December 2004
Featured Disciplinary Case
Topic
Federal Jurisdiction of State Interim Suspension Decisions
Summary
Charles G. Williams III v. Board of Bar Overseers, et al., 2004 WL 2786069, Civil No. 04-95-P-C (D. Me, Dec. 3, 2004). The Board of Bar Overseers (BBO) petitioned the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine for an immediate order suspending Williams from the practice of law in Maine and Bar Counsel provided an affidavit describing the various acts of alleged wrongdoing. Thereafter, a single justice ordered Williams to show cause why the petition should not be granted. Williams did not timely respond to the rule, the justice granted the petition, and he was suspended on a temporary basis. Formal disciplinary charges were then filed against him by Bar Counsel but three days before he was served with the charges, he filed a federal suit alleging due process violations and seeking a temporary restraining order. He sued Bar Counsel, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, and the justice who ruled against him. The federal court dismissed the action (245 F.Supp.2d 221 (D. Me. Feb. 10, 2003)), determining that it lacked federal subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. The district court dismissed the action without having to consider the defendants’ Younger v. Harris abstention arguments. Williams appealed. The First Circuit affirmed the dismissal in an unreported decision, basing its ruling on Younger abstention rather than Rooker-Feldman. Rooker-Feldman was the incorrect doctrine, the First Circuit ruled, because Williams had a right to litigate his underlying constitutional issues in a proper forum, i.e., in the Maine disciplinary proceeding. Later, the inevitable occurred and Williams was ordered disbarred in Maine by the single justice. He appealed to the full state court. Days after the single justice order, he filed yet another federal suit against the same defendants. Interestingly, service of the complaint was not made upon them.. Williams did, however, file a motion to proceed in forma pauperis and the motion was referred to a Magistrate Judge. She granted the motion, but recommended that the complaint be dismissed based upon Younger abstention. The district court agreed and dismissed the case. The next month, the federal district court vacated the dismissal because Williams was able to show that the Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court had stayed the state proceeding pending resolution of the federal case. According to the district court:
The reason for the Chief Justice's action in this respect is hard to discern unless, as is entirely possible, she entered the stay order on June 30, 2004 in the state proceedings while unaware that this Court had previously dismissed this case in this Court on June 25, 2004 in deference to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine under principles of Younger abstention. If that is the explanation, it establishes two propositions of significance. First, it establishes that the Plaintiff had and used the advantage of the Chief Justice's lack of knowledge concerning the status of this case (which resulted from his refusal to serve the Complaint on the Defendants in the case). The event, in such case would be a bit of sly legerdemain on the part of the Plaintiff in permitting an unsuspecting Chief Justice to act on the Motion to Stay the state court proceedings, the effect of which was to destroy this Court's predicate for having previously dismissed this case. By doing so, he caused this case to remain in this Court after this Court had determined that it properly belonged in the Maine Court, under direct and compelling precedent of the Court of Appeals. Second, this history graphically demonstrates that Plaintiff must be compelled to serve the Defendants herein with process in order to put an end to the continued, mind-numbing prolixity of motions and the procedural confusion which appears to be Plaintiff's forte.
Since the state stay, the federal case became, in the words of the district court, “a time-consuming morass…due to Plaintiff's continual filing of motions to which the Court can obtain no adversarial response or statement of position because the Plaintiff had refused to serve the Summons and Complaint on Defendants.” Accordingly the Court ordered Williams to “forthwith” obtain the necessary civil summons forms from the Clerk of Court, complete them appropriately, and deliver them to the United States Marshall with a written request for service of process on the defendants. Williams, however, failed to effect such service forthwith. Instead, he returned to the district court seeking additional time to serve summons. The Court, in part, granted his request for time, stating: “It is time for this lonesome monologue to be forcibly converted into a tripping pas de deux by the parties on both sides participating in the procedural ballet. Prompt service of Plaintiff’s process is necessary to begin the dance.” Williams was then given to December 22, 2004 to serve the defendants.
