Court Opinion

ID: 9886753
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 16:33:50.929303+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:49:29.654610
License: Public Domain

KELLY, Circuit Judge, dissenting.
  

   If the petitioners were seeking mandamus to quash a discovery order that would compel disclosure of the internal deliberations of the Arkansas Supreme Court, their petition would be well taken. But that is not what the petitioners seek. Instead, they ask for-and the court today grants them-reversal of the district court's denial of their motion to dismiss.
   
    See
   
   Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The petitioners did not ask the district court to limit the scope of discovery,
   
    see
   
   Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), (c), or to shield disclosed records from public view,
   
    see
   
   Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2(d). They only asked the district court to dismiss Judge Griffen's suit on the merits. Mandamus is appropriate only when the petitioners "have no other adequate means to attain the relief [they] desire[ ]."
   
    Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Court for D.C.
   
   ,
   
    542 U.S. 367
   
   , 380,
   
    124 S.Ct. 2576
   
   ,
   
    159 L.Ed.2d 459
   
   (2004) (quoting
   
    Kerr v. U. S. Dist. Court for N. Dist. of Cal.
   
   ,
   
    426 U.S. 394
   
   , 403,
   
    96 S.Ct. 2119
   
   ,
   
    48 L.Ed.2d 725
   
   (1976) ). Because the petitioners have not attempted to exhaust their "adequate means" in the district court, I cannot conclude that mandamus is "the
   
    only
   
   means of forestalling intrusion by the federal judiciary on a delicate area of federal-state relations."
  

    Will v. United States
   
   ,
   
    389 U.S. 90
   
   , 95,
   
    88 S.Ct. 269
   
   ,
   
    19 L.Ed.2d 305
   
   (1967) (emphasis added). Therefore, I respectfully dissent from the grant of mandamus.