Opinion ID: 171635
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Ongoing Proceeding Prong

Text: In light of its determination that the proceedings here were remedial, the majority does not address whether Brown's state judicial process was ongoing when she filed her federal complaint. Because in my view the proceedings were coercive, making a proper Younger abstention determination requires that we also address whether the proceedings were ongoing. And, in this instance, the proceedings were indeed ongoing. After reviewing the briefs and oral argument in this case, one can discern two well-reasoned (but ultimately unpersuasive) arguments that would support the opposite conclusionnamely, that the proceedings were not ongoing. Recall that here, the Kansas Health Policy Authority (HPA) [1] issued a final order, and Brown chose not to seek judicial review of that order in Kansas state courts. The first argument is that the issuance of an agency final order represents a point where the state process temporarily ceases to be ongoing, and the litigant can choose either to continue in the state system or shift forum by filing a lawsuit in federal court. The second argument is that because Brown did not raise her federal issue in a hearing before the HPA, any state-court review of that issue would have been de novo. The process cannot be ongoing, this second argument goes, if subsequent review is de novo. Neither of these reasons flows from the Supreme Court's explanation of Younger abstention. Nor does either comport with the clear weight of authority from other circuitsindeed, the reasons are plainly contradicted by that authority. I would therefore conclude Brown's state proceedings were ongoing when she filed the federal complaint.