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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 12–815
_________________
SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS, INC., PETITIONER v.
ELIZABETH S. JACOBS et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the eighth circuit
[December 10, 2013]
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves two
proceedings, one pending in state court, the other in federal
court. Each seeks review of an Iowa Utilities Board (IUB or Board)
order. And each presents the question whether Windstream Iowa
Communications, Inc. (Windstream), a local telecommunications
carrier, may impose on Sprint Communications, Inc. (Sprint),
intrastate access charges for telephone calls transported via the
Internet. Federal-court jurisdiction over controversies of this
kind was confirmed in Verizon Md. Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm’n
of Md., 535 U. S. 635 (2002) . Invoking Younger v. Harris, 401
U. S. 37 (1971) , the U. S. District Court for the
Southern District of Iowa abstained from adjudicating
Sprint’s complaint in deference to the parallel state-court
proceeding, and the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
affirmed the District Court’s abstention decision.
We reverse the judgment
of the Court of Appeals. In the main, federal courts are obliged to
decide cases within the scope of federal jurisdiction. Abstention
is not in order simply because a pending state-court proceeding
involves the same subject matter. New Orleans Public Service, Inc.
v. Council of City of New Orleans, 491 U. S. 350, 373 (1989)
(NOPSI) (“[T]here is no doctrine that . . .
pendency of state judicial proceedings excludes the federal
courts.”). This Court has recognized, however, certain
instances in which the prospect of undue interference with state
proceedings counsels against federal relief. See id., at 368.
Younger exemplifies one
class of cases in which federal-court abstention is required: When
there is a parallel, pending state criminal proceeding, federal
courts must refrain from enjoining the state prosecution. This
Court has extended Younger abstention to particular state civil
proceedings that are akin to criminal prosecutions, see Huffman v.
Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S. 592 (1975) , or that implicate a
State’s interest in enforcing the orders and judgments of its
courts, see Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco Inc., 481 U. S. 1 (1987) .
We have cautioned, however, that federal courts ordinarily should
entertain and resolve on the merits an action within the scope of a
jurisdictional grant, and should not “refus[e] to decide a
case in deference to the States.” NOPSI, 491 U. S., at
368.
Circumstances fitting
within the Younger doctrine, we have stressed, are
“exceptional”; they include, as catalogued in NOPSI,
“state criminal prosecutions,” “civil enforcement
proceedings,” and “civil proceedings involving certain
orders that are uniquely in furtherance of the state courts’
ability to perform their judicial functions.” Id., at
367–368. Because this case presents none of the circumstances
the Court has ranked as “exceptional,” the general rule
governs: “[T]he pendency of an action in [a] state court is
no bar to proceedings concerning the same matter in the Federal
court having jurisdiction.” Colorado River Water Conservation
Dist. v. United States, 424 U. S. 800, 817 (1976) (quoting
McClellan v. Carland, 217 U. S. 268, 282 (1910) ).
I
Sprint, a national
telecommunications service provider, has long paid intercarrier
access fees to the Iowa communications company Windstream (formerly
Iowa Telecom) for certain long distance calls placed by Sprint
customers to Windstream’s in-state customers. In 2009,
however, Sprint decided to withhold payment for a subset of those
calls, classified as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), after
concluding that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 preempted
intrastate regulation of VoIP traffic. [
1 ] In response, Windstream threatened to block all
calls to and from Sprint customers.
Sprint filed a
complaint against Windstream with the IUB asking the Board to
enjoin Windstream from discontinuing service to Sprint. In
Sprint’s view, Iowa law entitled it to withhold payment while
it contested the access charges and prohibited Windstream from
carrying out its disconnection threat. In answer to Sprint’s
complaint, Windstream retracted its threat to discontinue serving
Sprint, and Sprint moved, successfully, to withdraw its complaint.
Because the conflict between Sprint and Windstream over VoIP calls
was “likely to recur,” however, the IUB decided to
continue the proceedings to resolve the underlying legal question,
i.e., whether VoIP calls are subject to intrastate regulation.
Order in Sprint Communications Co. v. Iowa Telecommunications
Servs., Inc., No. FCU–2010–0001 (IUB, Feb. 1, 2010),
p. 6 (IUB Order). The question retained by the IUB, Sprint
argued, was governed by federal law, and was not within the
IUB’s adjudicative jurisdiction. The IUB disagreed, ruling
that the intrastate fees applied to VoIP calls. [
2 ]
Seeking to overturn the
Board’s ruling, Sprint commenced two lawsuits. First, Sprint
sued the members of the IUB (respondents here) [
3 ] in their official capacities in the
United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. In
its federal-court complaint, Sprint sought a declaration that the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 preempted the IUB’s decision;
as relief, Sprint requested an injunction against enforcement of
the IUB’s order. Second, Sprint petitioned for review of the
IUB’s order in Iowa state court. The state petition
reiterated the preemption argument Sprint made in its federal-court
complaint; in addition, Sprint asserted state law and procedural
due process claims. Because Eighth Circuit precedent effectively
required a plaintiff to exhaust state remedies before proceeding to
federal court, see Alleghany Corp. v. McCartney, 896 F. 2d
1138 (1990), Sprint urges that it filed the state suit as a
protective measure. Failing to do so, Sprint explains, risked
losing the opportunity to obtain any review, federal or state,
should the federal court decide to abstain after the expiration of
the Iowa statute of limitations. See Brief for Petitioner
7–8. [
4 ]
As Sprint anticipated,
the IUB filed a motion asking the Federal District Court to abstain
in light of the state suit, citing Younger v. Harris, 401
U. S. 37 (1971) . The District Court granted the IUB’s
motion and dismissed the suit. The IUB’s decision, and the
pending state-court review of it, the District Court said, composed
one “uninterruptible process” implicating important
state interests. On that ground, the court ruled, Younger
abstention was in order. Sprint Communications Co. v. Berntsen, No.
4:11–cv–00183–JAJ (SD Iowa, Aug. 1, 2011), App.
to Pet. for Cert. 24a.
For the most part, the
Eighth Circuit agreed with the District Court’s judgment. The
Court of Appeals rejected the argument, accepted by several of its
sister courts, that Younger abstention is appropriate only when the
parallel state proceedings are “coercive,” rather than
“remedial,” in nature. 690 F. 3d 864, 868 (2012);
cf. Guillemard-Ginorio v. Contreras-Gómez, 585 F. 3d
508, 522 (CA1 2009) (“[P]roceedings must be coercive, and in
most cases, state-initiated, in order to warrant
abstention.”). Instead, the Eighth Circuit read this
Court’s precedent to require Younger abstention whenever
“an ongoing state judicial proceeding . . .
implicates important state interests, and . . . the state
proceedings provide adequate opportunity to raise [federal]
challenges.” 690 F. 3d, at 867 (citing Middlesex County
Ethics Comm. v. Garden State Bar Assn., 457 U. S. 423, 432
(1982) ). Those criteria were satisfied here, the appeals court
held, because the ongoing state-court review of the IUB’s
decision concerned Iowa’s “important state interest in
regulating and enforcing its intrastate utility rates.” 690
F. 3d, at 868. Recognizing the “possibility that the
parties [might] return to federal court,” however, the Court
of Appeals vacated the judgment dismissing Sprint’s
complaint. In lieu of dismissal, the Eighth Circuit remanded the
case, instructing the District Court to enter a stay during the
pendency of the state-court action. Id., at 869.
We granted certiorari
to decide whether, consistent with our delineation of cases
encompassed by the Younger doctrine, abstention was appropriate
here. 569 U. S. ___ (2013). [
5 ]
II
A
Neither party has
questioned the District Court’s jurisdiction to decide
whether federal law preempted the IUB’s decision, and rightly
so. In Verizon Md. Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of Md., 535
U. S. 635 (2002) , we reviewed a similar federal-court
challenge to a state administrative adjudication. In that case, as
here, the party seeking federal-court review of a state
agency’s decision urged that the Telecommunications Act of
1996 preempted the state action. We had “no doubt that
federal courts ha[d federal question] jurisdiction under [28
U. S. C.] §1331 to entertain such a suit,”
id., at 642, and nothing in the Telecommunications Act detracted
from that conclusion, see id., at 643.
Federal courts, it was
early and famously said, have “no more right to decline the
exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which
is not given.” Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 404 (1821).
Jurisdiction existing, this Court has cautioned, a federal
court’s “obligation” to hear and decide a case is
“virtually unflagging.” Colorado River Water
Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U. S. 800, 817 (1976)
. Parallel state-court proceedings do not detract from that
obligation. See ibid.
In Younger, we
recognized a “far-from-novel” exception to this general
rule. New Orleans Public Service, Inc. v. Council of City of New
Orleans, 491 U. S. 350, 364 (1989) (NOPSI). The plaintiff in
Younger sought federal-court adjudication of the constitutionality
of the California Criminal Syndicalism Act. Requesting an
injunction against the Act’s enforcement, the federal-court
plaintiff was at the time the defendant in a pending state criminal
prosecution under the Act. In those circumstances, we said, the
federal court should decline to enjoin the prosecution, absent bad
faith, harassment, or a patently invalid state statute. See 401
U. S., at 53–54. Abstention was in order, we explained,
under “the basic doctrine of equity jurisprudence that courts
of equity should not act . . . to restrain a criminal
prosecution, when the moving party has an adequate remedy at law
and will not suffer irreparably injury if denied equitable
relief.” Id., at 43–44. “[R]estraining equity
jurisdiction within narrow limits,” the Court observed, would
“prevent erosion of the role of the jury and avoid a
duplication of legal proceedings and legal sanctions.” Id.,
at 44. We explained as well that this doctrine was
“reinforced” by the notion of
“ ‘comity,’ that is, a proper respect for
state functions.” Ibid.
We have since applied
Younger to bar federal relief in certain civil actions. Huffman v.
Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S. 592 (1975) , is the pathmarking
decision. There, Ohio officials brought a civil action in state
court to abate the showing of obscene movies in Pursue’s
theater. Because the State was a party and the proceeding was
“in aid of and closely related to [the State’s]
criminal statutes,” the Court held Younger abstention
appropriate. Id., at 604.
More recently, in
NOPSI, 491 U. S., at 368, the Court had occasion to review and
restate our Younger jurisprudence. NOPSI addressed and rejected an
argument that a federal court should refuse to exercise
jurisdiction to review a state council’s ratemaking decision.
“[O]nly ex- ceptional circumstances,” we reaffirmed,
“justify a fed- eral court’s refusal to decide a case
in deference to the States.” Ibid. Those “exceptional
circumstances” exist, the Court determined after surveying
prior decisions, in three types of proceedings. First, Younger
precluded federal intrusion into ongoing state criminal
prosecutions. See ibid. Second, certain “civil enforcement
proceedings” warranted abstention. Ibid. (citing, e.g.,
Huffman, 420 U. S., at 604). Finally, federal courts refrained
from interfering with pending “civil proceedings involving
certain orders . . . uniquely in furtherance of the state
courts’ ability to perform their judicial functions.”
491 U. S., at 368 (citing Juidice v. Vail, 430 U. S. 327
, n. 12 (1977), and Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco Inc., 481
U. S. 1, 13 (1987) ). We have not applied Younger outside
these three “exceptional” categories, and today hold,
in accord with NOPSI, that they define Younger’s scope.
B
The IUB does not
assert that the Iowa state court’s review of the Board
decision, considered alone, implicates Younger. Rather, the initial
administrative proceeding justifies staying any action in federal
court, the IUB contends, until the state review process has
concluded. The same argument was advanced in NOPSI. 491 U. S.,
at 368. We will assume without deciding, as the Court did in NOPSI,
that an administrative adjudication and the subsequent state
court’s review of it count as a “unitary process”
for Younger purposes. Id., at 369. The question remains, however,
whether the initial IUB proceeding is of the “sort
. . . entitled to Younger treatment.” Ibid.
The IUB proceeding, we
conclude, does not fall within any of the three exceptional
categories described in NOPSI and therefore does not trigger
Younger abstention. The first and third categories plainly do not
accommodate the IUB’s proceeding. That proceeding was civil,
not criminal in character, and it did not touch on a state
court’s ability to perform its judicial function. Cf.
Juidice, 430 U. S., at 336, n. 12 (civil contempt order);
Pennzoil, 481 U. S., at 13 (requirement for posting bond
pending appeal).
Nor does the
IUB’s order rank as an act of civil enforcement of the kind
to which Younger has been extended. Our decisions applying Younger
to instances of civil enforcement have generally concerned state
proceedings “akin to a criminal prosecution” in
“important respects.” Huffman, 420 U. S., at 604.
See also Middlesex, 457 U. S., at 432 (Younger abstention
appropriate where “noncriminal proceedings bear a close
relationship to proceedings criminal in nature”). Such
enforcement actions are characteristically initiated to sanction
the federal plaintiff, i.e., the party challenging the state
action, for some wrongful act. See, e.g., Middlesex, 457
U. S., at 433–434 (state-initiated disciplinary
proceedings against lawyer for violation of state ethics rules). In
cases of this genre, a state actor is routinely a party to the
state proceeding and often initiates the action. See, e.g., Ohio
Civil Rights Comm’n v. Dayton Christian Schools, Inc., 477
U. S. 619 (1986) (state-initiated administrative proceedings
to enforce state civil rights laws); Moore v. Sims, 442 U. S.
415 –420 (1979) (state-initiated proceeding to gain custody
of children allegedly abused by their parents); Trainor v.
Hernandez, 431 U. S. 434, 444 (1977) (civil proceeding
“brought by the State in its sovereign capacity” to
recover welfare payments defendants had allegedly obtained by
fraud); Huffman, 420 U. S., at 598 (state-initiated proceeding
to enforce obscenity laws). Investigations are commonly involved,
often culminating in the filing of a formal complaint or charges.
See, e.g., Dayton, 477 U. S., at 624 (noting preliminary
investigation and complaint); Middlesex, 457 U. S., at 433
(same).
The IUB proceeding does
not resemble the state enforcement actions this Court has found
appropriate for Younger abstention. It is not “akin to a
criminal prosecution.” Huffman, 420 U. S., at 604. Nor
was it initiated by “the State in its sovereign
capacity.” Trainor, 431 U. S., at 444. A private
corporation, Sprint, initiated the action. No state authority
conducted an investigation into Sprint’s activities, and no
state actor lodged a formal complaint against Sprint.
In its brief, the IUB
emphasizes Sprint’s decision to withdraw the complaint that
commenced proceedings before the Board. At that point, the IUB
argues, Sprint was no longer a willing participant, and the
proceedings became, essentially, a civil enforcement action. See
Brief for Respondents 31. [
6 ]
The IUB’s adjudicative authority, however, was invoked to
settle a civil dispute between two private parties, not to sanction
Sprint for commission of a wrongful act. Although Sprint withdrew
its complaint, administrative efficiency, not misconduct by Sprint,
prompted the IUB to answer the underlying federal question. By
determining the intercarrier compensation regime applicable to VoIP
calls, the IUB sought to avoid renewed litigation of the
parties’ dispute. Because the underlying legal question
remained unsettled, the Board observed, the controversy was
“likely to recur.” IUB Order 6. Nothing here suggests
that the IUB proceeding was “more akin to a criminal
prosecution than are most civil cases.” Huffman, 420
U. S., at 604.
In holding that
abstention was the proper course, the Eighth Circuit relied heavily
on this Court’s decision in Middlesex. Younger abstention was
warranted, the Court of Appeals read Middlesex to say, whenever
three conditions are met: There is (1) “an ongoing state
judicial proceeding, which (2) implicates important state
interests, and (3) . . . provide[s] an adequate
opportunity to raise [federal] challenges.” 690 F. 3d,
at 867 (citing Middlesex, 457 U. S., at 432). Before this
Court, the IUB has endorsed the Eighth Circuit’s approach.
Brief for Respondents 13.
The Court of Appeals
and the IUB attribute to this Court’s decision in Middlesex
extraordinary breadth. We invoked Younger in Middlesex to bar a
federal court from entertaining a lawyer’s challenge to a New
Jersey state ethics committee’s pending investigation of the
lawyer. Unlike the IUB proceeding here, the state ethics
committee’s hearing in Middlesex was indeed “akin to a
criminal proceeding.” As we noted, an investigation and
formal complaint preceded the hearing, an agency of the
State’s Supreme Court initiated the hearing, and the purpose
of the hearing was to determine whether the lawyer should be
disciplined for his failure to meet the State’s standards of
professional conduct. 457 U. S., at 433–435. See also
id., at 438 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment) (noting the
“quasi-criminal nature of bar disciplinary
proceedings”). The three Middlesex conditions recited above
were not dispositive; they were, instead, additional factors
appropriately considered by the federal court before invoking
Younger.
Divorced from their
quasi-criminal context, the three Middlesex conditions would extend
Younger to virtually all parallel state and federal proceedings, at
least where a party could identify a plausibly important state
interest. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 35–36. That result is
irreconcilable with our dominant instruction that, even in the
presence of parallel state proceedings, abstention from the
exercise of federal jurisdiction is the “exception, not the
rule.” Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S.
229, 236 (1984) (quoting Colorado River, 424 U. S., at 813).
In short, to guide other federal courts, we today clarify and
affirm that Younger extends to the three “exceptional
circumstances” identified in NOPSI, but no further.
* * *
For the reasons
stated, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Eighth Circuit is
Reversed.
