Balubhai Patel v. City of Los Angeles , 594 F. App'x 415 ( 2015 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT FEB 27 2015
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
BALUBHAI G. PATEL; APOLINAR No. 12-56949
ARELLANO; ADELA ARELLANO;
CLAUDIA AYALA, D.C. No. 2:12-cv-05945-R-RNB
Plaintiffs - Appellants,
MEMORANDUM*
v.
CITY OF LOS ANGELES, a municipal
corporation; FELIPE HERNANDEZ,
individually and as City of Los Angeles
Housing Inspector,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Manuel L. Real, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted February 9, 2015
Pasadena, California
Before: KOZINSKI, CHRISTEN and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
page 2
The district court erred in staying plaintiffs’ federal claims pursuant to the
Pullman abstention doctrine.
“[W]e review de novo whether the requirements for Pullman abstention have
been met.” Smelt v. Cnty. of Orange, 447 F.3d 673, 678 (9th Cir. 2006). A district
court may only invoke Pullman’s “extraordinary and narrow exception to [its]
duty” to exercise jurisdiction, Cnty. of Allegheny v. Frank Mashuda Co., 360 U.S.
185, 188 (1959), when a difficult constitutional question “plainly can be avoided
[by] a definitive ruling on [a] state issue [that] would terminate the controversy,”
R.R. Comm’n of Tex. v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 498 (1941). Here, no state
ruling would terminate—or even substantially narrow—any federal question
presented. Even if a state court were to grant plaintiffs’ request for administrative
mandamus and reverse the council’s permitting decision, plaintiffs’ Fifth
Amendment claim for damages based on the City’s temporary taking would
remain. See First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. Cnty. of
Los Angeles, Cal., 482 U.S. 304, 319 (1987). Plaintiffs’ Fair Housing Act, due
process and Fourth Amendment claims would similarly be unaffected by the result
of the mandamus action.
While the facts found in a state mandamus action may have issue preclusive
effect in a subsequent federal proceeding, Mata v. City of Los Angeles, 24 Cal.
page 3
Rptr. 2d 314, 319 (Ct. App. 1993), that alone is insufficient to justify abstention.
Pullman abstention is not a mechanism to conveniently sequence federal and state
claims. It is appropriate only when abstention can “avoid resolving [a] federal
question by encouraging a state-law determination that may moot the federal
controversy.” San Remo Hotel, L.P. v. City & Cnty. of San Francisco, Cal., 545
U.S. 323, 339 (2005) (emphasis added). Abstaining when a state law
determination merely has the potential to affect—rather than avoid—a federal
question transforms Pullman from an exception into a rule, effectively “impos[ing]
an exhaustion requirement not appropriate to 42 U.S.C. § 1983.” Pearl Inv. Co. v.
City & Cnty. of San Francisco, 774 F.2d 1460, 1463 (9th Cir. 1985).
However, on remand, the district court need not exercise supplemental
jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ petition for administrative mandamus. While federal
courts are permitted to “exercise supplemental jurisdiction over state law claims
for on-the-record review of administrative decisions,” that “does not mean that
[such] jurisdiction must be exercised in all cases.” City of Chicago v. Int’l Coll. of
Surgeons, 522 U.S. 156, 172 (1997). The district court may decline jurisdiction
over the administrative mandamus petition for “a number of valid reasons,”
including that it “raises a novel or complex issue of [s]tate law.” Id. at 172–73
(internal quotation marks omitted).
page 4
Furthermore, if the district court declines supplemental jurisdiction, it may
exercise its “broad discretion to stay proceedings as an incident to its power to
control its own docket.” Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 706–07 (1997). So long
as the “competing interests which will be affected by the granting . . . [of] a stay”
continue to favor its imposition, such a stay may be entered until Patel’s mandamus
petition has been resolved in state court. Lockyer v. Mirant Corp., 398 F.3d 1098,
1110 (9th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Landis v. N. Am.
Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254–55 (1936).
REVERSED and REMANDED.