IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
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No. 98-10711
Summary Calendar
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PRINCE JOHNSON, ET AL.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
CITY OF DALLAS, ET AL.,
Defendants-Appellees.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Texas
(3:94-CV-991-X)
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January 15, 1999
Before JOLLY, SMITH, and WIENER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
In this case, we are called upon to address yet again a
complaint regarding a Dallas, Texas ordinance barring sleeping in
public places. We remand the case to the district court because we
are concerned that the district court may have dismissed the case
pursuant to a mandamus order that we subsequently modified. Our
decision is entirely procedural in nature and therefore requires a
description of the procedural posture of this case.
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that
this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except
under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
In May of 1994, the plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging that
a Dallas ordinance violated the plaintiffs’ Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendment rights. The plaintiffs moved for a temporary restraining
order and a preliminary injunction. The district court ultimately
granted the preliminary injunction, holding that the plaintiffs
were likely to succeed on their Eighth Amendment claim, but
rejecting their Fourteenth Amendment claims based on the equal
protection and due process clauses of that amendment. Johnson v.
City of Dallas, 860 F.Supp. 344 (N.D. Tex. 1994). Dallas appealed
the preliminary injunction to this court. We reversed the district
court, holding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue an
Eighth Amendment claim. We remanded the case with instructions to
dismiss the Eighth Amendment challenge for lack of standing.
Johnson v. City of Dallas, 61 F.3d 442 (5th Cir. 1995).
The district court, however, did not dismiss the Eighth
Amendment claim. A year later, Dallas moved for summary judgment
on the basis of our opinion. The district court denied the motion,
concluding that there was evidence on the record that the
plaintiffs did have standing. Dallas then filed a petition for
writ of mandamus seeking enforcement of our earlier order. On
May 13, 1998, we ordered that the petition for writ of mandamus
would be granted if the district court failed to dismiss the action
within ten days of the order. The next day, May 14, the district
court, pursuant to our order, dismissed the entire case with
prejudice. Now we come to yet another unusual procedural twist in
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this case. On July 7, 1998, some two months after the district
court dismissed the case in its entirety, in response to the
plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration, we issued an order
clarifying our initial order. We noted that the original panel
decision was related only to the Eighth Amendment claim and that
the district court should take such action as it deemed appropriate
with respect to any other causes of action. The district court has
taken no further action in this case since its May 14, 1998 order
of dismissal.
The plaintiffs now appeal the district court’s dismissal. The
plaintiffs raise two issues on appeal. First, they argue that the
district court erred when it dismissed the Eighth Amendment claim
for lack of standing. We do not address this argument as we have
resolved this issue twice before--once in our original opinion and
once again in our mandamus order of May 13, 1998.
The plaintiffs also argue that because the summary judgment
ruling is based on our May mandamus order, the district court erred
when it dismissed the entire case pursuant to that order instead of
dismissing solely the Eighth Amendment claim. As we explained in
our July order, the May order was intended to instruct the district
court to dismiss only the Eighth Amendment claim in this case. In
our July order, we acknowledged that the May order could have been
construed to require dismissal of the entire case.
The district court’s order dismissing the case reads as
follows: “Pursuant to the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for
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the Fifth Circuit on August 23, 1995, this case is hereby DISMISSED
with prejudice in its entirety.” From the language of this order,
we cannot ascertain whether the district court dismissed the case
solely on the basis of our opinion or dismissed the Eighth
Amendment claims pursuant to our order and independently concluded
that the remaining claims lacked merit and should also be
dismissed. If the district court dismissed the entire case solely
pursuant to our opinion, then the district court did err, as our
opinion only addressed the Eighth Amendment claim.
The district court’s ruling on the preliminary injunction
motion indicates that the district court was, at the least,
skeptical of the non-Eighth Amendment claims. However, because the
burden for obtaining a preliminary injunction differs from that of
responding to a motion to dismiss, the district court’s ruling on
the preliminary injunction motion did not conclusively resolve the
non-Eighth Amendment claims in this case. We voice no opinion
today regarding the merits of the remaining claims. We merely note
that, as we have not ruled on these claims, the district court must
reach its own conclusions about whether these claims should survive
a motion to dismiss.
We therefore VACATE the district court’s summary judgment
ruling with respect to the non-Eighth Amendment claims and REMAND
to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
VACATED in part and REMANDED.
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