Opinion ID: 171635
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether the HPF proceeding (and state judicial review thereof) is remedial or coercive

Text: Even assuming the unity of the administrative proceeding and the possibility of a subsequent petition for state court judicial review (a proposition we decline to establish), the district court properly abstained in the instant case only if the proceeding before HPF was coercive rather than remedial. In the district court's original decision to abstain, it did not address the distinction between remedial and coercive proceedings. Instead, the court simply cited Huffman for the proposition that  Younger 's exhaustion requirement is well established. Only after Brown sought to have the district court alter or amend its judgment did the court analyze the issue raised by Patsy. Looking to O'Neill, the court recognized that remedial administrative proceedings [are] those brought `to vindicate a wrong which ha[s] been inflicted by the State.' (Citing O'Neill, 32 F.3d at 791 n. 13). Despite this guidance, the court found that the defendant claimed that plaintiff was violating state law by collecting Medicaid benefits for which she was ineligible.... Under Kansas law, the termination of benefits to ineligible recipients is an enforcement mechanism designed to address violations of state Medicaid law. As such, the court held the HPF administrative proceeding was coercive for purposes of Younger because plaintiff initiated her administrative hearing as part of the state's overall law enforcement scheme. The court cautioned that it was a difficult question, and noted that the court's conclusion still left room for some administrative proceedings that would be categorized as remedial. The district court thereby implied that Brown had violated Kansas's Medicaid eligibility law and that the state had, as a consequence, terminated her benefits. The administrative proceedings that followed this decision were, according to the district court, necessarily coercive because they stemmed from Kansas's decision to terminate Brown's benefits. We disagree with this characterization of the HPF proceedings. The district court's standard for distinguishing coercive from remedial proceedings would divorce Younger abstention from its traditional roots. See Huffman, 420 U.S. at 604, 95 S.Ct. 1200 ([W]e deal here with a state proceeding which in important respects is more akin to a criminal prosecution than are most civil cases.). [9] That is, Younger originated in situations where federal involvement would block a state's efforts to enforce its laws. See Kercado-Melendez, 829 F.2d at 260 (Those cases [ Dayton Christian Schools and similar cases] involved claims by plaintiffs that constitutional rights would be violated by virtue of the operation of the state proceedings.). In those situations, [c]omity and federalism concerns are at their highest. Id. Here, however, Brown initiated a challenge to Kansas state action by requesting a hearing before the HPF. Kansas did not mandate that she participate in any such proceedings. Rather, HPF had summarily terminated her benefits, in accordance with Kansas's new law. Brown alleged that the application of this new law to her violates federal law because it contravenes certain terms of the federal-state Medicaid pact. The state proceedings themselves are not the challenged state conduct. Moreover, Brown committed no cognizable bad act that would have precipitated state coercive proceedings. This critical distinction is highlighted by HPF's threat  after Brown had already secured a preliminary injunction from the federal court  to enforce Kansas's new eligibility law against Brown by seeking to recover all Medical Assistance provided to [Brown] from July 1, 2004 to the present. This threatened petition, which HPF claimed it would file in Kansas state court, was styled a Petition for Civil Enforcement. See Kan. Stat. § 77-624(a) (authorizing a Kansas state agency to seek enforcement of its rule and regulation or order by filing a petition for civil enforcement in the district court). Aside from being a transparent attempt to secure a dismissal on Younger grounds and aside from the fact that the record does not reflect that the petition was ever filed, the threat merely highlights the remedial nature of Brown's challenge to HPF's decision to terminate her benefits. Because the type of ongoing proceeding at issue would be remedial, not coercive, we hold that the district court improperly abstained in this case.