Patmon v. Michigan Supreme Court

• Decision Date: 25 January 2000
• Docket Number: No. 98-2364,98-2364
• Citation: 224 F.3d 504
• Parties: (6th Cir. 2000) Frederick A. Patmon, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michigan Supreme Court; Conrad L. Mallet, Jr.; Corbin R. Davis, Clerk; State Bar of Michigan; Edmund M. Brady, Jr., President; Attorney Discipline Board for the State of Michigan; Miles A. Hurwitz, Chairperson; John F. Van Bolt; Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission; Phillip J. Thomas, Defendants-Appellees. Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 504

224 F.3d 504 (6th Cir. 2000)

Frederick A. Patmon, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Michigan Supreme Court; Conrad L. Mallet, Jr.; Corbin R. Davis, Clerk; State Bar of Michigan; Edmund M. Brady, Jr., President; Attorney Discipline Board for the State of Michigan; Miles A. Hurwitz, Chairperson; John F. Van Bolt; Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission; Phillip J. Thomas, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 98-2364

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

Argued: January 25, 2000

Decided and Filed: August 1, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit. No. 98-71470--Patrick J. Duggan, District Judge.

Clarence B. Tucker, Sr., TUCKER & HUGHES, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellant.

Margaret A. Nelson, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, TORT DEFENSE DIVISION, Lansing, Michigan, for Defendants-Appellees Michigan Supremem Court, Conrad L. Mallet, Jr., Corbin R. Davis, Attorney Discipline Board for the State of Michigan, Miles A. Hurwitz, and John F. Van Bolt.

Thomas K. Byerley, Victoria V. Kremski, STATE BAR OF MICHIGAN, Lansing, Michigan, for Defendants-Appellees, State Bar of Michigan, Edmund M. Brady, Jr.

Richard L. Cunningham, MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GRIEVANCE COMMISSION, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellees Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission, and Phillip J. Thomas.

Before: JONES, NORRIS, and SILER, Circuit Judges.

NORRIS, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which SILER, J., joined. JONES, J. (pp. 510-11), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

OPINION

ALAN E. NORRIS, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff, Frederick A. Patmon, filed an action in district court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1994) against the Michigan Supreme Court, the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission, the Attorney Discipline Board, the State Bar of Michigan, and various officials affiliated with these entities in order to challenge his temporary suspension from the practice of law. Plaintiff alleged that the Michigan statutes and court rules governing the practice of law deprived him of certain rights guaranteed by the federal constitution, among them the right to due process. The district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss and/or for summary judgment. For the following reasons, we AFFIRM the district court.

I.

Plaintiff began practicing law in Michigan in 1966. In 1985 the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission ("Commission") filed a complaint against him for failure to return a client's funds. On December 28 1989, a hearing panel appointed by the Attorney Disciplinary Board ("Board") found him guilty of professional misconduct and suspended his license to practice law for ninety days. Plaintiff appealed this suspension to the Board, which affirmed the panel's decision on May 14, 1990. The Michigan Supreme Court declined plaintiff's application for leave to appeal on May 31, 1991. The suspension, which had been stayed pending these appeals, then took effect.

Plaintiff continued to contest his suspension: he filed a motion for reconsideration with the Michigan Supreme Court and requested a stay of discipline pending its resolution.¹ The Michigan Supreme Court denied both his motion for reconsideration and his request for a stay.

In the wake of these proceedings, defendant Phillip Thomas, acting in his role as grievance administrator for the Commission, investigated complaints that plaintiff had practiced law during his suspension. As a result, two formal complaints were filed with the Commission. They alleged that plaintiff had conducted depositions while under suspension; had filed pleadings on behalf of a client, and had failed to notify his clients and others that he was under suspension, as required by court rules.

The complaints were referred to a hearing panel. The panel concluded that some of the allegations lodged against plaintiff were justified but that others were not. After it conducted a separate hearing with respect to the appropriate level of discipline, it issued an order that imposed a 180-day suspension to commence on October 29, 1996.

Plaintiff once again appealed to the Board, which affirmed the 180-day suspension, effective May 16, 1997. Plaintiff then filed a motion for reconsideration, which was denied. The Michigan Supreme Court stayed the matter once again, but on September 16, 1997 denied leave to appeal and ruled that the suspension would go into effect after 21 days, on October 8, 1997.²

Plaintiff filed this action in federal district court on April 3, 1998 after the state court proceedings were concluded. In addition to monetary compensation, plaintiff seeks declaratory and injunctive relief.

The district court granted judgment to defendants on two grounds: Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit and the holding in District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). The court also noted its belief that plaintiff had failed to state a viable constitutional claim.

The Eleventh Amendment confers sovereign immunity upon the states. Except in limited circumstances, a state (or one of its departments or agencies) cannot be sued in federal court without its consent. See Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 100 (1984); Thiokol Corp. v. Department of Treasury, State of Mich., Revenue Div., 987 F.2d 376, 381 (6th Cir. 1993). Based upon these principles, the district court determined that defendants possessed Eleventh Amendment immunity from plaintiff's suit.

The district court also concluded that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine divested it of subject matter jurisdiction because the complaint essentially sought review of plaintiff's attorney grievance proceedings. In Feldman, supra, 460 U.S. at 476, the Supreme Court determined that 28 U.S.C. § 1257 provided the only avenue for federal review of state court proceedings (this holding is often referred to as the Rooker-Feldman doctrine; see also Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923)). Section 1257 provides:

Final judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had, may be reviewed by the Supreme Court by writ of certiorari where the validity of a treaty or statute of the United States is drawn in question or where the validity of a statute of any State is drawn in question on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States, or where any title, right, privilege, or immunity is specially set up or claimed under the Constitution or the treaties or statutes of, or any commission held or authority exercised under, the United States.

28 U.S.C. § 1257(a) (1993). The district court concluded that it was without jurisdiction to review plaintiff's complaint because subject matter jurisdiction was limited to the Supreme Court by § 1257. In reaching this conclusion, the court explained (citations omitted):

[T]he state proceedings were judicial in nature. There is no dispute that the grievance proceedings undertaken by the [Board] were adversarial in nature with the ultimate question being whether plaintiff violated the Michigan Court Rules by practicing law during his suspension. Thus, it clearly involved a determination of liabilities based on facts and law existing at the time. Furthermore, this process involves the ability to seek leave to appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court. . . .

. . . .

While it is true that a full review was not given by the Michigan Supreme Court, nevertheless, the process permits an appellant to seek leave to appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court and, in this Court's opinion, a decision by the Michigan Supreme Court denying leave constitutes judicial review sufficient to satisfy any constitutional requirement of a judicial review.

. . .

The Court rejects plaintiff's claim, raised throughout his pleadings and repeatedly by counsel at oral argument, that he is bringing a general challenge to such rules and procedures. Plaintiff's complaint alleges, inter alia, that defendants unconstitutionally applied certain provisions of the Michigan Court Rules in the disciplinary proceedings against plaintiff and deprived him of his due process and equal protection rights. Plaintiff further asserts that the allegedly unconstitutional court rules and practices were being enforced in a way that violated plaintiff's constitutional rights. By way of relief, his complaint seeks, among other things, a declaration that Patmon's rights have been violated and that Patmon's conduct as a lawyer is protected by the United States Constitution. Plaintiff also seeks orders restoring plaintiff's license and purging his disciplinary records. Such averments indicate that plaintiff is challenging his license suspension, and his claims are therefore inextricably intertwined with the grievance process. See Feldman, 460 U.S. at 486-87. Accordingly, plaintiff's claims against the [Board] and Phil Thomas are dismissed.

Finally, the district court expressed grave doubts about whether plaintiff had alleged a bona fide constitutional issue:

The Court has a serious question whether or not plaintiff is even asserting a federal constitutional question. At the hearing on this motion, petitioner identified his federal constitutional issue as a denial of his due process rights because he was not given a 21-day stay after the Michigan Supreme Court, on May 31, 1991, denied his application for leave to appeal. Plaintiff received notice of this order on or about June 3, 1991. The disciplinary proceedings that are the subject of this lawsuit charged Patmon with "practicing law" on June 11, 1991 while his license was suspended. Plaintiff contends that "due process" requires a "21-day stay" from the date of the Supreme Court order. Plaintiff avers that a 21-day stay of proceedings was granted by the [Board] following its orders of discipline, and if the Michigan Supreme Court had granted a 21-day stay in its order of May 31, 1991, his conduct on June 11, 1991 would not have...