Taylor v. Jaquez ( 1997 )

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Tenth Circuit
Byron White United States Courthouse
1823 Stout Street
Denver, Colorado 80294
(303) 844-3157
Patrick J. Fisher, Jr. Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk Chief Deputy Clerk
October 28, 1997
TO: ALL RECIPIENTS OF THE CAPTIONED OPINION
RE: 96-1426 Taylor v. Jaquez
Filed October 10, 1997 by The Honorable John C. Porfilio
Please be advised of the following correction to the captioned decision:
The following attorneys were erroneously omitted as counsel for the Defendant-
Appellees: William F. Schoeberlein, Otten, Johnson, Robinson, Neff & Ragonetti,
Denver, CO; Robert M. Maes, Denver, CO; Rebecca A. Fischer, Sherman &
Howard, Denver, CO; David Martinez, Denver, CO; and Elisabeth Arenales,
Denver, CO.
Please make the appropriate correction to your copy.
Very truly yours,
Patrick Fisher, Clerk
Beth Morris
Deputy Clerk
F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
OCT 10 1997
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
TENTH CIRCUIT
ZACHARY TAYLOR, as Executor of the
Estate of Jack T. Taylor, Jr., deceased;
TAYLOR FAMILY PARTNERSHIP,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
CHARLIE JAQUEZ, JR.; PETE E.
ESPINOZA, ELMER MANUEL
No. 96-1426
ESPINOZA, JOE A. GALLEGOS,
ROBERT ROMERO, Individually and as
representatives of a proposed class of
some 110 plaintiffs in civil action No.
81CV5 now pending in the District Court
of Costilla County, Colorado,
Defendants-Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
(D.C. No. 96-Z-776)
Albert B. Wolf, Wolf & Slatkin, P.C., Denver, CO, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Jerry P. Gordon, Esq. (Jeffrey A. Goldstein, Esq., Denver, CO, and Watson W. Galleher,
Esq., Don, Hiller & Galleher, PC, Denver, CO, with him on the briefs), Boulder, CO, for
Defendants-Appellees.
Before PORFILIO, ANDERSON, and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges.
PORFILIO, Circuit Judge.
This appeal presents the question of whether the United States District Court of the
District of Colorado properly abstained from enforcing a judgment entered in a federal
quiet title action because of pending state court litigation over the rights of individuals
challenging appellants’ interest in the land. We conclude these circumstances require
abstention by federal courts and affirm the judgment of dismissal.
I. BACKGROUND
In the beginning, the 77,524 acre Taylor Ranch was part of an 1844 grant of a
million acres of land bestowed by the Mexican governor of New Mexico upon Narcisco
Beaubien and Stephen Luis Lee.1 After the grantees’ deaths, much of the land in the
Sangre de Cristo Grant, particularly parcels in an area designated the Rito Seco, were
conveyed, although the land at issue here, “La Sierra,” the Mountain Tract, was not sold
until 1960 when Jack Taylor, a resident of North Carolina, purchased it. Located
southwest of the town of San Luis in Costilla County, Colorado, the tract contains the
only privately owned 14,000 foot mountain in the state. Mr. Taylor’s deed to La Sierra
recognized all existing rights-of-way and was “also subject to claims of the local people
by prescription or otherwise to right to pasture, wood, and lumber and so-called
A more comprehensive history is detailed in Rael v. Taylor, 876 P.2d 1210 (Colo.
1
1994).
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settlements [sic] rights in, to and upon said land, but not subject to rights granted by the
party of the first part or its predecessors from and after January 1, 1900....” Rael v.
Taylor, 876 P.2d 1210, 1214 (Colo. 1994) (Rael). The representation and substance of
the “claims of the local people” dating back to the original grant impel the litigation
presently pending in the state district court of Costilla County albeit the federal court’s
order quieting title granted to Jack Taylor in his 1960 Torrens Title Registration diversity
action. Sanchez v. Taylor, 377 F.2d 733 (10th Cir. 1967) (Taylor I).
To preserve that judgment, Zachary Taylor, as Executor of the Estate of Jack C.
Taylor, and the Taylor Family Partnership (Taylor, collectively) filed the present action,
Taylor II, under 28 U.S.C. § 2283 in the United States District Court for the district of
Colorado to enjoin the 110 plaintiffs in the Costilla County lawsuit from attacking the
validity of the Final Decree of Confirmation of Title and Registration entered in 1965 (the
Decree). The Decree had become imperiled by a 1994 Colorado Supreme Court decision
which construed the notice requirements of the Colorado Torrens Title Act and
concluded, as a matter of state law, the 1960 federal action may not have provided
constitutionally adequate publication notice sufficient to constitute a binding judgment on
those not served. The Colorado Supreme Court thus reversed a state court order
dismissing the case on res judicata grounds and remanded for resolution of the factual
issues surrounding plaintiffs’ due process claims. Rael, 876 P.2d at 1227. Taylor did not
seek further review of that decision, and it now stands as the law of the case.
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As such, defendants here, as individuals and class representatives of “some 110
Plaintiffs in Civil Action No. 81CV5 now pending in the District Court of Costilla
County, Colorado,” moved to dismiss Taylor II under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) on the
grounds that Younger abstention, Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), application of
the principles of Parsons Steel, Inc. v. First Alabama Bank, 474 U.S. 518 (1986), and
the sound policies underlying the Anti-Injunction Act compel a federal court to avoid
interfering with pending state proceedings.
At the close of a hearing, the district court ruled from the bench after converting
the motion to dismiss into one for summary judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c) because
matters outside the pleadings had been presented. The court agreed two of the requisites
for Younger abstention were present, the parties having conceded there are ongoing state
proceedings and Taylor has an opportunity to raise his federal claims in that forum. It
further concluded, as a matter of law, important state interests involving the access to the
courts for state citizens, the interpretation of the notification provisions of the Colorado
Torrens Act, the state’s interest in access to lands, and citizens’ access to state lands
precluded it from adjudicating the claim before it. In addition, the court held Rael
explicitly determined the preclusive effect of the state judgment, and on that basis, the
principles of federalism and comity articulated in Parsons Steel, Inc. demanded non-
interference. Summary judgment of dismissal was entered, and Taylor appealed.
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II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
Although what the district court did amounts to denying a preliminary injunction,
an order we review for abuse of discretion, Lundgrin v. Claytor, 619 F.2d 61, 63 (10th
Cir. 1980), more precisely, we have before us a motion for dismissal under Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(c) which is predicated on Younger abstention. We have not previously addressed the
applicable standard of review2 although other circuits have and provide guidance.
Recognizing the elusiveness of the standard often applied to review Younger abstention,
the Seventh Circuit observed because “application of the Younger doctrine is absolute ...
when a case meets the Younger criteria,” there is no discretion for the district court to
exercise. Trust & Inv. Advisers, Inc. v. Hogsett, 43 F.3d 290, 294 (7th Cir. 1994).
Review, therefore, of the decision to abstain is de novo, the Seventh Circuit held. We
agree. Although positioned on the tip of Rule 56(c) which also merits plenary review,
that examination is sharpened by the legal determination of whether the requisites of
Younger abstention have been satisfied. See also Brooks v. New Hampshire Supreme
Court, 80 F.3d 633, 637 (1st Cir. 1996); Kenneally v. Lungren, 967 F.2d 329, 331 (9th
Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1054 (1993); Traughber v. Beauchane, 760 F.2d 673,
2
In Ramos v. Lamm, 639 F.2d 559, 564 n.4 (10th Cir. 1980), the court described
the decision to abstain as “largely committed to the discretion of the district court,” in
concluding “there was no error or abuse of discretion by the district court in declining to
abstain from hearing this constitutional case ....” Id. at 565. We thus affirmed the
exercise of jurisdiction based on the final judgment for injunctive relief the district court
had entered under Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b).
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675-76 (6th Cir. 1985). To insure they have, we must be sensitive to the competing
tension between protecting federal jurisdiction and honoring principles of Our
Federalism and comity. Our review therefore is de novo.
III. YOUNGER ABSTENTION
“Since the beginning of this country’s history Congress has, subject to few
exceptions, manifested a desire to permit state courts to try state cases free from
interference by federal courts.” Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 43 (1971). To assure
this end, Younger articulated a narrow exception now applied to state criminal, Younger,
401 U.S. at 37; civil, New Orleans Public Serv., Inc. v. Council of City of New Orleans,
491 U.S. 350 (1989); or administrative proceedings, Ohio Civil Rights Commission v.
Dayton Christian Schools, Inc., 477 U.S. 619 (1986), which commands a federal court to
abstain from exercising jurisdiction when three conditions have been established. First,
there must be ongoing state criminal, civil, or administrative proceedings. Second, the
state court must offer an adequate forum to hear the federal plaintiff’s claims from the
federal lawsuit. Third, the state proceeding must involve important state interests, matters
which traditionally look to state law for their resolution or implicate separately articulated
state policies. Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma v. State of Oklahoma ex rel.
Thompson, 874 F.2d 709, 711 (10th Cir. 1989). In this case, the parties agree the first
two requisites are present. However, the absence of the third element of an important
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state interest presented, Taylor contends, requires the district court to exercise jurisdiction
and grant injunctive relief.
Taylor portrays the state proceeding as one involving “only claims of private
individuals to engage in activities upon the privately-owned land of the Taylor Family.”
Based on this characterization, Taylor urges state citizens’ access to the courts, resolution
of property claims, and access to land are not cognizable for Younger abstention and
would render meaningless the relitigation exception to the Anti-Injunction Act. 28 U.S.C.
§ 2283. Instead, Taylor maintains, we should enforce the thirty-two year old judgment
quieting title based on application of Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co.,
339 U.S. 306 (1950), which ascertained that constitutionally sufficient notice was
afforded all interested parties.
Nonetheless, it is critical to recognize the prior federal action was premised on
diversity jurisdiction in which Jack Taylor, a resident of North Carolina, notified citizens
residing around his property in southern Colorado of his intention to register his title to
the 77,524 acre tract in compliance with the statutory scheme set out in Colorado’s
Torrens Title Registration Act, now codified at Colo. Rev. Stat. §§ 38-36-101 through 38-
36-198 (1982 & 1993 Supp.). The federal court applied state law in that action and
principally focussed on whether the alleged prescriptive rights of defendants vested any
legal rights in them adverse to establishing Taylor’s clear title. In that decision, the court
made only passing reference to the question of notice, indicating the number of residents
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served and the defendants against whom default judgments were entered for failure to
respond to interrogatories. Taylor I, 377 F.2d at 734. However, since that decision, the
Colorado Supreme Court has comprehensively addressed the Torrens Act’s notice
requirements and ordered the state trial court to apply its announced prescription in
proceedings the Supreme Court held were improperly dismissed. Rael, 876 P.2d at 1210.
As the federal district court noted here, what more important state interest is there for the
state court to address than the enforcement of its method of registering good title to
privately owned lands within the state. That individual citizens may raise these issues
does not transform the state interest into a private one. As the Court observed in Pennzoil
Co. v. Texaco, Inc., 481 U.S. 1, 13 (1987), “the importance to the States of enforcing the
orders and judgments of their courts” represents an important state interest in
administering certain aspects of their judicial systems. Under these circumstances, to
ignore the pronouncement of the Colorado Supreme Court by enjoining the very
proceeding it reinstated to determine whether state law was properly followed would
intolerably interfere with the judgments of state courts.
Moreover, contrary to Taylor’s suggestion, the state court is surely competent to
decide whether the notice requirements of the Torrens Act were satisfied as to those
plaintiffs presently challenging the prior action. Indeed, Rael demands the federal
plaintiffs receive a full and fair opportunity to litigate the constitutional claim of due
process.
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III. CONCLUSION
Our conclusion that Younger abstention applies ends the matter. It was
unnecessary for the district court to couch dismissal on the additional ground of the
preclusive effect of the state court judgment. When equitable restraint is warranted, we
defer to the state proceeding. We therefore AFFIRM the order dismissing the action
based on Younger abstention.
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