# Gibson v. Berryhill

> Supreme Court of the United States · May 7, 1973 · 411 U.S. 564

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9425269

## Case

- **Full name:** GIBSON Et Al. v. BERRYHILL Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** May 7, 1973
- **Citations:** 411 U.S. 564; 93 S. Ct. 1689; 36 L. Ed. 2d 488; 1973 U.S. LEXIS 74
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Burger
- **Judges:** White, Burger, Marshall, Brennan
- **Cited by:** 1,222 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Declined to follow by Parker v. Children's Hospital of Phila., 483 Pa. 106 (1978).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 5
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9425269

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that where “the State Board of Optometry was incompetent by reason of bias to adjudicate the issues pending before it [due to prejudgment of the facts and personal pecuniary interest] .... the District Court[ ] ... need not defer to the Board”
- concluding that a plaintiff lacked an adequate opportunity to 6 No. 23-5296, Formosa v. Lee present his claim for Younger purposes when a state administrative tribunal “was incompetent by reason of bias to adjudicate the issues pending before it”
- holding that, in evaluating the licensure decision of a state administrative board, “[i]t is sufficiently clear from our cases that those with substantial pecuniary interest in legal proceedings should not adjudicate these disputes”
- recognizing that under Younger, “a federal court may not enjoin a pending state criminal proceeding in the absence of special circumstances suggesting bad faith, harassment or irreparable injury that is both serious and immediate.”
- holding that an administrative board composed of optometrists had a pecuniary interest of "sufficient substance" so that it did not constitute a fair and impartial tribunal to preside over a hearing against competing optometrists

## Opinion text

Mr. Chief Justice Burger,
concurring.
I concur, although in my view the three-judge District Court would have been better advised, as a matter of sound judicial discretion, to have refrained from acting until the outcome of the Lee Optical appeal. See my dissenting opinion in Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433, 443 (1971).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9425269. Public record. Not legal advice.