Lead Opinion
Thе defendants, prison officials at Calipat-ria State Prison (“Calipatria”), appeal a district court order requiring them to improve inmates’ access to the prison’s law library. The district court issued the order after entering summary judgment in favor of plaintiff Daniel Dilley, an inmate at Calipatria, on his claim that the defendants violated his right of access to the courts by failing to provide adequate access to the law library. We do not address the validity of the district court’s order granting injunctive relief because this case became moot upon Dilley’s transfer from Calipatria to another state prison facility-
I
Daniel Dilley, who then was an inmate in the “C” facility at Calipatria, filed a first amended complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging among other things that the defendants had violated his right of access to the courts under Bounds v. Smith,
After touring Calipatria and the Facility “C” law library, conducting hearings, and reviewing the defеndants’ proposed plan and Dilley’s objections to it, the Special Master filed a report making his recommendations to the district court. The Special Master ree-ommended expanding both the size of the library and its holdings; permitting inmates either to have open access to the stacks or to check out four, rather than three, books at a time; a training program for inmate law clerks; increasing both the length and frequency of inmates’ visits to the library; implementing a system for scheduling inmates’ use of the library; and providing more opportunities for inmates with jobs to use the library. The Special Master also recommended that the district court retain jurisdiction over the case and schedule a hearing after six months for the Special Master to assess Calipatria’s compliance with the plan. Judge Keep adopted the Special Master’s report in full on December 15, 1993, and the defеndants filed a timely notice of appeal.
II
As an initial matter, we must determine the scope of this appeal. The defendants’ opening brief challenged only the district court’s order requiring them to improve inmates’ access to the law library; only in their reply brief did the defendants attempt to challenge the district court’s grant of Dil-ley’s motion for summary judgment, in which the district court held that the defendants had violated Dilley’s right of access to the courts by failing to рrovide reasonable access to the law library. Issues not raised in the opening brief usually are deemed waived. All Pacific Trading, Inc. v. Vessel M/V Hanjin Yosu,
The defendants maintain, however, that their opening brief did challenge the district court’s grant of Dilley’s motion for summary judgment. They rely on the fact that they argued in their opening brief that Dilley had failed to show an “actual injury” resulting from inadequate access to the law library. The defendants maintain that because a plaintiff must demonstrate an “aсtual injury” to prevail on a claim of inadequate library access, Vandelft v. Moses, 31 F.3d
The defendants’ argument is merit-less. Although the defendants’ opening brief argued that Dilley had failed to establish that he had been denied access to the courts, it did not ask us to reverse the district court’s grant оf Dilley’s motion for summary judgment. Rather, the defendants’ addressed the issue of “actual injury” only to advance their argument that the district court in fashioning the appropriate remedy should have considered Dilley’s alleged failure to demonstrate that he was denied access to the courts as a result of the defendants’ policies governing law library access.
Our conclusion that the defendants have appealed only the district court’s order granting injunctive relief, not the district court’s determination that the defendants violated Dilley’s constitutional rights, is supported by the defendants’ notice of appeal in this ease, which stаtes clearly that the defendants intended to appeal “from the final Judgment and Order ... adopting the findings and recommendations of Magistrate Judge/Special Master to alter the physical layout of law libraries at Calipatria ■ State Prison, directing the means of providing additional inmate access to the law libraries, and retention of jurisdiction over this ease for six months to assess compliance with the plan.” Because the defendants did not challenge the district court’s grant of Dilley’s motion for summary judgment in their opening brief, this issue is waived and the sole issue on appeal is whether the district court surpassed its authority in fashioning an appropriate remedy for a proven constitutional violation.
Ill
The defendants argue that this case is moot. We agree. Since the district court granted injunctive relief in this case, Dilley has been transferred from Calipatria to another California state prison. An inmate’s release from prison while his claims are pending generally will moot any claims for injunctive relief relating to the prison’s policies unless the suit has been certified as a class action. Preiser v. Newkirk,
Dilley argues that this case is “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” See Roe v. Wade,
First, an inmate’s “claim of inadequate access to legal materials is not one that
Second, Dilley has not demonstrated a reasonable expectation that he will be transferred back to Calipatria and subjected again to law library policies depriving him of meaningful access to the courts. When Dilley filed this lawsuit, he was classified as a Class IV inmate, which in California’s classification system represents the highest level of risk to prison security. Dilley was transferred from Calipatria to a lower-level security institution when he was reclassified as a Class III inmate. Calipatria does not house Class III inmates, and Dilley would be reclassified as a Class IV inmate only if he were to commit a serious violation of prison rules. Accordingly, Dilley’s claim that he might be transferred back to Calipatria some time in the future is “too speculative” to prevent mootness. See Wiggins,
IV
In addition to seeking dismissal of their own appeal, the defendants request that we vacate the district court’s order as moot. We remand for the district court to determine whether the injunction should be vacated.
A
The leading case on vacatur is United States v. Munsingwear,
In the decades since Munsingwear, we have treated automatic vacatur as the “established practice,” applying whenever mootness prevents appellate review. E.g., In re Davenport,
Recent guidance from the Supreme Court requires some adjustment to the analytical framework which governs our decision whether or not to vacate a district court judgment when mootness prevents appellate review. In U.S. Bancorp Mortgage Co. v. Bonner Mall Partnership, — U.S. —,
U.S. Bancorp makes clear that the touchstone of vacatur is equity. Although the Supreme Court “st[ood] by Munsing-wear’s dictum that mootness by happenstance provides sufficient reason to vacate,” — U.S. at-,
However, as U.S. Bancorp demonstrates, the equitable principles weighing in favor of vacatur in these situations cut the other direction where the appellant by his own act prevents appellate review of the adverse judgment. “The denial of vacatur [in such a case] is merely one application of the principle that ‘[a] suitor’s conduct in relation to the matter at hand may disentitle him to the relief he seeks.’ ” Id. at-,
Like Munsingwear, Ringsby is wholly consistent with the “equitable tradition of vacatur” reflected in U.S. Bancorp. See U.S. Bancorp, — U.S. at —,
The facts surrounding Dilley’s transfer from Calipatria are not sufficiently developed in the record for us to determine whether Munsingwear or Ringsby controls this case. Accordingly, we remand to the district court not only to consider the relevant factors under Ringsby, but also to determine as a threshold matter whether Ringsby applies in this case. If Dilley’s transfer from Calipatria was due to “happenstance,” the district court’s order granting injunctive relief should be vacated under Munsingwear,
B
We offer the following as guidance to the district court on remand. As a general matter, Ringsby may apply even when both parties play a role in the events mooting the appeal. In National Union, we rejected a proposed “unilateral/bilateral distinction,” under which “a case made moot by the action of one party to the action would not be vacated, but if made moot by action of both parties, ... vacatur would be granted upon request.”
Moreover, if an appellant is responsible for mooting its own appeal, Ringsby can apply even if the appellant engaged in the conduct which caused the mootness for a purpose other than to prevent the appellate court’s review of the district court’s order. We recently held that, although a primary purpose of Ringsby is to prevent the litigant from abusing the equitable remedy of vaca-tur by purposefully mooting his own appeal, the Ringsby rule, not the standard underlying it, determines whether automatic vacatur should be granted. See Blair,
These general rules have been created, however, in the settlement context, where the appellant’s agreement to settle the ease while its appeal was pending prevented appellate review of the challenged judgment. Munsingwear does not control when an appeal is mooted due to the appellant’s decision to change its litigation position—even though the appellee agreed to the settlement voluntarily and even if the appellant did not intend to hinder appellate review—because the conduct of the parties as litigants cannot be attributed to “happenstance.”
This case, however, arises in a significantly different context. The administration of a prison does not grind to a halt the moment an inmate files a lawsuit. The defendants had a relationship to Dilley other than as litigants; they continued to be responsible for Dilley’s food, clothing, shelter, and safety and for the day-to-day administration of Cali-patria. See Farmer v. Brennan, — U.S. —,
If the district court concludes that Dilley’s transfer from Calipatria occurred “by happenstance,” then automatic vacatur is appropriate under Munsingwear. If, however, the district court finds that the defendants played a role in Dilley’s transfer and that the transfer was related to the pendency of this appeal, then Ringsby applies to this case and the district court must then decide whether to vacate the injunction in light of “the consequences and attendant hardships of dismissal or refusal to dismiss” and the “competing values of finality of judgment and right to relitigation of unreviewed disputes.” Rings-by,
CONCLUSION
This appeal is moot because the plaintiff is no longer incarcerated at Calipatria and has failed to demonstrate that his claim is one capable of repetition, yet evading review. We remand to the district court to determine
REMANDED.
Notes
. The district court did not, however, award damages to Dilley, because it held that the defendants enjoyed qualified immunity. See Wood v. Strickland,
. To prevail on a "non-core" Bounds claim, a plaintiff must show that the alleged inadequacies resulted in an "actual injury," defined as a "specific instance in which an inmate was actually denied access to the courts.” Sands v. Lewis,
. We do not address whether Dilley established a "specific instance in which [he] was actually denied access to the courts." See Sands,
. Two of our sister circuits have also recognized that, after U.S. Bancorp, automatic vacatur under Munsingwear can no longer be viewed as the "established practice” whenever a case becomes moot on appeal, and that the primary inquiry is whether the appellant caused the mootness by his own voluntary act. See Jones v. Temmer,
. Because the defendants appealed only the district court's order granting injunctive relief, our dismissal of this appeal as moot provides no basis for vacating the district court's grant of Dilley's motion for summary judgment. See Karcher v. May,
. In Scott v. Iron Workers Local 118,
Concurrence Opinion
concurring:
I concur in the majority opinion with one . caveat. I think it would be the rarest of rare casеs when an injunction could continue in full force and effect even though the matter had become moot.
Injunctions are not general statutes. They run in favor of a party and direct the other party to do something for the first party’s benefit. If the first party can no longer have any legal interest in the relief in question, it is most difficult to see how the injunction can possibly remain in place. I know of no case of ours which even hints that it can. See, e.g., Sample v. Borg,
However, because my powers of vaticination are not infinite, on the off chance that some confluence of circumstances will show that this injunction can continue, I concur. Thus, with misgivings, I refrain from joining the ranks of those who have predicted that some event or other could never possibly happen.
