v. DON BARNES, in his official capacity as Sheriff of Orange County, California; COUNTY OF ORANGE, Defendants-Appellants. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Jesus G. Bernal, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted September 1, 2021 Pasadena, California Filed December 10, 2021 2 AHLMAN V. BARNES Before: Sandra S. Ikuta, Mark J. Bennett, and Ryan D. Nelson, Circuit Judges. Opinion by Judge R. Nelson SUMMARY * Prisoner Civil Rights The panel dismissed as moot an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by several inmates in Orange County jails against the County and the sheriff for alleged failure to combat COVID-19. The district court granted Plaintiffs’ provisional class certification and issued a preliminary injunction under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), which required the County to implement increased protective measures. The district court denied a stay pending appeal, as did this court, in a split disposition. See Ahlman v. Barnes, No. 20-55568, 2020 WL 3547960, at *5 (9th Cir. June 17, 2020). This court remanded the case to the district court to determine in the first instance whether changed circumstances warranted modification or dissolution of the preliminary injunction. On remand, the district court did not dissolve the preliminary injunction, but granted plaintiffs’ motion for expedited discovery. The County then filed a new notice of appeal of the district court’s orders on remand. In the meantime, the United States Supreme Court granted the County’s emergency application, staying the preliminary injunction * This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. AHLMAN V. BARNES 3 pending disposition of the appeal in the Ninth Circuit and, as appropriate, at the Supreme Court. Barnes v. Ahlman, 140 §S. Ct. 2620, 2620 (2020). The panel held that because the PLRA provides that any preliminary injunction automatically expires 90 days after being issued (absent further finalization), the injunction and provisional class certification were no longer in effect and the appeal was moot. The panel rejected the County’s contention that the Supreme Court’s emergency stay of the preliminary injunction saved this appeal from mootness. The panel stated that while the Supreme Court’s stay may have prevented the injunction from having any further effect, it did not toll the 90-day limit unambiguously detailed in the PLRA. Indeed, the court’s traditional equitable power is expressly proscribed by the PLRA’s plain statutory limitations, as the Supreme Court has held in a similar PLRA provision in Miller v. French, 530 U.S. 327 (2000). The panel rejected the County’s assertion that the appeal fell within an exception to mootness because the issue was capable of repetition but evading review. The …

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