Opinion ID: 786251
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Municipal Liability and Younger abstention

Text: 29 The final two issues, whether the district court erred in failing to dismiss the claims against Hamilton County, Ohio, and whether the district court erred in failing to dismiss the action pursuant to Younger v. Harris, will be treated together for it is in these contexts that another jurisdictional issue, an issue not broached by either party, arises. 30 As noted above, the dismissal of Leis's motion for summary judgment is appealable as a final judgment to the extent that it involves issues of qualified immunity. The reasoning behind such a finding, however, does not carry over to the questions of whether the district court erred in failing to dismiss the claims against Hamilton County or in failing to dismiss the entire action pursuant to Younger v. Harris. We conclude that this Court does not have jurisdiction to address either of these issues.
31 In Swint v. Chambers County Commission, a unanimous Supreme Court held that the denial of summary judgment based on municipal liability is not immediately appealable. Swint v. Chambers County Commission, 514 U.S. 35, 43, 115 S.Ct. 1203, 131 L.Ed.2d 60 (1995). The Swint Court supported their holding by pointing out that the rationale supporting immediate review of some qualified immunity decisions does not extend to a municipality's defenses to § 1983 claims. As discussed in more detail above, in qualified immunity cases, the entitlement is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability; and like an absolute immunity, it is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). The Swint Court ruled that, unlike the qualified immunity entitlement, municipal defenses under § 1983 are not a right to immunity from trial but a mere defense to liability. Swint, 514 U.S. at 43, 115 S.Ct. 1203. As such, the collateral order doctrine does not apply and a municipality's defenses to suit may only be reviewed after a final judgment on the merits. 32 This Circuit has also determined that the denial of summary judgment based on municipal liability is not immediately appealable. See Crockett v. Cumberland College, 316 F.3d 571, 578 (6th Cir.2003). In Crockett we stated that ... even if the City [appellant] had raised the issue of municipal liability at the district court level and the district court had rejected that argument, this Court would not have jurisdiction over such an appeal under the collateral order doctrine. Crockett, 316 F.3d at 578. We explained that, in such cases, the third prong of the collateral order doctrine can not be satisfied because an appellate court can effectively review the question of municipal liability after the district court renders a final judgment. Id. 33 As this Court is without jurisdiction to consider the merits of Hamilton County's municipal liability defense, we decline to entertain this portion of the appeal.
34 Abstention is treated in much the same manner as the municipal liability issue discussed above. The outcome is identical; this Court does not have jurisdiction to review the issue of whether the district court erred in failing to dismiss the action when criminal charges involving the same conduct and parties were pending in state court. The district court's failure to dismiss the entire action pursuant to Younger does not qualify as a final decision under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, nor does it fit within the collateral order exception to that statute. Additionally, the district court's decision does not qualify as an interlocutory order as defined in 28 U.S.C. § 1292. Further, Younger abstention does not require us to decline to address the qualified immunity question, as the concurrence suggests. As we discussed above, Summers has failed even to allege any acts by Sheriff Leis at all. Section 1983 supervisory liability cannot be predicated on the mere failure to act. Greene, 310 F.3d at 899. Quite simply, resolution of the constitutionality of Leis's conduct does not require us to address the constitutionality of the arresting deputy's conduct. Whether or not the deputies violated Summers's constitutional rights, Leis is entitled to dismissal of the case against him. 35 We therefore focus on whether exercise of our pendent appellate jurisdiction is appropriate. Pendent appellate jurisdiction refers to the exercise of jurisdiction over issues that ordinarily may not be reviewed on interlocutory appeal, but, may be reviewed on interlocutory appeal if those issues are inextricably intertwined with matters over which the appellate court properly and independently has jurisdiction. Chambers v. Ohio Dep't of Human Servs., 145 F.3d 793, 797 (6th Cir.1998). This circuit has interpreted inextricably intertwined to mean that the resolution of the appealable issue necessarily and unavoidably decides the nonappealable issue. Vakilian v. Shaw, 335 F.3d 509, 521 (6th Cir.2003) (citing Brennan v. Township of Northville, 78 F.3d 1152, 1157 (6th Cir.1996)). 36 A district court's determinations of whether it must abstain under Younger and whether to grant qualified immunity require the application of separate and distinct legal standards. It is not necessary to decide whether the district court should have abstained under Younger in order to review whether it applied the appropriate legal standard and analysis in denying qualified immunity to Sheriff Leis. Moreover, our review of whether the district court improperly denied Leis qualified immunity does not necessarily and unavoidably resolve the Younger abstention issue. 37 Pendent appellate jurisdiction may also be appropriate if review of the issue of which the Court does not properly have jurisdiction is necessary to ensure meaningful review of the issue of which the Court does. Archie v. Lanier, 95 F.3d 438, 443 (6th Cir.1996) (citing Swint, 514 U.S. at 51, 115 S.Ct. 1203). That is not the case here. In this instance, resolution of the Younger abstention issue is not critical because, even if the district court is required to abstain under Younger and dismiss the suit, such a result has no effect on whether Leis is entitled qualified immunity. Nothing pertaining to the qualified immunity issue could potentially interfere with ongoing state proceedings, thus review of the court's Younger abstention decision is not necessary to ensure meaningful review of the denial of qualified immunity. 38 The district court's failure to dismiss the action on the basis of Younger abstention, therefore, is not inextricably intertwined with or necessary to ensure meaningful review of the qualified immunity appeal of Leis. Consequently, this Court lacks pendent appellate jurisdiction over that argument. As we are without jurisdiction, we decline to review the district court's failure to dismiss pursuant to Younger v. Harris. 39 Since the principles of Younger do not require us to abstain from considering Leis's qualified immunity, we do not believe it would be proper to use the asserted qualified immunity defense of one defendant as a gateway to review the otherwise currently unappealable Younger assertions of all the defendants. We are confident that the district court is capable of addressing the issue in the first instance on remand.