Mitchell v. Wall, No. 15-1881 (7th Cir. 2015)

Annotate this Case

Mitchell, physically a man, psychologically a woman, sought to compel her probation officers to alter conditions of her probation, by allowing her to reside with her family rather than in the men’s homeless shelter, allowing her to dress as a woman, and referring her to treatment programs for her gender dysphoria. The district court denied a preliminary injunction on grounds that she hadn’t complied with rules governing injunctive relief, that the requested injunctive relief was unrelated to the merits of her claims against prison doctors (the only claims that had survived screening of her complaint), and that she had failed to demonstrate either that she was likely to prevail on the underlying claims or would suffer irreparable harm if injunctive relief was denied. While the appeal was pending, Mitchell was returned to custody, after pleading guilty to theft, prostitution, and resisting an officer. The Seventh Circuit dismissed her appeal of denial of an injunction as moot. Mitchell still has claims pending against the doctors, unaffected by the denial of the preliminary injunction, and should she be released from jail during the litigation and again placed on probation she can renew her objections to the terms of her probation.

Download PDF

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 15 1881 ROY MITCHELL, Plaintiff Appellant, v. EDWARD F. WALL, et al., Defendants Appellees. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. No. 15 cv 108 wmc — William M. Conley, Chief Judge. ____________________ SUBMITTED OCTOBER 29, 2015 — DECIDED DECEMBER 23, 2015 ____________________ Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and POSNER and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges. POSNER, Circuit Judge. Roy Mitchell—physically a man, psychologically a woman—appeals from the denial of her motion for a preliminary injunction to compel the probation officers assigned to supervise her to alter the conditions of her probation, as by allowing her to reside with her family rather than in the men’s homeless shelter to which she is currently assigned and referring her to counseling and treatment programs for her gender dysphoria. 2 No. 15 1881 She has spent much of her adult life either homeless or behind bars. After a recent stint in a Wisconsin state prison, from which she was released on probation, she filed the pre sent suit, seeking relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against two administrators in the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, two doctors at Columbia Correctional Institution, and three probation officers in Dane County, Wisconsin. The suit al leges that during her incarceration the administrators and the doctors were deliberately indifferent to her acute need for psychological and hormonal therapy for her gender dys phoria—therapy recommended by a consultative psycholo gist of the Department of Corrections—and further that her probation officers demonstrated deliberate indifference to her condition by prohibiting her from moving from a men’s homeless shelter to her mother’s house and from dressing as a woman in public. She seeks damages but in the interim seeks a preliminary injunction compelling the probation of ficers to permit her to move in with her mother and sister and dress like a woman, and to refer her to the treatment programs she needs. The district judge, scrutinizing the complaint for compli ance with 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), allowed the plaintiff to proceed with her claims against the two prison doctors but not against the other defendants. He denied her motion for a preliminary injunction on the grounds that she hadn’t com plied with the rules governing injunctive relief, that the in junctive relief she sought was unrelated to the merits of her claims against the doctors (the only claims that had survived the judge’s screening of her complaint), and that she had failed to demonstrate either that she was likely to prevail on the underlying claims or would suffer irreparable harm if No. 15 1881 3 the injunctive relief she sought was denied. The present ap peal is limited to the denial of the preliminary injunction. While the appeal was pending, Mitchell informed us that she is back in custody, having been sentenced recently to nine months in jail after pleading guilty to theft, prostitution, and resisting an officer. So long as she is in jail she is not subject to supervision by probation offices and cannot seek a modification of the terms of probation. Since her motion for injunctive relief concerns only her probation, her appeal is now moot—and for the further reason that having dismissed all her claims against the probation officers the judge had mooted her motion for a preliminary injunction. See, e.g., Transportation Workers Union of America, AFL CIO, Local Un ions 561–565 v. Transportation Workers Union of America, AFL CIO, International Union, 732 F.3d 832, 834 (7th Cir. 2013). When a case becomes moot on appeal (supposing the present case, so far as it concerns the probation officer de fendants, hadn’t become moot already in the district court), the court of appeals generally vacates the judgment of the district court and remands with instructions to dismiss the case. It does this in order to prevent the district court’s unre viewed decision from having a preclusive effect in subse quent litigation between the parties. Compare United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36 (1950). But because a pre liminary injunction has no preclusive effect on the district court’s deciding whether to issue a permanent injunction, we have held that “orders vacating the underlying order should not typically issue with respect to preliminary injunc tions that become moot on appeal.” Orion Sales, Inc. v. Emer son Radio Corp., 148 F.3d 840, 843 (7th Cir. 1998). Further more, the plaintiff in our case still has claims pending in the 4 No. 15 1881 district court against the two doctors—claims unaffected by the denial of the preliminary injunction that she sought against the probation officers. She thus has a live case, and should she be released from jail in the course of the litigation and again placed on probation she’ll be able to renew her objections to the terms of her probation. In addition, unlike the situation in the otherwise similar case of Gjertsen v. Board of Election Commissioners, 751 F.2d 199, 202 (7th Cir. 1984), no motion for either preliminary or permanent injunctive relief remains pending in the district court and, as we noted, the district judge’s denial of prelimi nary relief does not preclude the later issuance of a perma nent injunction. Like Orion Sales, moreover, the dismissal of the interlocutory appeal on grounds of mootness does not leave in force a final district court decision that the prevail ing party could use as a basis for asserting collateral estoppel in a future litigation between the parties. Because the case remains alive in the district court, compare Camreta v. Greene 131 S. Ct. 2020, 2033–36 (2011), should the plaintiff in the course of the litigation be released from jail and again placed on probation she may be able, as an alternative to reviving her claim for injunctive relief against the probation officers (whether the old ones or new ones), to bring a new suit, which doubtless will involve issues related to the claims in her present suit against the probation officers. And she’ll be able to ask the district court to vacate his current judgment denying her claims against them, on the ground that our rul ing her appeal moot deprived her of an opportunity to chal lenge his earlier ruling. And finally she’s waived her right to ask us to vacate the district court’s order dismissing her motion for preliminary No. 15 1881 5 injunctive relief as moot. In Munsingwear the court of ap peals had dismissed the government’s appeal from an ad verse decision as moot. The government had not moved the court of appeals to vacate the decision, as it could have done to avoid being faced with claims of res judicata or collateral estoppel in a future case. It asked the Supreme Court to do so. The Court refused, saying, 340 U.S. at 38–41 (interior quotations, citations, and ellipses omitted): The general principle announced in numerous cases is that a right, question, or fact distinctly put in issue, and di rectly determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, as a ground of recovery, cannot be disputed in a subsequent suit between the same parties or their privies; and even if the second suit is for a different cause of action, the right, question or fact once so determined must, as between the same parties or their privies, be taken as conclusively es tablished, so long as the judgment in the first suit remains unmodified. That is the result unless the dismissal of the appeal on the ground of mootness and the deprivation of the United States [the petitioner in Munsingwear] of any review of the case in the Court of Appeals warrant an exception to the established rule. Petitioner argues that that case is distinguishable be cause here, Congress provided an appeal. It contends that if the right to appeal is to be protected, the rigors of res ju dicata must be alleviated. Concededly the judgment in the first suit would be binding in the subsequent ones if an appeal, though available, had not been taken or perfected. But it is said that those who have been prevented from ob taining the review to which they are entitled should not be treated as if there had been a review. 6 No. 15 1881 [But] if there is hardship in this case, it was preventa ble. The established practice of the Court in dealing with a civil case from a court in the federal system which has be come moot while on its way here or pending our decision on the merits is to reverse or vacate the judgment below and remand with a direction to dismiss. That procedure clears the path for future relitigation of the issues between the parties and eliminates a judgment, review of which was prevented through happenstance. When that proce dure is followed, the rights of all parties are preserved; none is prejudiced by a decision which in the statutory scheme was only preliminary. [But] in this case, the United States made no motion to vacate the judgment. It acquiesced in the dismissal. The case is therefore one where the United States, hav ing slept on its rights, now asks us to do what by orderly procedure it could have done for itself. The case illustrates not the hardship of res judicata, but the need for it in providing terminal points for litigation. And so it is in this case. For as we explained in Gjertsen, the Supreme Court’s decision in Munsingwear establishes that “since the requirement of vacating the lower court order when it becomes moot on appeal is for the benefit of the los er in the lower court, he can waive it, and does so by failing to invoke it.” 757 F.2d at 203 (emphasis added). APPEAL DISMISSED

Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.