# Motley v. Taylor

> District Court, M.D. Alabama · June 22, 2021

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9987351

## Case

- **Court:** District Court, M.D. Alabama
- **Decided:** June 22, 2021
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9987351

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- applying the inherently transitory exception to save class claims for individuals who were on waiting lists for federal public housing, which for some plausibly could extend to nine years

## Opinion text

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA
NORTHERN DIVISION

SHARON MOTLEY, on behalf of )
herself and those similarly situated, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
v. ) CASE NO. 2:19-CV-478-WKW
) [WO]
HAL TAYLOR, in his official )
capacity as Secretary of the Alabama )
Law Enforcement Agency, )
)
Defendant. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION
On March 31, 2020, the court entered an order and final judgment, granting
Defendant Hal Taylor’s motion to dismiss, denying as moot Plaintiff Sharon
Motley’s motions for preliminary injunction and for class certification, and
dismissing this action with prejudice. (Docs. # 31, 32.) Ms. Motley appealed.
Shortly thereafter, the parties moved the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
to resolve whether intervening events had rendered this putative class action moot.
The Eleventh Circuit directed the parties to seek an indicative ruling from this court,
and they complied. Pursuant to the Eleventh Circuit’s directions, this opinion
addresses “whether this case is moot and, if so, whether an exception to the mootness
doctrine applies.” (Doc. # 38-2.) For the reasons to follow, the court will issue an
indicative ruling that Ms. Motley’s claims became moot after the filing of this
lawsuit, but that the putative class claims fall within the inherently transitory
exception to the mootness doctrine.

I. BACKGROUND
A. Stipulated Facts
The parties have stipulated to the material facts. The stipulations are set out

here for convenience. (Doc. # 38-1, at 2–3.)
1. Ms. Motley’s license had been suspended since 2005. Her license was
initially suspended for failing to appear in the Montgomery Municipal Court on
several traffic tickets. The failure to appear suspensions were cleared in December

2018.
2. On September 24, 2013, Ms. Motley pleaded guilty in the Montgomery
County District Court to driving while suspended. The Montgomery County District

Court Judge ordered Ms. Motley to pay $310 in fines and court costs by November
19, 2013.
3. After Ms. Motley failed to pay this amount, the Montgomery County
District Court issued a suspension notice to ALEA (then DPS) for Failure to Pay on

December 20, 2013.1 ALEA records indicate the effective date of its suspension of
Ms. Motley’s driver’s license was January 8, 2014. See Driver History Inquiry, Ex.

1 ALEA is the acronym for “Alabama Law Enforcement Agency,” and DPS is the acronym
for “Department of Public Safety.”
2
1 (Doc. # 38-1). As of December 2018, the only reason Ms. Motley’s driver’s license
was suspended was for failing to pay the traffic ticket in the Montgomery County

District Court.
4. In February 2019, Ms. Motley requested the Montgomery County
District Court to place her on a traffic docket to receive a payment plan to repay her

traffic ticket and court costs.
5. In March 2019, the Montgomery County District Court ordered Ms.
Motley to make installment payments in the amount of $25.00 per month.
6. On February 14, 2020, a $5,000 settlement check was issued to Ms.

Motley as a result of a legal settlement in a class action case entitled Olsen, et al. v.
Context Logic, Inc., No. 2019-CH-06737. See Settlement Check, Ex. 2 (Doc. # 38-
1). Ms. Motley served as a class representative in that case, which alleged that

ContextLogic sent text message advertisements to her cell phone number without
obtaining her prior express written consent in violation of the Telephone Consumer
Protection Act. See Settlement Agreement, Ex. 3 (Doc. # 38-1).
7. On February 19, 2020, Ms. Motley paid the remaining balance on her

ticket, as well as the $100 reinstatement fee and $50 late fee to ALEA, and obtained
removal of the suspension of her license for failure to pay the 2013 ticket. See Driver
History Inquiry, Ex. 1 (Doc. # 38-1); Driver History Abstract at 2, Ex. 4 (Doc. # 38-

1).
3
8. As of February 19, 2020, Ms. Motley’s driver’s license was placed in a
“valid status” by ALEA. Since her license had been suspended since 2005, Ms.

Motley had to pass the complete examination (vision/written/skills) to obtain a valid
Alabama driver’s license.
9. On March 3, 2020, the State of Georgia issued Ms. Motley a driver’s

license. See Pl.’s Georgia Driver’s License, Ex. 5 (Doc. # 38-1).
B. Procedural History
Ms. Motley originally filed this putative class action on November 19, 2018—
together with Plaintiffs Lakendra Cook and Christopher Gray—to challenge the

suspension of their driver’s licenses for non-payment of traffic tickets. Mr. Gray
voluntarily dismissed his claims on January 18, 2019, after the reinstatement of his
driver’s license. This court dismissed the action without prejudice on May 1, 2019,

finding that Ms. Motley and Ms. Cook lacked standing to challenge the failure-to-
pay suspensions because their licenses were suspended for other reasons (i.e.,
failure-to-appear suspensions in separate cases). See Cook v. Taylor, No. 2:18-CV-
977, 2019 WL 1938794 (M.D. Ala. May 1, 2019).

Ms. Motley refiled this putative class action on July 3, 2019, after resolving
her failure-to-appear suspension. (Doc. # 1 (Compl.).) She was the sole proposed
representative for a putative class defined as “[a]ll individuals whose driver’s

licenses [were] suspended for nonpayment of traffic tickets.” (Doc. # 1 ¶ 38.) Ms.
4
Motley’s complaint challenged the constitutionality of Alabama Rule of Criminal
Procedure 26.11(i)(3).2 It alleged that this rule authorized courts to suspend driver’s

licenses without prior notice, without an opportunity to be heard, and without a
contemporaneous finding that the driver is able to pay but willfully failed to do so.
On behalf of herself and a class of similarly situated individuals, Ms. Motley

sought a declaratory judgment that Rule 26.11(i)(3) violated the Fourteenth
Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection.3 She also requested
injunctive relief (1) “[p]reventing ALEA from effectuating driver’s license
suspensions for nonpayment” under Rule 26.11(i)(3); (2) “[r]equiring ALEA to

reinstate any driver’s license previously suspended” under Rule 26.11(i)(3) “without
charging a reinstatement fee, if there is not an independent reason to continue the
suspension”; and (3) “[r]equiring ALEA to provide notice to drivers with suspended

licenses of their driver’s license reinstatement.” (Doc. # 1, at 15 (Compl.).) Also

2 Rule 26.11(i)(3) provides: “If the court orders a defendant to pay a fine and/or restitution
imposed as a result of a traffic infraction, the court may suspend the defendant’s privilege to
operate a motor vehicle in this state upon a failure of the defendant to comply with the order of the
court”—that is, when the defendant fails to pay the fine. Ala. R. Crim. P. 26.11(i)(3). And “[i]f
the defendant’s privilege to operate a motor vehicle has been suspended for failure to comply with
such court order, the privilege may remain suspended until the total amount of the fine and/or
restitution imposed is paid.” Id.

3 Her claims were premised on the doctrine of Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983),
and its associated cases. Bearden held that, before ordering imprisonment for failure to pay a fine,
a sentencing court must determine whether an indigent probationer willfully refused to pay and, if
his inability to pay was through no fault of his own, must consider alternative measures of
punishment. Id. at 672; (see also Doc. # 31, at 11.)

5
on July 3, 2019, Ms. Motley filed motions for preliminary injunction and for class
certification. (Docs. # 3, 5.)

Defendant filed a motion to dismiss on July 24, 2019. (Doc. # 14.) On March
31, 2020, the court granted the motion, denied as moot Ms. Motley’s motions for
preliminary injunction and for class certification, and dismissed this action with
prejudice. (Doc. # 31.) Final judgment was entered the same date.4 (Doc. # 32.)

Ms. Motley appealed the judgment. Thereafter, the parties moved the
Eleventh Circuit to supplement the record and to order jurisdictional briefing to
address whether this action is moot because Ms. Motley had paid her traffic ticket

fines and related court costs and had obtained a valid driver’s license. The motion
was “denied without prejudice to the parties seeking an indicative ruling from the
district court on this motion or related motions.” (Doc. # 38-2 (capitalization

omitted).) In the same Order, the Eleventh Circuit stated that this court “should
address in the first instance whether this case is moot and, if so, whether an exception
to the mootness doctrine applies.” (Doc. # 38-2.)
Complying with the Eleventh Circuit’s directives, the parties filed a joint

motion in this court for jurisdictional briefing and for an indicative ruling on

4 The court was unaware of the intervening change in facts (see paragraphs 7 and 8 on
pages 3–4 above) when final judgment was issued.

6
mootness. (Doc. # 38.) The motion was granted, and briefing was ordered. (Doc.
# 39.) The question of mootness is ready for review.5 (See Docs. # 38-4, 40, 41.)

II. DISCUSSION
“Under Article III of the Constitution, federal courts may only hear ‘cases or
controversies.’” Frulla v. CRA Holdings, Inc., 543 F.3d 1247, 1250 (11th Cir. 2008)

(quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 559–60 (1992)). “The
doctrine of mootness, which evolved directly from Article III’s case-or-controversy
limitation, provides that ‘the requisite personal interest that must exist at the
commencement of the litigation (standing) must continue throughout its existence

(mootness).’” Id. at 1251–52 (quoting Tanner Advert. Grp., L.L.C. v. Fayette Cnty.,
Ga., 451 F.3d 777, 785 (11th Cir. 2006) (en banc)). “A case becomes moot—and
therefore no longer a ‘Case’ or ‘Controversy’ for purposes of Article III—‘when the

issues presented are no longer live or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in
the outcome.’” Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc., 568 U.S. 85, 91 (2013) (quoting Murphy
v. Hunt, 455 U.S. 478, 481 (1982)). The Eleventh Circuit has “held that a case must
be dismissed as moot if events that occur subsequent to the filing of a lawsuit deprive

the court of the ability to give the plaintiff meaningful relief.” Keohane v. Fla. Dep’t
of Corr. Sec’y, 952 F.3d 1257, 1267 (11th Cir. 2020) (cleaned up).

5 The Eleventh Circuit stayed the appeal, “pending an indicative ruling by the district court
on whether this case is moot . . . .” Motley v. Taylor, No. 20-11688-GG (11th Cir. July 29, 2020)
(order granting joint motion to stay the appeal).
7
On July 3, 2019, when Ms. Motley filed this action, her driver’s license was
suspended pursuant to Rule 26.11(i)(3) for failure to pay fines and related court costs

for a traffic infraction. However, in February 2020, while this action was pending
and prior to a ruling on class certification, Ms. Motley paid the balance on her traffic
ticket and the associated costs owed to the Montgomery County District Court.

Consequently, on February 19, 2020, Ms. Motley’s driver’s license was placed in a
“valid status” by the ALEA (Doc. # 38-1, ¶ 8), and her “privilege to operate a motor
vehicle” was no longer suspended, Ala. R. Crim. P. 26.11(i)(3).
The issue is whether these events that culminated in the lifting of the

suspension of Ms. Motley’s driver’s license mooted her claims. The short answer is
“yes, but.” Ms. Motley’s claims are moot, but the inherently transitory exception to
the mootness doctrine saves the putative class claims.

Ms. Motley’s claims are moot. As of February 19, 2020, Ms. Motley was no
longer subject to the suspension that formed the basis of her constitutional claims
for declaratory and prospective injunctive relief. With her suspension lifted, Ms.
Motley no longer had “a legally cognizable interest in the outcome” of the suit.

Already, LLC, 568 U.S. at 91 (cleaned up). Under traditional mootness principles,
Ms. Motley’s “suit became moot when her individual claim[s] became moot,
because she lacked any personal interest in representing others in this action.”

Genesis Healthcare Corp. v. Symczyk, 569 U.S. 66, 73 (2013) (alteration added).
8
Thus, if Ms. Motley had brought this lawsuit individually, the suit would be moot.
This much is not in serious contention. But that is not the end of the inquiry.

Ms. Motley did not bring an individual suit. She brought a putative class
action to represent “[a]ll individuals whose driver’s licenses are suspended for
nonpayment of traffic tickets.” (Doc. # 1 ¶ 38.) Defendant argues that the putative

class action died alongside Ms. Motley’s individual claims because, when her claims
became moot, the court had yet to rule on the class certification motion. (Doc. # 40,
at 4.) Defendant is correct that “[n]ormally a class action would be moot if no named
class representative with an unexpired claim remained at the time of class

certification,” United States v. Sanchez-Gomez, 138 S. Ct. 1532, 1538 (2018)
(citation omitted), or, as here, prior to a class certification ruling. However, “[w]hen
class actions are involved, . . . the Supreme Court has explained that ‘the Art. III

mootness doctrine’ is ‘flexible.’” Wilson v. Gordon, 822 F.3d 934, 942 (6th Cir.
2016) (quoting U.S. Parole Comm’n v. Geraghty, 445 U.S. 388, 400 (1980)). The
general rule requiring dismissal of a putative class action where the named plaintiff’s
claim becomes moot prior to certification gives way to certain exceptions.

One exception to the mootness doctrine arising in the class-action context is
the inherently transitory exception. The Supreme Court of the United States has
recognized that “where a named plaintiff’s claim is ‘inherently transitory,’ and

becomes moot prior to certification, a motion for certification may ‘relate back’ to
9
the filing of the complaint.” Genesis Healthcare Corp., 569 U.S. at 71 n.2 (quoting
Cnty. of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 51–52 (1991)); see also Nielsen v.

Preap, 139 S. Ct. 954, 963 (2019) (“[T]hat a class ‘was not certified until after the
named plaintiffs’ claims had become moot does not deprive us of jurisdiction’ when
. . . the harms alleged are transitory enough to elude review.” (quoting Cnty. of

Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 52 (1991))).
The inherently transitory exception “was developed to address circumstances
in which the challenged conduct was effectively unreviewable, because no plaintiff
possessed a personal stake in the suit long enough for litigation to run its course.”

Genesis Healthcare Corp., 569 U.S. at 76. The Supreme Court has applied the
inherently transitory exception in class actions involving individuals detained for
indeterminate periods of time. In Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103 (1975), the named

plaintiffs sought to represent a class of pretrial detainees who under Florida law were
deprived of a prompt hearing on probable cause. When the named plaintiffs filed
the complaint, they were members of the detained class of persons, but the record
did not disclose “whether any of them were still in custody awaiting trial when the

District Court certified the class.” Id. at 110 n.11 The Court held that the case fell
within a “suitable exception” to the mootness doctrine:
The length of pretrial custody cannot be ascertained at the outset, and
it may be ended at any time by release on recognizance, dismissal of
the charges, or a guilty plea, as well as by acquittal or conviction after
10
trial. It is by no means certain that any given individual, named as
plaintiff, would be in pretrial custody long enough for a district judge
to certify the class. Moreover, in this case the constant existence of a
class of persons suffering the deprivation is certain. The attorney
representing the named respondents is a public defender, and we can
safely assume that he has other clients with a continuing live interest in
the case.

Id.; see also Genesis Healthcare Corp., 569 U.S. at 71 n.2 (noting that Gerstein’s
holding “was developed in the context of class actions under Rule 23 to address the
circumstance in which a named plaintiff’s claim becomes moot prior to certification
of the class”); Cnty. of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 51 (1991) (applying
the inherently transitory exception to save the class claims of pretrial detainees
challenging the constitutionality of pretrial detention procedures where the named
plaintiffs’ claims became moot prior to class certification (citing Gerstein, 420 U.S.
at 110 n.11)); Stein v. Buccaneers Ltd. P’ship, 772 F.3d 698, 705 (11th Cir. 2014)
(“The recognition that a class-action may not be moot when individual claims
become moot before certification was dictum in Sosna [v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393
(1975)], but the Supreme Court soon made it a holding [in Gerstein v. Pugh, 420
U.S. 103 (1975).]).6

6 In Stein, the Eleventh Circuit held that the named plaintiffs’ class claims were not moot
under the inherently transitory exception where they had rejected offers of judgment under Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 68. See 772 F.3d at 702. It is unnecessary to delve further into Stein’s
analysis because the facts permitting the exception are different from those presented in this case.
11
Taking the lead from Supreme Court decisions on the inherently transitory
exception, the Sixth and Seventh Circuits have focused on the uncertainty of the

duration of the claim from its outset. The Sixth Circuit has ruled that “[t]he key
inquiry for assessing whether something is transitory is not merely how long a claim
is likely to remain active,” but instead “is the uncertainty about the length of time a

claim will remain alive.” Unan v. Lyon, 853 F.3d 279, 287 (6th Cir. 2017) (citation
and internal quotation marks omitted); Wilson, 822 F.3d at 945 (“We think Plaintiffs
have the better argument that the uncertainty about how long an injury caused by
ongoing conduct will persist can also render a claim inherently transitory.”).

Similarly, the Seventh Circuit rejected a “bright-line rule” that restricts the
inherently transitory exception only “to a claim that has been alive beyond a given
number of days.” Olson v. Brown, 594 F.3d 577, 582–83 (7th Cir. 2010). “While

the ultimate length of confinement does affect the applicability of the ‘inherently
transitory’ exception, the essence of the exception is uncertainty about whether a
claim will remain alive for any given plaintiff long enough for a district court to
certify the class.” Id. at 582. In Olson, the uncertainty arose because “[a]n individual

incarcerated in a county jail may be released for a number of reasons that he cannot
anticipate.” Id. at 583. The Seventh Circuit reasoned that “[t]his uncertainty is
precisely what makes the ‘inherently transitory’ exception applicable in this case.”

Id.
12
The Second and Fifth Circuits, as well as district courts, have adhered to a
similar view. See Ward v. Hellerstedt, 753 F. App’x 236, 242 (5th Cir. 2018) (setting

forth the factors that “Supreme Court jurisprudence suggests . . . are pertinent” to
whether an injury is inherently transitory, including whether “uncertainty exists at
the outset as to the duration of each plaintiff’s exposure to the allegedly harmful

conduct”); Comer v. Cisneros, 37 F.3d 775, 798–99 (2d Cir. 1994) (applying the
inherently transitory exception to save class claims for individuals who were on
waiting lists for federal public housing, which for some plausibly could extend to
nine years); G.R.X. Through H.R.X. v. Foxhoven, No. 417CV00417SMRHCA, 2018

WL 4701869, at *3 (S.D. Iowa June 28, 2018) (“[T]he uncertainty surrounding
whether any specific named plaintiff’s claim would persist through the adjudication
of a motion for class certification has been noted as the predominant rationale for

the application of the [inherently transitory] exception.” (citations omitted)); Thorpe
v. District of Columbia, 916 F. Supp. 2d 65, 67 (D.D.C. 2013) (applying the
“inherently transitory” exception to putative class-action claims of nursing home
residents because “[t]he length of any individual’s stay in a nursing facility is

impossible to predict, so even though there are certainly individuals whose claims
will not expire within the time it would take to litigate their claims, there is no way
for plaintiffs to ensure that the Named Plaintiffs will be those individuals”); Moreno

v. Napolitano, No. 11 C 5452, 2012 WL 5995820, at *6 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 30, 2012)
13
(“If the length of a claim cannot be determined at the outset and is subject to a
number of unpredictable factors, it is inherently transitory.” (citation and internal

quotation marks omitted)). Recent Supreme Court jurisprudence suggests that these
courts’ focus—on the uncertainty of the claim’s duration—is appropriate. See
Nielsen, 139 S. Ct. at 963, 976 (concluding that the class claims challenging the

Department of Homeland Security’s practice of detaining without bail immigrants
who had been convicted of certain crimes and were awaiting the conclusion of
removal proceedings were transitory because they end “as soon as the decision on
removal is made,” id. at 963 (plurality opinion of Alito, J., joined by Roberts, C.J.,

and Kavanaugh, J.), even though such immigrants “are held, on average, for one
year, and sometimes longer,” id. at 976 (Thomas J., joined by Gorsuch, J.,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (internal quotation marks

omitted).
Lower “[c]ourts have distilled from Gerstein two requirements for the
‘inherently transitory’ exception to apply: (1) that the injury be so transitory that it
would likely evade review by becoming moot before the district court can rule on

class certification, and (2) that it is certain other class members are suffering the
injury.” Wilson, 822 F.3d at 945 (citation omitted); see also Olson, 594 F.3d at 582
(The inherently transitory exception kicks in when “(1) it is uncertain that a claim

will remain live for any individual who could be named as a plaintiff long enough
14
for a court to certify the class; and (2) there will be a constant class of persons
suffering the deprivation complained of in the complaint.” (citing Gerstein, 420 U.S.

at 110 n.11)). Applying these requirements (in reverse order), the court finds that
the inherently transitory exception saves the uncertified class claims from mootness,
notwithstanding that Ms. Motley’s individual claims are moot.

To show that “it is certain other class members are suffering the injury” that
she suffered, Wilson, 822 F.3d at 945 (citation omitted), Ms. Motley relies on 2018
data from the ALEA. According to the ALEA, at least as of April 20, 2018, “[n]early
23,000 Alabama driver’s licenses [were] suspended for nonpayment in Alabama”

pursuant to Rule 26.11(i)(3). (Doc. # 38-4, at 5 (citing Doc. # 7-1 at 2).) Defendant
devotes only a footnote to rebuttal argument on this requirement. He does not
challenge the validity of the 2018 data. Rather, he argues that because “all traffic

tickets issued since November 30, 2018 provide notice of the availability of
installment plans and of automatic suspensions for failure to pay,” the purported
“class of people who are similarly situated and continue to be subject to the
challenged conduct must be shrinking each day.” (Doc. # 40, at 5 n.1 (emphasis in

original).) But Defendant presents no evidence that the revised notification on the
uniform traffic ticket has had the effect of decreasing continuous class members by
numbers so significant to render the class obsolete. Defendant’s suggestion does not

negate the evidence supporting the prospect of a continuous class of Alabamians
15
whose driver’s licenses are suspended for failure to pay.7 Absent evidence to the
contrary, the court finds that based on the ALEA statistics, Ms. Motley has shown

that it can be “safely assume[d]” that others in the putative class will continue to
have a live interest in this litigation. Gerstein, 420 U.S. at 110 n.11 (alteration
added).

The discussion turns to the remaining requirement—whether it is uncertain
that a single plaintiff would remain subject to suspension long enough to permit class
certification. Defendant does not appear to dispute that the putative class claims are
of uncertain duration. Rather, Defendant’s argument concentrates on the period of

time Ms. Motley’s license was suspended for failure to pay—from January 8, 2014,
to February 19, 2020. Defendant contends that a six-year license suspension is not
transitory. Further, he says that this court’s ruling on the class certification motion

took only nine months: “Comparing the two spans, the time this Court took to rule
on Ms. Motley’s class certification motion is approximately 12% of the time that
Ms. Motley’s claim was live.” (Doc. # 40, at 5; see also Doc. # 40, at 5 n.3 (noting
that the nine-month timeframe “is adopted merely for the sake of argument and does

7 This court previously rejected Defendant’s argument—albeit presented in a different
form—that the November 30, 2018 traffic ticket revision mooted Ms. Motley’s claims. (See Doc.
# 31, at 23 (rejecting Defendant’s contention “that this controversy is moot because Alabama’s
traffic tickets have been revised to warn recipients of the possibility of automatic license
suspension for nonpayment of traffic fines and because the tickets now ‘provide[] constitutionally
sufficient notice of the recipient’s ability to have his or her ability to pay any associated fine taken
into account.’” (citation omitted)).
16
not mean that any claim that would become moot in fewer than nine months would
necessarily meet the inherently transitory exception”).) On the other hand,

emphasizing the fluidity of an indigent Alabamian’s future ability to pay a fine, Ms.
Motley contends that it is impossible to know how long the putative class members
will remain unable to pay their traffic violation fines and that the class regularly adds

new members as others depart after paying their fines.
Defendant’s argument has some surface appeal. Neither a six-year driver’s
license suspension nor a span of nine months for a judicial ruling on a pending
motion seems inherently brief. But the legal backhoe exposes the subsurface flaws

in Defendant’s argument.
First, a six-year driver’s license suspension for an unpaid traffic ticket was the
case for Ms. Motley; however, Defendant’s focus on the realized duration of Ms.

Motley’s license suspension is misguided. “To be sure, in some of the Supreme
Court cases applying th[e inherently transitory] exception, the duration of the
challenged conduct was quite short.” Wilson, 822 F.3d at 945 (citing cases). But
the Supreme Court, as well as lower courts, have emphasized that whether the claim

is inherently transitory depends upon the uncertainty, not the ultimate fact, of the
claim’s longevity. See id. (“Gerstein focused on the fact that ‘[t]he length of pretrial
custody cannot be ascertained at the outset’” (citing Gerstein, 420 U.S. at 110 n.11));

see also supra, at 9–14 (collecting cases). The inquiry into the inherently transitory
17
nature of the claim is mostly prospective; hindsight is not particularly helpful. See,
e.g., Olson, 594 F.3d at 582 (“[T]he crux of the ‘inherently transitory’ exception is

the uncertainty about the length of time a claim will remain alive.”).
Here, at the inception of her suspension, it was problematic to predict whether
or when Ms. Motley’s claims would expire. Indeed, Ms. Motley’s situation

exemplifies the potential transitory nature of an individual’s financial resources (or
lack thereof) for paying overdue traffic infraction fines. Prior to receiving the
settlement check that put her back in the licensed driver’s seat, Ms. Motley had
insufficient funds to pay the traffic infraction fines while working “temp-to-hire”

jobs and while receiving unemployment benefits after being laid off from work
(Doc. # 5-1 ¶ 11 (Pl. Decl.).) The financial mechanism that permitted Ms. Motley
to pay her fines—a $5,000 settlement check—was “impossible to predict” at the time

she filed the complaint. Thorpe, 916 F. Supp. 2d at 67. In other words, the
determination of whether Ms. Motley’s claims would survive through resolution of
class certification “would require a high degree of predictive abilities—even
bordering on clairvoyance—on the part of [Ms. Motley].” G.R.X. Through H.R.X.,

2018 WL 4701869, at *3. The characteristics of the putative class claims make them
likely to elude review if they do not fall within the inherently transitory exception to
the general mootness rule.

18
Second and relatedly, Defendant’s formulation of the inherently transitory
exception is too narrow: “Whether claims are inherently transitory is an inquiry that

must be made with reference to the claims of the class as a whole as opposed to any
one individual claim for relief.” Amador v. Andrews, 655 F.3d 89, 100 (2d Cir.
2011). The same uncertainty about the probable duration of Ms. Motley’s claims

exists as to the claims of the members of the putative class. There is no way to
determine how long their driver’s license suspensions for unpaid traffic violation
fines will persist so as to render the class-action claims inherently transitory. An
indigent Alabamian with a suspended driver’s license might fortuitously experience

an increase in income, be it through marriage, inheritance, educational advancement,
or a job promotion. Cf. Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 666 n.8 (1983) (“[A]
defendant’s level of financial resources is a point on a spectrum rather than a

classification.”). Family or friends might intervene with a loan or with gifted funds
to help a class member pay his or her outstanding traffic ticket. On the other hand,
an Alabamian with a suspended driver’s license for failure to pay a fine for a traffic
infraction might agree to a determinate payment plan that is affordable at its

inception but that, because of changed circumstances, later becomes unsustainable.
Such potential circumstances are limitless—“job loss or a pay cut; unexpected
medical or funeral bills or sudden disability or illness[;] . . . divorce; the death of a

spouse or the birth of a child; rent increase or eviction; plumbing, heating, or cooling
19
repairs; or the economic fallout caused by COVID-19.” (Doc. # 38-4, at 7.)
Regardless of whether the financial resources available to a putative class member

work to extend or shorten the duration of a driver’s license suspension for failure to
pay a traffic infraction fine, it remains difficult to ascertain how long each putative
class member will be subject to a driver’s license suspension for failure to pay.

The parties have not cited a decision with similar facts where the inherently
transitory nature of the claim was tied to an individual’s financial ability to pay a
fine. Defendant has not demonstrated, though, that Ms. Motley’s and her proposed
class’s indeterminate situations are any more predictable than those of convicted

immigrants jailed without bail pending removal proceedings, Nielsen, 139 S. Ct.
at 960–61, 963; of pretrial detainees awaiting probable cause hearings, Gerstein, 420
U.S. at 110 n.11; of individuals experiencing delays in their Medicaid eligibility

determinations, Wilson, 822 F.3d at 939–42; of inmates subject to transfer from a
temporary detention center, Olson, 594 F.3d at 579; and of individuals on waiting
lists for federal public housing, Comer, 37 F.3d at 780.
Third, Defendant’s argument that the protracted duration of Ms. Motley’s

license suspension permitted ample time for this court to decide the issue of class
certification omits mention that there was not a substantive ruling on the motion for
class certification. The one-sentence ruling denying the motion for class

certification as moot espoused no opinion on the merits of class certification; the
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motion’s fate was finalized by the demise of the substantive merits of Ms. Motley’s
constitutional claims. (See Doc. # 31, at 1–79 (Mem. Op. & Order granting

Defendant’s motion to dismiss).) This argument is transparently deficient because
there was not a reasoned ruling on the merits of the motion for class certification
prior to Ms. Motley’s individual interest expiring. The argument also distracts from

the issue of a claim’s uncertainty.
Defendant’s other arguments urging a finding of mootness also have no
traction and warrant only a mention. Defendant argues Ms. Motley should not be
able to benefit from the inherently transitory exception because she unjustifiably

delayed in filing this lawsuit. As Defendants emphasize, Ms. Motley’s injury (i.e.,
her license suspension for failure to pay) occurred on January 8, 2014, yet she did
not file this suit until July 3, 2019. Defendant points to no evidence that any time

prior to Ms. Motley’s filing suit in July 2019, she knew that her live claim would
become moot in February 2020. There is no evidence of such knowledge or that she
intentionally delayed filing suit. See Olson, 594 F.3d at 582 (distinguishing cases
where it had held that “the ‘inherently transitory’ exception did not apply because in

both cases the named plaintiffs knew, from the outset, exactly how long their claims
would remain alive but chose to wait to file for class certification until the claim was
nearly moot or already moot” (citations omitted)). Defendant’s argument is more

akin to a statute of limitations defense, than one signifying a moot controversy. (See
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Doc. # 40, at 5 & n.4 (arguing that Ms. Motley “delayed the filing of this suit until
years after her injury first accrued” and “waited so long to bring suit that there was

a disagreement as to whether her suit was time-barred”).) This court has rejected
Defendant’s statute of limitations defense with regard to her Bearden claim (Doc.
# 31, at 27–39), and that ground need not be plowed again here.

Finally, Defendant faults Ms. Motley for failing to notify the court of the
August 9, 2019 settlement agreement in the unrelated class lawsuit in which she
served as a class representative. (Doc. # 40 at 5 n.3.) It is unclear how this argument,
attempted only in a footnote, advances Defendant’s position against application of

the inherently transitory exception to the mootness doctrine. The fact that Ms.
Motley entered into the settlement agreement on August 9, 2019—and ultimately
received a $5,000 payout—does not speak to whether Ms. Motley’s claims were

inherently transitory at the outset. Notably, though, notice to this court likely would
have avoided a remand on appeal.
Because Ms. Motley satisfies both elements of the inherently transitory
exception to the mootness doctrine, this exception saves this putative class action

from mootness. Defendant’s arguments to the contrary are not persuasive.
III. CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, and in compliance with the Eleventh Circuit’s

directives, the court issues an indicative ruling that Ms. Motley’s action became
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moot when the suspension of her Alabama driver’s license was lifted upon payment
of her traffic infraction fines and related court costs, but that this putative class action

falls within the inherently transitory exception to the mootness doctrine.
It is ORDERED that the Clerk of the Court shall send copies of this
memorandum opinion to counsel of record and to the Clerk of the Court for the

Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
DONE this 22nd day of June, 2021.
/s/ W. Keith Watkins
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9987351. Public record. Not legal advice.