PayJoy, Inc. v. Cuccinelli
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:19-cv-03977
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In PayJoy, Inc. v. Cuccinelli, Judge Gilliam dismissed the case as moot after USCIS approved the requested second H-1B petition.
PayJoy, Inc. and Kenneth T. Cuccinelli; the case was dismissed after USCIS approved PayJoy’s second H-1B petition for Quihan Xie.
What happened
PayJoy, Inc. asked U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to approve an H-1B work-visa petition for Quihan Xie to work as a financial analyst. The agency initially denied the petition, and PayJoy and Kenneth T. Cuccinelli filed cross-motions for summary judgment.
The court learned that USCIS had later approved a second petition for Xie for the same position. Because the requested approval had already been granted, the court found that no live dispute remained and dismissed the case as moot.
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. ordered the clerk to close the case. The court did not decide the parties’ summary-judgment motions on their merits.
The detailed version
- PayJoy, Inc. v. Cuccinelli · No. 4:19-cv-03977
- Haywood Gilliam
- Apr. 9, 2020
Background
PayJoy, Inc. filed a petition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) seeking an H-1B visa classification for Quihan Xie to work temporarily as a financial analyst in PayJoy’s San Francisco office. USCIS denied that petition on June 18, 2019, finding that PayJoy had not satisfied the regulatory requirements for the position.
PayJoy then sued Kenneth T. Cuccinelli. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, and the court heard argument on March 12, 2020.
Mootness
On March 26, 2020, the defendant’s counsel notified the court that USCIS had approved a second H-1B petition PayJoy had filed for Xie on September 4, 2019. The court ordered PayJoy to explain why the case should not be dismissed. PayJoy’s counsel confirmed that PayJoy did not object to dismissal, and the government did not appear to dispute that the case was moot.
A case is moot when an intervening event means that the court can no longer provide effective relief. The court concluded that the exact relief sought—approval of an H-1B petition for Xie—had already been granted. The court therefore found that it no longer had jurisdiction over the case.
Disposition
The court dismissed the case as moot and directed the clerk to close it. It did not rule on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment. Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. signed the order.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.