IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 94-40554
Becky H. Alexander,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
Richard Ieyoub, et al.
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Louisiana
August 22, 1995
Before WISDOM, WIENER, and PARKER, Circuit Judges.
WIENER, Circuit Judge:
The Court withdraws the original opinion issued in this case
dated May 19, 1995, and appearing at 52 F.3d 554 (5th Cir. 1995),
and substitutes the following opinion.
Plaintiff-Appellant Becky H. Alexander (Alexander) appeals
the district court's dismissal of her 42 U.S.C. §1983 suit
against the Defendants-Appellees, the former and current district
attorneys (DAs) of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, and two parish
assistant district attorneys (ADAs)(collectively Defendants)1,
1
The district court granted the dismissal motions of two
other defendants, District Judges William McLeod and Charley
Quienalty, on the basis of judicial immunity. Alexander does not
appeal that part of the district court's ruling.
stemming from the 1988 seizure of Alexander's car by officials of
the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Department. Concluding that
neither the Parratt/Hudson doctrine nor the Younger abstention
doctrine justifies dismissal of Alexander's §1983 suit, we
reverse and remand.2
I
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
In September 1988, police officers from the Calcasieu Parish
Sheriff's Department, acting pursuant to an investigation of
suspected drug activity, seized Alexander's automobile after its
driver attempted to elude arrest. The officers arrested the
driver of the car, Winston Joseph Fruge, and the car's passenger,
David Lee Anthony Charney. A search of the car did not uncover
any drugs or other contraband. The DA's office charged Fruge,
Charney, and Alexander (who was not present at the time of the
car's seizure) with various drug counts. In exchange for
Charney's guilty pleas to the counts, however, the DA's office in
October 1989 dismissed the charges against Alexander.
Although Alexander repeatedly requested the return of her
car through a certified letter and several phone calls, the
Defendants refused to release Alexander's car from custody. The
Defendants told Alexander that the DA's office was holding her
car on the belief that she was a consenting party to the drug
2
In reversing and remanding on the basis of the district
court's erroneous application of the Parratt/Hudson doctrine and
the Younger abstention doctrine, we are not expressing any
opinion on the merits of Alexander's §1983 suit or on any
possible defenses to her suit.
2
violations. Under Louisiana law, property seized incident to an
arrest is forfeited only after the DA institutes a hearing and
shows that essential factors for forfeiture have been met.3 In a
forfeiture proceeding, dismissal of the charges against the owner
of the seized property creates a rebuttable presumption that the
property will not be forfeited, unless the DA shows a compelling
reason for such forfeiture by clear and convincing evidence.4
In October 1990, more than two years after the Defendants
seized Alexander's car, she filed suit in state court seeking
damages and the return of her car. In August 1991, one month
before the state suit was set for trial and nearly three years
after the car's seizure, the DA's office finally filed a motion
to forfeit the car - - instituting the forfeiture hearing
necessary for determining the proper final disposition of the
car. In October 1991, however, after the parties had submitted
evidence and presented testimony in the forfeiture proceeding,
the presiding judge suspended the forfeiture proceeding and
transferred it to the judge presiding over Alexander's state tort
action.
3
La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 32:1550(C)(1)-(3)(West 1989) provides
that the property seized:
"shall be forfeited in a hearing instituted by the district
attorney upon . . . a showing by the district attorney that
the seizure was constitutional or that the seizure was made
upon reasonable grounds to believe the seizure was
constitutional [,]. . . that the owner of the conveyance was
knowingly and intentionally a consenting part or privy to a
[drug] violation . . . [and] that the value of the
contraband was in excess of five hundred dollars or that the
contraband was intended for commercial sale."
4
See La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 32:1550(C)(4)(West 1989).
3
Approximately two weeks after the forfeiture proceeding was
suspended, Alexander filed a §1983 suit against the Defendants in
district court, alleging that the Defendants had conspired to
deprive Alexander of her constitutional right to due process.
The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the
Defendants on the basis of absolute immunity. On appeal, we
reversed the district court's ruling that the Defendants were
entitled to absolute immunity and remanded the case to the
district court.5
The Defendants then filed a motion in the district court to
dismiss Alexander's complaint for failure to state a claim, or
alternatively, for summary judgment, which the court granted. In
its opinion granting the motion, the district court dismissed
Alexander's suit based on Parratt v. Taylor6 and Hudson v.
Palmer7 (the Parratt/Hudson doctrine). In the alternative, the
district court held that abstention based on Younger v. Harris8
(the Younger abstention doctrine) also provided a basis for
granting the Defendants' motion. As the court considered the
Parratt/Hudson doctrine and the Younger abstention doctrine to be
dispositive of the case, it did not address further the legal
sufficiency of Alexander's complaint. Alexander timely appealed
5
See Alexander v. Ieyoub [Alexander I], No. 92-4278 (5th
Cir. Jul. 2, 1993)(unpublished opinion).
6
101 S.Ct. 1908 (1981), overruled in part not relevant here,
Daniels v. Williams, 106 U.S. 662 (1986).
7
104 S.Ct. 3194 (1984).
8
91 S.Ct. 746 (1971).
4
the district court's ruling pro se.
II
ANALYSIS
A. STANDARD OF REVIEW
Our review of the issue whether the district court properly
applied the Parratt/Hudson doctrine is de novo, as it is a
question of law.9 We review the district court's decision to
dismiss on Younger abstention grounds under an abuse-of-
discretion standard.10 Our application of the abuse-of-
discretion standard in reviewing a district court's decision to
abstain, however, is more stringent than in reviewing a district
court's evidentiary ruling.11 To abstain properly, the district
court must exercise its discretion strictly within the limits
imposed by the particular doctrine of abstention on which the
court relies.12
9
See Blackburn v. City of Marshall, 42 F.3d 925, 931 (5th
Cir. 1995)(reviewing de novo district court's dismissal for
failure to state claim upon which relief may be granted); Shabazz
v. Van Benschoten, 996 F.2d 1217 (table), No. 92-2380, 1993 WL
225324, at *2 (6th Cir. 1993)(unpublished opinion)(analyzing
Parratt/Hudson doctrine); Hall v. Arizona State Dep't of
Corrections, 977 F.2d 588 (table), No. 92-15641, 1992 WL 246984,
at *1 (9th Cir. 1992)(unpublished opinion)(examining
Parratt/Hudson doctrine).
10
See American Bank and Trust Co. v. Dent, 982 F.2d 917, 922
n.6 (5th Cir. 1993)(holding that abstention decisions are
generally reviewed under abuse-of-discretion standard).
11
See id.
12
See id.
5
B. PARRATT/HUDSON DOCTRINE
Under the Parratt/Hudson doctrine, a state actor's random
and unauthorized deprivation of a plaintiff's property does not
result in a violation of procedural due process rights if the
state provides an adequate postdeprivation remedy.13 The Supreme
Court observed in Zinermon v. Burch14 that, in the context of the
Parratt/Hudson doctrine, state officials could not characterize
their conduct as random and unauthorized if the state had
"delegated to them the power and authority to effect the very
deprivation complained of."15 Our examination of Alexander's
allegations leads us to conclude that the Parratt/Hudson doctrine
does not foreclose adjudication of her §1983 suit because the
"random and unauthorized" element necessary for its application
is absent.
We disagree with the Defendants' contention that their
actions in failing timely to institute a forfeiture proceeding
were unpredictable, intentional violations of state law that fell
within the ambit of the Parratt/Hudson doctrine and therefore
precluded Alexander from asserting a procedural due process claim
13
See Hudson v. Palmer, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3202-05 (1984);
Parratt v. Taylor, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 1913-17 (1981), overruled in
part on other grounds, Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327 (1986).
See also Zinermon v. Burch, 110 S.Ct. 975, 985-86 (observing that
Supreme Court in Hudson and Parratt concluded that, as States
could not predict and therefore could not safeguard against
random and unauthorized deprivations through predeprivation
process, adequate postdeprivation remedies were sufficient
process).
14
110 S.Ct. 975 (1990).
15
Id. at 990.
6
in her §1983 suit. Although the Louisiana statute providing for
a forfeiture proceeding gives the DA the authority to institute
the proceeding, it does not specify a time period within which
the DA should act.16 The Defendants therefore had the discretion
to institute the proceeding whenever they wanted, and their
actions in delaying for nearly three years, although
unreasonable, were not in conflict with their authority under
state law.
Moreover, Alexander averred in her §1983 suit that the
Defendants were following their common practice for dealing with
seized property when they kept her car in custody without timely
instituting a forfeiture proceeding, and she supported her
assertion with corroborating evidence. As Alexander alleged that
the Defendants' failure timely to institute a forfeiture
proceeding was in accordance with their customary procedures, the
"random and unauthorized" element required for the application of
the Parratt/Hudson doctrine is not met. Alexander has also
submitted sufficient discrete evidence in support of her position
that the Defendants' conduct was not random and unauthorized to
demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact, immunizing her case
from summary judgment disposition based on the Parratt/Hudson
doctrine. The district court therefore erred in dismissing
Alexander's suit on the basis of the Parratt/Hudson doctrine.17
16
See La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 32:1550(C)(West 1989).
17
Although the district court did not expressly state that
it had looked beyond the pleadings in dismissing Alexander's
suit, it ordered that the "Motion for Summary [J]udgment by
7
C. YOUNGER ABSTENTION DOCTRINE
The Younger abstention doctrine provides that federal
equitable relief is generally unavailable against pending state
criminal prosecutions except in narrowly defined and unusual
circumstances.18 The Supreme Court in Huffman v. Pursue19
extended the doctrine to state civil proceedings that were "both
in aid of and closely related to criminal statutes," as those
cases involved the same concerns of comity and federalism present
in state criminal proceedings.20
In the instant case, two state court proceedings are
pending: Alexander's tort claim seeking the car's release and
damages, and the state's forfeiture proceeding for which no date
has yet been fixed. Although the Louisiana Supreme Court has
recognized that a forfeiture proceeding is quasi-criminal21,
Younger abstention is not appropriate in the instant case. We
defendants should be GRANTED." In addition, the magistrate
judge's memorandum ruling considered evidence submitted outside
of the pleadings. Therefore, even though the district court
based its dismissal of Alexander's suit on the Parratt/Hudson
doctrine, which results in a failure to state a claim upon which
relief may be granted, and on abstention grounds, we find that it
also implicitly considered record evidence outside of the
pleadings in making its ruling.
18
See Younger v. Harris, 91 S.Ct. 746, 751 (1971).
19
95 S.Ct. 1200 (1975).
20
See id. at 1208.
21
See State v. Manuel, 426 So.2d 140, 143 (La. 1983)(object
of forfeiture proceeding is "to penalize for the commission of an
offense against the law" and "forfeiture is clearly a penalty for
the criminal offense and can result in even greater punishment
than the prosecution").
8
have previously observed that the Younger abstention doctrine
does not apply to a suit seeking only damages.22 Even though
Alexander seeks both damages and the return of her car in the
pending state tort action, her federal §1983 suit seeks only
monetary relief for the Defendants' delay in instituting a
forfeiture proceeding. Thus, we conclude that the district court
abused its discretion by refusing, based on its unwarranted
reliance on Younger, to exercise its jurisdiction over
Alexander's §1983 suit.
III
CONCLUSION
Alexander's allegation that the Defendants were acting in
their customary manner of failing timely to institute a
forfeiture proceeding negates the "random and unauthorized
conduct" element needed for application of the Parratt/Hudson
doctrine. We therefore conclude that the Parratt/Hudson doctrine
does not provide a proper basis for the district court's
dismissal of Alexander's §1983 suit alleging that the Defendants
violated her procedural due process rights.
In addition, as Alexander's §1983 suit seeks only monetary
damages for the Defendants' delay in instituting a forfeiture
proceeding, the district court's adjudication of her federal suit
22
See Lewis v. Beddingfield, 20 F.3d 123, 125 (5th Cir.
1994)(Younger not applicable to §1983 claim for damages); Allen
v. Louisiana State Bd. of Dentistry, 835 F.2d 100, 104 (5th Cir.
1988)("requests for monetary damages do not fall within the
purview of the Younger abstention doctrine"); Bishop v. State Bar
of Texas, 736 F.2d 292, 295 (5th Cir. 1984)(a §1983 claim for
damages is a "species of relief wholly unaffected by Younger").
9
would not impinge on the state's interest of determining its
asserted forfeiture rights in the pending quasi-criminal
forfeiture proceeding. Thus, the narrowly-defined Younger
abstention doctrine is inapplicable and the district court abused
its discretion in abstaining on that ground. Based on the
foregoing, the district court's ruling dismissing Alexander's
§1983 suit is reversed and the case is remanded to that court for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
10