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Fifth Circuit Ruling
Fifth Circuit Ruling
____________ FILED
April 2, 2024
No. 21-60312 Lyle W. Cayce
____________ Clerk
Intervenors—Appellees,
versus
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Respondents—Appellants.
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This litigation has been ongoing for almost eight years, has come
before this court three times, and has now seen four oral arguments. The
district court should act forthwith to determine whether, given that all of the
commissioners’ claims are moot, it may nonetheless exercise jurisdiction
over the case. See Mendoza v. Murphy, 532 F.3d 342, 346 (5th Cir. 2008).
* * *
Accordingly, the appeal is DISMISSED AS MOOT.
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Article III. The most obvious are traditional tangible harms, such as physical
harms and monetary harms.”). And that’s precisely what this case presents.
Loss of compensation indisputably constitutes Article III injury.1
II.
It’s been suggested, however, that we should set that principle aside
here, because it ought to be entirely up to the discretion of legislators how to
structure state and local government. Repealing or restructuring an agency
or board may well result in pocketbook injury to the board members or agency
leaders—but that’s an “institutional injury,” we’re told, so it’s not
susceptible to Article III review. See JMAA, 2023 WL 5522213, at *11
(Duncan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (“[The
Commissioners] are seeking to stop the abolition of the JMAA, pure and
simple. That’s an institutional injury. . . . That should stop their lawsuit in
its tracks.”).
This theory is premised on Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811 (1997). See
JMAA, 2023 WL 5522213, at *11 (citing Raines). But Raines involved a
constitutional challenge by members of Congress to the Line Item Veto Act.
521 U.S. at 814–16. So it concerned the official legal powers—not the
personal, private compensation—of members of Congress. Id. at 821. It
involved no allegation of any economic injury to any plaintiff. See id.
(“[A]ppellees’ claim of standing is based on a loss of political power, not loss
of any private right, which would make the injury more concrete.”).
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It’s also been suggested that the loss of even an entirely unpaid volunteer position
in government can trigger judicial review. See, e.g., Barton v. Clancy, 632 F.3d 9, 24–26 (1st
Cir. 2011) (collecting cases). We need not address that question here, because the positions
at issue in this case include per diem compensation.
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(holding that nominal damages are sufficient to redress Article III injury and
noting that “petitioners still would have satisfied redressability if instead of
one dollar in nominal damages they sought one dollar in compensation for a
wasted bus fare to travel to the free speech zone”); Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding
Corp., 580 U.S. 451, 464 (2017) (“For standing purposes, a loss of even a
small amount of money is ordinarily an ‘injury.’”); California v. Texas, 593
U.S. 659, 692 (2021) (Alito, J., dissenting) (“[E]ven a small pocketbook
injury—like the loss of $1—is enough.”). Again, counsel wisely conceded
during oral argument that if, rather than repealing judicial compensation
altogether, Congress simply reduced annual judicial salaries by $100, there
would still be Article III standing. Oral Argument at 15:00–15:06.
Counsel nevertheless contends that daily per diems are different,
because if you no longer have a job to do, then you no longer have a business
trip to take—so you no longer need the per diem that goes along with it. Oral
Argument at 15:03–15:11 (“Any salary reduction I think would be standing.
Any per diem reduction because you don’t go to court, no standing.”).
But I have trouble seeing the logic. For one thing, we could say the
same about salary. If you lose your job, you get your time back. But we would
never say that loss of salary isn’t actionable—it’s concededly Article III
injury.
Moreover, everyone has to eat—whether they’re on a business trip or
not. Suppose I eat lunch every day at McDonald’s. If I serve on a board and
thereby receive per diem on any business trip, then my trip to McDonald’s is
free. (What’s more, this case involves a fixed $40 per diem, on top of
reimbursement for actual travel expenses, so I’d get to pocket the difference.
See Miss. Code Ann. §§ 25-3-69, 61-3-13(1).)
But if the board is eliminated, and my trip is cancelled, I have to pay
for all of my daily Big Macs out of my own pocket. (Moreover, many people
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may decide to eat more expensive meals when covered by per diem than they
would when eating on their own dime—a fact that, of course, cuts even
further in favor of standing.)
So loss of per diem constitutes pocketbook injury—just as readily as
loss of salary, corporate expense account, company car, health care benefit,
pension, or any number of other job perks.
***
Accordingly, I would hold that loss of per diem constitutes economic
injury sufficient to establish Article III standing.
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