Court Opinion

ID: 9428248
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:23:14.064881+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:12.564319
License: Public Domain

Justice Rehnquist,
concurring.
If I were satisfied that this appeal was from a “final judgment or decree” of the California Court of Appeal, as that term is used in 28 U. S. C. § 1257, I would have little difficulty in agreeing with much of what is said in the dissenting *634opinion of Justice Brennan. Indeed, the Court’s opinion notes that “the federal constitutional aspects of that issue are not to be cast aside lightly. . . .” Ante, at 633.
But “the judicial Power of the United States” which is vested in this Court by Art. Ill of the Constitution is divided by that article into original jurisdiction and appellate jurisdiction. With respect to appellate jurisdiction, Art. Ill provides:
“In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”
The particular “regulation” of our appellate jurisdiction here relevant is found in 28 U. S. C. § 1257, which provides:
“Final judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had, may be reviewed by the Supreme Court as follows:
“(2) By appeal, where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of any state on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of its validity.”
The principal case construing § 1257 is Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469 (1975), from which I dissented on the issue of finality. In Cox, the Court said:
“The Court has noted that ‘[considerations of English usage as well as those of judicial policy’ would justify an interpretation of the final-judgment rule to preclude review ‘where anything further remains to be determined by a State court, no matter how dissociated from the only federal issue that has finally been adjudicated by the highest court of the State.’ Radio Station WOW, Inc. v. Johnson, 326 U. S. 120, 124 (1945). But *635the Court there observed that the rule had not been administered in such a mechanical fashion and that there were circumstances in which there had been ‘a departure from this requirement of finality for federal appellate jurisdiction.’ Ibid.
“These circumstances were said to be Very few,’ ibid.; but as the cases have unfolded, the Court has recurringly encountered situations in which the highest court of a State has finally determined the federal issue present in a particular case, but in which there are further proceedings in the lower state courts to come. There are now at least four categories of such cases in which the Court has treated the decision of the federal issue as a final judgment for the purposes of 28 U. S. C. § 1257 and has taken jurisdiction without awaiting the completion of the additional proceedings anticipated in the lower state courts.” Id., at 477.
In Cox, the Court stated that the fourth category of cases which fell within the ambit of § 1257 finality were “those situations where the federal issue has been finally decided in the state courts with further proceedings pending in which the party seeking review here might prevail on the merits on nonfederal grounds, thus rendering unnecessary review of the federal issue by this Court, and where reversal of the state court on the federal issue would be preclusive of any further litigation on the relevant cause of action rather than merely controlling the nature and character of, or determining the admissibility of evidence in, the state proceedings still to come. In these circumstances, if a refusal to immediately review the state-court decision might seriously erode federal policy, the Court has entertained and decided the federal issue, which itself has been finally determined by the state courts for purposes of the state litigation.” Id., at 482-483.
I am not sure under how many of the four exceptions of *636Cox Justice Brennan may view this case as falling, but it seems to me that this case illustrates the problems which arise from a less-than-literal reading of the language “final judgment or decree.” The procedural history of this case in the state courts is anomalous, to say the least, and it has resulted in a majority of this Court concluding that the California courts have not decided whether any taking in fact has occurred, ante, at 631, n. 11, and Justice Brennan concluding that the Court of Appeal has held that the city of San Diego’s course of conduct could not effect a “taking” of appellant’s property. Post, at 661, n. 27. Having read the characterization of the California court proceedings in the opinion of this Court and in the opinion of Justice Brennan as carefully as I can, I can only conclude that they disagree as to what issues remain open on remand from the State Court of Appeal to the Superior Court, but agree that such proceedings may occur.
Under these circumstances, it seems to me to be entirely in accord with the language of 28 U. S. C. § 1257, though perhaps not entirely in accord with the above-quoted portion of the opinion in Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, supra, to conclude that this appeal is not from a “final judgment or decree.” I would feel much better able to formulate federal constitutional principles of damages for land-use regulation which amounts to a taking of land under the Eminent Domain Clause of the Fifth Amendment if I knew what disposition the California courts finally made of this case. Because I do not, and cannot at this stage of the litigation, know that, I join the opinion of the Court today in which the appeal is dismissed for want of a final judgment.