Court Dismisses As Moot Suit Against COVID-19 Emergency Orders

Update, 3:45 p.m. -- The headline of this story has since been revised to better reflect the Third Circuit's action. The court did not overturn the lower court ruling on its merits, but rather dismissed the case as moot because there is no longer a controversy in the matter.

PHILADELPHIA, PA — A three-judge federal appeals court panel on Wednesday dismissed as moot a lawsuit challenging COVID-19-related emergency orders that had been issued by the administration of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf during the early days of the pandemic.

In an opinion published Wednesday, Judges Michael A. Chagares, Kent A. Jordan and Patty Shwartz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which sits in Philadelphia, dismissed a ruling by a lower federal court that had sided with those challenging Wolf’s 2020 emergency regulations, which included stay-at-home orders, business closures and limits on crowd gatherings and capacity.

Wolf and his health secretary at the time, Rachel Levine, had issued the emergency orders as a way to mitigate the coronavirus's spread, but the orders were met with backlash from the business community and others.

A number of Pennsylvania elected officials, citizens and business owners filed a federal lawsuit challenging the emergency orders. Last fall, U.S. District Judge William S. Stickman IV ruled that the orders did, in fact, constitute governmental overreach and constitutional violations.

In this week’s 3rd Circuit ruling, the judges — who had taken up the matter on appeal from Wolf administration lawyers — returned Stickman’s ruling to the lower court with instructions to dismiss. The judges said the underlying issues were essentially rendered moot by the fact that the emergency orders had since expired, and there was little chance of them returning since voters this past spring approved an amendment in the Pennsylvania Constitution that limits a governor’s emergency declarations to 21 days.

Under the constitutional change, the state Legislature can now end a governor’s emergency declarations with a simple majority vote. Legislative approval is needed to extend the governor’s orders past 21 days.

Judge Jordan, who joined in the majority decision, wrote a separate concurring opinion in which he stressed that the mootness issue in this case “is not, to my mind, a simple or easy one.”

Jordan wrote that the plaintiffs in the case argued with an “understandable vigor, believing, as they obviously do, that fundamental rights are at stake and were not properly respected by Pennsylvania’s governmental officials.

“Without in anyway signaling a view on the merits — something I and the panel have assiduously avoided doing — I note simply that our ruling today should not be read as reflecting a lack of appreciation for the feelings generated by this case,” Jordan continued, “nor as indicating a failure to understand that there are real-world consequences flowing from governmental responses to the unprecedented (at least in our lifetime) pandemic we are yet working our way through.”

Nevertheless, Jordan wrote, a merits decision cannot be rendered simply because there is “no longer a case or controversy to be decided.

“The boundaries of our jurisdiction are set, and the case-or controversy requirement embedded in Article III of the Constitution serves as a bulwark against judicial overreach,” Jordan wrote in the concurring opinion. “That is to everyone’s benefit, even if it can at times be frustration to those who have worked for and want an answer from the courts.”

Jordan concluded by saying that society is not yet through with the coronavirus pandemic, and the “unexpected” might still occur — but, under court rules, “considering the merits of this appeal or leaving the District Court’s decision extant would be a mistake.”

In the end, the panel dismissed the appeal, vacated the trial court's judgment and remanded the case to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, where Judge Stickman was ordered to dismiss the complaint as moot.

The full opinion can be read here.