Opinion ID: 2999566
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Parallel Actions

Text: Mr. Tyrer first contends that the district court abused its discretion by determining that his state and federal actions are parallel. According to Mr. Tyrer, that finding was improper because “the issues presented to the state court differ significantly from those presented to the federal district court in the instant matter.” Appellant’s Br. at 16. In state court, according to Mr. Tyrer, he challenges the constitutionality of the events leading up to demolition, including the application of city ordinances to his case and the City Council’s cease and desist order. In the federal action, by contrast, he challenges the constitutionality of the “actual demolition of the structures that existed on his property.” Id. at 17 (emphasis added). Thus, while the parties and operative facts are identical, Mr. Tyrer submits that the “ultimate issues to be resolved in each forum diverge.” Id. at 12. To be parallel, however, “it is not necessary that there be formal symmetry between the two actions.” Clark, 376 F.3d at 686 (internal quotation marks omitted). Generally, a “suit 12 No. 05-1602 is parallel when substantially the same parties are contemporaneously litigating substantially the same issues in another forum.” Interstate Material Corp. v. City of Chicago, 847 F.2d 1285, 1288 (7th Cir. 1988) (internal quotation marks omitted). Among other things, to determine whether two suits are parallel, a district court should examine whether the suits involve the same parties, arise out of the same facts and raise similar factual and legal issues. See Clark, 376 F.3d at 686. The district court’s brief examination of whether Mr. Tyrer’s suits are parallel was far from the “painstaking comparison of the federal and state complaints” that we previously have praised in similar cases. See, e.g., Interstate Material, 847 F.2d at 1288 (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court, in a single sentence, simply stated that Mr. Tyrer’s state and federal actions raise the same factual and legal issues. See App. at 40. The court did not articulate the issues it believed to be identical; nor did it examine the differences between the two actions. Although we do not require the “rote application” of any of the Colorado River factors, Sverdrup, 125 F.3d at 550, we previously have noted that district courts should consider the relevant requirements and weigh the relevant factors “in a way that allows this court to review it,” id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Although the district court’s review of the parallel-actions requirement was less comprehensive than we would like, we must conclude that the record before us makes “obvious the path of decision followed by the district court.” Id. After reviewing the two complaints, it is clear that Mr. Tyrer’s two suits are parallel. First, Mr. Tyrer raises the same due process claim in both the state and the federal action. In both suits, he alleges that the City of South Beloit arbitrarily No. 05-1602 13 or without legal authorization interfered with the use of his property, thus “depriv[ing] [him] of his property without due process of law.”8 State Complaint, App. at 10; Federal Complaint, id. at 26 (internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, the parties in both cases cite the same statutes and cases to define the scope of the City Council and the Zoning Board’s authority to order demolition and to define the requisite protections and procedures to be followed in the course of carrying out this order. Second, the parties in the federal suit—Mr. Tyrer and the City—are also parties to the state suit.9 Lastly, the facts alleged in both complaints are identical; the two suits will be resolved largely by reference to the same evidence.10 See Vulcan Chem. Techs., Inc. v. Barker, 8 In his state action, Mr. Tyrer alleges that the defendants’ actions violated both the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment; the federal action, by contrast, is more narrow, alleging only a due process violation. 9 Mr. Tyrer in his state action also names as defendants the City Council members in their individual capacities. But “[t]he existence of additional parties in one suit does not of itself destroy parallelism.” Schneider Nat. Carriers, Inc. v. Carr, 903 F.2d 1154, 1156 (7th Cir. 1990). Significantly, the City of South Beloit is a defendant in both the state and the federal action; that Mr. Tyrer also named the City Council members as defendants in his state suit does not undermine the conclusion that Mr. Tyrer’s federal suit raises the same claims against the City that are being litigated currently in his state action. 10 For example, as we shall discuss further in the text below, the same persons would be deposed in both suits—namely the City Council members, the architects who submitted plans to the Zoning Board of Appeals and Mr. Tyrer. The same documents also would be evaluated in both suits, including the records of (continued...) 14 No. 05-1602 297 F.3d 332, 341 (4th Cir. 2002) (holding that because the federal court was required to “consider[] the same evidence and arguments” as did the state court in an earlier action, dismissal or stay under Colorado River was proper (emphasis added)); New Orleans Pub. Serv., Inc. v. Council of City of New Orleans, 911 F.2d 993, 1005 (5th Cir. 1990) (“There is little to be gained from rehashing the same evidence in another forum . . . . The district court thus properly concluded that the desire to avoid piecemeal litigation counseled in favor of a stay.” (emphasis added)). Mr. Tyrer responds that, although the state suit focuses exclusively on events pre-demolition, the federal suit focuses on the constitutionality of the demolition itself—“a specific and discrete act of [the] defendant which took place long after [the] plaintiff’s state complaint was filed.” Appellant’s Br. at 17 (“Notably, the actual demolition of [the] plaintiff’s property was not alleged in his state court complaint or any of its amendments . . . .”). This statement is not an accurate characterization of the state court proceedings. Although Mr. Tyrer’s original state complaint challenged relevant city ordinances, the cease and desist order, the zoning and condemnation proceedings and the demolition order, the complaint was amended after the case was remanded by the Appellate Court of Illinois to the state trial court and after the federal suit had been initiated. Count III of the amended state complaint now alleges that the action[s] of the defendant City of South Beloit and each of the named Counsel [sic] members deprived the plaintiff 10 (...continued) the City Council hearings, the substance of the notice given to Mr. Tyrer, and the work permit issued by Winnebago County. No. 05-1602 15 of the use of his property from the date of the cease and desist order and that such action constitutes either a temporary or a permanent taking of plaintiff’s subject premises. Although the amended complaint does not challenge explicitly the constitutionality of the demolition, it broadly encompasses all events after construction halted, including the actual demolition and its authorization by the City. To be sure, Count III alleges violation of the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause, not violation of the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause—the focus of the federal complaint. Nevertheless, we repeatedly have held that two actions are “parallel” where the underlying issues are the same, even if they have been “repackag[ed] . . . under different causes of action.” Clark, 376 F.3d at 687. In this case, Mr. Tyrer’s claims in the federal and state actions are inextricably interlinked: Government action effecting a taking is only valid if the plaintiff is compensated justly and is afforded due process of law. Thus, his takings claim requires the court to probe not only the public use of the property and the proper amount of compensation to be paid, but also the protections afforded the property owner prior to the taking. See Thomas Merrill, The Goods, the Bads, and the Ugly, Legal Aff., Jan.-Feb. 2005, at 16, 18 (“The law requires that [owners of property] receive just compensation for any taking of their property, and due process affords them a fair hearing on the legal authority for the taking and the amount of just compensation they are entitled to receive.”); cf. Coniston Corp. v. Vill. of Hoffman Estates, 844 F.2d 461, 464-65 (7th Cir. 1988) (discussing the overlap between the Due Process and Takings Clauses). In addition, in Count I of his state complaint, Mr. Tyrer contests the procedures utilized by the City, see App. at 9 (“[The] City 16 No. 05-1602 Council . . . arbitrarily passed a resolution directing [condemnation and demolition].”), and explicitly states a separate due process claim, id. at 10 (alleging that the “plaintiff is being deprived of property without due process of law”). Necessarily, then, the legal and factual analysis required to resolve the state-court claims is substantially similar to the analysis that a federal court would undertake in evaluating Mr. Tyrer’s due process challenge to the demolition of his house. For example, in examining the legitimacy of “actual demolition,” Appellant’s Br. at 17, the federal court would have to examine precisely the matters in question in the state suit: the City Council hearings; the notice given before demolition, including whether Mr. Tyrer was given fair warning that his property was in a dangerous condition; the procedures followed by the Zoning Board of Appeals; and whether the City acted within the scope of its legal authority. In sum, although the state and federal suits are not identical, and although the focus of the federal proceeding is more specific than the focus of the state proceeding, both actions “rely on the same factual predicate to raise substantially similar legal issues against substantially similar parties.” Clark, 376 F.3d at 687.