Opinion ID: 3031277
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Younger Abstention v. Intervention as of Right

Text: [9] Although the district court did not explicitly acknowledge the issue, its disposition necessarily implies the holding that Younger abstention trumps intervention as of right. We are not aware of any authority addressing this issue and therefore consider it as an issue of first impression. [10] We recognize that we generally regard both Younger abstention and intervention as of right as mandatory doctrines. District courts applying Younger “must exercise jurisdiction except when specific legal standards are met, and may not exercise jurisdiction when those standards are met; there is no discretion vested in the district courts to do otherwise.” Green, 255 F.3d at 1093. Similarly, Rule 24 specifically provides that “anyone shall be permitted to intervene in an action” when the required elements are satisfied. Fed. R. Civ. P. 24(a) (emphasis added). Consequently, both issues are subject to de novo review. Green, 255 F.3d at 1093 (Younger abstention); LULAC, 131 F.3d at 1302 (intervention as of right). [11] Beneath the surface, however, intervention as of right is relatively more discretionary than Younger abstention. That is, while district courts have no discretion as to the ultimate application of either doctrine once they determine that the respective elements are satisfied, they do have more discretion in analyzing the elements of intervention as of right than in analyzing the Middlesex factors for purposes of Younger abstention. The threshold factor for intervention as of right — timeliness — is discretionary as a doctrinal matter. A decision on timeliness is generally reviewed for an abuse of discretion, it involves equitable considerations, such as prejudice, LULAC, 131 F.3d at 1302, and we have described the timeli4136 BENDEL v. STATE OF CALIFORNIA ness factor as “flexible,” Blake v. Pallan, 554 F.2d 947, 952 (9th Cir. 1977). Moreover, application of the other elements of intervention as of right (e.g., interests of the proposed intervenor in the underlying action) requires a practical and equitable analysis of the underlying facts. See Arakaki v. Cayetano, 324 F.3d 1078, 1084 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 1017 (2003); United States v. City of Los Angeles, 288 F.3d 391, 397-98 (9th Cir. 2002); Blake, 554 F.2d at 952. By contrast, the elements of Younger abstention — ongoing state judicial proceeding, important state interest, and opportunity to raise claims — involve relatively more objective factual elements and more clearly delineated principles of law, as this very case illustrates. [12] More fundamentally, however, Younger abstention is essentially a jurisdictional doctrine, whereas intervention is essentially a procedural matter. Although Younger neither provides a basis for nor destroys federal jurisdiction, Younger does determine when the federal courts must “refrain from exercising jurisdiction.” Gilbertson, 381 F.3d at 981. Intervention as of right is merely a procedural means for entering an existing federal action. Rule 24 “shall not be construed to extend or limit the jurisdiction of the United States district courts.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 82. The procedural mechanism of Rule 24 may facilitate the invocation of ancillary jurisdiction; however, Rule 24 does not itself provide the jurisdictional hook. See 7C CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT, ARTHUR R. MILLER & MARY KAY KANE, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 1917 (2d ed. 2004). “Rule 24 . . . states under what circumstances intervention is proper as a matter of procedure but intervention still must be denied, though all the requirements of Rule 24 are met, if the federal court cannot take jurisdiction with regard to the intervenor.” Id. Because Rule 24 cannot extend federal jurisdiction and Younger abstention imposes mandatory limits on the federal courts’ ability to exercise jurisdiction, we hold that intervention as of right cannot be used to circumvent Younger abstention. BENDEL v. STATE OF CALIFORNIA 4137 [13] The remaining procedural question concerns the proper order of operations: whether the district court should have applied Younger only after determining whether to grant or deny intervention. Because we find that Bendel and Canatella’s respective interests are not so intertwined that they should be subject to the same considerations under Younger, we hold that the district court was not required to consider the merits of intervention before disposing of Bendel’s action under Younger. The reverse procedure was followed in Deutsche Financial Services Corp. v. Schwartz Homes, Inc., 187 F.R.D. 542, 54748 (N.D. Ohio 1999). The court granted a motion for intervention as of right before considering and granting the intervenors’ motion to dismiss the federal action on abstention grounds under Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. 800 (1976). Deutsche Financial is distinguishable from the instant case. In Deutsche Financial, the grounds for abstention as to the existing federal action were present before the court granted intervention. All of the existing parties to the federal action and the proposed intervenors were already parties or were already seeking to intervene in a parallel action in state court, and the state court had already assumed jurisdiction over the parties and the property. 187 F.R.D. at 548. The intervenors in the federal action did not create the grounds for abstention by intervening; the intervenors were merely the parties who raised the issue. Id. at 547. By contrast, Canatella’s action is not independently subject to abstention, Canatella, 304 F.3d at 849-52 (considering both Younger and the Rooker-Feldman doctrine), so there is no need to allow Bendel to intervene to raise or rebut an abstention issue, and the grounds for Younger abstention exist as to Bendel regardless of whether or not he is permitted to intervene. Moreover, Bendel and Canatella must be treated independently for purposes of Younger abstention. “While there plainly may be some circumstances in which legally distinct 4138 BENDEL v. STATE OF CALIFORNIA parties are so closely related that they should all be subject to the Younger considerations which govern any one of them, this is not such a case.” Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U.S. 922, 928 (1975). In Green, we compared the Court’s holdings in Doran and Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332 (1975), regarding the circumstances in which individuals who are parties to federal litigation but not state litigation should be subject to the same Younger considerations as legally distinct individuals who are parties to state litigation: In Hicks, after two of their employees were charged under the state obscenity statute for showing a film and four copies of the film were seized, owners of an adult movie theater sued in federal court for return of their film copies and an injunction against the enforcement of the statute. The Court explained that, under the particular circumstances of that case, Younger barred the federal suit: The owners’ “interests and those of their employees were intertwined,” given the fact that the seized films belonged to the owners but were central to the pending prosecutions. Consequently, “the federal action sought to interfere with the pending state prosecution,” and the district court was constrained to abstain for that reason. Green, 255 F.3d at 1099-1100 (quoting Hicks, 422 U.S. at 345, 348-49). In Doran, three bar owners sought an injunction in federal court against the operation of a local ordinance prohibiting topless entertainment in bars. Two had complied with the ordinance, but the third owner had not and was prosecuted in state court. Despite the similarity of the plaintiffs’ interests, the Court held that Younger did not bar the two plaintiffs who BENDEL v. STATE OF CALIFORNIA 4139 did not face prosecution from pursuing their cause of action in federal court[.] Id. at 1100 (citing Doran, 422 U.S. at 924-25, 928-29). Although the bar owners in Doran were “represented by common counsel, and [had] similar business activities and problems, they [were] apparently unrelated in terms of ownership, control, and management.” Doran, 422 U.S. at 928-29. [14] We find Bendel and Canatella’s relationship and congruence of interests to be more like those of the bar owners in Doran than the theater owners and their employees in Hicks. Both Bendel and Canatella are California attorneys, both bring challenges to some of the same state bar statutes and both seek to enjoin the State Bar of California from instituting further disciplinary proceedings against them. But Bendel is interested in Canatella’s action, and vice versa, only to the extent that it may set a legal precedent and thereby collaterally affect the viability of his own federal action and his constitutional objections to his own disciplinary proceedings. Cf. Blake, 554 F.3d at 953 (holding that state banking commissioner did not necessarily have a sufficient interest in the interpretation of state securities laws for purposes of intervention as of right). Bendel and Canatella operate independent legal practices, their disciplinary proceedings are not interrelated, and neither has a direct interest in the State Bar of California’s ability to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the other. “We thus think that each of the [plaintiffs] should be placed in the position required by our cases as if that [plaintiff] stood alone.” Doran, 422 U.S. at 929. [15] Accordingly, we see no need to require the district court to consider the merits of Bendel’s right to intervene in Canatella’s action before abstaining under Younger. Even if Bendel were granted intervention first, we would apply the considerations of Younger as to Bendel separately from Canatella. Either way, the federal courts must abstain from exercising jurisdiction as to Bendel’s claims and must exercise 4140 BENDEL v. STATE OF CALIFORNIA jurisdiction as to Canatella’s claims. We therefore hold that the district court was not required to consider the merits of intervention as of right and properly denied intervention solely on the basis of Younger abstention.