Court Opinion

ID: 9495153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:55:54.121669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:51.029625
License: Public Domain

BYE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Our reversal and remand is carefully based upon the district court’s failure to consider the presence of the federal trademark issues, so we avoid directly holding that the district court’s stay constituted an abuse of discretion because of the mere presence of federal trademark issues. My personal view is that a district court should not stay a federal action when federal questions predominate over state law issues, and for that reason I would not have stayed Verizon’s suit if I were the district judge. But my personal disagreement with the district court does not equate to an abuse of discretion because our cases prohibit us from finding an abuse of discretion based solely upon the presence of a federal issue or claim. See Horne v. Firemen’s Retirement Sys., 69 F.3d 233 (8th Cir.1995) (Age Discrimination in Employment Act claim); Int’l Ass’n of Entrepreneurs v. Angoff, 58 F.3d 1266 (8th Cir.1995) (Employment Retirement Income Security Act issue).
If we had held that the district court abused its discretion solely because of the presence of the federal trademark issues, Home and Angoff would have compelled me to dissent. Our opinion makes no mention of those decisions, however, because as I explained above the basis for our decision is subtly distinct from the reasoning that supported those two cases. I nevertheless feel compelled to write separately to express my disagreement with those decisions, and to suggest that their reconsideration may be in order. Why should a federal action involving federal issues be stayed in favor of a strike suit in state court?