First Amendment Challenge To Refusal of School Bussing Not Moot

Pucket v. Rounds, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3925 (D SD, Jan. 17, 2006 ) involves an interesting question of mootness in the context of a First Amendment challenge to provisions of the South Dakota Constitution brought in federal district court in South Dakota. Following receipt of an attorney general's opinion, a South Dakota school district stopped furnishing bussing to parochial school students. Parents filed suit challenging the provisions of the South Dakota constitution on which the attorney general relied (Art. VI, sec. 3, and Art. VIII, sec. 16). Subsequently, the legislature enacted a statute permitting bussing and the school district reinstated parochial school bussing. Plaintiffs claim, however, that it was really the filing of their lawsuit that caused the school district to reinstate bussing. The court held that "assuming, as the court must on summary judgment, that plaintiffs' lawsuit motivated School District, then plaintiffs' claims for injunctive relief are not moot because the voluntary cessation exception applies. According to this exception, 'the voluntary cessation of allegedly illegal conduct does not deprive the tribunal of power to hear and determine the case, i.e., does not make the case moot.'"