Court Opinion

ID: 9631293
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:33:42.245115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:51.786859
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, District Judge
(dissenting):
The Court rejects plaintiff’s claim on the authority of the Supreme Court’s affirmance of the three-judge court decision in Norfolk and Western Railway Company v. Beatty, 423 U.S. 1009, 96 S.Ct. 439, 46 L.Ed.2d 381, 44 U.S.L.W. 3343 (1975). With deference, I do not find that decision dispositive of the case before us. Norfolk and Western involved a constitutional challenge to a state practice rule which permitted out-of-state lawyers to participate “in isolated cases on a case-by-case determination.” 400 F.Supp. at 237. The plaintiffs in that litigation thought the state could not limit their participation to such infrequent occasions. They were asserting the right to be represented by out-of-state counsel in all the F.E.L.A. cases pending against them in the state court. Our plaintiff desires out-of-state counsel in a single lawsuit. I can readily agree that the Constitution does not require a state court to permit out-of-state attorneys a right of regular appearance before the court, without qualifying for bar membership according to valid local rules. That is what Norfolk and Western decided. The issue before us is whether a state court that does permit out-of-state counsel to appear on infrequent occasion has in this instance rejected an application on grounds that deny the plaintiff client the equal protection of the laws.
The case has unfortunately become complicated by the prior course of proceedings both in this Court and in the Connecticut Supreme Court. The extent to which those proceedings are related and the extent to which they are not related must be clearly understood. The action of which the plaintiff complains in this Court was taken by a judge of the state Superior Court. That action, denying pro hac- vice admission, was properly challenged in this Court. See Silverman v. Browning, 359 F.Supp. 173, 179-80 (D.Conn.1972) (concurring opinion).1 Ul*89timately this Court elected to abstain to afford the plaintiff an opportunity to obtain from the Connecticut Supreme Court a definitive construction of the out-of-state practice rule that might eliminate the federal constitutional issue. I did not think such construction would aid our resolution of the constitutional question, but agreed to abstention in order to effect a disposition of the case. 359 F.Supp. at 180. Normally, such abstention to seek clarification of state law propels the plaintiff into a new lawsuit in the state courts. Here, however, since the action being challenged in the federal suit had been taken by a state court trial judge in the course of pending litigation, the federal plaintiff sought to secure state court construction by appealing the state trial judge’s decision. Though appeal at that point was untimely, the Connecticut Supreme Court agreed in the interests of expedition to entertain the appeal and ruled authoritatively that § 15A permits pro hac vice admission whenever good cause is shown, and not simply when the conditions illustrated in the Rule are satisfied. Silver-man v. St. Joseph’s Hospital,. 168 Conn. 160, 179, 363 A.2d 22, 31 (1975).
Since the plaintiff did not reserve his federal question for subsequent determination by the federal court, his present claims would have been foreclosed from further litigation had the State Supreme Court ruled upon them. See England v. Medical Examiners, 375 U.S. 411, 84 S.Ct. 461, 11 L.Ed.2d 440 (1964). However, the State Supreme Court, though willing to hear the appeal out of time, felt obliged to invoke its rule precluding appellate consideration of issues not presented to the state trial court. To the extent this refusal to adjudicate the federal constitutional issue also rested on the pendency of this federal court action, see 168 Conn, at 168-169, 363 A.2d at 26, it represents an unfortunate misunderstanding of abstention and the England doctrine. A federal court abstains to afford the state courts an opportunity to decide state law issues, and if the federal court plaintiff does not reserve the federal questions, there is absolutely no federal reason for a state court to decline to adjudicate the entire controversy. Doing so in this litigation would have ended it one year ago.
In any event, the State Supreme Court declined to decide the federal question, and plaintiff is not foreclosed from returning to this Court. But it is important to bear in mind that he returns to resume the litigation that was interrupted by this Court’s abstention; he does not bring before us for review any aspect of the decision of the State Supreme Court, as to which we have no appellate jurisdiction whatsoever. The only new ingredient in the lawsuit in this Court is the definitive construction of § 15A, a construction which, as I feared earlier, does not eliminate the constitutional question before us.
On the merits, I adhere to the views expressed previously, 359 F.Supp. at 177. Plaintiff’s claim was rejected by the state Superior Court Judge for reasons that bear no rational relationship to any legitimate interests of the state in regulating the practice of law. The transcript of the proceedings in which the action here challenged was taken makes entirely clear the basis for the trial judge’s action. He said he was denying the application because there had been no showing plaintiff had a long-standing relationship with the out-of-state counsel he had selected, nor that Connecticut counsel were not available. The fact that he issued findings nearly a year later purporting to reject the application for lack of an adequate showing of good cause cannot change the facts concerning what he did when he denied the application and what he said were the reasons for denying it. See SEC v. Chenery, 318 U.S. 80, 87-88, 63 S.Ct. 454, 459-460, 87 L.Ed. 626, 633-634 (1943). Were the record ambiguous, the subsequent findings might provide a basis for clarification, but the record made at the time is too clear for subsequent restructuring.
*90For these reasons, and for those previously set forth, I would grant plaintiff the relief requested.

. Arguably, the propriety of seeking relief from this Court during the pendency of the state court civil proceeding has been rendered in some doubt by the Supreme Court’s limited extension of Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), to civil proceedings. Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 95 S.Ct. 1200, 43 L.Ed.2d 482 (1975). Huffman involved a civil proceeding closely analogous to a criminal action, a circumstance totally lacking in this litigation. Moreover, if denial of admission of an attorney pro hac vice denies a state court litigant his constitutional rights, he faces uncertain vindication of those rights if he is limited to an appeal of the judgment ultimately obtained in the state court litigation. At that point, he might well be required to demonstrate prejudice by the denial of the attorney of his choice, although it is possible that an unconstitutional denial of the selected attorney would be grounds for reversal without speculative exploration of actual prejudice. In any event, Huffman has not extended Younger to all civil proceedings, and the ruling here challenged is sufficiently distinct from the routine conduct of the state court litigation to *89warrant federal court inquiry pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Cf. Law Students Civil Rights Research Council, Inc. v. Wadmond, 299 F.Supp. 117, 122 n.4 (S.D.N.Y.1969) (Friendly, J.).