Bell v. SellevoldBell v. Sellevold
This case involves the efforts of Day County, South Dakota, to evict Eldon E. Bell, M.D., from space he has been using in a medical clinic in Webster, South Dakota, owned by the county. The governing body of the county, the Board of County Commissioners, brought an action against Dr. Bell in a state court for forcible entry and detainer, claiming that he was holding over wrongfully after expiration of a lease. Dr. Bell then brought this suit in the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota, claiming, among other things, that the county was depriving him of property (his right to use and occupy the clinic) and liberty (his reputation as a physician) without due process of law. The District Court granted Dr. Bell’s motion for preliminary injunction and forbade the defendants to do anything to dispossess him (including prosecuting the state-court action) until the case could be tried on its merits in the federal court. Because we believe that defendants have not deprived Dr. Bell of either liberty or property, we reverse.
I.
Dr. Bell came to Webster in 1969. By all accounts, he is an exemplary physician and surgeon, and no one on either side of this controversy questions either his integrity or his medical ability and judgment. Since coming to Webster, he has been a member of the professional staff of the Day County Hospital, operated by the county under
On December 10, 1982, before any proceedings of substance had occurred in the state court, Dr. Bell brought this suit. His complaint alleged claims under
At the conclusion of the hearing the District Court ruled from the bench and granted plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction. The court made appropriate findings on the balance of equities and held that plaintiff had shown the requisite likelihood of success on his claim that the county had deprived him, or was about to deprive him, of a “property or liberty interest,” Tr. 259, without due process of law. On the same day, January 24, 1983, a written order was entered restraining the defendants “from interfering ... with plaintiff’s use and possession of his present medical office in the Clinic in Webster, South Dakota.” Designated Record (D.R.) 75. The order was to remain in effect until final judgment in the federal suit, and provided that until that time Dr. Bell would pay his rent into a special bank account. The effect of the order, of course, was to prohibit defendants from prosecuting their state-court action for possession of the disputed premises, and no further action in that case has taken place. The District Court also denied defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint, which it had earlier properly agreed, Tr. 48, to treat as a motion for summary judgment. Defendants appeal, claiming that the motion for preliminary injunction should have been denied, and that their motion for summary judgment should have been granted.
In the course of its oral opinion, the District Court, following up on a suggestion it had made to counsel earlier, also ruled that it had and would exercise “pendent jurisdiction in the State claim.” Tr. 267. By this the court seems to have meant that it would try, in the federal forum, not only the plaintiff’s suit under
I am reluctant to order the State Court to do anything. I rely on the State Court to do what is right, and I have now ordered that this entire action be tried in this Court, jury demanded, I granted that.
Ibid. No written order signed by the District Court was ever entered embodying this apparent decision to exercise “pendent jurisdiction” over the state-court action. Defendants, in addition to their appeal already described, have also petitioned us for a writ of prohibition to command the District Court not to exercise any such “pendent jurisdiction.”
II.
The preliminary injunction rests entirely on the premise that defendants are depriving plaintiff of either liberty or property without due process of law, or, at any rate, that plaintiff is likely at trial to succeed on his claim that they are doing so. Normally our review of orders granting or denying a preliminary injunction is limited to determining whether the District Court has abused its discretion. That is not true, however, where the question presented is purely one of law. “[0]n questions of law we owe no deference in any formal sense to the District Court.” Chu Drua Cha v. Noot,
The plaintiff argues that he should have been given notice and some kind of hearing before the Board met and voted to terminate his occupancy of the clinic. The Board’s vote, however, deprived him of no property. It merely expressed the Board’s intention to go to court to try to get Dr. Bell out of the clinic. Plaintiff is still in the clinic, and has been continuously ever since the Board’s meeting. His hospital staff privileges have not been disturbed, nor has anyone indicated that any effort will be made to disturb them. He argues that the very decision by the Board to sue him for possession should have been preceded by notice and hearing, but we disagree for at least two reasons. First, a rule requiring notice and hearing before any public body decides to go to court to assert its rights in property would paralyze local government in an important part of its responsibilities. And second, whether plaintiff has a property interest in the first place is the question to be decided by the state court in the Board’s suit. He has no property right not to be sued for possession. Like any other party to a lease, he is liable to suit by another party seeking a determination of its rights under the lease. At common law, a landlord could enter and expel by force a tenant holding over wrongfully, see Lindsey v. Normet,
If Dr. Bell were, as a result of the state-court proceedings, about to be evicted without due process, he might have a case. But he does not claim that the South Dakota forcible-entry-and-detainer procedure itself violates the Due Process Clause. Nor could such a claim succeed, in light of Lindsey v. Normet, supra, in which the Supreme Court upheld, against due-process and equal-protection challenges, most features
The major defense raised by Dr. Bell in his answer in the state court, Brief of Appellants App. 1-4, is that he is entitled to possession of the clinic under the alleged oral agreement made in 1969. This defense immediately concerns the right of possession, and we have no doubt that it is properly raised in the state court, along with any related theories of estoppel, as, for example, that even if the oral agreement is void for some reason, the plaintiff’s long performance under it should estop the county to
So much for property. Plaintiff also claims that he was deprived of liberty because the Board’s vote to go to court to evict him damaged his reputation in the community and reduced his clientele. There is a line of public-employee cases holding that a public body may not discharge anyone — even an employee without a contractual or property right in his job— and make public reasons for the discharge involving stigma or obloquy, without giving the employee a right to clear his or her name at some kind of a due-process hearing. We assume arguendo that the same reasoning could be made to apply to a termination of a lease. The liberty theory still must fail, because defendants never made public any stigmatizing reasons for their action. They simply voted to sue Dr. Bell for possession. No reasons at all were given in public. The accusation that Dr. Bell was responsible for “turmoil” came in a letter written to him at his own lawyer’s request. The letter is now public because plaintiff introduced it as an exhibit (PX 2) at the hearing on his motion for a preliminary injunction. Bishop v. Wood,
It would still be possible to affirm the preliminary injunction if plaintiff had a viable equal-protection theory, assuming the other requirements for interim relief were met, and the parties have briefed this issue, though equal protection does not seem to have been part of the District Court’s rationale. But only a moment’s reflection is needed to convince us that this is not an equal-protection case. There is no claim that plaintiff is the victim of racial or other class-based animus, nor that he is being evicted because of some irrational classification adopted by the Board. He vigorously insists that the Board was mistaken, perhaps even motivated by personal dislike; that there was no “turmoil” at the clinic, or that in any event he is no more responsible for it than anyone else. He may be right; but that is not at all the same thing as a denial of the equal protection of the laws. The Supreme Court has warned that “[t]he Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is not a guarantee against incorrect or ill-advised ... decisions,” Bishop v. Wood, supra,
The suggestion that “substantive due process” has been violated may be equally briefly disposed of. The argument is, if we understand it, that plaintiff has a constitutional right, no matter what procedures are employed, to occupy the county-owned clinic. We reject this contention. “ ‘A doctor has no constitutional right to practice medicine in a public hospital,”’ Klinge v. Lutheran Charities Association,
For these reasons, we hold that plaintiff has not made out a viable claim under
II.
Defendants also appeal from the District Court’s denial of their motion for summary judgment. They argue that they are immune from suit because they acted in good faith as that term has recently been redefined by the Supreme Court in Harlow v. Fitzgerald,
We therefore hold that government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.
We have recently held, in Evans v. Dillahunty,
We need not decide whether the District Court’s order in this case meets these criteria for appealability, because the immunity issue is, at least for the present, not a live one. In Part I of this opinion we have considered each of the bases for
III.
We now turn to No. 83-1235, in which Day County as petitioner seeks a writ of prohibition commanding the District Court not to exercise “pendent jurisdiction” over the forcible-entry-and-detainer action pending in the state court. Extraordinary writs are granted only sparingly, and never simply because of disagreement with a district court on a question of law. We are persuaded, however, that this case falls squarely within the narrowest concept of the writ of prohibition: that is, it represents an apparent decision by a district
If the lower court is clearly without jurisdiction the writ will ordinarily be granted to one who at the outset objected to the jurisdiction, has preserved his rights by appropriate procedure and has no other remedy.
(Quoting Ex parte Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway,
In theory, we suppose it is possible to argue that any error committed could be corrected on defendants’ appeal from a final judgment against them, assuming that such a judgment occurs. We disagree with this position for several reasons. First, defendants will not necessarily lose on the merits. If plaintiffs lose, they could appeal, but would presumably not contest the District Court’s exercise of “pendent jurisdiction,” since they themselves urged that jurisdiction upon the District Court. In that event, the jurisdiction of the state courts over a case properly brought before them would have been usurped, and no remedy would be available. Even if defendants do lose on the merits, we think their right to try their state-law action in the state courts is so fundamental, and so clearly outside the jurisdiction of the federal courts, that they should not be compelled to go through a federal trial. An appeal from an adverse judgment, even a successful appeal, would not undo the fact that defendants had been unlawfully compelled to try their case in a federal forum.
Counsel for Dr. Bell, in his capacity of respondent in the prohibition case, argues that the writ should never be granted unless the entitlement to it is clear, and that, since no case has held that pendent jurisdiction may not be exercised in a situation like that presented here, it cannot be said that there was a clear excess of jurisdiction on the part of the District Court. We disagree. No case has ever held that jurisdiction may not be exercised in this situation simply because no court has ever asserted such jurisdiction, probably because, for reasons we will shortly explain, such an assertion is clearly unauthorized.
The Supreme Court has most recently explained the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction in United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs,
[I]f, considered without regard to their federal or state character, a plaintiff’s claims are such that he would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding, then, assuming substantiality of the federal issues, there is power in federal courts to hear the whole.
(Footnote omitted.) The whole premise of this doctrine is that two claims have been tendered for decision by some party, either a plaintiff, a counterclaimant, a third-party claimant, or some other party in a similar position. If, for example, the plaintiff here, in addition to his federal claims, had pleaded in his federal-court complaint that his eviction would violate state law, either common or statutory, the federal court would in all likelihood have pendent jurisdiction of that state-law claim, despite the absence of complete diversity among the parties. The situation here is quite different. Plaintiff is asserting a federal claim in a federal court, but the other claim, the one over which the District Court seems to intend to exercise “pendent jurisdiction,” is not in the federal court at all, nor is it a claim belonging to the plaintiff. It is, instead, a claim being asserted in a state court by the federal-court defendants. Such a claim, one originally brought in a state court, can get into a federal trial court only by removal, and removal requires the filing of a petition by the state-court defendant, as well as the meeting of statutory grounds, neither of which conditions has or can occur here. What the District Court seems to have done here amounts to a kind of involuntary removal, and there is simply no authority in the statutes for such a procedure. The district courts, like this Court, are courts of limited jurisdiction, and they may not exer
It is true, as the District Court remarked in its oral opinion, that the federal case and the state case both arise out of a common nucleus of operative fact. That alone, however, is an insufficient basis to justify the assertion of federal jurisdiction over a separate lawsuit brought in a state court. The terms “federal claim” and “state claim” as they are used in the pendent-jurisdiction context refer to the law that creates or governs the respective claims as a substantive matter. They do not refer to the forum in which the claims are pending. In other words, in order for the question of pendent jurisdiction even to arise, there must be before the federal court a claim arising under or governed by federal law and a claim arising under or governed by state law, over which the federal court has no independent basis of jurisdiction. Wrist-Rocket Manufacturing Co. v. Saunders Archery Co.,
The District Court was understandably, concerned about the possible duplication of effort and expense that would occur if the two lawsuits, Dr. Bell’s federal case and the County’s state case, were allowed to proceed at the same time. We share this concern, but there are a number of answers to it. First, the District Court’s grant of preliminary injunctive relief, which we have reversed for other reasons, necessarily meant that the state-court case would not go forward, because defendants were forbidden to prosecute it. Second, the simultaneous prosecution of in personam actions in federal and state courts is simply one of the costs that we pay for a federal system. The leading case is Kline v. Burke Construction Co.,
[e]ach court is free to proceed in its own way and in its own time, without reference to the proceedings in the other court. Whenever a judgment is rendered in one of the courts and pleaded in the other, the effect of that judgment is to be determined by the application of the principles of res adjudicata by the court in which the action is still pending in the orderly exercise of its jurisdiction, as it would determine any other question of fact or law arising in the progress of the case. The rule, therefore, has become generally established that where the action first brought is in personam and seeks only a personal judgment, another action for the same cause in another jurisdiction is not precluded.
One of the courts may choose, in the exercise of its own discretion, to stay the proceedings before it, or one of the courts may choose, if the law and the facts justify such action, to enjoin the parties from prosecuting their suit before the other forum. But if neither of these events occurs, the cases may proceed in parallel, and whichever one comes first to judgment becomes res judicata as to the other. For this reason, to take the present case as an example, the District Court’s concern for duplication may have been overstated, because, even if the state proceeding had been permitted to go forward (as it now will be because of our reversal of the preliminary injunction), the question of entitlement to possession of the clinic would not have to be litigated twice. Whichever court decides it first would, assuming all of the other requirements of res judicata are met, conclude the other.
We hold, therefore, that the petition for writ of prohibition is well taken. We nevertheless believe it unnecessary to direct the clerk actually to issue the writ. For one thing, we are not certain that the Dis
IV.
In No. 83-1168, the order granting plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction is reversed. The defendants’ appeal from the denial of their motion for summary judgment is dismissed as moot, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion, looking towards resolution of plaintiff’s claims based on
It is so ordered.
Notes
. One feature of the Oregon statute, requiring the posting of a double bond as a prerequisite to a tenant’s appeal, was held violative of equal protection,
. Plaintiff intends to ask leave to amend his complaint to assert a First Amendment theory — that he is being ejected because he is “too demanding.” Brief of Appellee 18-19. We express no view on the merits of such a theory, and our action today is without prejudice to plaintiffs right to advance it.
. In view of our discussion of the Equal Protection Clause in Part I of this opinion, it is hard to see how a