Syllabus
SPRINT
COMMUNICATIONS, INC. v. JACOBS ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE 8th CIRCUIT
No. 12–815. Argued November 5, 2013—Decided December 10, 2013
Sprint Communications, Inc. (Sprint), a national
telecommunicationsservice provider, withheld payment of intercarrier access
fees imposed by Windstream Iowa Communications, Inc. (Windstream), a local
telecommunications carrier, for long distance Voice over InternetProtocol
(VoIP) calls, after concluding that the TelecommunicationsAct of 1996 preempted
intrastate regulation of VoIP traffic. Windstream responded by threatening to
block all Sprint customer calls,which led Sprint to ask the Iowa Utilities
Board (IUB) to enjoin Windstream from discontinuing service to Sprint.
Windstream retracted its threat, and Sprint moved to withdraw its complaint.
Concerned that the dispute would recur, the IUB continued the proceedings in
order to resolve the question whether VoIP calls are subject to intrastate
regulation. Rejecting Sprint’s argument that this questionwas governed by
federal law, the IUB ruled that intrastate fees applied to VoIP calls.Sprint
sued respondents, IUB members (collectively IUB), in Federal District Court,
seeking a declaration that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 preempted the
IUB’s decision. As relief, Sprintsought an injunction against enforcement of
the IUB’s order. Sprintalso sought review of the IUB’s order in Iowa state
court, reiterating the preemption argument made in Sprint’s federal-court
complaintand asserting several other claims. Invoking Younger v. Harris,
401 U. S. 37, the Federal District Court abstained from adjudicatingSprint’s
complaint in deference to the parallel state-court proceeding. The Eighth
Circuit affirmed the District Court’s abstention decision, concluding that Younger
abstention was required because the ongoing state-court review concerned
Iowa’s important interest in regulating and enforcing state utility rates.
Held: This case does not fall within any of
the three classes of exceptional cases for which Younger abstention is
appropriate. Pp. 6–12.
(a) The District Court had jurisdiction to decide whether
federal law preempted the IUB’s decision, see Verizon Md. Inc. v. Public
Serv. Comm’n of Md., 535 U. S. 635, 642, and thus had a “virtually
unflagging obligation” to hear and decide the case, Colorado River Water
Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U. S. 800, 817. In Younger,
this Court recognized an exception to that obligation for cases in which there
is a parallel, pending state criminal proceeding. This Court has extended Younger
abstention to particular state civil proceedings that are akin to criminal
prosecutions, see Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S. 592, or that
implicate a State’s interest in enforcing the orders and judgments of its
courts, see Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco Inc., 481 U. S. 1, but has
reaffirmed that “only exceptional circumstances justify a federal court’s
refusal to decide a case in deference to the States,” New Orleans Public
Service, Inc. v. Council of City of New Orleans, 491 U. S. 350, 368
(NOPSI). NOPSI identified three such “exceptional circumstances.”
First, Younger precludes federal intrusion into ongoing state criminal
prosecutions. See 491 U. S., at 368. Second, certain “civil enforcement
proceedings” warrant Younger abstention. Ibid. Finally, federal
courts should refrain from interfering with pending “civil proceedings
involving certain orders . . . uniquely in furtherance of the state courts’
ability to perform their judicial functions.” Ibid. This Court has not
applied Younger outside these three “exceptional” categories, and rules,
in accord with NOPSI, that they define Younger’s scope. Pp. 6–8.
(b) The initial IUB proceeding does not fall within any of NOPSI’s
three exceptional categories and therefore does not trigger Younger abstention.
The first and third categories plainly do not accommodate the IUB’s
proceeding, which was civil, not criminal in character, and which did not touch
on a state court’s ability to perform its judicial function. Nor is the IUB’s
order an act of civil enforcement of the kind to which Younger has been
extended. The IUB proceeding is not “akin to a criminal prosecution.” Huffman,
420 U. S., at 604. Nor was it initiated by “the State in its sovereign
capacity,” Trainor v. Hernandez, 431 U. S. 434, 444, to sanction
Sprint for some wrongful act, see, e.g., Middlesex County Ethics Comm. v.
Garden State Bar Assn., 457 U. S. 423, 433–434. Rather, the action was
initiated by Sprint, a private corporation. No state authority conducted an
investigation into Sprint’s activities or lodged a formal complaint against
Sprint. Once Sprint withdrew the complaint that commenced administrative
proceedings, the IUB argues, those proceedings became, essentially, a civil
enforcement action. However, the IUB’s adjudicative , authority was invoked to
settle a civil dispute between two privateparties, not to sanction Sprint for a
wrongful act.
In holding that
abstention was the proper course, the Eighth Circuit misinterpreted this
Court’s decision in Middlesex to mean that Younger abstention is
warranted whenever there is (1) “an ongoing state judicial proceeding, which
(2) implicates important state interests, and (3) . . . provide[s] an adequate
opportunity to raise [federal]challenges.” In Middlesex, the Court
invoked Younger to bar a federal court from entertaining a lawyer’s
challenge to a state ethics committee’s pending investigation of the lawyer.
Unlike the IUB’s proceeding, however, the state ethics committee’s hearing in Middlesex
was plainly “akin to a criminal proceeding”: An investigation andformal
complaint preceded the hearing, an agency of the State’s Supreme Court
initiated the hearing, and the hearing’s purpose was todetermine whether the
lawyer should be disciplined for failing tomeet the State’s professional
conduct standards. 457 U. S., at 433– 435. The three Middlesex conditions
invoked by the Court of Appealswere therefore not dispositive; they were,
instead, additional factors appropriately considered by the federal
court before invoking Younger. Younger extends to the three
“exceptional circumstances” identified in NOPSI, but no further. Pp.
8–11.
690
F. 3d 864, reversed.
GINSBURG, J., delivered the
opinion for a unanimous Court
