Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd.

Me. Justice Brennan,

with whom Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Marshall join,

dissenting.

I dissent. The treatment of the state civil proceeding as one “in aid of and closely related to criminal statutes” is obviously only the first step toward extending to state civil proceedings generally the holding of Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), that federal courts should not interfere with pending state criminal proceedings except under extraordinary circumstances. 1 Similarly, today’s holding that the plaintiff in an action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 may not maintain it without first exhausting state appellate procedures for review of an adverse state trial court decision is but an obvious first step toward discard of heretofore settled law that such actions may be maintained without first exhausting state judicial remedies.

Younger v. Harris was basically an application, in the context of the relation of federal courts to pending state criminal prosecutions, of “the basic doctrine of equity jurisprudence that courts of equity . . . particularly should not act to restrain a criminal prosecution.” 401 U. S., at 43 . “The maxim that equity will not enjoin a criminal prosecution summarizes centuries of weighty experience in Anglo-American law.” Stefanelli v. Minard, 342 U. S. 117, 120 (1951). But Younger v. Harris was *614 also a decision enforcing “the national policy forbidding federal courts to stay or enjoin pending state court [criminal] proceedings except under special circumstances.” 401 U. S., at 41 . See also id., at 44 . For in decisions long antedating Younger v. Harris , the Court had invested the basic maxim with particular significance as a restraint upon federal equitable interference with pending state prosecutions. Not a showing of irreparable injury alone but of irreparable injury “both great and immediate” is required to justify federal injunctive relief against a pending state prosecution. Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U. S. 240, 243 (1926); Spielman Motor Sales Co. v. Dodge, 295 U. S. 89, 95 (1935). Injury merely “incidental to every criminal proceeding brought lawfully and in good faith” is not irreparable injury that justifies an injunction. Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157, 164 (1943). See also Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479, 485 (1965). The line of decisions culminating in Younger v. Harris reflects this Court’s longstanding recognition that equitable interference by federal courts with pending state prosecutions is incompatible in our federal system with the paramount role of the States in the definition of crimes and the enforcement of criminal laws. Federal-court noninterference with state prosecution of crimes protects against “the most sensitive source of friction between States and Nation.” Stefanelli v. Minard, supra, at 120 .

The tradition, however, has been quite the opposite as respects federal injunctive interference with pending state civil proceedings. Even though legislation as far back as 1793 has provided in “seemingly uncompromising language,” Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 233 (1972), that a federal court “may not grant an injunction to stay proceedings in a State court” with specified exceptions, see 28 U. S. C. § 2283 , the Court has consistently en- *615 grafted exceptions upon the prohibition. Many, if not most, of those exceptions have been engrafted under the euphemism “implied.” The story appears in Mitchum v. Foster, supra, at 233-236 . Indeed, when Congress became concerned that the Court’s 1941 decision in Toucey v. New York Life Ins. Co., 314 U. S. 118 , forecast the possibility that the 1793 Act might be enforced according to its literal terms, Congress amended the Act in 1948 “to restore 'the basic law as generally understood and interpreted prior to the Toucey decision.’ ” Mitchum v. Foster, supra, at 236 .

Thus today’s extension of Younger v. Harris turns the clock back and portends once again the resuscitation of the literal command of the 1793 Anti-Injunction Act— that the state courts should be free from interference by federal injunction even in civil cases. This not only would overrule some 18 decades of this Court’s jurisprudence but would heedlessly flout Congress’ evident purpose in enacting the 1948 amendment to acquiesce in that jurisprudence.

The extension also threatens serious prejudice to the potential federal-court plaintiff not present when the pending state proceeding is a criminal prosecution. That prosecution does not come into existence until completion of steps designed to safeguard him against spurious prosecution — arrest, charge, information, or indictment. In contrast, the civil proceeding, as in this case, comes into existence merely upon the filing of a complaint, whether or not well founded. To deny by fiat of this Court the potential federal plaintiff a federal forum in that circumstance is obviously to arm his adversary (here the public authorities) with an easily wielded weapon to strip him of a forum and a remedy that federal statutes were enacted to assure him. The Court does not escape this consequence by characterizing the state civil proceeding in *616 volved here as “in aid of and closely related to criminal statutes.” The nuisance action was brought into being by the mere filing of the complaint in state court, and the untoward consequences for the federal plaintiff were thereby set in train without regard to the connection, if any, of the proceeding to the State’s criminal laws.

Even if the extension of Younger v. Harris to pending state civil proceedings can be appropriate in any case, and I do not think it can be, 2 it is plainly improper in the case of an action by a federal plaintiff, as in this case, grounded upon 42 U. S. C. § 1983 . 3 That statute serves a particular congressional objective long recognized and enforced by the Court. Today’s extension will defeat that objective. After the War Between the States, “nationalism dominated political thought and brought with it congressional investiture of the federal judiciary with enormously increased powers.” Zwickler v. Koota, *617 389 U. S. 241, 246 (1967). Section 1983 was enacted at that time as § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13 . 389 U. S., at 247 . That Act, and the Judiciary Act of 1875, which granted the federal courts general federal-question jurisdiction, completely altered Congress' pre-Civil War policy of relying on state courts to vindicate rights arising under the Constitution and federal laws. 389 U. S., at 245-246 . These statutes constituted the lower federal courts “ 'the primary and powerful reliances for vindicating every right given by the Constitution, the laws, and treaties of the United States.' ” Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452, 464 (1974). The fact, standing alone, that state courts also must protect federal rights can never justify a refusal of federal courts to exercise that jurisdiction. Zwickler v. Koota, supra, at 248 . This is true notwithstanding the possibility of review by this Court of state decisions for, “even when available by appeal rather than only by discretionary writ of certiorari, [that possibility] is an inadequate substitute for the initial District Court determination ... to which the litigant is entitled in the federal courts.” England v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, 375 U. S. 411, 416 (1964).

Consistently with this congressional objective of the 1871 and 1875 Acts we held in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 183 (1961), that a federal plaintiff suing under § 1983 need not exhaust state administrative or judicial remedies before filing his action under § 1983 in federal district court. “The federal remedy is supplementary to the state remedy, and the latter need not be first sought and refused before the federal one is invoked.” Ibid. The extension today of Younger v. Harris to require exhaustion in an action under § 1983 drastically undercuts Monroe v. Pape and its numerous progeny — the mere filing of a complaint against a potential § 1983 litigant forces him to exhaust state remedies.

*618 Mitchum v. Foster, supra, holding that actions under § 1983 are excepted from the operation of the federal anti-injunction statute, 28 U. S. C. § 2283 , is also undercut by today’s extension of Younger. Mit-chum canvassed the history of § 1983 and concluded that it extended “federal power in an attempt to remedy the state courts’ failure to secure federal rights.” 407 U. S., at 241 . Mitchum prompted the comment that if Younger v. Harris were extended to civil cases, “much of the rigidity of section 2283 would be reintroduced, the significance of Mitchum for those seeking relief from state civil proceedings would largely be destroyed, and the recognition of section 1983 as an exception to the Anti-Injunction Statute would have been a Pyrrhic victory.” 4 Today’s decision fulfills that gloomy prophecy. I therefore dissent from the remand and would reach the merits.

Mr. Justice Douglas, while joining in the opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan, wishes to make clear that he adheres to the view he expressed in Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 58-65 (1971) (dissenting opinion), that federal abstention from interference with state criminal prosecutions is inconsistent with demands of our federalism where important and overriding civil rights (such as those involved in the First Amendment) are about to be sacrificed.

The Court reaches the Younger issue although appellants did not plead Younger in the District Court. Yet the Court implies that Younger is not a jurisdictional matter, since we allowed the parties to waive it in Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393 (1975). Ante, at 595 n. 1. In that circumstance, I address the Younger issue solely to respond to the Court’s treatment of it.

Abstention where authoritative resolution by state courts of ambiguities in a state statute is sufficiently likely to avoid or significantly modify federal questions raised by the statute is another matter. Abstention is justified in such cases primarily by the policy of avoidance of premature constitutional adjudication. The federal plaintiff is therefore not dismissed from federal court as he is in Younger cases. On the contrary, he may reserve his federal questions for decision by the federal district court and not submit them to the state courts. England v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, 375 U. S. 411 (1964). Accordingly, retention by the federal court of jurisdiction of the federal complaint pending state-court decision, not dismissal of the complaint, is the correct practice. Lake Carriers’ Assn. v. MacMullan, 406 U. S. 498, 512-513 (1972).

Title 42 U. S. C. § 1983 provides:

“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”

Note, The Supreme Court, 1971 Term, 86 Harv. L. Rev. 50 , 217-218 (1972).