# Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. City of Thibodaux

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 8, 1959 · 360 U.S. 25

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9421818

## Case

- **Full name:** Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. City of Thibodaux
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 8, 1959
- **Citations:** 360 U.S. 25; 79 S. Ct. 1070; 3 L. Ed. 2d 1058; 1959 U.S. LEXIS 851
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Stewart
- **Judges:** Frankfurter, Stewart, Brennan, Douglas
- **Cited by:** 590 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9421818

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that a federal action was properly stayed, pending the outcome of parallel state proceedings, where the action involved a matter of state policy—the scope of eminent domain powers of municipalities under state law
- discussing the need for abstention in a case about a state proceeding of a “special and peculiar nature” that involved an “aspect of sovereignty,” given the need to avoid “needless friction between state and federal authorities”
- recognizing "the wisdom of staying actions in the federal courts pending determination by a state court of decisive issues of state law” and affirming abstention pending decision by state court

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Stewart,
concurring.
In a conscientious effort to do justice the District Court deferred immediate adjudication of this controversy pending authoritative • clarification of a controlling state statute of highly doubtful meaning. Under the circumstances presented, I think the course pursued was clearly within the District Court’s allowable discretion. For that reason' I concur in the judgment:
This case is totally unlike County of Allegheny v. Mashuda Co., decided today, post, p. 185, except for the coincidence that both cases involve eminent domain proceedings. In Mashuda the.-Court holds that it was error for the District Court to dismiss the complaint. The Court further holds in that case that, since the controlling state law. is clear and oníy factual issues need be resolved, there is no occasion in the interest of justice to refrain from prompt adjudication.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9421818. Public record. Not legal advice.