Lefcourt v. Superior Court, County San Francisco

• Decision Date: 09 August 1999
• Docket Number: No. C-99-2385 WHO.,C-99-2385 WHO.
• Citation: 63 F.Supp.2d 1095
• Parties: V. Roy LEFCOURT, Plaintiff, v. SUPERIOR COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

63 F.Supp.2d 1095

V. Roy LEFCOURT, Plaintiff, v. SUPERIOR COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, et al., Defendants.

No. C-99-2385 WHO.

United States District Court, N.D. California.

August 9, 1999.

Dennis P. Riordan, Dylan L. Schaffer, Donald M. Horgan, San Francisco, CA, for plaintiff.

Daniel T. Bernhard, City Attorney's Office, San Francisco, CA, for defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

ORRICK, District Judge.

In this action, plaintiff V. Roy Lefcourt ("Lefcourt") challenges the constitutionality of a contempt citation issued against him by the Honorable Richard Kramer ("Judge Kramer") of the Superior Court for the City and County of San Francisco ("Superior Court"). For the reasons set forth hereinafter, the Court dismisses this action with prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

I.

The following statement of facts is summarized from the allegations of the complaint, and the court documents attached to the parties' responses to the Order to Show Cause, of which the Court takes judicial notice.

On January 12, 1998, Karen Woempner ("Woempner") hired Lefcourt to represent her boyfriend, Eric Borst ("Borst"), in probation revocation proceedings before Judge Kramer in the Superior Court. Woempner told Lefcourt that it was urgent that Borst be released from custody so that he could make necessary burial and funeral arrangements for his mother, who had recently died. Two days later, on January 14, Lefcourt filed a motion seeking Borst's release, supported by his own declaration.

The matter was heard on January 16. Lefcourt sent a colleague to attend the hearing because he had left town for a previously scheduled vacation on January 15. When the colleague could not answer Judge Kramer's questions, the matter was continued to January 20.

On January 20, Judge Kramer asked Lefcourt about the factual allegations in the declaration concerning the date of death of Borst's mother, and the location of her body. Lefcourt agreed to investigate those issues and the matter was continued until January 27.

On January 27, shortly before the hearing, Borst told Lefcourt that his mother had died on November 22, that her body was in a mortuary, and that his release was necessary to make arrangements for cremation and burial of the ashes. Borst also told Lefcourt that since Lefcourt first spoke with Woempner, a sheriff's deputy had taken Borst out of the holding cell and he had been able to sign the documents necessary for cremation. The funeral ceremony and burial had not taken place.

On January 27, Lefcourt told Judge Kramer these facts and stated that he intended to withdraw the bail motion because Borst's release was no longer necessary in order to have his mother's body cremated.

On January 28, Lefcourt withdrew the motion, and Judge Kramer cited him for contempt for making false statements in his declaration in support of the motion.

On March 16, 1998, Lefcourt asked Judge Kramer to recuse himself. At that time, Lefcourt was a candidate for the San Francisco Municipal Court bench in the June 1998 election. Judge Kramer had publicly endorsed Lefcourt's opponent, Wallace Douglass. Judge Kramer declined to recuse himself.

A hearing was held on the contempt citation on May 19. On May 21, two and a half weeks before the election, Judge Kramer issued his ruling finding Lefcourt in contempt, and fining him $700.

On May 26, 1998, Lefcourt challenged the contempt order in a petition for certiorari to the California Court of Appeal. The following day, the Court of Appeal summarily denied, without prejudice, Lefcourt's request for an order staying the contempt order, due to Lefcourt's failure to comply with Rule 56(c)(4) of the California Rules of Court.¹ The Court of Appeal also summarily denied, on the merits, Lefcourt's contention that Judge Kramer was disqualified from participation in the matter, citing section 170.3(d) of the California Code of Civil Procedure.² On October 7, 1998, the Court of Appeal issued another order, which states in its entirety: "The petition for writ of certiorari is denied."

On December 8, 1998, Lefcourt filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the California Supreme Court. On December 11, 1998, the Supreme Court issued an order transferring the matter to the Court of Appeal "for consideration in light of Hagan v. Superior Court, (1962) 57 Cal.2d 767, 22 Cal.Rptr. 206, 371 P.2d 982. In the event the Court of Appeal determines that this petition is substantially identical to a prior petition, the repetitious petition shall be denied." On January 7, 1999, the Court of Appeal issued an order providing, in its entirety: "The petition for writ of certiorari is denied. (Hagan v. Superior Court) (1962) 57 Cal.2d 767, 22 Cal.Rptr. 206, 371 P.2d 982.)"³

On January 19, 1999, Lefcourt filed a petition in the California Supreme Court for review of that Court of Appeal order. On March 17, 1999, the California Supreme Court issued an order providing, in its entirety: "Petition for review DENIED."

II.

A.

Controlling authority in this case are the two Supreme Court cases, Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923), and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983). In Rooker, the Supreme Court held that a federal district court does not have jurisdiction over a suit alleging that a state court judgment violated the federal constitution. 263 U.S. at 415-16, 44 S.Ct. 149.

If the constitutional questions stated in the bill actually arose in the cause, it was the province and duty of the state courts to decide them; and their decision, whether right or wrong, was an exercise of jurisdiction. If the decision was wrong, that did not make the judgment void, but merely left it open to reversal or modification in an appropriate and timely appellate proceeding.... Under the legislation of Congress, no court of the United States other than this court could entertain a proceeding to reverse or modify the judgment for errors of that character.... To do so would be an exercise of appellate jurisdiction. The jurisdiction possessed by the District Court is strictly original.

Id. (citation omitted).

Sixty years after Rooker, the Supreme Court revisited the issue in Feldman. The Court again held that district courts do not have jurisdiction "over challenges to state court decisions in particular cases arising out of judicial proceedings even if those challenges allege that the state court's action was unconstitutional." 460 U.S. at 486, 103 S.Ct. 1303. Such review may be had only in the United States Supreme Court. Id. (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1257).

The Court also clarified that even issues that were not raised in the state court may be barred.

[T]he fact that we may not have jurisdiction to review a final state court judgment because of a petitioner's failure to raise his constitutional claims in state court does not mean that a United States District Court should have jurisdiction over the claims. By failing to raise his claims in state court a plaintiff may forfeit his right to obtain review of the state court decision in any federal court.

Id. at 483 n. 16, 103 S.Ct. 1303.

The rationale for this rule is that state courts are as competent as federal courts to decide federal constitutional issues, and that any other rule would result in a waste of judicial resources and unnecessary friction between state and federal courts. Worldwide Church of God v. McNair, 805 F.2d 888, 890 (9th Cir.1986).

One exception to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine exists where the federal suit is a general challenge to the constitutionality of a state rule or law, which does not require review of a final state court judgment in a particular case. Feldman, 460 U.S. at 486, 103 S.Ct. 1303. The district court does not have jurisdiction, however, if it cannot evaluate the constitutional claims without conducting a review of the state court's legal determinations in a particular case. Worldwide Church of God, 805 F.2d at 892-93. Thus, where the constitutional claims are "inextricably intertwined" with the state court's application of the law in a particular case, "the District Court is in essence being called upon to review the state court decision." Feldman, 460 U.S. at 483 n. 16, 103 S.Ct. 1303. "This the District Court may not do." Id.

Justice Marshall later opined, in a concurring opinion, that "the federal claim is inextricably intertwined with the state-court judgment if the federal claim succeeds only to the extent that the state court wrongly decided the issues before it." Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco, Inc., 481 U.S. 1, 25, 107 S.Ct. 1519, 95 L.Ed.2d 1 (1987) (Marshall, J., concurring in the judgment). "Where federal relief can only be predicated upon a conviction that the state court was wrong, it is difficult to conceive the federal proceeding as, in substance, anything other than a prohibited appeal of the state-court judgment." Id.; see also Dubinka v. Judges of Superior Court of State of California for County of Los Angeles, 23 F.3d 218, 222 (9th Cir.1994) (citations omitted) ("Courts have generally concluded that claims are inextricably intertwined when the district court must challenge both the challenged rule and the state court's application of that rule.").

Lefcourt does not assert a general challenge to the constitutionality of California's contempt of court law. Rather, he challenges the constitutionality of Judge Kramer's application of that law to Lefcourt's conduct. He can succeed in this suit only if this Court determines that Judge Kramer's application of California's contempt law violates the federal constitution. This places Lefcourt's claim squarely within the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, unless an exception to the doctrine applies.

B.

Lefcourt argues that this case falls within an exception to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine set forth in Robinson v. Ariyoshi, 753 F.2d 1468 (9th Cir.1985), judgment vacated and remanded on other...