68
Opinion of the Court
The Attorney General suggested mootness,22 but Yniguez resisted, and the Ninth Circuit adopted her proposed method of saving the case. See supra, at 60-61.23 It was not dispositive, the court said, that Yniguez "may no longer be affected by the English only provision," 975 F. 2d, at 647, for Yniguez had raised in response to the mootness suggestion "[t]he possibility that [she] may seek nominal damages," ibid.; see App. 197-200 (Appellee Yniguez's Response Regarding Mootness Considerations). At that stage of the litigation, however, Yniguez's plea for nominal damages was not the possibility the Ninth Circuit imagined.
Yniguez's complaint rested on 42 U. S. C. § 1983. See supra, at 49-50, and n. 3. Although Governor Mofford in her official capacity was the sole defendant against whom the
22 Mootness has been described as " 'the doctrine of standing set in a time frame: The requisite personal interest that must exist at the commencement of the litigation (standing) must continue throughout its existence (mootness).' " United States Parole Comm'n v. Geraghty, 445 U. S. 388, 397 (1980) (quoting Monaghan, Constitutional Adjudication: The Who and When, 82 Yale L. J. 1363, 1384 (1973)).
23 Yniguez's counsel did not inform the Court of Appeals of Yniguez's departure from government employment, a departure effective April 25, 1990, the day before the appeal was docketed. See App. 7. It was not until September 1991 that the State's Attorney General notified the Ninth Circuit of the plaintiff's changed circumstances. See id., at 187. Yniguez's counsel offered a laconic explanation for this lapse: First, "legal research disclosed that this case was not moot"; second, counsel for the State of Arizona knew of the resignation and "agreed this appeal should proceed." App. 196, n. 2 (Appellee Yniguez's Response Regarding Mootness Considerations). The explanation was unsatisfactory. It is the duty of counsel to bring to the federal tribunal's attention, "without delay," facts that may raise a question of mootness. See Board of License Comm'rs of Tiverton v. Pastore, 469 U. S. 238, 240 (1985) (per curiam). Nor is a change in circumstances bearing on the vitality of a case a matter opposing counsel may withhold from a federal court based on counsels' agreement that the case should proceed to judgment and not be treated as moot. See United States v. Alaska S. S. Co., 253 U. S. 113, 116 (1920); R. Stern, E. Gressman, S. Shapiro, & K. Geller, Supreme Court Practice 721-722 (7th ed. 1993).
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