Kent v. Cook

• Decision Date: 20 June 1986
• Docket Number: No. S86-60.,S86-60.
• Parties: David KENT, Plaintiff, v. Carolyn COOK; David Emens; James Broadbent; Elkhart Community School Corp.; Frederick Bechtold, Superintendent; Elkhart School Board; Ronald Gunden; Charles Walker; William G. Cork; Ron Teall; Gloria Gregory; Richard Jensen; David Bonfiglio; John Does; Jane Does, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana

637 F. Supp. 1005

David KENT, Plaintiff, v. Carolyn COOK; David Emens; James Broadbent; Elkhart Community School Corp.; Frederick Bechtold, Superintendent; Elkhart School Board; Ronald Gunden; Charles Walker; William G. Cork; Ron Teall; Gloria Gregory; Richard Jensen; David Bonfiglio; John Does; Jane Does, Defendants.

No. S86-60.

United States District Court, N.D. Indiana, South Bend Division.

June 20, 1986.

William J. Cohen and Edward J. Chester, Elkhart, Ind., for plaintiff.

R. Michael Parker and J. Scott Troeger, Elkhart, Ind., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM and ORDER

MILLER, District Judge.

This matter is before the court on defendants' joint motion to stay these federal proceedings pending resolution of state court proceedings. Plaintiff David Kent alleges deprivation of federal constitutional rights actionable under 42 U.S.C. sections 1981, 1983 and 1985 (1981) and various pendent state law claims. This court's subject matter jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. sections 1331, 1343 and 2201 (1981), is undisputed.

The plaintiff alleges that he was expelled from Elkhart Memorial High School in February of 1984 for violating school rules by consuming alcoholic beverages at a school-sponsored event. In April, 1984, Mr. Kent initiated a civil rights action in the Elkhart, Indiana, Superior Court, based on his explusion. He alleged deprivation of due process and equal protection rights under the United States Constitution and the Indiana Constitution. Mr. Kent named the same fifteen defendants in the state court action as are named in the present action.

Mr. Kent filed this federal action on February 3, 1986, using a complaint that duplicates the complaint filed in state court some twenty-two months earlier. Both suits are class actions brought under sections 1983 and 1985; in both, Mr. Kent seeks equitable and monetary relief. According to various documents the parties have filed in conjunction with the motion to stay (including a copy of the plaintiff's amended state court complaint, a transcript of a hearing in state court regarding class certification, and some documents relating to discovery in the state suit), the state court has held at least one hearing in the action, after which it denied class certification with leave to reassert the motion for certification, and the parties have engaged in some discovery. The defendants filed their motion for stay prior to answering plaintiff's complaint in this federal action, and the court extended their time for answering pending determination of the motion for stay.

The defendants maintain that all federal proceedings should be stayed pending resolution of the parallel state suit, based on: (1) judicial economy and the authority of Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 47 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976); (2) prudent exercise of equitable discretion to decline hearing suit for declaratory relief; and (3) preference of state court interpretation of difficult issues of state law, as directed in Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 61 S.Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971 (1941). The court need reach only the first issue.

I

It should be noted, as a prefatory matter, that although Mr. Kent styled his memorandum as one "in support of federal jurisdiction", there is no dispute that this court has subject-matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. sections 1331 and 1343, or that the Elkhart Superior Court has jurisdiction to enforce federal rights. Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 101 S.Ct. 411, 66 L.Ed.2d 308 (1980). The issues before the court are not jurisdictional. Rather, the defendants ask this court to abstain from exercising its concurrent jurisdiction out of deference to state court. The mere "pendency of an action in the state court is no bar to proceedings concerning the same matters in federal courts having jurisdiction". Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. at 817, 96 S.Ct. at 1246.

II

A

The first ground for stay is based on judicial economy under the "Colorado River" abstention doctrine. In 1976, the Supreme Court recognized an abstention doctrine based upon duplicative state litigation in Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. at 800, 96 S.Ct. at 1236, an action brought by the United States against some one thousand litigants to determine property rights in river waters. The Court held that although a pending state court action does not alone warrant a stay or dismissal of federal proceedings concerning the same matter, exceptional circumstances may warrant dismissal of a federal suit in the face of concurrent state proceedings. Id., 424 U.S. at 818, 96 S.Ct. at 1246. The Colorado River Court found such circumstances in the case before it, including: a clear federal policy, grounded in a federal statute, to avoid piecemeal adjudication of water rights in a river system; a comprehensive system to adjudicate water rights; and the absence of "weightier considerations of constitutional adjudication". Id., 424 U.S. at 818-19, 96 S.Ct. at 1246-1247.

The Colorado River Court emphasized how narrow the class of exceptional circumstances would be. The Court stated that federal courts cannot lightly abdicate their responsibility to assert jurisdiction vested in them by Congress. The Court emphasized "the virtually unflagging obligation of the federal courts to exercise the jurisdiction given them". 424 U.S. at 811, 96 S.Ct. at 1243. Abstention is the exception, not the rule. In the Court's words:

The doctrine of abstention, under which a District Court may decline to exercise or postpone the exercise of its jurisdiction, is an extraordinary and narrow exception to the duty of a District Court to adjudicate a controversy properly before it. Abdication of the obligation to decide cases can be justified under this doctrine only in the exceptional circumstances where the order to the parties to repair to the State court would clearly serve an important countervailing interest.

Id., 424 U.S. at 813, 96 S.Ct. at 1244, quoting County of Allegheny v. Frank Mashuda Co., 360 U.S. 185, 188-89, 79 S.Ct. 1060, 1063, 3 L.Ed.2d 1163 (1959).

The emergence of this abstention doctrine was confused somewhat by the decision two years later in Will v. Calvert Fire Ins. Co., 437 U.S. 655, 98 S.Ct. 2552, 57 L.Ed.2d 504 (1978), in which the Court reversed a mandamus order directing a district court to entertain a case in which the district court had found abstention to be proper. Calvert Fire's holding, however, is best understood as one addressing the propriety of mandamus, rather than abstention.

In Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp., 460 U.S. 1, 103 S.Ct. 927, 74 L.Ed.2d 765 (1983), a district court had declined to exercise its jurisdiction over a contract dispute subject to the United States Arbitration Act of 1925 because of a parallel state court suit. The Court of Appeals reversed, and the Supreme Court affirmed that reversal, finding that no exceptional circumstances existed to warrant abstention. The Court reaffirmed that abstention due to parallel litigation in state courts is proper only under exceptional circumstances, and then only the clearest of justification warrants such abdication. Id., 460 U.S. at 16, 103 S.Ct. at 937.

In Lumen Construction, Inc. v. Brant Construction, Inc., 780 F.2d 691 (7th Cir. 1985), an opinion written by the petitioner in Calvert Fire, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals found abstention proper in a federal civil rights suit identical to a pending state case. Writing for the court, Judge Will identified several factors that a district court must consider when deciding whether to defer to pending state litigation, but noted that none of the factors is determinative alone. 780 F.2d at 694-695. Those factors are discussed below.

(1)

Judge Will drew the first four factors from the Colorado River opinion. Whether either court has assumed jurisdiction over property is the first such factor; such assumption of jurisdiction has been held to be pre-emptive. Colorado River, 424 U.S. at 818, 96 S.Ct. at 1246; Donovan v. City of Dallas, 377 U.S. 408, 84 S.Ct. 1579, 12 L.Ed.2d 409 (1964). This factor was of no significance in Colorado River or Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital or Lumen Construction Inc., and it is of no significance here. Neither this court nor the Elkhart Superior Court has assumed jurisdiction over property; this action is in personam rather than in rem. This factor neither supports nor undercuts abstention.

(2)

The second factor listed in Lumen Construction inquires into the inconvenience of the federal forum. In Colorado River, the Court noted the 300 mile distance between the district court and the state court. In Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501, 67 S.Ct. 839, 91 L.Ed.2d 1055 (1947), the Court held that a New York district court had discretion to dismiss, on forum non conveniens grounds, a diversity action based on an incident in Virginia. In the case now before the court, however, the doctrine of forum non conveniens does not apply; indeed Elkhart County lies within the Northern District of Indiana.

(3)

The third factor considers the desirability of avoiding piecemeal litigation. This consideration was among the most persuasive to the Colorado River Court, which found that the McCarran Amendment evinced a clear federal policy of avoiding piecemeal adjudication of water rights in a river system. 424 U.S. at 819, 96 S.Ct. at 1247. In Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, this factor weighed against abstention: piecemeal litigation was inevitable, not by virtue of the separate forums, but rather by virtue of the arbitration issue, the determination of which in a federal, rather than state, forum would not dissemble the proceedings further. In Lumen Construction, the court noted that the state case involved more issues than did the federal, and resolution of the...