MacKay v. Pfeil

• Decision Date: 04 September 1987
• Docket Number: Nos. 85-3831,85-4192,s. 85-3831
• Parties: Neil S. MacKAY, Sr., individually and as Guardian ad Litem for Neil S. MacKay, Jr., a minor, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Caroline PFEIL, individually and as personal representative of the Estate of Muriel Pfeil, Muriel C. Pfeil, Marianne Pfeil, and Does I through XX, inclusive, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 540

827 F.2d 540

Neil S. MacKAY, Sr., individually and as Guardian ad Litem for Neil S. MacKay, Jr., a minor, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Caroline PFEIL, individually and as personal representative of the Estate of Muriel Pfeil, Muriel C. Pfeil Marianne Pfeil, and Does I through XX inclusive, Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 85-3831, 85-4192.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Feb. 2, 1987.

Decided Sept. 4, 1987.

Lance S. Spiegel, Beverly Hills, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Gregory J. Motyka, and Russellyn S. Carruth, Anchorage, Alaska, for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Alaska.

Before WALLACE, FLETCHER and BRUNETTI, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Neil MacKay appeals a grant of summary judgment against him in his causes of action for declaratory and injunctive relief from an Alaska state court judgment. Because the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over these claims, we vacate its judgment and remand with instructions to dismiss.

BACKGROUND

Neil MacKay and Muriel Pfeil were divorced in 1974. Custody of their son, Scotty, was awarded to Muriel. In 1976, Muriel was murdered in a car-bomb explosion. Following Muriel's death, Scotty's custody was litigated in Alaska Superior Court. Robert Pfeil, Muriel Pfeil's brother and the personal representative of her estate, and his wife, Marianne, sought custody, as did Scotty's father, Neil MacKay. ¹ During the custody litigation Neil MacKay, in violation of a court order, took Scotty out of Alaska and fled to Likiep Island in the United States Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands. The estate of Muriel Pfeil bore the costs of locating Scotty and returning him to Alaska.

The custody litigation was terminated by a consent order and decree entered on June 30, 1978, awarding custody of Scotty to MacKay. MacKay, Scotty, and the Pfeil's With the conclusion of the custody litigation, the MacKay/Pfeil controversy began anew in the Alaska Superior Court proceedings, this time over the administration of Muriel Pfeil's estate. Scotty MacKay is the sole beneficiary of his mother's estate. Robert Pfeil, as the estate's representative, moved to obtain reimbursement from MacKay for, among other things, expenses borne by the estate in securing Scotty's return from the South Pacific and attorney's fees and costs in both the custody and the estate litigation. MacKay opposed this motion both on procedural grounds and on the merits, arguing that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over him and that the consent decree of June 30, 1978 precluded the estate's claim. The Alaska Superior Court determined that it had jurisdiction over MacKay, rejected MacKay's interpretation of the consent decree, and held that MacKay owed $141,982.62 to the estate. Judgment was entered December 8, 1981. On June 29, 1983, a default judgment in an action to enforce the December 8, 1981 judgment was entered by an Alaska Superior Court.

were parties to the consent decree. In relevant part, the decree provided that "[t]he award of attorneys' fees and costs to [Scotty's] court appointed counsel shall be made by the court in the [then pending] estate matter," and that "the parties hereto have mutually agreed to release one another and their attorneys from any and all claims arising out of this litigation ..., expressly excluding however, any and all claims arising out of or effecting the Estates of Muriel A. Pfeil and/or SCOTTY MACKAY...."

MacKay never appealed either of the Alaska court judgments. Rather, he filed a diversity action in federal district court seeking, inter alia, injunctive and declaratory relief. ² Pfeil's motion for summary judgment was granted by the district court in an order filed April 14, 1985. Subsequently, the district court granted the defendants' motion for attorney's fees. MacKay timely noticed his appeals of the summary judgment (No. 85-3831) and the fee award (No. 85-4192). ³

DISCUSSION

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Darring v. Kincheloe, 783 F.2d 874, 876 (9th Cir.1986). Jurisdictional issues must be raised by this court sua sponte. Worldwide Church of God v. McNair, 805 F.2d 888, 890 (9th Cir.1986) (citing Solano v Beilby, 761 F.2d 1369, 1370 (9th Cir.1985)). Where subject-matter jurisdiction is lacking, dismissal, not summary judgment, is the appropriate disposition. Demarest v. United States, 718 F.2d 964, 965 (9th Cir.1983) (citing Capitol Industries-EMI, Inc. v. Bennett, 681 F.2d 1107, 1118 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 943, 102 S.Ct. 1438, 71 L.Ed.2d 655 (1982)), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 950, 104 S.Ct. 2150, 80 L.Ed.2d 536 (1984). If a district court grants summary judgment in a case over which it does not have subject-matter jurisdiction, the court of appeals must vacate the judgment and remand with directions to enter a judgment of dismissal. Id.

An examination of the claims MacKay has appealed reveals that he is attempting to obtain federal review of a state court judgment. The relief sought is "a declaration that the Purported Judgment is void," and "orders restraining and enjoining the Defendants from seeking to enforce the Purported Judgment." Such relief is warranted, MacKay argues, because (1) the Alaska court in the estate proceedings lacked personal jurisdiction over him, rendering its judgment void; and (2) the judgment ordering the reimbursement to Muriel Pfeil's estate conflicts with the consent decree entered in the custody litigation.

The district court found that the Alaska court that entered the contested judgment decided both the jurisdictional defense and the substantive defense against MacKay, and, accordingly, that his federal claims are barred by the doctrine of res judicata. Summary judgment was granted to the defendants on this basis. We find, however, a related but more fundamental flaw in MacKay's claims for injunctive and declaratory relief: the district court was without subjectmatter jurisdiction over these causes of action.

Federal district courts, as courts of original jurisdiction, ⁴ may not serve as appellate tribunals to review errors allegedly committed by state courts. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, 398 U.S. 281, 296, 90 S.Ct. 1739, 1748, 26 L.Ed.2d 234 (1970) ("[L]ower federal courts possess no power whatever to sit in direct review of state court decisions."). The Supreme Court long ago defined the difference between original proceedings, over which federal district courts have jurisdiction, and those proceedings that are only attacks on correctness of a state court's judgment, over which they do not:

The question presented with regard to ... jurisdiction ... is, whether the proceeding ... is or is not in its nature a separate suit, or whether it is a supplementary proceeding so connected with the original suit as to form an incident to it, and substantially a continuation of it. If the proceeding is merely tantamount to the common-law practice of moving to set aside a judgment for irregularity, or to a writ of error, or to a bill of review or an appeal, it would belong to the latter category, and the United States court could not properly entertain jurisdiction of the case. Otherwise, the Circuit Courts of the United States would become invested with power to control the proceedings in the State courts, or would have appellate jurisdiction over them in all cases where the parties are citizens of different States. Such a result would be totally inadmissible.

On the other hand, if the proceedings are tantamount to a bill in equity to set aside a decree for fraud in the obtaining thereof, then they constitute an original and independent proceeding, and according to the doctrine laid down in Gaines v. Fuentes (92 U.S. [2 Otto] 10 the case might be within the cognizance of the Federal courts. The distinction between the two classes of cases may be somewhat nice, but it may be affirmed to exist. In the one class there would be a mere revision of errors and irregularities, or of the legality and correctness of the judgments and decrees of the State courts; and in the other class, the investigation of a new case arising upon new facts, although having relation to the validity of an actual judgment or decree, or the party's right to claim any benefit by reason thereof.

Barrow v. Hunton, 99 U.S. (9 Otto) 80, 82-83, 25 L.Ed. 407 (1878); cf. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 175, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803) ("It is the essential criterion of appellate jurisdiction, that it revises and corrects the proceedings in a cause already instituted, and does not create that cause.").

In Barrow, the plaintiff had filed a petition in state court to nullify a state court judgment against him, claiming that he had not been served with process and that he had been discharged as a bankrupt. The defendant removed the action to federal court on the basis of diversity of citizenship. The Supreme Court, applying the above quoted analysis, found that "the proceeding ... was one that affected the mere regularity of the original judgment," rendering removal improper for lack of jurisdiction. 99 U.S. (9 Otto) at 83, 85.

As in Barrow, MacKay attacks the state court judgment for lack of personal jurisdiction and as erroneous due to the existence of a substantive defense. And, as in Barrow, MacKay's case is "substantially a continuation" of the state court proceedings. Id. at 82. To find that the district court had jurisdiction would lead to the "totally inadmissible" result that lower federal courts "would have appellate jurisdiction over [state court proceedings] in all cases where the parties are citizens of different States." Id. at 83.

Modern cases in which parties attempt to secure review of state court decisions by invoking federal diversity jurisdiction are few. ⁵ The problem of lack of jurisdiction for want of "originality" has arisen more frequently in cases...