Buckley v. Weld County District Court

Filing 5

ORDER denying 3 Plaintiff's Unopposed Emergency Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff's complaint is dismissed without prejudice. By Judge Philip A. Brimmer on 6/17/13.(mnfsl, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Judge Philip A. Brimmer
Civil Action No. 13-cv-01573-PAB
CRAIG D. BUCKLEY,
Plaintiff,
v.
WELD COUNTY DISTRICT COURT, in its official capacity,
WELD COUNTY COURT, in its official capacity,
KENNETH R. BUCK, Weld County District Attorney, in his individual capacity,
STEVEN D. WRENN, Weld County Chief Deputy District Attorney, in his individual
capacity,
SARAH J. BOUSMAN, Weld County Deputy District Attorney, in her individual capacity,
KEITH OLSON, Weld County DA Chief Investigator, in his individual capacity,
DANIEL T. GOODWIN, Equity Partner, Donelson, Cianco & Grant, P.C., in his personal
capacity,
JACQUES RUDA, Equity Partner, Girsh & Rottman, P.C., in his personal capacity,
JOHN W. SUTHERS, Colorado Attorney General, in his individual capacity,
MATTHEW D. GROVE, Assistant Attorney General, in his individual capacity,
JOHN B. COOKE, Weld County Sheriff, in his individual capacity,
JAMES F. HARTMANN, Chief Judge Weld County District Court, in his individual
capacity,
MICHELE MEYER, Weld County Court Judge, in her individual capacity,
GARY BARBOUR, Frederick Co Police Chief, in his individual capacity,
GREGG GLOTSPEICH, Frederick Co Police Sergeant, in his individual capacity,
STEVE WALJE, Frederick Co Police Officer, in his individual capacity,
ERIN AUSTIN, Weld County Probation Officer, in her individual capacity,
DONNA DELUCA, Boulder County Probation Officer, in her individual capacity, and
WALTER CZAPRAN, Boulder County Probation Officer Supervisor, in his individual
capacity,
Defendants.

ORDER

This matter is before the Court on the Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order
[Docket No. 3] filed by plaintiff Craig D. Buckley, a plaintiff in a state court civil case.

On April 17, 2013, District Court Judge Daniel Maus of the District Court for Weld
County, Colorado issued a written order for Mr. Buckley to appear in court on June 17,
2013 “to show cause if any he has why he should not be held in contempt of Court . . .
and further why fine and/or imprisonment should not be imposed upon him” in Case No.
2009CV991. Docket No. 3-1 at 8. Mr. Buckley seeks an order from this Court enjoining
“enforcement of the Court’s April 17, 2013 Amended Citation to Show Cause.” Docket
No. 3 at 9.
In Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 41 (1971), the Supreme Court ruled that a
district court’s injunction of a pending state court criminal prosecution violated “the
national policy forbidding federal courts to stay or enjoin pending state court
proceedings except under special circumstances.” The holding of Younger has been
extended to require abstention in cases seeking to enjoin state civil proceedings. See
Middlesex County Ethics Committee v. Garden State Bar Ass’n, 457 U.S. 423, 431-32
(1982) (“[t]he policies underlying Younger are fully applicable to noncriminal judicial
proceedings when important state interests are involved”); see also Pennzoil Co. v.
Texaco, Inc., 481 U.S. 1, 11-12 (1987) (“This concern mandates application of Younger
abstention not only when the pending state proceedings are criminal, but also when
certain civil proceedings are pending, if the State’s interests in the proceeding are so
important that exercise of the federal judicial power would disregard the comity between
the States and the National Government”).
Younger mandates abstention where “(1) there is an ongoing state criminal, civil,
or administrative proceeding, (2) the state court provides an adequate forum to hear the

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claims raised in the federal complaint, and (3) the state proceedings involve important
state interests, matters which traditionally look to state law for their resolution or
implicate separately articulated state policies.” Amanatullah v. Colo. Bd. of Med.
Exam’rs, 187 F.3d 1160, 1163 (10th Cir. 1999). Abstention means that a court will
dismiss the claim without prejudice. D.L v. Unified Sch. Dist., 392 F.3d 1223, 1227-28
(10th Cir. 2004).
Applying this analysis to the present case, it is clear that Mr. Buckley’s motion for
a temporary restraining order runs afoul of Younger. As noted above, Mr. Buckley is
currently involved in ongoing state civil proceedings. The ongoing civil proceedings
involve possible violations of Colorado court orders, which the State of Colorado has an
obvious interest in enforcing. Finally, Mr. Buckley has failed to show that he lacks an
adequate opportunity to raise his constitutional challenges in the state proceedings.
See Pennzoil Co., 481 U.S. at 15 (“[W]hen a litigant has not attempted to present his
federal claims in related state-court proceedings, a federal court should assume that
state procedures will afford an adequate remedy, in the absence of unambiguous
authority to the contrary.”). Moreover, Mr. Buckley has not established that he will
suffer great and immediate irreparable injury if this Court fails to intervene in the
pending state court proceedings. See Phelps v. Hamilton, 59 F.3d at 1058, 1063-64
(10th Cir. 1995) (for a court to enjoin state court proceedings plaintiff must show “such
extraordinary circumstance creating a threat of ‘irreparable injury’ both great and
immediate”). The exceptions to Younger provide only for a “very narrow gate for federal
intervention,” id. at 1064, and the fact that Mr. Buckley is required to appear in a

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state-court hearing involving potential fines and possible incarceration, even though he
believes the hearing is wrong, is not sufficient to establish great and immediate
irreparable injury. Cf Younger, 401 U.S. at 46; Dolack v. Allenbrand, 548 F.2d 891, 894
(10th Cir. 1977). As a result, no portion of the complaint survives a Younger analysis.
Accordingly, the Court will abstain from exercising jurisdiction over Mr. Buckley’s
complaint, which will be dismissed without prejudice. See Wideman v. Colo., 242 F.
App’x 611, 615 (10th Cir. 2007) (“[b]ecause dismissals based upon the
Rooker-Feldman and Younger abstention doctrines are jurisdictional, they should be
entered without prejudice”).
Accordingly, it is
ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Unopposed Emergency Motion for Temporary
Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction [Docket No. 3] is DENIED. It is further
ORDERED that plaintiff’s complaint is dismissed without prejudice.

DATED June 17, 2013.
BY THE COURT:

s/Philip A. Brimmer
PHILIP A. BRIMMER
United States District Judge

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