Opinion ID: 4196342
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Whether the state court proceedings will

Text: resolve all issues before the federal court. Finally, we consider “whether the state court proceeding sufficiently parallels the federal proceeding” in order “to ensure ‘comprehensive disposition of litigation.’” R.R. St., 656 F.3d at 982 (quoting Colo. River, 424 U.S. at 817). “[T]he existence of a substantial doubt as to whether the state proceedings will resolve the federal action precludes the granting of a stay.” Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 12 F.3d 908, 913 (9th Cir. 1993). We do not require “exact parallelism” under this factor; it is sufficient if the proceedings are “substantially similar.” Nakash, 882 F.2d at 1416. In Nakash, for example, the suits were sufficiently parallel because they concerned the same relevant conduct and named the same pertinent parties. Id. at 1416‒17. The parallelism requirement was met even though additional parties were named in the state suit, the 18 MONTANORE MINERALS V. BAKIE federal suit included additional claims, and the suits arguably focused on different aspects of the dispute. Id. The district court in this case made its Colorado River determination on this factor alone. It held that parallelism did not exist because “there [was] no parallel state court proceeding adjudicating the merits of a condemnation order with respect to the easements and rights of way at issue.” We do not require such “exact parallelism.” Nakash, 882 F.2d at 1416. Moreover, we are “particularly reluctant to find that the actions are not parallel when the federal action is but a ‘spin-off’ of more comprehensive state litigation.” Id. at 1417. The state and federal proceedings are substantially similar because they both concern rights to the Subject Claims, name the same pertinent parties, and attempt to accomplish the same goal (namely, extinguishing the Defendants’ rights to the Subject Claims). The state court could have resolved all issues before the federal court, and judicial resources would have been saved and duplicative litigation prevented, if Montanore had continued with its initial choice of the state forum. We are confident that the state court, which has had jurisdiction over this dispute since 2007, will resolve all of the claims properly raised in that court. However, we direct the district court to enter a stay, rather than a dismissal, so “that the federal forum will remain open if for some unexpected reason the state forum . . . . turn[s] out to be inadequate.” Attwood, 886 F.2d at 243 (internal quotation marks omitted).
On balance, the Colorado River factors strongly counsel in favor of a stay. The state court first assumed jurisdiction over the Subject Claims; proceeding with the federal case MONTANORE MINERALS V. BAKIE 19 presented a risk of piecemeal litigation; the state court had jurisdiction over the case for several years, and had made substantial progress, by the time the federal proceeding was filed; state law provides the rule of decision on the merits, and the case presents complex state law questions better addressed by the state court; the state court can adequately protect the federal rights at issue; Montanore’s actions strongly suggest that it was forum shopping by filing in federal court; and the suits are sufficiently parallel for Colorado River to apply. 3 Under the unusual circumstances of this case, we not only hold that Colorado River clearly applies, but also that the district court abused its discretion when it declined to stay the case. As we explained in Lusardi, when the Colorado River doctrine may apply to a case, we avoid engaging in different analyses for related claims in a single action, because such an approach “would increase, not decrease, the likelihood of piecemeal adjudication or duplicative litigation,” undermining the Colorado River doctrine. 976 F.2d at 589. As part of the condemnation action, Montanore moved for the federal court to determine the validity of the Subject Claims. The district court applied Colorado River to that motion only, noting that the pending state court proceeding concerned the exact same issue. However, claim validity could not so easily be separated from the condemnation action, as evidenced by the reasons the Commissioners gave for their recommendation of no compensation, and the district court’s instruction that claim validity was relevant to the compensation question. It was an abuse of discretion to 3 The only factor that is neutral in our analysis is the “inconvenience of the federal forum” factor. 20 MONTANORE MINERALS V. BAKIE decline jurisdiction over one aspect of the case, rather than the entire case, when that aspect was relevant to the case as a whole. II. The district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing Montanore’s motion to determine the validity of the Subject Claims. Montanore cross-appeals the district court’s decision, pursuant to Colorado River, to decline to consider Montanore’s motion to determine the validity of the Subject Claims. The motion was filed as part of the condemnation action, and, for the reasons already discussed, we conclude that the district court should have declined to exercise jurisdiction over the entire condemnation action. Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing the motion. 4