In Warren v. DeSantis, No. 23-10459 (11th Cir. Jan. 10, 2025) (per curiam), the Eleventh Circuit dismisses on mootness grounds a declaratory action by a Florida officeholder seeking to be reinstated as a state attorney, because plaintiff’s term of office expired during the pendency of the case. It rejects plaintiff’s argument that a prayer for “just and proper” relief saves the case from mootness.
“In this lawsuit, appellant Andrew Warren challenged Governor Ron DeSantis’s decision to suspend him from the elected office of state attorney. In his complaint, Warren sought injunctive relief requiring DeSantis to rescind the order suspending him and to reinstate him to office, as well as a declaration that his suspension was unconstitutional. After the district court rejected Warren’s claims on the merits, he appealed. Our panel issued an opinion vacating and remanding for further proceedings.”
While the case was pending in the Eleventh Circuit on the defendant’s petition for rehearing en banc, though, “Warren’s term of office expired. Given this development, the case is moot . . . . Because Warren’s term of office has concluded, we cannot grant him any meaningful relief on appeal in this case in which he effectively seeks, either by injunctive or declaratory relief, his reinstatement to office.”
The panel rejects the suggestion “that the case is not moot because there is an exception for controversies that are capable of repetition yet evading review,” holding that too many contingencies would have to occur to resurrect the case. “For Warren to be subject to the same action again, the following course of events would need to occur: (1) he must run for another public office for which Florida’s governor has the authority to suspend the officeholder, (2) he must win that election, and (3) Florida’s governor must suspend him from office. Warren has established no reasonable expectation of these events occurring.”
The panel also holds that no claim for back pay would lie under Florida law.
Finally, plaintiff argues “that he also sought money damages from DeSantis because in the prayer for relief of his complaint he requested ‘such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper.’ But the ‘mere incantation of such boilerplate language’ cannot change the nature of relief sought,” citing cases from the Tenth and Eleventh Circuits.