Martin v. Stewart

• Decision Date: 29 August 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-1829.,06-1829.
• Citation: 499 F.3d 360
• Parties: Jimmy MARTIN; Lucky Strike LLC, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Robert STEWART, as Chief of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division; Henry McMaster, as Attorney General of the State of South Carolina; Ralph Hoisington, as Solicitor of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

499 F.3d 360

Jimmy MARTIN; Lucky Strike LLC, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Robert STEWART, as Chief of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division; Henry McMaster, as Attorney General of the State of South Carolina; Ralph Hoisington, as Solicitor of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 06-1829.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: May 24, 2007.

Decided: August 29, 2007.

ARGUED: James Mixon Griffin, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellants. Clyde Havird Jones, Jr., Senior Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General Of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Richard A. Harpootlian, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellants. Henry Dargan McMaster, Attorney General, John W. McIntosh, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Robert D. Cook, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Office Of The Attorney General Of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees.

Before WILKINSON, MOTZ, and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge MOTZ wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge TRAXLER joined. Judge WILKINSON wrote a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge:

In this case, the district court dismissed federal constitutional challenges to two South Carolina statutes regulating video poker, on the ground that Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S. 315, 63 S.Ct. 1098, 87 L.Ed. 1424 (1943), mandated abstention. Because resolution of these challenges neither requires a court to adjudicate difficult questions of state law, nor disrupts state efforts to establish through a complex regulatory process a coherent policy on a matter of substantial public concern, this case falls well outside the narrow category of cases to which Burford abstention may apply. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

The parties do not dispute the material facts. Jimmy Martin and Lucky Strike, LLC (collectively Martin), brought this action against three South Carolina officials in their official capacities: Robert Stewart, Chief of the State Law Enforcement Division; Henry McMaster, Attorney General; and Ralph Hoisington, Solicitor of the Ninth Judicial Circuit (collectively the State). Martin sought to enjoin enforcement of two South Carolina statutes criminalizing certain "device[s] pertaining to games of chance." S.C.Code Ann. §§ 12-21-2710 & -2712 (2006). Like all statutes regulating "gambling enterprises," such legislation lies well within "the state's police power." Johnson v. Collins Entm't Co., 199 F.3d 710, 720 (4th Cir.1999). Martin does not contend to the contrary, nor does he assert that the South Carolina statutes violate any state law or policy. Rather, Martin maintains that the challenged statutes violate the Constitution of the United States.

The South Carolina legislature enacted the provisions at issue in a 1999 amendment to South Carolina's gambling laws. See 1999 S.C. Acts 1319-23. The first provision, section 12-21-2710,¹ makes it unlawful for a person to "keep on his premises or operate" certain gaming machines, including "device[s] pertaining to games of chance." S.C.Code Ann. § 12-21-2710. A violation of this statute constitutes a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine not to exceed $500, imprisonment for no more than a year, or both. Id.

The second challenged provision, section 12-21-2712, directs law enforcement officers to seize machines prohibited by section 12-21-2710 and bring them before a county magistrate. S.C.Code Ann. § 12-21-2712. The magistrate must determine whether the machine violates any law and, if it does, order its destruction. Id.² South Carolina law entitles a machine owner to a post-seizure hearing before a magistrate to determine the machine's legality and to an appeal of that decision to higher courts. See Mims Amusement Co. v. S.C. Law Enforcement Div., 366 S.C. 141, 621 S.E.2d 344, 351 (2005). No pre-enforcement mechanism exists for testing a particular machine's legality.

Martin filed this action in federal court in the District of South Carolina, asserting that sections 12-21-2710 and 12-21-2712 violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the district court had federal question jurisdiction to consider these constitutional claims, see 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (2000), the State moved to dismiss. Believing the Burford doctrine required abstention, the district court granted the motion. Martin v. Stewart, 438 F.Supp.2d 603, 608-09 (D.S.C.2006). Martin noted a timely appeal and we have jurisdiction to consider this appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (2000).

We review a district court's decision to abstain under Burford for abuse of discretion. Harper v. Pub. Serv. Comm'n, 396 F.3d 348, 357-58 (4th Cir.2005). A district court abuses its discretion whenever "its decision is guided by erroneous legal principles." United States v. Under Seal (In re Grand Jury), 478 F.3d 581, 584 (4th Cir.2007) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 100, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996) ("A district court by definition abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law."). Consequently, "there is little or no discretion to abstain in a case which does not meet traditional abstention requirements." Dittmer v. County of Suffolk, 146 F.3d 113, 116 (2d Cir.1998) (internal quotation marks omitted).

II.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly instructed that "federal courts have a strict duty to exercise the jurisdiction that is conferred upon them by Congress." Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U.S. 706, 716, 116 S.Ct. 1712, 135 L.Ed.2d 1 (1996); see, e.g., Deakins v. Monaghan, 484 U.S. 193, 203, 108 S.Ct. 523, 98 L.Ed.2d 529 (1988) ("[T]he federal courts have a virtually unflagging obligation to exercise their jurisdiction ...." (internal quotation marks omitted)); England v. La. State Bd. of Med. Exam'rs, 375 U.S. 411, 415, 84 S.Ct. 461, 11 L.Ed.2d 440 (1964) ("`When a Federal court is properly appealed to in a case over which it has by law jurisdiction, it is its duty to take such jurisdiction.'" (quoting Willcox v. Consol. Gas Co., 212 U.S. 19, 40, 29 S.Ct. 192, 53 L.Ed. 382 (1909))); Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 404, 5 L.Ed. 257 (1821) ("[The Supreme Court] ha[s] no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given.").

Abstention doctrines constitute "extraordinary and narrow exception[s]" to a federal court's duty to exercise the jurisdiction conferred on it. Quackenbush, 517 U.S. at 716, 728, 116 S.Ct. 1712 (internal quotation marks omitted). These exceptions require the denial of discretionary relief when "principles of federalism and comity" outweigh the federal interest in deciding a case. See id. at 716, 728, 116 S.Ct. 1712. To cabin that discretion and ensure that abstention "remains the exception, not the rule," the Supreme Court has "carefully defined ... the areas in which such abstention is permissible." New Orleans Pub. Serv., Inc. v. Council of New Orleans, 491 U.S. 350, 359, 109 S.Ct. 2506, 105 L.Ed.2d 298 (1989) (NOPSI) (internal quotation marks omitted).

For example, Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), permits federal courts to abstain from hearing cases that would interfere with a pending state criminal proceeding. Pursuant to Railroad Commission v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 61 S.Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971 (1941), courts may abstain when the need to decide a federal constitutional question might be avoided if state courts are given the opportunity to construe ambiguous state law. Another doctrine, articulated in Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. City of Thibodaux, 360 U.S. 25, 79 S.Ct. 1070, 3 L.Ed.2d 1058 (1959), allows abstention in cases raising issues "intimately involved with [the State's] sovereign prerogative," where proper adjudication might be impaired by unsettled questions of state law. And in Burford, the Court recognized that courts may abstain when the availability of an alternative, federal forum threatened to frustrate the purpose of a state's complex administrative system. Burford, 319 U.S. at 331-32, 63 S.Ct. 1098; see also Quackenbush, 517 U.S. at 725, 116 S.Ct. 1712; Ala. Pub. Serv. Comm'n v. S. Ry. Co., 341 U.S. 341, 71 S.Ct. 762, 95 L.Ed. 1002 (1951).

To be sure, these discrete abstention doctrines "are not rigid pigeonholes into which federal courts must try to fit cases." Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco Inc., 481 U.S. 1, 11 n. 9, 107 S.Ct. 1519, 95 L.Ed.2d 1 (1987). Overlapping rationales motivate these doctrines and considerations that support abstaining under one will often support abstaining under another. Id. But at the same time, the Supreme Court has never allowed abstention to be a license for free-form ad hoc judicial balancing of the totality of state and federal interests in a case. The Court has instead defined specific doctrines that apply in particular classes of cases. See NOPSI, 491 U.S. at 359, 109 S.Ct. 2506. In this case, the district court relied solely on Burford abstention.³

The Burford doctrine "justif[ies] the dismissal of a federal action" in a "narrow range of circumstances." Quackenbush, 517 U.S. at 726, 116 S.Ct. 1712. Burford permits abstention when federal adjudication would "unduly intrude" upon "complex state administrative processes" because either: (1) "there are difficult questions of state law ... whose importance transcends the result in the case then at bar"; or (2) federal review would disrupt "state efforts to establish a coherent policy with respect to a matter of substantial public concern." NOPSI, 491 U.S. at 361-63, 109 S.Ct. 2506 (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, the Supreme Court has directed that "Burford allows a federal court to dismiss a case only" when presented with these "extraordinary circumstances." Quackenbush, 517 U.S. at...