Robeson v. Acheson

¶4PER CURIAM.

¶5Appellant Robeson, plaintiff below, appeals from dismissal of his complaint, on motion, by the District Court. The complaint seeks a declaratory judgment and injunction decreeing in substance that appellant’s passport is still valid, that appellee Acheson, Secretary of State, the defendant below, has without right cancelled it, and that appellant is entitled to leave the United States without interference by appellee.

¶6The complaint, filed Deecmber 19, 1950, recites, inter alia, that appellant, a citizen of the United States, then held a passport which would by virtue of a renewal remain valid until January 25, 1961; that appellee Acheson, through his agents, demanded appellant surrender his passport; that the passport was invalidated, and, on information and belief, that appellee took steps to prevent appellant from leaving the United States. The complaint sets forth respects in which appellee’s conduct is said to have been illegal and to have injured appellant in his travel plans and business activities abroad.

¶7According to the allegations of the complaint the passport expired January 25, 1951, a few weeks subsequent to the filing of the suit. No application for renewal or for a new passport is shown to have been made. Insofar as the passport is concerned it seems clear, therefore, the case has long since become moot. “ … There being no subject matter upon which the judgment of this Court can operate, the cause is moot.” Amalgamated Ass’n of St. Elec. Ry. & Motor Coach Emp. of America Div. 998 v. Wisconsin Board, 1951, 340 U.S. 416 at page 418, 71 S.Ct. 373, 375, 95 L.Ed. 389. We should not, under settled principles, decide the important issues sought to be litigated when there is pending before the Secretary no application for a new passport and the one said to have been unlawfully invalidated has expired by its own terms.

¶8The entire case fails by reason of the situation above described. It is not saved by the allegations that the Secretary has taken steps pursuant to Section 53.5 of Title 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations to prevent appellant’s departure from the United States.1 It is true the alleged ac*987tions of the Secretary in this respect, like those dealing with cancellation of the passport, are characterized as depriving appellant of his right to travel abroad, and as arbitrary, discriminatory and violative of due process of law. But the complaint indicates that the steps said to have been taken to prevent appellant’s departure are incident to invalidation of his passport. Nowhere among the allegations of his travel plans or desires or business activities dependent upon his travel is there a suggestion of plans, desires or activities which would take appellant to any place outside the United States where under existing law and regulations a passport might not be required.2 A fair reading of the complaint discloses no case, independent of the consequence of invalidation of the passport, of alleged infringement of rights by restraint upon appellant’s freedom of movement beyond the United States. Copies of communications between him and the State Department, attached as exhibits to the complaint, and his reference to § 53.5 of the regulations, the terms of which are outlined in the last paragraph of n. 1, supra, emphasize that his dispute with the Department is radicated in the passport issue. Since that issue falls as moot the whole case falls with it as presently set forth in the complaint.

¶9Reversed and remanded to be dismissed as moot.