Appellants are chiropractors who seek to practice in Louisiana
without complying with the educational requirements of the
Louisiana Medical Practice Act. They brought this action against
appellee Board of Medical Examiners in a Federal District Court for
an injunction and a declaration that, as applied to them, the Act
violated the Fourteenth Amendment. A three-judge court invoked the
doctrine of abstention and remitted the parties to the state courts
on the ground that a decision that the Act does not apply to
chiropractors might end the controversy. Appellants then brought
proceedings in the state courts, unreservedly submitting for
decision not only the state law question, but also their Fourteenth
Amendment claims, which were resolved against them. Appellants
returned to the District Court, which dismissed the complaint on
the ground that the federal questions had been decided by the state
courts and the proper remedy was by appeal from the state courts to
the Supreme Court.
Held: On the record in this case, the judgment is
reversed and the case is remanded to the District Court for
decision on the merits of appellants' Fourteenth Amendment claims.
Pp.
375 U. S.
412-423.
1. A party remitted to state courts by an abstention order of a
Federal District Court has the right to return to the District
Court, after obtaining the authoritative state court ruling for
which the court abstained, for a determination of his federal
claims. Pp.
375 U. S.
415-417.
2. Where a party freely and without reservation submits his
federal claims for decision by the state courts, litigates them
there, and has them decided there, then -- whether or not he seeks
direct review of the state decision in this Court -- he has elected
to forgo his right to return to the District Court. Pp.
375 U. S.
417-419.
3. The case of
Government Employees v. Windsor,
353 U. S. 364, is
not to be read as meaning that a party must litigate his federal
claims in the state courts, but only that he must inform
Page 375 U. S. 412
those courts what his federal claims are, so that the state
statute may be construed "in light of" those claims. P.
375 U. S.
420.
4. A party may readily forestall any conclusion that he has
elected not to return to the District Court by making on the state
record an explicit reservation to the disposition of the entire
case by the state courts; that is, he may inform the state courts
that he is exposing his federal claims there only for the purpose
of complying with
Windsor, and that he intends, should the
state courts hold against him on the question of state law, to
return to the District Court for disposition of his federal
contentions. P.
375 U. S.
421.
5. However, such an explicit reservation is not indispensable,
for a litigant is not to be denied his right to return to the
District Court unless it clearly appears that he voluntarily did
more than
Windsor required, and fully litigated his
federal claims in the state courts. P.
375 U. S.
421.
6. On the record in this case, the Court does not apply to these
appellants the rule here announced, since their primary reason for
litigating their federal claims in the state courts was assertedly
the view that
Windsor required them to do so -- a view
which was mistaken, and will not avail other litigants who rely
upon it after today's decision, but which was not unreasonable at
the time. P.
375 U. S.
422.
194 F.
Supp. 521, reversed and remanded.
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellants are graduates of schools of chiropractic who seek to
practice in Louisiana without complying with the educational
requirements of the Louisiana Medical Practice Act, Title 37,
La.Rev.Stat. §§ 1261-1290. They brought this action against
respondent Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners in the
Federal District Court
Page 375 U. S. 413
for the Eastern District of Louisiana, seeking an injunction and
a declaration that, as applied to them, the Act violated the
Fourteenth Amendment. A statutory three-judge court [
Footnote 1] invoked,
sua sponte, the
doctrine of abstention, on the ground that "[t]he state court might
effectively end this controversy by a determination that
chiropractors are not governed by the statute," and entered an
order
"staying further proceedings in this Court until the courts of
the State of Louisiana shall have been afforded an opportunity to
determine the issues here presented, and retaining jurisdiction to
take such steps as may be necessary for the just disposition of the
litigation should anything prevent a prompt state court
determination."
180 F.
Supp. 121, 124. [
Footnote
2]
Appellants thereupon brought proceedings in the Louisiana
courts. They did not restrict those proceedings to the question
whether the Medical Practice Act applied to chiropractors. They
unreservedly submitted for decision, and briefed and argued, their
contention that the Act, if applicable to chiropractors, violated
the Fourteenth Amendment. [
Footnote
3] The state proceedings terminated with a
Page 375 U. S. 414
decision by the Louisiana Supreme Court declining to review an
intermediate appellate court's holding both that the Medical
Practice Act applied to chiropractors and that, as so applied, it
did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. 126 So. 2d 51.
Appellants then returned to the District Court, [
Footnote 4] where they were met with a motion
by appellees to dismiss the federal action. This motion was granted
on the ground that,
"since the courts of Louisiana have passed on all issues raised,
including the claims of deprivation under the Federal Constitution,
this court, having no power to review those proceedings, must
dismiss the complaint. The proper remedy was by appeal to the
Supreme Court of the United States."
The court saw the case as illustrating
"the dilemma of a litigant who has invoked the jurisdiction of a
federal court to assert a claimed constitutional right and finds
himself remitted to the state tribunals."
The dilemma, said the court, was that,
"[o]n the one hand, in view of
Government & Civic
Employees Organizing Committee v. Windsor, 353 U. S.
364, he dare not restrict his state court case to local
law issues. On the other, if, as required by
Windsor, he
raises the federal questions there, well established principles
will
Page 375 U. S. 415
bar a relitigation of those issues in the United States District
Court. . . . Since, in the usual case, no question not already
passed on by the state courts will remain, he is thereby
effectively deprived of a federal forum for the adjudication of his
federal claims."
194 F.
Supp. 521, 522. Appellants appealed directly to this Court
under 28 U.S.C. § 1253, and we noted probable jurisdiction. 372
U.S. 904. We reverse and remand to the District Court for decision
on the merits of appellants' Fourteenth Amendment claims.
There are fundamental objections to any conclusion that a
litigant who has properly invoked the jurisdiction of a Federal
District Court to consider federal constitutional claims can be
compelled, without his consent and through no fault of his own, to
accept instead a state court's determination of those claims.
[
Footnote 5] Such a result
would be at war with the unqualified terms in which Congress,
pursuant to constitutional authorization, has conferred specific
categories of jurisdiction upon the federal courts, and with the
principle that,
"[w]hen a Federal court is properly appealed to in a case over
which it has by law jurisdiction, it is its duty to take such
jurisdiction. . . . The right of a party plaintiff to choose a
Federal court where there is a choice cannot be properly
denied."
Willcox v. Consolidated Gas Co., 212 U. S.
19,
212 U. S. 40.
Nor does anything in the abstention doctrine require or support
such a result. Abstention is a judge-fashioned vehicle for
according appropriate deference to the "respective competence of
the state and federal court systems."
Louisiana P. & L. Co.
v. Thibodaux, 360 U. S. 25,
360 U. S. 29.
Its recognition of the role of state courts as the final expositors
of state law implies no disregard for the primacy of
Page 375 U. S. 416
the federal judiciary in deciding questions of federal law.
[
Footnote 6] Accordingly, we
have on several occasions explicitly recognized that abstention
"does not, of course, involve the abdication of federal
jurisdiction, but only the postponement of its exercise."
Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U. S. 167,
360 U. S. 177;
accord, Louisiana P. & L. Co. v. Thibodaux, supra, 360
U.S. at
360 U. S. 29.
[
Footnote 7]
It is true that, after a post-abstention determination and
rejection of his federal claims by the state courts, a litigant
could seek direct review in this Court.
NAACP v. Button,
371 U. S. 415;
Lassiter v. Northampton County Board of Elections,
360 U. S. 45. But
such review, even when available by appeal, rather than only by
discretionary with of certiorari, is an inadequate substitute for
the initial District Court determination -- often by three judges,
28 U.S.C. § 2281 -- to which the litigant is entitled in the
federal courts. This is true as to issues of law; it is especially
true as to issues of fact. Limiting the litigant to review here
would deny him the benefit of a federal trial court's role in
constructing a record and making factfindings. How the facts are
found will often dictate the decision of federal claims. "It is the
typical,
Page 375 U. S. 417
not the rare, case in which constitutional claims turn upon the
resolution of contested factual issues."
Townsend v. Sain,
372 U. S. 293,
372 U. S. 312.
"There is always in litigation a margin of error, representing
error in factfinding. . . ."
Speiser v. Randall,
357 U. S. 513,
357 U. S. 525.
Thus, in cases where, but for the application of the abstention
doctrine, the primary fact determination would have been by the
District Court, a litigant may not be unwillingly deprived of that
determination. [
Footnote 8] The
possibility of appellate review by this Court of a state court
determination may not be substituted, against a party's wishes, for
his right to litigate his federal claims fully in the federal
courts. We made this clear only last Term in
NAACP v. Button,
supra, 371 U.S. at
371 U. S. 427,
when we said that
"a party has the right to return to the District Court, after
obtaining the authoritative state court construction for which the
court abstained, for a final determination of his claim."
We also made clear in
Button, however, that a party may
elect to forgo that right. Our holding in that case was that a
judgment of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upon federal
issues submitted to the state tribunals by parties remitted
thereunder the abstention doctrine was "final" for purposes of our
review under 28 U.S.C. § 1257. In so determining, we held that the
petitioner had elected "to seek a complete and final adjudication
of [its] rights in the state courts," and thus not to return to the
District Court, and that it had manifested this election
"by seeking from the Richmond Circuit Court 'a binding
adjudication' of all its claims and a permanent
Page 375 U. S. 418
injunction as well as declaratory relief, by making no
reservation to the disposition of the entire case by the state
courts, and by coming here directly on certiorari."
371 U.S. at
371 U. S.
427-428. We fashioned the rule recognizing such an
election because we saw no inconsistency with the abstention
doctrine in allowing a litigant to decide, once the federal court
has abstained and compelled him to proceed in the state courts in
any event, to abandon his original choice of a federal forum and
submit his entire case to the state courts, relying on the
opportunity to come here directly if the state decision on his
federal claims should go against him. Such a choice by a litigant
serves to avoid much of the delay and expense to which application
of the abstention doctrine inevitably gives rise; when the choice
is voluntarily made, we see no reason why it should not be given
effect.
In
Button, we had no need to determine what steps, if
any, short of those taken by the petitioner there would suffice to
manifest the election. The instant case, where appellants did not
attempt to come directly to this Court but sought to return to the
District Court, requires such a determination. The line drawn
should be bright and clear, so that litigants shunted from federal
to state courts by application of the abstention doctrine will not
be exposed not only to unusual expense and delay, but also to
procedural traps operating to deprive them of their right to a
District Court determination of their federal claims. [
Footnote 9] It might be argued that
nothing short of what was done in
Button should suffice --
that a litigant should retain the right to return to the District
Court unless he not only litigates his federal claims in the state
tribunals, but seeks review of the state decision in this Court.
[
Footnote 10] But
Page 375 U. S. 419
we see no reason why a party, after unreservedly litigating his
federal claims in the state courts although not required to do so,
should be allowed to ignore the adverse state decision and start
all over again in the District Court. Such a rule would not only
countenance an unnecessary increase in the length and cost of the
litigation; it would also be a potential source of friction between
the state and federal judiciaries. We implicitly rejected such a
rule in
Button, when we stated that a party elects to
forgo his right to return to the District Court by a decision "to
seek a complete and final adjudication of his rights in the state
courts." We now explicitly hold that, if a party, freely and
without reservation, submits his federal claims for decision by the
state courts, litigates them there, and has them decided there,
then -- whether or not he seeks direct review of the state decision
in this Court -- he has elected to forgo his right to return to the
District Court.
This rule requires clarification of our decision in
Government & Civic Employees Organizing Committee v.
Windsor, 353 U. S. 364, the
case referred to by the District Court. The plaintiffs in
Windsor had submitted to the state courts only the
question whether the state statute they challenged applied to them,
and had not "advanced" or "presented" to those courts their
contentions against the statute's constitutionality. We held
that
"the bare adjudication by the Alabama Supreme Court that the
[appellant] union is subject to this Act does not suffice, since
that court was not asked to interpret the statute in light of the
constitutional objections presented to the District Court. If
appellants'
Page 375 U. S. 420
freedom of expression and equal protection arguments had been
presented to the state court, it might have construed the statute
in a different manner."
353 U.S. at
353 U. S. 366.
On oral argument in the instant case, we were advised that
appellants' submission of their federal claims to the state courts
had been motivated primarily by a belief that
Windsor
required this. The District Court likewise thought that, under
Windsor, a party is required to litigate his federal
question in the state courts, and "dare not restrict his state
court case to local law issues."
194 F.
Supp. at 522. Others have read
Windsor the same way.
[
Footnote 11] It should not
be so read. The case does not mean that a party must litigate his
federal claims in the state courts, but only that he must inform
those courts what his federal claims are, so that the state statute
may be construed "in light of" those claims.
See Note, 73
Harv.L.Rev. 1358, 1364-1365 (1960). Thus, mere compliance with
Windsor will not support a conclusion, much less create a
presumption, that a litigant has freely and without reservation
litigated his federal claims in the state courts, and so elected
not to return to the District Court.
We recognize that, in the heat of litigation, a party may find
it difficult to avoid doing more than is required by
Windsor. This would be particularly true in the typical
case, such as the instant one, where the state courts are asked to
construe a state statute against the backdrop of a federal
constitutional challenge. The litigant denying the statute's
applicability may be led not merely to state his federal
constitutional claim, but to argue it, for if he can persuade the
state court that application of the statute to him would offend the
Federal Constitution, he will ordinarily have persuaded it
Page 375 U. S. 421
that the statute should not be construed as applicable to him.
In addition, the parties cannot prevent the state court from
rendering a decision on the federal question if it chooses to do
so; and even if such a decision is not explicit, a holding that the
statute is applicable may arguably imply, in view of the
constitutional objections to such a construction, that the court
considers the constitutional challenge to be without merit.
Despite these uncertainties arising from application of Windsor
-- which decision, we repeat, does not require that federal claims
be actually litigated in the state courts -- a party may readily
forestall any conclusion that he has elected not to return to the
District Court. He may accomplish this by making on the state
record the "reservation to the disposition of the entire case by
the state courts" that we referred to in
Button. That is,
he may inform the state courts that he is exposing his federal
claims there only for the purpose of complying with
Windsor, and that he intends, should the state courts hold
against him on the question of state law, to return to the District
Court for disposition of his federal contentions. Such an explicit
reservation is not indispensable; the litigant is in no event to be
denied his right to return to the District Court unless it clearly
appears that he voluntarily did more than
Windsor
required, and fully litigated his federal claims in the state
courts. [
Footnote 12] When
the reservation
Page 375 U. S. 422
has been made, however, his right to return will, in all events,
be preserved. [
Footnote
13]
On the record in the instant case, the rule we announce today
would call for affirmance of the District Court's judgment. But we
are unwilling to apply the rule against these appellants. As we
have noted, their primary reason for litigating their federal
claims in the state courts was assertedly a view that
Windsor required them to do so. [
Footnote 14] That view was mistaken, and will not
avail other litigants who rely upon it after today's decision. But
we cannot say, in the face of the support given the view by
respectable authorities, including the court below, that appellants
were unreasonable in holding it or acting upon it. We therefore
hold that the District Court should not have
Page 375 U. S. 423
dismissed their action. The judgment is reversed, and the case
is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
It is so ordered.
[
Footnote 1]
The action was brought in 1957. The District Court initially
dismissed the complaint on the authority of
Louisiana State
Board of Medical Examiners v. Fife, 162 La. 681, 111 So. 58,
aff'd per curiam, 274 U.S. 720. The Court of Appeals for
the Fifth Circuit reversed, 259 F.2d 626, on petition for
rehearing, 263 F.2d 661. We denied certiorari, 359 U.S. 1012. On
remand, the three-judge District Court was convened.
[
Footnote 2]
Appellants did not challenge the order of abstention by appeal
here.
See Turner v. City of Memphis, 369 U.
S. 350; 28 U.S.C. § 1253. Nor do they now challenge it.
Thus, there is not before us any question as to either the proper
scope of the abstention doctrine or the propriety of its
application to this case.
[
Footnote 3]
Appellants' petition in the Louisiana trial court appended a
copy of the abstention order and opinion, and recited that the
state proceeding was brought "in pursuance of and obedience to" the
abstention order. Like the complaint filed in the federal court,
the petition sought both declaratory and injunctive relief. The
allegations were that the Medical Practice Act was inapplicable to
chiropractors, and also,
"[i]n the alternative, in the event the court should hold that
the Medical Practice Act does apply to your plaintiffs . . . , said
Act is unconstitutional"
because in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The petition
challenged the statute's validity under that Amendment in terms
substantially identical to those in the federal court complaint.
The trial court, on the basis of the same documentary evidence that
had been submitted to the three-judge District Court, sustained
appellees' defense of "no cause of action."
[
Footnote 4]
Appellants made no attempt to obtain appellate review of the
state court decision in this Court.
See Lassiter v. Northampton
County Board of Elections, 360 U. S. 45;
NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415; 28
U.S.C. § 1257(2).
[
Footnote 5]
At least this is true in a case, like the instant one, not
involving the possibility of unwarranted disruption of a state
administrative process.
Compare Burford v. Sun Oil Co.,
319 U. S. 315;
Alabama Public Service Comm'n v. Southern R. Co.,
341 U. S. 341.
[
Footnote 6]
See Kurland, Toward a Co-operative Judicial Federalism:
The Federal Court Abstention Doctrine, 24 F.R.D. 481, 487.
[
Footnote 7]
The doctrine contemplates only
"that controversies involving unsettled questions of state law
[may] be decided in the state tribunals preliminary to a federal
court's consideration of the underlying federal constitutional
questions,"
City of Meridian v. Southern Bell Tel. & Tel. Co.,
358 U. S. 639,
358 U. S. 640,
"that decision of the federal question be deferred until the
potentially controlling state law issue is authoritatively put to
rest,"
United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. Ideal Cement Co.,
369 U. S. 134,
369 U. S.
135-136, "that federal courts do not decide questions of
constitutionality on the basis of preliminary guesses regarding
local law,"
Spector Motor Service, Inc., v. McLaughlin,
323 U. S. 101,
323 U. S.
105,
"that these enactments should be exposed to state construction
or limiting interpretation before the federal courts are asked to
decide upon their constitutionality,"
Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U. S. 167,
360 U. S.
178.
[
Footnote 8]
Even where fact findings on federal constitutional contentions
are for state tribunals to make in the first instance, as in state
criminal prosecutions, they are not immune, when brought into
question in federal habeas corpus, from District Court
consideration and, in proper cases, from
de novo
consideration.
Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.
S. 293,
372 U. S.
312-319.
[
Footnote 9]
Cf. Wright, The Abstention Doctrine Reconsidered, 37
Tex.L.Rev. 815, 825 (1959).
[
Footnote 10]
One case has even permitted the litigant to return to the
District Court although review was sought and denied here.
See
Tribune Review Publishing Co. v. Thomas, 153 F.
Supp. 486,
aff'd, 254 F.2d 883, where the litigant's
federal claims were decided by the District Court following
decision upon the same claims by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and
denial by us of certiorari to that court's judgment.
Mack v.
Pennsylvania, 386 Pa. 251, 126 A.2d 679,
cert.
denied, 352 U.S. 1002.
[
Footnote 11]
See Note, 59 Col.L.Rev. 749, 773 (1959); Note, 73
Harv.L.Rev. 1358, 1364 (1960), quoting brief for appellant, p. 5,
in
Lassiter v. Northampton County Board of Elections,
360 U. S. 45.
[
Footnote 12]
It has been suggested that state courts may "take no more
pleasure than do federal courts in deciding cases piecemeal . . .
," and
"probably prefer to determine their questions of law with
complete records of cases in which they can enter final judgments
before them."
Clay v. Sun Ins. Office, 363 U.
S. 207,
363 U. S. 227
(dissenting opinion). We are confident that state courts, sharing
the abstention doctrine's purpose of "furthering the harmonious
relation between state and federal authority,"
Railroad Comm'n
of Texas v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496,
312 U. S. 501,
will respect a litigant's reservation of his federal claims for
decision by the federal courts.
See Spector Motor Service, Inc.
v. Walsh, 135 Conn. 37, 40-41, 61 A.2d 89, 92. However,
evidence that a party has been compelled by the state courts to
litigate his federal claims there will, of course, preclude a
finding that he has voluntarily done so. And if the state court has
declined to decide the state question because of the litigant's
refusal to submit without reservation the federal question as well,
the District Court will have no alternative but to vacate its order
of abstention.
[
Footnote 13]
The reservation may be made by any party to the litigation.
Usually the plaintiff will have made the original choice to
litigate in the federal court, but the defendant also, by virtue of
the removal jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b), has a right to
litigate the federal question there. Once issue has been joined in
the federal court, no party is entitled to insist, over another's
objection, upon a binding state court determination of the federal
question. Thus, while a plaintiff who unreservedly litigates his
federal claims in the state courts may thereby elect to forgo his
own right to return to the District Court, he cannot impair the
corresponding right of the defendant. The latter may protect his
right by either declining to oppose the plaintiff's federal claim
in the state court or opposing it with the appropriate reservation.
It may well be, if course, that a refusal to litigate or a
reservation by any party will deter the state court from deciding
the federal question.
[
Footnote 14]
The District Court's abstention order, in instructing appellants
to obtain a state court determination not of the state question
alone, but of "the issues here presented," was also misleading.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, concurring.
The judge-made rule we announce today promises to have such a
serious impact on litigants who are properly in the federal courts
that I think a reappraisal of
Railroad Comm'n of Texas v.
Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496,
from which today's decision stems, is necessary. Although the
propriety of the
Pullman doctrine, either as originally
decided or as it has evolved, has not been raised by the parties, I
think it is time for the Court,
sua sponte, to reevaluate
it.
I
The
Pullman case, decided a little over 20 years ago,
launched an experiment in the management of federal-state relations
that has inappropriately been called the "abstention doctrine."
There are numerous occasions when a federal court abstains,
dismissing an action or declining to entertain it because a state
tribunal is a more appropriate one for resolving the controversy. A
bankruptcy court commonly sends its trustee into state courts to
have complex questions of local law adjudicated.
Thompson v.
Magnolia Co., 309 U. S. 478. A
federal court refuses to exercise its equity powers by appointing
receivers to take charge of a failing business, where state
procedures afford adequate protection to all private rights.
Pennsylvania v. Williams, 294 U.
S. 176. A federal court will normally not entertain a
suit to enjoin criminal prosecutions in state tribunals, with
review of such convictions by this Court being restricted to
constitutional issues.
Beal v. Missouri Pac. R. Co.,
312 U. S. 45. A
federal court declines to entertain an action for declaratory
relief against state taxes because of the federal policy
against
Page 375 U. S. 424
interfering with them by injunction.
Great Lakes Dredge
& Dock Co. v. Huffman, 319 U. S. 293.
Where state administrative action is challenged, a federal court
will normally not intervene where there is an adequate state court
review which is protective of any federal constitutional claim.
Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315;
Alabama Public Service Comm'n v. Southern R. Co.,
341 U. S. 341. The
examples could be multiplied where the federal court adopts a
hands-off policy and remits the litigants to a state tribunal.
Railroad Comm'n of Texas v. Pullman Co., supra, is a
different kind of case. There, the federal court does not abstain;
it does not dismiss the complaint; it retains jurisdiction while
the parties go to a state tribunal to obtain a preliminary ruling
-- a declaratory judgment -- on state law questions. The reason for
requiring them to repair to the state tribunal for a preliminary
ruling on a question of state law is because the state law is
challenged on federal constitutional grounds; if the state law is
construed one way, the constitutional issue may disappear; the
federal constitutional question will survive only if one of two or
more state law constructions is adopted. The "last word" as to the
meaning of local law "belongs neither to us nor to the District
Court, but to the Supreme Court of Texas," we said in the
Pullman case, 312 U.S. at
312 U. S. 500.
We concluded:
"In this situation, a federal court of equity is asked to decide
an issue by making a tentative answer which may be displaced
tomorrow by a state adjudication.
Glenn v. Field Packing
Co., 290 U. S. 177;
Lee v.
Bickell, 292 U. S. 415. The reign of law
is hardly promoted if an unnecessary ruling of a federal court is
thus supplanted by a controlling decision of a state court. The
resources of equity are equal to an adjustment that will avoid the
waste of a tentative decision, as well as the friction of a
premature constitutional adjudication."
Ibid.
Page 375 U. S. 425
We therefore remanded the case
"with directions to retain the bill pending a determination of
proceedings, to be brought will reasonable promptness, in the state
court in conformity with this opinion."
Id. at
312 U. S.
501-502.
II
I was a member of the Court that launched
Pullman and
sent it on its way. But if I had realized the creature it was to
become, my doubts would have been far deeper than they were.
Pullman from the start seemed to have some qualities of
a legal research luxury. As I said in
Clay v. Sun Ins.
Office, 363 U. S. 207,
363 U. S. 228
(dissenting opinion):
"Some litigants have long purses. Many, however, can hardly
afford one lawsuit, let alone two. Shuttling the parties between
state and federal tribunals is a sure way of defeating the ends of
justice. The pursuit of justice is not an academic exercise. There
are no foundations to finance the resolution of nice state law
questions involved in federal court litigation. The parties are
entitled -- absent unique and rare situations -- to adjudication of
their rights in the tribunals which Congress has empowered to
act."
As recently stated by the late Judge Charles E. Clark of the
Second Circuit Court of Appeals,
"As a result of this doctrine, individual litigants have been
shuffled back and forth between state and federal courts, and cases
have been dragged out over eight- and ten-year periods."
Federal Procedural Reform and States' Rights, 40 Tex.L.Rev. 211,
221 (1961).
Professor Charles A. Wright described the results that occurred
when this doctrine was applied to a suit to enjoin the enforcement
of a state statute restricting the rights of state employees to
join unions: [
Footnote 2/1]
". . . after
Page 375 U. S. 426
five years of litigation, including two trips to the Supreme
Court of the United States and two to the highest state court, the
parties still had failed to obtain a decision on the merits of the
statute."
The Abstention Doctrine Reconsidered, 37 Tex.L.Rev. 815, 818
(1959).
This case raises a question so simple that it at least verges on
the insubstantial. The question is whether Louisiana's Medical
Practice Act, La.Rev.Stat. § 37:1261
et seq. includes
chiropractors as practitioners of medicine. The State Board of
Medical Examiners, representing the State, says that they are
included. The chiropractors say they are not, and, if they are,
that the Act is unconstitutional. The case was started in May,
1957, and here we are nearly seven years later without a decision
on the merits.
That seems like an unnecessary price to pay for our federalism.
Referral to state courts for declaratory rulings on state law
questions is said to encourage a smooth operation of our
federalism, as it may avoid clashes between the two systems. But
there always have been clashes, and always will be, and the
influence of the
Pullman doctrine has, I think, been
de minimis. Moreover, the complexity of local law to
federal judges is inherent in the federal court system as designed
by Congress. Resolution of local law questions is implicit in
diversity of citizenship jurisdiction. Since
Erie R. Co. v.
Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64, the
federal courts, under that head of jurisdiction, daily have the
task of determining what the state law is. The fact that those
questions are complex and difficult is no excuse for a refusal by
the District Court to entertain the suit.
Meredith v. Winter
Haven, 320 U. S. 228. We
there said:
"The diversity jurisdiction was not conferred for the benefit of
the federal courts or to serve their convenience. Its purpose was
generally to afford to
Page 375 U. S. 427
suitors an opportunity in such cases at their option, to assert
their rights in the federal, rather than in the state, courts."
Id. at
320 U. S. 234.
And see Allegheny County v. Mashuda Co., 360 U.
S. 185,
360 U. S.
196.
The question now presented is how and when one who asserts his
"option" to sue in "the federal rather than in the state courts,"
but who is remitted to the state court for a preliminary ruling,
loses his right to return to the federal court for a final
adjudication on the constitutional issues.
In
Propper v. Clark, 337 U. S. 472,
337 U. S. 491,
we said that if, on referral of a discrete issue to the state
courts, the latter required
"complete adjudication of the controversy, the District Court
would perhaps be compelled to stay proceedings in the state court
to protect its own jurisdiction."
We went on to say,
"Otherwise in sending a fragment of the litigation to a state
court, the federal court might find itself blocked by
res
judicata, with the result that the entire federal controversy
would be ousted from the federal courts, where it was placed by
Congress."
Id. at
337 U. S.
491-492.
Today we put federal jurisdiction in jeopardy. As the Court
says, there are many advantages in a federally constructed record.
Moreover, federal judges appointed for life are more likely to
enforce the constitutional rights of unpopular minorities than
elected state judges. Madison stated the problem when the creation
of lower federal courts was being mooted:
"What was to be done after improper verdicts, in state
tribunals, obtained under the biased directions of a dependent
judge, or the local prejudices of an undirected jury? To remand the
cause for a new trial would answer no purpose. To order a new trial
at the supreme bar would oblige the parties to bring up their
witnesses, though ever so distant from the
Page 375 U. S. 428
seat of the court. An effective judiciary establishment,
commensurate to the legislative authority, was essential. A
government without a proper executive and judiciary would be the
mere trunk of a body, without arms or legs to act or more."
5 Elliot's Debates (Lipp. ed. 1941), p. 159.
Federal judges have come in for a share of criticism in this
regard, the charge at times being that, on racial issues, they have
too often "suffered the federal law to be flouted." Lusky, Racial
Discrimination and the Federal Law, 63 Col.L.Rev. 1163, 1179
(1963). That, at times, may be the case. But, from this vantage
point, their devotion to the rule of law over-all seems
outstanding. We stand to let federal courts lose their command over
critical litigation by what we do today. The Court holds that,
though the litigant goes to the state court involuntarily, he loses
his right to return to the federal court if he submits the local
law question and the constitutional questions to the state tribunal
without reserving his right to return to the federal forum for a
final adjudication. It will often be necessary to submit the local
law question in light of the constitutional questions. Indeed, it
will be prudent to do so in light of
Government Employees v.
Windsor, supra, where we ruled,
"The bare adjudication by the Alabama Supreme Court that the
union is subject to this Act does not suffice, since that court was
not asked to interpret the statute in light of the constitutional
objections presented to the District Court."
353 U.S. at
353 U. S.
366.
Yet we now hold that, if a party who is sent by the federal
court to the state courts for a preliminary ruling submits the
whole problem to those courts -- that is, the constitutional, as
well as the bare bones of the state law question -- he is presumed
to have elected to try his case there, rather than in the federal
courts, unless he expressly reserved the right to return to the
federal tribunal.
Page 375 U. S. 429
Perhaps the Court does that to avoid the consequences of
res
judicata. But
res judicata is not a constitutional
principle; it has no higher dignity than the principle we announce
today. In
Propper v. Clark, supra, we said that, to avoid
res judicata, the District Court should stay the state
proceedings. Better that we approve that judge-made procedure than
to overlay the treacherous requirement of the
Pullman case
with this new judge-made requirement.
What we do today makes the
Pullman case something of a
Frankenstein. Any presumption should work the other way -- that he
who is required to go to the state courts and does what we require
him to do when he gets there is not there voluntarily, and does not
forsake his federal suit unless he does something in the state
courts that he is not required to do, and that evinces an election
to litigate the matter finally, and not preliminarily in the state
courts.
As, if, and when he exhausts the state procedure and decides to
come here, as was done in
NAACP v. Button, 371 U.
S. 415, he has elected to abandon the federal for the
state forum.
Id. at
371 U. S. 428.
But, short of that, he seldom can be said to have made such an
election. For when he pursues the matter through the hierarchy of
the state courts, he is doing only what he is required to do. The
only time when he goes beyond that requirement is when he takes the
fork in the road leading here, rather than the one to the District
Court.
III
If the
Pullman doctrine is to be preserved, we should
lighten, rather than make more ponderous, the procedures which we
have been imposing. We have made
Pullman mandatory, not
discretionary, with the District Courts. As stated in
Louisiana
P. & L. Co. v. Thibodaux, 360 U. S.
25,
360 U. S.
28,
". . . we have required District Courts,
Page 375 U. S. 430
and not merely sanctioned an exercise of their discretionary
power, to stay their proceedings pending the submission of the
state law question to state determination."
So, no matter the ease with which the whole controversy can be
resolved, parties are sent their weary and expensive way into the
state tribunals. Whether or not we agree with Mr. Justice BLACK
that the present case involves no substantial federal question, it
certainly borders on the insubstantial, and a District Court, if it
has that view of a case, should be allowed, in its discretion, to
decide the whole case at once, avoiding the state litigation
completely -- free of interference here or in the Court of
Appeals.
We have, moreover, extended the
Pullman doctrine,
contrary to our prior decision in
Proper v. Clark, supra,
at
337 U. S.
491-492, to cases that involve no shadow of a
substantial constitutional issue, but only local law questions in
the field of eminent domain. [
Footnote
2/2]
Louisiana P. & L. Co. v. Thibodaux, supra. As
my Brother BRENNAN said in dissent in that case:
". . . the Court attempts to carve out a new area in which, even
though an adjudication by the federal court would not require the
decision of federal constitutional questions, nor create friction
with the State, the federal courts are encouraged to abnegate their
responsibilities in diversity cases."
360 U.S. at
360 U. S.
36-37.
Thus, the
Pullman doctrine reflects an antipathy to
federal courts passing on state law questions.
Page 375 U. S. 431
IV
There have been historic clashes between the federal courts and
the States, some of them needless.
See Warren, Federal and
State Court Interference, 43 Harv.L.Rev. 345 (1930). The examples
are numerous. Thus, federal courts, free and easy with injunctions,
interfered wholesale with public utility rate orders, [
Footnote 2/3] with efforts of the States to
collect their revenue, [
Footnote
2/4] and with suits in state courts. [
Footnote 2/5] Prior to
Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins,
supra, the "mischievous results" (304 U.S. at
304 U. S. 74) of
the earlier rule of
Swift v. Tyson,
16 Pet. 1, were apparent, federal courts, by their formulation of
"general law," often defeating legitimate state policies. 304 U.S.
at
304 U. S. 73-78.
Federal courts, inflating the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, became a sort of super-legislature, reviewing the wisdom
of a wide variety of state law.
See, e.g., Lochner v. New
York, 198 U. S. 45;
Burns Baking Co. v. Bryan, 264 U.
S. 504.
Those chapters have ended, sometimes as a result of judicial
housekeeping, [
Footnote 2/6] at
other times as a consequence of federal legislation. [
Footnote 2/7] What mostly remain are
clashes and conflicts between State and Nation inherent in the
performance of the functions of a referee in the federal system.
Such was the unavoidable consequence of the effort of the Marshall
Court, beginning at least with
Gibbons
Page 375 U. S. 432
v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, to create a great common market
within the grand design of the Commerce Clause. Such is the
unavoidable consequence today when Negroes claim the full benefits
of the Fourteenth (
see Brown v. Board of Education,
347 U. S. 483;
349 U. S. 349 U.S.
294), and Fifteenth Amendments.
See Alabama v. United
States, 304 F.2d 583,
aff'd, 371 U. S.
37;
United States v. Raines, 362 U. S.
17;
United States v. McElveen, 180 F. Supp.
10,
aff'd sub nom. United States v. Thomas,
362 U. S. 58.
If we are to retain the
Pullman doctrine, I think with
all deference, we should make it less of a mandatory and more a
discretionary procedure, and lighten its requirements, rather than
make them stricter.
We should permit the District Court to refer the matter to the
state court for a declaratory judgment only where the State offers
such relief. [
Footnote 2/8]
Otherwise, we should require that the litigation be conducted in
the federal court where Congress decided it could be conducted. In
any event, we should leave it to the District Court to refuse to
refer the matter to the state courts if, as here, there is no local
law question tangled in a maze of state statutes and state
decisions.
Page 375 U. S. 433
If we are to retain the
Pullman doctrine, we should not
weight it down by procedures which, like today's decision, make it
a trap for the unwary.
The
Pullman doctrine, as it has evolved, is the least
desirable alternative. It is better, I think, for the federal
courts to decide local law questions, as they customarily do in the
diversity cases, adding at the foot of the decree as Mr. Justice
Cardozo, writing for a unanimous Court, did in
Lee v.
Bickell, 292 U. S. 415,
292 U. S. 426:
". . . that the parties to the suit or any of them may apply at
any time to the court below, by bill or otherwise, as they may be
advised, for a further order or decree, in case it shall appear
that the statute has been then construed by the highest court of
Florida as applicable to the transactions in controversy here."
Another alternative is for the District Court to follow the
certificate route, when one is available. The Florida Supreme Court
is authorized [
Footnote 2/9] to
provide by Rule [
Footnote 2/10]
for
Page 375 U. S. 434
answering certificates concerning state law questions tendered
by the federal courts. We use that procedure [
Footnote 2/11] on Florida state law perplexities
(
Dresner v. Tallahassee, 375 U. S. 136;
Aldrich v. Aldrich, 375 U. S. 75). We
cannot require the States to provide such a procedure, but ,by
asserting the independence of the federal courts and insisting on
prompt adjudications, we will encourage its use.
V
After today's decision, application of the
Pullman
doctrine to the field of civil rights, particularly to
controversies involving the rights of Negroes, will have, I think,
serious effects.
Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U.
S. 167, and
NAACP v. Button, supra, are
harbingers of things to come. The complaint in those cases was
filed November 28, 1956, and our decision on the merits was not
announced until January 14, 1963. In other words, nearly seven
years elapsed between the institution of the litigation and an
adjudication on the merits. The end product could still be
described as a sizable collision between Nation and State.
Cases where Negroes are prosecuted and convicted in state courts
can find their way expeditiously to this Court, provided they
present constitutional questions. Yet instances where Negroes
assert their rights in judicial proceedings will continue to be
numerous. Those suits will be civil ones, and almost always
instituted in the Federal
Page 375 U. S. 435
District Courts, since those courts have a special competence in
the field and a record of independence protective of the rights of
unpopular minorities. That litigation more often than not entails
construction of state statutes, city ordinances, state court
decisions, rulings of state administrative commissions, and the
like. Under the
Pullman doctrine, a Negro who starts in
the federal court soon finds himself in the state court, and his
journey there may be not only weary and expensive, but also long
and drawn out. There will be no inclination to expedite his case.
The whole weight of the status quo will be on the side of delay and
procrastination. What we do today adds to the toll that the
Pullman doctrine will take of civil rights.
The Bar is now told that if one repairs to the state courts and
submits the state law question along with the federal
constitutional questions, he will be presumed to have elected to
pursue the state remedy, unless he makes clear a purpose to return
to the federal court when the state court has made its ruling. I
gather that, without that reservation, the record will be taken to
mean that "he voluntarily litigated his federal claims in the state
courts." Or, if he forgets or fails to make such a reservation, he
can still preserve his right to return to the federal court by
doing what the Court now says is required of him by
Windsor. For he is told today that, instead of submitting
his federal claims to be "litigated," he may submit his state law
questions only for consideration "in light of" the federal
questions. Those who read this opinion may have adequate warning.
But this opinion, like most, will become an obscure one -- little
known to the Bar. Lawyers do not keep up with all the nuances of
court opinions, especially those touching on as exotic a rule of
federal procedure as the one which we evolve today. I fear
therefore that the rule we announce today will be a veritable
trap.
Page 375 U. S. 436
The Court recognizes the value to the litigants of being in the
federal court. As it says, "the benefit of a federal trial court's
role in constructing a record and making fact findings" is
considerable.
Ante at p.
375 U. S. 416.
A litigant trapped in state court proceedings may find himself
veritably encased by findings of fact which no appellate court may
disturb. The value of the independence of federal judges, and the
value of an escape from local prejudices when fact findings are
made. are considerable ones. Yet under the rule we announce today,
those values promise to be lost in important areas of civil
rights.
I mention the time element as one of the evils spun by the
Pullman doctrine. Time has a particularly noxious effect
on explosive civil rights questions, where the problem only festers
as grievances pile high and the law takes its slow, expensive pace
to decide in years what should be decided promptly.
The late Judge Charles E. Clark made an apt and pertinent
observation on the impact of the
Pullman doctrine. At
times, he said, "the upshot inevitably seems to be a negative
decision or, in plain language, a defendant's judgment." [
Footnote 2/12] Delay which the
Pullman doctrine sponsors keeps the
status quo
entrenched, and renders "a defendant's judgment" even in the face
of constitutional requirements. These evils are all compounded by
what we do today, making it likely that litigants seeking the
protection of the federal courts for assertion of their civil
rights [
Footnote 2/13] will be
ground down slowly by the passage of
Page 375 U. S. 437
time and the expenditure of money in state proceedings, leaving
the ultimate remedy here at least in many cases, an illusory
one.
[
Footnote 2/1]
Government Employees v. Windsor, 353 U.
S. 364.
[
Footnote 2/2]
Some federal courts have used the doctrine to shuttle over to
state courts cases properly in the federal court yet not involving
constitutional issues dependent on the meaning of state law
(
see Mottolese v. Kaufman, 176 F.2d 301;
Beiersdorf
& Co. v. McGohey, 187 F.2d 14) -- decisions which baldly
deny a suitor the remedy granted by Congress because it is not
convenient to the district judge to decide the case.
[
Footnote 2/3]
See S.Rep. No. 701, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 2-4;
H.R.Rep. No. 1194, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 2-3; S.Rep. No. 125,
73d Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 3-9 on the Johnson Act of 1934, 28 U.S.C.
§ 1342.
[
Footnote 2/4]
See S.Rep. No. 1035, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 2, on
the Tax Injunction Act of 1937, 28 U.S.C. § 1341.
[
Footnote 2/5]
See Toucey v. New York Life Ins. Co., 314 U.
S. 118; 28 U.S.C. § 2283.
[
Footnote 2/6]
See, e.g., Day-Brite Lighting, Inc., v. Missouri,
342 U. S. 421;
Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., 336 U.
S. 490;
Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U.
S. 726.
[
Footnote 2/7]
See notes
375
U.S. 411fn2/3|>3,
375
U.S. 411fn2/4|>4, and
375
U.S. 411fn2/5|>5,
supra.
[
Footnote 2/8]
Thirty-six States, plus Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, have
adopted the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act.
See 9A
Uniform L.Ann. (1962 Cum.Ann.Pt.), p. 9. Other States have special
declaratory judgment statutes restricted to a litigation of a
specified issue or issues.
See I Anderson, Actions for
Declaratory Judgments (1959 Supp.), § 6.
In
Meridian v. Southern Bell T. & T. Co.,
358 U. S. 639, in
which the District Court was ordered to stay its hand while the
parties repaired to the state court, the State involved,
Mississippi, lacked a declaratory judgment procedure.
See
IV Martindale-Hubbell (1963), p. 979. A state court determination
was obtained only when the parties switched roles, with the city --
a defendant in the federal court declaratory judgment action --
suing the telephone company for noncompliance with the law
originally challenged as unconstitutional. The state action was
resolved in the telephone company's favor.
Southern Bell T.
& T. Co., v. Meridian, 241 Miss. 678,
131 So. 2d
666.
[
Footnote 2/9]
Fla.Stat.Ann., 1955, § 25.031, provides:
"The supreme court of this state may, by rule of court, provide
that, when it shall appear to the supreme court of the United
States, to any circuit court of appeals of the United States, or to
the court of appeals of the District of Columbia, that there are
involved in any proceeding before it questions or propositions of
the laws of this state, which are determinative of the said cause,
and there are no clear controlling precedents in the decisions of
the supreme court of this state, such federal appellate court may
certify such questions or propositions of the laws of this state to
the supreme court of this state for instructions concerning such
questions or propositions of state law, which certificate the
supreme court of this state, by written opinion, may answer."
See Kurland, Toward A Cooperative Judicial Federalism,
24 F.R.D. 481, 489-490 (1959); Note, 73 Harv.L.Rev. 1358, 1368
(1960).
[
Footnote 2/10]
Rule 4.61 of the Florida Appellate Rules provides:
"When it shall appear to the Supreme Court of the United States,
or to any of the Courts of Appeal of the United States that there
are involved in any proceeding before it questions or propositions
of law of this state which are determinative of said cause and that
there are no clear controlling precedents in the decisions of the
Supreme Court of this state, such federal appellate court may
certify such questions or propositions of law of this state to the
Supreme Court of Florida for instructions concerning such questions
or propositions of state law."
[
Footnote 2/11]
As respects certificates from state courts on cases coming here,
see Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U. S. 117,
325 U. S. 325 U.S.
77;
King v. Order of Travelers, 333 U.
S. 153,
333 U. S. 160;
Hart and Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System
(1953), pp. 444-446.
[
Footnote 2/12]
Clark, The Limits of Judicial Objectivity, 12 Am.U.L.Rev. 1, 5
(1963).
[
Footnote 2/13]
See Wechsler, Federal Jurisdiction and the Revision of
the Judicial Code, 13 L. & Cont.Problems, 216, 229-230 (1948)
discussing a proposed codification of the
Pullman doctrine
whereby the federal court would retain jurisdiction only in limited
situations:
"These observations call for qualification in one instance: the
rights of action specially conferred by Congress in the Civil
Rights Laws. There Congress has declared the historic judgment that
within this precious area, often calling for a trial by jury, there
is to be no slightest risk of nullification by state process. The
danger is unhappily not past. It would be moving in the wrong
direction to reduce the jurisdiction in this field -- not because
the interest of the state is smaller in such cases, but because its
interest is outweighed by other factors of the highest national
concern. Needless to say, to formulate the scope of the exception
is no drafting problem; its measure is the rights of action given
by the Civil Rights Laws."
Id. at 230.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK, concurring in part and dissenting in
part.
I join in the judgment and in the opinion insofar as the Court
holds that the District Court erred in the reasons it gave for
dismissing appellants action. I am of the opinion, however, that
the dismissal should be affirmed on the grounds relied upon by
Judge J. Skelly Wright sitting alone in the District Court when the
action first was brought: that the complaint failed to state a
substantial federal question warranting exercise of jurisdiction.
See Hitchcock v. Collenberg, 140 F.
Supp. 894 (D.C.D.Md.),
aff'd, 353 U.S. 919;
cf. Ex
parte Poresky, 290 U. S. 30.
Compare Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners v.
Fife, 162 La. 681, 111 So. 58,
aff'd, 274 U.S. 720;
Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114.
See also Judge Wisdom's opinions dissenting from reversal
of Judge Wright's ruling, 259 F.2d 626, 627 (C.A.5th Cir.), and 263
F.2d 661, 674 (C.A.5th Cir.). Although a petition for certiorari to
review the decision of the Fifth Circuit was denied, 359 U.S. 1012,
issues raised at that stage of the litigation which remain
dispositive of the case are properly before us.
Urie v.
Thompson, 337 U. S. 163.