U.S. v. Owens

• Decision Date: 17 May 1995
• Docket Number: No. 94-3431,94-3431
• Citation: 54 F.3d 271
• Parties: , 23 Media L. Rep. 1974 UNITED STATES of America, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Stan D. OWENS, Van Wert County Sheriff, Defendant, John G. Spirko, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 271

54 F.3d 271

31 Fed.R.Serv.3d 828, 23 Media L. Rep. 1974

UNITED STATES of America, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Stan D. OWENS, Van Wert County Sheriff, Defendant John G. Spirko, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 94-3431.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued April 3, 1995.

Decided May 17, 1995.

Edward R. Cohen (argued and briefed) and Leonard Schaitman, Dept. of Justice Appellate Staff, Civ. Div., Washington, DC, for plaintiffs-appellees.

Dale A. Baich (argued and briefed), Richard J. Vickers, Public Defender's Office, Ohio Public Defender Com'n, Columbus, OH, and Alan M. Freedman, Freedman & Bornstein, Chicago, IL, for defendant-appellant.

Before: MERRITT, Chief Judge; SILER, Circuit Judge; EDMUNDS, District Judge. ^*

MERRITT, Chief Judge.

This case involves an appeal of an injunction issued by the district court that prohibits the execution of an Ohio state court order issued under the Ohio Public Records Act. The Ohio order would require the release of investigative documents to the defendant Spirko that were compiled by a joint state-federal task force that investigated the murder for which he was eventually convicted and sentenced to death. The United States Postal Service, which was not a party to the Ohio state case, sought and received a preliminary and then a permanent injunction from a federal district court in order to allow it to process the documents under the Freedom of Information Act. The defendant raises three issues on appeal, an abstention issue, a judicial estoppel issue and a notice issue. He does not otherwise appeal the merits of the district court's decision. We now vacate the permanent injunction and remand the case to the district court for additional factual findings.

I. FACTS

In 1982, Betty Mottinger, the postmaster of Elgin, Ohio, was murdered. A joint task force comprised of federal and local law enforcement authorities was assembled to investigate the crime. The Office of the Postal Inspector, the F.B.I., state police and local police participated in the investigation. In the process of conducting the investigation, the joint task force kept records, which are now the subject of this case. During the direct appeal of his murder conviction, Spirko's attorney sought access to the records assembled by the joint task force which have been kept in filing cabinets owned by the Postal Service in a jail cell in the Van Wert County Sheriff's Office. Only the Postal Service has keys to the locked filing cabinets. During the original trial the records were reviewed for discovery purposes by an independent third-party attorney and some documents were released to Spirko.

Nonetheless, in 1987 Spirko filed a Freedom of Information Act claim against the Postal Service seeking a writ of mandamus from a federal district court allowing him access to all the records. By agreement of the parties, a magistrate heard the case. The Postal Service presented several alternative arguments as to why the Freedom of Information Act did not apply to these documents. The magistrate concluded that the Freedom of Information Act did not apply to these records because the records fell into an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act and granted summary judgment for the Postal Service.

Instead of appealing this decision, Spirko filed an action in the Ohio courts under O.R.C. Sec. 149.43 (Availability of Public Records) against the Van Wert County sheriff. In this action the Ohio Court of Appeals (which had original jurisdiction) held that the Ohio statute did apply to the investigatory records and issued a writ of mandamus requiring that they be released in their entirety to Spirko. Following this 1992 decision, the Postal Service moved to intervene in the case, but its motion was denied. The sheriff initially appealed the decision of the Ohio Court of Appeals to the Ohio Supreme Court, but then failed to file any briefs. Consequently the appeal was dismissed for want of prosecution. The Postal Service did not appeal the denial of its motion to intervene.

The Postal Service then filed suit in federal district court to enjoin the execution of the writ of mandamus issued by the Ohio court. The Postal Service now claimed that the Freedom of Information Act did apply to these records. Furthermore, since the Ohio statute would permit disclosure of some records that might be exempt from release under the Freedom of Information Act, the Postal Service claimed it would be irreparably harmed if the records were released under the Ohio court's order. In the interim, Spirko filed a second Freedom of Information request which is currently pending. In 1993, the district court agreed with the Postal Service and granted a preliminary injunction barring release of the documents under the Ohio statute. It held that Spirko's second Freedom of Information Act request should be processed and that statute should govern which documents he should receive. The court converted the injunction to a permanent injunction after ten days without holding an additional evidentiary hearing. Spirko appeals this injunction on three grounds that we will address in turn.

II. ROOKER-FELDMAN DOCTRINE

Spirko claims that the federal courts do not have jurisdiction to hear this case under the Rooker- Feldman doctrine. That doctrine, a combination of the abstention and res judicata doctrines, stands for the proposition that a federal district court may not hear an appeal of a case already litigated in state court. A party raising a federal question must appeal a state court decision through the state system and then directly to the Supreme Court of the United States. District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 476, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 1311-12, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923). In this case, Spirko contends that the Postal Service is appealing in federal court the decision of the Ohio state courts to release the investigatory files under the Ohio Public Records Statute.

Neither the Postal Service nor any other federal defendant was a party to the action in the Ohio courts. Only the Van Wert County sheriff was named as a defendant by Spirko. Clearly, a party cannot be said to be appealing a decision by a state court when it was not a party to the case. The Rooker- Feldman doctrine does not apply to bar a suit in federal court brought by a party that was not a party in the preceding action in state court. Valenti v. Mitchell, 962 F.2d 288 (3rd Cir.1992). Furthermore, the doctrine may not bar a party against whom there is no state court judgment. Leaf v. Supreme Court of Wisconsin, 979 F.2d 589 (7th Cir.1992), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 2417, 124 L.Ed.2d 639 (1993). Under both of these rules, the district court had jurisdiction to grant the preliminary injunction.

Spirko argues that this Court should adopt the standard employed by the Eleventh Circuit that "the Rooker bar can apply only to issues that the plaintiff had a reasonable opportunity to raise." Wood v. Orange County, 715 F.2d 1543, 1547 (11th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1210, 104 S.Ct. 2398, 81 L.Ed.2d 355 (1984). Here Spirko contends that the Postal Service had notice of the state court proceedings and attempted to intervene. When it was denied intervention by the Ohio Court of Appeals, according to Spirko, it had an obligation to appeal that decision to the Ohio Supreme Court, which it did not do. Spirko argues that because the Postal Service had notice and did not exhaust its potential opportunity to intervene, it had "an opportunity to raise" its concerns before the Ohio courts.

Even Wood held that "Rooker is not a requirement that a plaintiff exhaust all conceivable state remedies." Wood, 715 F.2d at 1548. A person who was not a party in the state court action did not have an opportunity to litigate its claims. That person must be allowed to bring an action in federal court to attempt to vindicate its perceived rights, otherwise it will have no chance to do so. A party has no obligation to attempt to intervene in a state court action when it is not named in the suit in order to preserve its rights. Because the Postal Service was not a party in state court action in this case, the Rooker- Feldman doctrine does not apply and the district court properly exercised its jurisdiction.

III. JUDICIAL ESTOPPEL

Spirko also contends that the Postal Service should now be judicially estopped from arguing that the Freedom of Information Act applies to the investigatory records, because in 1987 it successfully argued before a magistrate judge that the Freedom of Information Act did not apply to the same records.

This Circuit has established a rule for determining when judicial estoppel should be invoked. Judicial estoppel "forbids a party from taking a position inconsistent with one successfully and unequivocally asserted by the same party in a prior proceeding." Teledyne Industries, Inc. v. NLRB, 911 F.2d 1214, 1217 (6th Cir.1990). The word "successfully" means that "in order to invoke judicial estoppel, a party must show that the opponent took a contrary position under oath in a prior proceeding and that the prior position was accepted by the court." Id. at 1218.

The doctrine of judicial estoppel is designed "to protect the integrity of the judicial process" and prevent parties "from playing 'fast and loose with the courts.' " Edwards v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., 690 F.2d 595, 598-99 (6th Cir.1982). Judicial estoppel serves a different function from other forms of estoppel, such as equitable estoppel or collateral estoppel. Id. at 598.

Consequently, judicial estoppel may apply in contexts when other forms of estoppel do not. For example, the Supreme Court has expressed reluctance to apply equitable estoppel against the government. "When the government is unable to enforce the law because the conduct of its agents has given rise to an estoppel, the...