Court Opinion

ID: 8941368
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 08:00:13.86042+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:09:44.983669
License: Public Domain

BECKER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment and in all but Part III.B of the majority’s opinion. I write separately to explain my disagreement with one ground for the majority’s holding that Pullman abstention is improper in this case. The majority states that the balance of the interests disfavors abstention because the potential damage to United Services Automobile Association’s (“USAA”) business during state administrative and court proceedings outweighs the state interests in abstention. I disagree, however, and believe that such a holding may have dangerously broad implications.
There are certainly cases in which the burdens imposed upon a plaintiff by abstention outweigh the interests served by application of the Pullman rule and in which the balance of interests therefore counsels against abstention. However, I do not believe that this is such a case. The state administrative and judicial proceedings that USAA would face are no more cumbersome than the state procedures available to any state litigant. The fact that USAA would have to receive an administrative ruling before it could present its case to a state court does not render its situation significantly more harmful than it if could proceed directly to federal court.1 By permitting USAA to prevail on this argument, the majority creates a precedent that could allow virtually any litigant faced with relatively complex state litigation to avoid the application of the Pullman abstention doctrine.
USAA has convinced the majority that ongoing license revocation litigation would drastically damage its reputation and thus impair its marketing of insurance. I am not convinced, however, that the harm that such litigation would impose upon USAA is significantly different from or greater than the harm that important ongoing litigation imposes upon any litigant. For example, if a company were threatened with a large fine or penalty as the result of a state proceeding, the litigation might affect the value of its stock. Yet I do not believe that this predictable side-effect of litigation would justify a denial of Pullman abstention, if abstention were otherwise proper. In Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U.S. 132, 96 S.Ct. 2857, 49 L.Ed.2d 844 (1976), the continuing existence of a statute that governed the type of consent required before an abortion could be performed on a woman under the age of eighteen imposed a substantial burden on individuals to whom it applied. Although the Court acknowledged that “[e]ach day the statute is in effect, irretrievable events, with substantial personal consequences, occur,” 428 U.S. at 151, 96 S.Ct. at 2868, it nevertheless held that abstention was proper. I do not believe that the type of harm that abstention would inflict upon USAA in this case is any greater than the type of harm caused to young women during that state litigation ordered in Bellota v. Baird.
*367It is significant that, as the majority has pointed out, the insurance department has proposed ways of mitigating the harm that state litigation would impose upon USAA. It “has indicated a willingness to expedite consideration of USAA’s claims in state procedures, and to agree to a stay of execution in the event of an administrative decision adverse to USAA until judicial proceedings were completed.” Maj.Op. at 362. Such expedition reduces the burden that resort to the state system creates for USAA. Cf. Bellotti v. Baird, supra, 428 U.S. at 150-51, 96 S.Ct. at 2868 (procedure for certifying issues directly to the state supreme court reduces relative burden of abstention, so that abstention is appropriate even in case in which the “importance of speed in resolution ... is manifest”). The proposed stay of execution of a license revocation order also distinguishes this case from Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U.S. 137, 90 S.Ct. 844, 25 L.Ed.2d 174 (1970), cited by the majority, in which the plaintiffs were subject to a state enforcement order which would impair their existing business activity.
Because I believe that the harm threatened to USAA is not significantly greater than the harm that state litigation would inflict upon any litigant, I believe that the majority’s assessment of the balance of the interests in this case creates an exception that could swallow the abstention rule. Indeed, almost any litigant opposing Pullman abstention can make out a case as strong as USAA’s. I think that the balance of the interests approach as a basis for avoiding Pullman abstention should be reserved for extreme cases, such as Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., supra, 397 U.S. at 139, 90 S.Ct. at 845-46, in which an emergency situation was presented because the company faced an imminent loss of its cantaloupe crop as a result of a state enforcement order, while only “a narrow and specific application” of a state statute was challenged as unconstitutional.2
I do, however, agree with the majority’s other ground for holding that this is not a proper case for Pullman abstention: Pullman abstention should not be employed to avoid a ruling on a claim of federal preemption because such a claim does not call for substantial federal constitutional adjudication. I would base the holding on that ground alone.

. This is especially true because the administrative hearing is over and the administrative decision will apparently be announced soon.

. Not only do I find that the harm that abstention would impose upon USAA in this case is not unusually great, but I also find that the countervailing state interest in interpreting its regulation is not unusually small. Unlike the situation in McKnight v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, 583 F.2d 1229, 1241 (3d Cir.1978), in which resolution of the constitutional issue before definitive state interpretation of a statute "would not upset sensitive state programs," federal intervention into the interpretation of Pennsylvania insurance regulations would be quite intrusive.