Hear no lawsuit before its time

DM Arbor Court v. City of Houston explains that a case may become ripe during the course of the appeal process: “Although some of the ripeness-on-appeal caselaw is couched in the language of discretion,  our best reading of the decisions—especially those from the Supreme Court—is that ‘[i]ntervening events that occur after decision in lower courts should be included’ when an appellate court assesses ripeness. Supporting this view is the City’s inability to cite any case in which an appellate court declined to find a dispute ripe when postjudgment events had made it so. And we have an obligation to exercise the jurisdiction Article III and Congress grant us when any impediments, such as prudential concerns, have been eliminated. Cf.Colo. River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 813, 817 (1976) (recognizing that abstention ‘is an extraordinary and narrow exception’ to the ‘virtually unflagging obligation of the federal courts to exercise the jurisdiction given them’).” No. 20-20194 (Feb. 12, 2021) (other citations omitted).