Opinion ID: 2818506
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Evolution of the Younger Doctrine.

Text: Unpacking the appellants' asseverational array requires some exploration of the evolution of the Younger doctrine. We start from the settled premise that the pendency of a state-court action generally does not preclude a federal court from addressing the same subject matter. See Co. River Water Conserv. Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 817 (1976). This is consistent with the tenet that federal courts have a virtually unflagging obligation . . . to exercise the jurisdiction given them. Id. Nevertheless, this obligation is not absolute — and the Supreme - 8 - Court has developed a small cluster of doctrines that either require or allow federal courts to defer to state proceedings in particular circumstances. See Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U.S. 706, 716-18 (1996). Younger abstention reflects one such doctrine. In Younger, the Justices held that principles of equity and comity demand that a federal court abstain from entertaining a suit that seeks to enjoin a state criminal prosecution as violative of federal law so long as the state proceeding affords an adequate opportunity to raise the federal defense and abstention will not cause irreparable harm. See 401 U.S. at 43-46. In a companion case, the Justices made pellucid that the same principles encumber a federal court's ability to order declaratory relief. See Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U.S. 66, 69-70, 72-73 (1971). The Supreme Court subsequently extended the Younger doctrine to certain quasi-criminal proceedings, see Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 594 (1975), and certain proceedings involving the enforcement of state-court orders and judgments, see Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco Inc., 481 U.S. 1, 13-14 (1987). Similarly, some state administrative proceedings may trigger Younger abstention. See New Orleans Pub. Serv., Inc. v. Council of City of New Orleans (NOPSI), 491 U.S. 350, 369 n.4 (1989). Over the years, the Court has recognized a handful of exceptions to the Younger doctrine. Abstention is inappropriate, - 9 - for example, when a state proceeding is brought in bad faith, that is, for the purpose of harassment. See Younger, 401 U.S. at 5354. So, too, a federal court need not stay its hand if the state forum provides inadequate protection of federal rights. See Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U.S. 564, 575, 578-79 (1973). Abstention is likewise inappropriate when a state statute is flagrantly and patently violative of express constitutional prohibitions. Younger, 401 U.S. at 53 (quoting Watson v. Buck, 313 U.S. 387, 402 (1941)). In Middlesex, the Court added a further gloss. It explained that a federal court must abstain when there is an ongoing state proceeding (judicial in nature), which implicates important state interests and provides an adequate opportunity to raise federal defenses. See 457 U.S. at 432. Thereafter, lower courts sometimes loosely applied the three Middlesex factors as an exclusive test for determining the applicability of the Younger doctrine. See, e.g., Brooks v. N.H. Supreme Court, 80 F.3d 633, 638 (1st Cir. 1996). Recently, the Supreme Court clarified the range of state proceedings that may suffice to trigger Younger abstention. The Court explained that Younger applies only to exceptional state proceedings, Sprint, 134 S. Ct. at 588, and the Middlesex factors do not operate as a free-standing test, see id. at 593. Giving independent life to the Middlesex factors would transmogrify - 10 - Younger from a narrow exception to the federal courts' duty to exercise their jurisdiction into a rule mandating abstention in the case of virtually all parallel state and federal proceedings. Id. The Sprint Court held that only three types of state proceedings trigger Younger abstention: (i) criminal prosecutions, (ii) civil proceedings that are akin to criminal prosecutions, and (iii) proceedings that implicate a State's interest in enforcing the orders and judgments of its courts. Id. at 588. If a proceeding does not fit within this taxonomy, Younger abstention will not lie. See id. at 593-94. However, the Sprint Court did not entirely abandon the Middlesex factors. Although those factors cannot alone bear the weight of abstention, they constitute additional factors appropriately considered by [a] federal court before invoking Younger. Id. at 593. We distill from Sprint a three-step approach to Younger abstention. To begin, a federal court must ascertain whether a particular state proceeding falls within the Younger taxonomy. If so, the court must then take the second step and consider whether the Middlesex factors support abstention. And if these two steps leave the case on track for abstention, the court must take the third step and determine whether any of the isthmian exceptions to the Younger doctrine apply. - 11 -