Court Opinion

ID: 9469966
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:53:28.145332+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:39.132285
License: Public Domain

SCHROEDER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which holds that abstention is appropriate in this case. The result of that holding is not only to delay resolution of this dispute, but to prolong potentially disruptive uncertainty in the operation of Hawaii’s judicial selection system.
This result would be less disturbing if the defendants, who are the individuals to whom the state has delegated responsibility for judicial selection and retention, had asked the district court to stay its hand. They have not done so. Instead it was the plaintiff who filed a duplicate action in state court on the day before the district court was scheduled to rule in this suit, and who then sought federal abstention over defendants’ objection. In my opinion the district court’s refusal was entirely proper. Unlike the principal cases on which the majority relies,^the governmental defendants here have not expressed concern about intrusion into sensitive areas of state policy; thus this case does not present the, “exigent demands of federalism” which have influenced courts to incur the high cost of delay which abstention entails. See C. Wright, Law of Federal Courts § 52 at 220 (3d Ed. 1976); Manney v. Cabell, 654 F.2d 1280, 1283 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied sub nom. Manney v. Fare, 455 U.S. 1000, 102 S.Ct. 1630, 71 L.Ed.2d 866 (1982); International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers v. Public Services Commission, 614 F.2d 206, 209, 212 (9th Cir.1980); Rancho Palos Verdes Corp. v. City of Laguna Beach, 547 F.2d 1092, 1093 (9th Cir.1976).
Nor does this case present the complexities and uncertainties of state law which have characterized other abstention cases. Contrast, Harris County Commissioners Court v. Moore, 420 U.S. 77, 84-87, 95 S.Ct. 870, 875-77, 43 L.Ed.2d 32 (1975); Lake Carriers Association v. MacMullan, 406 U.S. 498, 511-12, 92 S.Ct. 1749, 1757-58, 32 L.Ed.2d 257 (1972); Manney v. Cabell, 654 F.2d at 1284-85; Isthmus Landowners Ass’n v. California, 601 F.2d 1087, 1091 (9th Cir.1979). The entitlement question which the majority refers to state courts for resolution is no more difficult or unclear than similar entitlement issues which federal courts have routinely decided. See, e.g., Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972); Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 *919L.Ed.2d 548 (1972); Golden State Transit Corp. v. City of Los Angeles, 686 F.2d 758 (9th Cir.1982); Vanelli v. Reynolds School District No. 7, 667 F.2d 773 (9th Cir.1982); Bollow v. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, 650 F.2d 1093 (9th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 948, 102 S.Ct. 1449, 71 L.Ed.2d 662 (1982).
For these reasons I would proceed to decide the merits of appellant’s appeal from the district court’s judgment.