Courthouse News Service v. Michael Planet

Filing 52

Filed (ECF) Appellee Michael D. Planet citation of supplemental authorities. Date of service: 12/26/2013. [8916765] (RAN)

JONES DAY
3161 MICHELSON DRIVE • SUITE 800 • IRVINE, CA 92612
TELEPHONE: [phone] • FACSIMILE: [phone]

December 26, 2013
VIA CM / ECF FILING
Ms. Molly C. Dwyer, Clerk of the Court
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The James R. Browning Courthouse
95 7th Street
San Francisco, California 94103
Re:

Courthouse News Service v. Planet
Case No. 11-57187
Argued May 8, 2013
Circuit Judges Noonan, Wardlaw and Murguia

Dear Ms. Dwyer:
Appellee Michael Planet responds to Appellant Courthouse News’s December 20, 2013
Rule 28(j) letter regarding Sprint Communications, Inc. v. Jacobs, 2013 U.S. LEXIS 9019 (Dec.
10, 2013).
Sprint Communications explains that the Younger v. Harris abstention doctrine bars
federal-court interference with three discrete types of ongoing state proceedings. Id., 2013 U.S.
LEXIS 9019 at * 16-17 & * 23. However, Justice Ginsburg’s opinion is inapposite, because it
does not discuss the two very different abstention doctrines at issue in this case.
In particular, Sprint Communications does not discuss, define or limit the obligation of
federal courts to abstain from hearing federal lawsuits whose determination is dependent upon
resolution of unsettled questions of state law. See Railroad Comm’n of Texas v. Pullman Co.,
312 U.S. 496 (1941); Courtney v. Goltz, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 23943 (9th Cir. Dec. 2, 2013)
(Pullman abstention is appropriate when “(1) the case touches on a sensitive area of social policy
upon which the federal courts ought not enter unless no alternative to its adjudication is open, (2)
constitutional adjudication plainly can be avoided if a definite ruling on the state issue would
terminate the controversy, and (3) the possible determinative issue of state law is uncertain”).
Similarly, Sprint Communications does not discuss, define or limit the doctrine of
equitable abstention, which applies in the absence of pending state proceedings, when a federal
lawsuit “would entail heavy federal interference in such sensitive state activities as
administration of the judicial system.” E.T. v. Cantil-Sakauye, 682 F.3d 1121, 1123-1124 (9th

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JONES DAY

Ms. Molly C. Dwyer
December 26, 2013
Page 2
Cir. 2012) (quoting Los Angeles County Bar Ass’n v. Eu, 979 F.2d 697, 703 (9th Cir. 1992)); see
generally, O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488 (1974); Vasquez v. Rackauckas, 734 F.3d 1025,
1038 n.8 (9th Cir. 2013) (noting that, “In E.T., the dispositive ground for abstention was the
specter of federal supervision of state judicial proceedings”).

9th Circuit Case Number(s) 11-57187
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
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I hereby certify that I electronically filed the foregoing with the Clerk of the Court for the
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by using the appellate CM/ECF system
on (date)
.
Dec 26, 2013
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s/ Robert A. Naeve

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.
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