Cite as: 527 U. S. 308 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
"This, then, is simply another instance in which one issue in a case has become moot, but the case as a whole remains alive because other issues have not become moot. . . . Because the only issue presently before us— the correctness of the decision to grant a preliminary injunction—is moot, the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be vacated and the case must be remanded to the District Court for trial on the merits." Id., at 393-394 (citations omitted).
Camenisch is simply an application of the same principle which underlies the rule that a preliminary injunction ordinarily merges into the final injunction. Since the preliminary injunction no longer had any effect (the student had graduated), and since the substantive issue governing the propriety of what had been paid under the preliminary injunction (as opposed to the procedural issue of whether the injunction should have issued when it did) was the same issue underlying the merits claim, there was no sense in trying the preliminary injunction question separately. In the present case, however, petitioners' basis for arguing that the preliminary injunction was wrongfully issued—which is that the District Court lacked the power to restrain their use of assets pending a money judgment—is independent of respondents' claim on the merits—which is that petitioners breached the note instrument by failing to make the August 1997 interest payment. The resolution of the merits is immaterial to the validity of petitioners' potential claim on the bond. Cf. American Can Co. v. Mansukhani, 742 F. 2d 314, 320-321 (CA7 1984); Stacey G. v. Pasadena Independent Sch. Dist., 695 F. 2d 949, 955 (CA5 1983).
For the same reason, petitioners' failure to appeal the permanent injunction does not forfeit their claim that the preliminary injunction was wrongful. Petitioners do not contest the District Court's power to issue a permanent injunction after rendering a money judgment against them,
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