1

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206

ELECTRONIC CITATION: 2003 FED App. 0234P (6th Cir.)

File Name: 03a0234p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

_________________

NICOLE M. LOCH,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

FRED WATKINS; JOHN D.

O’HAIR; COUNTY OF WAYNE;

BENNY NAPOLEON; THE CITY

OF DETROIT,

Defendants-Appellees.

X

-

-

-

-

>

,

-

-

-

-

-

-

N

No. 01-1598

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit.

No. 00-70478—Denise Page Hood, District Judge.

Argued: March 27, 2003

Decided and Filed: July 17, 2003

Before: MARTIN, Chief Circuit Judge; KENNEDY and

DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judges.

2 Loch v. Watkins, et al. No. 01-1598

_________________

COUNSEL

ARGUED: Hugh M. Davis, Jr., CONSTITUTIONAL

LITIGATION ASSOCIATES, Detroit, Michigan, for

Appellant. Linda D. Fegins, CITY OF DETROIT LAW

DEPARTMENT, Detroit, Michigan, Julie C. QuinlanDufrane, WAYNE COUNTY CORPORATION COUNSEL,

Detroit, Michigan, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Cynthia

Heenan,CONSTITUTIONAL LITIGATIONASSOCIATES,

Detroit, Michigan, for Appellant. Linda D. Fegins, CITY OF

DETROIT LAW DEPARTMENT, Detroit, Michigan, W.

Steven Pearson, WAYNE COUNTY CORPORATION

COUNSEL, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellees.

_________________

OPINION

_________________

BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Chief Circuit Judge. Nicole

Loch appeals the decision of the district court dismissing her

claims under state law and under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on the

ground of abstention. The case stemmed from seizure of

Loch’s Jeep Cherokee under the Michigan forfeiture statute.

Loch challenged the seizure under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state

conversion grounds, seeking damages. She later filed

motions for declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as leave

to amend her complaint to include would-be plaintiffs who

could represent a proposed class of litigants opposing the

forfeiture procedure. Upon motion by the defendant

municipalities and officers, the district court found that it

could not review her complaints because they were

intertwined with pending state litigation. For the following

reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

On January 7, 2000, Detroit police officers seized a 1996

Jeep Cherokee driven by Jack Paul Barrett II after Barrett was
No. 01-1598 Loch v. Watkins, et al. 3

arrested for attempting to purchase marijuana. The Jeep was

impounded, then seized, under section 333.7521(1)(d) of the

Michigan Compiled Laws, which authorizes forfeiture of any

vehicle involved in the use, transport, or facilitation of

transport of controlled substances for sale or receipt. The

officers seized the vehicle as part of a Wayne County program

called Operation Push-Off. The program permits the police

to seize vehicles that are used in the purchase or attempted

purchase of any amount of marijuana. The local prosecutors

then subject those vehicles to forfeiture.

Loch, who owned the Jeep, was not present at the time of

the arrest but received notice of the pending forfeiture. The

notice advises the owner of the right to post a bond and

contest the forfeiture in state court. The owner has the option,

however, of settling the case for a specified sum plus towing

and storage costs, thereby regaining possession of the vehicle.

Loch attempted to post bond and contest the seizure of her

property. She claims, however, that the prosecutor’s office

told her that she was not permitted to post bond and contest

the forfeiture because there was a lien on the vehicle and that

the vehicle would be turned over to the lienholder of record

unless Loch entered into an agreement on the forfeiture.

Loch claims that the prosecutor’s office leads owners to

believe that to obtain a trial date, the owners must waive their

rights to certain pretrial proceedings. The defendants contest

that claim, stating that pretrial waiver is optional and not

required to obtain a trial date. The prosecutor’s office also

seeks to have state courts hold owners who prevail on the

forfeiture liable for towing and storage expense. Eventually,

the Wayne County prosecutor’s office waived the bond

requirement and filed a forfeiture action in Wayne County

Circuit Court. 

At the trial on the merits on June 22, 2000, the court

determined that Loch was an “innocent owner” of the Jeep

because she was unaware of Barrett’s intent to use the car for

procuring marijuana. The court concluded that Loch was

4 Loch v. Watkins, et al. No. 01-1598

innocent of wrongdoing, ordered return of the vehicle, and on

a motion for reconsideration of a decision to impose a $600

towing and storage fee, ruled that Loch was not responsible

for those costs. The state appealed that judgment, and the

Michigan Court of Appeals ruled on the case on August 23,

2002. People v. 1996 Jeep and Nichole Loch, Claimant

Appellee, 652 N.W.2d 675 (Mich. App. 2002).

Twenty days after the seizure of the vehicle in Barrett’s

arrest, but before the forfeiture hearing in state court, Loch

filed a complaint in federal district court. Loch first made a

claim under section 1983, claiming that Michigan’s

Operation Push-Off violated the due process clause of the

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

because it deprived individuals of forfeiture hearings and

extorted settlements from owners who wished to avoid losing

the vehicles to lienholders. Loch made a second claim under

section 1983, alleging that the City of Detroit and Wayne

County failed to train their employees adequately in the

operation of the forfeiture, thus depriving Loch of due process

and resulting in an unlawful seizure of property. Loch’s third

section 1983 claim alleged that the forfeiture amounted to

taking of property without just compensation. Loch’s fourth

section 1983 claim alleged that police Sergeant Watkins’s use

of the forfeiture statute constituted an abuse of process.

Loch’s final claim arose out of state law, and she alleged that

all of the defendants conspired to convert the Jeep to their

possession.

Eventually, Loch filed motions with the district court

seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and leave to amend

her complaint to add plaintiffs who could represent a class of

litigants challenging the forfeiture procedure. The

municipalities and their employees responded by filing

motions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction under Federal Rule

of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). The defendants claimed that the

district court should abstain from deciding the claims before

it because the federal proceedings involved claims
No. 01-1598 Loch v. Watkins, et al. 5

inextricably intertwined with the pending state forfeiture

action.

The district court granted the motions to dismiss, finding

that the federal court should not invoke jurisdiction over

Loch’s complaint during pendency of the state proceedings,

based upon principles of abstention articulated in Rooker v.

Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923); District of Columbia

Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983); and

Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971). The district court also

denied Loch’s motions for declaratory and injunctive relief

and leave to amend.

We review a dismissal for lack of subject matter

jurisdiction de novo. Blakely v. United States, 276 F.3d 853,

863 (6th Cir. 2002). As to the review of the district court’s

decision to abstain, we said in United States v.

Commonwealth of Kentucky, 252 F.3d 816, 825 (6th Cir.

2001):

While we normally review de novo a district court's

decision to abstain, see Fed. Express Corp. v. Tennessee

Pub. Serv. Comm'n, 925 F.2d 962, 967 (6th Cir.1991),

we have at least on one occasion reviewed such a

decision for abuse of discretion, see Romine v.

Compuserve Corp., 160 F.3d 337, 341, 343 (6th

Cir.1998). As the Second Circuit has noted, however,

"there is little practical distinction between review for

abuse of discretion and review de novo" in abstention

cases, inasmuch as the district court's discretion to

abstain "is narrowed by a federal court's obligation to

exercise its jurisdiction in all but the most extraordinary

cases." Hachamovitch v. DeBuono, 159 F.3d 687, 693

(2d Cir.1998).

As that case indicates, generally federal courts should not

abstain from exercising jurisdiction on abstention grounds,for

abstention “is an extraordinary and narrow exception to the

duty of a District Court to adjudicate a controversy properly

6 Loch v. Watkins, et al. No. 01-1598

before it.” County of Allegheny v. Frank Mashuda Co., 360

U.S. 185, 188-89 (1959). When a court does elect to abstain,

the decision must be under “the exceptional circumstances

where the order to the parties to repair to the state court would

clearly serve an important countervailing interest.” Id.

The Supreme Court has announced several circumstances

which qualify as exceptional and in which abstention is

appropriate. One of these “doctrines” is applicable to this

case. In Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), the Supreme

Court advised federal courts to abstain from deciding a matter

that would be properly before them but for the pendency of

state criminal proceedings in the matter. Id. at 43-45. We

look at three factors to determine if Younger abstention is

warranted: “(1) whetherthe underlying proceedings constitute

an ongoing state judicial proceeding, (2) whether the

proceedings implicate important state interests, and

(3) whether there is an adequate opportunity in the state

proceedings to raise a constitutional challenge.” Tindall v.

Wayne County Friend of the Court, 269 F.3d 533, 538 (6th

Cir. 2001); see also Cooper v. Parrish, 203 F.3d 937, 954

(6th Cir. 2000); Zalman v. Armstrong, 802 F.2d 199, 201-02

(6th Cir. 1986). 

First, when determining whether state court proceedings

involving the plaintiffs are pending, we look to see if the

state court proceeding was pending at the time the federal

complaint was filed. Zalman, 802 F.2d at 204. It remains

pending until a litigant has exhausted his state appellate

remedies. Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 609 (1975);

Foster v. Kassulke, 898 F.2d 1144, 1146 (6th Cir. 1990).

Loch argues that the state court proceeding was not pending

when she filed her federal lawsuit because she filed her

federal complaint four days before the state filed its complaint

seeking forfeiture. She asserts that the state judicial

proceedings had not been initiated, so no ongoing proceeding

would have given her opportunity to raise any constitutional

challenges in state court.
No. 01-1598 Loch v. Watkins, et al. 7

In Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 349 (1975), however,

the Court held “that where state criminal proceedings are

begun against the federal plaintiffs after the federal complaint

is filed but before any proceedings of substance on the merits

have taken place in the federal court, the principles of

Younger v. Harris should apply in full force.” Although Loch

argues that the state proceedings had run their course before

the district court made its decision in March of 2001, she

cannot be correct. The state of Michigan appealed the

judgment of the state court in the forfeiture case, and the state

appellate process was not complete when the district court

decided to abstain in the case, as is clear from the August

2002 judgment of the Michigan Court of Appeals in People

v. 1996 Jeep and Nichole Loch, Claimant Appellee, 652

N.W.2d 675 (Mich. App. 2002). 

As the Supreme Court said in Huffman, 420 U.S. at 608,

“[A]ll of the evils at which Younger is directed would inhere

in federal intervention prior to completion of state appellate

proceedings, just as surely as they would if such intervention

occurred at or before trial.” For that reason, we hold that the

district court was correct in assessing the proceedings before

it as ongoing in the state courts.

Next we turn to the questions of “whether the proceedings

implicate important state interests, and whether there is an

adequate opportunity in the state proceedings to raise a

constitutional challenge.” Tindall, 269 F.3d at 538. Though

Younger itself concerned abstention when a state criminal

matter was pending, the doctrine has been interpreted to

caution against interference in state civil matters. As the

Supreme Court said in Juidice v. Vail, 430 U.S. 327, 334

(1977) (internal citations omitted): 

[T]he more vital consideration behind the Younger

doctrine of nonintervention lay not in the fact that the

state criminal process was involved but rather in the

notion of comity, that is, a proper respect for state

functions, a recognition of the fact that the entire country

8 Loch v. Watkins, et al. No. 01-1598

is made up of a Union of separate state governments, and

a continuance of the belief that the National Government

will fare best if the States and their institutions are left

free to perform their separate functions in their separate

ways.

See also Middlesex County Ethics Comm’n. v. Garden State

Bar Ass’n, 457 U.S. 423 (1982); Kelm v. Hyatt, 44 F.3d 415,

419 (6th Cir. 1995).

We find persuasive the Eighth Circuit’s perspective in

Postscript Enterprises, Inc. v. Peach, 878 F.2d 1114, 1116

(8th Cir. 1989), in which the court held that forfeiture

proceedings are quasi-criminal in nature and of such a

character as to warrant application of the Younger doctrine.

“The state’s interest in these forfeiture proceedings is likely

to be as great as its interest in its criminal law proceedings.”

Id. Citing Huffman, 420 U.S. at 605 (internal citations

omitted), the court in Postscript Enterprises said, “Under the

Younger abstention doctrine the federal courts must abstain

from interfering with the efforts of states or local

governments ‘to protect the very interests which underlie

[their] criminal laws and to obtain compliance with precisely

the standards which are embodied in [their] criminal laws.’”

We find this reasoning persuasive. We believe that

Michigan’s interest in its forfeiture laws is directly correlated

with its interest in the enforcement of the criminal laws. We

further believe that there was no impediment to Loch’s raising

the constitutional issues of this case in the state proceedings.

For these reasons, we believe Younger abstention is

appropriate in this case.

It is crucial that we make clear that the district court’s

decision to abstain from hearing this case was appropriate at

the time of the decision given the pendency of the state

proceedings. Loch’s claims are therefore dismissed without

prejudice, because we decline to address their merits, and she

is free to raise any and all of these claims in federal court

when the state proceedings are fully completed.
No. 01-1598 Loch v. Watkins, et al. 9

Based on the foregoing, we AFFIRM the judgment of the

district court.