The authority of respondent City of Thibodaux to expropriate the
property of petitioner Power and Light Company was challenged in an
eminent domain proceeding in the District Court, which had
jurisdiction based on diversity of citizenship. Petitioner answered
respondent's reliance upon a Louisiana statute by citing an opinion
of the Louisiana Attorney General advising that a Louisiana city
was without power to effect a similar expropriation. The District
Judge, on his own motion, ordered that further proceedings be
stayed until the Louisiana Supreme Court had been afforded an
opportunity to interpret the theretofore judicially uninterpreted
Act.
Held: the District Court properly exercised the power
it had in this case to stay proceedings pending a prompt state
court construction of a state statute of dubious meaning. Pp.
360 U. S.
25-31.
255 F.2d 774 reversed.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The City of Thibodaux, Louisiana, filed a petition for
expropriation in one of the Louisiana District Courts, asserting a
taking of the land, buildings, and equipment of petitioner Power
and Light Company. Petitioner, a Florida corporation, removed the
case to the United States District Court for the Eastern District
of Louisiana on the basis of diversity of citizenship. After a
pretrial conference in which various aspects of the case were
discussed,
Page 360 U. S. 26
the district judge, on his own motion, ordered that
"Further proceedings herein therefore will be stayed until the
Supreme Court of Louisiana has been afforded an opportunity to
interpret Act 111 of 1900,"
the authority on which the city's expropriation order was based.
153 F.
Supp. 515, 517-518. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
reversed, holding that the procedure adopted by the district judge
was not available in an expropriation proceeding, and that, in any
event, no exceptional circumstances were present to justify the
procedure even if available. 255 F.2d 774. We granted certiorari,
358 U.S. 893, because of the importance of the question in the
judicial enforcement of the power of eminent domain under diversity
jurisdiction. [
Footnote 1]
In connection with the first decision in which a closely divided
Court considered and upheld jurisdiction over an eminent domain
proceeding removed to the federal courts on the basis of diversity
of citizenship,
Madisonville Traction Co. v. St. Bernard Mining
Co., 196 U. S. 239,
196 U. S. 257,
Mr. Justice Holmes made the following observation:
"The fundamental fact is that eminent domain is a prerogative of
the state which, on the one hand, may be exercised in any way that
the state thinks fit, and, on the other, may not be exercised
except by an authority which the state confers."
While this was said in the dissenting opinion, the distinction
between expropriation proceedings and ordinary diversity cases,
though found insufficient to restrict diversity jurisdiction,
remains a relevant and important consideration in the appropriate
judicial administration of such actions in the federal courts.
Page 360 U. S. 27
We have increasingly recognized the wisdom of staying actions in
the federal courts pending determination by a state court of
decisive issues of state law. Thus, in
Railroad Commission v.
Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496,
312 U. S. 499,
it was said:
"Had we or they [the lower court judges] no choice in the matter
but to decide what is the law of the state, we should hesitate long
before rejecting their forecast of Texas law. But no matter how
seasoned the judgment of the district court may be, it cannot
escape being a forecast, rather than a determination."
On the other hand, we have held that the mere difficulty of
state law does not justify a federal court's relinquishment of
jurisdiction in favor of state court action.
Meredith v. Winter
Haven, 320 U. S. 228,
320 U. S. 236.
[
Footnote 2] But
Page 360 U. S. 28
where the issue touched upon the relationship of City to State,
Chicago v. Fieldcrest Dairies, Inc., 316 U.
S. 168, or involved the scope of a previously
uninterpreted state statute which, if applicable, was of
questionable constitutionality,
Leiter Minerals, Inc. v. United
States, 352 U. S. 220,
352 U. S. 229,
we have required District Courts, 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.
These prior cases have been cases in equity, but they did not
apply a technical rule of equity procedure. They reflect a deeper
policy derived from our federalism. We have drawn upon the judicial
discretion of the chancellor to decline jurisdiction over a part or
all of a case brought before him.
See Railroad Commission v.
Pullman Co., supra. Although an eminent domain proceeding is
deemed for certain purposes of legal classification a "suit at
common law,"
Kohl v. United States, 91 U. S.
367,
91 U. S.
375-376, it is of a special and peculiar nature. Mr.
Justice Holmes set forth one differentiating characteristic of
eminent domain: it is intimately involved with sovereign
prerogative. And when, as here, a city's power to condemn is
challenged, a further aspect of sovereignty is introduced. A
determination of the nature and extent of delegation of the power
of eminent domain concerns the apportionment of governmental powers
between City and State. The issues normally turn on legislation
with much local variation interpreted in local settings. The
considerations that prevailed in conventional equity suits for
avoiding the hazards of serious disruption by federal courts of
state government or needless friction between state and federal
authorities are similarly appropriate in a state eminent domain
proceeding brought in, or removed to, a federal court.
Page 360 U. S. 29
The special nature of eminent domain justifies a district judge,
when his familiarity with the problems of local law so counsels
him, to ascertain the meaning of a disputed state statute from the
only tribunal empowered to speak definitively -- the courts of the
State under whose statute eminent domain is sought to be exercised
-- rather than himself make a dubious and tentative forecast. This
course does not constitute abnegation of judicial duty. On the
contrary, it is a wise and productive discharge of it. There is
only postponement of decision for its best fruition. Eventually the
District Court will award compensation if the taking is sustained.
If, for some reason, a declaratory judgment is not promptly sought
from the state courts and obtained within a reasonable time, the
District Court, having retained complete control of the litigation,
will doubtless assert it to decide also the question of the meaning
of the state statute. The justification for this power, to be
exercised within the indicated limits, lies in regard for the
respective competence of the state and federal court systems and
for the maintenance of harmonious federal-state relations in a
matter close to the political interests of a State.
It would imply an unworthy conception of the federal judiciary
to give weight to the suggestion that acknowledgment of this power
will tempt some otiose or timid judge to shuffle off
responsibility.
"Such apprehension implies a lack of discipline and of
disinterestedness on the part of the lower courts, hardly a worthy
or wise basis for fashioning rules of procedure."
Kerotest Mfg. Co. v. C-O-Two Fire Equipment Co.,
342 U. S. 180,
342 U. S. 185.
Procedures for effective judicial administration presuppose a
federal judiciary composed of judges well equipped and of sturdy
character in whom may safely be vested, as is already, a wide range
of judicial discretion, subject to appropriate review on
appeal.
Page 360 U. S. 30
In light of these considerations, the immediate situation
quickly falls into place. In providing on his own motion for a stay
in this case, an experienced district judge was responding in a
sensible way to a quandary about the power of the City of Thibodaux
into which he was placed by an opinion of the Attorney General of
Louisiana in which it was concluded that, in a strikingly similar
case, a Louisiana city did not have the power here claimed by the
City. A Louisiana statute apparently seems to grant such a power.
But that statute has never been interpreted, in respect to a
situation like that before the judge, by the Louisiana courts, and
it would not be the first time that the authoritative tribunal has
found in a statute less than meets the outsider's eye. Informed
local courts may find meaning not discernible to the outsider. The
consequence of allowing this to come to pass would be that this
case would be the only case in which the Louisiana statute is
construed as we would construe it, whereas the rights of all other
litigants would be thereafter governed by a decision of the Supreme
Court of Louisiana quite different from ours.
Caught between the language of an old but uninterpreted statute
and the pronouncement of the Attorney General of Louisiana, the
district judge determined to solve his conscientious perplexity by
directing utilization of the legal resources of Louisiana for a
prompt ascertainment of meaning through the only tribunal whose
interpretation could be controlling -- the Supreme Court of
Louisiana. The District Court was thus exercising a fair and well
considered judicial discretion in staying proceedings pending the
institution of a declaratory judgment action and subsequent
decision by the Supreme Court of Louisiana.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the stay
order of the District Court reinstated. We assume that both parties
will cooperate in taking prompt
Page 360 U. S. 31
and effective steps to secure a declaratory judgment under the
Louisiana Declaratory Judgment Act, La.Rev.Stat., 1950, Tit. 13,
§§ 4231-4246, and a review of that judgment by the
Supreme Court of Louisiana. By retaining the case the District
Court, of course, reserves power to take such steps as may be
necessary for the just disposition of the litigation should
anything prevent a prompt state court determination.
Reversed.
[
Footnote 1]
In the petition for certiorari, there was also raised the
question of the appealability of the District Court's order. In our
grant of the writ, we eliminated this question by limiting the
scope of review. 358 U.S. 893.
[
Footnote 2]
The issue in
Meredith v. Winter Haven, 320 U.
S. 228, is, of course, decisively different from the
issue now before the Court. Here, the issue is whether an
experienced district judge, especially conversant with Louisiana
law, who, when troubled with the construction which Louisiana
courts may give to a Louisiana statute, himself initiates the
taking of appropriate measures for securing construction of this
doubtful and unsettled statute (and not at all in response to any
alleged attempt by petitioner to delay a decision by that judge),
should be jurisdictionally disabled from seeking the controlling
light of the Louisiana Supreme Court. The issue in
Winter
Haven was not that. It was whether jurisdiction must be
surrendered to the state court. At the very outset of his opinion,
Mr. Chief Justice Stone stated this issue:
"The question is whether the Circuit Court of Appeals, on appeal
from the judgment of the District Court, rightly declined to
exercise its jurisdiction on the ground that decision of the case
on the merits turned on questions of Florida constitutional and
statutory law which the decisions of the Florida courts had left in
a state of uncertainty."
320 U.S. at
320 U. S. 229.
In
Winter Haven, the Court of Appeals directed the action
to be dismissed. In this case, the Court of Appeals denied a
conscientious exercise by the federal district judge of his
discretionary power merely to stay disposition of a retained case
until he could get controlling light from the state court.
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., post, p.
360 U. S. 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 only factual issues need be resolved, there is no occasion in
the interest of justice to refrain from prompt adjudication.
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom The CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE
DOUGLAS join, dissenting.
Until today, the standards for testing this order of the
District Court sending the parties to this diversity action to a
state court for decision of a state law question might have been
said to have been reasonably consistent with the imperative duty of
a District Court, imposed by Congress under 28 U.S.C. §§
1332 and 1441, to render
Page 360 U. S. 32
prompt justice in cases between citizens of different States. To
order these suitors out of the federal court and into a state court
in the circumstances of this case passes beyond disrespect for the
diversity jurisdiction to plain disregard of this imperative duty.
The doctrine of abstention, in proper perspective, is an
extraordinary and narrow exception to this duty, and abdication of
the obligation to decide cases can be justified under this doctrine
only in the exceptional circumstances where the order to the
parties to repair to the state court would clearly serve one of two
important countervailing interests: either the avoidance of a
premature and perhaps unnecessary decision of a serious federal
constitutional question or the avoidance of the hazard of
unsettling some delicate balance in the area of federal-state
relationships.
These exceptional circumstances provided until now a very narrow
corridor through which a District Court could escape from its
obligation to decide state law questions when federal jurisdiction
was properly invoked. The doctrine of abstention originated in the
area of the federal courts' duty to avoid, if possible, decision of
a federal constitutional question. This was
Railroad Commission
v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496.
There, this Court held that the District Court should have stayed
its hand while state issues were resolved in a state court when an
injunction was sought to restrain the enforcement of the order of a
state administrative body on the ground that the order was not
authorized by the state law and was violative of the Federal
Constitution. The Court reasoned that, if the state courts held
that the order was not authorized under state law, there could be
avoided "the friction of a premature constitutional adjudication."
312 U.S. at
312 U. S. 500.
Numerous decisions since then have sanctioned abstention from
deciding cases involving a federal constitutional issue where a
state court determination of state law might moot the issue or put
the case in a
Page 360 U. S. 33
different posture.
See, e.g., City of Meridian v. Southern
Bell Tel. & Tel. Co., 358 U. S. 639;
Government & Civic Employees Organizing Committee v.
Windsor, 353 U. S. 364;
Leiter Minerals, Inc. v. United States, 352 U.
S. 220;
Albertson v. Millard, 345 U.
S. 242;
Shipman v. Du Pre, 339 U.
S. 321;
Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po,
336 U. S. 368;
American Federation of Labor v. Watson, 327 U.
S. 582;
Alabama State Federation of Labor v.
McAdory, 325 U. S. 450;
Spector Motor Service, Inc. v. McLaughlin, 323 U.
S. 101;
Chicago v. Fieldcrest Dairies, Inc.,
316 U. S. 168.
[
Footnote 2/1] Abstention has also
been sanctioned on grounds of comity with the States -- to avoid a
result in "needless friction with state policies."
Railroad
Commission v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496,
312 U. S. 500.
Thus this Court has upheld an abstention when the exercise by the
federal court of jurisdiction would disrupt a state administrative
process,
Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.
S. 315;
Pennsylvania v. Williams, 294 U.
S. 176, interfere with the collection of state taxes,
Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385,
334 U. S. 392;
Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Huffman, 319 U.
S. 293, or otherwise create needless friction by
unnecessarily enjoining state officials from executing domestic
policies,
Alabama Public Service Commission v. Southern R.
Co., 341 U. S. 341;
Hawks v. Hamill, 288 U. S. 52.
But neither of the two recognized situations justifying
abstention is present in the case before us. The suggestion that
federal constitutional questions lurk in the background is so
patently frivolous that neither the District Court, the Court of
Appeals, nor this Court considers it to be worthy of even passing
reference. The
Page 360 U. S. 34
Power and Light Company's only contention under the Federal
Constitution is that the expropriation of its property would
violate the Due Process and Impairment of the Obligation of
Contract Clauses, Const. Amend. 14; Art. 1, § 10, even though
just compensation is paid for it, because the property sought to be
taken is operated by the company under a franchise granted by the
Parish and confirmed by the City. This claim is utterly without
substance.
Long Island Water-Supply Co. v. Brooklyn,
166 U. S. 685;
West River Bridge Co. v.
Dix, 6 How. 507. Certainly the avoidance of such a
constitutional issue cannot justify a federal court's failure to
exercise its jurisdiction. To hold the contrary would mean that a
party could defeat his adversary's right to a federal adjudication
simply by alleging a frivolous constitutional issue. Furthermore,
no countervailing interest would be served by avoiding decision of
such an issue.
The Court therefore turns the holding on the purported existence
of the other situation justifying abstention, stating the bald
conclusion that:
The considerations that prevailed in conventional equity suits
for avoiding the hazards of serious disruption by federal courts of
state government or needless friction between state and federal
authorities are similarly appropriate in a state eminent domain
proceeding brought in, or removed to, a federal court.
But the fact of the matter is that this case does not involve
the slightest hazard of friction with a State, the indispensable
ingredient for upholding abstention on grounds of comity, and one
which has been present in all of the prior cases in which
abstention has been approved by this Court on that ground. First of
all, unlike all prior cases in which abstention has been sanctioned
on grounds of comity, the District Court has not been asked to
grant injunctive relief which would prohibit state officials from
acting. This case involves an
Page 360 U. S. 35
action at law, [
Footnote 2/2]
initiated by the City and removed to the District Court under 28
U.S.C. § 1441. Clearly decision of this case, in which the
City itself is the party seeking an interpretation of its authority
under state law, will not entail the friction in federal-state
relations that would result from decision of a suit brought by
another party to enjoin the City from acting. Secondly, this case
does not involve the potential friction that results when a federal
court applies paramount federal law to strike down state action.
Aside from the patently frivolous constitutional question raised by
the Power Company, the District Court in adjudicating this case
would be applying state law precisely as would a state court. Far
from disrupting state policy, the District Court would be applying
state policy, as embodied in the state statute, to the facts of
this case. There is no more possibility of conflict with the State
in this situation than there is in the ordinary negligence or
contract case in which a District Court applies state law under its
diversity jurisdiction. A decision by the District Court in this
case would not interfere with Louisiana administrative processes,
prohibit the collection of state taxes, or otherwise frustrate the
execution of state domestic policies. Quite the reverse, this
action is part of the process which the City must follow in order
to carry out the State's policy of expropriating private property
for public uses. Finally, in this case, the State of Louisiana,
represented by its constituent organ the City of Thibodaux, urges
the District Court to adjudicate the state law issue. How,
conceivably, can the Court justify the abdication of responsibility
to exercise jurisdiction on the ground of avoiding interference and
conflict with the State when the State itself desires the federal
court's adjudication? It is obvious that the abstention in this
case was for the convenience of the District Court, not for
Page 360 U. S. 36
the State. The Court forgets, in upholding this abstention, that
"The diversity jurisdiction was not conferred for the benefit of
the federal courts or to serve their convenience."
Meredith v.
Winter Haven, 320 U. S. 228,
320 U. S.
234.
The Court of Appeals, in my view, correctly considered, in
reversing the action of the District Court, that there is not shown
a semblance of a countervailing interest which meets the standards
permitting abstention. The standard utilized by the Court of
Appeals in reviewing the District Court's order was not whether the
district judge abused his discretion in staying the proceedings;
rather, it was whether he had any discretion to abstain from
deciding this case in which the federal court's jurisdiction was
properly invoked. This approach was correct in light of the
teaching of all prior cases, which delimit the narrow area in which
abstention is permissible and hold that jurisdiction must be
exercised in all other situations. It would obviously wreak havoc
with federal jurisdiction if the exercise of that jurisdiction was
a matter for the
ad hoc discretion of the District Court
in each particular case.
Despite the complete absence of the necessary showing to justify
abstention, the Court supports its holding simply by a reference to
a dissenting opinion in which it was said "that eminent domain is a
prerogative of the state." [
Footnote
2/3] Thus the Court attempts to carve out a new
Page 360 U. S. 37
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.
In doing so the Court very plainly has not made a responsible use
of precedent. First of all, not only does the Court cite no cases
where abstention has been approved in the absence of a showing of
one of the only two countervailing interests heretofore required to
justify abstention, but the Court ignores cases in which this Court
has refused to refer state law questions to state courts even
though that course required a federal constitutional decision which
resulted in affirmative prohibitions against the State from
carrying out sovereign activities. Surely eminent domain is no more
mystically involved with "sovereign prerogative" than a city's
power to license motor vehicles,
Chicago v. Atchison, T. &
S.F. R. Co., 357 U. S. 77, a
State's power to regulate fishing in its waters,
Toomer v.
Witsell, 334 U. S. 385, its
power to regulate intrastate trucking rates,
Public Utilities
Commission of California v. United States, 355 U.
S. 534, and a host of other governmental activities
carried on by the States and their subdivisions which have been
brought into question in the Federal District Courts without a
prior state court determination of the relevant state law.
Furthermore, the decision in
Meredith v. Winter Haven,
320 U. S. 228,
long recognized as a landmark in this field, is squarely contrary
to today's holding. For there, the petitioners sought in a Federal
District Court an injunction prohibiting the Winter Haven from
redeeming certain bonds without paying deferred interest charges on
them. The only issues in the case were whether the City was
authorized under the Florida Constitution and statutes to issue the
bonds without a referendum, and, if the bonds were not validly
issued, what recovery the bondholders were entitled to receive.
Federal jurisdiction
Page 360 U. S. 38
was based solely on diversity of citizenship. Although there was
present the obvious irritant to state-federal relations of a
federal court injunction against City officials, which is not
present in this case, this Court in
Winter Haven held that
it was incumbent on the Federal District Court to perform its duty
and adjudicate the case. I am unable to see a distinction, so far
as concerns noninterference with the exercise of state sovereignty,
between decision as to the Winter Haven's authority under Florida's
statutes and constitution to issue deferred interest bonds without
a referendum, and decision as to the City of Thibodaux's authority
under Louisiana's statutes and constitution to expropriate the
Power and Light Company's property. Since the Court suggests no
adequate basis of distinction between the two cases, it should
frankly announce that
Meredith v. Winter Haven is
overruled, for no other conclusion is reasonable. [
Footnote 2/4]
In the second place, the Court, in its opinion, omits mention of
the host of cases, many in this Court, which
Page 360 U. S. 39
have approved the decision by a federal court of precisely the
same kind of state eminent domain question which the District Court
was asked by the City of Thibodaux to decide in this case. Years of
experience in federal court adjudication of state eminent domain
cases have conclusively demonstrated that this practice does not
entail the hazard of friction in federal-state relations.
See
County of Allegheny v. Mashuda Co., post, p.
360 U. S. 185. The
Court, despite the lesson taught by this experience and despite the
fact that it is impossible to show any actual friction that might
develop from a federal court adjudication in this case, rests its
holding on a conclusive presumption that friction will develop
because of "the special nature of eminent domain." This presumption
is totally at war with the Court's holding today in
County of
Allegheny v. Mashuda Co., which orders a District Court to
exercise its diversity jurisdiction even though such a course will
require decision as to the power of a County under the state law of
eminent domain to expropriate certain property. Thus, the Court's
decision is explicable to me for two other reasons, neither of
which is articulated in the Court's opinion, probably because both
are wholly untenable.
The first is that the only real issue of law in the case, the
interpretation of Act 111, presents a difficult question of state
law. It is true that there are no Louisiana decisions interpreting
Act 111, and that there is a confusing opinion of the State's
Attorney General on the question. But mere difficulty of construing
the state statute is not justification for running away from the
task.
"Questions may occur which we would gladly avoid; but we cannot
avoid them. All we can do is, to exercise our best judgment, and
conscientiously to perform our duty."
Cohens v.
Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264,
19 U. S. 404.
Difficult questions of state law to which the federal courts cannot
give definitive answers arise every day in federal courts
Page 360 U. S. 40
throughout the land. Chief Justice Stone, in his opinion for the
Court in
Meredith v. Winter Haven, 320 U.
S. 228, settled that this difficulty can never justify a
failure to exercise jurisdiction. The Chief Justice said:
"But we are of opinion that the difficulties of ascertaining
what the state courts may hereafter determine the state law to be
do not in themselves afford a sufficient ground for a federal court
to decline to exercise its jurisdiction to decide a case which is
properly brought to it for decision."
"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 suitors an opportunity in such cases, at
their option, to assert their rights in the federal, rather than in
the state, courts. In the absence of some recognized public policy
or defined principle guiding the exercise of the jurisdiction
conferred, which would in exceptional cases warrant its
nonexercise, it has from the first been deemed to be the duty of
the federal courts, if their jurisdiction is properly invoked, to
decide questions of state law whenever necessary to the rendition
of a judgment. . . . When such exceptional circumstances are not
present, denial of that opportunity by the federal courts merely
because the answers to the questions of state law are difficult or
uncertain or have not yet been given by the highest court of the
state would thwart the purpose of the jurisdictional act."
320 U.S. at
320 U. S.
234-235.
The cases are legion, since
Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins,
304 U. S. 64, in
which the federal courts have adjudicated diversity cases by
deciding issues of state law, difficult and easy, without relevant
state court decisions on the point in issue. And this Court has
many times, often over dissents urging abstention, decided doubtful
questions of state law when properly before us.
Propper
v.
Page 360 U. S. 41
Clark, 337 U. S. 472;
Commissioner v. Estate of Church, 335 U.
S. 632;
Estate of Spiegel v. Commissioner,
335 U. S. 701;
Williams v. Green Bay & Western R. Co., 326 U.
S. 549,
326 U. S.
553-554;
Markham v. Allen, 326 U.
S. 490;
Risty v. Chicago, R.I. & P. R. Co.,
270 U. S. 378;
McClellan v. Carland, 217 U. S. 268.
The second possible reason explaining the Court's holding is
that it reflects is distaste for the diversity jurisdiction. But
distaste for diversity jurisdiction certainly cannot be reason to
license district judges to retreat from their responsibility. The
roots of that jurisdiction are inextricably intertwined with the
roots of our federal system. They stem from Art. III, § 2 of
the Constitution and the first Judiciary Act, the Act of 1789, 1
Stat. 73, 78. [
Footnote 2/5] I
concede the liveliness of the controversy over the utility or
desirability of diversity jurisdiction, but it has stubbornly
outlasted the many and persistent attacks against it and the
attempts in the Congress to curtail or eliminate it. [
Footnote 2/6] Until Congress speaks
otherwise, the federal judiciary has no choice but conscientiously
to render justice for litigants from different States entitled to
have their controversies adjudicated in the federal courts.
"Whether it is a sound theory, whether diversity jurisdiction is
necessary or desirable in order to avoid possible unfairness by
state courts, state judges and juries, against outsiders, whether
the federal courts ought to be relieved of the burden of diversity
litigation -- these are matters which are not my concern as a
judge. They are the concern of those
Page 360 U. S. 42
whose business it is to legislate, not mine."
Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.
S. 315,
319 U. S. 337
(dissenting opinion).
Not only has the Court departed from any precedential basis or
its action, but the decision encourages inefficiency in
administration of the federal courts and leads to unnecessary
delay, waste and added expense for the parties. This is
particularly the stark truth in the instant case. The City of
Thibodaux brought this proceeding in a Louisiana court to
expropriate lands of the Power and Light Company for public
purposes. The Power and Light Company, a Florida corporation,
removed the action to the District Court, as was its privilege
under 28 U.S.C. § 1441. The crucial issue in the case is
whether Louisiana Act 111 of 1900 empowers the City to exercise the
State's right of eminent domain. [
Footnote 2/7] Because the District Court rebuffed the
City's plea to decide its authority under Act 111, and this Court
sustains the District Court, the City must go back to the state
court, not in the action originally
Page 360 U. S. 43
brought there by the City, but in a new action to be initiated
under Louisiana's declaratory judgment law. The Power and Light
Company, which escaped a state court decision by removing the
City's action to the District Court, is now wholly content with the
sua sponte action of the District Court. This is
understandable, since the longer decision is put off as to the
City's power to expropriate its property, the longer the Power and
Light Company will enjoy the possession of it. Resolution of the
legal question of the City's authority, already delayed over two
years due to no fault of the City, will be delayed, according to
the City's estimate in its brief, a minimum of two additional years
before a decision may be obtained from the State Supreme Court in
the declaratory judgment action. Even if the City obtains a
favorable decision, the City must suffer still further delay while
the case comes back to the District Court for a decision upon the
amount of damages to be paid the Power and Light Company. Thus, at
best, the District Court will finally dispose of this case only
after prolonged delay and considerable additional expense for the
parties. Moreover, it is possible that the State Supreme Court
will, for one reason or another, conclude that it will not render
the parties this advisory opinion. All of this delay should have
been avoided, and would have been, had the District Court performed
what I think was its plain duty and decided the question of the
City's power when that question was ripe for decision a few months
after the case was removed to the District Court. I think it is
more than coincidence that, both in this case and in
Mashuda, the party supporting abstention is the one
presently in possession of the property in question. I cannot
escape the conclusion is these cases that delay in the reaching of
a decision is more important to those parties than the tribunal
which ultimately renders the decision. The Court today upholds a
procedure which encourages such delay
Page 360 U. S. 44
and prevents "that promptness of decision which in all judicial
actions is one of the elements of justice."
Forsyth v. City of
Hammond, 166 U. S. 506,
166 U. S. 513.
One must regret that this Court's departure from the long-settled
criteria governing abstention should so richly fertilize the Power
and Light Company's strategy of delay which now has succeeded, I
dare say, past the fondest expectation of counsel who conceived it.
It is especially unfortunate in that departure from these criteria
fashions an opening wedge for District Courts to refer hard cases
of state law to state courts in even the routine diversity
negligence and contract actions.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
[
Footnote 2/1]
But when questions of state law are not cloudy, the District
Court should decide them, even though such a course necessitates
decision of a federal constitutional issue.
Chicago v.
Atchison, T. & S.F. R. Co., 357 U. S.
77;
Public Utilities Comm'n of California v. United
States, 355 U. S. 534;
Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385.
[
Footnote 2/2]
Expropriation proceedings such as this one are recognized to be
suits at law.
Kohl v. United States, 91 U. S.
367,
91 U. S.
376.
[
Footnote 2/3]
Madisonville Traction Co. v. St. Bernard Mining Co.,
196 U. S. 239,
196 U. S. 257.
The District Court did not rest its actions on this theory, but
relied upon
Leiter Minerals, Inc. v. United States,
352 U. S. 220, as
authority for the stay order. That decision, which came down
shortly before the District Court's order in this case, modified an
order of the same district judge and provided for a reference to
the Louisiana courts of a question of Louisiana law because the
state court's interpretation of state law might well have mooted a
federal constitutional issue or cast it in a different posture. The
simple fact that there is no constitutional question of any
substance to avoid in this case makes
Leiter
inapposite.
[
Footnote 2/4]
It is true that this Court, in
Meredith v. Winter
Haven, was reviewing an order dismissing federal jurisdiction,
whereas the District Court order in this case retains jurisdiction
pending the state court determination. However, it is significant
that the Court, in
Winter Haven, rather than remanding the
case with instructions that the District Court retain jurisdiction
but abstain from deciding the state law issues, ordered the
District Court to adjudicate those issues. It is perfectly clear
that
Winter Haven did not turn on any difference between
an abstention and a dismissal, nor on the fact that it was a Court
of Appeals, rather than a District Court, which initially decided
to refrain from adjudicating the state issues. Neither did it turn
on this Court's ideas about the competence or experience of the
judges below.
Meredith v. Winter Haven rested squarely on
the Court's conclusion that, no matter how intimately related to a
State's sovereignty a case is, the District Court must adjudicate
it if jurisdiction is properly invoked and that adjudication would
not entail decision of a serious constitutional question or
disruption of state policy.
[
Footnote 2/5]
See, for a discussion of this subject, Friendly, The
Historic Basis of Diversity Jurisdiction, 41 Harv.L.Rev. 483;
Yntema and Jaffin, Preliminary Analysis of Concurrent Jurisdiction,
79 U. of Pa.L.Rev. 869, 873-876; Frank, Historical Basis of the
Federal Judicial System, 13 Law & Contemp.Prob. 3, 22-28.
[
Footnote 2/6]
See Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.
S. 315,
319 U. S.
337-338 (dissenting opinion); Hart and Wechsler, The
Federal Courts and the Federal System, 893-894.
[
Footnote 2/7]
The Act, now § 101 of Part III of Title 19 of the Louisiana
Revised Statutes of 1950, provides in pertinent part:
"Any municipal corporation of Louisiana may expropriate any
electric light, gas, or waterworks plant or property whenever such
a course is thought necessary for the public interest by the mayor
and council of the municipality. When the municipal council cannot
agree with the owner thereof for its purchase, the municipal
corporation through the proper officers may petition the judge of
the district court in which the property is situated, describing
the property necessary for the municipal purpose, with a detailed
statement of the buildings, machinery, appurtenances, fixtures,
improvements, mains, pipes, sewers, wires, lights, poles and
property of every kind, connected therewith, and praying that the
property described be adjudged to the municipality upon payment to
the owner of the value of the property plus all damages sustained
in consequence of the expropriation. Where the same person is the
owner of both gas, electric light, and water works plants, or of
more than one of any one kind of plant, the municipal corporation
may not expropriate any one of the plants without expropriating all
of the plants owned by the same person."