Court Opinion

ID: 9482037
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:38:24.78037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:43.504496
License: Public Domain

NYGAARD, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I respectfully concur in part and dissent in part. I agree with the majority’s opinion that this case is not moot, but I disagree with its England analysis.1 I conclude *285that Ivy waived England reservation of its § 1983 claims by unreservedly and voluntarily litigating the freedom of association issue, and having it decided in the state proceedings before attempting any England reservation; and by failing to notify the state administrative tribunal of its other constitutional arguments before that tribunal finally decided against Ivy on jurisdictional and liability grounds.
I would hold that all of Ivy’s § 1983 claims must be dismissed by the district court. Without a valid England reservation, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine divests the district court of subject matter jurisdiction over Counts One and Two of Ivy’s complaint. If the district court hears those counts, it would in effect be undertaking impermissible lower federal court review of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision in the Frank case. As for Count Three, it is barred by New Jersey’s entire controversy doctrine because Ivy did not raise it in the first instance in the state proceedings.
I find no precedent for the majority’s view that this appeal turns on equitable considerations, rather than Ivy’s clear failure to make timely and effective England reservations. Furthermore, even if the majority is correct that Ivy made valid England reservations, the majority is wrong that Ivy is nevertheless bound by state findings of fact. England guarantees a federal trial de novo of all facts material to a party’s reserved constitutional claims, state findings of fact notwithstanding.
I.
Ivy’s § 1983 complaint, App. 82-92, consists of three counts. Each count alleges that the exercise of jurisdiction by New Jersey’s Department of Law and Public Safety, Division on Civil Rights (“Division”) over Ivy pursuant to New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination (“LAD”), N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 et seq., is unconstitutional.
Count One alleges the Division’s assertion of jurisdiction denies Ivy its First Amendment right of free association. Count Two alleges the administrative process which resulted in the Division’s exercise of jurisdiction deprived Ivy of its federal constitutional right to procedural due process. Count Three asserts the LAD is unconstitutionally “void for vagueness”— that is, the statute fails federal due process requirements because it lacks ascertainable standards for determining whether Ivy and other clubs like Ivy are public accommodations — and therefore leaves New Jersey officials with “uncontrolled discretion” to hold “such a club as [Ivy] to be a public accommodation contrary to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments’ due process requirements.” App. 91.
Ivy’s three count complaint was first brought against the defendant-appellants, New Jersey’s Attorney General and the Director of the Division, after the Division finally decided, in the course of fully adversarial proceedings, that it could assert jurisdiction over Ivy under the LAD. The Division’s final jurisdictional determination incorporated an express rejection of Ivy’s First Amendment freedom of association argument. Thus, Ivy filed its federal complaint after the Division considered and rejected Ivy’s First Amendment argument, but before conclusion of other Division proceedings in this case, that is before the Division held Ivy liable for sex discrimination and subject to an order of damages and remedies.
Given the pendency of the state proceedings, the district court stayed Ivy’s federal action on Pullman abstention grounds. The Pullman stay gave New Jersey tribunals an opportunity to decide state law questions in prank’s case which might make it unnecessary to reach Ivy’s federal constitutional allegations.2
*286After suffering adverse jurisdictional, liability, damages and remedies decisions by the Division, Ivy unsuccessfully appealed to New Jersey appellate courts. Ultimately, Ivy lost before the New Jersey Supreme Court, which affirmed the Division’s decision that Ivy was subject to the Division's jurisdiction under the LAD and held that the administrative procedures followed by the Division with respect to its exercise of jurisdiction over Ivy “fully comported with administrative due process”. Frank v. Ivy Club, 120 N.J. 73, 105-111, 576 A.2d 241, 254, 257-261 (1990), cert. denied sub nom., Tiger Inn v. Frank, — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 799, 112 L.Ed.2d 860 (1991).
Ivy then moved the district court to reopen Ivy’s stayed § 1983 action. The district court granted Ivy’s motion, finding Ivy had preserved its England rights with respect to its § 1983 claims because England 's overriding concern is that “Federal Constitutional rights be fully litigated.” App. 146. Nevertheless, the district court expressed “some hesitation” with its decision, App. 147, and so it certified this question for appeal under 28 U.S.C. 1292(b):
Whether, on the record before the court, there was a waiver by The Ivy Club of its rights under England v. Louisiana State Bd. of Medical Examiners, 375 U.S. 411 [84 S.Ct. 461, 11 L.Ed.2d 440] (1964), it appearing that The Ivy Club’s federal constitutional rights were asserted as defenses and decided in administrative proceedings before the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, but were expressly reserved from assertion by The Ivy Club in subsequent proceedings on the merits before the Appellate Division and the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
App. 154-55.
On appeal of that order, appellants challenge the decision to reopen Ivy’s case. They assert Ivy is barred from litigating its federal constitutional claims in the district court because Ivy failed to reserve its England rights in the state proceedings and, therefore, Ivy’s § 1983 counts are barred by issue preclusion,3 New Jersey’s entire controversy doctrine, and the federal Rook-er-Feldman doctrine.4 Ivy responds that it did not waive its England rights prior to the Pullman abstention, that at all times subsequent to the abstention it properly reserved its § 1983 claims — and, accordingly, dismissal of its federal action is not warranted.
II.

Implied and Express England Reservations

In England v. Louisiana State Bd. of Med. Exam., 375 U.S. 411, 84 S.Ct. 461, 11 L.Ed.2d 440 (1964), the Supreme Court addressed how a federal litigant, subjected to Pullman abstention after properly invoking the jurisdiction of a federal district court, may return to the federal court for a trial of his federal constitutional claims. England offers a litigant, who is “compelled, without his consent and through no fault of his own, to accept instead a state court’s determination of those claims” following Pullman abstention, id., 375 U.S. at 415, 84 S.Ct. at 464, an opportunity to avoid the preclusive effects of the adverse state determination, even one directly rejecting its stayed federal claims. The opportunity depends on timely reservation, i.e., timely objective assertion of England rights during the course of state proceedings.
If an England reservation is properly made, the litigant who makes it may return to federal district court for a trial de novo of his reserved federal questions. Id., 375 U.S. at 416, 84 S.Ct. at 465. Furthermore, the state court should not decide the re*287served federal claims. Even if it does, the federal courts will not give preclusive effect to the state decisions on the federal questions when the district court reopens the federal action stayed under Pullman. See Wright § 4243.
Not all preclusive effects of adverse state decisions are avoided by England reservations. State court resolution of the state law question that triggered a Pullman abstention “must be given some pre-clusive effect; otherwise abstention would be a meaningless procedure.” Kovats v. Rutgers, 749 F.2d 1041, 1046 (3d Cir.1984).
Reservation of England rights must be timely and may be express or implied. The Supreme Court described an express reservation as follows:
[A] party may readily forestall any conclusion that he has elected not to return to the District Court. He may accomplish this by making on the state record the “reservation to the disposition of the entire case by the state courts”.... That is, he may inform the state courts that he is exposing his federal claims there only for the purpose of complying with [Government & Civic Employees Organizing Committee, C.I.O. v. Windsor, 353 U.S. 364, 77 S.Ct. 838, 1 L.Ed.2d 894 (1957)], and that he intends, should the state courts hold against him on the question of state law, to return to the District Court for disposition of his federal contentions.
375 U.S. at 421, 84 S.Ct. at 468.5 As England said, Windsor requires a reserving party to “inform” the state court of his federal claims without freely and unreservedly litigating them. England, 375 U.S. at 420, 84 S.Ct. at 467.
In summary, then, an express England reservation has three elements: (1) explicit expression to the state tribunal of an intent to return to federal court in the wake of an adverse state determination, if any; (2) explicit notification to the state tribunal of the federal questions that would be reserved6; and (3) an absence of voluntary litigation by the reserving party of the federal questions that would be preserved for federal trial.
Implied reservations also work to guarantee England rights to return to district court for a trial de novo on federal constitutional questions. England, 375 U.S. at 421, 84 S.Ct. at 468 (“an explicit reservation is not indispensable”). Although an implied reservation does not require an explicit expression of intent to return to federal court, it is not effective if “it clearly appears that [the reserving party] voluntarily did more than Windsor required and fully litigated his federal claims in the state courts.” Id. “[I]f a party freely and without reservation submits his federal claims for decision by the state courts, litigates them there, and has them decided there, then ... he has elected to forgo his right to return to the District Court.” Id., 375 U.S. at 419, 84 S.Ct. at 467. See also Bradley, 913 F.2d 1064, 1073; 18 Wright § 4471, p. 712 (1981) (“Even absent an explicit reservation, any party may return the federal claims to federal court unless he voluntarily does more than required in exposing his federal arguments to the state court.”).
Thus, an express or implied reservation is not effective if before it is made, the party has “freely and unreservedly” litigated his constitutional issue and the state tribunal has decided it. Also, a valid reservation, express or implied, requires that the state tribunal be notified of the nature of the federal constitutional issues that are *288reserved. If an effective England reservation of federal constitutional issues is made, the federal district court which has abstained under Pullman must decide the reserving party’s federal questions after the state court has acted. England, 375 U.S. at 421, 84 S.Ct. at 468.
III.
The threshold issue here is whether Ivy properly reserved any of its § 1983 claims for federal trial de novo. The timing and character of Ivy’s conduct during the state proceedings should determine whether Ivy made or waived any express or implied England reservations. Accordingly, the parties’ litigation must be described in some detail.7
Sally Frank was a student of Princeton University in February 1979 when she filed her first complaint with the Division against Princeton and three male-only eating clubs associated with Princeton, including Ivy. Frank alleged that these entities had discriminated against her on the basis of her gender in violation of the LAD. The Division refused to process that complaint.
In November of 1979 Frank filed a second complaint alleging discrimination and that the eating clubs were “public accommodations” subject to the LAD. This second complaint was summarily dismissed by the Division on December 9, 1981 for lack of jurisdiction because the Division considered the Princeton eating clubs to be distinctly private entities outside the reach of the LAD, and because the Division found no probable cause to support the allegations against Princeton. See Frank v. Ivy Club, 228 N.J.Super. 40, 548 A.2d 1142, 1145 (1988) (describing procedural history of Frank’s case), rev’d, Frank v. Ivy Club, 120 N.J. 73, 576 A.2d 241 (1990). Before this dismissal, Ivy asserted as a defense, among others, its members’ rights to freedom of association under the First Amendment. Id. Frank appealed the dismissal to the New Jersey Superior Court.
When opposing Frank’s appeal of the Division’s dismissal of her second complaint, Ivy again raised and fully briefed the freedom of association issue. See App. 7-9. On August 1, 1983, the Superior Court reversed and remanded without reaching the merits of either the Division’s dismissal of Frank’s complaint or Ivy’s First Amendment defense, on the grounds that the Division had dismissed without holding a hearing, and without making findings of fact. See Frank v. Ivy Club, 548 A.2d at 1145.
When the Division reconsidered Frank’s (now amended) complaint on remand, Ivy again asserted its freedom of association defense against the Division’s exercise of jurisdiction. This is clear given the language of the Division’s May 14, 1985 Finding of Probable Cause, App. 16-67, and other portions of the record on appeal.8 See, e.g., App. 10-14 (Brief of Respondents Ivy Club and The University Cottage Club, stamped “received” on December 2, 1985 by New Jersey’s Office of Administrative Law).
After conducting extensive fact-finding and holding two adversarial fact-finding conferences, fully judicial in nature,9 the Division issued its Finding of Probable Cause. The Finding addressed two issues: *289probable discrimination and jurisdiction under the LAD.
Concerning jurisdiction, the Finding concluded on undisputed facts that the defendant eating clubs including Ivy were related integrally to Princeton University, and therefore, were not “distinctly private” associations exempt from the Division’s jurisdiction under the LAD.10 With respect to Ivy’s First Amendment defense, the Division’s Finding of Probable Cause said:
[The eating clubs] assert that if the L.A.D. is interpreted as reaching the Clubs, the members’ constitutional rights of privacy and freedom of association would be violated. The Clubs claim an affirmative right to discriminate based on their members [sic] associational preference. After careful consideration, the Division finds that applying the L.A.D. to Respondent Clubs would not violate any constitutional rights of association.
App. 60 (emphasis added). Then, after several pages of analysis of the “conflict between associational rights and anti-discrimination legislation ... recently examined by the Supreme Court in Roberts v. United States Jaycees, [468 U.S. 609, 104 S.Ct. 3244, 82 L.Ed.2d 462 (1984)]”, App. 60-65, the Division expressly rejected the clubs’ freedom of association defense again by saying, “free association rights would not be violated by the assertion of jurisdiction over these ‘private clubs’ that are integrally connected with Princeton University”. App. 65 (emphasis added).
Thus, the jurisdictional portion11 of the Finding of Probable Cause indicates clearly that before the Division asserted probable jurisdiction, Ivy voluntarily litigated the same freedom of association issue it now seeks to relitigate in federal court. The Finding of Probable Cause shows also that the Division explicitly rejected Ivy’s freedom of association defense.
After the Finding of Probable Cause, Ivy and the University Cottage Club continued to assert freedom of association arguments directed at the jurisdictional issue. During adversarial proceedings leading to the Division’s final jurisdictional decision,12 Ivy and the Cottage Club devoted at least ten pages of two joint briefs to the Division to the freedom of association issue. See App. 10-15.
Nevertheless, on February 6, 1986, the Division determined finally that it could exercise LAD jurisdiction over Ivy and the other eating clubs despite their freedom of association arguments. App. 68-81. The Division’s final jurisdictional order rejected Ivy’s freedom of association defense by adopting the Finding of Probable Cause’s prior rejection of the defense. See App. 74 (February 16,1986 final jurisdictional order expressly incorporates “the undisputed facts, conclusions and legal reasoning as set forth in the jurisdictional section of the Finding of Probable Cause”) (emphasis added); App. 80-81 (same order, wherein “Director rejects respondents’ exceptions and affirms the finding and determination as rendered in the Jurisdictional section of the Finding of Probable Cause and the Initial Decision in this matter.”); see also note 15, herein.
On February 13, 1986, that is after the Division finally asserted LAD jurisdiction and rejected Ivy’s freedom of association *290defense, Ivy filed its § 1983 action in federal court. Count One alleged that the Division’s exercise of jurisdiction violated Ivy’s constitutional right to freedom of association, the same argument the Division rejected when it exercised jurisdiction under the LAD. Counts Two and Three alleged the Division’s exercise of jurisdiction was unconstitutional on two grounds never raised before the Division: the Division’s determination of jurisdiction violated Ivy’s federal right to procedural due process, and the LAD was unconstitutionally void for vagueness.
Given the pendency of the Division’s proceedings against Ivy, the district court stayed Ivy’s § 1983 action by abstaining under Pullman on June 9, 1986. Also, the district court ordered that the stay “not be interpreted as a ruling that plaintiffs have properly reserved their federal constitutional claims for federal court adjudication.” App. 94.
Then, on July 28, 1986, the Division issued its final order that Ivy was liable for discrimination under the LAD.13 Only later, on July 29, 1986, at the start of administrative hearings before an AU on the issue of damages and remedies, did Ivy first expressly indicate on the record of the state proceedings that it intended to reserve England rights.14
Nearly a year later, on May 26, 1987, the Division issued its final decision in Frank’s case. This order adopted in part and modified in part the AU’s recommendation of appropriate remedies. App. 99-115. It also reaffirmed the Division’s earlier rejection of Ivy’s freedom of association defense against the Division’s exercise of jurisdiction under the LAD.15
After this last agency order in the Frank case, Ivy appealed the Division’s adverse decisions to the New Jersey Superior Court. Ivy’s appeal purported to make an England reservation of Ivy’s federal constitutional claims. App. 133.
On October 4, 1988, the Superior Court reversed the Division’s decisions on jurisdiction and liability, holding that the Chief of the Enforcement Bureau of the Division had erred during the initial fact-finding conference leading up to the Division’s initial Finding of Probable Cause. The Superior Court said the Chief erred by exceeding his authority by resolving disputed facts; and that the Division, by relying on the facts as resolved by the Chief, had abused its discretion. Frank v. Ivy Club, 548 A.2d at 1153-54.
Sally Frank then appealed the Superior Court’s reversal of the Division’s final jurisdictional and liability decisions to the New Jersey Supreme Court. Although Ivy submitted no new briefs to the state supreme court, Ivy’s appellate brief for the Superior Court, which contained a purported England reservation, was forwarded to the state supreme court.
Frank prevailed before the New Jersey Supreme Court. It reversed the Superior Court and affirmed the Division’s final decisions on jurisdiction and liability. Al*291though the supreme court did not rule directly on the merits of Ivy’s constitutional defense against the Division’s exercise of jurisdiction, it took note that the Division had expressly rejected Ivy’s “constitutional free-association” argument when making the Finding of Probable Cause. See Frank v. Ivy Club, 576 A.2d at 251. The supreme court found that the Division’s handling of Ivy’s case and the Superior Court’s two reviews of it constituted a “procedure [which] accorded the parties their administrative due process rights”. Id. at 244.
After the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed the Division’s adjudication, Ivy moved the district court to reopen the stayed § 1983 action, and the district court did. The court also certified the England question for defendants’ interlocutory appeal.
IV.

Ivy’s Waiver of England Rights

I would hold that Ivy reserved none of its § 1983 claims for trial in federal, district court.
A. Freedom of Association Claim
Ivy waived England rights with respect to its freedom of association claim (Count One) by freely and unreservedly litigating that issue before the Division’s final jurisdictional determination on February 6, 1986. In England, the Supreme Court declared clearly,
We now explicitly hold that if a party freely and without reservation submits his federal claims for decision by the state courts, litigates them there, and has them decided there, then — whether or not he seeks direct review of the state decision in this Court — he has elected to forgo his right to return to the District Court.
375 U.S. at 319, 84 S.Ct. at 467 (emphasis added).
The record on appeal shows Ivy voluntarily litigated the merits of its freedom of association defense against the Division’s exercise of jurisdiction without asserting any England reservation before the Division’s final February 6, 1986 jurisdictional decision. Indeed, Ivy unreservedly litigated its freedom of association defense from the earliest state proceedings through the Division’s final rejection of Ivy’s position; Ivy raised the defense when Frank filed her 1979 complaint; Ivy briefed the issue when opposing Frank’s 1982 appeal to the New Jersey Superior Court; Ivy advanced the freedom of association defense before the Division made its Finding of Probable Cause, which expressly rejected Ivy’s argument; and Ivy continued to litigate the same defense during the fully adversarial proceedings which resulted in the Division’s February 6, 1986 final order on jurisdiction, which rejected Ivy’s constitutional argument. All this occurred before Ivy did anything arguably constituting an express or implied England reservation.
In sum, Ivy unreservedly litigated the freedom of association issue and had it decided by a state tribunal before making any England reservation.16 This constitutes a waiver of England rights with respect to Count One of Ivy’s § 1983 action. There is no evidence Ivy was compelled to litigate the freedom of association issue unreservedly and as fully as it did.
If state litigants could successfully assert express or implied England reservations after they freely and voluntarily litigated their federal constitutional allegations and state tribunals rejected them, then litigants would be free to test their federal claims in state proceedings, and if unsuccessful there, get a second chance in § 1983 actions in federal district courts. Such an expansive interpretation of England would controvert the full faith and credit federal courts must give to state decisions reviewed by state courts, and result in repetitive, vexatious litigation.
*292Even if filing a federal action might by itself in some circumstances qualify as an implied England reservation, Ivy’s § 1983 complaint was filed too late to be an implied reservation. Ivy’s federal action, like its belated express attempts to reserve, followed Ivy’s own efforts to litigate the First Amendment issue, and the Division’s final jurisdictional order rejecting Ivy’s First Amendment defense. England reservations should precede the state decisions on federal questions that would be avoided.
That Ivy’s belated attempts' to reserve followed a final state agency determination of jurisdiction rather than a state court decision on the issue should not help Ivy’s case. The essential elements and timing of valid England reservations should not differ depending on whether the state decision to be avoided originated with an administrative tribunal and was subjected to higher state court review17 — or, rather, with a fully judicial state court.
B. Procedural Due Process and Void for Vagueness Claims
Like Ivy’s First Amendment claim, its procedural due process and void for vagueness arguments (Counts Two and Three, respectively) were not properly reserved by Ivy. Although Ivy did not unreservedly litigate these two issues in the state proceedings, Ivy also did not inform the Division of them before the Division decided the relevant jurisdictional question. Thus, Ivy failed to do what Windsor requires as a prerequisite of reservation: Ivy did not give the state tribunal an opportunity to decide the state law jurisdictional question in light of Ivy’s federal due process and void for vagueness arguments.
Under England, it is not enough to simply refrain from litigating in state proceedings the federal constitutional questions that would be reserved for a subsequent federal trial. An effective England reservation requires that a reserving litigant notify the state tribunal of the federal questions. Bernardsville Quarry v. Borough of Bernardsville, 929 F.2d 927, 929 (3d Cir.1991), petition for cert. filed, 60 U.S.L.W. 3057 (U.S. June 3, 1991) (No. 91-111).
Ivy never informed the state administrative tribunals of its procedural due process and void for vagueness arguments. Ivy cannot now assert successfully that it reserved these claims, even if it did refrain from litigating them during the course of the state proceedings.
In conclusion, Ivy failed to make an effective England reservation in this case. Accordingly, each of its federal claims must be exposed to legal doctrines which require the district court to dismiss Ivy’s complaint.
V.

Absent Effective England Reservations, Each of Ivy’s § 1983 Claims Must Be Dismissed

Although the district court only certified the question of whether Ivy properly reserved its § 1983 claims under England, the undisputed facts of this case permit this court to conclude Ivy’s unreserved claims must be dismissed on several grounds. The Rooker-Feldman jurisdictional doctrine divests the district court of subject matter jurisdiction over Counts One and Two. New Jersey’s entire controversy doctrine requires dismissal of Count Three.
A. Under Rooker-Feldman, the District Court Does Not Have Subject Matter Jurisdiction to Hear Counts One and Two.
In Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923), the Supreme Court established a jurisdictional rule which bars lower federal courts from reviewing state court judgments. The doctrine has much the same effect as claim and issue preclusion. See 18 Wright § 4469.
*293The Supreme Court reinvigorated the doctrine in District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983). Feldman reiterated Rooker’s rule that a federal district court is without authority to review final determinations of state or local courts because such review can only be conducted by the Supreme Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1257. Id., 460 U.S. at 476, 103 S.Ct. at 1311 (citing Rooker). Feld-man also held that, to the extent federal plaintiffs effectively seek review of the constitutionality of a state or local court’s judicial (rather than administrative or legislative) actions, a district court has no jurisdiction.
[District courts] do not have jurisdiction ... over challenges to state-court decision in particular cases arising out of judicial proceedings even if those challenges allege that the state court’s action was unconstitutional. Review of those decisions may be had only in [the United States Supreme Court].
Id., 460 U.S. at 486, 103 S.Ct. at 1317. Nevertheless, to the extent federal plaintiffs seek generally to challenge the federal constitutionality of a local or state statute or judicially promulgated rule, Feld-man held a district court does have jurisdiction to hear plaintiffs’ claims. Id., 460 U.S. at 482-86, 103 S.Ct. at 1315-17.
Rooker-Feldman, then, stands for the following two propositions relevant to this appeal: (1) to the extent Ivy seeks district court review of the constitutionality of New Jersey judicial acts determining Ivy’s rights in the Frank case, the district court has no jurisdiction; and, (2) to the extent Ivy mounts a general challenge to the constitutionality of the LAD, the district court has jurisdiction to hear that claim.
Applied here, Rooker-Feldman bars the district court from asserting subject matter jurisdiction over Counts One and Two of Ivy’s complaint, that is, Ivy’s freedom of association and procedural due process claims. These § 1983 counts attempt to nullify the New Jersey Supreme Court’s affirmation of the Division’s actual assertion of jurisdiction over Ivy in the Frank case. If Ivy were to litigate these counts in district court, the district court would be effectively reviewing the state supreme court’s judicial determination that the Division properly exercised jurisdiction over Ivy. Rooker-Feldman’s jurisdictional rule precludes this.18 Only the United States Supreme Court may review the New Jersey Supreme Court’s final judgment in the Frank case.19
Rooker-Feldman does not, however, bar the district court’s exercise of jurisdiction over the general constitutional challenge to the LAD represented by Count Three of Ivy’s § 1983 action.20 This general challenge does not allege the unconstitutionality of a specific state “judicial act”, which allegation Rooker-Feldman would not permit the district court to hear. No New Jersey tribunal, quasi-judicia.1 or fully judicial in nature, ever reached the question of whether the LAD is unconstitutionally vague under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, as Ivy alleges it is.
B. New Jersey’s Entire Controversy Doctrine Compels the District Court to Dismiss Count Three
New Jersey’s entire controversy doctrine would bar New Jersey courts from hearing *294any of Ivy’s § 1983 claims which it could have, but did not, raise in the first instance in the New Jersey proceedings. The doctrine, now codified at N.J.R.Civ.P. 4:30A,21 requires that “a party who has elected to hold back from the first proceeding a related component of the controversy be barred from thereafter raising it in a subsequent proceeding.” Woodward-Clyde v. Chem. & P. Sciences, 105 N.J. 464, 523 A.2d 131, 135 (1987) (citations omitted). The doctrine “requires that a person assert in one action all related claims against a particular adversary or be precluded from bringing a second action based on the omitted claims against that party.” Melikian v. Corradetti, 791 F.2d 274, 279 (3d Cir.1986). A party “is precluded from litigating in a subsequent proceeding both claims that it actually litigated and claims that it could have litigated in an earlier proceeding.” Bernardsville Quarry, 929 F.2d at 930.
“The New Jersey entire controversy doctrine is a particularly strict application of the rule against splitting a cause of action. Like all versions of that rule its purpose is to increase judicial efficiency.” Bennun v. Rutgers State University, et al., 941 F.2d 154, 163 (3d Cir.1991), citing Bernardsville Quarry, 929 F.2d at 930. The entire controversy doctrine “ensure[s] that, to the extent possible, disputes are settled in a single litigation.” O’Shea v. Amoco Oil Co., 886 F.2d 584, 594 (3d Cir.1989).
Under the entire controversy doctrine, all possible claims must be brought in a single action:
[If] the litigants in the action as framed will, after final judgment therein is entered, be likely to have to engage in additional litigation in order to conclusively dispose of their respective bundles of rights and liabilities which derive from a single transaction or related series of transactions, then the omitted component must be regarded as constituting an element of the minimum mandatory unit of litigation. That result must obtain whether or not the component constitutes either an independent cause of action by technical common law definition or an independent claim which, in the abstract, is separately adjudicable.
Non-joinder of claims or parties required to be joined by the entire controversy doctrine shall result in the preclusion of the omitted claims to the extent required by the entire controversy doctrine.
Melikian, 791 F.2d at 279-80 (citation omitted); O’Shea, 886 F.2d at 590-91 (same).
We must apply this test to Count Three22 of Ivy’s federal action in order to decide whether Ivy’s void for vagueness argument could have been decisive of Ivy’s rights in the Frank case. If it could have been, the entire controversy doctrine would bar a New Jersey court from hearing Count Three for the first time now. See O’Shea, 886 F.2d at 591; Bernardsville Quarry, 929 F.2d at 929.
A New Jersey court confronting Ivy’s void for vagueness claim for the first time now would dismiss it under the entire controversy doctrine. A New Jersey court would find that Ivy could have, but did not, raise the void for vagueness challenge to the LAD at the start of the state proceedings; and that the issue might potentially have determined the parties’ respective rights and liabilities under the LAD.
Following the Full Faith and Credit Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1738, the district court must do what a state court would. Migra v. Warren City School Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 81, 104 S.Ct. 892, 896, 79 L.Ed.2d 56 (1984); Kremer v. Chemical Construction Corp., 456 U.S. 461, 466, 102 S.Ct. 1883, 1889, 72 L.Ed.2d 262 (1982) (construing 28 U.S.C. § 1738). Since the New Jersey Supreme Court’s final judgment has ended the Frank v. Ivy litigation, the district court now must apply the entire controversy doctrine, as a New Jersey Court *295would, to dismiss Ivy’s void for vagueness claim, which Ivy never raised at the start of the state proceedings.
VI.
The majority concludes on “a balancing of the equities” that “a sense of basic fairness dictates that Ivy be permitted to litigate its federal claims in the federal forum”, Maj.Op. at 282-83; and that "Ivy, in the unique circumstances of this case, sufficiently reserved its right to litigate its federal claims in federal court.” Id. at 273. The circumstances here do not warrant the majority’s balancing approach to the issue of whether Ivy made effective England reservations.
Ivy’s England rights should turn on Ivy’s conduct during the state proceedings, not on some vague notion that “basic fairness dictates” Ivy’s § 1983 action should be reopened. The “equities” and “basic fairness” approach taken by the majority does not advance analysis of this case, is without precedent, and will only confuse later litigants as to what they must do, and when they must do it, in order to preserve England rights.
The majority also confuses England analysis, which here should be primarily an inquiry into Ivy’s litigation conduct, when it says the district court’s Pullman abstention “deprived Ivy of a full and fair opportunity to litigate its federal claims”, id. at 283; and that the district court “repeatedly put Ivy in a ‘catch-22’ situation by not deciding the reservation issue at [the time of abstention]”. Id. at 281. The majority implies that a district court must decide the validity of a party’s England reservation when the court first abstains under Pullman. I find no support for that proposition.
The validity of an England reservation can only be determined by a district court when a party seeks to reopen stayed federal claims at the conclusion of state proceedings. A party’s actions in state proceedings following Pullman abstention may ultimately defeat its England rights, as when the party fails (like Ivy did) to notify state tribunals of federal issues that would be reserved. Thus, the district court’s refusal to rule on the England question when it abstained is not dispositive of whether Ivy properly reserved. Ivy’s tardiness going to district court and asserting England rights after suffering an adverse jurisdictional determination is the cause of the England problem in this case.
That “defendants failed to raise any objection to Ivy’s England reservations in the state court”, Maj.Op. at 282, is perhaps the majority’s strongest reason for finding Ivy did not waive its England rights. The majority relies on our opinion in Bradley, 913 F.2d 1064, where we found an effective England reservation, in part because of a failure to object to it. However, even as the majority admits, Bradley is distinguishable on several grounds. Most important is that the reserving party in Bradley filed his federal action before entering the state proceedings, and he made his England intentions clear to the state tribunals in a timely fashion.
Ivy did nothing constituting objective evidence of an intent to return to federal court until after it suffered the Division’s final adverse jurisdictional determination. Ivy did not file an action in federal court before the Division’s final decision, and Ivy expressly asserted England only after being confronted with an adverse determination on liability. Thus, Bradley is not on point. Ivy’s purported England reservations should be viewed as ineffective despite appellants’ failure to object to the purported reservations during the state proceedings.
I would hold that if a party waives its England rights by making belated reservations, those defective reservations should not accomplish what timely reservations would have — avoidance of the preclusive effects of prior state adjudications — even if the late reservations caused state appellate courts to “acquiesce” to the untimely reservations. That the New Jersey appellate *296courts “appear to have acquiesced to Ivy’s reservation”, Maj.Op. at 281, should not be the measure of whether Ivy asserted England in time. Indeed, those courts could not consider Ivy’s procedural due process and void for vagueness arguments when reviewing the Division’s final jurisdictional order, because Ivy did not raise those questions until after the order was issued.
Also, the untimeliness of Ivy’s purported reservations should not be cured just because Ivy “refrained from litigating its federal constitutional claims” after the district court’s decision to abstain, and thereafter “expressly stated its wishes to preserve its right to litigate in federal court”. Id. at 281. Only objectively ascertainable attempts to reserve made before a decision on the merits that would be avoided should be effective, even if that decision originated with a quasi-judicial tribunal.
VII.
I do not agree that Ivy “detrimentally relied” on the district court’s “judicial grant of jurisdiction” over Ivy’s § 1983 action, Maj.Op. at 283, and on the court’s decision to stay. Id. at 282. The majority relies on such findings of “detrimental reliance” to justify both the conclusion that Ivy lacked a “full and fair opportunity to litigate its federal claims in the state court”, and also the “balancing of the equities” approach taken to decide the case. See id. at 282, 283.
The record shows, however, that Ivy did not detrimentally rely on the district court’s actions. The district court’s stay order explicitly warned Ivy that the Pullman stay should “not be interpreted as a ruling that plaintiffs have properly reserved their federal constitutional claims for federal court adjudication.” App. 94.
So, if there was no detrimental reliance, then the district court’s jurisdiction over Ivy’s action (and the staying of it) did not destroy Ivy’s full and fair opportunity to either litigate its constitutional questions or reserve them under England before the Division’s final jurisdictional determination (which preceded any district court actions). It follows that, in the wake of the New Jersey Supreme Court decision in the Frank case, state law doctrines of finality and New Jersey’s entire controversy doctrine (which the majority ignores) should work a preclusive effect on Count Three of Ivy’s action. Furthermore, to the extent Ivy did not “detrimentally rely” on the district court, the majority’s resort to equitable analysis is misplaced.
VIII.
Assuming arguendo that the majority is correct that Ivy has effectively reserved England rights in the circumstances of this case, its conclusion that Ivy will be bound in the district court by some of the state findings of fact is wrong. See Maj. Op. at 284. After making an effective England reservation, a litigant “may not be unwillingly deprived” of district court determination of the facts in his case. England, 375 U.S. at 417, 84 S.Ct. at 465. Indeed, once a valid reservation is made, even United States Supreme Court review of a state court decision would be an “inadequate substitute” for a determination in the first instance by a district court of all factual issues material to Ivy’s claims, state findings of fact notwithstanding. Id., 375 U.S. at 416, 84 S.Ct. at 465.
In conclusion, I respectfully dissent and would reverse the district court and remand for dismissal of Ivy’s § 1983 action.

. Also, I do not join the majority's conclusion that the district court should have dismissed Ivy’s complaint under Younger when that complaint was first brought. Since the district court did not reach Younger, its Pullman abstention is *285the law of the case. I think the majority’s discussion of Younger is unnecessary dicta.

. Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 61 S.Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971 (1941), established that if there are unsettled questions of state law in a federal case that make it unnecessary to decide a federal constitutional question, the federal court should abstain until the state court has resolved the state questions.
The Pullman abstention doctrine reflects the desirability of avoiding unnecessary decisions on constitutional issues. See generally, 17A C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice *286and Procedure § 4241 (1988) (hereinafter “— Wright — ”).

. I do not discuss issue preclusion below, because I conclude Ivy’s three counts must be dismissed by operation of the Rooker-Feldman and New Jersey entire controversy doctrines alone.

. Alternatively, appellants contend that Ivy’s § 1983 action should be dismissed now because the district court erred by not dismissing it in 1986 under the Younger abstention doctrine. I do not believe the Younger issue should be reached, and given my view of the case, reversal does not require it.

. This court has characterized an express reservation as follows:
[A] party ... subjected to abstention may reserve his federal claims for federal adjudication by informing the state court of the nature of his federal claims, that he does not wish to litigate those claims in state court, "and that he intends, should the state courts hold against him on the question of state law, to return to the District Court for disposition of his federal contentions.” Bradley v. Pittsburgh Bd. of Educ., 913 F.2d 1064, 1071 (3d Cir.1990), quoting England, 375 U.S. at 421, 84 S.Ct. at 467. Bradley did not, however, decide "the general parameters of an England reservation.” Bradley, 913 F.2d at 1072.

. Such notification permits the state tribunals to consider the federal questions when deciding the state law issues in dispute. England, 375 U.S. at 420, 84 S.Ct. at 467.

. The majority has indicated that certain procedural events of the state proceedings are not relevant here. Maj. Op., at 274. I believe Ivy’s conduct during the adversarial proceedings leading up to the Division’s final jurisdictional determination of February 6, 1986 is most relevant to the question of whether Ivy waived its England rights.

. The parties have provided this court with only snippets of papers filed by Ivy in the state proceedings. Nevertheless, the record demonstrates sufficiently that Ivy fully briefed its First Amendment freedom of association argument to the Division, both before the Division’s initial May 14, 1985 Finding of Probable Cause on jurisdiction, and then again, before the Division made its final jurisdictional determination on February 6, 1986.

.At these conferences all parties were represented by counsel and were offered the opportunity to make statements, to call and cross-examine witnesses whose testimony could be supplemented and/or corrected by affidavits, to introduce documentary evidence supporting their contentions, and to make extensive legal arguments through briefs, reply briefs and letter memoranda. See App. 68 — 81.

. See NJ.S.A. 10:5-5(1).

. The "discrimination” portion of the Finding concluded on certain undisputed facts that probable cause existed to believe the eating clubs and Princeton violated the LAD "by discriminating against women in places of public accommodation and by aiding and abetting such discrimination.” App. 67.

. These adversarial proceedings were first conducted by an administrative law judge (“ALJ”) in New Jersey’s Office of Administrative Law ("OAL”), which took jurisdiction of the case after Frank requested it be transferred to the OAL as a contested case pursuant to NJ.S.A. 10:5-13 and N.J.A.C. 13:4-12.1(c) and (d).
On December 12, 1985, in response to Frank’s motion for summary decision on the issue of jurisdiction, the AU found that there were no material facts in dispute with respect to the jurisdictional question, and that the Director’s initial May 14, 1985 finding of jurisdiction should be considered final. This recommendation of the ALJ was thereafter adopted by the Director’s February 16, 1986 Order of Partial Summary Decision on Jurisdiction. See Frank v. Ivy Club, 548 A.2d at 1146.

. After the ALJ’s jurisdictional ruling of December 12, 1985, see note 12 herein, Frank filed a Motion for Summary Decision against Ivy on the issue of liability. On June 16, 1986, the ALJ granted Frank’s motion. The Director's July 28, 1986 liability decision adopted the ALJ’s summary decision on Ivy’s liability under the LAD, and remanded the case back to the OAL for further proceedings on remedies tó be afforded Frank. See Frank v. Ivy Club, 548 A.2d at 1147.

. At the July 29, 1986 OAL hearing on damages and remedies before an AU, counsel for Ivy said, orally (App. 134):
At this point, we also seek to preserve our federal claim for consideration by federal court and we specifically reserve them under the England Reservation Doctrine, though we may change in our decision of this matter. At this point, Ivy will not be arguing any federal issues.

.The Director reaffirmed the prior rejection of Ivy’s freedom of association argument by saying (App. 107):
The AU’s discussion on the First Amendment rights of the clubs is also rejected as inconsistent with the jurisdictional finding. In the Finding of Probable Cause ... which was incorporated in my February 6, 1986 ruling [on jurisdiction] ... I specifically addressed the clubs’ First Amendment claims of freedom of association rights and found that any rights that they may have to freely associate did not include a right to discriminate on the basis of sex. The AU’s reliance on free association rights is therefore misplaced. My February 6, 1986 ruling is hereby reaffirmed.

. Ivy made its first oral reservation of England rights on July 29, 1986, at the start of administrative proceedings on damages and remedies, App. 134; and Ivy made its first written reservation later, on October 5, 1987, when Ivy filed its appeal from all of the Division’s adverse orders with the Superior Court of New Jersey. App. 133.

. The Division's determinations were subject to state court review, state courts’ reviewed the Division’s determinations in the Frank case on more than one occasion, and pursuant to Ivy’s appeal from the Division’s adverse jurisdictional determination, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed.

.Rooker-Feldman's jurisdictional bar operates only to the extent Ivy did not make a valid England reservation of its first two counts. If Ivy made valid reservations of these counts, then the district court would have jurisdiction to hear these claims irrespective of Rooker-Feldman doctrine. Rooker- Feldman should not destroy a district court’s jurisdiction over properly reserved federal constitutional questions, even when state courts previously have decided those issues. Otherwise, Rooker-Feldman would defeat England’s utility where federal plaintiffs subjected to Pullman abstention are compelled involuntarily to have their federal constitutional claims decided by state courts.

. Ivy has declined to seek federal Supreme Court review of the state supreme court decision.

. To the extent Count Three may also be read as a constitutional challenge to the Division’s particular exercise of jurisdiction over Ivy in the Frank case, the district court is without jurisdiction.

. N.J.R.Civ.P. 4:30A provides:

. Ivy’s procedural due process claim (Count Two) is also susceptible to defeat by entire controversy doctrine analysis because Ivy did not initially raise that claim in the state proceedings. Nevertheless, I would rest dismissal of Count Two on Rooker-Feldman grounds alone.