Opinion ID: 613553
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether This Case Implicates Vital State Functions

Text: Here, the first and third threshold Younger requirements appear easily satisfied. Potrero Hills concedes it was not prevented from raising its constitutional argument in state court, and state judicial proceedings were indisputably ongoing at the time Potrero Hills filed this federal action. [7] We conclude, however, that the state mandamus actions do not implicate any important state interests vital to the operation of state government. Because the second requirement is not satisfied, dismissal based on Younger abstention was not required here. [8]

The Younger doctrine recognizes that a state's ability to enforce its laws `against socially harmful conduct that the State believes in good faith to be punishable under its laws and Constitution' is a basic state function with which federal courts should not interfere. Miofsky, 703 F.2d at 336 (quoting Younger, 401 U.S. at 51-52, 91 S.Ct. 746). Where the state is in an enforcement posture in the state proceedings, the important state interest requirement is easily satisfied, as the state's vital interest in carrying out its executive functions is presumptively at stake. [9] See Fresh Int'l Corp. v. Agric. Labor Relations Bd., 805 F.2d 1353, 1360 n. 8 (9th Cir.1986) (The state's interest in a civil proceeding is readily apparent when the state through one of its agencies acts essentially as a prosecutor. (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted)); see also Trainor v. Hernandez, 431 U.S. 434, 444, 97 S.Ct. 1911, 52 L.Ed.2d 486 (1977) (emphasizing that the state brought suit in its sovereign capacity). Thus, when the state seeks to enforce a law of significant state importance through judicial or quasi-judicial action, we have found abstention necessary to protect the state's unique interest in exercising its basic executive functions in a wide range of civil contexts. See, e.g., Ohio Civil Rights Comm'n v. Dayton Christian Schs., Inc., 477 U.S. 619, 628, 106 S.Ct. 2718, 91 L.Ed.2d 512 (1986) (recognizing state's important interest in enforcing its employment anti-discrimination laws through administrative proceedings); Moore v. Sims, 442 U.S. 415, 435, 99 S.Ct. 2371, 60 L.Ed.2d 994 (1979) (same for enforcing child custody laws); Trainor, 431 U.S. at 444, 97 S.Ct. 1911 (enforcing state welfare scheme); San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce Political Action Comm. v. City of San Jose, 546 F.3d 1087, 1094 (9th Cir.2008) (enforcing local election regulations); Gilbertson, 381 F.3d at 983 (enforcing land-surveying licensing provisions); Baffert v. Cal. Horse Racing Bd., 332 F.3d 613, 618 (9th Cir. 2003) (enforcing horse-racing licensing procedures); Woodfeathers, Inc. v. Washington Cnty., Or., 180 F.3d 1017, 1021 (9th Cir.1999) (enforcing solid waste disposal and recycling ordinance); San Remo Hotel v. City and Cnty. of S.F., 145 F.3d 1095, 1104 (9th Cir.1998) (enforcing land-use and zoning ordinances); World Famous Drinking Emporium, Inc. v. City of Tempe, 820 F.2d 1079, 1083 (9th Cir.1987) (enforcing nuisance laws); Worldwide Church of God, Inc. v. State of Cal., 623 F.2d 613, 616 (9th Cir.1980) (per curiam) (investigating charitable trust fraud pursuant to state Attorney General's supervisory authority). Here, the district court identified two state interests it thought sufficiently important to warrant abstention: first, the state's interest in enforcing its ballot initiatives, and second, the state's interest in enforcing its local solid waste ordinances. However, as we explained above, it is not the bare subject matter of the underlying state law that we test to determine whether the state proceeding implicates an important state interest for Younger purposes. Were that so, then any ordinary civil litigation between private parties requiring the interpretation of state law would pass Younger muster. Rather, the content of state laws becomes important for Younger purposes only when coupled with the state executive's interest in enforcing such laws. Had Solano County enforced Measure E against Potrero Hills and denied it the revised Use Permit, no doubt the second Younger requirement would be satisfied. See Woodfeathers, 180 F.3d at 1021 ([T]he County's enforcement of its solid waste ordinance implicates important state interests for the purpose of Younger v. Harris .  (emphasis added)). But here, the [County] simply was not in any type of enforcement posture against [Potrero Hills] at the time [Potrero Hills] filed the federal action attacking the constitutionality of the legislative enactment. Exec. Arts Studio, Inc. v. City of Grand Rapids, 391 F.3d 783, 791 (6th Cir.2004). Accordingly, the state's vital executive functions would not be unduly hampered by a federal court's adjudication of Potrero Hills' claim.
Intervenors nonetheless assert that the state mandamus actions, though initiated by private citizen groups rather than by the state, qualify equally as enforcement proceedings for Younger purposes. We find no support in the law for this argument. The California Constitution reserves to the people certain legislative powers, see Cal. Const. art. II, §§ 8-11; id. art. IV, § 1, and the California Supreme Court is currently considering whether the official proponents of initiative measures possess legal interests in upholding the constitutionality of such measures when the executive officials vested with the authority to do so refuse to exercise their authority. See Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 628 F.3d 1191, 1193 (9th Cir.2011); Perry v. Brown, No. S189476 (Cal. Feb. 16, 2011) (granting our request for certification). But Intervenors do not claim to be the official proponents of Measure E, and private citizens as a general matter lack executive authority to enforce state laws, whether enacted by initiative or by the legislature. See, e.g., Cal. Const. art. V, § 1 (The supreme executive power of this State is vested in the Governor.). Private parties who are aggrieved by the Executive's failure to enforce a legislative initiative or any other state law may be able to bring a mandamus action against the Executive in state court, but such actions are neither sovereign in nature nor the exercise of the executive authority of the state. Intervenors cite no authority that instructs us to treat their mandamus actions as the equivalent of a state-initiated enforcement proceeding. At the time Potrero Hills filed this suit, it was not the subject of any past or pending state-initiated enforcement proceeding; rather, Intervenors' state mandamus actions made it the subject merely of prospective enforcement, where Younger does not apply. See Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705, 711-12, 97 S.Ct. 1428, 51 L.Ed.2d 752 (1977) (no Younger bar to federal injunctive relief in the face of threatened repeated prospective state prosecution); Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 462, 94 S.Ct. 1209, 39 L.Ed.2d 505 (1974) (no Younger bar to federal declaratory relief when state proceedings are not pending but only threatened); Wiener v. Cnty. of San Diego, 23 F.3d 263, 267 (9th Cir.1994); Exec. Arts Studio, 391 F.3d at 791-92. Where a federal plaintiff seeks relief not from past state actions but merely from prospective enforcement of state law, federal court adjudication would not interfere with the state's basic executive functions in a way Younger disapproves. See Wooley, 430 U.S. at 709-11, 97 S.Ct. 1428; Wiener, 23 F.3d at 267. While a state's executive interest in enforcing a local waste management ordinance would no doubt qualify as abstention-worthy, private citizens generally lack executive authority, and thus their efforts to enforce a local waste management ordinance do not implicate the comity and federalism concerns that justify a federal court's extraordinary act of abstaining from hearing a case over which it has jurisdiction. To hold otherwise would threaten to permit the exception to consume the rule. Miofsky, 703 F.2d 332.
Although no vital executive state functions are at stake, Intervenors urge us to recognize two additional comity concerns and to affirm the district court's decision to abstain based on (1) the state judiciary's interest in adjudicating federal constitutional claims and enforcing ballot initiatives, and (2) the sovereign voters' interest in exercising their right to legislate. Although the state's important interest in protecting its executive functions is by no means its only abstention-worthy one, Intervenors fail to identify how federal court adjudication of this suit would unduly interfere with the state's ability to perform its vital judicial or legislative functions.
To establish a vital interest in the state's judicial functions, an abstention proponent must assert more than a state's generic interest in the resolution of an individual case or in the enforcement of a single state court judgment. See Champion Int'l, 731 F.2d at 1408. Likewise, a state's interest in a universal judicial value such as prompt resolution of cases is not cognizable for purposes of Younger abstention. See AmerisourceBergen, 495 F.3d at 1150. Rather, the interest at stake must go to the core of the administration of a State's judicial system, Juidice v. Vail, 430 U.S. 327, 335, 97 S.Ct. 1211, 51 L.Ed.2d 376 (1977), and its importance must be `measured by considering its significance broadly,' AmerisourceBergen, 495 F.3d at 1150 (quoting Baffert, 332 F.3d at 618). For example, in both Juidice and Pennzoil, the federal plaintiffs brought challenges to the very processes by which the state sought to compel compliance with the judgments of its courts, implicating the state's wholesale interest in preserving its procedure for posting an appeal bond or in enforcing the orders and judgments of its courts through the contempt process. AmerisourceBergen, 495 F.3d at 1150; see Pennzoil, 481 U.S. at 12-14, 107 S.Ct. 1519; Juidice, 430 U.S. at 335-36 & n. 12, 97 S.Ct. 1211. Under such circumstances, [n]ot only would federal injunctions . . . interfere with the execution of state judgments, but they would do so on grounds that challenge the very process by which those judgments were obtained. Pennzoil, 481 U.S. at 14, 107 S.Ct. 1519 (emphasis added); see Polykoff, 816 F.2d at 1333. Intervenors identify no comparable interest here in the state judiciary's vital functions, asserting instead only general judicial interests, such as the California state judiciary's interest in providing a forum competent to vindicate any constitutional objections to state laws. Equally unavailing is their assertion of the state's important interest in having its courts issue writs of mandate to enforce voter initiatives. Though it may be a duty of the courts to jealously guard [the initiative] right of the people under California law, Bldg. Indus. Ass'n of S. Cal. v. City of Camarillo, 41 Cal.3d 810, 226 Cal.Rptr. 81, 718 P.2d 68, 74 (1986), the same can be said for a state court's duty to defend the federal Constitution, see Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 248, 88 S.Ct. 391, 19 L.Ed.2d 444 (1967) (explaining that a federal court's duty to give due respect to a suitor's choice of a federal forum for the hearing and decision of his federal constitutional claims cannot be avoided merely because state courts also have the solemn responsibility, equally with the federal courts, to guard, enforce, and protect every right granted or secured by the constitution of the United States (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted)). This type of generalized interest does not fall within the scope of vital interests central to the state courts' functions recognized under Younger. See NOPSI, 491 U.S. at 372-73, 109 S.Ct. 2506; Polykoff, 816 F.2d at 1333 (abstention unwarranted where state action brought by county attorney seeks only declaratory judgment on the same federal issue as that involved in the federal action). To assert a vital state interest concerning the state judiciary, Intervenors must do more than assert a general interest in the grant and enforcement of this writ of mandamus. Potrero Hills' suit challenges neither the authority of state courts to issue such writs nor processes for their enforcement once issued, and thus Intervenors have failed to establish that a federal court's adjudication of this case would unduly interfere with the state's vital interest in protecting `the authority of [the state's] judicial system, so that its orders and judgments are not rendered nugatory.' Pennzoil, 481 U.S. at 14 n. 12, 107 S.Ct. 1519 (quoting Juidice, 430 U.S. at 336 n. 12, 97 S.Ct. 1211).
Finally, Intervenors assert Younger abstention's concern for comity should also recognize an important state interest in protecting the state's initiative process and the sovereign powers of Solano County voters. See Cal. Const. art. IV, § 1 (reserving to the people of California the powers of initiative and referendum); Cal. Elec.Code § 9122 (If a majority of the voters voting on a proposed ordinance vote in its favor, the ordinance shall become a valid and binding ordinance of the county.). Although we are unaware of any cases where Younger abstention has been found appropriate based on the state's important interest in protecting its legislative, as opposed to executive or judicial, functions, [10] we do not rule out the possibility that the Younger doctrine's principles could be extended to recognize such important state interests, should they in fact be implicated. See Mervynne v. Acker, 189 Cal.App.2d 558, 563, 11 Cal. Rptr. 340 (1961) (describing the exercise of initiative and referendum as one of the most precious rights of our democratic process); cf. NOPSI, 491 U.S. at 372, 109 S.Ct. 2506 (explaining that the Court is as concerned . . . to preserve the integrity of a unitary and still-to-be-completed legislative process as [it is] . . . to preserve the integrity of judicial proceedings). Nonetheless, the power of voters to legislate through the initiative process simply is not implicated here. This case does not, for example, challenge the right of voters to initiate legislation or the processes by which ballot initiatives become law. And as noted earlier, Intervenors do not claim to be the official proponents of Measure E; even assuming that under certain circumstances such official proponents possess interests under state law in defending the validity of the initiatives they sponsor, Intervenors assert no such interests here. This case therefore does not implicate a state's central legislative functions any more than does a suit challenging the constitutionality of a state law passed by the legislature. See NOPSI, 491 U.S. at 372, 109 S.Ct. 2506 (As a challenge to completed legislative action, NOPSI's suit . . . is, insofar as our policies of federal comity are concerned, no different in substance from a facial challenge to an allegedly unconstitutional statute or zoning ordinance which we would assuredly not require to be brought in state courts.).
Finally, that Solano County itself opposed abstention and sought federal adjudication of Potrero Hills' claim further allays any concerns of offending comity. Abstention is not a jurisdictional doctrine but rather a prudential one, allowing a federal court to refuse to abstain where the state defendant consents to federal jurisdiction. Although the Ninth Circuit has not always deferred to a city's request for federal adjudication, see, e.g., San Remo Hotel, 145 F.3d at 1104 (abstaining despite joint stipulation of the parties to stay state proceedings pending resolution of the federal action), a state's voluntary submission to a federal forum eliminates the comity and federalism concerns animating the Younger doctrine, and the federal court need not force the case back into the State's own system. Ohio Bureau of Emp't Servs. v. Hodory, 431 U.S. 471, 480, 97 S.Ct. 1898, 52 L.Ed.2d 513 (1977) ( Younger principles . . . do not require this Court to refuse Ohio the immediate adjudication it seeks.); see also Dayton Christian Schs., 477 U.S. at 626, 106 S.Ct. 2718 (A state may of course voluntarily submit to federal jurisdiction even though it might have had a tenable claim for [ Younger ] abstention.); Brown v. Hotel and Rest. Emps. and Bartenders Int'l Union Local 54, 468 U.S. 491, 500 n. 9, 104 S.Ct. 3179, 82 L.Ed.2d 373 (1984); Kleenwell Biohazard Waste & Gen. Ecology Consultants, Inc. v. Nelson, 48 F.3d 391, 394 (9th Cir.1995). Here, not only were no important state interests of the kind recognized by Younger at stake, but the Countyand the State of California, as amicusexpressly asked the federal court to exercise its jurisdiction to resolve this solitary question of federal constitutionality. Under these circumstances, we find Younger abstention particularly unwarranted. [11]