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Text: Neither party has questioned the District Court’s juris­ diction to decide whether federal law preempted the IUB’s decision, and rightly so. In Verizon Md. Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of Md., 535 U. S. 635 (2002), we reviewed a similar federal-court challenge to a state administrative adjudication. In that case, as here, the party seeking federal-court review of a state agency’s decision urged that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 preempted the state action. We had “no doubt that federal courts ha[d federal question] jurisdiction under [28 U. S. C.] §1331 to enter­ tain such a suit,” id., at 642, and nothing in the Telecom­ munications Act detracted from that conclusion, see id., at 643.

Federal courts, it was early and famously said, have “no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given.” Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 404 (1821). Jurisdiction existing, this Court has cautioned, a federal court’s “obligation” to hear and decide a case is “virtually unflagging.” Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U. S. 800, 817 (1976). Parallel state-court proceedings do not detract from that obligation. See ibid.

In Younger, we recognized a “far-from-novel” exception to this general rule. New Orleans Public Service, Inc. v. Council of City of New Orleans, 491 U. S. 350, 364 (1989) (NOPSI). The plaintiff in Younger sought federal-court adjudication of the constitutionality of the California Criminal Syndicalism Act. Requesting an injunction against the Act’s enforcement, the federal-court plaintiff was at the time the defendant in a pending state criminal prosecution under the Act. In those circumstances, we said, the federal court should decline to enjoin the prose­ cution, absent bad faith, harassment, or a patently invalid state statute. See 401 U. S., at 53–54. Abstention was in order, we explained, under “the basic doctrine of equity jurisprudence that courts of equity should not act . . . to restrain a criminal prosecution, when the moving party has an adequate remedy at law and will not suffer irrepa­ rably injury if denied equitable relief.” Id., at 43–44. “[R]estraining equity jurisdiction within narrow limits,” the Court observed, would “prevent erosion of the role of the jury and avoid a duplication of legal proceedings and legal sanctions.” Id., at 44. We explained as well that this doctrine was “reinforced” by the notion of “ ‘comity,’ that is, a proper respect for state functions.” Ibid.

We have since applied Younger to bar federal relief in certain civil actions. Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S. 592 (1975), is the pathmarking decision. There, Ohio officials brought a civil action in state court to abate the showing of obscene movies in Pursue’s theater. Because the State was a party and the proceeding was “in aid of and closely related to [the State’s] criminal statutes,” the Court held Younger abstention appropriate. Id., at 604.

More recently, in NOPSI, 491 U. S., at 368, the Court had occasion to review and restate our Younger jurispru­ dence. NOPSI addressed and rejected an argument that a federal court should refuse to exercise jurisdiction to review a state council’s ratemaking decision. “[O]nly ex­ ceptional circumstances,” we reaffirmed, “justify a fed­ eral court’s refusal to decide a case in deference to the States.” Ibid. Those “exceptional circumstances” exist, the Court determined after surveying prior decisions, in three types of proceedings. First, Younger precluded federal intrusion into ongoing state criminal prosecutions. See ibid. Second, certain “civil enforcement proceedings” warranted abstention. Ibid. (citing, e.g., Huffman, 420 U. S., at 604). Finally, federal courts refrained from inter­ fering with pending “civil proceedings involving certain orders . . . uniquely in furtherance of the state courts’ ability to perform their judicial functions.” 491 U. S., at 368 (citing Juidice v. Vail, 430 U. S. 327, 336, n. 12 (1977), and Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco Inc., 481 U. S. 1, 13 (1987)). We have not applied Younger outside these three “excep­ tional” categories, and today hold, in accord with NOPSI, that they define Younger’s scope.

The IUB does not assert that the Iowa state court’s review of the Board decision, considered alone, implicates Younger. Rather, the initial administrative proceeding justifies staying any action in federal court, the IUB con­ tends, until the state review process has concluded. The same argument was advanced in NOPSI. 491 U. S., at 368. We will assume without deciding, as the Court did in NOPSI, that an administrative adjudication and the subsequent state court’s review of it count as a “unitary process” for Younger purposes. Id., at 369. The question remains, however, whether the initial IUB proceeding is of the “sort . . . entitled to Younger treatment.” Ibid.

The IUB proceeding, we conclude, does not fall within any of the three exceptional categories described in NOPSI and therefore does not trigger Younger abstention. The first and third categories plainly do not accommodate the IUB’s proceeding. That proceeding was civil, not criminal in character, and it did not touch on a state court’s ability to perform its judicial function. Cf. Juidice, 430 U. S., at 336, n. 12 (civil contempt order); Pennzoil, 481 U. S., at 13 (requirement for posting bond pending appeal).

Nor does the IUB’s order rank as an act of civil enforce­ ment of the kind to which Younger has been extended. Our decisions applying Younger to instances of civil en­ forcement have generally concerned state proceedings “akin to a criminal prosecution” in “important respects.” Huffman, 420 U. S., at 604. See also Middlesex, 457 U. S., at 432 (Younger abstention appropriate where “noncrimi­ nal proceedings bear a close relationship to proceedings criminal in nature”). Such enforcement actions are char­ acteristically initiated to sanction the federal plaintiff, i.e., the party challenging the state action, for some wrongful act. See, e.g., Middlesex, 457 U. S., at 433–434 (state­ initiated disciplinary proceedings against lawyer for viola­ tion of state ethics rules). In cases of this genre, a state actor is routinely a party to the state proceeding and often initiates the action. See, e.g., Ohio Civil Rights Comm’n v. Dayton Christian Schools, Inc., 477 U. S. 619 (1986) (state­ initiated administrative proceedings to enforce state civil rights laws); Moore v. Sims, 442 U. S. 415, 419–420 (1979) (state-initiated proceeding to gain custody of children allegedly abused by their parents); Trainor v. Hernandez, 431 U. S. 434, 444 (1977) (civil proceeding “brought by the State in its sovereign capacity” to recover welfare pay­ ments defendants had allegedly obtained by fraud); Huff­ man, 420 U. S., at 598 (state-initiated proceeding to enforce obscenity laws). Investigations are commonly involved, often culminating in the filing of a formal com­ plaint or charges. See, e.g., Dayton, 477 U. S., at 624 (noting preliminary investigation and complaint); Middle­ sex, 457 U. S., at 433 (same).

The IUB proceeding does not resemble the state en­ forcement actions this Court has found appropriate for Younger abstention. It is not “akin to a criminal prosecu­ tion.” Huffman, 420 U. S., at 604. Nor was it initiated by “the State in its sovereign capacity.” Trainor, 431 U. S., at 444. A private corporation, Sprint, initiated the action. No state authority conducted an investigation into Sprint’s activities, and no state actor lodged a formal complaint against Sprint.

In its brief, the IUB emphasizes Sprint’s decision to withdraw the complaint that commenced proceedings before the Board. At that point, the IUB argues, Sprint was no longer a willing participant, and the proceedings became, essentially, a civil enforcement action. See Brief for Respondents 31.6 The IUB’s adjudicative authority, however, was invoked to settle a civil dispute between two private parties, not to sanction Sprint for commission of a wrongful act. Although Sprint withdrew its complaint, administrative efficiency, not misconduct by Sprint, prompted the IUB to answer the underlying federal ques­ tion. By determining the intercarrier compensation re­ gime applicable to VoIP calls, the IUB sought to avoid renewed litigation of the parties’ dispute. Because the underlying legal question remained unsettled, the Board observed, the controversy was “likely to recur.” IUB Order 6. Nothing here suggests that the IUB proceeding was “more akin to a criminal prosecution than are most civil cases.” Huffman, 420 U. S., at 604.

In holding that abstention was the proper course, the Eighth Circuit relied heavily on this Court’s decision in Middlesex. Younger abstention was warranted, the Court of Appeals read Middlesex to say, whenever three condi­ tions are met: There is (1) “an ongoing state judicial proceeding, which (2) implicates important state interests, and (3) . . . provide[s] an adequate opportunity to raise [federal] challenges.” 690 F. 3d, at 867 (citing Middlesex, 457 U. S., at 432). Before this Court, the IUB has en­ dorsed the Eighth Circuit’s approach. Brief for Respond­ ents 13.

The Court of Appeals and the IUB attribute to this Court’s decision in Middlesex extraordinary breadth. We invoked Younger in Middlesex to bar a federal court from entertaining a lawyer’s challenge to a New Jersey state ethics committee’s pending investigation of the lawyer. Unlike the IUB proceeding here, the state ethics commit­ tee’s hearing in Middlesex was indeed “akin to a criminal proceeding.” As we noted, an investigation and formal complaint preceded the hearing, an agency of the State’s Supreme Court initiated the hearing, and the purpose of the hearing was to determine whether the lawyer should be disciplined for his failure to meet the State’s standards of professional conduct. 457 U. S., at 433–435. See also id., at 438 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment) (noting the “quasi-criminal nature of bar disciplinary proceed­ ings”). The three Middlesex conditions recited above were not dispositive; they were, instead, additional factors appropriately considered by the federal court before invok­ ing Younger.

Divorced from their quasi-criminal context, the three Middlesex conditions would extend Younger to virtually all parallel state and federal proceedings, at least where a party could identify a plausibly important state interest. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 35–36. That result is irreconcilable with our dominant instruction that, even in the presence of parallel state proceedings, abstention from the exercise of federal jurisdiction is the “exception, not the rule.” Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229, 236 (1984) (quoting Colorado River, 424 U. S., at 813). In short, to guide other federal courts, we today clarify and affirm that Younger extends to the three “exceptional circumstances” identified in NOPSI, but no further.