Heartland Academy Community Church v. Waddle, 02-1694.
| Decision Date | 02 July 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-2176.,No. 02-1694.,02-1694.,02-2176. |
| Citation | 335 F.3d 684 |
| Parties | HEARTLAND ACADEMY COMMUNITY CHURCH, a Missouri not-for-profit corporation; CNS International Ministries, Inc., a Missouri not-for-profit corporation; Tracy Leftwich; David Christensen; Becky Christensen; Paula McKinney; Del McKinney; Jennifer Armstead; Peggy White; Sam Perumalla; Sheela Perumalla; Jim Brownfield; Cheryl Crary; Jim Crary; David Lawson; Marilyn Lawson; Susan McCloy; John McCloy; Denver Barry Selser; Ross Dale; Tina Dale; Shawn Jarnigan; Amy Jarnigan; Brad Hampton; Martha Hampton, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Michael WADDLE, in his individual and official capacities, Defendant-Appellant, David Parrish, in his individual and official capacities; Patricia McAfee, in her individual and official capacities; Lewis County, Missouri, Defendants. Heartland Academy Community Church, a Missouri not-for-profit corporation; CNS International Ministries, Inc., a Missouri not-for-profit corporation; Tracy Leftwich; David Christensen; Becky Christensen; Paula McKinney; Del McKinney; Jennifer Armstead; Peggy White; Sam Perumalla; Sheela Perumalla; Jim Brownfield; Cheryl Crary; Jim Crary; David Lawson; Marilyn Lawson; Susan McCloy; John McCloy; Denver Barry Selser; Ross Dale; Tina Dale; Shawn Jarnigan; Amy Jarnigan; Brad Hampton; Martha Hampton, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Michael Waddle, in his individual and official capacities; David Parrish, in his individual and official capacities; Patricia McAfee, in her individual and official capacities; Lewis County, Missouri, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
John J. Lynch, argued, Asst. Atty. Gen., St. Louis, MO, for appellant.
Timothy Belz, argued, St. Louis, MO (Robert T. Haar and Lisa A. Pake, on the brief), for appellee.
Before BOWMAN, MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, and RILEY, Circuit Judges.
Michael Waddle appeals from the order of the District Court1 granting a preliminary injunction sought by CNS International Ministries, Inc.; its affiliate Heartland Academy Community Church; and named individual plaintiffs (collectively, Heartland). Heartland cross appeals, challenging the scope of the injunction. We affirm.
CNS owns and operates the Heartland Christian Academy (HCA) in Shelby County, Missouri, a Christian educational facility that provides services to children with behavioral and substance abuse problems. The school is a part of a complex that spans Lewis, Knox, and Shelby counties and includes dormitories, group homes, residences, a spiritual retreat, a steakhouse, and a dairy operation. Some students live in housing on the property, whereas others commute to attend the school. The individual plaintiffs are parents whose children were involved in the incident that led to the preliminary injunction. Waddle is the Chief Juvenile Officer for the Second Judicial Circuit in Missouri, which includes Lewis, Knox, and Adair counties.
On July 2, 2001, the Heartland Academy Community Church and CNS, both non-profit corporations, filed suit against Waddle; Lewis County, Missouri; and David Parrish and Patricia McAfee, sheriff and deputy sheriff, respectively, for Lewis County at the times relevant to this appeal, alleging that these defendants were harassing and intimidating Heartland, its employees, and its students and their families.2 The suit claimed constitutional violations as a result of the defendants' actions and sought legal damages and declaratory and injunctive relief. The case was pending when, on October 30, 2001, based upon continuing allegations of child mistreatment and abuse at Heartland facilities, juvenile authorities and uniformed, armed law enforcement officers removed from HCA 115 children, virtually all of the boarding students who attended the school, loading them onto school busses and taking them into protective custody. The removal was without notice to Heartland, the students, or their parents. Authorities had ex parte probable-cause state-court orders to remove only about seventy-five of the students who were taken into custody, as well as orders for approximately forty children who no longer lived at Heartland and for four others who were over the age of eighteen, that is, adults over whom juvenile authorities had no jurisdiction. Waddle had sought the orders using a list of boarding students that he had obtained in July 2001, which evidently was inaccurate by October when he decided that all of the children living at Heartland needed to be removed immediately.
The removal took over two hours, with Waddle himself noting, "The juveniles showed their emotion about leaving Heartland school in these circumstances by weeping, hugging teachers, praying, silence, singing songs, seeming non-plussed or shouting at juvenile office staff." Br. of Appellant at 16. The students were confined by juvenile authorities, up to several days, until their parents came for them. When parents retrieved their children, they were given a copy of a letter from a juvenile officer, which advised them against returning their children to Heartland, suggesting that doing so might result in a loss of custody or a referral to law enforcement authorities.
Post-removal juvenile detention hearings were scheduled for Friday, November 2, 2001, but Waddle sought dismissal of the cases for those children whose parents had picked them up by that date and a brief continuance until Monday for those whose parents had not yet come for them. All cases eventually were dismissed.
On Monday, November 5, 2001, Heartland filed with the District Court a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) and a preliminary injunction. By that time, many parents of the removed students had returned their children to Heartland. The motion sought, among other things, to immediately enjoin the defendants from further student removals without certain safeguards, including notice and a hearing. The court held a hearing on November 5, and the TRO was entered on November 6. On November 14-16, 2001, the District Court held a more extensive hearing on Heartland's request for a preliminary injunction. After the hearing, the court modified the TRO and on February 7, 2002, issued a final preliminary injunction order:
Until a full trial on the merits is held in the above-styled action, Defendants Michael Waddle, David Parrish, and Patricia McAfee, their officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys and those persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of this Order are enjoined from seeking or participating in any pre-hearing removal of all boarding children from HCA unless all boarding children at HCA are directly involved in the underlying facts that serve as the basis for such removal.
Memorandum & Order at 89 (Feb. 7, 2002).
On appeal from this order, Waddle first maintains that the District Court should have abstained from exercising jurisdiction over Heartland's claim for preliminary injunctive relief. He argues that the federal court is being asked to interfere with his responsibility to enforce the State's child protection laws, and the District Court therefore should have abstained from hearing Heartland's claims.
Where a lower federal court's jurisdiction is properly invoked, its decision on abstention is reviewed for abuse of discretion. See Haw. Hous. Auth. v. Midkiff, 467 U.S. 229, 236, 104 S.Ct. 2321, 81 L.Ed.2d 186 (1984). But as we understand Waddle's abstention argument, it is actually a challenge to federal court jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine,3 so we will review de novo the District Court's decision to hear the case.4 See Niere v. St Louis County, Mo., 305 F.3d 834, 836 (8th Cir.2002).
Under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, "a party losing in state court is barred from seeking what in substance would be appellate review of the state judgment in a United States district court, based on the losing party's claim that the state judgment itself violates the loser's federal rights." Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 1005-06, 114 S.Ct. 2647, 129 L.Ed.2d 775 (1994). In other words, original federal jurisdiction over state-court judgments is reserved to the Supreme Court.5 Verizon Md. Inc. v. Pub. Serv. Comm'n, 535 U.S. 635, 644 n. 3, 122 S.Ct. 1753, 152 L.Ed.2d 871 (2002). There will be no jurisdiction in the lower federal courts if the constitutional claims raised in a federal case are "inextricably intertwined" with a state-court decision. D.C. Ct. of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 483 n. 16, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983).
But Heartland's motion for injunctive relief does not interfere with a state-court judgment — there is no state-court order permitting juvenile authorities in the future to round up all Heartland boarding students, without a hearing, and take them into protective custody. And so, in hearing Heartland's motion for a preliminary injunction, the District Court did not need to take on any issue actually litigated in the state courts or any claim "inextricably intertwined" with such an issue. The injunction here is forward-looking, directed to any contemplated wholesale pre-hearing removal of boarding students from the Heartland complex. The District Court properly asserted jurisdiction over the motion for preliminary injunctive relief.
Waddle also contends that the District Court erred in concluding that Heartland and the parents had standing to seek this injunction. We review de novo. Burton v. Cent. Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Comm'n, 23 F.3d 208, 209 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 951, 115 S.Ct. 366, 130 L.Ed.2d 318 (1994). But we "accept as true all material allegations of the complaint, and ... construe the complaint in favor of" Heartland. Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975).
A party will have standing to assert a claim in federal court if it alleges that (1) it...
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