Court Opinion

ID: 9460644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:56:56.497568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:43.463416
License: Public Domain

PELL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I agree with the concept implicit in the majority opinion that it is probably the rare case in which a sufficient claim of constitutional invalidity has not been alleged so as to mandate the convening of a three-judge district court. I also agree that by the action of the district court here in dismissing there is inescapably a determination by that court that the regulation was constitutionally valid. I have difficulty, however, in discerning how a single district judge can determine that there is no substantial constitutional question without at least peeking at the other side of the coin on which the clear constitutionality of the regulation is evident.
While the district court’s resolution of the substantiality issue may be made no easier by a full scale panoply of claims of unconstitutionality neither do I think that broad-sweeping conclusory allegations, as I view those in the case before us, should serve to obscure an absence of a viable claim.
The district court here gave careful consideration to each constitutional claim and properly, in my opinion, disposed of the case at the courthouse door where it should have been. Holiday Magic, Inc. v. Warren, 357 F.Supp. 20 (E.D.Wis.1973). I would adopt the opinion of the district court as the opinion of this court. Further, it appears to me, although the parties did not address them, that there might be problems presented here by 28 U.S.C. § 2283, the anti-injunction statute, and the decisions of the Supreme Court typified by Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), and Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U.S. 66, 91 S.Ct. 764, 27 L.Ed.2d 688 (1971). Cf. Steffel v. Thompson, 42 U.S.L.W. 4357, 415 U.S. 452, 94 S.Ct. 1209, 39 L.Ed.2d 505 (1974). However, because of the adequate disposition of the case by the district court I do not deem it necessary to explore these potential issues, which were not briefed or discussed by the parties, when the existence of these is*699sues, if in fact they are present, would only fortify the correctness of the result reached by the district court.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.