Bruno v. Supreme Court

946 F. Supp. 2d 392, 2013 WL 1951686, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67485
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedMay 13, 2013
DocketCivil Action No. 13-1357
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 946 F. Supp. 2d 392 (Bruno v. Supreme Court) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bruno v. Supreme Court, 946 F. Supp. 2d 392, 2013 WL 1951686, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67485 (E.D. Pa. 2013).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

ANITA B. BRODY, District Judge.

Plaintiff Judge Mark A. Bruno brings suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Defendants the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille, Justice Thomas G. Saylor, Justice J. Michael Ea-kin, Justice Deborah McCloskey Todd, Justice Seamus P. McCaffery, and Justice Max Baer (collectively, “PA Supreme Court Defendants”). On February 1, 2013, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court sua sponte suspended Bruno without pay. Bruno claims that the PA Supreme Court Defendants violated his procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Bruno has filed a motion for preliminary injunction, requesting that I enjoin “the Defendants from suspending Judge Mark A. Bruno without pay and benefits pending the resolution of his criminal trial.” PL’s Mot. 2. The PA Supreme Court Defendants request that the motion for a preliminary injunction be denied. For the reasons set forth below, I will deny Bruno’s motion.

I. BACKGROUND1

Plaintiff Judge Mark A. Bruno is a Pennsylvania Magisterial District Judge in the Borough of West Chester. At the request of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Bruno has presided over cases in the Philadelphia Traffic Court once a year for four or five days while Traffic Court judges are away on training.

[395]*395On January 29, 2013, Bruno was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1349; one count of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343; and one count of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341. The indictment charges that Bruno and his co-conspirators “used the Philadelphia Traffic Court ... to give preferential treatment to certain ticket-holders, most commonly by ‘fixing’ tickets for those with whom they were politically and socially connected.” Compl. Ex. A ¶ 1.

On February 1, 2013, without any prior notice to Bruno, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued an order (“Suspension Order”) suspending Bruno without pay. The Suspension Order states:

PER CURIAM
AND NOW, this 1st day of February 2013, it is hereby ordered that Magisterial District Judge Mark A. Bruno for Magisterial District 15-1-01, of the Fifteenth Judicial District, Chester County, Pennsylvania, is hereby relieved of any and all judicial and administrative responsibilities as a judge of the Magisterial District Court.
It is further ordered that Judge Mark A. Bruno is suspended without pay pending further Order of this Court.
This Order is without prejudice to the rights of Judge Mark A. Bruno to seek relief in this Court for the purpose of vacating or modifying this Order. In re: Avellino, 547 Pa. 385, 690 A.2d 1138 (1997); and see In re: McFalls, 568 Pa. 228, 795 A.2d 367 (2002).

Compl. Ex. B. Since the February 1, 2013 Order, Bruno has not received any pay. He still receives medical benefits, but has to pay $72.00 per month to receive them.

II. SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION

The PA Supreme Court Defendants argue that this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. The doctrine is named after the only two Supreme Court cases to have applied the doctrine to defeat federal subject matter jurisdiction: Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Company, 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923), and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983). Rooker-Feldman is a narrow doctrine “confined to cases of the kind from which the doctrine acquired its name: cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284, 125 S.Ct. 1517, 161 L.Ed.2d 454 (2005); Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459, 464, 126 S.Ct. 1198, 163 L.Ed.2d 1059 (2006). “Rooker and Feldman exhibit the limited circumstances in which this Court’s appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments, 28 U.S.C. § 1257, precludes a United States district court from exercising subject-matter jurisdiction.... ” Exxon, 544 U.S. at 291, 125 S.Ct. 1517. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1257, only the Supreme Court is vested with jurisdiction over appeals from final state-court judgments. “Accordingly, under what has come to be known as the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, lower federal courts are precluded from exercising appellate jurisdiction over final state-court judgments.” Lance, 546 U.S. at 463, 126 S.Ct. 1198 (emphasis added). Thus, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine only applies in the “limited circumstances” where “the losing party in state court filed suit in federal court after the state proceedings ended, complaining of an injury caused by [396]*396the state-court judgment and seeking review and rejection of that judgment.” Exxon, 544 U.S. at 291, 125 S.Ct. 1517 (emphasis added). Parallel state and federal litigation does not trigger application of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, even when the federal litigation is initiated after the state proceedings have commenced. Id. at 291-94, 125 S.Ct. 1517.

While Courts of Appeals recognize that Rooker-Feldman only applies to federal district court suits filed after state proceedings are final, there is some disagreement as to when a state proceeding has sufficiently “ended” to trigger Rooker-Feldman. Compare Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico v. Junta de Rela ciones del Trabajo de Puerto Rico, 410 F.3d 17, 28 (1st Cir.2005) (Rooker-Feldman applied where the Puerto Rico Su preme Court had finally resolved the sole federal question in an interlocutory ruling), with TruServ Corp. v. Flegles, Inc., 419 F.3d 584 (7th Cir.2005) (Rooker-Feldman does not apply to interlocutory rulings because the state-court proceeding has not ended).

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Related

In Re: Magisterial District Judge Mark Bruno
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 2014
In re Bruno
101 A.3d 635 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 2014)

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Bluebook (online)
946 F. Supp. 2d 392, 2013 WL 1951686, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67485, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bruno-v-supreme-court-paed-2013.