Sprint Commc'ns, Inc. v. Jacobs

• Decision Date: 10 December 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12–815.,12–815.
• Citation: 187 L.Ed.2d 505,134 S.Ct. 584,571 U.S. 69
• Parties: SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS, INC., Petitioner v. Elizabeth S. JACOBS et al.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

571 U.S. 69

134 S.Ct. 584

187 L.Ed.2d 505

SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS, INC., Petitioner

v.Elizabeth S. JACOBS et al.

No. 12–815.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued Nov. 5, 2013.

Decided Dec. 10, 2013.

David J. Lynch, Des Moines, IA, for Respondents.

David J. Lynch, Counsel of Record, Mary F. Whitman, Des Moines, IA, for Respondents.

Christopher J. Wright, Counsel of Record, Timothy J. Simeone, Mark D. Davis, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP, Washington, D.C., for Petitioner.

Justice GINSBURGdelivered the opinion of the Court.

This case involves two proceedings, one pending in state court, the other in federal court.Each seeks review of an Iowa Utilities Board(IUB or Board) order.And each presents the question whether Windstream Iowa Communications, Inc.(Windstream), a local telecommunications carrier, may impose on Sprint Communications, Inc.(Sprint), intrastate access charges for telephone calls transported via the Internet.Federal-court jurisdiction over controversies of this kind was confirmed in Verizon Md. Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of Md.,535 U.S. 635, 122 S.Ct. 1753, 152 L.Ed.2d 871(2002).Invoking Younger v. Harris,401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669(1971), the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa abstained from adjudicating Sprint's complaint in deference to the parallel state-court proceeding, and the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the District Court's abstention decision.

We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.In the main, federal courts are obliged to decide cases within the scope of federal jurisdiction.Abstention is not in order simply because a pending state-court proceeding involves the same subject matter.New Orleans Public Service, Inc. v. Council of City of New Orleans,491 U.S. 350, 373, 109 S.Ct. 2506, 105 L.Ed.2d 298(1989)(NOPSI )("[T]here is no doctrine that ... pendency of state judicial proceedings excludes the federal courts.").This Court has recognized, however, certain instances in which the prospect of undue interference with state proceedings counsels against federal relief.Seeid., at 368, 109 S.Ct. 2506.

Younger exemplifies one class of cases in which federal-court abstention is required: When there is a parallel, pending state criminal proceeding, federal courts must refrain from enjoining the stateprosecution.This Court has extended Younger abstention to particular state civil proceedings that are akin to criminal prosecutions, seeHuffman v. Pursue, Ltd.,420 U.S. 592, 95 S.Ct. 1200, 43 L.Ed.2d 482(1975), or that implicate a State's interest in enforcing the orders and judgments of its courts, seePennzoil Co. v. Texaco Inc.,481 U.S. 1, 107 S.Ct. 1519, 95 L.Ed.2d 1(1987).We have cautioned, however, that federal courts ordinarily should entertain and resolve on the merits an action within the scope of a jurisdictional grant, and should not "refus[e] to decide a case in deference to the States."NOPSI,491 U.S., at 368, 109 S.Ct. 2506.

Circumstances fitting within the Younger doctrine, we have stressed, are "exceptional"; they include, as catalogued in NOPSI,"state criminal prosecutions,""civil enforcement proceedings," and "civil proceedings involving certain orders that are uniquely in furtherance of the state courts' ability to perform their judicial functions."Id., at 367–368, 109 S.Ct. 2506.Because this case presents none of the circumstances the Court has ranked as "exceptional," the general rule governs: "[T]he pendency of an action in [a]state court is no bar to proceedings concerning the same matter in the Federal court having jurisdiction."Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States,424 U.S. 800, 817, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 47 L.Ed.2d 483(1976)(quotingMcClellan v. Carland,217 U.S. 268, 282, 30 S.Ct. 501, 54 L.Ed. 762(1910) ).

I

Sprint, a national telecommunications service provider, has long paid intercarrier access fees to the Iowa communications company Windstream (formerly Iowa Telecom) for certain long distance calls placed by Sprint customers to Windstream's in-state customers.In 2009, however, Sprint decided to withhold payment for a subset of those calls, classified as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), after concluding that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 preempted intrastate regulation of VoIP traffic.¹In response, Windstream threatened to block all calls to and from Sprint customers.

Sprint filed a complaint against Windstream with the IUB asking the Board to enjoin Windstream from discontinuing service to Sprint.In Sprint's view, Iowa law entitled it to withhold payment while it contested the access charges and prohibited Windstream from carrying out its disconnection threat.In answer to Sprint's complaint, Windstream retracted its threat to discontinue serving Sprint, and Sprint moved, successfully, to withdraw its complaint.Because the conflict between Sprint and Windstream over VoIP calls was "likely to recur," however, the IUB decided to continue the proceedings to resolve the underlying legal question, i.e., whether VoIP calls are subject to intrastate regulation.Order in Sprint Communications Co. v. Iowa Telecommunications Servs., Inc., No. FCU–2010–0001, 2010 WL 421105(IUB,Feb. 1, 2010), p. 6(IUB Order).The question retained by the IUB, Sprint argued, was governed by federal law, and was not within the IUB's adjudicative jurisdiction.The IUB disagreed, ruling that the intrastate fees applied to VoIP calls.²

Seeking to overturn the Board's ruling, Sprint commenced two lawsuits.First, Sprint sued the members of the IUB (respondents here)³ in their official capacities in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.In its federal-court complaint, Sprint sought a declaration that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 preempted the IUB's decision; as relief, Sprint requested an injunction against enforcement of the IUB's order.Second, Sprint petitioned for review of the IUB's order in Iowa state court.The state petition reiterated the preemption argument Sprint made in its federal-court complaint; in addition, Sprint asserted state law and procedural due process claims.Because Eighth Circuit precedent effectively required a plaintiff to exhaust state remedies before proceeding to federal court, seeAlleghany Corp. v. McCartney,896 F.2d 1138(1990), Sprint urges that it filed the state suit as a protective measure.Failing to do so, Sprint explains, risked losing the opportunity to obtain any review, federal or state, should the federal court decide to abstain after the expiration of the Iowa statute of limitations.See Brief for Petitioner 7–8.⁴

As Sprint anticipated, the IUB filed a motion asking the Federal District Court to abstain in light of the state suit, citing Younger v. Harris,401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669(1971).The District Court granted the IUB's motion and dismissed the suit.The IUB's decision, and the pending state-court review of it, the District Court said, composed one "uninterruptible process" implicating important state interests.On that ground, the court ruled, Younger abstention was in order.Sprint Communications Co. v. Berntsen,No. 4:11–cv–00183–JAJ(S.D.Iowa, Aug. 1, 2011), App. to Pet. for Cert. 24a.

For the most part, the Eighth Circuit agreed with the District Court's judgment.The Court of Appeals rejected the argument, accepted by several of its sistercourts, that Younger abstention is appropriate only when the parallel state proceedings are "coercive," rather than "remedial," in nature.690 F.3d 864, 868(2012);cf.Guillemard–Ginorio v. Contreras–Gómez,585 F.3d 508, 522(C.A.12009)("[P]roceedings must be coercive, and in most cases, state-initiated, in order to warrant abstention.").Instead, the Eighth Circuit read this Court's precedent to require Younger abstention whenever "an ongoing state judicial proceeding ... implicates important state interests, and ... the state proceedings provide an adequate opportunity to raise [federal] challenges ."690 F.3d, at 867(citingMiddlesex County Ethics Comm. v. Garden State Bar Assn.,457 U.S. 423, 432, 102 S.Ct. 2515, 73 L.Ed.2d 116(1982) ).Those criteria were satisfied here, the appeals court held, because the ongoing state-court review of the IUB's decision concerned Iowa's "important state interest in regulating and enforcing its intrastate utility rates."690 F.3d, at 868.Recognizing the "possibility that the parties[might] return to federal court," however, the Court of Appeals vacated the judgment dismissing Sprint's complaint.In lieu of dismissal, the Eighth Circuit remanded the case, instructing the District Court to enter a stay during the pendency of the state-court action.Id., at 869.

We granted certiorari to decide whether, consistent with our delineation of cases encompassed by the Younger doctrine, abstention was appropriate here.569 U.S. ––––, 133 S.Ct. 1805, 185 L.Ed.2d 810(2013).⁵

II

A

Neither party has questioned the District Court's jurisdiction to decide whether federal law preempted the IUB's decision, and rightly so.In Verizon Md. Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of Md.,535 U.S. 635, 122 S.Ct. 1753, 152 L.Ed.2d 871(2002), we reviewed a similar federal-court challenge to a state administrative adjudication.In that case, as here, the party seeking federal-court review of a state agency's decision urged that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 preempted the state action.We had "no doubt that federal courts ha[d federal question] jurisdiction under [ 28 U.S.C.] § 1331 to entertain such a suit,"id., at 642, 122 S.Ct. 1753, and nothing in the Telecommunications Act detracted from that conclusion, seeid., at 643, 122 S.Ct. 1753.

Federal courts, it was early and famously said, have "no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given."Cohens v. Virginia,

6 Wheat. 264, 404, 5 L.Ed. 257(1821).Jurisdiction existing, this Court has cautioned, a federal court's "obligatio...