In two cases this term, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide the extent to which federal courts should defer to the decisions of other tribunals. Its decisions will have a substantial effect on the role of the federal courts in relation to state proceedings and in reviewing the decisions of international arbitration panels.
Abstention Because of Ongoing State Proceedings
The court issued its decision in one of these cases less than two months after hearing oral argument. In Sprint Communications v. Jacobs, No. 12-815 (Dec. 10, 2013), the justices resolved a circuit split on when federal courts should abstain from deciding a question in deference to ongoing state proceedings. That case involved a challenge by Sprint to an order by the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) regulating its Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) traffic. Sprint argued that federal law preempted Iowa’s regulations. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit’s order staying Sprint’s federal claims. The justices, in an opinion authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, held that the abstention doctrine announced in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), applies only to specific and exceptional categories of state-court proceedings.
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