 Thus, a civil action or appeal in which the court's decision will not affect the rights of the parties is ordinarily beyond the power of the court to decide, provided it does not fall within one of the recognized exceptions.A textbook example of such a case is the United States Supreme Court case "DeFunis v. Odegaard", .The plaintiff was a student who had been denied admission to law school, and had then been provisionally admitted during the pendency of the case.