Opinion ID: 5120203
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Raising Abstention Sua Sponte

Text: The abstention issue is not formally before us, but the Supreme Court has held that a reviewing court may raise abstention sua sponte in an appropriate case. See Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U.S. 132, 143 n.10 (1976) (“[T]he fact that the full arguments in favor of abstention may not have been asserted in the District Court does not bar this Court’s consideration of the issue.”). We have done so at least twice before, though the cases are a bit dated. We raised abstention sua sponte in Waldron v. McAtee, 723 F.2d 1348 (7th Cir. 1983), citing Bellotti and noting that a reviewing court has “the power and in an appropriate case the duty to order abstention, if necessary for the first time at the appellate level, even though no party is asking for it.” Id. at 1351. We explained that abstention doctrines do not exist “to protect the rights of one of the parties” but instead to “promote a harmonious federal system.” Id. We later characterized Waldron as recognizing a clear rule that “appellate courts are free to raise and resolve the abstention issue sua sponte.” Gen. Ry. Signal Co. v. Corcoran, 921 F.2d 700, 708 (7th Cir. 1991) (citing Waldron, 723 F.2d at 1351). We also raised abstention sua sponte in In re Complaint of McCarthy Brothers Co., 83 F.3d 821 (7th Cir. 1996), a complicated admiralty action involving an ironworker who was 24 No. 20-3325 injured while working on a barge on the Mississippi River. Admiralty law has its own arcane abstention doctrine known as Langnes abstention, which advises federal courts to “permit[] proceedings in state court to go forward on the question of liability and retain[] jurisdiction over any question that might arise as to the shipowner’s right to limit his liability.” Id. at 828 (describing Langnes v. Green, 282 U.S. 531 (1931)). Though no one argued the point, we decided “to raise the issue of abstention sua sponte,” explaining that reversal for application of Langnes abstention was necessary to correct the district court’s error and facilitate the “operation of the complicated admiralty jurisdictional rules.” Id. at 826. This too is an appropriate case in which to raise abstention sua sponte. The error in the judge’s Colorado River ruling is plain, and our concerns about federal interference in ongoing state litigation justify taking this step. In so doing we follow the lead of our colleagues in the First Circuit. See Jiménez v. Rodríguez-Pagán, 597 F.3d 18, 27 n.4 (1st Cir. 2010) (“As with other forms of abstention, our decision to decline jurisdiction under Colorado River may be sua sponte.”).