Court Opinion

ID: 9468506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:16:35.357605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:53.949500
License: Public Domain

ROBB, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part:
I.
I agree that the antitrust claims must be dismissed. They are frivolous. The Supreme Court has held that the antitrust statutes do not apply to a restraint imposed by the state acting as sovereign. Parker v. Brown, 317 U.S. 341, 352, 63 S.Ct. 307, 314, 87 L.Ed. 315 (1943); Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350, 363, 97 S.Ct. 2691, 2698, 53 L.Ed.2d 810 (1977). In this case the District of Columbia Court of Appeals acting en banc entered orders denying Hickey’s and Feldman’s petitions to waive provisions of the court’s rules. (Hickey J.A. 35; Feldman J.A. 33) Any restraint imposed by the rules was therefore compelled by direction of the state. I am not impressed by the appellants’ argument that the Court of Appeals has simply adopted rules recommended by the American Bar Association and thus authorized the Bar Association’s competitive activity. The rules are those of the court, and they are enforced by the court, not by the. Bar Association. That the court has adopted a standard of the Bar Association as a convenient measure of an applicant’s qualifications does not mean that the court has abdicated its authority in favor of the Bar Association.
II.
In my opinion the District Court had no jurisdiction to review the order of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
The District of Columbia Code Title 11, § 102 provides:
The highest court of the District of Columbia is the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Final judgments and decrees of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals are reviewable by the Supreme Court of the United States in accordance with section 1257 of title 28, United States Code. (July 29, 1970, Pub.L. 91-358 § 111, title I, 84 Stat. 475)
The Court of Appeals thus has the status of a state supreme court. Key v. Doyle, 434 U.S. 59, 64, 98 S.Ct. 280, 283, 54 L.Ed.2d 238 (1977). The adverse decisions in the appellants’ cases were reviewable in the Supreme Court of the United States. Although the appellants cast their petitions to the Court of Appeals in terms of requests for waivers, the petitions in essence were demands that the court declare the petitioners qualified to sit for the bar examination. Those demands were denied by en banc orders of the Court of Appeals. The denials were judicial acts and as such were reviewable on writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court. They were not reviewable in the District Court. In Re Summers, 325 U.S. 561, 568-69, 65 S.Ct. 1307, 1311-12, 89 L.Ed. 1795 (1945); Grossgold v. Supreme Court of Illinois, 557 F.2d 122, 125 (7th Cir. 1977); Doe v. Pringle, 550 F.2d 596, 599 (10th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 916, 97 S.Ct. 2179, 53 L.Ed.2d 227 (1977); Mackay v. Nesbett, 285 F.Supp. 498, 502 (D.Alaska 1968); aff’d, 412 F.2d 846 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 960, 90 S.Ct. 435, 24 L.Ed.2d 425 (1969).
In the Summers case the Supreme Court held, 325 U.S. 568-69, 65 S.Ct. 1311-12:
A claim of a present right to admission to the bar of a state and a denial of that right is a controversy. When the claim is made in a state court and a denial of the right is made by judicial order, it is a case which may be reviewed under Article III of the Constitution when federal questions are raised and proper steps taken to that end, in this Court. [Footnote omitted]
I can see no difference in principle, so far as review in the Supreme Court is concerned, between denial of a claim of present right *1322to admission to the bar, on the one hand, and denial of a claim that the appellants are presently qualified to take the bar examination.
III.
By the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 473, Congress established “ ‘a Federal-State court system in the District of Columbia analagous to court systems in the several States.’ ” H.R.Rep.No.91-907, p. 35 (1970), quoted in Key v. Doyle, supra, 434 U.S. at 64, 98 S.Ct. at 283. As part of this scheme Congress provided, 84 Stat. 521, D.C.Code § ll-2501(a):
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals shall make such rules as it deems proper respecting the examination, qualification, and admission of persons to membership in its bar, and their censure, suspension, and expulsion.
The decision of the majority sanctions an intrusion by the federal courts into what Congress plainly intended to be the prerogative of the District of Columbia court. I think this is unfortunate. It is especially unfortunate in cases such as these in which candidates for admission to the bar are challenging the judgment of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals that they are not qualified to take the bar examination. In my opinion that kind of controversy should not be the business of the United States District Court.1
I would affirm both judgments.

. Although I think we should not reach the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims, it may be noted that the requirement of graduation from an ABA approved law school as a prerequisite to admission to the bar has been adopted in 33 states and the District of Columbia and has been uniformly upheld against legal challenge. See Brown v. Bd. of Bar Examiners, 623 F.2d 605 (9th Cir. 1980); Lombardi v. Tauro, 470 F.2d 798 (1st Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 412 U.S. 919, 93 S.Ct. 2734, 37 L.Ed.2d 145 (1973); Hackin v. Lockwood, 361 F.2d 499 (9th Cir. 1966), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 960, 87 S.Ct. 396, 17 L.Ed.2d 305 (1966); Louis v. Supreme Court of Nevada, 490 F.Supp. 1174 (D.Nev.1980); Moore v. Supreme Court of South Carolina, 447 F.Supp. 527, aff'd, 577 F.2d 735 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 984, 99 S.Ct. 574, 58 L.Ed.2d 655 (1978); Ostroff v. New Jersey Supreme Court, 415 F.Supp. 326 (D.N.J.1976); Potter v. New Jersey Supreme Court, 403 F.Supp. 1036 (D.N.J.1975); Application of Urie, 617 P.2d 505 (Alaska 1980); In re Stephenson, 511 P.2d 136 (Alaska 1973); Rosenthal v. State Bar Examining Committee, 116 Conn. 409, 165 A. 211 (1933); Hansen v. Minnesota Bd. of Bar Examiners, Minn., 275 N.W.2d 790 (1978), appeal dismissed for want of substantial federal question, 441 U.S. 938, 99 S.Ct. 2154, 60 L.Ed.2d 1040 (1979); Ralston v. Turner, 141 Neb. 556, 4 N.W.2d 302 (1942); Petition of Batten, 83 Nev. 265, 428 P.2d 195 (1967); In re Lorring’s Petition, 75 Nev. 330, 340 P.2d 589 (1959); Henington v. State Bd. of Bar Examiners, 60 N.M. 393, 291 P.2d 1108 (1956); Murphy v. Pennsylvania State Bd. of Bar Examiners, 482 Pa. 43, 393 A.2d 369 (1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 901, 99 S.Ct. 1204, 59 L.Ed.2d 449 (1979); Application of Schatz, 80 Wash.2d 604, 497 P.2d 153 (1972). *1371usage” involved in use of the base year method, maj. op. at 1342. Quite the opposite is true— the base year allocations are already in place in individual pipeline curtailment plans and would remain generally static whereas the administrative complications of keeping up with constantly fluctuating and expanding “current requirements” are truly mind staggering.