Opinion
24-CV-0224 (JWB/ECW)
06-17-2024
Shawn Clarke Spottswood, Plaintiff, v. The State of MN Wash Co and Zoom, Defendants.
ORDER AND REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
ELIZABETH COWAN WRIGHT UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff Shawn Clarke Spottswood's “Amended Complaint/Petition” (Dkt. 11 (“Amended Complaint”)). For the following reasons, the Court orders that the Amended Complaint will be this action's operative pleading going forward. The Court also recommends dismissing this action to the extent it seeks injunctive relief and otherwise staying it pending resolution of a state-court prosecution of Spottswood, as discussed below.
This action commenced on January 29, 2024, when the Court received Spottswood's original Complaint. (Dkt. 1.) That filing, as well as a later filing of Spottswood's, indicated that he meant to amend the Complaint. (See Dkt. 1 at 5; Dkt. 5 at 1.) As a result, on April 5, 2024, this Court entered an order requiring Spottswood to file an amended complaint. (See Dkt. 10 at 2.) The Court received the Amended Complaint on May 3, 2024. (See Dkt. 11)
Citations to materials filed on the docket use the page numbers assigned by the District's CM/ECF filing system.
The Amended Complaint's caption names two defendants: Minnesota's Washington County and “Zoon Inc,” which the Court construes as referring to Zoom Video Communications, Inc. given the Amended Complaint's subsequent reference to “Zoom Communication Inc.” (Dkt. 11 at 1-2.) Spottswood also suggests that he means to sue various “unnamed officials” associated with Washington County. (See id. at 2.)
The Amended Complaint's thrust concerns a pending criminal action in Washington County. (See id. at 2-14.) On January 17, 2024, Judge Helen R. Brosnahan (serving in Washington County's district court) held a hearing in the criminal case using interactive video teleconferencing (“ITV”). (See id.) The state court used Zoom's teleconferencing software to handle the teleconference. (See id.) As relevant here, Spottswood raises a variety of claims about the conduct of Judge Brosnahan, his appointed attorney, and the programmer who implemented certain features of Zoom's ITV services. (See generally id. at 2-9.) He claims that various aspects of the January hearing denied him his constitutional rights and violated various federal criminal statutes. (See generally id.)
The Court has been unable to determine the precise Washington County criminal case involved here, and Spottswood does not identify it.
Spottswood requests “a writ of injunction . . . into [his] criminal case,” specifically, a “preliminary injunction.” (Id. at 13.) The Court construes this as a request for injunctive relief-namely, to immediately halt his state-court criminal proceedings. Spottswood also seeks $50,000 in damages. (See id. at 14.)
Spottswood suggests that he means to bring this case as a class action. (See, e.g., Dkt. 11 at 9-12.)
As an initial matter, the Court orders that the Amended Complaint shall be this action's operative pleading going forward. Because the Amended Complaint asks this Court to enjoin proceedings in a state-court criminal action, it raises a question of so-called Younger abstention. See Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971). Under this doctrine, federal courts should generally abstain from interfering with certain “pending state proceedings.” Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco, Inc., 481 U.S. 1, 10-11 (1987) (discussing Younger, 401 U.S. at 37); see also, e.g., Wassef v. Tibben, 68 F.4th 1083, 1086 (8th Cir. 2023) (“[C]oncepts of comity and federalism require federal courts to abstain from interfering with pending state court criminal proceedings, except under ‘special circumstances' such as a bad-faith prosecution or when a criminal statute is ‘flagrantly and patently' unconstitutional on its face.” (quoting Younger, 401 U.S. at 41, 44-45, 5354)).
A district court can consider issues of Younger abstention sua sponte. See, e.g., Geier v. Mo. Ethics Comm'n, 715 F.3d 674, 676 (8th Cir. 2013) (affirming district-court dismissal based on sua sponte consideration of Younger abstention).
In the Eighth Circuit, courts use a “three-part inquiry” to decide whether to apply Younger abstention in a given case:
First, does the underlying state proceeding fall within one of the three “exceptional circumstances” where Younger abstention is appropriate? Second, if the underlying proceeding fits within a Younger category, does the state proceeding satisfy what are known as the “Middlesex” factors? And third, even if the underlying state proceeding satisfies the first two inquiries,
is abstention nevertheless inappropriate because an exception to abstention applies?Wassef, 68 F.4th at 1087 (quoting 375 Slane Chapel Rd. LLC v. Stone Cty., 53 F.4th 1122, 1177 (8th Cir. 2022)); see also, e.g., Rubbelke v. Zarembinski, No. 23-CV-0707 (PJS/ECW), 2023 WL 3094371, at *2 (D. Minn. Apr. 26, 2023) (presenting same test (quoting Minn. Living Assistance v. Peterson, 899 F.3d 548, 551-52 (8th Cir. 2018)).
These lines of inquiry indicate that exercising Younger abstention would be appropriate here. First, the state-court proceedings fall squarely within the “exceptional circumstances” where Younger abstention applies. Indeed, criminal proceedings are the paradigmatic type of state-court proceeding that makes Younger abstention advisable. See, e.g., Sprint Commc'ns, Inc. v. Jacobs, 571 U.S. 69, 72 (2013) (discussing Younger); Wassef, 68 F.4th at 1086 (same).
With respect to the second inquiry, the Middlesex factors are “relevant in deciding whether Younger abstention applies to a civil proceeding”: the factors here are whether there is “(1) an ongoing state judicial proceeding that (2) implicates important state interests and (3) provides the federal plaintiff adequate opportunity to raise federal challenges.” Wassef, 68 F.4th at 1087 (citing Middlesex Cty. Ethics Comm. v. Garden State Bar Assoc., 457 U.S. 423, 432-35 (1982)) (emphasis added). As the emphasis here suggests, this second inquiry is inapplicable, because the state proceeding that Spottswood seeks to interrupt is not a civil proceeding, but a criminal one.
Even if the Court applied the Middlesex factors here, they would cut against Spottswood. His state-court prosecution is plainly an “ongoing state judicial proceeding,” enforcing state criminal law is an important state interest, and Spottswood's ability to raise issues in the criminal action itself and/or on appeal give him an adequate opportunity to address the concerns he raises here. See Middlesex, 457 U.S. at 432-35.
That leaves the last line of inquiry, that is whether an exception applies. The Court finds that no exception to Younger abstention applies here. Nothing in the Amended Complaint (or the Complaint) plausibly suggests that “the pending state action was brought in bad faith or for the purpose of [harassment]” or that any other “extraordinary circumstances” exist. Trainor v. Hernandez, 431 U.S. 434, 446-47 (1977); see also, e.g., Juidice v. Vail, 430 U.S. 327, 338 (1977) (noting exception where “state proceeding is motivated by a desire to harass or is conducted in bad faith” (quoting Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 611 (1975))).
The Court therefore recommends applying Younger abstention, but one issue remains. Generally, under Younger abstention, a federal plaintiff's claims for injunctive relief are dismissed without prejudice. See Wassef, 68 F.4th at 1091 (stating that Younger contemplates the dismissal of the federal suit but that all claims are presented to the state courts, meaning that such actions should be dismissed without prejudice). However, when Younger abstention applies to a case featuring damages claims, the court should not dismiss those claims; instead, they should be stayed pending resolution of the relevant state-court proceedings. See, e.g., Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U.S. 706, 730 (1996) (citing Growe v. Emison, 507 U.S. 25, 32 (1993)); Yamaha Motor Corp., U.S.A. v. Stroud, 179 F.3d 598, 603 (8th Cir. 1999) (citing cases) (“When monetary damages are sought in addition to injunctive relief and the federal court is not asked to declare a state statute unconstitutional in order to award damages, the case should not be dismissed. As long as there may be issues which will need to be determined in federal court, a stay rather than a dismissal is the preferred procedure to use in abstaining.” (citation omitted)). As mentioned, Spottswood seeks $50,000 in damages. (Dkt. 11 at 14.) Thus, while the Court recommends dismissing this action to the extent that it seeks injunctive relief, the Court recommends staying the remainder of the action until Spottswood's relevant criminal case, including any appeals, concludes. Further, the Court recommends ordering Spottswood to inform the Court within 30 days of the conclusion (again, including any appeals) of his state-court prosecution.
ORDER
Based on the foregoing analysis and all the files, records, and proceedings herein, IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff Shawn Clarke Spottswood's Amended Complaint/Petition (Dkt. 11) is this action's operative pleading going forward.
RECOMMENDATION
Based on the foregoing analysis and all the files, records, and proceedings herein, IT IS RECOMMENDED that:
1. The Amended Complaint be DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE to the extent that it brings claims for injunctive relief.
2. The remainder of this action be STAYED pending the final resolution of Plaintiff Shawn Clarke Spottswood's Washington County state-court criminal proceedings challenged by the Amended Complaint.
3. Plaintiff Shawn Clarke Spottswood be ordered to inform the Court within 30 days after the Washington County state-court matter challenged by the Amended Complaint (including any appeals) concludes by filing an appropriate notice in this action's docket.
4. The Clerk of Court be directed to send a certified copy of this Order to the Washington County District Court, Tenth Judicial District.
NOTICE
Filing Objections: This Report and Recommendation is not an order or judgment of the District Court and is therefore not appealable directly to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Under Local Rule 72.2(b)(1), “a party may file and serve specific written objections to a magistrate judge's proposed finding and recommendations within 14 days after being served a copy” of the Report and Recommendation. A party may respond to those objections within 14 days after being served a copy of the objections. See Local Rule 72.2(b)(2). All objections and responses must comply with the word or line limits set forth in Local Rule 72.2(c).