The state Supreme Court  has, in its own words, “ducked” a ruling on the legality and health implications of the government’s controversial pandemic school mask mandate, concluding in a ruling issued Thursday afternoon that since the mandate has been lifted, the issue is moot.

“Our conclusion that this appeal has become moot may be viewed as anticlimactic given the passions brought to the public controversy that led to what was once a live, legal dispute, as well as the resources devoted to prosecuting and defending this action,” Justice Gregory T. D’Auria wrote for a unanimous court. “Disappointment in this outcome can lead to claims that the court is  ‘ducking’  important issues.”

“Less cynically,” the opinion continues, “the plaintiffs’ counsel in the present case implores us to recognize that there is a need for us to police the proper boundaries of constitutional power among the branches of government. Notwithstanding these understandable sentiments, we are resolved to resist the temptation to opine on issues concerning the emergency powers of another branch of government when the need for our opinion has passed.”

The challenge to the mask mandate promulgated by the state Department of Education and Gov. Ned Lamont is the last and arguably most significant of multiple state and federal legal challenges to the state government’s emergency public health orders that restricted activity and shut down business at the height of the coronavirus outbreak.

Previous challenges, most involving government business closures, have been resolved in the state’s favor.

The court set the tone for pandemic rules in its 2020 Casey decision in which it dismissed a challenge by a Milford tavern owner forced to by pandemic order. The court said in another unanimous opinion that the COVID-19 contagion is a “serious disaster” under state law and Lamont’s decision to respond by suspending laws and regulations fell within the Constitutional authority of his office and was not an infringement on the powers of the Legislature as some have contended.

The mask challenge was brought by the Connecticut Freedom Alliance, a 2,100-member group of state residents, many of whom are parents of school-aged children.

The Alliance challenged mandatory school masking on four grounds, three of which questioned the legality of how the emergency pandemic orders were issued and whether the legislature unconstitutionally delegated its oversight authority to the governor by routinely extending his emergency powers.

On the enforced wearing of masks by school children, the Alliance argued that the state failed to recognize evidence that masks were unnecessary and in fact harmful to children. Lamont and then state education commissioner Miguel A. Cardona ordered the wearing of masks in June 2020 for the following school year.

“Not surprisingly, feelings have run most passionately when the controversy has involved children,” the Supreme Court said. “As has been the case elsewhere in the nation, impassioned debate broke out throughout our state regarding whether schoolchildren should have to wear masks in school.”

Norm Pattis, who sued on behalf of the Alliance, said he was disappointed in the court’s decision not to address substantive legal arguments in the mask controversy.

“This is moot only as to yesterday’s crisis” Pattis said. “But there will be other crises to come. It is capable of reoccurring; indeed, the governor still asserts emergency powers. This evasion of the issue is disappointing.”

The court said there is no reasonable likelihood that the government measures of which the Alliance complained would be repeated in subsequent emergencies.

“Once again, it is entirely speculative that the state, the nation, or the world will experience another pandemic of the same extended nature or that a governor will employ the same procedure in a future emergency,” the court said.

Elsewhere in its decision, the court said, “Especially in light of legal challenges to actions the governor undertook during this pandemic, the General Assembly now has the knowledge and experience to determine whether to validate or nullify executive orders that might be issued in a hypothetical future emergency of the same magnitude or length.”