American Civil Liberties Union v. Bozardt, 75-1335

• Decision Date: 08 March 1976
• Docket Number: No. 75-1335,75-1335
• Parties: AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION and Jane Koe, Appellants, v. O. Harry BOZARDT, Jr., et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 340

539 F.2d 340

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION and Jane Koe, Appellants, v. O. Harry BOZARDT, Jr., et al., Appellees.

No. 75-1335.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued Oct. 9, 1975.

Decided March 8, 1976.

Laughlin McDonald, Atlanta, Ga. (Ray P. McClain, Charleston, S. C., Melvin L. Wulf, New York City, Charles Morgan, Jr., Washington, D. C., on brief), for appellants.

Richard B. Kale, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen. of S. C. (Daniel R. McLeod, Atty. Gen. of S. C. and Joseph C. Coleman, Deputy Atty. Gen. of S. C., Columbia, S. C., on brief), for appellees.

Before BOREMAN and BRYAN, Senior Circuit Judges, and FIELD, Circuit Judge.

BOREMAN, Senior Circuit Judge:

One of the appellants, pursuing this action under the fictitious name Jane Koe, is an attorney licensed to practice law in South Carolina who performs legal services for the other appellant, the American Civil Liberties Union (hereinafter the ACLU). Koe and the ACLU seek federal equitable relief blocking state disciplinary proceedings initiated against Koe by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline of the South Carolina Bar (hereinafter the Board). They contend that the Board's investigation of a complaint filed against Koe charging her with professional misconduct violates rights guaranteed by the first and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

This action arose as a result of a complaint filed with the Board charging that Koe, by writing a letter to a prospective client offering the legal services of the ACLU, performed acts which constituted solicitation and violated the Canons of Ethics adopted by the South Carolina Supreme Court. Koe contends that since her services for the ACLU are rendered without fee, she has not violated the Canons of Ethics, and that the investigation of the complaint by the Board and the Attorney General of South Carolina amounts to bad faith harassment intended to discourage the activity of the ACLU. Koe and the ACLU initiated this action in the federal district court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief preventing the Board from prosecuting or otherwise processing both the complaint filed against Koe and similar future complaints which may be filed against other ACLU attorneys. The Board moved for dismissal of the action. The district court, in a well reasoned opinion, granted the Board's motion to dismiss on the ground that federal relief was barred under the principles set forth in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), as applied by the Second Circuit in Erdmann v. Stevens, 458 F.2d 1205 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 889, 93 S.Ct. 126, 34 L.Ed.2d 147 (1972).

On appeal, Koe and the ACLU contend that even if Younger is a bar to the relief requested, the district court should have abstained and retained jurisdiction rather than dismissing the federal complaint. We find no merit in this argument. Abstention is generally held to be appropriate in cases in which both state and federal questions arise, and it is recognized that an action pending in state court will likely resolve state law questions which are dispositive of the federal claim. Harris County Comm'rs Court v. Moore, 420 U.S. 77, 95 S.Ct. 870, 43 L.Ed.2d 32 (1975). However, the Younger bar to federal intervention involves different considerations; it is recognized that when both state and federal questions are properly presented before a state court in pending state criminal proceedings, see Younger, supra, or in certain pending state civil proceedings, see Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 95 S.Ct. 1200, 43 L.Ed.2d 482 (1975), principles of comity and federalism require that the federal courts not be permitted to interfere in the ongoing state proceedings. The underlying consideration of the Younger rule is the recognition that any federal claim properly asserted in and rejected by the state court is subject to review by the United States Supreme Court. 420 U.S. at 605, 95 S.Ct. 1200. Since the federal claim will eventually be subject to consideration by the Supreme Court, abstention appears to have no application to cases in which Younger bars relief. In this regard, the Supreme Court has stated that "(u)nlike those situations where a federal court merely abstains from decision on federal questions until the resolution of underlying or related state law issues . . . Younger v. Harris contemplates the outright dismissal of the federal suit, and the presentation of all claims, both state and federal, to the state courts." Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U.S. 564, 577, 93 S.Ct. 1689, 1697, 36 L.Ed.2d 488 (1973). We are not aware of any authority which suggests that dismissal is inappropriate in cases in which Younger bars federal intervention, and the appellants have cited no cases which support such a position. Thus, we conclude that dismissal was appropriate upon the court's determination that Younger was a bar to federal intervention.

The ACLU further contends that even if dismissal of Koe's complaint was appropriate under Younger, dismissal of the ACLU's complaint was improper because there was no state proceeding pending directly against it. Although the district court opinion does not assign specific reasons for dismissal as to the ACLU, we conclude that the ACLU's complaint was properly dismissed.

In the instant case, the ACLU clearly has no independent standing to challenge state disciplinary proceedings since no disciplinary proceedings can be brought against the ACLU itself. However, in Allee v. Medrano, 416 U.S. 802, 94 S.Ct. 2191, 40 L.Ed.2d 566 (1974), the Court recognized that a labor union has standing as a named plaintiff to raise any claims that one of its members would have standing to raise under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, if the union was in a position to suffer real injury derivatively when there was infringement upon the first amendment rights of its members. The ACLU contends that under Allee it has derivative standing in the instant case, but we find it unnecessary to reach this question since, even if the ACLU has standing, the relief sought by the ACLU would be barred by Younger v. Harris.

If the ACLU were found to have standing to assert rights of its associated attorneys derivatively, and this standing was asserted only on the basis of the injury to Koe, it is clear that the organization's action for equitable relief would be subject to the same restrictions as Koe's action, since its rights would be derived entirely from Koe's rights. The ACLU contends, however, that it is also asserting rights of associated attorneys other than Koe who have no state proceedings pending against them, and are not burdened by the Younger restrictions. Since its other associated attorneys would not be subject to the Younger restrictions in a suit for federal equitable relief, the ACLU claims that it should not be subject to Younger. We reject this contention. The Supreme Court has held that persons not presently subjected to state proceedings may seek declaratory relief with respect to threatened prosecutions without meeting the requirements of Younger. Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 94 S.Ct. 1209, 39 L.Ed.2d 505 (1974). In Steffel, however, declaratory relief was sought by an individual; thus any federal equitable relief which he received would affect only subsequent state proceedings initiated against him. In the present case, because federal equitable relief is sought by the ACLU on behalf of its members, a grant of federal relief would necessarily have an effect upon all ACLU associates, including Koe. To permit the ACLU to assert rights of those associates not bound by the Younger restrictions in order to obtain federal equitable relief which would necessarily benefit all its associates would directly interfere with the pending state proceedings, and have the effect of circumventing the Younger restrictions which bar Koe from seeking direct federal relief. We conclude that Allee and Steffel were not intended to be...