Case Name: Miriam G. CARROLL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF MOUNT CLEMENS, John Beeding, Jr., Harry Diehl, Jolyne Fisher, and Rex A. Burgess, Defendants-Appellees
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1998-03-19
Citations: 139 F.3d 1072
Docket Number: No. 96-2443
Parties: Miriam G. CARROLL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF MOUNT CLEMENS, John Beeding, Jr., Harry Diehl, Jolyne Fisher, and Rex A. Burgess, Defendants-Appellees.
Judges: Before: MERRITT, WELLFORD, and MOORE, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: Federal Reporter 3d Series
Volume: 139
Pages: 1072–1080

Head Matter:
Miriam G. CARROLL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF MOUNT CLEMENS, John Beeding, Jr., Harry Diehl, Jolyne Fisher, and Rex A. Burgess, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 96-2443.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Argued Oct. 23, 1997.
Decided March 19, 1998.
Hal O. Carroll (argued and briefed), Vandeveer Garzia, Detroit, MI, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Mary Massaron Ross (briefed), Jeffrey C. Gerish (argued), Plunkett & Cooney, Detroit, MI, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before: MERRITT, WELLFORD, and MOORE, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
MERRITT, J., delivered the opinion of the court. WELLFORD, J. (p. 1076), delivered a separate concurring opinion. MOORE, J. (pp. 1077-80), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
OPINION
MERRITT, Circuit Judge.
The District Court dismissed Plaintiff Miriam Carroll's complaint on abstention grounds. The court held that Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), required it to defer to an ongoing state building-code enforcement action against Carroll. This appeal raises the issue of whether Younger abstention applies to a federal action seeking only monetary damages in the face of such an ongoing civil enforcement proceeding in state court.
I.
Carroll owns two rooming houses in Mount Clemens, Michigan, which have only eommu- nal bathroom facilities. The city disapproved of these for health and safety purposes. It enacted an ordinance requiring all rooming houses to have separate bathrooms in each dwelling unit. The city then initiated civil enforcement actions against Carroll's properties in a state court of general jurisdiction, seeking to enjoin their continued use without individual bathrooms. As an affirmative defense in the state proceeding, Carroll claimed the ordinance discriminated against her low-income tenants and thus deprived them of equal protection of the laws. She also filed her own lawsuit in the form of a counterclaim for injunctive relief and damages, alleging that the ordinance violated state and federal law and that its enforcement resulted in an unconstitutional taking under the Michigan and United States Constitutions. This state enforcement action, along with Carroll's separate counterclaim, is currently pending before the Michigan Circuit Court in Macomb County.
Shortly before the statute of limitations expired, Carroll filed the present suit in federal court for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604. She sued the city, the city's attorney, and the three city council members who voted in favor of the ordinance. Carroll sued the individual defendants in their official and individual capacities. Like her affirmative defense and counterclaim in state court, her various federal claims allege violation of her rights under the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Contracts Clauses and the rights of her tenants to be free from discrimination on the basis of their race, nationality, and disability. Her Fair Housing Act claim is that the defendants are "otherwise mak[ing housing] unavailable" on the basis of "race, color, . or national origin" by enforcing the city's bathroom ordinance against her properties.
The defendants moved to dismiss Carroll's federal complaint on the basis of Younger abstention. The District Court found that Carroll's federal action involved essentially the same claims pending before the state court. Carroll v. City of Mount Clemens, 945 F.Supp. 1071, 1073-74 (E.D.Mich.1996). The court therefore abstained under Younger and dismissed her complaint. Id. at 1075-76.
Carroll's appeal concerns whether Younger abstention applies to a federal action seeking only monetary damages and whether the District Court should stay or dismiss those claims under Younger.
II.
Younger abstention applies when the state proceeding (1) is currently pending, (2) involves an important state interest, and (3) affords the plaintiff an adequate opportunity to raise constitutional claims. Middlesex County Ethics Comm. v. Garden State Bar Ass'n, 457 U.S. 423, 432, 102 S.Ct. 2515, 2521, 73 L.Ed.2d 116 (1982); Kelm v. Hyatt, 44 F.3d 415, 419 (6th Cir.1995); Nilsson v. Ruppert, Bronson & Chicarelli Co., 888 F.2d 452, 454 (6th Cir.1989). Although Younger arose in the context of a state criminal proceeding, the Supreme Court has extended its principles to civil enforcement actions, such as the state proceeding here. Trainor v. Hernandez, 431 U.S. 434, 444, 97 S.Ct. 1911, 1918, 52 L.Ed.2d 486 (1977) (state civil fraud proceeding to recover improper benefits by state welfare department); Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 604, 95 S.Ct. 1200, 1208, 43 L.Ed.2d 482 (1975) (state civil nuisance action against adult theater by local sheriff and prosecutor). Moreover, the federal plaintiff does not have to seek injunctive relief against an ongoing state proceeding for a federal court to abstain. Younger abstention also applies in federal declaratory judgment actions because they involve "precisely the same interference with and disruption of state proceedings" as an injunction. Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U.S. 66, 72, 91 S.Ct. 764, 767, 27 L.Ed.2d 688 (1971).
In our litigious era, multiple lawsuits arising from the same occurrence are commonplace. Younger abstention is built upon common sense in the administration of a dual state-federal system of justice in such an era. When a person is the target of an ongoing state action involving important state interests, the state defendant cannot interfere with the pending state action by maintaining a parallel federal action involving claims that could have been raised in the state case. If the state defendant files such a case, Younger abstention requires the federal court to defer to the state proceeding. Watts v. Burkhart, 854 F.2d 839, 844-48 (6th Cir.1988); see also Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco, Inc., 481 U.S. 1, 15, 107 S.Ct. 1519, 1528, 95 L.Ed.2d 1 (1987) ("when a litigant has not attempted to present his federal claims in related state-court proceedings, a federal court should assume that state procedures will afford an adequate remedy").
The sources of the Younger doctrine are long-standing and important. First, "equity jurisprudence" prevents federal courts from interfering with ongoing state proceedings "when the moving party has an adequate remedy at law and will not suffer irreparable injury if denied relief." Younger, 401 U.S. at 43-44, 91 S.Ct. at 750. This helps "avoid a duplication of legal proceedings and legal sanctions where a single suit would be adequate." Id. at 44, 91 S.Ct. at 750. These reasons are reinforced by what Justice Black called the "more vital consideration" of "comity," a proper respect for a state's sovereign ability to have its own courts determine its own law, and the "highly important" principle of "Our Federalism," that is, the sensitivity "to the legitimate interests of both State and National Governments, . in which the National Government, anxious though it may be to vindicate and protect federal rights and federal interests, always endeavors to do so in ways that will not unduly interfere with the legitimate activities of the States." Id. at 44-45, 91 S.Ct. at 750-51.
Carroll's present federal action for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fair Housing Act is a textbook case for Younger abstention. The city's civil enforcement action against her is currently pending in state court, those proceedings involve the state's important interest in enforcing its state and local housing codes, and Carroll may raise all of her claims — state, federal, and constitutional — under the state court's general and concurrent jurisdiction. The District Court's decision to abstain avoided duplication of legal proceedings, deferred to the state's sovereignty over its law, and respected the principles of comity inherent to our federalism. Given these considerations, the District Court's application of Younger abstention to the present ease was proper.
III.
In the present case, however, the District Court should have stayed, not dismissed, Carroll's complaint. Requiring the District Court to stay rather than dismiss damages claims, may be an empty formality under the facts of this case. The District Court may have nothing left to do but clear the case number off of its docket once the state proceedings conclude. If Carroll prevails on the merits of her case in the state proceeding, her federal damages claims will be precluded by the doctrine of res judicata, as outlined in Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 97-99, 101 S.Ct. 411, 416-17, 66 L.Ed.2d 308 (1980), and Migra v. Warren City School District, 465 U.S. 75, 84-85, 104 S.Ct. 892, 897-98, 79 L.Ed.2d 56 (1984), because Carroll's pending state counterclaim is essentially identical to her federal lawsuit. If Carroll loses on the merits of her case in the state proceeding, res judicata will also preclude her federal claims due to the state court's concurrent jurisdiction over those claims. Carroll's only relief from an adverse state judgment will be from Michigan's appellate courts. The only federal review available to her will then be from the United States Supreme Court on certiorari. Staying her damages claims on the federal docket thus will likely be "of little moment." Wilton v. Seven Falls Co., 515 U.S. 277, 283, 115 S.Ct. 2137, 2141, 132 L.Ed.2d 214 (1995).
Nonetheless, in the interests of caution, we are constrained to remand the ease to the District Court with instructions to stay rather than dismiss Carroll's complaint until the state proceedings conclude. See Giulini v. Blessing, 654 F.2d 189, 193-94 (2d Cir.1981) (finding the choice between a stay or a dismissal of federal § 1983 damages claim arising from a state zoning enforcement action requires an exercise of "sound discretion" in light of the posture of the state-court action); American Law Institute, Study of the Division of Jurisdiction Between State and Federal Courts § 1371 Commentary, at 285 (1969) (recommending entry of a stay when the state-court action could prove "ineffective"). The District Court should stay Carroll's federal lawsuit to protect against the possibility that she could be deprived of the opportunity to present the merits of her damages claims in state court. If the state court should dispose of her federal claims on grounds that do not reach the merits, Carroll's federal action would still be pending. She would not have to contend with a statute of limitations defense and various tolling arguments upon the filing of a new federal lawsuit. Given the state court's considerable delay in this case, a stay will protect Carroll's claims from the statute of limitations. See Deakins v. Monaghan, 484 U.S. 193, 202-03 & n. 7, 108 S.Ct. 523, 529-30 & n. 7, 98 L.Ed.2d 529 (1988).
We therefore affirm the District Court's application of Younger abstention to Carroll's case but remand the case for the District Court to stay rather than dismiss her lawsuit until the conclusion of the state proceedings.