Opinion ID: 352524
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of Abstention Principles

Text: 16 Despite this construction by one state trial court, it appears that abstention to allow more expanded consideration by the Illinois courts may materially alter the constitutional issue presented (Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory, 431 U.S. 471, 481, 97 S.Ct. 1898, 1905, 52 L.Ed.2d 513), and that the benefits of such abstention are not too speculative to justify or require avoidance of the question presented. Id. The fact that a state trial judge read a type of good cause requirement into the statutes and General Order 9 does not remove their ambiguity for two reasons. First, good cause is subject to many diverse interpretations. See Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U.S. 132, 143-146, 148, 96 S.Ct. 2857, 49 L.Ed.2d 844. 10 While it could be argued that Judge Schneider offered a more specific standard than good cause, even that arguably more specific standard does not contraindicate the benefits of abstention because it merely substitutes for good cause several other broad terms that were not defined in the unreported nisi prius opinion and will have to await further interpretation. The Daniel Doe opinion does indicate that on the facts there, the petitioner must show by a preponderance of the evidence that he has a real and immediate need for the information; and if such a showing is made, the biological and adoptive parents must show by a preponderance of the evidence that substantial harm will result if the information is released. However, the opinion offers little reasoning for finding that the petitioner had shown a real and immediate need, and given the procedural posture of the case, the parents had not yet made a showing, and therefore the term substantial harm was left undefined. 17 Second, even if Judge Schneider's unappealed opinion did define conclusively all the unclear standards, until an Illinois reviewing court (which will of course be fully competent to adjudicate constitutional claims, Doran v. Salem Inn Inc., 422 U.S. 922, 930, 95 S.Ct. 2561, 45 L.Ed.2d 648) considers the statute and the General Order, their construction will remain in doubt despite Judge Schneider's persuasive opinion. As the Second Circuit held in Connecticut State Federation of Teachers v. Board of Education, 538 F.2d 471, 485 (1976), decisions by state trial judges, particularly unreported decisions, generally provide insufficient clarity to make abstention inappropriate, at least in the absence of a similar decision by the state's appellate courts. 11 Cf. Commissioner v. Estate of Bosch, 387 U.S. 456, 87 S.Ct. 1776, 18 L.Ed.2d 886. 18 Given this need for appellate review of the Daniel Doe interpretation and the ambiguities that remain despite that interpretation, this case is one in which the state courts by further explicating the standards for unsealing may construe the statutes and General Order so as to materially alter plaintiffs' constitutional challenge. See Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U.S. 51, 54-55, 94 S.Ct. 303, 38 L.Ed.2d 260; Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U.S. 167, 177, 79 S.Ct. 1025, 3 L.Ed.2d 1152. Like the statute in Bellotti, the Illinois statutes and General Order challenged here and the standards of proof implied therein are susceptible to so many different interpretations, 12 requirements and applications that it is impossible to define precisely the constitutional issue presented. 428 U.S. at 148, 96 S.Ct. at 2866. 19 Plaintiffs seek to avoid abstention by arguing that their case includes a claim that merely being required to appear in court infringes their right to information and their right to equal protection and that therefore no conceivable state court construction would materially alter that claim. However, a fair reading of plaintiffs' complaint reveals that the essence of that complaint disputes the standards on which courts could release the information and not the requirement of a court appearance. See e. g. P 24. Had this Court in its May 1976 order in this case understood the complaint to be merely objecting to the requirement of a court appearance, judging from its reasoning it probably would have declined to convene a three-judge court based on the lack of a substantial federal question. 20 Indeed, not only does this case satisfy the Hodory branch of abstention, but it is arguably a case in which there are difficult questions of state law bearing on policy problems of substantial public import whose importance transcends the result in the case then at bar. Colorado River Water Conservation District, supra, 424 U.S., at 814, 96 S.Ct. at 1244. 21 Under either branch of abstention, unlike the plaintiffs in Vickers v. Trainor, 546 F.2d 739 (7th Cir. 1976), plaintiffs here have not demonstrated that substantial personal consequences (see Bellotti v. Baird, supra, 428 U.S. at 151, 96 S.Ct. 2857) would result from whatever delay a state adjudication would entail. 13 Unfortunately, Daniel Doe is not the final Illinois word in construing these statutes and General Order, and at least in the absence of equitable considerations to the contrary it is advantageous in this case to allow the state courts of review to define the statutes and General Order further. Therefore, we agree with the court below that it was inappropriate for it to reach the merits of this controversy. 22 Order affirmed.