Bruno v. Supreme Court of Pa.
Citation | 946 F.Supp.2d 392 |
Decision Date | 13 May 2013 |
Docket Number | Civil Action No. 13–1357. |
Parties | Judge Mark A. BRUNO, Plaintiff, v. The SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA, et al., Defendants. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Samuel C. Stretton, West Chester, PA, for Plaintiff.
A. Taylor Williams, Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, Philadelphia, PA, for Defendants.
Plaintiff Judge Mark A. Bruno brings suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Defendants the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille, Justice Thomas G. Saylor, Justice J. Michael Eakin, Justice Deborah McCloskey Todd, Justice Seamus P. McCaffery, and Justice Max Baer (collectively, “PA Supreme Court Defendants”). On February 1, 2013, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court sua sponte suspended Bruno without pay. Bruno claims that the PA Supreme Court Defendants violated his procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Bruno has filed a motion for preliminary injunction, requesting that I enjoin “the Defendants from suspending Judge Mark A. Bruno without pay and benefits pending the resolution of his criminal trial.” Pl.'s Mot. 2. The PA Supreme Court Defendants request that the motion for a preliminary injunction be denied. For the reasons set forth below, I will deny Bruno's motion.
Plaintiff Judge Mark A. Bruno is a Pennsylvania Magisterial District Judge in the Borough of West Chester. At the request of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Bruno has presided over cases in the Philadelphia Traffic Court once a year for four or five days while Traffic Court judges are away on training.
On January 29, 2013, Bruno was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1349; one count of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343; and one count of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341. The indictment charges that Bruno and his co-conspirators “used the Philadelphia Traffic Court ... to give preferential treatment to certain ticket-holders, most commonly by ‘fixing’ tickets for those with whom they were politically and socially connected.” Compl. Ex. A ¶ 1.
On February 1, 2013, without any prior notice to Bruno, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued an order (“Suspension Order”) suspending Bruno without pay. The Suspension Order states:
AND NOW, this 1st day of February 2013, it is hereby ordered that Magisterial District Judge Mark A. Bruno for Magisterial District 15–1–01, of the Fifteenth Judicial District, Chester County, Pennsylvania, is hereby relieved of any and all judicial and administrative responsibilities as a judge of the Magisterial District Court.
It is further ordered that Judge Mark A. Bruno is suspended without pay pending further Order of this Court.
This Order is without prejudice to the rights of Judge Mark A. Bruno to seek relief in this Court for the purpose of vacating or modifying this Order. In re: Avellino, 547 Pa. 385, 690 A.2d 1138 (1997); and see In re: McFalls, 568 Pa. 228, 795 A.2d 367 (2002).
Compl. Ex. B. Since the February 1, 2013 Order, Bruno has not received any pay. He still receives medical benefits, but has to pay $72.00 per month to receive them.
The PA Supreme Court Defendants argue that this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction under the Rooker–Feldman doctrine. The doctrine is named after the only two Supreme Court cases to have applied the doctrine to defeat federal subject matter jurisdiction: Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Company, 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). Rooker–Feldman is a narrow doctrine “confined to cases of the kind from which the doctrine acquired its name: cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284, 125 S.Ct. 1517, 161 L.Ed.2d 454 (2005); Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459, 464, 126 S.Ct. 1198, 163 L.Ed.2d 1059 (2006). “Rooker and Feldman exhibit the limited circumstances in which this Court's appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments, 28 U.S.C. § 1257, precludes a United States district court from exercising subject-matter jurisdiction....” Exxon, 544 U.S. at 291, 125 S.Ct. 1517. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1257, only the Supreme Court is vested with jurisdiction over appeals from final state-court judgments. “Accordingly, under what has come to be known as the Rooker–Feldman doctrine, lower federal courts are precluded from exercising appellate jurisdiction over final state-court judgments.” Lance, 546 U.S. at 463, 126 S.Ct. 1198 (emphasis added). Thus, the Rooker–Feldman doctrine only applies in the “limited circumstances” where “the losing party in state court filed suit in federal court after the state proceedings ended, complaining of an injury caused by the state-court judgment and seeking review and rejection of that judgment.” Exxon, 544 U.S. at 291, 125 S.Ct. 1517 (emphasis added). Parallel state and federal litigation does not trigger application of the Rooker–Feldman doctrine, even when the federal litigation is initiated after the state proceedings have commenced. Id. at 291–94, 125 S.Ct. 1517.
While Courts of Appeals recognize that Rooker–Feldman only applies to federal district court suits filed after state proceedings are final, there is some disagreement as to when a state proceeding has sufficiently “ended” to trigger Rooker–Feldman. Compare Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico v. Junta de Relaciones del Trabajo de Puerto Rico, 410 F.3d 17, 28 (1st Cir.2005) ( ), with TruServ Corp. v. Flegles, Inc., 419 F.3d 584 (7th Cir.2005) ( ). Even under the broadest definition of this requirement, state proceedings have not ended here. In Federacion, the First Circuit adopted a broad and comprehensive test to determine if state proceedings had ended for Rooker–Feldman purposes. See also Nicholson v. Shafe, 558 F.3d 1266, 1275 (11th Cir.2009) (applying Federacion test); Guttman v. Khalsa, 446 F.3d 1027, 1032 n. 2 (10th Cir.2006) (approvingly citing Federacion test); Mothershed v. Justices of Supreme Court, 410 F.3d 602, 604 n. 1 (9th Cir.2005) (applying Federacion test). According to the First Circuit, state proceedings have “ended” in the following three situations: (1) “when the highest state court in which review is available has affirmed the judgment below and nothing is left to be resolved”; (2) ; and (3) “if the state court proceedings have finally resolved all the federal questions, but state law or purely factual questions (whether great or small) remain to be litigated.” Federacion, 410 F.3d at 24–25.
Here, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court sua sponte issued the Suspension Order, suspending Bruno “pending further Order of this Court ... without prejudice to the rights of Judge Mark A. Bruno to seek relief in this Court for the purpose of vacating or modifying this Order.” Compl. Ex. B. On its face, the Suspension Order is not final and does not end the state proceedings because it anticipates further action of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and invites Bruno to appeal his suspension by seeking to vacate or modify the Order. The Suspension Order fits none of the situations described above, in which state proceedings have ended. The Suspension Order does not affirm the judgment of any lower court and it clearly leaves more to be resolved. Additionally, both parties may seek further action. In fact, no time limitation has been placed on Bruno's right to appeal his suspension. Moreover, the language of the Suspension Order indicates that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court intends to take further action. Lastly, the state court proceedings have not yet resolved Bruno's constitutional challenge to his suspension, but it is reasonable to presume that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will entertain this challenge if Bruno seeks to vacate or modify the Suspension Order. According to the Third Circuit:
When the “administrator” making a decision is a state supreme court and that state supreme court presents a litigant with an opportunity to present arguments to the court, it is reasonable for a party to expect that such a body will entertain constitutional challenges to its actions and to expect litigants to be on notice of this possibility, even if the state court seems to be acting in an administrative capacity.
Guarino v. Larsen, 11 F.3d 1151, 1161 (3d Cir.1993). Therefore, the Rooker–Feldman doctrine does not apply because the state proceedings have not ended and a final judgment has not issued.
Furthermore, the Rooker–Feldman doctrine is inapplicable because under the doctrine, “a United States District Court has no authority to review final judgments of a state court in judicial proceedings.” Feldman, 460 U.S. at 482, 103 S.Ct. 1303 (emphasis added). In order for Rooker–Feldman to apply, a judicial proceeding, rather than an administrative act, must have occurred. Feldman, 460 U.S. at 476–77, 103 S.Ct. 1303;Guarino, 11 F.3d at 1157. In determining whether this requirement has been met, the Third Circuit has equated “judicial proceedings” with “adjudicative acts.” See Blake v. Papadakos, 953 F.2d 68, 71–72 (3d Cir.1992). There are two types of administrative acts,...
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