Opinion ID: 683213
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Idaho Constitutional Law Claims

Text: 2 Plaintiffs first contend that the district court erred by declining to decide whether the prayers violated the Idaho Constitution. The district court ruled as follows regarding these state law claims 3 Given the fact that important state constitutional issues have been raised, this court finds that it is appropriate for those issues to be resolved by the courts of the State of Idaho. In light of the present posture of this case, rather than certifying questions to the Idaho Supreme Court, this court will rule on the federal constitutional issues and close the case. Thereafter, should they choose to do so, the parties may pursue the state constitutional issues in a state forum. 4 821 F.Supp. at 639 n. 2. 5 Though the district court's explanation is somewhat ambiguous, we conclude that the district court exercised its discretion to dismiss the state constitutional issues, over which it had pendant or supplemental jurisdiction. 3 We review the district court's decision whether to exercise pendent jurisdiction for an abuse of discretion. O'Connor v. Nevada, 27 F.3d 357, 362 (9th Cir.1994); Imagineering, Inc. v. Kiewit Pacific Co., 976 F.2d 1303, 1309 (9th Cir.1992) (clear error of judgment), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1644, 123 L.Ed.2d 266 (1993). 6 Section 1367(c) of 28 U.S.C. provides that a district court  'may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a claim' if any one of the four circumstances listed in the statute exist. O'Connor, 27 F.3d at 362-63 (quoting the statute). As did the court in O'Connor, we find that two of those circumstances ... exist in the present case, id. at 363: the [state] claim[s] raise[d] ... novel or complex issue[s] of State law ... [and] the district court ha[d] dismissed all claims over which it ha[d] original jurisdiction.... 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1367(c)(1), (3); see O'Connor, 27 F.3d at 363. 7 First, whether the graduation prayers violate the Idaho Constitution is a novel and complex issue of first impression. The Idaho Supreme Court has not addressed prayer in the public schools in any context. Moreover, the state constitutional provisions bear no resemblance to those found in the First Amendment and appear to be the product of Idaho's unique religious history. Cf. Medrano v. City of Los Angeles, 973 F.2d 1499, 1506 (9th Cir.1992) (affirming dismissal of pendent claims in part because otherwise the district court would have to resolve difficult questions of California law (internal quotations omitted)), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 2415, 124 L.Ed.2d 638 (1993). 8 Second, after the district court decided that no Establishment Clause violation had occurred, it dismissed all claims over which it had original jurisdiction. [I]n the usual case in which federal-law claims are eliminated before trial, the balance of the factors of economy, convenience, fairness, and comity will point toward declining to exercise jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims. O'Connor, 27 F.3d at 363 (internal quotations and brackets omitted). For these reasons, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to consider the state constitutional law claim[s]. Id. 9 We recognize that generally a federal court should avoid the adjudication of federal constitutional issues when alternative grounds are available, ... even when the alternative ground is one of state constitutional law. Carreras v. City of Anaheim, 768 F.2d 1039, 1042 (9th Cir.1985) (citation omitted). In this case, however, federal constitutional adjudication was necessary whether or not the state constitutional claim was present. If the district court had retained the Idaho constitutional claims and decided that the Idaho constitution was not violated, it would have had to resolve the plaintiffs' Establishment Clause claim. If the district court had decided that the prayers violated the Idaho Constitution, it would have had to decide the intervenors' Free Exercise claim. See Collins v. Chandler Unified Sch. Dist., 644 F.2d 759, 762-63 (9th Cir.) (resolving free exercise and free speech arguments raised by a school district, after holding that the district had violated the Establishment Clause), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 863, 102 S.Ct. 322, 70 L.Ed.2d 163 (1981). As it was, the district court dismissed the state law claim and was left with only the federal claims. The district court was faced with federal constitutional adjudication no matter how it resolved the state law issues. Therefore, the doctrine recognized in Carreras does not require that the district court (or this court) consider the pendent state law claim. The Establishment Clause cases relied on by the plaintiffs, Ellis v. City of La Mesa, 990 F.2d 1518 (9th Cir.1993), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 2707, 129 L.Ed.2d 834 (1994), and Hewitt v. Joyner, 940 F.2d 1561 (9th Cir.1991), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 969, 117 L.Ed.2d 134 (1992), are inapposite. In neither case was a federal free exercise or free speech right asserted.