Court Opinion

ID: 9428102
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:47.726364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:11.329508
License: Public Domain

Justice Brennan",
with whom Justice Stevens joins, dissenting.
To vacate and remand to the Court of Appeals to determine whether respondents were “strangers to the state court proceeding” within the meaning of Hale v. Bimco Trading, Inc., 306 U. S. 375, 377-378 (1939), is to require the Court of Appeals to perform a task it undoubtedly has already performed. The Court of Appeals concluded that respondents’ lawsuit did not contravene the Anti-Injunction Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2283, and relied on Hale as a basis for its conclusion. Necessarily implicit in that conclusion was the court’s judgment that the Hale test had in all pertinent respects been satisfied and that, accordingly, respondents were “strangers to the state court proceeding.” 1
The Court identifies nothing in the record to support a conclusion that respondents were not “strangers to the state court proceeding,” apart, perhaps, from respondent Munoz’ participation as amicus curiae before the California Supreme *63Court. Even if amicus status were sufficient to require Munoz’ withdrawal as a party,2 it is undisputed that neither respondent Martinez nor respondent De Leon played any role in the state-court litigation. The Court’s statement that “all of [the respondents] were interested and — to an undetermined degree — involved in it,” ante, at 57, is, therefore, unfounded.3
Under these circumstances, to require the Court of Appeals to find — yet again — that respondents were “strangers to the state court proceeding” is an unnecessary waste of judicial resources. Accordingly, I dissent from the remand and would affirm.
Justice Marshall also dissents but would dismiss the writ as improvidently granted.

 The District Court similarly concluded that Hale v. Bimco Trading, Inc., did not bar the instant lawsuit and thus necessarily also found that respondents were “strangers to the state court proceeding.”

 The language of Hale quoted by the Court, ante, at 59, suggests that amicus status does not impair one’s standing as a “stranger,” since the Court contrasted an “independent suitor in the federal court” with “a party to the litigation in the state court.” 306 U. S., at 378. Munoz clearly was not such a party.

 The District Court stated:
“But the plaintiffs herein have no common property interest with McDougal. At issue in the state proceeding was McDougal’s use permit; the use permit is a part of the land and runs with the land, as the California Supreme Court expressly held. The plaintiffs have no property interest in McDougal’s land or in his use permit. Their interest is in the steps taken by the County to enforce what they perceive as an unconstitutional ordinance. Therefore, since the property interest which was litigated in the state courts was exclusively McDougal’s and not the plaintiffs’, it must follow that the plaintiffs were not in privity with McDougal and his state court judgment does not bar them from proceeding with this lawsuit.” App. to Pet. for Cert. B-5.
While it is true, as the Court notes, ante, at 60, n. 3, that the Court of Appeals, unlike the District Court, “declined to consider whether the respondents had been ‘in privity’ with McDougal in the state litigation,” that refusal has no bearing on the disposition of petitioners’ Anti-Injunction Act claim. With respect to that claim, the court necessarily found that respondents were “strangers to the state court proceeding,” and its disposition of the res judicata claim on a ground other than privity is irrelevant.