civil rights actions under § 1983 and its jurisdictional counterpart, 28 U.S.C. § 1343, “imposed the duty upon all levels of the federal judiciary to give due respect to a suitor’s choice of a federal forum for the hearing and decision of his federal constitutional claims,” quoting Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 248, 88 S.Ct. 391, 395, 19 L.Ed.2d 444 (1967)
How later courts described this case
- civil rights actions under § 1983 and its jurisdictional counterpart, 28 U.S.C. § 1343, “imposed the duty upon all levels of the federal judiciary to give due respect to a suitor’s choice of a federal forum for the hearing and decision of his federal constitutional claims,” quoting Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 248, 88 S.Ct. 391, 395, 19 L.Ed.2d 444 (1967)
- policies of Pullman doctrine are “the avoidance of federal-state friction, the recognition that regardless of a federal court’s construction, the state’s highest court is the final expositor of that state’s law, and the possibility that the federal question may be avoided.”
- resolution of federal constitutional issue of whether there was a state created right did not turn upon construction of any unclear state statute where state court had twice interpreted state statute as entitling plaintiff as a matter of “due process” to that right
- Pullman abstention improper in juvenile right to treatment suit where state courts had accepted and given substance to state statutory right to treatment claim
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Winters v. Lavine, 574 F.2d 46 (1978)
Indeed, this is one of the express grounds upon which we distinguished the facts in McRedmond, where invocation of abstention was found to be objectionable, from the facts in Reid, where abstention was considered appropriate.
The opinion
VAN GRAAFEILAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
A Federal judge rearranging a State’s penal or educational system is like a man feeding candy to his grandchild. He derives a great deal of personal satisfaction from it and has no responsibility for the results. “Where, as here, the exercise of authority by state officials is attacked, federal courts must be constantly mindful of the ‘special delicacy of the adjustment to be preserved between federal equitable power and State administration of its own law.’ [Citations omitted].” Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362 , 96 S.Ct. 598, 607 , 46 L.Ed.2d 561 , 44 U.S.L.W. 4095 , 4100 (Jan. 21, 1976). I see no pressing need for Federal interference in this case, which involves duties created by State statute; and I would affirm on the opinion below.