Balubhai Patel v. City of Los Angeles

MEMORANDUM

The district court erred in staying plaintiffs’ federal claims pursuant to the Pullman abstention doctrine.

“[W]e review de novo whether the requirements for Pullman abstention have been met.” Smelt v. Cnty. of Orange, 447 F.3d 673 , 678 (9th Cir.2006). A district court may only invoke Pullman’s “extraordinary and narrow exception to [its] duty” to exercise jurisdiction, Cnty. of Allegheny v. Frank Mashuda Co., 360 U.S. 185, 188 , 79 S.Ct. 1060 , 3 L.Ed.2d 1163 (1959), when a difficult constitutional question “plainly can be avoided [by] a definitive ruling on [a] state issue [that] would terminate the controversy,” R.R. Comm’n of Tex. v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 498 , 61 S.Ct. 643 , 85 L.Ed. 971 (1941). Here, no state ruling would terminate — or even substantially narrow — any federal question presented. Even if a state court were to grant plaintiffs’ request for administrative mandamus and reverse the council’s permitting decision, plaintiffs’ Fifth Amendment claim' for damages based on the City’s temporary taking would remain. See First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, Cal., 482 U.S. 304, 319 , 107 S.Ct. 2378 , 96 L.Ed.2d…