Kerry Heckman v. Williamson…

Summary

The Texas Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals' dismissal for want of subject-matter jurisdiction of a section 1983 class action in which indigent misdemeanor defendants challenged Williamson County's practices on court-appointed counsel, self-representation, and open-court proceedings. The Court held that a named plaintiff need not have standing on every claim of a putative class to pursue certification — standing is assessed plaintiff-by-plaintiff and claim-by-claim — and that Kerry Heckman had standing at the time of filing on his right-to-counsel and self-representation claims, though not on his open-courts claim. Adopting the federal exception to mootness for inherently transitory claims, the Court held that the mooting of the individual claims does not automatically doom the class action, because certification 'relates back' to filing if a continuing class likely suffers the same harm. It remanded for the trial court to determine whether the County's intervening policy changes and new hires mooted the class's claims, placing the burden on defendants and warning that cursory, blanket assertions of compliance will not suffice.