Source: http://openjurist.org/504/us/689
Timestamp: 2015-04-21 01:41:35
Document Index: 568563181

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1332', '§ 2', '§ 1332', '§ 1332', '§ 1332', '§ 1332', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 8', '§ 1', '§ 11']

504 US 689 Ankenbrandt Lr Sr v. A Richards | OpenJurist
504 U.S. 689 - Ankenbrandt Lr Sr v. A Richards	Home504 us 689 ankenbrandt lr sr v. a richards
504 US 689 Ankenbrandt Lr Sr v. A Richards 112 S.Ct. 2206
119 L.Ed.2d 468
Carol ANKENBRANDT, as Next Friend and Mother of L.R. and S.R., Petitionerv.Jon A. RICHARDS and Debra Kesler.
No. 91-367.
Argued March 31, 1992.
Petitioner brought this suit on behalf of her daughters in the District Court, alleging federal jurisdiction based on the diversity-of-citizenship provision of 28 U.S.C. § 1332, and seeking monetary damages for alleged torts committed against the girls by their father and his female companion, the respondents here. The court granted respondents' motion to dismiss without prejudice, ruling in the alternative that it lacked jurisdiction because the case fell within the "domestic relations" exception to diversity jurisdiction and that its decision to dismiss was justified under the abstention principles announced in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
1. A domestic relations exception to federal diversity jurisdiction exists as a matter of statutory construction. Pp. 693-701.
(a) The exception stems from Barber v. Barber, 21 How. 582, 584, 16 L.Ed. 226, in which the Court announced in dicta, without citation of authority or discussion of foundation, that federal courts have no jurisdiction over suits for divorce or the allowance of alimony. The lower federal courts have ever since recognized a limitation on their jurisdiction based on that statement, and this Court is unwilling to cast aside an understood rule that has existed for nearly a century and a half. Pp. 693-695.
(b) An examination of Article III, § 2, of the Constitution and of Barber and its progeny makes clear that the Constitution does not mandate the exclusion of domestic relations cases from federal-court jurisdiction. Rather, the origins of the exception lie in the statutory requirements for diversity jurisdiction. De La Rama v. De La Rama, 201 U.S. 303, 307, 26 S.Ct. 485, 486, 50 L.Ed. 765. Pp. 695-697.
(c) That the domestic relations exception exists is demonstrated by the inclusion of the defining phrase, "all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity," in the pre-1948 versions of the diversity statute, by Barber's implicit interpretation of that phrase to exclude divorce and alimony actions, and by Congress' silent acceptance of this construction for nearly a century. Considerations of stare decisis have particular strength in this context, where the legislative power is implicated, and Congress remains free to alter what this Court has done. Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 172-173, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 2370, 105 L.Ed.2d 132. Furthermore, it may be presumed that Congress amended the diversity statute in 1948 to replace the law/equity distinction with § 1332's "all civil actions" phrase with full cognizance of the Court's longstanding interpretation of the prior statutes, and that, absent any indication of an intent to the contrary, Congress adopted that interpretation in reenacting the statute. Pp. 697-701.
2. The domestic relations exception does not permit a district court to refuse to exercise diversity jurisdiction over a tort action for damages. The exception, as articulated by this Court since Barber, encompasses only cases involving the issuance of a divorce, alimony, or child custody decree. As so limited, the exception's validity must be reaffirmed, given the long passage of time without any expression of congressional dissatisfaction and sound policy considerations of judicial economy and expertise. Because this lawsuit in no way seeks a divorce, alimony, or child custody decree, the Court of Appeals erred by affirming the District Court's invocation of the domestic relations exception. Federal subject-matter jurisdiction pursuant to § 1332 is proper in this case. Pp. 701-704.
3. The District Court erred in abstaining from exercising jurisdiction under the Younger doctrine. Although this Court has extended Younger abstention to the civil context, it has never applied the notions of comity so critical to Younger where, as here, no proceeding was pending in state tribunals. Similarly, while it is not inconceivable that in certain circumstances the abstention principles developed in Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S. 315, 63 S.Ct. 1098, 87 L.Ed. 1424, might be relevant in a case involving elements of the domestic relationship even when the parties do not seek divorce, alimony, or child custody, such abstention is inappropriate here, where the status of the domestic relationship has been determined as a matter of state law, and in any event has no bearing on the underlying torts alleged. Pp. 704-706.
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and O'CONNOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY, and SOUTER, JJ., joined. BLACKMUN, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which THOMAS, J., joined.
Richard Lynn Ducote, New Orleans, La., for petitioner.
Paul S. Weidenfeld, New Orleans, La., for respondents.
This case presents the issue whether the federal courts have jurisdiction or should abstain in a case involving alleged torts committed by the former husband of petitioner and his female companion against petitioner's children, when the sole basis for federal jurisdiction is the diversity-of-citizenship provision of 28 U.S.C. § 1332.
* Petitioner Carol Ankenbrandt, a citizen of Missouri, brought this lawsuit on September 26, 1989, on behalf of her daughters L.R. and S.R. against respondents Jon A. Richards and Debra Kesler, citizens of Louisiana, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Alleging federal jurisdiction based on the diversity of citizenship provision of § 1332, Ankenbrandt's complaint sought monetary damages for alleged sexual and physical abuse of the children committed by Richards and Kesler. Richards is the divorced father of the children and Kesler his female companion.1 On December 10, 1990, the District Court granted respondents' motion to dismiss this lawsuit. Citing In re Burrus, 136 U.S. 586, 593-594, 10 S.Ct. 850, 853, 34 L.Ed. 500 (1890), for the proposition that "[t]he whole subject of the domestic relations of husband and wife, parent and child, belongs to the laws of the States and not to the laws of the United States," the court concluded that this case fell within what has become known as the "domestic relations" exception to diversity jurisdiction, and that it lacked jurisdiction over the case. The court also invoked the abstention principles announced in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), to justify its decision to dismiss the complaint without prejudice. Ankenbrandt v. Richards, No. 89-4244, 1990 WL 211545 (ED La.Dec. 10, 1990). The Court of Appeals affirmed in an unpublished opinion. Ankenbrandt v. Richards, No. 91-3037 (CA5 May 31, 1991), judgt. order reported at 934 F.2d 1262.
We granted certiorari limited to the following questions: "(1) Is there a domestic relations exception to federal jurisdiction? (2) If so, does it permit a district court to abstain from exercising diversity jurisdiction over a tort action for damages?2 and (3) Did the District Court in this case err in abstaining from exercising jurisdiction under the doctrine of Younger v. Harris, [supra]?" 502 U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 855, 116 L.Ed.2d 764 (1992). We address each of these issues in turn.
The domestic relations exception upon which the courts below relied to decline jurisdiction has been invoked often by the lower federal courts. The seeming authority for doing so originally stemmed from the announcement in Barber v. Barber, 21 How. 582, 16 L.Ed. 226 (1859), that the federal courts have no jurisdiction over suits for divorce or the allowance of alimony. In that case, the Court heard a suit in equity brought by a wife (by her next friend) in federal district court pursuant to diversity jurisdiction against her former husband. She sought to enforce a decree from a New York state court, which had granted a divorce and awarded her alimony. The former husband thereupon moved to Wisconsin to place himself beyond the New York courts' jurisdiction so that the divorce decree there could not be enforced against him; he then sued for divorce in a Wisconsin court, representing to that court that his wife had abandoned him and failing to disclose the existence of the New York decree. In a suit brought by the former wife in Wisconsin Federal District Court, the former husband alleged that the court lacked jurisdiction. The court accepted jurisdiction and gave judgment for the divorced wife.
On appeal, it was argued that the District Court lacked jurisdiction on two grounds: first, that there was no diversity of citizenship because although divorced, the wife's citizenship necessarily remained that of her former husband; and second, that the whole subject of divorce and alimony, including a suit to enforce an alimony decree, was exclusively ecclesiastical at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and that the Constitution therefore placed the whole subject of divorce and alimony beyond the jurisdiction of the United States courts. Over the dissent of three Justices, the Court rejected both arguments. After an exhaustive survey of the authorities, the Court concluded that a divorced wife could acquire a citizenship separate from that of her former husband and that a suit to enforce an alimony decree rested within the federal courts' equity jurisdiction. The Court reached these conclusions after summarily dismissing the former husband's contention that the case involved a subject matter outside the federal courts' jurisdiction. In so stating, however, the Court also announced the following limitation on federal jurisdiction:
"Our first remark is—and we wish it to be remembered that this is not a suit asking the court for the allowance of alimony. That has been done by a court of competent jurisdiction. The court in Wisconsin was asked to interfere to prevent that decree from being defeated by fraud.
The statements disclaiming jurisdiction over divorce and alimony decree suits, though technically dicta, formed the basis for excluding "domestic relations" cases from the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts, a jurisdictional limitation those courts have recognized ever since. The Barber Court, however, cited no authority and did not discuss the foundation for its announcement. Since that time, the Court has dealt only occasionally with the domestic relations limitation on federal-court jurisdiction, and it has never addressed the basis for such a limitation. Because we are unwilling to cast aside an understood rule that has been recognized for nearly a century and a half, we feel compelled to explain why we will continue to recognize this limitation on federal jurisdiction.
Counsel argued in Barber that the Constitution prohibited federal courts from exercising jurisdiction over domestic relations cases. Brief for Appellant in Barber v. Barber, D.T. 1858, No. 44, pp. 4-5. An examination of Article III, Barber itself, and our cases since Barber makes clear that the Constitution does not exclude domestic relations cases from the jurisdiction otherwise granted by statute to the federal courts.
Article III, § 2, of the Constitution provides in pertinent part:
"Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State;—between Citizens of different States;—between Citizens of the same State claiming Land under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects."
This section delineates the absolute limits on the federal courts' jurisdiction. But in articulating three different terms to define jurisdiction—"Cases, in Law and Equity," "Cases," and "Controversies"—this provision contains no limitation on subjects of a domestic relations nature. Nor did Barber purport to ground the domestic relations exception in these constitutional limits on federal jurisdiction. The Court's discussion of federal judicial power to hear suits of a domestic relations nature contains no mention of the Constitution, see Barber, supra, at 584, and it is logical to presume that the Court based its statement limiting such power on narrower statutory, rather than broader constitutional, grounds. Cf. Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Construction Trades Council, Inc., 485 U.S. 568, 575, 108 S.Ct. 1392, 1397, 99 L.Ed.2d 645 (1988).
Subsequent decisions confirm that Barber was not relying on constitutional limits in justifying the exception. In one such case, for instance, the Court stated the "long established rule" that federal courts lack jurisdiction over certain domestic relations matters as having been based on the assumptions that "husband and wife cannot usually be citizens of different States, so long as the marriage relation continues (a rule which has been somewhat relaxed in recent cases), and for the further reason that a suit for divorce in itself involves no pecuniary value." De La Rama v. De La Rama, 201 U.S. 303, 307, 26 S.Ct. 485, 486, 50 L.Ed. 765 (1906). Since Article III contains no monetary limit on suits brought pursuant to federal diversity jurisdiction, De La Rama 's articulation of the "rule" in terms of the statutory requirements for diversity jurisdiction further supports the view that the exception is not grounded in the Constitution.
Moreover, even while citing with approval the Barber language purporting to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts over domestic relations matters, the Court has heard appeals from territorial courts involving divorce, see, e.g., De La Rama, supra; Simms v. Simms, 175 U.S. 162, 20 S.Ct. 58, 44 L.Ed. 115 (1899), and has upheld the exercise of original jurisdiction by federal courts in the District of Columbia to decide divorce actions, see, e.g., Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 370 U.S. 530, 581, n. 54, 82 S.Ct. 1459, 1489, n. 54, 8 L.Ed.2d 671 (1962). Thus, even were the statements in De La Rama referring to the statutory prerequisites of diversity jurisdiction alone not persuasive testament to the statutory origins of the rule, by hearing appeals from legislative, or Article I courts, this Court implicitly has made clear its understanding that the source of the constraint on jurisdiction from Barber was not Article III; otherwise the Court itself would have lacked jurisdiction over appeals from these legislative courts. See National Mutual Ins. Co. v. Tidewater Transfer Co., 337 U.S. 582, 643, 69 S.Ct. 1173, 1208, 93 L.Ed. 1556 (1949) (Vinson, C.J., dissenting) ("We can no more review a legislative court's decision of a case which is not among those enumerated in Art. III than we can hear a case from a state court involving purely state law questions"). We therefore have no difficulty concluding that when the Barber Court "disclaim[ed] altogether any jurisdiction in the courts of the United States upon the subject of divorce," 21 How., at 584, it was not basing its statement on the Constitution.3
That Article III, § 2, does not mandate the exclusion of domestic relations cases from federal-court jurisdiction, however, does not mean that such courts necessarily must retain and exercise jurisdiction over such cases. Other constitutional provisions explain why this is so. Article I, § 8, cl. 9, for example, authorizes Congress "[t]o constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court" and Article III, § 1, states that "[t]he judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." The Court's cases state the rule that "if inferior federal courts were created, [Congress was not] required to invest them with all the jurisdiction it was authorized to bestow under Art. III." Palmore v. United States, 411 U.S. 389, 401, 93 S.Ct. 1670, 1678, 36 L.Ed.2d 342 (1973).
This position has held constant since at least 1845, when the Court stated that "the judicial power of the United States . . . is (except in enumerated instances, applicable exclusively to this court) dependent for its distribution and organization, and for the modes of its exercise, entirely upon the action of Congress, who possess the sole power of creating the tribunals (inferior to the Supreme Court) . . . and of investing them with jurisdiction either limited, concurrent, or exclusive, and of withholding jurisdiction from them in the exact degrees and character which to Congress may seem proper for the public good." Cary v. Curtis, 3 How. 236, 245, 11 L.Ed. 576. See Sheldon v. Sill, 8 How. 441, 12 L.Ed. 1147 (1850); Plaquemines Tropical Fruit Co. v. Henderson, 170 U.S. 511, 18 S.Ct. 685, 42 L.Ed. 1126 (1898); Kline v. Burke Constr. Co., 260 U.S. 226, 43 S.Ct. 79, 67 L.Ed. 226 (1922); Lockerty v. Phillips, 319 U.S. 182, 63 S.Ct. 1019, 87 L.Ed. 1339 (1943). We thus turn our attention to the relevant jurisdictional statutes.
The Judiciary Act of 1789 provided that "the circuit courts shall have original cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several States, of all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity, where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of five hundred dollars, and . . . an alien is a party, or the suit is between a citizen of the State where the suit is brought, and a citizen of another State." Act of Sept. 24, 1789, § 11, 1 Stat. 73, 78. (Emphasis added.) The defining phrase, "all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity," remained