SOJOURN HOUSE, INC. v. MONROE COUNTY BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS

• Court: District Court, S.D. Indiana
• Decided: January 24, 2024
• Docket: 1:23-cv-01555
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA INDIANAPOLIS DIVISION

SOJOURN HOUSE, INC., ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) v. ) No. 1:23-cv-01555-JRS-TAB ) MONROE COUNTY BOARD OF ZONING ) APPEALS, ) MONROE COUNTY, INDIANA, ) ) Defendants. ) Order on Motions to Stay and to Remand This is a zoning case. The Monroe County zoning board denied Sojourn House a variance it sought for a planned residential women's shelter. Sojourn House, petitioning for judicial review in the Monroe County Circuit Court, claimed the County violated state and federal law in denying the variance and refusing to consider an amended variance. The County removed the case because it includes federal claims. (ECF No. 1.) Now, though, it seems to have changed its mind. The County moves for the Court to abstain from hearing the case, (ECF No. 18), and instead to sever and remand the state law claims, (ECF No. 19). Those motions are, naturally enough, unopposed by Sojourn House, which chose state court in the first place. The County's unopposed argument for Thibodaux abstention is well taken. That doctrine allows a federal court to decline to decide "difficult questions of state law bearing on policy problems of substantial public import whose importance transcends the result in the case then at bar." Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 814 (1976) (discussing Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. City of Thibodaux, 360 U.S. 25 (1959) and Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S. 315 (1943)). The Court is faced here with a local land use issue. Local land use is a quintessential area

of state concern. Int'l Coll. of Surgeons v. City of Chicago, 153 F.3d 356, 362 (7th Cir. 1998). Furthermore, the heart of Sojourn's claim—that the County Board of Zoning Appeal wrongly declined to hear its application—turns on a tricky question of state procedural law. (Compl. 12, ECF No. 1-1 (citing Ind. Code § 36-7-4-916).) How or whether Ind. Code § 36-7-4-916 constrains the authority of a zoning board's procedural conduct and discretionary decisions is apparently a question of first impression. A state court should have the first opportunity to decide the statewide

effects of that law on the rules and procedure of all the various local zoning boards. The Court may remand the case "based on abstention principles . . . where the relief being sought is equitable or otherwise discretionary." Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U.S. 706, 731 (1996). The relief sought here fits the bill: Sojourn seeks a declaratory judgment and injunction. (Compl. 12, 28, ECF No. 1-1); Abbott Lab'ys v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148 (1967), abrogated on other grounds by Califano v.

Sanders, 430 U.S. 99 (1977) ("[I]njunctive and declaratory judgment remedies are discretionary."); Green v. Mansour, 474 U.S. 64, 72 (1985) (declaratory judgment is basically equitable). A remand, then, is appropriate and would satisfy both parties. One last issue: the County wants only the state claims to be remanded. The Court thinks the better course is to remand the entire case. Sojourn's various legal theories are all directed at a single administrative record; judicial economy dictates that one judge learn the record and apply the law. It should be a matter of indifference which judge. On a motion for remand, "[t]he only thing that is at stake is the forum that will hear a claim," Adkins v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 326 F.3d 828, 832 (7th Cir. 2003),

and the state court is presumptively just as competent to handle the federal claims, AXA Corp. Sols. v. Underwriters Reinsurance Corp., 347 F.3d 272, 280 (7th Cir. 2003). The Supreme Court's holding in Quackenbush establishes that this Court has the power to order a complete remand in "otherwise appropriate circumstances," 517 U.S. at 721, but there seems to be no controlling authority on the specific question of whether a Thibodaux abstention remand should be total or partial. If Thibodaux abstention is considered as a variety of Burford abstention, see Colorado River, 424

U.S. at 814 (including both doctrines in a single category), Quackenbush, 517 U.S. at 725–26 (describing Thibodaux as an offshoot of Burford's reasoning), then it ought to be treated the same procedurally. Burford abstentions lead to full dismissal, on the theory that the federal court's jurisdiction is not engaged. Charles A. Wright & Arthur R. Miller, 17A Fed. Prac. & Proc. Juris. § 4245 (3d ed.). So it ought to be possible for this Court to dispose wholly of the case, notwithstanding the fact that in

Thibodaux itself the Supreme Court approved a stay instead of a dismissal. Thibodaux, 360 U.S. at 29; cf. Wright & Miller, 17A Fed. Prac. & Proc. Juris. § 4245 n.6 (3d ed.) (noting "some difficulty" in reconciling Thibodaux theory and practice). And, too, a remand is a milder disposition than a dismissal. A remand keeps the case alive; it does not raise the potential problem of a time-bar to refiling in state court, e.g. Lumen Const., Inc. v. Brant Const. Co., 780 F.2d 691, 698 (7th Cir. 1985) (reasoning on time-bar danger in support of holding that Colorado River abstentions should be stayed rather than dismissed), nor does it risk the possibility that the litigation will otherwise lapse, Thibodaux, 360 U.S. at 29. Finally, on these peculiar facts, where both parties are seeking a state forum, the Court sees no danger of frustrating Congress' purposes behind the removal statutes. Thibodaux, 360 U.S. at 31 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Therefore, the County's Motion for Abstention and Stay, (ECF No. 18), and its Motion to Remand, (ECF No. 19), are both granted, except the Court does not retain any jurisdiction. The entire case is remanded to the Monroe County Circuit Court; nothing remains for this Court to decide, and the clerk is directed administratively to close the federal case.

SO ORDERED.

Date: 01/24/2024 JAMES R. SWEENEY II, JUDGE United States District Court Southern District of Indiana Distribution: Matthew Scott Clark KNIGHT HOPPE KURNIK & KNIGHT LTD (Rosemont) mclark@khkklaw.com Emily Curosh Knight, Hoppe, Kurnik, & Knight, Ltd. ecurosh@khkklaw.com Lonnie D. Johnson CLENDENING JOHNSON & BOHRER, P.C. ljohnson@lawcjb.com

Cheyenne N. Riker CLENDENING JOHNSON & BOHRER PC (Bloomington) criker@lawcjb.com

Pamela G. Schneeman Knight Hoppe Kurnik & Knight, Ltd. pschneeman@khkklaw.com

John Michael Stringfield The Law Offices of Robert D. King jstringfield@lawcjb.com