Opinion ID: 392663
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Younger Dismissal

Text: 41 Although it has not abandoned its judgment preclusion argument, the Board on appeal relies chiefly on the contention that principles of equity, comity and federalism required that the federal court stay its hand so that the religion clause contentions be litigated first in the Superior Court of New Jersey. It relies on the spawn of Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), to assert that because the Board filed its Superior Court action against Shelton's directors and two of its officers first, the federal complaint of all the plaintiffs, whether or not they were defendants in the state court action, must be dismissed. The district court rejected that broad proposition; rightly so, we hold. 42 We note at the outset that for the Churches, parents, students and teacher, the governing precedents are Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 94 S.Ct. 1209, 39 L.Ed.2d 505 (1974) (declaratory relief) and Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U.S. 922, 95 S.Ct. 2561, 45 L.Ed.2d 648 (1975) (preliminary injunctive relief). These plaintiffs are not parties to any state court proceeding. Like the plaintiff in Steffel, they were confronted, from the commencement of the state's lawsuit against someone else, with a real threat of harm to them. Each of these plaintiffs has asserted individual first and fourteenth amendment rights distinct from those Shelton, its directors and its officers assert. See Verified Complaint, pp. 3-4; 7-9; 13-15. Specifically, the Churches maintain that the Board's enforcement of the regulations deprives them of their first and fourteenth amendment rights to minister to young adults through Shelton College; the students argue that enforcement deprives them of their first and fourteenth amendment rights to receive a Christian education; the parents assert enforcement deprives them of their first and fourteenth amendment rights to guide their children's choice of post-secondary education; the teacher claims enforcement deprives him of his first and fourteenth amendment rights to pursue his religious ministry and Christian apostolate. These rights, with the possible exception of the Churches' rights (the Churches characterize Shelton as an agency of the Bible Presbyterian Church), are all distinct from the college's right to exist as a religious-educational institution. 16 43 The Supreme Court has held that the opportunities of pupils to acquire knowledge, is a first amendment right distinct from the right to impart knowledge. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 401, 43 S.Ct. 625, 627, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923). Moreover, the Court has recently emphasized that the distinct first amendment right 'to receive information and ideas'.... is nowhere more vital than in our schools and universities. Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 762-63, 92 S.Ct. 2576, 2581, 33 L.Ed.2d 683 (1972). Even if one concludes that the Churches, teacher, and parents have no independently assertable rights, Supreme Court precedent clearly indicates that the students have distinct rights which may be enforced in a separate federal action. 44 An objection might be made that despite their assertion of independent rights, all of these plaintiffs are too interrelated with Shelton College to permit a separate federal court action. The Supreme Court's articulation of the contours of derivative preclusion in Younger cases, however, has been limited to preclusion of an employer's federal suit when its employees assert identical interests in state court, Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 348-49, 95 S.Ct. 2281, 2291, 45 L.Ed.2d 223 (1975), and to preclusion of federal plaintiffs too intertwined with the state defendants in terms of ownership, control and management, Doran v. Salem Inn, 422 U.S. at 929, 95 S.Ct. at 2566. Clearly, a majority of the Court has formulated derivative preclusion only in terms of an identity of economic activities and interests. Certainly, the parents and students in this action neither own, nor control, nor manage Shelton College. Arguably, the teacher, as a Shelton College employee, might be barred under Hicks. The relevance of Hicks, however, is merely superficial. The employer in Hicks was derivatively precluded because any claim his employees could make in state court regarding their first amendment right to participate in the screening of Deep Throat derived from their status as agents asserting the employer's right to show the film. Here, the teacher asserts an individual first amendment right to teach a particular theology. That right is distinct from Shelton's right, as a school, to propagate its doctrine. Arguably, the Churches might be precluded under an ownership, management and control theory. But while Shelton College is the teaching arm of the Bible Presbyterian Church, the Board has not shown to what extent the two Churches in this suit in fact manage and control the college, and the state court action is against the separate directors and officers of the college. 17 45 The concurrence purports to rely not on an interrelationship analysis to preclude the nonparties' action, but on a theory that derivative preclusion is warranted here because the nature of the relief the district court awarded in this case differs markedly from the relief in Steffel and Doran. Although those cases arose out of nearly identical fact situations and presented identical legal issues to the state and federal tribunals, the concurrence notes that the federal courts were not asked to interfere in the pending state proceedings. It urges that in this case, however, the federal court is requested to enjoin the enforcement of the state court's preliminary injunction. Unlike Steffel and Doran, therefore, this case involves direct federal interference in an ongoing state enforcement proceeding. If the Younger doctrine forbids anything, the concurrence contends, it prohibits any direct federal court interference with any state enforcement proceeding. 18 This direct interference theory, while initially appealing, does not withstand analysis. First, the district court did not directly or indirectly interfere in the state court proceedings. The district court restrained the Board from availing itself of a portion of the preliminary relief the state court granted. The district court's ruling in no way hindered the state court from ruling on the merits of the Board's claims or of Shelton's constitutional challenges. Cf. discussion infra Part V. p. 885. Even assuming, arguendo, the district court's limited ruling had been a direct interference, a theory proposing that any direct interference violates Younger still proves inadequate. Had the nonparty plaintiffs in this action sought merely a declaratory judgment invalidating the Board's regulations, rather than an injunction limiting the scope of the state court injunction, there would be no direct interference in the state court proceeding, and this case would look very much like Steffel v. Thompson. These plaintiffs did in fact seek such a declaratory judgment (in addition to injunctive relief), but the federal district court, in deference to state court adjudication of the merits of the regulations, declined to intrude so far into the substance of the state court controversy. 46 Rather, it awarded the more limited relief of an injunction restraining enforcement of part of the state court preliminary injunction. The course which the district court declined to take, and of which the concurrence would apparently approve invalidating the regulations would have been far more intrusive to the state enforcement scheme, although it would not have impinged directly on the state court's adjudication. As the Supreme Court has recognized, the collateral intrusion of a declaratory judgment invalidating the contested state law is just as disruptive to state enforcement as direct interference in the state proceeding in the form of an injunction. See Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U.S. 66, 91 S.Ct. 764, 27 L.Ed.2d 688 (1971). 47 Moreover, the Supreme Court has declined to draw a direct interference/collateral intrusion line in Younger cases. In Doran v. Salem Inn, the nonparty plaintiffs did not seek directly to intrude on the state prosecution of M & L Bar. They sought an injunction against enforcement of the topless bar ordinance. The Supreme Court held there might be cases in which nonparty plaintiffs might be precluded from bringing a federal action, not because those plaintiffs were seeking directly to intrude in the pending state action, but because they might be so interrelated in terms of ownership, control, and management, that pursuit of a separate federal action would undermine Younger. As Doran makes clear, the real problem is not the relief sought in federal court, but the relationship of the nonparty federal plaintiffs to the state defendants. 19 As has been shown, the nonparties here do not fall within the Hicks-Doran nexus with the state defendants. 48 A final derivative preclusion theory, implicit in the concurring opinion, is that the nonparties' distinct federal claims should be barred if the outcome of the state enforcement proceeding would in a practical sense be dispositive of their interests. This argument is, in effect, a variant of the interrelationship theory. The decision advancing it on which the concurrence relies is Corpus Christi People's Baptist Church v. Texas Dep't of Human Resources, 481 F.Supp. 1101 (S.D.Tex.1977), aff'd mem. 621 F.2d 438 (5th Cir. 1980). That case involved a state enforcement proceeding against an unlicensed church-operated child care home. The court held the nonparty parents and children barred from asserting a federal claim in federal court. Holding the rights of the nonparties merely appendages to the church's rights, the court assumed that the parents and children who made use of the church-operated child-care home had no interests distinct from the state-defendant church's. Rather than considering whether those federal plaintiffs might not have a separate interest in religiously-oriented child care, the court concluded there could be no such interest because if the church won in state court, the federal plaintiffs' rights would be vindicated, and if the church lost, the federal plaintiffs would have no interest left because the home would have gone out of business. 20 A nexus finding on the ground that if the state defendant prevails, the federal plaintiff's interests would be vindicated proves too much. In Steffel and Doran, had the state defendants obtained rulings invalidating the local laws, the federal plaintiffs would have been vindicated. Indeed, no matter how unrelated the federal plaintiff, so long as some state defendant might successfully challenge the same state law, the federal plaintiff's rights would be vindicated. That does not mean that a federal plaintiff may not bring an action so long as some state proceeding addressing the same constitutional issue is pending. This circuit in New Jersey Education Ass'n v. Burke, 579 F.2d 764, 770 (3d Cir. 1978), has squarely rejected that proposition. Similarly, a state defendant's failure in state court may often defeat an unrelated federal plaintiff's interests. If, for example, a state court is requested to enforce a local criminal obscenity law against a pornographic publication, and grant of that relief would mean the publication would cease distribution in that area, it is inconceivable that a federal court would hold a reader barred from asserting his first amendment interest in reading the magazine on the ground that should the magazine lose in state court, his interests would be resolved because there would be nothing left to read. 21 Absurd as such a holding sounds, it is in essence the conclusion of the Corpus Christi court. We decline to rely on such a precedent. 49 It is clear, then, under Steffel and Doran, that nonparties to the state enforcement proceedings who assert independent constitutional interests may advance those interests in a separate federal action. Since the interests of any of these plaintiffs alone are sufficient to justify the court's consideration of the application for a preliminary injunction, that order cannot be reversed on the chief ground the Board advances, absent a very great extension of the Younger rule, which would, in effect, ignore the teachings of Steffel and Doran. 22 50 The Board urges we disregard the impeding Supreme Court precedent, and make the requested extension by requiring that the Churches, parents, students and teacher intervene in any pending state proceeding in order to litigate their own separate rights. There are several serious obstacles to the adoption of such a rule. First and most obviously, as recently as Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705, 710, 97 S.Ct. 1428, 1433, 51 L.Ed.2d 752 (1977), Chief Justice Burger, writing for the Court, reaffirmed the holdings of Steffel and Doran : that a federal forum is available to litigants threatened with violations of federally protected rights and not presently parties to a state court proceeding. 51 Second, the Board's brief refers us to no New Jersey law, and our own research has disclosed none, suggesting that non-parties could intervene of right in the New Jersey action. The Supreme Court has repeatedly asserted that a primary motivation in its adoption of the Younger doctrine was the insulation of state enforcement of its criminal law from litigious interruptions. See, e. g., Kugler v. Helfant, 421 U.S. 117, 129-31, 95 S.Ct. 1524, 1533, 44 L.Ed.2d 15 (1975); Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. at 43-44, 91 S.Ct. at 750. Even when the doctrine was extended to certain civil cases, that step was justified because of the close relationship of those cases to state penal policies. See, e. g., Moore v. Sims, 442 U.S. 415, 423, 99 S.Ct. 2371, 2377, 60 L.Ed.2d 994 (1979); Trainor v. Hernandez, 431 U.S. 434, 444, 97 S.Ct. 1911, 1918, 52 L.Ed.2d 486 (1977); Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 604, 95 S.Ct. 1200, 1208, 43 L.Ed.2d 482 (1975). Certainly neither New Jersey nor any other state would permit third parties to intervene and participate in criminal prosecutions. One obvious reason for the Steffel-Doran qualifications of the Younger doctrine is the recognition that a pending prosecution against someone else affords no opportunity for non-parties to assert their own first amendment rights, because the state will not permit them to participate in the defense of penal charges against others. The licensing scheme of the 1916 Act does not provide for enforcement by indictment, but it does embody a strong state penal policy; so strong, indeed, that the normal due process protections of indictment and trial by jury have been eliminated in favor of civil penalties enforceable in a summary proceeding and by civil incarceration, N.J.S.A. 18A:68-9, 10, and by a summary proceeding restraining violations. N.J.S.A. 18A:68-5. When the district court acted on the application for a preliminary injunction, the Board tendered to it no authority suggesting that intervention by the parents, the students and the faculty member would be any more welcome in the pending proceeding under Section 18A:68-5 than in a criminal prosecution. Nor has any such authority been suggested to us. 23 52 The reality confronting the district court, when it acted on the application for a preliminary injunction, was that the Churches, parents, students, and faculty member could protect their first amendment rights only by a separate action somewhere; either in the district court or in a separate action in a New Jersey court. Had they resorted to a separate action in a New Jersey court, that court would have been required to enforce the same Section 1983 cause of action which they have pleaded in the federal court. Testa v. Katt, 330 U.S. 386, 67 S.Ct. 810, 91 L.Ed. 967 (1947). That cause of action includes the right to be protected, pendente lite, from unlawful restraints upon and unlawful state entanglements in their free exercise of religion. Assuming that their claims for such pendente lite relief were meritorious, a state court, applying federal law, would be obliged to grant them the same relief against the pending Section 18A:68-5 action as would a federal district court. If it did, the interference with the penal policy of New Jersey embodied in the 1916 law would differ from the same relief granted by a federal tribunal only in some Pickwickian sense. It is the federal law which binds both tribunals, not the address of the court house, that interferes with the state's penal policy. Assuming that both tribunals would be receptive to claims of pendente lite protection of first amendment rights (and on this score the Attorney General's brief reassures us) then the defendant Board, charged with enforcement of the state's penal policy would appear to have no substantive interest adversely affected by the parents', students' and teacher's choice of a forum. 24 53 From the viewpoint of these plaintiffs, who are not parties to the Section 18A:68-5 proceeding, however, the choice of a forum is significant. Congress has in 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) given them that choice, for Younger principles aside, a litigant is entitled to resort to a federal forum in seeking redress under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for an alleged deprivation of federal rights. Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. at 710, 97 S.Ct. at 1433. One important practical reason for the exercise of that choice in favor of a federal forum is the additional safeguard from possible errors of federal law 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) affords. That significant provision, which brings the case before us, provides for appeals of right from the grant or denial of pendente lite injunctive relief. In first amendment contexts, where state actions imposing prior restraints on the exercise of protected rights can cause devastating and irreparable harm, the availability of that remedy often will be vital. This is particularly the case where third parties may be potentially affected by a state court decree binding someone else. A state court decree preventing a source from communicating with a reporter, or a state court decree preventing a church from admitting worshipers, are examples which come to mind. A state court decree closing a religious school this case is another. By contrast, appeals from grants or denials of preliminary injunctive relief are, under New Jersey law, entirely discretionary. N.J.R. 2:2-4 (1981); Delaware River and Bay Authority v. International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots, 45 N.J. 138, 142, 211 A.2d 789, 791 (1965); Frantzen v. Howard, 132 N.J.Super. 226, 227, 333 A.2d 289, 289 (App.Div.1975). Moreover, if a preliminary injunction is granted, such an injunction, whether or not reviewed in a discretionary N.J.R. 2:2-4 appeal, is insulated from review in the Supreme Court of the United States by the final judgment limitation on Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction in 28 U.S.C. § 1257. By contrast, if this court has appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) the Supreme Court may also review. 28 U.S.C. § 1254. 25 54 We do not stress access to federal court pendente lite appellate review of grants or denials of preliminary injunctions in cases seeking protection against prior restraints on first amendment rights as a forum selection factor for plaintiffs because state trial judges will in our view (or even in plaintiffs' view) be any more or less likely to commit error than their federal district court counterparts. Nor is it our point that this court will necessarily produce a better first amendment result than that produced by a state court which decides to grant leave for a discretionary interlocutory appeal. Rather, our point is that the legislative preclusion of Supreme Court review of any but final judgments of state courts has created the anomaly that a prior restraint in a state court preliminary injunction can be in force over a long period of time, entirely insulated from any review by that tribunal which has the ultimate responsibility for giving content to the first amendment. The possibility of access to that tribunal pendente lite by virtue of sections 1292(a)(1) and 1254 is a significant, legitimate, even compelling factor in the Churches', parents', students' and faculty member's choice of a federal rather than a state forum. What countervailing considerations can the Board offer in opposition to the recognition of that choice? Certainly the Board has not suggested that insulation from the possibility of pendente lite federal appellate review in first amendment cases is a state interest worthy of consideration. 55 We conclude that the trial court did not err in rejecting the Board's Younger ground for the denial of preliminary injunctive relief.