Court Opinion

ID: 9427302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:20:22.092577+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:06.025816
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Burger,
dissenting.
I am in general agreement with Mr. Justice Brennan’s dissenting opinion. I write separately only to emphasize that I consider it unnecessary to determine in the context of this case whether it would ever be appropriate to give res judicata effect to a state-court judgment implicating a claim over which the federal courts have been given exclusive jurisdiction. Our concern here is simply with the propriety of a federal court’s delaying adjudication of such a claim in deference to a state-court proceeding. As Mr. Justice Brennan correctly notes, whatever the proper resolution of the res judicata issue, a federal court remains under an obligation to expeditiously consider and resolve those claims which Congress explicitly reserved to the federal courts. With this minor caveat, I join Mr. Justice Brennan in his dissent.